Studies in the early history of the Fox River Valley

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Chapter I. The Orign Ok Some Historical Errors

When the general historian, intent upon the more important, or more dramatic, events of his narrative, attempts in one or two brief sentences, to summarize the less prominent local events which, though a part, are not deemed of the important part of his history, he is quite liable to fall into error.

Especially is this the case, when a knowledge of the geography of the locality, where the events thus described, occurred, is necessary to a correct understanding of the authorities, from which the history of such events is drawn. Few historical events of equal importance, have suffered more from this cause, than the earliest labors of the Jesuit missionaries, in northeastern Wisconsin.

More than half a century ago Bancroft, in the third volume of his history of the United States, after describing the removal of Marquette and his flock of Hurons from Lake Superior to a point near Mackinaw in 1671 under the marginal date of 1672, wrote as follows :

"The countries south of the village founded by Marquette were explored by Allouez and Dablon, who bore the cross through eastern Wisconsin and the north of Illinois, visiting the Mascoutms and Kickapoos on the Milwaukee and Miamis at the head of Lake Michigan. The young men of the latter tribe were intent on an excursion against the Sioux, and prayed to the missionaries to give them the victory. After finishing the circuit, Allouez, fearless of danger, extended his rambles

to the cabins of the Foxes, on the river which bears their name."

Bancroft gave the Jesuit Relations as his authority.

These flowing sentences of Bancroft seemed to be a trap for local historians. Prof. I. A. Lapham, in his little work on "Wisconsin," published in Milwaukee (second edition) in 1846. after mentioning the supposed canoe voyage of Nicholas Perrot, from Green Bav to Chicago, in 1670, says: "Two years afterward the same voyage was undertaken by Allouez and Dablon. They stopped at the mouth of the Milwaukee river, then occuoied by Mascoutin and Kickapoo Indians.'' He prob- \bly had access to no other authority but Bancroft, on the subject. Gen. W. R. Smith, the official historian of Wisconsin, the first and third volumes of whose "Documentary History of Wisconsin'' were published by the state in 1854. in his preliminary or first chapter, changes the language of Bancroft sufficiently to add one error, saying, after mentioning the location of Marquette and the Hurons at Point St. Ignace; "The countries south of this were explored by Allouez and Dablon, who bore the cross through eastern Wisconsin and the north of Illinois, visiting the Mascputins and Kickapoos on the

Milwaukee and the Miamis at the head of Lake Michigan, and extending their journev to the. Foxes, on the

river of that name, fearless of danger and indefatigable

in religious zeal."

Hon. Moses M. Strong, in the preliminary chapter of his "History of Wisconsin Territory," adds a little to the statement. He says: "The cross was borne by Allouez and Dablon, through eastern Wisconsin and the north of Illinois, among the Mascoutins and Kickapoos on the Milwaukee and the Miamis at the head of Lake Michigan, as well as the Foxes on the river which bears their name, audi which, in their language was the \\ an-ke-sha." The Fox river of Waukesha is a small stream which rises northwest of Milwaukee, running south through the counties of Waukesha, Racine and Kenosha, in Wisconsin, passes into Illinois, where it forms a branch of the Illinois river.

Every statement of fact, in the sentences quoted is an error.

Allouez and Dablon did not bear the cross through

4 Early History oj ike Fox River Valley.

eastern Wisconsin, nor the north of Illinois; they did not visit Milwaukee; the Mascoutins and Kickapoos were not there, but on the upper Fox river of Green Bay; the Foxes were not on the river which bears their name, but on the Wolf river; the Miamis visited by them were some bands of that tribe, who, driven from their homes by the Sioux, had taken refuge with the Mascoutins on the Fox, where they prayed to the missionaries to give them the victory over their enemies; Allouez visited the Foxes alone, and before he visited the Mascoutins; and all this occurred in 1670, instead of 1672. These statements will be verified hereafter.

The curious thing about the matter is. that all these historians immediately after the statements quoted, when describing the voyage of Marquette and Joliet, to the Mississippi, were aware that the Mascoutins, Kickapoos and some Miamis were located on the upper Fox river; that Bancroft, in connection with his account, published a copy of a map attached to the Jesuit Relations of 1670-71, which showed their location on the Fox and that of the Foxes (Outagamis) on the Wolf river, and that Smith himself translated the Relations of both Allouez and Dablon, in the extracts from the Jesuit Regions, published in the third volume of his "Documentary History of Wisconsin."

A11 illustration of the danger of error on the part of the general historian, who attempts to summarize local details, is found in the most recent work, which treats of the early explorations of the Jesuits, on the Fox river. Speaking of the first trip of Allouez, up that river, the author of "Cartier to Frontenac" writes (p 200): "In April (1670), he ascended the Fox, and found Indians on Lake Winnebago mourning the losses they had experienced in a recent attack by the Senecas. On the Wolf river, an affluent of the Fox, he founded another mission, that of St. Mark, and for a while administered at both missions. In some of his further explorations he reached the head of the Wisconsin, and records that it led to the great river "Messisipi," six days off."

Nothing is clearer, from the narrative of Allouez, than that he saw no Indians on Lake Winnebago; that the tribe whom he found mourning the loss of several families killed, or carried off by the Senecas, were the Outagamis (Foxes), among whom he founded the mission of St. Mark, on the Wolf river; that the other mission founded by him at that time, was among the Mascoutins on the Fox river, among whom and their "Miami guests, it was at that time, that he heard of the great river "Messisipi" six days off.

In his valuable work, "Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley," published in 1852, Dr. John Gilmary Shea concluded that it was certain that Nicolet reached the Wisconsin river (Introductory chapter p. xxi). Shea was doubtless misled by his want of accurate

6 Eariy History of the Fox River Vahey.

knowledge of the geography of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers. In relation to the visit of Allouez to the Mascoutins, he says (p xxv) : "To reach them, he traversed the lake or marsh at the head of the Wisconsin, for they lay on the river." "It was," says he, "a beautiful river, running southwest without any rapid." "It leads," he says further on, "to the great river Messisipi, which is only six days sail from here. Thus had Allouez at last reached the waters of the Mississippi, as Nicollet had done thirty years before. There was now no difficulty in reaching it; an easier way lay open than that from Chagoimagon."

Father Dablon wished himself to visit the spot, and in company with Allouez he returned to Green Bay, and as early as September of the same year, both were at the Mascoutins. It is now generally agreed by the later historians, that the point reached by Nicollet, from which he turned south from the river, was the same place that Allouez and Dablon visited in 1670. (See "Carder to FrontenacA p 152).

The words of Allouez "running southwest," (translated by Smith "It flows to the southwest,") probably tended to mislead Shea, not considering the distance to the Wisconsin and the impossibility of reaching it, in the time that Allouez voyaged on the beautiful river he describes, after he left the river on which he found the Oufragamis. or from want of knowledge of the country,

Early History of the Fox River Valley. y

not knowing what river that was, concluded that the river "running southwest" must be the Wisconsin. When he translated Marquette's narrative, which is in the same volume, nothing but ignorance of the geography of the rivers could have prevented him from at once seeing that the village of the Mascoutins, described by Allouez and Marquette, was on the Fox river, and not on the Wisconsin. Some writers since, misled by the authority of Shea, have represented Allouez as having visited the Wisconsin.

Another fruitful source of error and confusion, as to the location of the Mascoutins. is found in the narrative of Marquette, as published. When about to leave the Mascoutins. to proceed into the unknown regions which lay beyond, the narrative says: "We knew that there was. three leagues from the Mascoutins, a river emptying into the Mississippi." The whole passage goes far to show that the "three leagues" is a mistake, for he continues : "We know that the point of the compass we were to hold to reach it, was the west-southwest; but the way is so cut up by marshes and little lakes, that it is easy to go astray, especially as the river leading to it is so covered with wild oats that you hardly discover the channel. Hence we had good need of our two guides, who led us safely to a portage of 2,700 paces, and helped us to transport our canoes to enter this river, after which they returned, leaving us alone in an unknown country, c? Early History of the Fox River Valley.

in the hands of Providence." Three leagues would be between seven and eight miles from the portage, in which there may have been marshes, but no lakes. Whether the mistake was a slip of the pen of the writer, or the mistake of some transcriber, or printer and proof reader, may never be known, but to those who have studied the subject, in the light of some familiarity with the Fox river, it is clear that, if Marquette wrote "three clays," or "thirty leagues," it would be much nearer the real distance. This will be made clear hereafter in the proper place.

That Allouez had not reached the Wisconsin is proved, and that Nicolet had done so is rendered very improbable by the language of Marquette, who says of the village of the Mascoutins, "This is the limit of the discoveries made by the French, for they have not yet passed beyond it."

That the mistake of Dr. Shea arose from want of accurate knowledge of the geography of the Fox River valley, is rendered more probable, by an article from his pen, on "The Indian Tribes of Wisconsin," in Volume TTT., of the collections of the Wisconsin State Historical society (1856), in which he says that in the Relations of 1669-70, Allouez mentions the Kickapoos "as lying on the Wisconsin river four leagues from the town of the Mascoutins," (p 129), and says of the Mascoutins that "the Jesuits, on visiting Wisconsin, found them on Wolf

Early J '/is lory of the Fox River Valley. g

river, a stream emptying into Lake Winnebago." (p 132). This would separate them by more than thirty leagues.

So it has come to pass that writers, who do not consult original sources of information, or, who do consult original sources, without any adequate knowledge of the local geography, have continued to speak of the Mascoutins, as on the Wisconsin, or, misled by the "three leagues" in Marquette's narrative, have placed them near to that river. Strong in his history of Wisconsin territory, conjectures that they were near the head of Buffalo lake, within a few miles of the portage. Bancroft, assuming naturally, that three leagues was the correct distance, draws a dramatic pen picture of Joliet and Marquette, with their companions, crossing the portage from the Pox to the Wisconsin with their canoes on their backs, on June 10, 1673, which was the day that they left the village of the Mascoutins, and was at least three and probably four days earlier than the date of their crossing the portage.

Chapter II. Explorers Who Preceded The Jesuit Missionaries

The first white man who, so far as known, ever set his foot upon the soil of the territory afterwards known in our political history as the "Territory Northwest of the Ohio river," was a young Frenchman from Normandy, whose name was Jean Nicolet. In what may be termed the romance of history, there is no chapter more romantic than that which recounts his wanderings and discoveries in the northwest. Yet, strange as it may appear, they were unknown to historians until the publication of Dr. Shea's "Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi River." in 1852, and it was not until [876 that the years in which he made his remarkable voyage were settled.

Tt seems a very strange tact that, though he was sent on his expedition by Champlain, the governor of "New France." and returned to the settlements of the French several months before the death of Champlain, the only

Early History of the Fox River Valley. i 1

account of his journey and discoveries which has been discovered is in the Relations of the Jesuit missionaries, who derived their information from him. These appear in the Relations of 1640 and 1643.

Prof. C. W. Butterfield, of Madison, in a little work, entitled "History of the Discovery of the Northwest, by John Nicolet," published in 1881, has given an exhaustive account of Nicolet' s explorations, with full references to and extracts from the original authorities. His work and an article on Nicolet in "Wisconsin Historical Collections," vol. XL, p. 4, are the authorities principally followed here.

Nicolet is described as a young man of good character, endowed with a profound religious feeling and excellent memory. He arrived in this country in 1618, and was soon sent by Champlain, as he sent several other young men. to reside among the friendly Algonquin tribes, who inhabited the country east of Georgian bay. where they were to be trained in the language, manners, customs and habits of the Indians, that they might be competent afterward to act as advisers and interpreters in establishing friendly relations with other tribes, Nicolet lived among these savages, in his own cabin, following their way of living and becoming, in all except birth and color, one of them, nine or ten years. Doubtless he became expert in all woodcraft, and as well qualified as a white man could become to establish friendly relations and conduct negotiations with the distant tribes, among whom it Mas desired to establish the French influence.

Champlain had himself penetrated to the shores of Georgian bay and to the Hurons, south of that bay.

Reports had reached Champlain and the Jesuit fathers, who were now in the entire control of the work of Christianizing- the Indians in New France, of a tribe far to the west, of a different lineage from the tribes known to the French, who were reported to have come from the shores of a salt sea. somewhere far to the southwest. They were called "men of the sea" by the Algonquins. It was also reported that the men of the sea were visited by another people without hair or beards, who made their journeys to the sea tribe in large canoes "on a great water." The French officials and missionaries thought this "great water" must be the sea between this continent and Asia. Some of the Indians who traded with the French, occasionally visited the sea tribe for ] nirposes of trade, and, apparently, had seen some of the hairless traders who came by the "great water." From these reports, the French imagination conceived the idea that by reaching the great water a short route might be discovered to China and Japan.

The hairless and beardless traders who visited the "men of the sea" were the Sioux from the Mississippi river.

The "men of the sea" were the tribe known in his-

Early History of the Fox River Valley. rj

torv as the W innebagos. (i) Some trouble had arisen and there was danger oi an outbreak of hostilities between them and the Hurons.

Champlain resolved to send an envoy to this distant tribe to establish peace between them and his friends, the Hurons, and to open relations of trade and amity between them and the French. NFicolet was selected for this mission. Another purpose doubtless, was to learn more of the "great water" of which so much had been heard, and what other tribes were in that remote region. To extend the influence and fur trade of the French, was an object in all the plans of Champlain. A great Indian empire in the new world, under the sovereignty of the king of France, was one of the dreams of the future, which he indulged.

The mission of Nicolet would require great tact and courage and he was selected, probably, because he possessed those qualities as well as full knowledge of the Indian character and skill in the Indian customs and languages.

Tn 1634, some time in the summer, accompanied by seven Hurons, he pushed out into the waters of Fake Huron. At the "Sault St. Marie" he visited the "People of the Falls" (2) and stood — the first white man — upon the soil of the present state of Michigan. He visited many other tribes on his route, including the Menomonees, who still reside in Wisconsin, whose village was then at the mouth of the Menomonee river, at the boundary between Wisconsin and Michigan. He dispatched one of the Hurons as a messenger to announce his approach to the Winnebagos. The messenger was well received by them and some of their young men went out to meet him and escort him to their village at the mouth of the Fox river.

Here, a curious scene was enacted. Nicolet clothed himself in a Mowing robe of Chinese damask, curiously embellished with flowers and birds of various hues, and with a pistol in each hand, fired into the ground as he went toward the great concourse of Indians, squaws and children assembled to see the strange visitor. The women and children, frightened at the man who "carried thunder in his hands,' 1 fled screaming from the place.

The only conjecture, as to the reason of this strange attire and action, is that, possibly, Nicolet may have had some expectation that he had arrived at a place where he might meet mandarins from China, or some great men from the Orient.

Four or five thousand people, of various tribes, assembled to see the stranger who had come so far to visit them. There was banqueting and feasting and Nicolet was treated with the ceremonious hospitality which was fitting toward the representative, for the time, of the power and majesty of the King of France. There were councils and much talk and the Winnebagos

E&xiy History of the Foa River Valley. /J

promised to keep the peace toward all the tribes east of them, a promise which they proceeded to break, almost as sooi'i as he was out of their sight, on his return.

Having fulfilled the mission, with which he was charged by Cham plain, to the Winnebagos and their immediate neighbors, Nicolet ascended the Fox river, and, passing through Lake Winnebago, reached the village of the Mascoutins. We have no details from which can be determined how long he remained with this then powerful tribe. He seems to have received from them the impression that he was there, only three days distant from the "great water" which had been fondly imagined to be the sea that led to China and Japan; at least, that was what the Relation of Father Vimont in 1640 stated as the fact. Whether Vimont misunderstood Nicolet, or Nicolet misunderstood the Mascoutins, does not seem to be certain, but it is reasonably certain that he was about three days from the Wisconsin river. It has been considered singular that Nicolet, when so near the 'great water," did not continue his journey in that direction. But his mission was not one of discovery, but to establish friendly relations with the tribes at the west, to extend the influence of the French among them and open the way for the extension of the trade, in which the "Hundred Associates," who then controlled New France, were more interested than in very remote discoveries. It would be very strange, also, if Nicolet had not by that time heard enough from the natives to convince him, or, at least, to create a strong suspicion in his mind, that the "great water" was not a sea. It is probable that Nicolet was illiterate and could only verbally describe the discoveries which he made. Otherwise, it seems strange that there is no written report of his journey, made by himself. Whatever the reason may have been, he followed the river no further, but turned south to seek the numerous tribes of the Illinois Indians, whose habitations probably extended into Wisconsin at that time. He had probably learned enough about the Sioux to conclude that they were not mandarins from China, and that he would have no further use for his damask silk robe. He returned to the Winnebagos, and visited the Pottawatomies, their neighbors, who occupied the shore of the bay east of the Winnebagos and the islands at the entrance to Green Bay. Somewhere among these tribes he spent the winter, and returned to Canada in the spring of 103^.

The first account of this trip of Nicolet being found in the Relations of 1040, led Shea to the conclusion that it was made in [639, and subsequent historians gave that as the date, until Benjamin Suite, the Canadian historian, by a careful study of the career of Nicolet, ascertained and suggested the proper date.

Thus, it came to pass, that just one hundred years after the discovery of the mouth of the St. Lawrence

Early History of Ihr. P~ox River Valley . f?

river, by Cartier, and only fourteen years after the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth Rock, this intelligent and energetic young "voyageur" and interpreter became the first white man to look and tread upon the land now included in the states of Michigan and Wisconsin, and the first white man to look, and paddle his canoe, upon the waters of Lake Michigan, Green Bay and the Fox river. Had he written and published an account of his voyage at the time, his name would have come down to subsequent generations, with those of Marquette and Joliet, whose discoveries commenced where his ended. As the first white man who. alone, with only dusky savages for companions, penetrated the vast, unexplored wilderness, negotiated with the wild tribes at the Baye des Puants and feasted in amity with the chiefs of the Mascoutins, on the south bank of the Fox river, his name would have been honored and, probably, preserved in the names of counties, towns or cities, and taught, like those of Marquette and Joliet. to the children in our schools.

Pierre d'Espril Sieur Radisson and his brother-inlaw, Medard Chouart Sieur des Grosilliers. two adventurous Frenchmen, were the next white visitors to the Fox River valley. In the Wisconsin Historical Collections, vol. XL. ])]). 64-96, will be found extracts from the narrative of Radisson, who was the historian of their adventures, covering all that relates to their adventures

/S Early History of the Fox River Valley.

in Wisconsin, with a note which gives a general account of the nun. They were adventures of a higher class than the "Coureurs de bois," who soon afterward began to scour the wilderness, with a view to traffic in furs and escape from the restraints of civilization and law.

How these two men transferred their allegiance from the French to the British flag and. afterward, backagain; how from their movements and suggestions while under the British flag, the foundations were laid of the great "Hudson Bay company," and many other things in their career are interesting topics, but not germane to the purpose of this work.

In 1058. they formed a sort of wandering partnership, for the purpose "to travell and see countreys." Radisson's narrative, written in English, by a French man, not of the learned class, is so confused, with it: French idioms, omissions and orthographical oddities, that, to the ordinary reader, it is scarcely more inteliigibie than the poetry of Chaucer.

It appears that in the year 1658, they pushed westward from Georgian bay and visited the natives on the islands between that bay and Michigan. While with the Ottavvas on the Great Manitoulin, "embassadors" from the Pottawatomies, from the islands at the mouth of Green bay. urged them to visit that people, which they did. They remained with the Pottawatomies during the winter (1658-59), but give no account of their mode ot

Early History of the Fox River Valley. ig

life. There they met some visitors from the Mascoutins, "a faire proper nation; they are tall and bigg & very strong." hi the spring of 1659 they visited the Mascoutins. Radisson says: "When we arrived there weare extraordinary banquets. There they never have seen men with beards, because they pull their haires as soon as it comes out; but much more astonished when they saw our arm,s especially our guns which they worshipped by blowing smoake of tobacco instead of sacrifice. I will not insist much upon their way of living; for their ceremonys heere you will see a pattern."

The Mascoutins told them of the Sioux, a strong nation with whom they are "in warres." The most important part of the narrative is here quoted.

"We were 4 moenths in our voyage without doing anything but goe from river to river. We mett several sorts of peop 1 e. We conversed with them, being a long time in allience with them. By the persuasion of some of them we went into ye great river that divides itself in 2, where the hurrons with some Ottanake & the wild men that had warres with them had retired. There is not great difference in their language as we are told." This is followed by other statements which tend to siiow that these two adventurers visited the Mississippi river, fourteen years before the famous voyage of Jolie't and Marquette.

Thev returned to Green Bav and to Sault St. Marie.

The only motive of these men. apparently was "to be knowne with the remotest people." Further examination and study of their journeyings would be very interesting, but does not belong to the subject of tins vv< >rk.

NOTES TO CHAPTER II.

( i ). The name by which the Algonquins called this tribe, which the Jesuit spelled "Ouinipigou," or "Ouinibigoutz," was translated by the French. "Puants," which Smith roughly translates "Stinkards" and Shea translates "The Foetid." In the Jesuit Relation of 1640, Father Vimont wrote, "Some Frenchmen call them the Nation of Stinkards, because the Algonquin word Ouinipeg signifies "stinking water." Now thev thus call the water of the sea: therefore these people call themselves "< hiinipigou." because they come from the shores of a sea, of which we have no knowledge; and consequently we must not call them the Nation of Stinkards, but the Nation of the Sea." III. Smith, Doc. Hist., Wis. ii. But the name "Puants" stuck to the Winnebagos, during the French occupation. Marquette, apparently, gives a similar explanation, Shea, Dis. & Ex. of the Mississippi, io. But apparently, he knew nothing of the legend that they came from a salt sea and, being unable to find any salt springs, concluded that the name was given - '«>n account of the quantity of slime and mud there, constantly exhaling noisome vapors which cause the longest and loudest peals of thunder that I ever heard." (Ibid, n)." Augustin Grignon says that the name was given them, as expressive of their filthy habits; "Win-ne-pa-go," meaning "filthy," in the Menomonee tongue. (III. Wis., Hist. Coll., 286). Charlevoix understood that the name was expressive of their filthy habits. ( [bid. 285 note).

(2). These were called by the French, "Sauteurs" or "Leapers." They were the Ojibways or Chippewas.

Chapter III. Father Claude Allouez, The Pioneer Missionary And The Jesuit Missions

Jean Nicolet set out from Three Rivers, for the country of the Hurons, from which he was to commence his explorations in the west, in the summer of 1634, in company with two Jesuit fathers, who were going to the Hurons to establish missions among them. These people, congeneric to the powerful [roquois of the Five Nations, south of the St. Lawrence river and Lake < )ntario, seem to have been, much of the time, at war with those cousins of theirs. They were of a higher type than their Algonquin neighbors and Sagard, one of the Recollects, who preceded the Jesuits, as missionaries. in Canada, classed the Hurons as the Nobility of the \i 1 >ods.

The missionaries, whom Nicolet accompanied, were successful in establishing permanent missions among the Hurons, where their work was more prosperous than among the tribes of a lower type. The high hopes which followed the success of this work, were suddenly blasted, by an unexpected attack by a powerful war party of the Iroquois in the winter of [649. The invaders marched through the Huron count rw destroying the villages and driving the unprepared I furons before them and forcing them to flee, for safety, in various directions. Some went eastward, for the protection of their French friends and some fled to the wilderness. Bands of them were found, later, in the wilds of Wisconsin. As a nation the Hurons were broken up. As we have before seen, Radisson and his companion met some of them, in Wisconsin, ten years later.