Wau-Bun: The "Early Day" of the North-West

The Publication Committee of the Caxton Club certify that this is one of an edition of two hundred and fifty-six copies printed on hand-made paper and three copies printed on Japanese vellum, and that the printing was done from type which has been distributed.

WAU-BUN

THE “EARLY DAY” OF THE NORTH-WEST

JULIETTE A. McGILL KINZIE.
From oil portrait by G. P. A. Healy, painted in 1855.

WAU-BUN

THE “EARLY DAY” OF THE
NORTH-WEST

BY

MRS. JOHN H. KINZIE

OF CHICAGO

NEW EDITION, WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY REUBEN GOLD THWAITES, EDITOR OF “THE JESUIT RELATIONS, AND ALLIED DOCUMENTS,” “WISCONSIN HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS,” “CHRONICLES OF BORDER WARFARE,” ETC.

WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS

CHICAGO
THE CAXTON CLUB
MDCCCCI

COPYRIGHT BY THE CAXTON
CLUB, NINETEEN HUNDRED
AND ONE

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

[EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION]

The early history of Chicago has much to do with the Kinzies and their connections. It is particularly fortunate that one of this family should have given to the world, out of the abundance of her recollections of the “early day,” what has become a classic in the historical literature of the Middle West—the Northwest of a half-century ago.

Kinzie is but an abbreviated form of the old Scotch name of Mackenzie. John Mackenzie must have been among the first subjects of Great Britain to emigrate to Canada upon the downfall of the French regime; for his son John (afterwards called Kinzie) was born in Quebec, in 1763, the year of the Paris treaty. The family soon moved to Detroit, and there the elder Mackenzie died, during John’s infancy.

The widow had previously been married to a Mr. Haliburton, by whom she had a daughter, a beautiful and accomplished girl, who in turn became the mother of General Fleming, Nicholas Low, and Mrs. Charles King, of New York. John Kinzie was the only issue of the second marriage. In due time, Mrs. Mackenzie married a third husband—William Forsyth, another Scotchman, who had come to New York in 1750, fought under Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham, and was twice wounded. The Forsyths moved to New York City, whither young John Kinzie was taken. When some ten or eleven years of age, while at school at Williamsburg, on Long Island, with two of his half-brothers, Kinzie, a restless, adventurous youth, ran away to his native town, Quebec. There he was, when nearly starved, picked up on the streets by a silversmith, and incidentally learned something of the craft of his benefactor. There are evidences of his being in Detroit, as a fur-trader, as early as 1795; and by the close of the century this thrifty young Scotchman is known to have had trading establishments on the Maumee, at Sandusky, and at St. Josephs, on Lake Michigan.

Young Kinzie’s life had been a continual romance, but it was no less so than that of his first love. During one of the numerous forays over the Virginia border, made by the Shawanese during Lord Dunmore’s War (1774), a band of these barbarians swooped down upon the rude cabin of Isaac McKenzie, who had established himself at the junction of Wolf’s Creek with the Kanawha River. McKenzie’s wife was killed, but their two young and beautiful children, Margaret and Elizabeth, were borne away to the great Shawanee town of Chillicothe, in what is now Ohio. Here, in accordance with Indian custom, the girls were adopted into the family of a chief, one of whose squaws was assigned to their tender rearing.

After eighteen years, when Margaret had developed into a young woman of rare loveliness, she accompanied her foster-father upon a hunting expedition to the vicinity of the present Fort Wayne, in Indiana. A young Shawanee chief, present at the hunt, paid mad suit to this forest beauty; but, still pining for civilization, she scorned her Indian lover, and he set out to take her by force, as had ever been among his people the custom of rejected suitors. At midnight, as the nomadic village was echoing with the din made by the chief’s followers, who were preparing to assist in this intended capture of a wife, Margaret silently stole from her wigwam, for it was a case in which custom decreed that she must rely solely upon herself, and took refuge in the depths of the forest. Her persistent lover was close at her heels. She ordered her faithful dog to attack him, and while man and brute were engaged in savage combat, flew through the woods to the stockade where the ponies were kept. Leaping on the back of a favorite, Margaret plied him with rope-end and voice, through seventy-five miles of wilderness, all the way to her barbaric home in Chillicothe, where the poor animal dropped dead. Here, at last, she was safe from her lover’s attentions.

Not long after Margaret’s thrilling experience, the two girls were taken to Detroit by their foster-father, who proudly showed them to his white friends. The old chief, however, recked not of the power of love. A Scotchman named Clark became enamoured of Elizabeth, and John Kinzie saw in Margaret his heart’s desire. The two couples mated in Indian fashion, and lived together in the woods for some five years—Elizabeth bearing two children, and Margaret three (William, James, and Elizabeth).

When the strength of Indian power in the country north-west of the Ohio River was at last broken in the decisive battle at the Fallen Timbers, followed by the treaty of Greenville (1795), and in another year by the removal of British garrisons from the posts on the upper lakes, communication was again possible between the American colonists and the Northwest. Isaac McKenzie heard of the presence of his daughters in the Michigan wilderness, and in his old age laboriously worked his way thither to visit them. There was a pathetic reunion; and when the white-haired frontiersman went back to Virginia, Margaret and Elizabeth, declining the legal marriage proffered by their consorts, followed him to the old home, Margaret leaving her children to be cared for by their father.

Elizabeth in due course legally married a Virginian named Jonas Clybourn, and Margaret also legally united domestic fortunes with one Benjamin Hall of that state. Sons of these second unions eventually came to Chicago, and took prominent parts in the drama of pioneer life in Illinois and Wisconsin.

In 1800, John Kinzie married Eleanor (Lytle) McKillip, the widow of a British officer, who had had by him a daughter named Margaret. The Kinzies, with their infant son, John Harris (born at Sandwich, Ontario, July 7, 1803), apparently settled at Chicago in the spring of 1804, John Kinzie being the trader at Fort Dearborn, then just constructed. Kinzie was also appointed sub-Indian agent, and later was a government interpreter. His connection with the massacre at Fort Dearborn, in 1812, is best related in Wau-Bun itself. In 1823, he was appointed a justice of the peace; in 1825, agent at Chicago for the American Fur Company; he died at Chicago in 1828, aged sixty-five. His four children by Eleanor were: Jolm Harris (1803), Ellen Marion (1805), Maria Indiana (1807), and Robert Allen (1810). His two children by Margaret McKenzie were tenderly reared by Mrs. Kinzie, who, before her marriage, had been fully informed of the circumstance of the earlier union under the forest code of the day.

JOHN HARRIS KINZIE.
From copy of oil portrait by G. P. A. Healy, painted by Daisy Gordon, in possession of Chicago Historical Society.

It is with John Harris Kinzie that our immediate interest lies. His early youth was spent in Chicago; he was nine years of age at the time of the massacre in 1812; during the next four years the family remained in Detroit, only returning to Chicago when (1816) the former town was captured by General Harrison; in 1818, he was sent to Mackinac to be apprenticed to the American Fur Company. Carefully trained to the conduct of the fur trade, then the principal commercial interest in the Northwest, young Kinzie was sent, in 1824, to Prairie du Chien, where he learned the Winnebago language and thereof partly constructed a grammar. Two years later, we find him installed as private secretary to Governor Lewis Cass, in whose company he assisted in making numerous treaties with the aborigines. It was while in this service that he went to Ohio to study the language and habits of the Wyandots, of whose tongue he also compiled a grammar. His remarkable proficiency in Indian languages led to his appointment, in 1829, as Indian agent to the Winnebagoes, at Fort Winnebago (Portage, Wisconsin). Upon the death of his father, he fell heir to the Winnebago name, “Shawneeaukee,” which appears so frequently in the text of Wau-Bun.

August 9, 1830, Kinzie—now styled “Colonel” by courtesy, because of his office as Indian agent—was married at Middletown, Connecticut, to Juliette A. Magill, the authoress of the book of which this is a new edition. Very little has been garnered concerning the early life of Miss Magill. She was born in Middletown, September 11, 1806, but appears to have lived much in the national metropolis, and to have enjoyed a wide and intimate acquaintance with the “best families” of the city; her education was certainly not neglected.

The honeymoon of the young pair was in part spent in New York City. They were at Detroit a few weeks after the wedding, however, and thence took the steamer “Henry Clay” for Green Bay. The text of Wau-Bun commences with the departure from Detroit, and carries us forward to their arrival at Green Bay, and later at Fort Winnebago; their horseback trip to Chicago, the following March, is also interestingly described. They appear to have permanently made their home in Chicago in 1834.

In 1841, Colonel Kinzie was appointed registrar of public lands; seven years later, he was canal collector at Chicago, occupying the position until President Lincoln commissioned him as a paymaster in the Union army, with the rank of major. He was still holding this office when, in the early summer of 1865, being in failing health, he went to Pennsylvania in company with his wife and son, but died in a railway carriage near Pittsburg, upon the 21st of June. His widow, two sons, and a daughter survived him; together with the reputation among his contemporaries of possessing a lovable, sympathetic soul, broad enough to appreciate the many good traits of the commonly despised savage, concerning whom he knew more than most men.

Mrs. Kinzie’s death came upon September 15, 1870, while spending the season at Amagansett, on Long Island, New York. She had sent to a druggist for some quinine, but through inadvertence he instead sent morphine, in the taking of which she lost her life. The heroine of Wau-Bun, besides wielding a graceful pen and a facile pencil, was a woman with marked domestic virtues, and in every walk of life a charming character.

The first public appearance of Mrs. Kinzie as an author was in 1844, when there appeared from the press of Ellis & Fergus, Chicago, an octavo pamphlet of thirty-four pages, with a plate, entitled Narrative of the Massacre at Chicago, August 15, 1812, and of Some Preceding Events. This publication was anonymous; but as it bore the name of John H. Kinzie as the holder of the copyright, most readers assumed that he was the author. In time, it came to be known that his wife had written the work. The footnote to the opening page of chapter xviii of Wau-Bun (page 155 of our text) says that her story of the massacre was first published in 1836; but apparently no copies of this early publication are now extant. Mrs. Kinzie’s narrative was of course obtained from first hands, her husband and other members of her family having been witnesses of the tragedy; it has been accepted by the historians of Illinois as substantially accurate, and other existing accounts are generally based upon this. With slight variation, the contents of the pamphlet were transferred to the pages of Wau-Bun, of which they constitute chapters [xviii], [xix], and [xx].

Wau-Bun itself first appeared in 1856 (8vo, pp. 498), from the press of Derby & Jackson, New York. A second edition was published in 1857, by D. B. Cooke & Co., of Chicago, the same plates being used, with nothing changed but the title-page. Very likely it was printed by Derby & Jackson, in New York, for the Chicago booksellers named—a familiar device with the publishing trade. A third edition, an entire reset, in cheap duodecimo form, without illustrations, was published in 1873 by J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia (pp. 390). The Lippincotts had, in 1869, the year before her death, published a novel by Mrs. Kinzie, entitled Walter Ogilby, which apparently had a fair sale; and their reprint of Wau-Bun, which by this time had become scarce and out of copyright, was no doubt made to still further cultivate a market created by the novel. Even this reprint is now rare.

Wau-Bun gives us our first, and in some respects our best, insight into the “early day” of the old Northwest.[A] The graphic illustrations of early scenes which the author has drawn for us are excellent of their kind, indicating an artistic capacity certainly unusual upon the American frontier of seventy years ago. But better than these is the text itself. The action is sufficiently rapid, the description is direct, and that the style is unadorned but makes the story appear to us the more vivid. Upon her pages we seem to see and feel the life at the frontier military stockades, to understand intimately the social and economic relations between the savages and the government officials set over them, to get at the heart of things within the border country of her day. It is the relation of a cultivated eye-witness, a woman of the world, who appreciates that what she depicts is but a passing phase of history, and deserves preservation for the enlightenment of posterity. Many others have, with more or less success, written narratives within the same field; Mrs. Kinzie herself occasionally trips upon dates and facts, and sometimes she deliberately glosses where the antiquarian would demand recital of naked circumstance; but take Wau-Bun by large and small, and it may safely be said that to students of the history of the Middle West, particularly of Illinois and Wisconsin, Mrs. Kinzie has rendered a service of growing value, and of its kind practically unique.

[A] Similar reminiscences, almost as excellent in their way, but more limited in scope, are: Mrs. Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve’s Three Score Years and Ten (Minneapolis, 1888), and Elizabeth Thérèse Baird’s articles in vols, xiv and xv, Wisconsin Historical Collections.

It is fitting that the Caxton Club should publish a new edition of this early Chicago classic, with the needed accessories of notes, index, and additional illustrations. The book deserves to be better known of the present generation, who will find in it a charming if not fascinating narrative, giving them an abiding sense of the wonderful transformation which seventy years have wrought in the development of the Old Northwest.

The present writer has selected the illustrations and furnished the Notes, Introduction, and Index to this edition, and exercised a general oversight of its make-up; to others, however, have been left, by the Caxton Club, the responsibility for the proof-reading of the text.

Mrs. Eleanor Kinzie Gordon, of Savannah, Ga., a daughter of Colonel and Mrs. John H. Kinzie, has kindly read the proof-sheets of Introduction and Notes, and offered several valuable suggestions, which have been gratefully incorporated in the text.

R. G. T.

Madison, Wis., October, 1901.

[PREFACE]

Every work partaking of the nature of an autobiography, is supposed to demand an apology to the public. To refuse such a tribute, would be to recognize the justice of the charge, so often brought against our countrymen—of a too great willingness to be made acquainted with the domestic history and private affairs of their neighbors.

It is, doubtless, to refute this calumny that we find travellers, for the most part, modestly offering some such form of explanation as this, to the reader: “That the matter laid before him was, in the first place, simply letters to friends, never designed to be submitted to other eyes, and only brought forward now at the solicitation of wiser judges than the author himself.”

No such plea can, in the present instance, be offered. The record of events in which the writer had herself no share, was preserved in compliance with the suggestion of a revered relative, whose name often appears in the following pages. “My child,” she would say, “write these things down, as I tell them to you. Hereafter our children, and even strangers will feel interested in hearing the story of our early lives and sufferings.” And it is a matter of no small regret and self-reproach, that much, very much, thus narrated was, through negligence, or a spirit of procrastination, suffered to pass unrecorded.

With regard to the pictures of domestic life and experience (preserved, as will be seen in journals, letters, and otherwise), it is true their publication might have been deferred until the writer had passed away from the scene of action; and such, it was supposed, would have been their lot—that they would only have been dragged forth hereafter, to show to a succeeding generation, what “The Early Day,” of our Western homes had been. It never entered the anticipations of the most sanguine that the march of improvement and prosperity would, in less than a quarter of a century, have so obliterated the traces of “the first beginning,” that a vast and intelligent multitude would be crying out for information in regard to the early settlement of this portion of our country, which so few are left to furnish.

An opinion has been expressed, that a comparison of the present times with those that are past, would enable our young people, emigrating from their luxurious homes at “the East,” to bear, in a spirit of patience and contentment, the slight privations and hardships they are at this day called to meet with. If, in one instance, this should be the case, the writer may well feel happy to have incurred even the charge of egotism, in giving thus much of her own history.

It may be objected that all that is strictly personal, might have been more modestly put forth under the name of a third person; or that the events themselves and the scenes might have been described, while those participating in them might have been kept more in the background. In the first case, the narrative would have lost its air of truth and reality—in the second, the experiment would merely have been tried of dressing up a theatre for representation, and omitting the actors.

Some who read the following sketches, may be inclined to believe that a residence among our native brethren and an attachment growing out of our peculiar relation to them, have exaggerated our sympathies, and our sense of the wrongs they have received at the hands of the whites. This is not the place to discuss that point. There is a tribunal at which man shall be judged, for that which he has meted out to his fellow-man.

May our countrymen take heed that their legislation shall never unfit them to appear “with joy, and not with grief” before that tribunal!

Chicago, July, 1855.

THE “EARLY DAY” OF THE
NORTH-WEST

[CHAPTER I]

DEPARTURE FROM DETROIT

It was on a dark, rainy evening in the month of September, 1830, that we went on board the steamer “Henry Clay,” to take passage for Green Bay. All our friends in Detroit had congratulated us upon our good fortune in being spared the voyage in one of the little schooners, which at this time afforded the ordinary means of communication with the few and distant settlements on Lakes Huron and Michigan.

Each one had some experience to relate of his own or of his friends' mischances in these precarious journeys—long detentions on the St. Clair flats—furious head winds off Thunder Bay, or interminable calms at Mackinac or the Manitous. That which most enhanced our sense of peculiar good-luck was the true story of one of our relatives having left Detroit in the month of June, and reached Chicago in the September following, having been actually three months in performing what is sometimes accomplished by even a sail-vessel in four days.

But the certainty of encountering similar misadventures would have weighed little with me. I was now to visit, nay more, to become a resident of that land which had for long years been to me a region of romance. Since the time when, as a child, my highest delight had been in the letters of a dear relative, describing to me his home and mode of life in the “Indian country,” and still later, in his felicitous narration of a tour with General Cass, in 1820, to the sources of the Mississippi[[1]]—nay, even earlier, in the days when I stood at my teacher’s knee, and spelled out the long word Mich-i-li-mack-i-nac,[[2]] that distant land, with its vast lakes, its boundless prairies, and its mighty forests, had possessed a wonderful charm for my imagination. Now I was to see it!—it was to be my home!

Our ride to the quay, through the dark by-ways, in a cart, the only vehicle which at that day could navigate the muddy, unpaved streets of Detroit, was a theme for much merriment, and not less so, our descent of the narrow, perpendicular stair-way by which we reached the little apartment called the Ladies' Cabin. We were highly delighted with the accommodations, which, by comparison, seemed the very climax of comfort and convenience; more especially as the occupants of the cabin consisted, beside myself, of but a lady and two little girls.

Nothing could exceed the pleasantness of our trip for the first twenty-four hours. There were some officers, old friends, among the passengers. We had plenty of books. The gentlemen read aloud occasionally, admired the solitary magnificence of the scenery around us, the primeval woods, or the vast expanse of water unenlivened by a single sail, and then betook themselves to their cigar, or their game of euchre, to while away the hours.

For a time the passage over Thunder Bay was delightful, but alas! it was not destined, in our favor, to belie its name. A storm came on, fast and furious—what was worse, it was of long duration. The pitching and rolling of the little boat, the closeness, and even the sea-sickness, we bore as became us. They were what we had expected, and were prepared for. But a new feature of discomfort appeared, which almost upset our philosophy.

The rain, which fell in torrents, soon made its way through every seam and pore of deck or moulding. Down the stair-way, through the joints and crevices, it came, saturating first the carpet, then the bedding, until, finally, we were completely driven, “by stress of weather,” into the Gentlemen’s Cabin. Way was made for us very gallantly, and every provision resorted to for our comfort, and we were congratulating ourselves on having found a haven in our distress, when lo! the seams above opened, and down upon our devoted heads poured such a flood, that even umbrellas were an insufficient protection. There was nothing left for the ladies and children but to betake ourselves to the berths, which, in this apartment, fortunately remained dry; and here we continued ensconced the live-long day. Our dinner was served up to us on our pillows. The gentlemen chose the dryest spots, raised their umbrellas, and sat under them, telling amusing anecdotes, and saying funny things to cheer us, until the rain ceased, and at nine o’clock in the evening we were gladdened by the intelligence that we had reached the pier at Mackinac.

We were received with the most affectionate cordiality by Mr. and Mrs. Robert Stuart,[[3]] at whose hospitable mansion we had been for some days expected.

The repose and comfort of an asylum like this can be best appreciated by those who have reached it after a tossing and drenching such as ours had been. A bright, warm fire, and countenances beaming with kindest interest, dispelled all sensations of fatigue or annoyance.

After a season of pleasant conversation, the servants were assembled, the chapter of God’s word was solemnly read, the hymn chanted, the prayer of praise and thanksgiving offered, and we were conducted to our place of repose.

It is not my purpose here to attempt a portrait of those noble friends whom I thus met for the first time. To an abler pen than mine, should be assigned the honor of writing the biography of Robert Stuart. All who have enjoyed the happiness of his acquaintance, or still more, a sojourn under his hospitable roof, will carry with them, to their latest hour, the impression of his noble bearing, his genial humor, his untiring benevolence, his upright, uncompromising adherence to principle, his ardent philanthropy, his noble disinterestedness. Irving in his “Astoria,” and Franchère in his “Narrative,” give many striking traits of his early character, together with events of his history of a thrilling and romantic interest, but both have left the most valuable portion unsaid, his after-life, namely, as a Christian gentleman.

Of his beloved partner, who still survives him, mourning on her bereaved and solitary pilgrimage, yet cheered by the recollection of her long and useful course as a “Mother in Israel,” we will say no more than to offer the incense of loving hearts, and prayers for the best blessings from her Father in Heaven.

[CHAPTER II]

MICHILIMACKINAC

Michilimackinac! that gem of the Lakes! How bright and beautiful it looked as we walked abroad on the following morning! The rain had passed away, but had left all things glittering in the light of the sun as it rose up over the waters of Lake Huron, far away to the east. Before us was the lovely bay, scarcely yet tranquil after the storm, but dotted with canoes and the boats of the fishermen already getting out their nets for the trout and white-fish, those treasures of the deep. Along the beach were scattered the wigwams or lodges of the Ottawas who had come to the island to trade. The inmates came forth to gaze upon us. A shout of welcome was sent forth, as they recognized Shaw-nee-aw-kee, who, from a seven years' residence among them, was well known to each individual.

A shake of the hand, and an emphatic “Bon-Jour—bon-jour,” is the customary salutation between the Indian and the white man.

“Do the Indians speak French?” I inquired of my husband. “No; this is a fashion they have learned of the French traders during many years of intercourse.”

Not less hearty was the greeting of each Canadian engagé, as he trotted forward to pay his respects to “Monsieur John,” and to utter a long string of felicitations, in a most incomprehensible patois. I was forced to take for granted all the good wishes showered upon “Madame John,” of which I could comprehend nothing but the hope that I should be happy and contented in my “vie sauvage.”

The object of our early walk was to visit the Mission-house and school which had been some few years previously established at this place, by the Presbyterian Board of Missions. It was an object of especial interest to Mr. and Mrs. Stuart, and its flourishing condition at this period, and the prospects of extensive future usefulness it held out, might well gladden their philanthropic hearts. They had lived many years on the island, and had witnessed its transformation, through God’s blessing on Christian efforts, from a worldly, dissipated community to one of which it might almost be said, “Religion was every man’s business.” This mission establishment was the beloved child and the common centre of interest of the few Protestant families clustered around it. Through the zeal and good management of Mr. and Mrs. Ferry, and the fostering encouragement of the congregation, the school was in great repute, and it was pleasant to observe the effect of mental and religious culture in subduing the mischievous, tricky propensities of the half-breed, and rousing the stolid apathy of the genuine Indian.[[4]]

These were the palmy days of Mackinac. As the headquarters of the American Fur Company,[[5]] and the entrepôt of the whole North-West, all the trade in supplies and goods on the one hand, and in furs and products of the Indian country on the other, was in the hands of the parent establishment or its numerous outposts scattered along Lakes Superior and Michigan, the Mississippi, or through still more distant regions.

MICHILIMACKINAC
From a sketch by Capt. S. Eastman, U. S. A., in Schoolcraft’s “Indian Tribes,” vol. iv., p. 188.

Probably few are ignorant of the fact, that all the Indian tribes, with the exception of the Miamis and the Wyandots, had, since the transfer of the old French possessions to the British Crown, maintained a firm alliance with the latter. The independence achieved by the United States did not alter the policy of the natives, nor did our Government succeed in winning or purchasing their friendship. Great Britain, it is true, bid high to retain them. Every year the leading men of the Chippewas, Ottawas, Pottowattamies, Menomonees, Winnebagoes, Sauks, and Foxes, and even still more remote tribes, journeyed from their distant homes to Fort Maiden in Upper Canada, to receive their annual amount of presents from their Great Father across the water. It was a master-policy thus to keep them in pay, and had enabled those who practised it to do fearful execution through the aid of such allies in the last war between the two countries.

The presents they thus received were of considerable value, consisting of blankets, broadcloths or strouding, calicoes, guns, kettles, traps, silver-works (comprising arm-bands, bracelets, brooches, and ear-bobs), looking-glasses, combs, and various other trinkets distributed with no niggardly hand.

The magazines and store-houses of the Fur Company were the resort of all the upper tribes for the sale of their commodities, and the purchase of all such articles as they had need of, including those above enumerated, and also ammunition, which, as well as money and liquor, their British friends very commendably omitted to furnish them.

Besides their furs, various in kind and often of great value—beaver, otter, marten, mink, silver-gray and red fox, wolf, bear, and wild cat, musk-rat, and smoked deer-skins—the Indians brought for trade maple-sugar in abundance, considerable quantities of both Indian corn and petit-blé,[B] beans and the folles avoines,[C] or wild-rice, while the squaws added to their quota of merchandize a contribution in the form of moccasins, hunting-pouches, mococks, or little boxes of birch-bark embroidered with porcupine quills and filled with maple-sugar, mats of a neat and durable fabric, and toy-models of Indian cradles, snow shoes, canoes, &c., &c.

[B] Corn which has been parboiled, shelled from the cob, and dried in the sun.

[C] Literally, crazy oats. It is the French name for the Menomonees.

It was no unusual thing, at this period, to see a hundred or more canoes of Indians at once approaching the island, laden with their articles of traffic; and if to these we add the squadrons of large Mackinac boats[[6]] constantly arriving from the outposts, with the furs, peltries, and buffalo-robes collected by the distant traders, some idea may be formed of the extensive operations and important position of the American Fur Company, as well as of the vast circle of human beings either immediately or remotely connected with it.

It is no wonder that the philanthropic mind, surveying these races of uncultivated heathen, should stretch forward to the time when, by an unwearied devotion of the white man’s energies, and an untiring sacrifice of self and fortune, his red brethren might rise in the scale of social civilization—when Education and Christianity should go hand in hand, to make “the wilderness blossom as the rose.”

Little did the noble souls at this day rejoicing in the success of their labors at Mackinac, anticipate that in less than a quarter of a century there would remain of all these numerous tribes but a few scattered bands, squalid, degraded, with scarce a vestige remaining of their former lofty character—their lands cajoled or wrested from them—the graves of their fathers turned up by the ploughshare—themselves chased farther and farther towards the setting sun, until they were literally grudged a resting place on the face of the earth!

Our visit to the Mission school was of short duration, for the “Henry Clay” was to leave at two o’clock, and in the meantime we were to see what we could of the village and its environs, and after that, dine with Mr. Mitchell, an old friend of my husband. As we walked leisurely along over the white gravelly road, many of the residences of the old inhabitants were pointed out to me. There was the dwelling of Madame Laframboise,[[7]] an Ottawa woman, whose husband had taught her to read and write, and who had ever after continued to use the knowledge she had acquired for the instruction and improvement of the youth among her own people. It was her custom to receive a class of young pupils daily at her house, that she might give them lessons in the branches mentioned, and also in the principles of the Roman Catholic religion, to which she was deeply devoted. She was a woman of a vast deal of energy and enterprise—of a tall and commanding figure, and most dignified deportment. After the death of her husband, who was killed while away at his trading-post by a Winnebago named White Ox, she was accustomed to visit herself the trading-posts, superintend the clerks and engagés, and satisfy herself that the business was carried on in a regular and profitable manner.

The Agency-house, with its unusual luxuries of piazza and gardens, was situated at the foot of the hill on which the fort was built. It was a lovely spot, notwithstanding the stunted and dwarfish appearance of all cultivated vegetation in this cold northern latitude.

The collection of rickety, primitive-looking buildings, occupied by the officials of the Fur Company, reflected no great credit on the architectural skill of my husband, who had superintended their construction, he told me, when little more than a boy.

There were, besides these, the residences of the Dousmans, the Abbotts, the Biddies, the Drews, and the Lashleys,[[8]] stretching away along the base of the beautiful hill, crowned with the white walls and buildings of the fort, the ascent to which was so steep, that on the precipitous face nearest the beach staircases were built by which to mount from below.

My head ached intensely, the effect of the motion of the boat on the previous day, but I did not like to give up to it; so after I had been shown all that could be seen of the little settlement in the short time allowed us, we repaired to Mr. Mitchell’s.

We were received by Mrs. M., an extremely pretty, delicate woman, part French and part Sioux, whose early life had been passed at Prairie du Chien, on the Mississippi.[[9]] She had been a great belle among the young officers at Fort Crawford; so much so, indeed, that the suicide of the post-surgeon was attributed to an unsuccessful attachment he had conceived for her. I was greatly struck with her soft and gentle manners, and the musical intonation of her voice, which I soon learned was a distinguishing peculiarity of those women in whom are united the French and native blood.

A lady, then upon a visit to the Mission, was of the company. She insisted on my lying down upon the sofa, and ministered most kindly to my suffering head. As she sat by my side, and expatiated upon the new sphere opening before me, she inquired:

“Do you not realize very strongly the entire deprivation of religious privileges you will be obliged to suffer in your distant home?”

“The deprivation,” said I, “will doubtless be great, but not entire; for I shall have my Prayer-Book, and though destitute of a church, we need not be without a mode of worship.”

How often afterwards, when cheered by the consolations of this precious book in the midst of the lonely wilderness, did I remember this conversation, and bless God that I could never, while retaining it, be without “religious privileges.”

We had not yet left the dinner-table, when the bell of the little steamer sounded to summon us on board, and we bade a hurried farewell to all our kind friends, bearing with us their hearty wishes for a safe and prosperous voyage.

A finer sight can scarcely be imagined than Mackinac, from the water. As we steamed away from the shore, the view came full upon us—the sloping beach with the scattered wigwams, and canoes drawn up here and there—the irregular, quaint-looking houses—the white walls of the fort, and beyond one eminence still more lofty, crowned with the remains of old Fort Holmes.[[10]] The whole picture completed, showed the perfect outline that had given the island its original Indian name, Mich-i-li-mack-i-nack, the Big Turtle.

Then those pure, living waters, in whose depths the fish might be seen gliding and darting to and fro, whose clearness is such that an object dropped to the bottom may be discerned at the depth of fifty or sixty feet, a dollar lying far down on its green bed, looking no larger than a half dime. I could hardly wonder at the enthusiastic lady who exclaimed: “Oh! I could wish to be drowned in these pure, beautiful waters!”

As we passed the extreme western point of the island, my husband pointed out to me, far away to the north-west, a promontory which he told me was Point St. Ignace. It possessed great historic interest, as one of the earliest white settlements on this continent. The Jesuit missionaries had established here a church and school as early as 1607, the same year in which a white settlement was made at St. Augustine, in Florida, and one year before the founding of Jamestown, Virginia.[[11]]

All that remains of the enterprises of these devoted men, is the remembrance of their labors, perpetuated, in most instances, only by the names of the spots which witnessed their efforts of love in behalf of their savage brethren. The little French church at Sandwich, opposite Detroit, alone is left, a witness of the zeal and self-sacrifice of these pioneers of Christianity.[[12]]

Passing “Old Mackinac,” on the main land, which forms the southern border of the straits, we soon came out into the broad waters of Lake Michigan. Every traveller, and every reader of our history, is familiar with the incidents connected with the taking of the old fort by the Indians, in the days of Pontiac. How, by means of a game of ball, played in an apparently friendly spirit outside the walls, and of which the officers and soldiers had come forth to be spectators, the ball was dexterously tossed over the wall, and the savages rushing in, under pretext of finding it, soon got possession and massacred the garrison.

The little Indian village of L’Arbre Croche[[13]] gleamed far away south, in the light of the setting sun. With that exception, there was no sign of living habitation along that vast and wooded shore. The gigantic forest-trees, and here and there the little glades of prairie opening to the water, showed a landscape that would have gladdened the eye of the agriculturist, with its promise of fertility; but it was evidently untrodden by the foot of man, and we left it, in its solitude, as we took our course westward across the waters.

The rainy and gusty weather, so incident to the equinoctial season, overtook us again before we reached the mouth of Green Bay, and kept us company until the night of our arrival upon the flats, about three miles below the settlement. Here the little steamer grounded “fast and hard.” As almost every one preferred braving the elements to remaining cooped up in the quarters we had occupied for the past week, we decided to trust ourselves to the little boat, spite of wind, and rain, and darkness, and in due time we reached the shore.

[CHAPTER III]

GREEN BAY

Our arrival at Green Bay was at an unfortunate moment. It was the time of a treaty between the United States Government and the Menomonees and Wau-ba-na-kees. Consequently, not only the commissioners of the treaty, with their clerks and officials, but traders, claimants, travellers, and idlers innumerable were upon the ground. Most of these were congregated in the only hotel the place afforded. This was a tolerably-sized house near the river-side, and as we entered the long dining-room, cold and dripping from the open boat, we were infinitely amused at the motley assemblage it contained. Various groups were seated around. New comers, like ourselves, stood here and there, for there were not seats enough to accommodate all who sought entertainment. Judge Arndt, the landlord, sat calm and indifferent, his hands in his pockets, exhibiting all the phlegm of a Pennsylvania Dutchman.[[14]]

His fat, notable spouse was trotting round, now stopping to scold about some one who, “burn his skin!” had fallen short in his duty, now laughing good humoredly until her sides shook, at some witticism addressed to her.

She welcomed us very cordially, but to our inquiry, “Can you accommodate us?” her reply was, “Not I. I have got twice as many people now as I know what to do with. I have had to turn my own family out of their quarters, what with the commissioners and the lot of folks that has come in upon us.”

FORT HOWARD IN 1855.
From daguerreotype in possession of Wisconsin Historical Society.

"What are we to do then? It is too late and stormy to go up to Shanty-town[[15]] to seek for lodgings."

“Well, sit you down and take your supper, and we will see what we can do.”

And she actually did contrive to find a little nook, in which we were glad to take refuge from the multitudes around us.

A slight board partition separated us from the apartment occupied by General Root, of New York, one of the commissioners of the treaty. The steamer in which we came had brought the mail, at that day a rare blessing to the distant settlements. The opening and reading of all the dispatches, which the General received about bed-time, had, of course, to be gone through with, before he could retire to rest. His eyes being weak, his secretaries were employed to read the communications. He was a little deaf withal, and through the slight division between the two apartments the contents of the letters, and his comments upon them, were unpleasantly audible, as he continually admonished his secretary to raise his voice.

“What is that, Walter? Read that over again.”

In vain we coughed and hemmed, and knocked over sundry pieces of furniture. They were too deeply interested to hear aught that passed around them, and if we had been politicians we should have had all the secrets of the working-men’s party at our disposal, out of which to have made capital.

The next morning it was still rain! rain! nothing but rain! In spite of it, however, the gentlemen would take a small boat to row to the steamer, to bring up the luggage, not the least important part of that which appertained to us, being sundry boxes of silver for paying the annuities to the Winnebagoes at the Portage.

I went out with some others of the company upon the piazza, to witness their departure. A gentleman pointed out to me Fort Howard, on a projecting point of the opposite shore, about three-quarters of a mile distant—the old barracks, the picketed inclosure, the walls, all looking quaint, and, considering their modern erection, really ancient and venerable.[[16]] Presently we turned our attention to the boat, which had by this time gained the middle of the river. One of the passengers was standing up in the stern, apparently giving some directions.

“That is rather a venturesome fellow,” remarked one; “if he is not careful he will lose his balance.” And at this moment we saw him actually perform a summerset backward, and disappear in the water.

“Oh!” cried I, “he will be drowned!”

The gentlemen laughed. “No, there he is; they are helping him in again.”

The course of the boat was immediately changed, and the party returned to the shore. It was not until one disembarked and came dripping and laughing towards me, that I recognized him as my own peculiar property. He was pleased to treat the matter as a joke, but I thought it rather a sad beginning of western experience.

He suffered himself to be persuaded to intrust the care of his effects to his friends, and having changed his dress, prepared to remain quietly with me, when just at this moment a vehicle drove up to the door, and we recognized the pleasant, familiar face of our old friend. Judge Doty.[[17]]

He had received the news of our arrival, and had come to take us at once to his hospitable mansion. We were only too happy to gather together our bags and travelling baskets, and accompany him without farther ceremony.

Our drive took us first along the edge of Navarino, next through Shanty-town (the latter a far more appropriate name than the former), amid mud and mire, over bad roads, and up and down hilly, break-neck places, until we reached the little brick dwelling of our friends. Mrs. Doty received us with such true sisterly kindness, and everything seemed so full of welcome, that we soon felt ourselves at home.

We found that, expecting our arrival, invitations had already been prepared to assemble the whole circle of Green Bay society to meet us at an evening party—this, in a new country, being the established mode of doing honor to guests or strangers.

We learned, upon inquiry, that Captain Harney,[[18]] who had kindly offered to come with a boat and crew of soldiers from Fort Winnebago, to convey us to that place, our destined home, had not yet arrived; we therefore felt at liberty to make arrangements for a few days of social enjoyment at “the Bay.”

It was pleasant to people, secluded in such a degree from the world at large, to hear all the news we had brought—all the particulars of life and manners—the thousand little items that the newspapers of that day did not dream of furnishing—the fashions, and that general gossip, in short, which a lady is erroneously supposed more au fait of, than a gentleman.

I well remember that, in giving and receiving information, the day passed in a pretty uninterrupted stream of communication. All the party except myself had made the journey, or rather voyage, up the Fox River and down the Wisconsin to the Mississippi.

There were plenty of anecdotes of a certain trip performed by them in company, along with a French trader and his two sisters, now making their début as western travellers. The manner in which Mademoiselle Julie would borrow, without leave, a fine damask napkin or two, to wipe out the ducks in preparation for cooking—the difficulty of persuading either of the sisters of the propriety of washing and rinsing their table apparatus nicely before packing it away in the mess-basket, the consequence of which was, that another nice napkin must be stealthily whisked out, to wipe the dishes when the hour for meals arrived—the fun of the young gentleman in hunting up his stray articles, thus misappropriated, from the nooks and corners of the boat, tying them with a cord, and hanging them over the stern, to make their way down the Wisconsin to Prairie du Chien.

Then there was a capital story of M. Rolette[[19]] himself. At one point on the route (I think in crossing Winnebago Lake), the travellers met one of the Company’s boats on its way to Green Bay for supplies. M. R. was one of the agents of the Company, and the people in the boat were his employés. Of course, after an absence of some weeks from home, the meeting on these lonely waters and the exchanging of news was an occasion of great excitement.

The boats were stopped—earnest greetings interchanged—question followed question.

“Eh! Bien—have they finished the new house?”

“Oui, Monsieur.”

“Et la cheminée, fume-t-elle?” (Does the chimney smoke?)

“Non, Monsieur.”

“And the harvest—how is that?”

“Very fine, indeed.”

“Is the mill at work?”

“Yes, plenty of water.”

“How is Whip?” (his favorite horse).

“Oh! Whip is first-rate.”

Everything, in short, about the store, the farm, the business of various descriptions being satisfactorily gone over, there was no occasion for farther delay. It was time to proceed.

“Eh! Men—adieu! hon voyage!”

“Arrachez—mes gens!” (Go ahead, men!)

Then suddenly—“Arrétez—arrétez!” (Stop, stop!)

“Comment se portent Madame Rolette ct les enfans?”

(How are Mrs. Rolette and the children?)

This day, with its excitement, was at length over, and we retired to our rest, thankful that we had not General Root and his secretary close to our bed’s head, with their budget of political news.

My slumbers were not destined, however, to be quite undisturbed. I was awakened, at the first slight peep of dawn by a sound from an apartment beneath our own—a plaintive, monotonous chant, rising and then falling in a sort of mournful cadence. It seemed to me a wail of something unearthly—so wild—so strange—so unaccountable. In terror I awoke my husband, who reassured me by telling me it was the morning salutation of the Indians to the opening day.

Some Menomonees had been kindly given shelter for the night in the kitchen below, and having fulfilled their unvarying custom of chanting their morning hymn, they now ceased, and again composed themselves to sleep. But not so their auditor. There was to me something inexpressibly beautiful in this morning song of praise from the untaught sons of the forest. What a lesson did it preach to the civilized, Christianized world, too many of whom lie down and rise up without an aspiration of thanksgiving to their Almighty Preserver—without even a remembrance of His care, who gives His angels charge concerning them! Never has the impression of that simple act of worship faded from my mind. I have loved to think that, with some, these strains might be the outpouring of a devotion as pure as that of the Christian when he utters the inspiring words of the sainted Ken—

“Awake, my soul! and with the sun,” etc.

Among the visitors who called to offer me a welcome to the West, were Mr. and Miss Cadle,[[20]] who were earnestly engaged in the first steps of their afterwards flourishing enterprise for the education of Indian and half-breed children. The school-houses and chapel were not yet erected, but we visited their proposed site, and listened with great interest to bright anticipations of the future good that was to be accomplished—the success that was to crown their efforts for taming the heathen, and teaching them the knowledge of their Saviour, and the blessings of civilized life. The sequel has shown how little the zeal of the few can accomplish, when opposed to the cupidity of the many.

Our evening party went off as parties do elsewhere. The most interesting feature to me, because the most novel, was the conversation of some young ladies to whom I was introduced, natives of Green Bay, or its vicinity. Their mother was a Me-no-mo-nee, but their father was a Frenchman, a descendant of a settler some generations back, and who, there is reason to believe, was a branch of the same family of Grignon to which the daughter of Madame de Sevigné belonged. At least, it is said there are in the possession of the family many old papers and records which would give that impression, although the orthography of the name has become slightly changed. Be that as it may, the Miss Grignons were strikingly dignified, well-bred young ladies, and there was a charm about their soft voices, and original, unsophisticated remarks, very attractive to a stranger.

They opened to me, however, a new field of apprehension; for, on my expressing my great impatience to see my new home, they exclaimed, with a look of wonder:

“Vous n’avez done pas peur des serpens?”

“Snakes! Was it possible there were snakes at Fort Winnebago?”

“At the Portage! oh! yes—one can never walk out for them—rattle-snakes—copper-heads—all sorts!”

I am not naturally timid, but I must confess that the idea of the serpens sonnettes and the siffleurs was not quite a subject of indifference.

There was one among these young ladies whose tall, graceful figure, rich, blooming complexion, and dark, glancing eye, would have distinguished her in any drawing-room—and another, whose gentle sweetness and cultivated taste made it a matter of universal regret that she was afterwards led to adopt the seclusion of a convent.[[21]]

Captain Harney and his boat arrived in due time, and active preparations for the comfort of our journey commenced under the kind supervision of Mrs. Doty. The mess-basket was stowed with good things of every description—ham and tongue—biscuit and plum-cake—not to mention the substantial of crackers, bread, and boiled pork, the latter of which, however, a lady was supposed to be too fastidious to think of touching, even if starving in the woods.

We had engaged three Canadian voyageurs to take charge of our tent, mess-basket, and matters and things in general. Their business it was to be to cut the wood for our fires, prepare our meals, and give a helping hand to whatever was going forward. A messenger had also been sent to the Kakalin, or rapids, twenty-one miles above, to notify Wish-tay-yun (the blacksmith), the most accomplished guide through the difficult passes of the river, to be in readiness for our service on a specified day.

In the meantime, we had leisure for one more party, and it was to be a “real western hop.” Everybody will remember that dance at Mrs. Baird’s.[[22]] All the people, young and old, that would be gathered throughout, or, as it was the fashion to express it, on Green Bay, were assembled. The young officers were up from Fort Howard, looking so smart in their uniforms. Treasures of finery, long uncalled forth, were now brought to light. Everybody was bound to do honor to the strangers by appearing in their very best. It was to be an entertainment unequalled by any given before. All the house was put in requisition for the occasion. Desks and seats were unceremoniously dismissed from Mr. B.'s office, which formed one wing, to afford more space for the dancers. Not only the front portion of the dwelling, but even the kitchen was made fit for the reception of company, in case any primitive visitor, as was sometimes the case, should prefer sitting down quietly there and smoking his cigar. I do not know that this was actually done, but it was an emergency that, in those days, had always to be provided for.

Nothing could exceed the mirth and hilarity of the company. No restraint, but of good manners—no excess of conventionalities—genuine, hearty good-humor and enjoyment, such as pleasant, hospitable people, with just enough of the French element to add zest to anything like amusement, could furnish, to make the entertainment agreeable. In a country so new, and where, in a social gathering the number of the company was, in a slight degree more important than the quality, the circle was not always, strictly speaking, select. For instance, the connexions of each family must be invited, even if there was something “a little peculiar” in their appearance, manners, or perhaps vocation, which might make their presence not quite desirable.

I was aware of this, and was therefore more amused than surprised when a clumsy little man, with a broad, red, laughing face, waddled across the room to where I had taken my seat after a dance, and thus addressed me:

“Miss K ——, nobody hain’t never introduced you to me, but I’ve seen you a good many times, and I know your husband very well, so I thought I might just as well come and speak to you—my name is A—dt.”

“Ah! Mr. A——, good evening. I hope you are enjoying yourself. How is your sister?”

“Oh! she is a great deal worse—her cold has got into her eye, and it is all shot up.”

Then turning full upon a lady[D] who sat near, radiant with youth and beauty, sparkling with wit and genuine humor:

[D] A niece of James Fenimore Cooper.

“Oh! Mrs. Beall,”[[23]] he began, “what a beautiful gown you have got on, and how handsome you do look! I declare you’re the prettiest woman in the room, and dance the handsomest.”

“Indeed, Mr. A——,” replied she, suppressing her love of fun and assuming a demure look, “I am afraid you flatter me.”

“No, I don’t—I’m in earnest. I’ve just come to ask you to dance.”

Such was the penalty of being too charming. Poor A——, in a cotillion, was not the least enlivening part of this evening’s entertainment.

[CHAPTER IV]

VOYAGE UP FOX RIVER

It had been arranged that Judge Doty should accompany us in our boat as far as the Butte des Morts, at which place his attendant would be waiting with horses to convey him to Mineral Point, where he was to hold court.

It was a bright and beautiful morning when we left his pleasant home, to commence our journey up the Fox River. Capt. Harney was proposing to remain a few days longer at “the Bay,” but he called to escort us to the boat, and install us in all its comforts.

As he helped me along over the ploughed ground and other inequalities in our way to the river-bank, where the boat lay, he told me how impatiently Mrs. Twiggs,[[24]] the wife of the commanding officer, who, since the past spring had been the only white lady at Fort Winnebago, was now expecting a companion and friend. We had met in New York shortly after her marriage, and were, therefore, not quite unacquainted. I, for my part, felt sure that when there were two of us—when my piano was safely there—when the Post Library which we had purchased should be unpacked—when all should be fairly arranged and settled, we should be, although far away in the wilderness, the happiest little circle imaginable. All my anticipations were of the most sanguine and cheerful character.

It was a moderate-sized Mackinac boat, with a crew of soldiers, and our own three voyageurs in addition, that lay waiting for us—a dark-looking structure of some thirty feet in length. Placed in the center was a framework of slight posts, supporting a roof of canvas, with curtains of the same, which might be let down at the sides and ends, after the manner of a country stage-coach, or rolled up to admit the light and air.

In the midst of this little cabin or saloon was placed the box containing my piano, and on it a mattress, which was to furnish us a divan through the day and a place of repose at night, should the weather at any time prove too wet or unpleasant for encamping. The boxes of silver were stowed next. Our mess-basket was in a convenient vicinity, and we had purchased a couple of large square covered baskets of the Waubanakees, or New York Indians, to hold our various necessary articles of outward apparel and bedding, and at the same time to answer as very convenient little work or dinner tables.

As a true daughter of New England, it is to be taken for granted I had not forgotten to supply myself with knitting-work and embroidery. Books and pencils were a matter of course.

The greater part of our furniture, together with the various articles for housekeeping with which we had supplied ourselves in New York and Detroit, were to follow in another boat, under the charge of people whose business it professed to be to take cargoes safely up the rapids, and on to Fort Winnebago. This was an enterprise requiring some three weeks of time and a great amount of labor, so that the owners of the goods transported might think themselves happy to receive them at last, in a wet, broken, and dilapidated condition. It was for this reason that we took our choicest possessions with us, even at the risk of being a little crowded.

Until now I had never seen a gentleman attired in a colored shirt, a spotless white collar and bosom being one of those “notions” that “Boston,” and consequently New England “folks,” entertained of the becoming in a gentleman’s toilette. Mrs. Cass[[25]] had laughingly forewarned me, that not only calico shirts, but patch-work pillow-cases were an indispensable part of a travelling equipment; and, thanks to the taste and skill of some tidy little Frenchwoman, I found our divan pillows all accommodated in the brightest and most variegated garb.

The Judge and my husband were gay with the deepest of blue and pink. Each was prepared, besides, with a bright red cap (a bonnet rouge, or tuque, as the voyageurs call it), which, out of respect for the lady, was to be donned only when a hearty dinner, a dull book, or the want of exercise made an afternoon nap indispensable.

The Judge was an admirable travelling companion. He had lived many years in the country, had been with General Cass on his expedition to the head waters of the Mississippi, and had a vast fund of anecdote regarding early times, customs, and inhabitants.

Some instances of the mode of administering justice in those days, I happen to recall.

There was an old Frenchman at “the Bay,” named Réaume,[[26]] excessively ignorant and grasping, although otherwise tolerably good-natured. This man was appointed justice of the peace. Two men once appeared before him, the one as plaintiff, the other as defendant. The justice listened patiently to the complaint of the one, and the defence of the other; then rising, with dignity, he pronounced his decision:

“You are both wrong. You, Bois-vert,” to the plaintiff, “you bring me one load of hay; and you, Crély,” to the defendant, “you bring me one load of wood; and now the matter is settled.” It does not appear that any exceptions were taken to this verdict.

This anecdote led to another, the scene of which was Prairie du Chien, on the Mississippi.

There was a Frenchman, a justice of the peace, who was universally known by the name of "Col. Boilvin."[[27]] His office was just without the walls of the fort, and it was much the fashion among the officers to lounge in there of a morning, to find sport for an idle hour, and to take a glass of brandy-and-water with the old gentleman, which he called “taking a little quelque-chose.”

A soldier, named Fry, had been accused of stealing and killing a calf belonging to M. Rolette, and the constable, a bricklayer of the name of Bell, had been dispatched to arrest the culprit and bring him to trial.

While the gentlemen were making their customary morning visit to the justice, a noise was heard in the entry, and a knock at the door.

“Come in,” cried the old gentleman, rising and walking toward the door.

Bell. Here sir, I have brought Fry to you, as you ordered.

Justice. Fry, you great rascal! What for you kill M. Rolette’s calf?

Fry. I did not kill M. Rolette’s calf.

Justice (shaking his fist). You lie, you great rascal! Bell, take him to jail. Come gentlemen, come, let us take a leetle quelque-chose.

The Canadian boatmen always sing while rowing, or paddling, and nothing encourages them so much as to hear the “bourgeois”[E] take the lead in the music. If the passengers, more especially those of the fair sex, join in the refrain, the compliment is all the greater.

[E] Master—or to use the emphatic Yankee term—boss.

Their songs are of a light cheerful character, generally embodying some little satire or witticism, calculated to produce a spirited, sometimes an uproarious chorus.[[28]]

The song and refrain are carried on somewhat in the following style:

And by the time all the different qualifications are rehearsed and objected to, lengthened out by the interminable repetition of the chorus, the shout of the bourgeois is heard—

“Whoop la! à terre, à terre—pour la pipe!”

It is an invariable custom for the voyageurs to stop every five or six miles to rest and smoke, so that it was formerly the way of measuring distances—“so many pipes,” instead of “so many miles.”

The Canadian melodies are sometimes very beautiful, and a more exhilarating mode of travel can hardly be imagined than a voyage over these waters, amid all the wild magnificence of nature, with the measured strokes of the oar keeping time to the strains of “Le Rosier Blanc,” “En roulant ma Boule,” or “Leve ton pied, ma jolie Bergere.”

The climax of fun seemed to be in a comic piece, which, however oft-repeated, appeared never to grow stale. It was somewhat after this fashion:

[F] Michaud climbed into a plum-tree, to gather plums. The branch broke. Michaud fell! Where is he? He is down on the ground. No, he is up in the tree.

It was always a point of etiquette to look astonished at the luck of Michaud in remaining in the tree, spite of the breaking of the branch, and the joke had to be repeated through all the varieties of fruit-trees that Michaud might be supposed able to climb.

By evening of the first day we arrived at the Kakalin, where another branch of the Grignon family resided.[[29]] We were very pleasantly entertained, although in my anxiety to begin my forest life, I would fain have had the tent pitched on the bank of the river, and have laid aside, at once, the indulgences of civilization. This, however, would have been a slight, perhaps an affront, so Ave did much better, and partook of the good cheer that was offered us in the shape of hot venison steaks and crepes, and that excellent cup of coffee which none can prepare like a Frenchwoman, and which is so refreshing after a day in the open air.

The Kakalin is a rapid of the Fox River, sufficiently important to make the portage of the heavy lading of a boat necessary; the boat itself being poled or dragged up with cords against the current. It is one of a series of rapids and chûtes, or falls, which occur between this point and Lake Winnebago, twenty miles above.[[30]]

The next morning, after breakfast, we took leave of our hosts, and prepared to pursue our journey. The bourgeois, from an early hour, had been occupied in superintending his men in getting the boat and its loading over the Kakalin. As the late rains had made the paths through the woods and along the banks of the river somewhat muddy and uncomfortable for walking, I was put into an ox-cart, to be jolted over the unequal road; saluting, impartially, all the stumps and stones that lay in our way, the only means of avoiding which seemed to be, when the little, thick-headed Frenchman, our conductor, bethought him of suddenly guiding his cattle into a projecting tree or thorn-bush, to the great detriment, not only of my straw-bonnet, but of my very eyes.

But we got through at last, and arriving at the head of the rapids, I found the boat lying there, all in readiness for our re-embarking.

Our Monomonee guide, Wish-tay-yun, a fine, stalwart Indian, with an open, good-humored, one might almost say roguish countenance, came forward to be presented to me.

“Bon-jour, bon-jour, maman,” was his laughing salutation. Again I was surprised, not as before at the French, for to that I had become accustomed, but at the respectable title he was pleased to bestow upon me.

“Yes,” said my husband, “you must make up your mind to receive a very numerous and well-grown family, consisting of all the Winnebagoes, Pottowattamies, Chippewas, and Ottawas, together with such Sioux, Sacs, and Foxes, and Iowas, as have any point to gain in applying to me. By the first named tribe, in virtue of my office, and by the others as a matter of courtesy, I am always addressed as ‘father’—you, of course, will be their ‘mother.’”

Wish-tay-yun and I were soon good friends, my husband interpreting to me the Chippewa language in which he spoke. We were impatient to be off, the morning being already far advanced, and all things being in readiness, the word was given.

“Pousse au large, mes gens!” (Push out, my men).

At this moment a boat was seen leaving the opposite bank of the river and making towards us. It contained white men, and they showed by signs that they wished to detain us until they came up. They drew near, and we found them to be Mr. Marsh,[[31]] a missionary among the Wau-ba-na-kees, or the New York Indians, lately brought into this country, and the Rev. Eleazar Williams,[G] who was at that time living among his red brethren on the left bank of the Fox River.[[32]]

[G] The supposed Dauphin of France.

To persons so situated, even more emphatically than to those of “the settlements,” the arrival of visitors from the “east countrie” was a godsend indeed. We had to give all the news of various kinds that we had brought—political, ecclesiastical, and social—as well as a tolerably detailed account of what we proposed to do, or rather what we hoped to be able to do, among our native children at “the Portage.”

I was obliged, for my part, to confess that, being almost entirely a stranger to the Indian character and habits, I was going among them with no settled plans of any kind—general good-will, and a hope of making them my friends, being the only principles I could lay claim to at present. I must leave it for time and a better acquaintance to show me in what way the principle could be carried out for their greatest good.

Mr. Williams was a dark-complexioned, good-looking man. Having always heard him spoken of, by his relations in Connecticut, as “our Indian cousin,” it never occurred to me to doubt his belonging to that race, although I now think that if I had met him elsewhere, I should have taken him for a Spaniard or a Mexican. His complexion had decidedly more of the olive than the copper hue, and his countenance was grave, almost melancholy. He was very silent during this interview, asking few questions, and offering no observations except in reply to some question addressed to him.

It was a hard pull for the men up the rapids. Wish-tay-yun, whose clear, sonorous voice was the bugle of the party, shouted and whooped—each one answered with a chorus, and a still more vigorous effort. By-and-by the boat would become firmly set between two huge stones—

“Whoop la! whoop! whoop!”

Another pull, and another, straining every nerve—in vain.

“She will not budge!”

“Men, overboard!” and instantly every rower is over the side and into the water.

By pulling, pushing, and tugging, the boat is at length released from her position, and the men walk along beside her, helping and guiding her, until they reach a space of comparatively smooth water, when they again take their seats and their oars.

It will be readily imagined that there were few songs this day, but very frequent pipes, to refresh the poor fellows after such an arduous service.

It was altogether a new spectacle to me. In fact, I had hardly ever before been called upon to witness severe bodily exertion, and my sympathies and sensibilities were, for this reason, the more enlisted on the occasion. It seemed a sufficient hardship to have to labor in this violent manner; but to walk in cold water up to their waists, and then to sit down in their soaking garments without going near a fire! Poor men! this was too much to be borne! What then was my consternation to see my husband, who, shortly after our noon-tide meal, had surprised me by making his appearance in a pair of duck trowsers and light jacket, at the first cry of “fast, again!” spring over into the water with the men, and “bear a hand” throughout the remainder of the day.

When he returned on board, it was to take the oar of a poor, delicate-looking boy, one of the company of soldiers, who from the first had suffered with bleeding at the nose on every unusual exertion. I was not surprised, on inquiring, to find that this lad was a recruit just entered the service. He passed by the name of Gridley, but that was undoubtedly an assumed name. He had the appearance of having been delicately nurtured, and had probably enlisted without at all appreciating the hardships and discomforts of a soldier’s life. This is evident from the dissatisfaction he always continued to feel, until at length he deserted from his post. This was some months subsequent to the time of which I am writing. He was once retaken, and kept for a time in confinement, but immediately on his release deserted again, and his remains were found the following spring, not many miles from the fort. He had died either of cold or starvation. This is a sad interlude—we will return to our boating.

With all our tugging and toiling we had accomplished but thirteen miles since leaving the Kakalin, and it was already late when we arrived in view of the “Grande Chûte,” near which we were to encamp.

We had passed the “Little Chûte” (the post where the town of Appleton now stands) without any farther observation than that it required a vast deal of extra exertion to buffet with the rushing stream, and come off, as we did, victorious.

The brilliant light of the setting sun was resting on the high wooded banks through which broke the beautiful, foaming, dashing waters of the Chûte. The boat was speedily turned toward a little headland projecting from the right bank, which had the advantage of a long strip of level ground, sufficiently spacious to afford a good encamping ground. I jumped ashore before the boat was fairly pulled up by the men, and with the Judge’s help made my way as rapidly as possibly to a point lower down the river, from which, he said, the best view of the Chûte could be obtained. I was anxious to make a sketch before the daylight quite faded away.

The left bank of the river was to the west, and over a portion less elevated than the rest the sun’s parting rays fell upon the boat, the men with their red caps and belts, and the two tents already pitched. The smoke now beginning to ascend from the evening fires, the high wooded bank beyond, up which the steep portage path could just be discerned, and more remote still, the long stretch of waterfall now darkening in the shadow of the overhanging forests, formed a lovely landscape, to which the pencil of an artist could alone do justice.

This was my first encampment, and I was quite enchanted with the novelty of everything about me.

The fires had been made of small saplings and underbrush, hastily collected, the mildness of the weather rendering anything beyond what sufficed for the purposes of cooking and drying the men’s clothes, superfluous. The soldiers' tent was pitched at some distance from our own, but not too far for us to hear distinctly their laughter and apparent enjoyment, after the fatigues of the day.

Under the careful superintendence of Corporal Kilgour, however, their hilarity never passed the bounds of respectful propriety, and, by the time we had eaten our suppers, cooked in the open air with the simple apparatus of a teakettle and frying-pan, we were, one and all, ready to retire to our rest.

The first sound that saluted our ears in the early dawn of the following morning, was the far-reaching call of the bourgeois:

“How! how! how!” uttered at the very top of his voice.

All start at that summons, and the men are soon turning out of their tents, or rousing from their slumbers beside the fire, and preparing for the duties of the day.

The fire is replenished, the kettles set on to boil, the mess-baskets opened, and a portion of their contents brought forth to be made ready for breakfast. One Frenchman spreads our mat within the tent, whence the bedding has all been carefully removed and packed up for stowing in the boat. The tin cups and plates are placed around on the new-fashioned table-cloth. The heavy dews make it a little too damp for us to breakfast in the open air, otherwise our preparations would be made outside, upon the green grass. In an incredibly short time our smoking coffee and broiled ham are placed before us, to which are added, from time to time, slices of toast brought hot and fresh from the glowing coals.

There is, after all, no breakfast like a breakfast in the woods, with a well-trained Frenchman for master of ceremonies.

It was a hard day’s work to which the men now applied themselves, that of dragging the heavy boat up the Chûte. It had been thought safest to leave the piano in its place on board, but the rest of the lading had to be carried up the steep bank, and along its summit, a distance of some hundreds of rods, to the smooth water beyond, where all the difficulties of our navigation terminated.

The Judge kindly took charge of me, while “the bourgeois” superintended this important business, and with reading, sketching, and strolling about, the morning glided away. Twelve o’clock came, and still the preparations for starting were not yet completed.

In my rambles about to seek out some of the finest of the wild flowers for a bouquet, before my husband’s return, I came upon the camp fire of the soldiers. A tall, red-faced, light-haired young man in fatigue dress was attending a kettle of soup, the savoury steams of which were very attractive.