Fifty Years In The Northwest
It seemed to me then far away, at the world's end, but I had
positively told my comrades that I should one day go there. I found
myself at last on the soil, and at a period or crisis important in its
history. The great Northwest Territory, ceded by Virginia to the
United States in 1787, was no more. The immense territory had been
carved and sliced into states and territories, and now the last
remaining fragment, under the name of Wisconsin, had assumed
territorial prerogatives, organized its government, and, with direct
reference to a future division of territory, had selected its future
capital, for as yet, except in name, Madison was not. In assuming
territorial powers, the boundaries had been enlarged so as to include
part of New Louisiana, and the first legislature had virtually
bartered away this part of her domain, of which Burlington, temporary
capital of Wisconsin, was to be the future capital.
Two more days of foot plodding brought us to Galena, the city of lead.
The greeting on our entering the city was the ringing of bells, the
clattering of tin pans, the tooting of ox horns, sounds earthly and
unearthly,--sounds no man can describe. What could it be? Was it for
the benefit of two humble, footsore pedestrians that all this uproar
was produced? We gave it up for the time, but learned subsequently
that it was what is known as a charivari, an unmusical and disorderly
serenade, generally gotten up for the benefit of some newly married
couple, whose nuptials had not met with popular approval.
At Galena I parted with Mr. Rogers, my traveling companion, who went
south. On the fifteenth of December I traveled to Dubuque on foot.
When I came to the Mississippi river I sat down on its banks and
recalled the humorous description of old Mr. Carson, my neighbor, to
which I had listened wonderingly when a small boy. "It was," he said,
"a river so wide you could scarcely see across it. The turtles in it
were big as barn doors, and their shells would make good ferryboats if
they could only be kept above water." Sure enough, here was the big
river, but covered with ice, scarcely safe to venture on. Several
persons desiring to cross, we made a portable bridge of boards,
sliding them along with us till we were safe on the opposite bank. I
was now at the end of my journey, on the west bank of the Mississippi,
beyond which stretched a vast and but little known region, inhabited
by Indians and wild beasts.
As I review the incidents of my journey in 1836, I can not but
contrast the conditions of that era and the present. How great the
change in half a century! The journey then required thirty days. It
now requires but three. I had passed over but two short lines of
railroad, and had made the journey by canal boat, by steamer, by
stage, and a large portion of it on foot. There were few regularly
established lines of travel. From Michigan to the Mississippi there
were no stages nor were there any regular southern routes. Travelers
to the centre of the continent, in those days, came either by the
water route, via New Orleans or the Fox and Wisconsin river route, or
followed Indian trails or blazed lines from one settlement to another.
The homes of the settlers were rude--were built principally of logs.
In forest regions the farms consisted of clearings or square patches
of open ground, well dotted with stumps and surrounded by a dense
growth of timber. The prairies, except around the margins or along
certain belts of timber following the course of streams, were without
inhabitants. Hotels were few and far between, and, when found, not
much superior to the cabins of the settlers; but the traveler was
always and at all places hospitably entertained.
DUBUQUE.
Dubuque was a town of about three hundred inhabitants, attracted
thither by the lead mines. The people were principally of the mining
class. The prevailing elements amongst them were Catholic and Orange
Irish. These two parties were antagonistic and would quarrel on the
streets or wherever brought in contact. Sundays were especially days
of strife, and Main street was generally the field of combat. Women
even participated. There was no law, there were no police to enforce
order. The fight went on, the participants pulling hair, gouging,
biting, pummeling with fists or pounding with sticks, till one or the
other party was victorious. These combats were also accompanied with
volleys of profanity, and unlimited supplies of bad whisky served as
fuel to the flame of discord. Dubuque was certainly the worst town in
the West, and, in a small way, the worst in the whole country. The
entire country west of the Mississippi was without law, the government
of Wisconsin Territory not yet being extended to it. Justice, such as
it was, was administered by Judge Lynch and the mob.
My first employment was working a hand furnace for smelting lead ore
for a man named Kelly, a miner and a miser. He lived alone in a
miserable hovel, and on the scantiest fare. In January I contracted to
deliver fifty cords of wood at Price's brickyard. I cut the wood from
the island in front of the present city of Dubuque, and hired a team
to deliver it.
While in Dubuque I received my first letter from home in seven months.
What a relief it was, after a period of long suspense, spent in
tediously traveling over an almost wilderness country,--amidst
unpleasant surroundings, amongst strangers, many of them of the baser
sort, drinking, card playing, gambling and quarreling,--what a relief
it was to receive a letter from home with assurances of affectionate
regard from those I most esteemed.
Truly the lines had not fallen to me in pleasant places, and I was
sometimes exposed to perils from the lawless characters by whom I was
surrounded. On one occasion a dissolute and desperate miner, named
Gilbert, came to Cannon's hotel, which was my boarding house while in
Dubuque. He usually came over from the east side of the river once a
week for a spree. On this occasion, being very drunk, he was more than
usually offensive and commenced abusing Cannon, the landlord, applying
to him some contemptuous epithet. I thoughtlessly remarked to Cannon,
"You have a new name," upon which Gilbert cocked his pistol and aiming
at me was about to fire when Cannon, quick as thought, struck at his
arm and so destroyed his aim that the bullet went over my head. The
report of the pistol brought others to the room and a general melee
ensued in which the bar was demolished, the stove broken and Gilbert
unmercifully whipped. Gilbert was afterward shot in a drunken brawl.
I formed some genial acquaintances in Dubuque, amongst them Gen.
Booth, Messrs. Brownell, Wilson and others, since well known in the
history of the country. Price, the wood contractor, never paid me for
my work. I invested what money I had left for lots in Madison, all of
which I lost, and had, in addition, to pay a note I had given on the
lots.
On February 11th I went to Cassville, journeying thither on the ice.
This village had flourished greatly, in the expectation of becoming
the territorial and state capital, expectations doomed, as we have
seen, to disappointment. It is romantically situated amidst
picturesque bluffs, some of which tower aloft like the walls and
turrets of an ancient castle, a characteristic that attaches to much
of the bluff scenery along this point.
PRAIRIE DU CHIEN.
I reached this old French town on the twelfth of February. The town
and settlement adjacent extended over a prairie nine miles long, and
from one to two miles broad, a beautiful plateau of land, somewhat
sandy, but for many years abundantly productive, furnishing supplies
to traders and to the military post established there. It also
furnished two cargoes of grain to be used as seed by the starving
settlement at Selkirk, which were conveyed thither by way of the
Mississippi, St. Peter and Red rivers. The earliest authentic mention
of the place refers to the establishment of a post called St.
Nicholas, on the east bank of the Mississippi, at the mouth of the
Wisconsin, by Gov. De La Barre, who, in 1683, sent Nicholas Perrot
with a garrison of twenty men to hold the post. The first official
document laying claim to the country on the Upper Mississippi, issued
in 1689, has mention of the fort. This document we transcribe entire:
"Nicholas Perrot, commanding for the king, at the post of the
Nadouessioux, commissioned by the Marquis Denonville, governor and
lieutenant governor of all New France, to manage the interests of
commerce amongst the Indian tribes and people of the Bay des Puants
(Green Bay), Nadouessioux (Dakotahs), Maseontins, and other western
nations of the Upper Mississippi, and to take possession in the king's
name of all the places where he has heretofore been, and whither he
will go.
"We, this day, the eighth of May, one thousand six hundred and
eighty-nine, do, in the presence of the Reverend Father Marest, of the
Society of Jesus, missionary among the Nadouessioux; of Monsieur de
Borieguillot (or Boisguillot), commanding the French in the
neighborhood of the Ouiskonche (Wisconsin), on the Mississippi;
Augustin Le Gardeur, Esq., Sieur de Caurnont, and of Messeurs Le
Sueur, Hibert, Lemire and Blein:
"Declare to all whom it may concern, that, being come from the Bay des
Puants, and to the lake of the Ouiskonches, and to river Mississippi,
we did transport ourselves to the country of the Nadouessioux, on the
border of the river St. Croix, and at the mouth of the river St.
Pierre (Minnesota), on the bank of which were the Mantantans; and
further up to the interior to the northeast of the Mississippi, as far
as the Menchokatoux, with whom dwell the majority of the Songeskitens,
and other Nadouessioux, who are to the northeast of the Mississippi,
to take possession for, and in the name of, the king of the countries
and rivers inhabited by the said tribes, and of which they are
proprietors. The present act done in our presence, signed with our
hand and subscribed."
Then follow the names of the persons mentioned. The document was drawn
up at Green Bay.
There is little doubt that this post was held continuously by the
French as a military post until 1696, when the French authorities at
Quebec withdrew all their troops from Wisconsin, and as a trader's
post or settlement, until the surrender in 1763 to the British of all
French claims east of the Mississippi. It was probably garrisoned near
the close of the latter period. It remained in the possession of the
French some time, as the English, thinking it impossible to compete
for the commerce of the Indian tribes with the French traders who had
intermarried with them, and so acquired great influence, did not take
actual possession until many years later.
The post is occasionally mentioned by the early voyageurs, and the
prairie which it commanded was known as the "Prairie du Chien," or
praire of the dog, as early as 1763, and is so mentioned by Carver. It
was not formally taken possession of by the United States until 1814,
when Gov. Clarke with two hundred men came up from St. Louis to
Prairie du Chien, then under English rule, to build a fort and
protect American interests at the village. At that time there were
about fifty families, descended chiefly from the old French settlers.
These were engaged chiefly in farming, owning a common field four
miles long by a half mile wide. They had outside of this three
separate farms and twelve horse mills to manufacture their produce.
The fort, held by a few British troops under Capt. Deace, surrendered
without resistance, but soon after the British traders at Mackinaw
sent an expedition under Joe Rolette, Sr., to recapture the post,
which they did after a siege of three days, the defenders being