Of the original inhabitants of Wisconsin, we have no knowledge whatever. The only traces they have left of their existence are numerous ancient mounds or tumuli, which are scattered at various points all over the State. Their antiquity is attested by the fact that trees of four hundred years' growth are found standing upon them. Discoveries in the Lake Superior copper regions, of mines which had once been worked, over which trees of a like age were growing, seem to indicate that the same people raised the mounds and worked the mines. In all probability their antiquity extends further backward than this. The Indians, improperly called the aborigines, have no traditions concerning the construction of these mounds, which are evidently none of their handiwork, but belong to a race which has been supplanted and disappeared from the globe. The similarity of these mounds to those discovered in Central America leads to the conclusion that they were both the work of one and the same race; but whether they were constructed as tombs or as places for altars, there is a division of opinion. Those in Central America were evidently once surmounted by temples or places of worship and sacrifice.
These mounds vary in size, shape and height. At Prairie du Chien one of the largest of these tumuli was leveled to furnish a site for Fort Crawford. It was circular in form, having a base of some two hundred feet, and was twenty feet high. The circular form is the most common in those mounds, although there are many different shapes. Some appear like wells, inclosing an open space; others like breastworks with angles; still others have a space through them, as if they formed a sort of gateway. On the dividing ridge between the Mississippi and Wisconsin rivers mounds are found in the form of birds with their wings and tails spread; of deer, rabbits and other animals. One even bears a marked resemblance to an elephant. There are also a few mounds representing a man lying on his face. They are three or four feet high at the highest points, rounding over the sides.
One of the most singular characteristics of these mounds is that they seem invariably to be composed of earth brought from a greater or less distance. The surface of the surrounding ground usually comes up to the base of the mound in a smooth level, when it does not already possess a natural elevation; but there is no evidence of the ground anywhere in the neighborhood having been disturbed to furnish the earth for their construction. In some instances the soil of these tumuli is of an actually different character, the like of which has not been discovered within several miles of the mounds.
These antiquities constitute the only mementos and annals transmitted to us, of the mysterious race which once peopled our western territory, and extended as far east as the shores of the Ohio, as far north as the great lakes, and westward and southward to Central America. It seems a pity that no systematic effort has been made to perpetuate them, if not for the benefit of future generations whose interest and curiosity should be excited at beholding them, at least out of a consideration for the unknown race whose work they are, and as enduring monuments to whose numbers and industry they have remained up to the present time, when all else has perished. The plow, the hoe and the spade, those iconoclastic weapons of civilization, are fast effacing them from the surface of the country. When the plow once breaks the sod which has covered them and preserved their form, the wind and rain each lend speedy assistance to the work of destruction, and but a few years will elapse before most of them will have disappeared altogether, and the places which have known them for untold centuries will know them no more forever.
It is a fact worthy of mention that these mounds have most frequently been found on sites selected for modern towns and cities, as though ancients and moderns alike had instinctively chosen for their abiding places those localities most favored by nature for the uses of man. Numerous earthworks about Milwaukee attest the favor in which the locality of that city was held by this pre-historic race. These works extend from Kinnickinnic Creek, near the "Indian Fields," where they are most abundant, to a point six miles above the city. They occupy high grounds near but not in immediate proximity to the lake and streams, and are most varied in their form, while many are of large extent. They are chiefly from one hundred to four hundred feet in diameter, and represent turtles, lizards, birds, the otter and buffalo, while a number have the form of a war club. Occasionally, a mound is elevated so as to overlook or command many others, as though it was a sort of high or superior altar for the observance of religious or sacrificial rites. Milwaukee is to be commended for her failure to manifest that spirit of modern vandalism which, in other sections, has sacrificed the relics of a by-gone age and people to the fancied utility of civilization. The Forest Home Cemetery incloses a number of these mounds, and so they are preserved for the benefit of the antiquary and curiosity seeker. We trust she will continue to cherish sacredly these few monuments left as the sole legacy of the ancient inhabitants of the West.
The early Indian name of the river upon which the city of Milwaukee now stands was Mellcoki. So says one tradition. Another gives the name as Man-a-wau-kee, from the name of a valuable medicinal root known as Man-wau; hence, the land or place of the Man-wau. Still another gives the Indian name as Me-ne-wau-kee—-a rich or beautiful land. The Indians had a village on the site of the present city. The Milwaukee tribe were troublesome and difficult to manage. About the first trader who ventured to establish a post among them was Alexander Laframboise, who came from Mackinaw and located on the spot previous to or about 1785. This trading post, having been mismanaged, was discontinued about 1800, and another soon took its place. A succession of trading posts and fur stations followed, until about 1818, when Solomon Juneau, a Frenchman, established himself there permanently, with a little colony of half-breeds, who built themselves log cabins on the banks of the stream, two miles from the lake, near the junction of the Menomonee. Below them, on the river flats, where now extend the business streets of the city, the low marshy ground was overgrown by tall reeds and rushes, while away back from the river stretched the boundless prairie. The place was known, thenceforth, as Juneau's Settlement. This settlement gradually attracted, first, other traders, and finally immigrants. In 1825 it was still nothing more than a trading station, but ten years later it had become a settlement and called itself a town, taking the name of Milwaukee, from the river upon which it was built.
Chicago had already begun her marvelous growth, and was at that very time extending herself to extraordinary dimensions—on paper. The little town of Milwaukee had then no thought of rivalry, but was content to plod along for eleven years more before it received its city charter. By 1850 its growth had been remarkable, and it numbered more than twenty thousand inhabitants. In 1860 it had more than doubled this population, recording over forty-five thousand inhabitants, and in 1870 it had almost doubled again, the census reporting more than seventy-one thousand persons for that year. In the same year Milwaukee received 18,466,167 bushels of wheat, actually exceeding Chicago by about a million of bushels. The shipments of wheat the same year were 16,027,780 bushels, and of flour 1,225,340 barrels. Her exports for that year also included butter, hops, lumber, wool and shingles, of all which commodities she shipped immense quantities. From 1870 to 1880 the increase of population and commerce was equally astonishing, while her manufactures had grown in like proportion.
The vast lumber regions to the northwest help to build up her business; new towns which spring up throughout the State become tributary to her; and the farms which are multiplying in that fertile region send a share of their products to find a gateway through her to the eastern markets and to Europe. She divides with Chicago the trade which, by means of the great lakes and the great railway trunk lines, is busy going to and fro in the land, from east to west and from west to east. When the Northern Pacific Railway furnishes a continuous route of travel and freight between Lake Superior and the Northern Pacific States, the business of Milwaukee will be naturally augmented. But her future prosperity depends largely upon the prosperity of the agricultural population which surrounds her, which fills her elevators and warehouses, and furnishes freight for her boats with its products, and has need of her manufactures in return. And thus we see illustrated the fundamental principle of political economy, that that which concerns one must concern all; that one class or section of people cannot suffer without affecting in some degree all classes and sections. All are interdependent, and all must stand or fall together.