[I-55] Three of Pike's river-miles beyond La Crosse bring him to La Crescent, Houston Co., Minn., close to the border of Winona Co.—not that he says he camped on the W. side, but he would naturally select that side in preference to the other, where the various outlets of La Crosse and Black rivers make such a snicarty. La Crescent is curiously so called, apparently in rivalry with La Crosse, and perhaps by some individual who thought he knew what La Crosse means, and was minded to suggest by the Turkish emblem that the star of the new place was in the ascendant and the town bound to grow. Thus far, however, it has been more of an excrescence from La Crosse than a crescence of itself. Crosse, in French, does not mean "cross," but the game of hockey, shinny, or bandy, and the crooked stick or racket with which it is played. Pike describes the game beyond, under date of [Apr. 20th, 1806]. The F. word for "crescent" is croissant. The beautiful Prairie à la Crosse was so called by the French because the Indians used to play ball there when they felt safe; and when the enemy appeared they could scoop holes in it and scuttle into them in a few minutes. The river which laves this ball-ground on the N. became La Rivière de la Prairie à la Crosse, which we naturally shorten into La Crosse r. Pike says la Cross and le Cross, usually. I have seen it spelled Crose. Lewis and Clark's map of 1814 letters "Prairie La Crosse R." Long has in one place Prairie de la Cross. Featherstonhaugh turns the phrase into Ball Game r. It was probably by accident that Long once gave it as La Croix r.; for he is careful in his statements, and his editor, Keating, is scholarly. This slip is particularly unlucky, as it is liable to cause confusion with St. Croix, name of the large river higher up on the same side. The city of La Crosse was started on the edge of the plain, immediately over the river, and gave name to the county of which it became the seat. Two of the islands which the city faces are Grand and La Plume, respectively 1¼ and ¾ m. long. Close above La Crosse r.—in fact, connected with one of its mouths at the place where the town of North La Crosse was planted—is Black r. This has a long history. La Salle speaks of it as R. Noire and Chabadeba [Beaver], in his letter of Aug. 22d, 1682; R. Noire appears on Franquelin's map, 1688; Hennepin has it under the Sioux name Chabedeba or Chabaoudeba, and the like, translated Beaver r. Franqulin locates a certain Butte d'Hyvernement, or wintering-hill, at the mouth of R. Noire; Menard and Guerin are said to have ascended the latter in 1661. The most remarkable things about the mouth of Black r. are the extraordinary length of its delta and the great changes which this has experienced within comparatively few years. The waters of Black r., though it is not a very large stream, have found their way into the Mississippi from La Crosse upward for 12 m. or more. There are now a number of openings, though the principal one is the lowermost, nearest La Crosse. Nicollet, writing about 1840, gives this as the "new mouth" of the Sappah or Black r. (Sapah Watpa of the Sioux), and calls the next one Broken Gun channel. This is rendered by F. Casse-Fusils in Beltrami, II. p. 178, who recites the gun-breaking incident. This channel now opens opposite the mouth of Dakota cr., which falls in under Mineral bluff, at a place called Dakota. The main former debouchment seems to have been at a point about 12 m. direct above La Crosse, through what is now known as Hammond's chute. In Pike's time the mouth was evidently high up, for he does not pass it till the 13th. The present (or recent) channel is turbid and sloughy for some miles up from its contracted opening into the Mississippi, reminding one of the similar but more pronounced expansion of St. Croix r. above its mouth. The width of the delta, or its extent sideways from the Mississippi, averages between 3 and 4 m., inclusive of a higher piece of ground it incloses, called Lytle's prairie or terrace; this is 4¼ m. long and 20-30 feet above high-water mark; Half Way cr. comes around its lower end. The vicissitudes of Black r. may be among the reasons why exact identification of some places about its mouth in the early French writers is not easy. Speaking with reserve, and ready to stand corrected by anyone who knows more than I do about it, I do not see why the traditional Butte d'Hyvernement may not have been Mt. Trempealeau. As for the extent of the Black River basin, this is long enough to begin in Taylor Co., where waters separate in various directions, and to run through Clark and Jackson cos.; thence the river separates La Crosse from Trempealeau Co. till it reaches the town of New Amsterdam; after which the river enters its delta in La Crosse Co., and the county line runs 5 or 6 m. to the Mississippi on a parallel of latitude.
[I-56] From La Crosse to the town of Trempealeau is reckoned 19 m. by the channel; the mountain is 3 m. further by the same way. Pike was advanced beyond La Crosse when he started from La Crescent, and his 21 m. no doubt set him snug under the famous hill whose F. name snagged him when he reached it. This is not the mountain which "deceives" (trompe) in the water, as by mirage or reflection of itself reversed; but one which rises so abruptly from the water's edge that it seems to bathe, or at least to soak its feet, in the water, and was therefore called by the French la Montagne qui Trempe à l'Eau—a clumsy phrase which we have reduced to Mt. Trempealeau, Mt. Trombalo, and various other terms not less curious. There is a notable assortment of names along the river. On decamping and crossing the bounds of Houston Co. into Winona Co., Minn., Pike comes to the Rising Sun—though his course is about N., and we are not informed whether this name advertises a certain stove-polish, or is meant to throw in the shade both the Turkish crescent and the Christian cross. E. of Rising Sun is Minnesota isl., on the Wisconsin side. A few miles further is a place in Minnesota by the Teutonic name of Dresbach, at the head of Dresbach's isl.; 1½ m. further is a town with the Siouan name Dakota; while E. of these (across the Black r. delta in Wis.) is a place called Onalaska, suggestive of Captain Cook's voyage to the Aleutian isls. One Winter used to have his ldg. on the Wis. side, 2½ m. above Dakota, and in the vicinity of the place where Black r. debouched in Pike's time—Winter's ldg. being a singular verbal coincidence, almost like a pun upon the old name of hibernation (Butte d'Hyvernement), which appears on the earlier pages of Mississippian history. At 3 m. above Winter's ldg. stands Richmond, which was established under Queen's bluff on the Minn. side. Both of these names suggest English Colonial history of the times when a certain country was named Virginia—certainly not to quiz one of the greatest women who ever graced a crown, but to emphasize a diplomatic euphemism. The "highest hill" in this vicinity is Queen's bluff, also known as Spirit rock—not that called Kettle hill by Long in 1817; its elevation was determined by Nicollet to be 531 feet, but was reduced to 375 feet by later measurements. The town of Trempealeau, in the Wis. co. of that name, is midway between Richmond and the mountain; but before Pike reached the latter, he passed on his left the site of Lamoille, Minn., built under the bluff, about 300 feet high, between two creeks whose names are Trout and Cedar. It is really wonderful how much history is hidden—or revealed—in mere names. Personal and local words are the most concrete facts of history. If, for example, those which appear in this paragraph were set forth at full length in proper historical perspective, we should have a perfect panorama of scenes and incidents along 20 m. of the river for 200 yrs. The myrionymous molehill on the river, which has been dignified by the name of a mountain because there are no mountains to speak of in Wisconsin or Minnesota, and which has been belittled by a set of phrases so absurd that it could not be further ridiculed if one were to call it Mt. Trombonello, or Mt. Trump Low, or Mt. Tremble Oh, or Mt. Soak-your-feet-in-mustard-water-and-go-to-bed-oh, has not only conferred titles on a town and a county in Wisconsin, but also on the river which washes its foot, and which is known by one of the most unique circumlocutory phrases to be found in geographical terminology: La Rivière de la Montagne qui Trempe à l'Eau, of the French; River of the Mountain, etc., Pike; Mont. q. t. à l'E. r., Owen; Mountain Island r., Nicollet; Bluff Island r., Long—and so on through all the chimes that can be rung out of paraphrase. It is now usually called Trempealeau r., and forms the boundary between this and Buffalo cos. The Sioux name of the mountain is rendered Minnay Chonkahah, or Bluff in the Water, by Featherstonhaugh. A more frequent form of this is Minneshonka. The Winnebago name is given as Hay-me-ah-chan or Soaking mountain in Hist. Winona Co., 1883. The island on which the mountain rests has a corresponding series of names.
Pike passed to-day the place where was once situated an old French fort, which has lately been unearthed alongside the Chic., Burl. and N. R. R. The site is on the S. half of the S. E. quarter of Section 20, Township 18 N., Range 9 W., 1¾ m. above the village, and 1½ m. below the mountain, of Trempealeau. It was discovered by T. H. Lewis, July, 1885, and by him examined in Nov., 1888, and again in Apr., 1889: see his article, Mag. Amer. Hist., Sept., 1889, and separate, 8vo. p. 5, with three cuts, and postscript dated Feb. 22d, 1890. See also T. H. Kirk, Mag. Amer. Hist., Dec., 1889, article entitled, "Fort Perrot, Wisconsin, established in 1685, by Nicholas Perrot," with reference to the evasive Butte d'Hyvernement, or wintering-hill of the Franquelin map, 1688. The separate of Mr. Lewis' article is entitled, "Old French Post at Trempeleau, Wisconsin." "Fort Perrot," as a name of this establishment, must not be confounded with the one often so called on Lake Pepin.
[I-57] A meaningless phrase as it stands, and one open to various rendering, as L'Aile, L'Ail, or L'Île. Pike's text of 1807, p. 12, has L'aile; Long's of 1807, as printed in Minn. Hist. Coll., II. Part 1, 2d ed. 1890, p. 175, has Aux Aisle; Beltrami's, II. p. 180, gives aux Ailes. "The site of Winona was known to the French as La Prairie Aux Ailes (pronounced O'Zell) or the Wing's prairie, presumably because of its having been occupied by members of Red Wing's band," Hist. Winona Co., 1883. It is easily recognized by Pike's vivid description: see [next note]. Long, l. c., calls it "an extensive lawn," and notes the situation on it in 1817 of an Indian village, whose chief he calls Wauppaushaw by a rather unusual spelling of the native name of La Feuille. Forsyth, 1819, names it Wing prairie.
[I-58] From his camp in the vicinity of Trempealeau and Lamoille towns, a little below the Mountain which, etc., Pike makes it 21 m. to-day and 25 m. to-morrow to a point opp. the mouth of Buffalo r. He is therefore to-day a little short of halfway between Trempealeau and Alma. From Trempealeau to Fountain City is 20 m. by the channel; from Fountain City to Alma is 22 m. Pike camps to-day at Fountain City, Buffalo Co., Wis., immediately below the mouth of Eagle cr. The island at the head of which he breakfasted, and where Frazer's boats came up, was No. 75, which separates the Homer chute, also called Blacksmith slough, from the rest of the Mississippi. Though narrow, this is, or lately was, the steamboat channel. Opposite is town of Homer, Winona Co., Minn., under Cabin bluff (most probably Kettle hill of Long). At 1½ m. above Homer, on the same side, is the town of Minneopa. Here the bluffs recede from the river; here Pike left his boats for an excursion on the hills. The "Prairie Le Aisle," which he first crossed, is in Burris valley. The highest point of the hills which he ascended for his prospect is called the Sugarloaf. Standing there to-day, we overlook Winona, seat of the county, and at the foot of the hills between us and the town is Lake Winona, nearly 2 m. long, discharging into Burris Valley cr. Looking E. from the Sugar-loaf, down-river, we perceive that the Mountain which, etc., is simply a point of the bluffs which stands isolated in the delta of Trempealeau r. To our left of it as we look, and beyond it eastward, stretches the high prairie between the delta just said and that of Black r. Rambling further along the hills back of Winona we come to Minnesota City, at a break in the bluffs through which a rivulet finds its way into Crooked slough. From this spot Fountain City is in full view, 3½ air-miles off on a course N. by E., under Eagle bluff, on the other side of the river. A portion of these bluffs is probably that called Tumbling Rock by Forsyth in 1819. We could keep along the hills till they strike the river about 5 m. further. But Mr. Frazer is anxious to get back to the boats; very likely Bradley and Sparks are also. So we descend into the bottom from Minnesota City, flounder across some sloughs, and on reaching the W. bank of the Mississippi, we signal to our men to come over in a canoe and ferry us to Fountain City.
[I-59] Fountain City to Alma, 22 m. Camp opp. Alma, in Wabasha Co., Minn., amid the intricacies of the Zumbro delta. For many miles above and below this place—from Chippewa r. down to Winona, say 40 m.—the Father of Waters, like the father of Shem, Ham, and Japhet, if we can credit the chronicles of that ancient mariner, gets himself in very bad form. He reels along as if he would like to take both sides of the bluffs at once. Great skill has been shown by engineers in trying to steer him in the way he should go; much money has been spent in throwing out jetties like friends at each elbow of the staggering patriarch, to mend his ways; some of his worst lurches have been dammed as a matter of necessity, and all of them have been otherwise objurgated as a matter of course by every steamboat captain. The late General G. K. Warren, who was intrusted with the responsible duty of surveying the river with reference to the improvement of navigation, makes a most accurate observation in his preliminary Rep., Ex. Doc. No. 57, 2d Sess. 39th Congr., p. 19: "It is often remarked, 'What a slight thing will cause a change of the river.' But it is erroneous to infer from this that it is easy to make it change as we wish. Effects are often accumulating unobserved during a state of unstable equilibrium. A slight cause then disturbs this, and marked changes take place. But it is exceedingly superficial to attribute the whole effect to this last cause." In consequence of the great changes in the river, both natural and artificial, since the days of Pike, we must not assume the present or quite recent details to be those of Pike's time; nor should we presume to speak censoriously regarding the identification of such things as Carver's supposed fortifications of 1766-67. Within the bounds of the solid, if not eternal hills, through which the water has excavated its trough, we have the great river safe enough. But these bounds are some miles apart, and between them all is in the "unstable equilibrium" of which the eminent engineer just cited speaks. The result is incessant shiftiness or shiftlessness, not only as regards the sloughy bottoms and snicarties themselves, but in respect of the sands which accumulate in various places and form banks or terraces which sometimes take such shapes as to be easily mistaken for artificial mounds. The cardinal principle of sound archæology is to assume every mound to be a natural formation until it is proven to be the work of man. One of the most notable historical instances in point is that of the "fortifications" at Bon Homme, on the Missouri r., which deceived even so accurate an observer as Captain Clark: see L. and C., ed. 1893, p. 103, seq., and pl. Some of the present or quite recent water-ways in the vicinity of Fountain City are those known as Pap chute, Betsy, Haddock, and Rollingstone sloughs, Horseshoe bend, and Fountain City bay, into which Eagle cr. falls, under Eagle bluff. The hills then come to the river on the Minnesota side, and so continue past Mt. Vernon to Minneiska. One of the boldest of these headlands is called Chimney Rock. Some have an altitude of 450 feet. On the other side the bluffs recede above Fountain City, break to give passage to Eagle c., start again about 2½ m. from the river, and thence upward approach gradually till they strike the river at Alma. The space between these hills and the river bottom is partly filled by a sand terrace for about 9 m., with an average width of a mile. On the edge of the upper one of these banks is Buffalo City, 2 m. above which a place was started by the name of Belvidere. The boundary between Winona and Wabasha cos. comes on a parallel of latitude to the river at Minneiska, a town named for the river at whose mouth it is situated, under high bluffs, facing the lower part of Summerfield or Summerfield's isl., which is 4 m. long. This river is Pike's "Lean Clare," clearly by typographical error, as he elsewhere has Riviere l'Eau Clair, almost right, and correctly translates the phrase by Clear r. and Clear Water r. This is also White Water r. of Long and others, at present the usual alternative name of Minneiska r.; Miniskon r., Nicollet; Miniskah r., Owen; Minneska r., Warren; and so on with the forms of the Indian word. Clear r. comes into the bottom between the Minneiska bluffs and a certain isolated hill to the northward, in the vicinity of which Clear r. is still or was lately connected with one of the lowest sluices of the Zumbro r. This last is what Pike calls riviere Embarrass (river Embaras, ed. 1807, p. 13). The French named it Rivière aux Embarras, from the difficulty they found in attempting to navigate it, and we have made Zumbro out of this embarrassment. Nicollet calls it Wazi Oju r., in which he is followed by Owen and others. Its delta extends practically from Minneiska to Wabasha, a distance of 20 m. by the Mississippi channel. The opening which Pike takes as the mouth is the lower one, as he passes it before camping opp. Alma. This delta incloses one long, narrow sand terrace, continuous for 9 m., and several similar but smaller banks, as well as an extensive system of sloughs and islands. The West Newton chute and accompanying islands are among these; and Pike's camp was at the head of this chute, directly opposite Alma and the mouth of Buffalo r. The history of this river dates back to 1680 at least: R. des Bœufs, Hennepin, map, 1683; River of Wild Bulls, Hennep., Engl. transl.; Bœufs R., Lahontan, map; Buffaloe or Buffalo r., Pike, Long, Nicollet, Owen, etc.; Beef r., Warren and others; cf. also, R. de Bon Secours of the early F. writers, whence Good Help r. by translation. Some connect the two names, as R. des Bœufs ou de Bon Secours, as if the supply of beef had been a great relief. There were plenty of buffaloes on this part of the Mississippi in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and indeed down to some early years of our own. But they were exterminated or driven off soon after Fort St. Anthony (Snelling) was built in 1819. Fort St. Antoine appears in earliest connection with the river. Its own mouth has no doubt been fixed since prehistoric times by the solid Alma bluffs around which it sweeps into the Mississippi. But the delta of Chippewa r., whose main discharge is by a contracted opening 9½ direct miles above the mouth of Buffalo r., extends between these two points, and is meandered by the intricacies of Beef slough, which such competent professional opinion as Warren's pronounces to have once divided the main Chippewa: Ex. Doc. No. 57, etc., p. 13. "The Chippeway river had a large lateral gorge like that of the St. Croix to fill up before reaching the valley of the Mississippi, and it now joins the Mississippi by a very complete set of delta streams, beginning about 15 miles above its mouth. There was a time when the mouth now known as Beef slough was about equal to the main Chippeway. In their growth each kept along the bluffs or sides of the gorge they were filling up, raising their immediate banks and leaving a depression between them. The bank which the present Mississippi finally put across the delta was not then there, and large trees grew up on this intermediate space. The delta having finally reached the Mississippi, the water was more rapidly raised in Lake Pepin. This intermediate space was closed up on its third side by the new forming bank of the Mississippi, and became a lake. The trees in it then perished, and their submerged parts, preserved by the water, remain standing in the lake at this time [July 31st, 1865]. This place is known as Stump lake, and this name it bore among the aboriginal Sioux (Chan-poksa-m'dé). The lower of these two delta mouths became obstructed and dammed up by the new forming banks of the Mississippi; the lower part of it then filled up, and it finally broke through its own banks into Stump lake, so that it now issues therefrom in several much obstructed channels, almost entirely useless to navigation.... The Trempealeau and Black rivers repeat the operation of the Chippeway on a smaller scale, the Wisconsin probably on a greater, other streams doing the same in proportion to their size." In this view of Beef slough as an obstructed channel of the Chippewa, Beef or Buffalo r. is simply an affluent of the Chippewa, precisely as the Minneiska is of the Zumbro, or La Crosse of Black r.; and other such cases of originally distinct rivers falling into the Mississippi as one by their deltopoetic processes could easily be cited.
[I-60] "Grand Encampment" is a phrase in use since Carver's Travels first appeared. Carver first came to Lake Pepin Nov. 1st, 1766. Those who wish to verify the fact will find it on p. 34 of the Phila. ed. of 1796, which is commoner and therefore more accessible than any of the earlier ones; the London princeps, 1778, is a rare book; the place is p. 54 of this ed. On p. 35, Carver says the place was "some miles below Lake Pepin." This left the location in the air, especially as he does not say which side of the river; and various authors have raised such a fog about it that we might be excused if we failed to find it anywhere. By Pike as above, the place is between Buffalo r. and Chippewa r.; he starts late, noons on the spot, and gets into Lake Pepin at dusk. On his return voyage, Apr. 15th, 1806, he stops at the place; he makes it on the right (west) bank, 9 m. below Lake Pepin. When Long comes by, in 1823, his boat-party camps opposite the mouth of Buffalo r., just as Pike did yesterday; on the 30th of June they find themselves "a few miles" below L. Pepin, and much concerned to discover Carver's "fortifications": see Keating, I. pp. 276-78. The upshot of their long discussion is the conclusion that Carver did really see what he says he saw, but that the works he described were not at the Grand Encampment, where they found no fortifications. But this is clearly a non sequitur, or a lucus a non, or a petitio principii, or an argumentum ad hominem, or whatever may be the logical definition of an illogical syllogism. It misses the point. The question is not one of identifying Carver's locality; the question is whether what he saw there was an artificial work or a natural formation. The place can be pointed out with the point of a pin stuck through the map, provided the topography has not changed too much for that during the century; for the point which now points to Carver's location is Point Teepeeota of the U. S. survey chart. The point above, at which Major Long's boat-party landed an hour or two later that day, and "which appeared to correspond with the description" of Carver's place, though "their search here was likewise unsuccessful" (p. 278), is the present site of Wabasha—the place where Nicholas Perrot is thought to have landed in 1683, and built a log fort, the first thing of the kind in all that country, afterward marked on some maps as Fort Perrot. Teepeeota pt. is the projecting end of the long narrow sand-drift or sand terrace already mentioned as extending 9 m. or more in the delta of the Zumbro; it strikes the Mississippi immediately below the Middle mouth of the Zumbro, and in fact determines the position of that opening. Teepeeota pt. is 4½ m. direct above Alma, somewhat more than 5 m. by the channel; it is 3 m. direct below Wabasah, a little more by the channel; it is 6 m. below the upper mouth of Chippewa r., say 7 by the channel. The Indian name would be more correctly rendered Tipiotah—tipi meaning a lodge or dwelling (such as is called "wigwam" in novels, but seldom so on the spot) and the rest of the word denoting multitude; the paper-town there, called Tepeeotah City, went up in smoke, 1859. The island off Teepeeota pt., but a little lower down, is now called Grand Encampment isl. Of the accuracy of this identification I do not see how there can be any question, though time has modified the contour details in the course of nature, as well as in the course of the engineering work done there of late years. These fortifications of the river against its own sands are doubtless the only ones of any magnitude that have ever been made on the spot, before or since Carver; though there was nothing to hinder the Sioux from scooping holes in the sand-drift and scuttling into them when the Chippewas came in sight, as we know they did at Prairie La Crosse and elsewhere. Under these circumstances, I think the gentlemen of Major Long's party were as unjust to themselves in doubting their own identifications (in which they were supported by Hart, Rolette, and others who knew about the place), as they were to Carver in saying, p. 277: "No gentleman of the party would be willing to ascribe to Carver a scrupulous adherence to truth, (personal observation having convinced them all of the many misrepresentations contained in his work)." If this is meant to charge Carver with willful misrepresentation, I think it is unjust as well as ungenerous. Carver mistook a natural for an artificial work—so did William Clark, to the extent of drawing one to a scale and describing it in the terms of military science—so have done many professional archæologists. Carver made mistakes, like the rest of us; he was often loose about distances, dimensions, and such things; he believed more things that were told him than a less honest and more wary wayfarer would have taken to be true; but I think that he drew a short bow for so long a journey, had no occasion to deceive anyone but himself, and always intended to tell the truth as it seemed to him—in short, I do not see how his good faith can be seriously questioned. I accept Carver's statements, as I do those of Pike, Long, and other honest persons, for what they may prove to be worth.
[I-61] R. des Sauteurs, etc., of the French, i. e., River of the Chippewas, with all the uncounted variations of the latter word, from such forms as Ouchipouwaictz to the present Chippewa, Chippeway, or Chipeway. Pike's 1807 text has Sautiaux r., p. 13. Beltrami has Cypewais in text, Cypoway on map. Present usage among geographers favors two p's and no y; the ethnologists incline rather to Ojibwa. This one of the major tributaries of the Mississippi now falls in by its main upper mouth 1½ m. below the end of Lake Pepin, from the N., nearly at a right angle; it is somewhat bottle-nosed—that is, with a contracted orifice of a turgid body of water, though the dilation is not so great as in the case of the St. Croix. The general character of the delta has been already discussed in connection with Beef slough. Pike has this on his right all the way from Alma to L. Pepin. On his left he passes Grand Encampment isl. and dines near Point Teepeeota, already described as the point of that sandbank I should wish to call Carver's Terrace. He next comes to Wabasha, seat of the Minnesota county of that name, so called from the celebrated Sioux chief of whom we read much in Long, I. p. 272, and elsewhere; his name is there spelled Wapasha, and his village was at that time not on this spot, but lower down (Winona). The site of Wabasha duplicates the situation at Point Teepeeota; it is in the Zumbro delta, below the Upper Zumbro outlet, on the point of a sand-bank identical in formation with Carver's Terrace, though much smaller—under 3 m. in length, and less than a mile wide. Passing Wabasha, Pike comes 2 m. to the town now called Read's Landing, at the uppermost point of the Zumbro floodplain, almost opposite the mouth of Chippewa r. Nicollet marks "Roques," i. e., Augustin Rocque's trading-house, in about the right position, i. e. at present site of Wabasha, where Rocque's old chimney was evidence in 1884. This person, whose last name might be spelled with a g as well as his first, very likely lived on more than one spot in the course of his career. Featherstonhaugh informs us that "Ruque's" Indian name was Wajhustachay, and that his house stood on the edge of a high prairie, 50 feet from the water, at S. E. end of L. Pepin, right bank, opp. Chip. r.; which fits in only with the site of present Read's Landing. Here the C., M. and St. P. R. R. bridged the Miss. r. in '82 (Act of Congr., Mar. 28th, '82). As indicated in an earlier note, the Chippewa is one of the main waterways between the Mississippi and the Great Lakes; the connection will be more particularly noted hereafter. Carver went this way in June or July, 1867, after he had wintered up the St. Peter. For some distance from its mouth this river separates Pepin from Buffalo Co.
[I-62] Apparently a misprint: Alma to Read's Landing, near the foot of Lake Pepin, 12 m. by the crooked channel; thence to Wakouta, near the head of the lake, is only 25 m., and Pike is not yet halfway through. He says himself that he made 3 m. further to Sandy pt., and then 18 m. up to Cannon r. He undoubtedly ran for shelter from the gale at or near Stockholm, Pepin Co., Wis. The channel is or has lately been along the Minnesota side to Lake City, crossing obliquely to the other side in passing Stockholm, then leaving for the Minn. side to reach Point No Point, and so on up this side to Wakouta, Red Wing, and Cannon r. "Le lac est petit, mais il est malin": I faithfully copy this venerable Jo Miller, and am ready to agree that the lake is not big, but bad. It is reckoned about 21 m. long, averaging about 2½ broad; thus it is merely a dilation of the Mississippi, like that of the St. Croix and some other Mississippian tributaries, though on a larger scale. The Chippewa r. was concerned in the formation of Lake Pepin, and the two have had some reciprocal effect. General Warren's opinion may be here cited, Ex. Doc. No. 57, 1866-67, p. 11: "In order to better understand the formation of the present bottom-land valley, and comprehend the existing state of things, we must go back to the time when, by the elevation of the continent above the ocean, the present rivers, like the Wisconsin and Chippeway, began to flow into the channel formed by the present Mississippi bluffs. As soon as the sediment brought down by their waters had filled up the lateral chasm by which they joined the Mississippi, this sediment would begin to obstruct the flow of the Mississippi water, force its channel to the opposite side, and narrow and dam it back till the water gained sufficient force to carry the sediment down the valley. The continual sorting out of this sediment would leave the heavier particles behind, so that this bar would continually increase in elevation and form a lake above. There are evidences of the effect of the Wisconsin in making such a dam in the neighborhood of Prairie du Chien, also by other affluents above their mouths, which lakes have since been filled up. In the case of the Chippeway and Lake Pepin this effect still remains, the affluents above the Chippeway not having been able to fill up the lake which was formed. It seems almost impossible to doubt that this is the origin of Lake Pepin, and there are evidences in the shape of the sand and boulder spits along the Mississippi bluffs above Lake Pepin, such as are only formed now in it and Lake St. Croix, which indicate that the lake formerly extended up much higher than now.... The river now enters Lake Pepin by three principal mouths, and the land of the delta gently slopes down to and under the water. It has advanced very slowly, if at all, since first visited by white men. The largest sized cottonwood trees, dying of old age, are found on the islands within two miles of the head of the lake. The small willows on the low and extreme points seem of an almost uniform size and age; and are small more, perhaps, from the unfavorable condition in which they are placed than from want of time to grow since the land was formed. The bottom in the shoal places at the head of Lake Pepin is composed of soft mud, and not of sand. It seems probable that nearly all the other islands of the Mississippi were formed in similar lakes by advancing deltas, until finally the lakes were filled up. Lake Pepin has almost no current, and deepens gradually down to near the point of entrance of the Chippeway, and then rapidly shoals and narrows to form again the flowing river." Lake Pepin is curved on itself, more so than the old-fashioned Italic letter ſ, there being a bend in the middle reach which is oblique between the straight and approximately parallel reaches at the two ends—say W. N. W. and E. S. E., then N. and S., then nearly W. and E. The lake nearly fills the space between the bluffs in which it is embedded, but there are several pieces of arable bottom-land in places where the bluffs recede, furnishing the sites of a corresponding number of settlements, mostly at points where creeks or brooks fall in between gaps in the hills. Such are Pepin and Stockholm, Pepin Co., Wis.; Maiden Rock City and Bay City, Pierce Co., Wis.; Lake City, Wabasha Co., Minn.; Florence, Frontenac, and Wakouta or Wacouta, Goodhue Co., Minn. Maiden Rock City is under the line of bluffs, about 400 feet high, to several of which the Winona legend attaches; but this town is at the mouth of Rush cr., and thus nearly 5 m. by the railroad above that bluff to which the names of Maiden's Rock, Maiden's Head, and Lover's Leap more particularly belong. This is directly opposite Sandy point, and only about 2 m. by rail above the village of Stockholm; being that one of the series of quite similar bluffs which has a remarkable vertical escarpment, at a point where there is little room to spare for the track between the talus at its foot and the lake shore. A good view is obtained as the cars recede from it. Rush cr. is mapped both by Pike and by Nicollet, without name; it seems to be that called Porcupine-Quill cr. by Schoolcraft, and is perhaps Marchessau r. of Featherstonhaugh. A similar stream, also mapped by Pike and by Nicollet, without name, and now known as Pine or Mill Pine cr., falls in 1½ m. below Rush cr. Three other small streams, known as Bogus cr., Lost cr., and Roaring r., fall in below Stockholm on the Wisconsin side; on which side, near the head of the lake, at the place called Bay City, is Isabel cr. (the Clear Water cr. of Nicollet, and perhaps the Rocher Rouge r. of Featherstonhaugh). On the Minnesota side a creek falls in below and another above Lake City; Wells cr. (the Sandy Point cr. of Pike, and the Sand Point r. of Nicollet), falls in at the point indicated by these names, a mile or more below Frontenac; while at Wacouta we find a stream mapped by Nicollet without name, formerly called Bullard's and now known as Ida cr. The most prominent part of the Minnesota shore, where the channel sweeps around the convexity of the bold headland, is fittingly called Point No Point—as the up-bound passenger discovers when the boat rounds it. This is immediately above Frontenac, opp. Maiden Rock City, and about the junction of the middle with the upper reach of the lake. This body of water is between two States and four counties. The line between Pepin and Pierce cos., Wis., strikes it at or near Maiden Rock City; that between Wabasha and Goodhue, Minn., comes to the lake below Frontenac, about Lake City.
Lake Pepin is commonly said to have been "discovered by Hennepin" in 1680. This statement is exactly one-third right and two-thirds wrong, and does a double injustice, because it ignores two of the three white men who were simultaneously on the spot. These were: 1. Michael Accault, the bourgeois or leader of the party, who afterward flourished under the style of Le Sieur d'Accault, d'Acau, d'Ako, Dacan, etc. 2. His man Antoine Auguelle, commonly called Le Picard, or Picard du Gay. 3. His ecclesiastical functionary Louis Hennepin, a monk of the Franciscan order, whom La Salle got rid of by sending him along with Accault and Auguelle, when this Chaas trading-party started from Fort Crèvecœur on the Illinois r., Feb. 29th, 1680; they reached the Miss. r. at the mouth of the Illinois, Mar. 7th, 1680, and came to Lake Pepin in June of that year. It is a pity that the reverend father's vanity, servility, and envy prevented him from sticking to his ghostly trade; but he was ambitious of authorship, like many another religious worldling, and jealous of La Salle. So he set about a book for the glory of a trinity composed of Louis Hennepin, Louis XIV., and God. It has made much trouble for geographers and historians, who would willingly have waited for all the information that it contains till this should have been imparted by some less bigoted, less bombastic, and more veracious chronicler than this Recollect priest, who recollected a good many things that never happened, and forgot some of those that did occur. Hennepin is the able philologist who discovered that the Indians called their solar deity by the name of the then King of France, and who followed up this discovery by naming the whole country Louisiana. He is the same unscrupulous courtier who represents the king's arms to have been cut in the bark of an oak west of Lac des Assenipoils, ca. lat. 60° N.: see his map, place marked "Armes du Roy telle quelle sont grauée sur l'escorce d'vn Chesne a lendroit marqué—A". The tree may be there yet, but the monk never was. Lahontan's fables are entertaining, like La Fontaine's; Hennepin's are a bore. When this little Louis is not wheedling the great Louis, he is apt to be whining; he was troubled with gumboils, from dental caries, and did not always remember the excellent injunction he received from Father Gabriel—viriliter age et comfortetur cor tuum; which an Englishman might freely render, "Be a man and keep your courage up." This missionary lachrymosely named the lake, to which Accault, Auguelle, and himself were taken by the Indians, Lac des Pleurs, a phrase which appears in Engl. transls. of his book as Lake of Tears, "which we so named," as Shea's text reads, p. 198, "because the Indians who had taken us, wishing to kill us, some of them wept the whole night, to induce the others to consent to our death"—hinc illæ lacrymæ. Hennepin, by the way, says further, ibid.: "Half a league below the Lake of Tears, on the south side, is Buffalo river." This would make R. aux Bœufs = Chippewa r.: see [note59], p. 58, for some bearings on the case. The obscurity of the origin of the name Lake Pepin has not been cleared up, so far as I know. Lesueur came here Sept. 14th, 1700, and "Pepin" is found in La Harpe's MS. relation of Lesueur's journey of July 12th-Dec. 13th, 1700. It is unlikely that this name, by whomever given, was bestowed with direct reference to any person of the Carlovingian dynasty; they were all dead and gone ages before the lake was discovered, when nobody but historical researchers took any interest in those defunct monarchs. St. Croix's and St. Pierre's rivers were certainly named for contemporaneous individuals, and so probably was Lake Pepin. There were a number of Frenchmen by the name of Pepin, Papin, etc., in the country in later years, and some one or more of them may have come before 1700. Carver first came here Nov. 1st, 1766; he notes the remains of an old F. factory, "where it is said Capt. St. Pierre resided." Old Ft. St. Antoine may have been on the lake rather than at the mouth of R. des Bœufs ou de Bon Secours; and the lake was once called Lac de Bon Secours, or Bonsecours, a phrase which has been translated Lake Good Help and Lake Relief. Fort Beauharnois was built on the lake, after Sept. 17th, 1727, when La Perriere du Boucher landed on Pointe au Sable or elsewhere; the exact site is unknown. This was an extensive and substantial structure, and was named in honor of the then Governor of Canada; it included a mission-house which the ecclesiastical functionaries of Boucher's outfit called St. Michael, after an archangel of that denomination. This was the fourth French establishment; the other three having been Fort L'Huillier, 1700, built by Lesueur, on the Blue Earth r., a branch of St. Pierre's; the fort on Isle Pelée, below Hastings, by Lesueur also, in 1695; and the fort below the foot of Lake Pepin, at or near present Wabasha, built by Perrot, 1683.