1855 Yom Kippur at La Pointe
December 18, 2016
By Amorin Mello
Photograph of Julius Austrian from the Madeline Island Museum
One of the more colorful figures from primary sources of Chequamegon History is Julius Austrian at La Pointe. Austrian is also one of the more elusive, as he is often overlooked and omitted from secondary sources.
My research of Austrian is what originally inspired me to begin contributing to Chequamegon History. I have been working behind the scenes on a series of stories about Austrian featuring extensive collections of primary documents to shed more light on his life at La Pointe during the 1850’s, and look forward to publishing them at a later date.
One story in particular is about Austrian’s, and his family’s, involvement with the 1855 La Pointe annuity payment, one of the most colorful events in Chequamegon History. A brief introduction to the 1855 La Pointe annuity payment is needed for context, so I refer to a quote from Leo in an earlier post of his: A real bona fide, unmitigated Irishman:
“Regular readers will know that the 1855 La Pointe annuity payment to the Lake Superior Chippewa bands is a frequent subject on Chequamegon History. […] The 1855 payment produced dozens of interesting stories and anecdotes: some funny, some tragic, some heroic, some bizarre, and many complicated. We’ve covered everything from Chief Buffalo’s death, to Hanging Cloud the female warrior, to Chief Blackbird’s great speech, to the random arrival of several politicians, celebrities, and dignitaries on Madeline Island.”
At this moment in Chequamegon History, Austrian was a powerful resident at La Pointe in terms of private land ownership and political savvy. Austrian was a signatory of the 1847 Treaty at Fond du Lac, but not a signatory of the 1854 Treaty at La Pointe. However, primary sources reveal that Austrian was the owner of La Pointe during the 1854 Treaty, and received financial reimbursement from the Department of Interior for services related it. A letter from Reverend Leonard Wheeler at Odanah dated January 18, 1856, asserts that the 1855 annuity payment at La Pointe was hosted by Austrian:
“The following is the substance of my notes taken at the Indian council at La Pointe a copy of which you requested. Council held in front of Mr. Austrian’s store house Aug 30. 1855.”
I have come across secondary sources that allude to Austrian’s role as the host of the 1855 Yom Kippur at La Pointe immediately after the annuity payments, but have not yet been able to locate any primary sources. This post cites secondary sources in hopes that another researcher may review them and help me find primary sources. Having a background in Jewish studies would be helpful, as it is possible primary sources about the 1855 Yom Kippur at La Pointe were written in the Hebrew language rather than in English. Please contact Chequamegon History if you can help find and translate primary sources.
Without further ado, here are secondary sources about the 1855 Yom Kippur at La Pointe listed chronologically by their publication dates.
The Beth El Story: With a History of the Jews in Michigan before 1850
by Irving I. Katz
Wayne University Press (1955)
ISBN-10: 0-7837-3584-7
ISBN-13: 978-0-7837-3584-9
Pages 53-54:
“Lewis F. Leopold, whose name was Freudenthaler in his native Baden, Germany, his wife, Babette, who was a member of the Oesterreicher (Austrian) family, their infant son, Lewis’ sister, Hannah, and Lewis’ brother, Samuel, were located on the Island of Mackinac in 1845. The brothers became the first pioneers in this locality in the fishery business and were soon shipping a thousand barrels of salted fish to Cleveland each season. This business, together with the sale of supplies to fishermen, Indian trading and the purchase of furs, laid the foundation for an extensive business and they became prominent as owners of Lake Michigan vessels and merchants in the ports of the Great Lakes.
“Samuel Leopold left Mackinac in 1853 to join his two other brothers and Julius Austrian, who had married Hannah Leopold in 1849, in their recently undertaken business enterprises at La Pointe and Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, where they were among the first white settlers. Lewis Leopold officiated as cantor at the first High Holy Day services held at La Pointe in the fall of 1855. Within a few years after 1850, the Leopolds and Austrians established leading stores in Michigan, at Eagle River, Eagle Harbor, the Cliff Mine, Calumet, and at Hancock, Joseph Austrian having selected the latter place as the site for his first store and warehouse.”
Mount Zion, 1856-1956: The First Hundred Years
by W. Gunther Plaut
North Central Publishing Company (1956)
ASIN: B0007DEZ4W
Page 24:
Minnesota Pioneer article about Julius Austrian and his Chippewa mixed-blood employee Vincent Roy, Jr. in Saint Paul as republished in The Daily Crescent (New Orleans, LA), February 24th, 1851. Roy also worked for Austrian and Leopold at La Pointe, Fond du Lac, and Vermillion Lake.
“Julius Austrian was perhaps one of the most colorful figures not merely in the history of the Congregation but in the larger Minnesota community as well. His wife, the former Hannah Leopold (in Germany, the name had been Freudenthaler), at once became an undisputed leader among the Jewish women. The couple had married in 1849 and were among the first white settlers at La Pointe and at Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Others of the family joined them later. High Holy day services are recorded at Fond du Lac as early as 1855. Austrian laid claim to mineral rights and lands in what later became part of Duluth. 1851 he once made the trek south to St. Paul in the dead of the winter – and arrived in St. Paul with two dog trains and several hundred pounds of freight. The Minnesota Pioneer duly reported that this ‘excited much curiosity in our town.’ The Austrians and Leopolds, who may be reckoned as among the earliest pioneers of the region, later had stores in a number of Michigan towns; and when Julius and Hannah moved to St. Paul, their reputation had preceded them. But unlike his wife, Julius Austrian preferred the quiet, behind-the-scenes type of leadership. When funds were low, he would make up the deficit; and at least on one occasion, so the minute book records, he guaranteed the Rabbi’s salary. He wrote a fine hand, both in English and in Hebrew, as is attested by the cemetery records which he kept for many years.”
The Jews in Minnesota: The First Seventy-Five Years
by W. Gunther Plaut
American Jewish Historical Society (1959)
ISBN:
Pages 12-14:
“When Abram Elfelt became Vice-President of the new Minnesota Lodge No. 157, B’nai B’rith, his fellow officer and treasurer was a man by the name of Julius Austrian. The two had known each other for many years, for while Austrian did not come to St. Paul until after the Civil War he, too, had been in the Territory when it was still part of Wisconsin.
Julius Austrian (Oestreicher) immigrated with his sister Babette Austrian (Babet Oestreicher) (wife of Louis F. Leopold) and their brother-in-law Henry F. Leopold (Heinr Freudenthal).
~ “New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1891,” image 19 of 895; NARA microfilm publication M237 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).
“Austrian was one of five brothers. In the old country, their name had been Oesterreicher or Oestreicher. Julius must have had an adequate Jewish education, for he could write Hebrew with a sure hand and had deep and definite religious convictions. In the late forties he, his brother Marx, and Lewis Leopold had gone up to LaPointe, Wisconsin, on Lake Superior, where they were among the first white settlers. As early as 1855, they held Holy Day services in this outpost of civilization.
“In 1849, Julius had married his partner’s sister, Hannah Leopold, a girl who was then not quite nineteen years old. Their business prospered; stores were established on the northernmost part of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula: in Eagle River, Eagle harbor, Cliff Mine, Calumet and Hancock, where their store and warehouse were located.
Marriage license application for Julius Austrian and Hannah Leopold.
~ “Ohio, County Marriages, 1789-2013,” image 47 of 229.
“The Austrians and Leopolds traded throughout the area and soon extended their contacts into Minnesota. Even during the summer, it was quite a journey to St. Paul, but only the hardiest person would gather enough courage to make it during the winter. No wonder, therefore, when Julius Austrian dared it in January, 1851, the press recorded that his arrival ‘excited much curiosity in our town.’ He came with another person from Lake Superior via the Falls of St. Croix. Their mode of transportation was the northern dog-train. In their two sleds they brought several hundred pounds of freight for trading.
“Austrian soon became a land owner in Minnesota. He acquired mineral rights at Lake Superior on a site where later the city of Duluth was built. In the late sixties, he and his brother Marx moved to St. Paul where Julius and Hannah at once became two of the leading Jewish citizens. For they soon proved their strong Jewish loyalties and unusual leadership qualities.
Photograph of Hannah Leopold Austrian from the Madeline Island Museum.
“When they came to St. Paul, the Civil War was over, and whatever little Jewish institutional life there had been in Minnesota was left in very poor circumstances. The two Austrians were soon engaged in building up the congregation. They helped to find the means for erecting the young state’s first synagogue. Hannah founded its first women’s group and headed it in its work for the Temple and in its increasingly ambitious welfare and social enterprises until after the turn of the century. Under her presidency Mount Zion’s women founded the St. Paul Neighborhood House. In 1897, she was feted lavishly on her twenty-fifth anniversary as president of the Temple auxiliary. She was a stocky woman, coupled with a wonderful sense of humor. She died in ripe old age in Chicago, where she had gone to live with her daughter, who had married Amiel Hart. Hannah’s passing was noted with great sorrow in her old community to which she had given so much.
“The Austrians were moderate in their outlook; they were Reformers, but of the evolutionary kind. Julius was, until his death in 1891, a mainstay of Mount Zion Hebrew Congregation. More retiring than his wife, he preferred a trusteeship or vice-presidency to the chair itself. He was responsible for bringing Leopold Wintner was the first ordained Rabbi to Minnesota; for when his fellow members were fearful of committing themselves to a contract he personally agreed to underwrite it. His special concern was the cemetery of Mount Zion, the first Jewish burial ground in the state. He kept its records in English and Hebrew, and some of the social background of the earlier days can be read in his private obituary notes.
Marx Austrian immigrated to the United States during 1853 with his mother, several of his siblings, and cousin Henry Guttman (Goodman).
~ “New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1891,” image 499 of 671; NARA microfilm publication M237 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).
“His brother Marx (more often he was known as Max) was blind from early youth on. Still he pioneered with the rest of the family, and the Indians at Lake Superior loved the handicapped white man. In St. Paul, whither he removed with Julius and Hannah in 1869, he was known as a man of dignity and piety. For many years he blew the shofar at Mt. Zion’s Holy Day services. He outlived Julius by twelve years.”
United States Jewry 1776-1985.
Vol. 2: the Germanic Period, Part 1
by Jacob Rader Marcus
Wayne State University Press (1991)
ISBN-10: 0-8143-2187-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-8143-2187-4
Page 196:
“By the 1850’s America was studded with Jewish societies, one even on the High Plains. How rapid was the organizing process? In general a whole generation elapsed, possibly two, after the coming of the pioneers before the first communal society came into being. In some states, as in Florida and Connecticut, it would take decades before the Jews would established a congregation. There are some striking exceptions. In 1855 a number of Jewish Indian traders met on an island in Lake Superior in the frontier village of La Pointe, Wisconsin. The Indians were assembled there to collect their annuities and the Jews were present to dun their debtors before they dispersed. There were enough Jews for a minyan and a service was held. That was the beginning and the end of La Pointe Jewry. Another historical accident is the “instant” community. The Jews of Savannah arrived from London in 1733 already organized as a congregation; San Francisco Jewry of the Gold Rush was able to establish two religious groups without delay and Oklahoma City and Guthrie were born overnight during the 1889 ‘run.’ All this is completely atypical.”
Jewish Pioneers of Saint Paul: 1849-1874
by Gene H. Rosenblum
Arcadia Publishing (2001)
ISBN-10: 0-7385-1862-X
ISBN-13: 978-0738518626
Page 75:
“Julius Austrian was one of the more influential and colorful Jewish pioneers. In 1849, he and his wife Hannah Leopold Austrian were among the first white settlers in La Pointe and Fon Du Lac, Wisconsin, at a time when the Minnesota Territory was part of the Wisconsin Territory. In 1855, they had participated in the Jewish High Holiday services in La Pointe. He was already a successful businessman when he and his family came to St. Paul in 1869 from Wisconsin. He had a string of successful stores throughout the Upper Michigan Peninsula. He also had already acquired claims in mineral rights around Lake Superior, where the city of Duluth now stands. He was a man of great generosity, and when the fledgling Mt. Zion Synagogue was unable to hire its first rabbi, he guaranteed payment. He also was a moving force in the failed attempt to establish the Painted woods colony in North Dakota.”
Page 79:
~ Mount Zion Temple
~ Mount Zion Temple
“Two significant events took place in 1869 that had a permanent impact on the pattern of communal life within the St. Paul Jewish community. The first event involved the more orthodox of the settlers. Dissatisfied with Mt. Zion, they began to gather together for private prayers in a frame house on Payne Avenue near Seventh Street in the Dayton’s Bluff near East Side area. They were the roots for the first strictly orthodox synagogue in Minnesota and established what later became the Sons of Jacob Synagogue. At this point, Mt. Zion began its slow evolution toward Reform Judaism. The second event involved a husband and wife team who were to have far reaching influence. Julius Austrian and his wife Hannah arrived in St. Paul in 1869 when the Jewish communal institutions were in very poor circumstances.
“Julius Austrian was one of five brothers. In the old country their name was Oestrreicher. In the late 1840s, his older brothers, Marx Austrian and Lewis Leopold, had gone to La Pointe, Wisconsin, on Lake Superior, where they were among the first white settlers. As early as 1855 they held High Holy Day (Yom Kippur) services in La Pointe, Wisconsin. In 1849, Julius married Lewis Leopold’s sister Hannah, who was not quite 19. In 1851, he made a trip south to St. Paul in the dead of winter and arrived with two dog trains and several hundred pounds of freight.”
Ashland, Wisconsin: Its Early Days
November 29, 2016
By Amorin Mello
Magazine of Western History Illustrated
November 1888
as republished in
Magazine of Western History: Volume IX, No. 1, pages 12-17.
—
ASHLAND, WISCONSIN:
ITS EARLY AND PRESENT DAYS.
—
Detail of Lapointe du Saint Espirit and Mission du Saint Espirit from Claude Allouez Map of New France, 1669.
~ Research Laboratories of Archaeology
If the reader will look at the map of the United States, he will see on its northern boundary the largest body of fresh water in the world – Lake Superior, called by the Ojibways Kitche Gumi, “The Big Water.” It lies between 46 and 47 degrees north latitude, and stretches east and west through eight degrees of longitude. Its coast-line is nearly two thousand miles in extent, forming some of the finest natural harbors in the world. Its surface is six hundred and thirty feet above the ocean level, while its bottom in the deepest parts is four hundred feet below the level of the tide-waters. As you come from the east end of the lake, St. Mary’s river, approaching its western extremity, you will, from the deck of the steamer, notice a group of beautiful islands – the same islands which, more than two hundred years ago, met the gaze of Fathers Marquette, Allouez and Mesnard, and which, in their religious zeal, they named the “Apostles’ Islands,” thinking that in number they corresponded with the number of our Savior’s disciples. One of these they named “Madeline,” from a favorite saint of their own “Belle France,” and to commemorate one of the most noted churches of Paris.
Detail of “The 12 Apostles” from Captain Jonathan Carver’s journal of his travels with maps and drawings, 1766.
~ Boston Public Library
These islands in ancient times were doubtless a part of the main, as was also the land now lying under Ashland bay. Underlying them was sandstone, rising from twenty to one hundred feet above the water, and horizontal. The great glaciers coming from the north, and moving in a southwest direction, cut channels in the sandstone, forming these islands, and scooping out of the solid rock the large basin which, in after years, received the name of Chaquamegon bay, and which is now known as Ashland bay. This was the first prophecy of the city of Ashland. In the times, millions of years before this, the vast deposits of iron ore had been upheaved and stored along the south shore of the lake, to subserve the designs of the Mighty Builder in the development of that commerce of which we now see but the earliest down, and of whose future extent we can form but a faint comprehension. Chaquamegon, Le Anse and Marquette bays are the natural outlets on Lake Superior for the rich mineral deposits which line its southern shore.
The formation of Ashland bay was therefore not accidental, but in harmony with Eternal plans. It is protected from the storms of the lake by a long, low, sandy point, and also by the Apostles’ islands. Into it open from the lake three broad channels, with a depth of water ample for the largest vessels, called the North, Middle and South channels. Under these islands, vessels coming from the wild storms of the open lake are secure. It is the sailor’s haven of safety.
1834 Map of LaPointe by Lyman Warren for the American Fur Company.
~ Wisconsin Historical Society
The first settlement on the bay was made by the American Fur company in the early part of the present century, on the beautiful Madeline island, and named La Pointe. It continued for many years the headquarters of a flourishing fur and fishing trade. About 1830 a Protestant and, soon after, a Catholic mission were established there, and churches built by them, in which devoted missionaries labored to Christianize and civilize the Indians whose homes were here and in the surrounding country. Here toiled Rev. Sherman Hall, a missionary of the American board, and Rev. L. H. Wheeler, and also that devoted man, now known to us as Bishop Baraga. These have all passed away. La Pointe, then the most populous and active village on the lake, is now, alas, “The deserted village,” and is visited alone in veneration of its past memories.
Map inset of Chequamegon Bay with Houghton, LaPointe, Bayfield, Ashland, and Bay City.
~ Wisconsin Historical Society
On the west shore of the bay, opposite La Pointe, is the beautiful town of Bayfield, founded by Honorable Henry. M. Rice in 1856. It is the terminus of the C., St. P., M. & O. railroad and the headquarters of a flourishing fish and lumber trade, and one of the most charming summer resorts on the lake.
On the west shore of the bay is also the flourishing town of Washburn – named in honor of Wisconsin’s governor, Cadwallader C. Washburn. It is the favorite town of the Omaha railroad, and has several large saw-mills, and is an active and enterprising town.
Asaph Whittlesey circa 1860.
~ Wisconsin Historical Society
The first settlement on the spot where Ashland now stands was made, in 1854, by Asaph Whittlesey and George Kilborn, both natives of the Western Reserve, Ohio. The lands were not as yet surveyed, so that they could not preëmpt them, and there was as yet no Homestead law. For this reason they, with Martin Beaser, then living in Ontonagon, Michigan, laid claim, under the “Town Site” law, to about three hundred acres, embracing their log houses and small clearing. They platted this into town lots in 1855, and subsequently were allowed to enter their lands as claimed, and in due course received their title. In February, 1855, Edwin Ellis, a graduate in medicine, in the University of the City of New York, of the class of 1846, came on foot through the woods from St. Paul to the bay. He had been engaged in the practice of his profession in his native state – Maine – till 1854, when, attracted by the prospect of wider fields for enterprise in the new west, and by the advice of Judge D. A. J. Baker, his brother-in-law, then living in St. Paul, he came to Minnesota.
Edwin Ellis, M.D.
~ Commemorative Biographical Record of the Upper Lake Region by J.H. Beers & Co., 1905, pages 16-18.
The years 1853 to 1857 were years of wild speculation. The states of Wisconsin and Minnesota especially were covered with rising cities – at least on paper. Fabulous stories of rich silver, copper and iron mines on the south shore of Lake Superior attracted a multitude of active young men from the eastern states. The city of Superior had been laid out, and its lots were selling for fabulous prices. The penniless young man of to-day became the millionaire to-morrow. The consequent excitement was great, and in the event demoralizing.
The Bay of Ashland, stretching far in-land, the known vast deposits of iron near the Penokee Gap, whose natural route to market was evidently by Chaquamegon bay, indicated with moral certainty that at its head would rise a commercial mart which should command a wide extent of country. The vast forests of pine were then hardly thought of, and no efforts made to obtain them. The lands were unsurveyed, and all the “squatters” were, in the eye of the law, trespassers. Nevertheless, the new-comers ran “spotted” lines around their claims and built log-cabins to hold them, and began to clear up the land. In June, 1855, Dr. Ellis went on foot to St. Paul, and thence to Dubuque, Iowa, and secured from the surveyor-general an order to survey four townships about the bay, embracing the site of the present city of Ashland. In the meantime, many settlers had come in and preëmpted lands in the neighborhood. In the fall of 1855 many of them were enabled to prove up and get titles to their lands.
Portrait and biography of Frederick Prentice; the “first white child born in … Toledo.”
~ History of the Maumee Valley by Horace S Knapp, 1872, pages 560-562.
In the winter of 1855 Lusk, Prentice & Company, who had a trading-post within the present limits of Ellis’ division of Ashland, built a dock for the accommodation of the settlers coming to the new town. It was built of cribs, made of round logs sunk in the water about twenty feet apart. From one crib to another were stringers, made of logs, flattened on the upper surface, all covered with small logs to make a roadway. On the docks were piled several hundred cords of wood for the purpose of “holding” the dock from floating away, and to be sold in the summer to the steamboats which should come to bring supplies and begin the commerce of the town. The evening of the second day of April, 1855, saw the bay full of ice, slightly detached for a few feet from the shore, but with no sign of an immediate opening of navigation.
Portrait of Martin Beaser on page 24.
The next morning no ice was in sight, nor a vestige of the dock to be seen. Floating timber and cord-wood covered the bay. Till then the settlers had no idea the power of the floating ice moved by the tide of the bay. But they were not discouraged. The following winter two other docks were constructed – one by Martin Beaser, at the foot of what is now called “Beaser Avenue,” and the other by Edwin Ellis, near where Seyler’s foundry now stands.
These were also crib-docks, but the effort was made to anchor the cribs. There were no rocks to be had on the side of the bay where the docks were built, for which reason Mr. Beaser filled his cribs with clay, dug out of the banks. Dr. Ellis hauled stone across the bay, and filled as many of his cribs as possible, and on the top of the dock also piled several hundred cords of wood, and the settlers with anxious faces watched the departure of the ice. The shock came, and the docks afforded little resistance. The cribs filled with clay were easily carried. Those filled with stone stood better, but that part of those above water, and near the outer end, were swept away. The labors of many weary days and much money was thus swept away. There was, however, enough of the Ellis dock left to afford a landing to the few boats that came with supplies for the people.
Survey of Frederick Prentice‘s Addition of Ashland near the Gichi-wiikwedong village.
“It is in this addition, that, the Chippewa River and the St. Croix Indian trails reach the Bay, and for the purpose of accomodating the trade, already flowing in on their routes, a commodious store has just been built”
~ Wisconsin Historical Society
Translates as “Big Bay” in Ojibwemowin.
Traditional place-name for Ashland, WI.
Anglicized version of Gichi-wiikwedong.
Prentice Park and Maslowski Beach.
Area is famous for artesian wells.
“This was all Indian land then, but [Asaph] Whittlesey believed in take time for the forelock, looking he said, for a place that ‘might prove to be the most available point for a town, at or near Equadon (pronounced E Quay don, the second syllable emphasized.) The word ‘Equadon,’ is the Chippewa word meaning ‘settlement near the head of the bay.'”
~ The Ashland Daily Press, July 6, 1933, by Guy M. Burnham, reproduced on TurtleTrack.org. Read the full article for an interesting stories about how the town-site for Ashland was allegedly negotiated between Reverend Wheeler and Little Current.
During the years 1855, ’56 and ’57 many settlers had come to Ashland and built homes, and were all young men full of bright hopes for the future. In the spring of 1856 a township organization was formed, embracing more than forty townships of six miles square, and was called Bayport. The usual township officers were elected. The year 1857 opened with bright prospects. In Ashland streets were cleared and several frame houses were built. A steam saw-mill was begun and brought near completion. But in September of that year the great financial storm came, involving the whole country in ruin. The little village of Ashland was overwhelmed. The people had but little money, and in making their improvements had contracted debts which they could not at once pay. There had been so such speculation that the settlers had paid but little attention to the cultivation of the soil, depending upon supplies brought by water a thousand miles. We had no wagon roads nor railroads within three hundred miles. Winter was coming on, and many of the settlers – in truth, all who could get away – left the place. The few who remained saw hard times, whose memory is not pleasant to recall. Some of them, in making improvements, had assumed liabilities which well-nigh ruined them. If the county had then been organized for judicial purposes, so that judgements and execution could have been easily obtained, scarcely anyone would have saved a dollar from the wreck. But this fortunate circumstance gave them time, and their debts were finally paid, and they had their land left; but it then was without value in the market. Town lots in the village, which are now selling for five thousand to six thousand dollars, could then be sold for enough to buy a barrel of flour. The years following “’57” were hard years, and the settlers, one by one, moved away, so that in 1862 only two remained – Martin Beaser and Martin Roehn. In 1866 Mr. Beaser undertook to come alone from Bayfield to Ashland in an open sail-boat. It was a stormy day, and he never reached home. His boat was found soon afterwards at the head of the bay, and his body was found the following spring on the beach on the west side of the bay. Ashland was now left desolate and alone. Mr. Roehn, with a few cows, migrated backward and forward between Ashland and the Marengo river, finding hay and pasture for his cows, selling his produce and butter at Bayfield and La Pointe, and thus eked out an existence. The first railroad to reach Ashland was the Wisconsin Central, completed in 1877, connecting Ashland with Milwaukee. Work at the Ashland end was begun in 1872, and in 1873 finished to Penokee, twenty-nine miles south from Ashland. It had been built from the south to within about eighty-five miles of Ashland, and then came the panic of 1873, and all work stopped. The building in 1872 in Ashland was quite extensive, and village property sold at good prices, and everybody was hopeful. But the crisis of 1873 coming on, all enterprises at once stopped. Not till 1877 was the railroad completed. Its completion established Ashland on a substantial basis. In 1877 the Wisconsin Central company completed the Chaquamegon hotel, one of the finest in the country, which has added greatly to the attractions of Ashland.
The building of the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha road to this place, in 1883, gave a short outlet to the west and southwest, greatly benefiting the lumber trade.
The Northern Pacific, whose eastern terminus is at Ashland, soon after completed, gave it new importance as in the direct line of transcontinental commerce.
But the advent of the Milwaukee, Lake Shore & Western railroad had done more, perhaps to stimulate the growth of Ashland than any one of its great enterprises.
It runs northerly from Milwaukee to Manitowoc, where, turning in northwesterly course, it traverses vast tracts of valuable timber and farming lands, running for fifty miles along the Gogebic range – the richest iron region in the world.
This company has built two large and costly ore docks for the shipment of the vast amount of iron ore which it brings over its road.
South From Ashland
“The promoters decided to make Ashland the north end of their iron. It was a mere clearing, in the woods in 1870, formerly known as Equadon which was founded in 1854 and abandoned in 1863. The Ashland site was located on the bank of a splendid natural harbor called Cheguamegon Bay.”
…
“The clearing, grubbing and grading of the 30-mile Ashland-Penokee Gap Division had been practically complete in 1872. The iron rails were not laid into the Gap until October 1873, and there the railroad stopped for 4 long years.”
…
“Penokee Gap, 1000 feet above Lake Superior, is a break in the rough country, a regular gap where the Bad River breaks through the Iron Range Hills on its way to Lake Superior. The Gap is an historic pathway through which the copper workers from Mexico and South America came to Lake Superior centuries ago enroute to the copper deposits on Isle Royal in Lake Superior.”
~ History of the Soo Line, by James Lyden.
The Wisconsin Central Railroad company has also built a very fine ore dock, over which it ships the iron brought from the same range by its own line – the “Penokee Railroad” – built easterly along the northern base of the Gogebic range to Bessemer, in Michigan.
Notwithstanding the depression in the iron trade, more than a million tons of ore will be shipped from Ashland the present season.
Ashland has also two coal docks – one operated by the Ohio Coal company and the other by the Columbus & Hocking Valley Coal company – both of whom are doing a large business. The Lake Shore railroad and the Wisconsin Central obtain their coal for their engines, on the northern two hundred miles, by their docks at Ashland. The same rates for coal going west prevail as from Duluth and Washburn, and a large trade is springing up over the Omaha & Northern Pacific lines.
Ashland has three National and one private bank, all of which are conservative and carefully managed. It has also a street railway, two miles in length, with six fine cars and about forty horses, and is rendering very satisfactory service. We have also a “Gas and Electric Light Plant,” which affords abundant light for the streets, stores, dwellings and the ore docks. Ashland has also the Holly system of water-works, with about two miles of pipe laid, affording ample protection against fire and an abundant supply of water for domestic purposes. The pump-house has two ponderous engines, one being kept in reserve in case of accident.
As a point for the distribution of manufactured goods of all kinds, Ashland stands among the foremost. With practically the same rates as by the roads leading from Duluth west, it is prepared to compete with that lively town for part of the trade of the great northwest – now in its infancy but destined soon to attain great proportions; whose beginnings we can measure, but whose vast results we cannot now comprehend.
Portrait of Prentice’s brownstone quarries at Houghton Point.
~ Ashland Daily Press, circa 1893.
A Great Brownstone Industry Established At Houghton Point.
What Frederick Prentice Has Accomplished During The Season.“
~ Ashland Daily Press article in the Washburn Itemizer, October 18, 1888, reproduced on BattleAxCamp.tripod.com
One industry on Ashland bay is the brown stone, which exists along the water’s edge for many miles on the shore of the mainland and on the islands. It can be quarried in inexhaustible quantities within a few hundred feet of navigable waters of Lake Superior. It is of fine texture and beautiful color, and hardens by exposure. Large quantities have already been shipped and the demand is rapidly increasing. It can be shipped by rail at about four dollars per ton to Cincinnati. This stone, used for trimmings in buildings built of white brick, makes a very beautiful appearance.
The vast quantities of pine and hardwood timber in the vicinity of Ashland, and its advantages as a point of distribution for manufactured articles in wood, render it one of the best locations for manufacturing industries. For tanneries its location is unrivaled; the supply of hemlock bark is ample, while hides can be cheaply brought from Minnesota and the northwest, and the products can be shipped in all directions at low rates.
The schools of Ashland afford the best of opportunities for the education of our youth. Our school buildings are large, new and commodious, with all modern improvements. Our schools are graded and the attendance is large.
In the churches, most denominations are represented. The Catholic is the finest church edifice in the city, built of our own brown stone at a cost of over thirty thousand dollars. There are Presbyterian, Congregational, Episcopal, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran and several Scandinavian churches.
As a summer resort, Ashland and the Apostles’ islands afford unrivaled attractions. Sail-boats, tugs and steamboats make daily excursions in all directions. They busy men from Chicago, St. Louis, St. Paul, Cincinnati and other cities can, in one day, escape from the sweltering heat and sleep on the cool ore of Lake Superior, and with our lines of railroad and telegraph stretching in all directons, they can be in constant and instant communication with their counting-rooms a thousand miles away. Its advantages in this line are already drawing many persons of wealth and leisure, as well as invalids, who come here to spend the hot season and at the close of the summer return home with new health and vigor.
Portrait of Edwin Ellis, M.D. on page 20.
Ashland has just two daily and three weekly newspapers, models of enterprise and very newsy, contributing much to the prosperity of the city.
The population of Ashland is about fifteen thousand, composed principally of persons under thirty-five years of age, and full of push and activity, who have come to stay and built up fortunes.
With all these and many other advantages Ashland seems to have a bright future, and many of us think it bids fair, in the near future, to become the second city in the state of Wisconsin. And we will labor that she shall be worthy of her rank.
EDWIN ELLIS.
An Incident of Chegoimegon
November 26, 2016
By Amorin Mello
This is a reproduction of “An Incident of Chegoimegon – 1760” from Report and Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin: For the years 1877, 1878 and 1879. Volume VIII., pages 224-226.
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AN INCIDENT OF CHEGOIMEGON – 1760.*
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We have been permitted to extract the following from the journal of a gentleman who has seen a large portion of the country to the north and west of this place, and to whose industry our readers have been often indebted for information relating to the portion of country over which he has passed, and to transactions among the numerous tribes, within the limits of this territory, which tend to elucidate their characteristics, and lay open the workings of their untaught minds:
Detail of Isle de la Ronde from Carte des lacs du Canada by Jacques-Nicolas Bellin; published in Charlevoix’s Histoire et Description Générale de Nouvelle France, Paris, 1744.
Monecauning (abbreviated for “Monegoinaic-cauning,” the Woodpecker Island, in Chippewa language) – which is sometimes called Montreal Island, Cadott’s Island, or Middle Island, and is one of “the Apostles” mentioned by Charlevoix. it is situated in Lake Superior, about ninety miles from Fond du Lac, at the extremity of La Pointe, or Point Chegoimegon.
On this island the French Government had a fort, long previous to its surrender to the English, in 1763. It was garrisoned by regular soldiers, and was the most northern post at which the French king had troops stationed. It was never re-occupied by the English, who removed everything valuable to the Sault de St. Marie, and demolished the works. It is said to have been strongly fortified, and the remains of the works may yet be seen.
In the autumn of 1760, all of the traders except one, who traded from this post, left it for their wintering grounds. He who remained had with him his wife, who was a lady from Montreal, his child – a small boy, and one servant. During the winter, the servant, probably for the purpose of plunder, killed the trader and his wife; and a few days after their death, murdered the child. He continued at the fort until the spring. When the traders came, they enquired for the gentleman and his family; and were told by the servant, that in the month of March, they left him to go to their sugar camp, beyond the bay, since which time he had neither seen nor heard them. The Indians, who were somewhat implicated by this statement, were not well satisfied with it, and determined to examine into its truth. They went out and searched for the family’s tracks; but found none, and their suspicions of the murderer increased. They remained perfectly silent on the subject; and when the snow had melted away, and the frost left the ground, they took sharp stakes and examined around the fort by sticking them into the ground, until they found three soft spots a short distance from each other, and digging down they discovered the bodies.
The servant was immediately seized and sent off in an Indian canoe, for Montreal, for trial. When passing the Longue Saut, in the river St. Lawrence, the Indians who had him in charge, were told of the advances of the English upon Montreal, and that they could not in safety proceed to that place. They at once became a war party, – their prisoner was released, and he joined and fought with them. Having no success, and becoming tired of the war, they sought their own land – taking the murderer with them as one of their war party.
They had nearly reached the Saut de St. Marie, when they held a dance. During the dance, as is usual, each one “struck the post,” and told, in his manner, of his exploits. The murderer, in his turn, danced up to the post, and boasted that he had killed the trader and his family – relating all the circumstances attending the murder. The chief heard him in silence, saving the usual grunt, responsive to the speaker. The evening passed away, and nothing farther occurred.
The next day the chief called his young men aside, and said to them: “Did you not hear this man’s speech last night? He now says that he did the murder with which we charged him. He ought not to have boasted of it. We boast of having killed our enemies – never our friends. Now he is going back to the place where committed the act, and where we live – perhaps he will again murder. He is a bad man – neither we nor our friends are safe. If you are of my mind, we will strike this man on the head.” They all declared themselves of his opinion, and determined that justice should be rendered him speedily and effectually.
They continued encamped, and made a feast, to which the murderer was invited to partake. They filled his dish with an extravagant quantity, and when he commenced his meal, the chief informed him, in a few words, of the decree in council, and that as soon as he had finished his meal, either by eating the whole his dish contained, or as much as he could, the execution was to take place. The murderer, now becoming sensible of his perilous situation, from the appearance of things around him, availed himself of the terms of the sentence he had just heard pronounced, and did ample justice to the viands. He continued, much to the discomfiture of the “phiz” of justice (personified by the chief, who all the while sat smoking through his nose), eating and drinking until he had sat as long as a modern alderman at a corporation dinner. But it was of no avail – when he ceased eating he ceased breathing.
The chief cut up the body of the murderer, and boiled it for another feast – but his young men would touch none of it – they said, “he was not worthy to be eaten – he was worse than a bad dog. We will not taste him, for if we do, we shall be worse than dogs ourselves.”
Mr. Morrison, who gave me the above relation, told me he had it from a very old Indian, who was present at the death of the murderer.
* – This paper was originally published in the Detroit Gazette, Aug. 30, 1822. Hon. C. C. Throwbridge of Detroit, a resident of that place for sixty years, states that Mr. Schoolcraft, without doubt, contributed this sketch to the Gazette; that Mr. Schoolcraft, at the time of its publication, was residing at the Saut St. Marie: and Mr. Morrison, who was one of Mr. Astor’s most trusted agents at “L’Anse Qui-wy-we-nong,” came down to Mackinaw every summer, and thus gave Mr. Schoolcraft the information.
L. C. D.
Copper Creek Mining Location
November 18, 2016
By Amorin Mello
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COPPER CREEK MINING LOCATION.
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This location embraces the east half of the southeast quarter of Section 15, and the west half of the southwest quarter of Section 14, in Township 47, Range 14 west, being 160 acres in Douglas County, Wisconsin. It is about thirteen and one-half miles by the County road from the town and harbor of Superior, and at an elevation of 300 feet above the level of the lake.
The Aminecon Trap Range, in crossing it from southwest to northeast, is cut by Copper Creek, a rapid and never-failing stream, exposing at several points veins of native copper.
~ Mine Register: Successor to the Mines Handbook; Volumes 8-9, page 205.
“We all lived in the log house until December 31, 1845, when I left for Iron River [Michigan] under agreement to mine for the Boston North American Mining company, organized by the American Fur company, under the management of Messrs. Borup and Oakes.”
~ Michigan Historical Collections: Volume 2; page 688.
These surface exposures attracted, at an early day, the attention of the agents of the American Fur Company, then the only civilized occupants of that part of the country, and in the years 1846 and 1847 some attempts at mining were made under their direction. A particular description of their operations will be found in another part of this pamphlet. As they had no title to the land and were working at great expense in a region which was at that time wholly remote from civilization, it is not surprising that like many other pioneers in Lake Superior copper-mining, they abandoned their enterprise, or postponed it to a more convenient season.
Eight years afterwards, the whole southern shore of Lake Superior had ceased to be exclusively known to hunters and trappers. The land had been surveyed and brought into market, and settlement had extended to the extreme western end of the lake.
James H. C. McKinzey was issued his patent to the Copper Creek Mining Location by the Willow River Land Office on August 1st, 1854.
~ General Land Office Records
The Copper Creek location was then entered under a preëmption claim by J. H. C. McKinzey, and after a litigation at the Land Office with a rival preëmptor in the interest of members of the Fur Company (who now made a persistent effort to secure a title to the land), McKinzey’s claim was sustained, and a patent was duly issued to him. From him the title passed, with but one intervening link, to the present proprietor.
The location has been visited from time to time by explorers, practical miners, and geologists; numerous rich specimens have been taken from it, and it has long been reputed to be the most promising mining location west of Ontonagon. During the past season a regular exploration has been made upon it, with the view of ascertaining more definitely its value for mining purposes.
“This Township has a clay soil. The small streams are all muddy and go nearly dry in summer. A copper bearing trap range extends through the middle of Township. On the south side of these hills it is well timbered with valuable Pine Cedar Sugar & Black Ash. Copper has been obtained on the SE 1/2 of Section 21 & upon Sections 14 & 15. The streams [reaching?] into Black River are all very rapid.”
~ Wisconsin Public Land Survey Records
A Report of this exploration is presented herewith. Mr. George R. Stuntz, under whose superintendence it was conducted, is an explorer of great experience, with a knowledge of the geological formations characteristic of the copper-bearing districts of Lake Superior, acquired by careful study in the field. He was the original surveyor, under government contract, of the whole Wisconsin shore of the lake, and has, perhaps, a more thorough acquaintance with that region than any person could be named. His Report is a plain statement of facts, and as the undersigned was himself present and taking part in the exploration, he is able to vouch for its accuracy. In connection with the maps, and with the specimens to which it refers (which were marked and packed on the ground by the writer’s own hand), it will furnish a correct idea of the character of the location.
It will be seen that there are three well-defined veins, two of which, including the one from which the richest specimens were obtained, run with the formation. This last mentioned lode rests upon a foot-wall of the most productive veins of the Minnesota mine. Although only three veins have been actually traced, there is reason to believe that others would be discovered by a further exploration, as many points inviting examination were passed by, owing to the lateness of the season.
Detail from George Riley Stuntz’s original survey map of Township 47 North, Range 14 West: copper mines, abandoned cabins, and a tote road in what is now Pattison State Park. The northeast feature is Copper Creek and the southwest feature is Big Manitou Falls.
~ Wisconsin Public Land Survey Records
“Big Manitou Falls, the tallest waterfall in Wisconsin, in Pattison State Park just south of Superior, Wisconsin, USA.” Photograph from
Bobak Ha’Eri shared with a Creative Commons license.
The facilities furnished by Copper Creek for stamping purposes will be apparent from an inspection of the map. The town of Superior, having a good harbor, with piers and warehouses, erected by private enterprise, presents every convenience for shipping copper and obtaining supplies. Beef cattle, driven over from Minnesota, on the military road, can be purchased here much cheaper than at the Michigan mines, which are now largely supplied from this point. Pork can be advantageously procured in the same way. Another advantage is found in the price of lumber, an article for which the pineries and sawmills in this region now find a market at the lower mines. One of the finest bodies of pine in the north-west is found on the Brulé and Iron Rivers, about twenty-four miles east of this point.
With reference to the transportation between Superior and Copper Creek, it may be mentioned that, besides the wagon road (which is now available during the winter, and at no great expense can be made so at all times), the Nemadji River which, at ordinary stages of water is navigable for small boats to a point within four miles of the location, affords an additional route.
There is reason to believe that the whole country at the westerly end of Lake Superior will receive a new stimulus to its development before many years, by the opening of railroad communication with the Mississippi River, an enterprise which is becoming the absolute necessity to the interests of Minnesota. Meanwhile communication is kept open by means of the Point Douglas military road and a regular line of stages between St. Paul and Superior, which place is thus rendered accessible at all seasons.
JAMES O. SARGENT.
Boston, Dec. 8th, 1863.
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REPORT OF EXPLORATION.
(ACCOMPANYING SPECIMENS.)
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Superior, Oct. 17, 1863.
JAMES O. SARGENT, ESQ.
SIR : Under instructions from you, I have made a survey of the east half of the southeast quarter of Section 15, and the west half of the southwest quarter of Section 14, Township 47 north, Range 14 west, in Douglas county, Wisconsin, and have explored the same as thoroughly as the limited time and the small force under my direction would permit.
I herewithin submit a copy of the field-notes of the survey, and a map of the location.
In making the exploration I had the services of Mr. George Walker, an English miner, who has had several years’ experience in the various copper mines on this lake.
The tract is thickly timbered with spruce, fir, aspen, sugar, oak, white pine, and birch. This timber is small in size.
The Aminecon Trap Range crosses the location. This Range makes its appearance above the sandstone on the east side of Township 48 north, Range 12 west, about the middle of the township, runs in a southeasterly course across the township, and across Township 47, Range 13, Township 47, Range 14, Township 46, Range 15, and leaves Wisconsin. It is cut by the Aminecon River, Copper Creek, and Black River, and numerous small streams. Throughout the extent described it gives promise of being a productive mining district.
Two small streams unite near the centre of the location, forming Copper Creek, which runs in a northwest direction, and leaves the tract about twenty rods south of the northwest corner. Owing to the extremely dry season, this stream was lower at the time of my examination than it has been known to be in ten years; but it affords at all times abundance of water for the purposes of a mine employing steam power.
By a measurement, taken October 1st, I found the amount of water passing through it to be 58 5/10 cubic feet per minute, and this is very much below the average. In ordinary seasons the amount of fall in the stream (which is from fifty to a hundred feet within the location) would give a water power sufficient for all the purposes of a mine.
From my examination I believe that there are three veins, as represented in the map, in all of which we obtained native copper.
Vein No. 1 shows a breast in the east bank of the west branch of the stream, of nearly twenty feet wide, and bears south twenty-four degrees west. The specimens taken from this locality are numbered, and, as you will perceive, exhibit a quality of vein-stone which gives promise of productiveness. This vein has been traced to the southwest and adjoining location. It dips to the southeast at an angle of thirty-three degrees. The productive part of the lode lies upon the foot-wall, specimens of which I furnish with this Report, as also of the hanging wall.
Vein No. 2 shows a breast of over thirty feet in the bluff east of the stream, and appears to run in a northeast course. My explorations were not carried far enough to fully define its course in that direction. Surface specimens of the vein and of the adjacent trap are furnished herewith.
Vein No. 3 cuts the east branch of the creek, and bears north eighty-two degrees east. We opened this vein in four places at the creek, within two hundred feet. It has the appearance of being very much disturbed. On the west side of the stream, it is very compact and filled with quartz-lined cavities interspersed with crystals supposed to be malachite. It dips to the northwest. Specimens from this locality, a full collection of which is furnished, warrant a more thorough examination.
Vein No. 2, before referred to, as showing a breast of thirty feet in the east bluff, appears to branch or to be thrown out about eighty feet in crossing the creek bottom; my limited time and means did not permit me to determine which.
About two hundred feet below the junction of the two branches of the creek it shows at the foot-wall in the bed of the stream. A few feet west of this, the lode rises in the bluff on the west side of the stream. Course of stream at this point north twenty-eight degrees east. Course of vein north forty-two and one-half degrees east. At this junction of the streams, the lode, stripped of its hanging-wall, rises to the top of the cliff, a height of forty or fifty feet. At this point, we blasted into the lode, and found it rich in copper, some pieces weighing from six to fifteen pounds, and with rich stamp-work. See specimens marked Vein No. 2, west of stream.
About fifty feet above the forks of the stream the lode rests upon a bed of conglomerate. This conglomerate is highly metamorphosed, and is amygdaloidal. See specimens.
About one hundred feet west of this, we opened the vein on the brow of the hill. It there shows a breast of twenty feet, and dips to the southeast at an angle of thirty-five degrees.
~ Duluth and St. Louis County, Minnesota: Their Story and People; Volume 1, page 66.
This location was worked to some extent in the years 1846 and 1847, under a lease from the General Government, by the American Fur Company. They sunk four shafts, but appear to have done very little surface exploring.
Three of these shafts are sunk on the course of Vein No. 1, and from my examination appear to have been perpendicular. Their location is given on the map. The timbering is so much decayed that I did not venture to work in them. From soundings, I found the shaft between the streams forty-six feet deep, the next one on the east side of east branch twenty-eight feet deep, and the one east of section line twenty-eight feet deep. All of them have water to within about twelve feet of the surface. The fourth shaft is sunk at the bend of the east branch. This is thirty-five feet deep, and does not appear from the burrow to have been upon any vein.
The first three shafts above described were sunk perpendicularly upon the outcrop of a vein dipping thirty-three degrees, and therefore pass into a foot-wall. Had they been continued, they would have cut Vein No. 2. They may perhaps be made available in a further exploration.
Upon the adjoining location, to the westward, is a vein discovered by John Parry, some years ago. I have taken some specimens from it which are herewithin furnished. This vein runs north eighty-two degrees east, and intersects your western boundary six chains north of the southwest corner. It appears to be a continuation of Vein No. 3.
At the junction of the trap with the sandstone, in the northwest corner of the location, in the bed of Copper Creek, a bed of bluish-white grindstone grit of first-rate quality is found. The layers are from one inch to several inches in thickness. This white sandstone appears to belong to a different period from the red sandstone of Lake Superior. It only shows to the height of a few feet, and is overlaid by sixty feet of the red sandstone.
In the vicinity of the trap dike it is bent and fractured and considerably hardened. Near the junction, as marked on the map, it is tilted until some of the layers stand perpendicular. There are no ripple-marks on this white sandstone, while the red, resting upon it, shows evidence of a strong current.
Portrait of George Riley Stuntz from The Eye of the North-west: First Annual Report of the Statistician of Superior, Wisconsin, by Frank Abial Flower, 1890, page 26.
This tract of land is thirteen and one-half miles from the town of Superior, at the west end of Lake Superior. It is on a County Road which has been nearly completed, is now practicable for winter use, and can be made a good summer road at an expenditure not exceeding $2,000.
The soil is a sandy loam, with a subsoil of red clay containing a large per centage of marl, and is quite productive, being capable of producing a large portion of the vegetables needed by the operatives at a mine. It is especially adapted to the cultivation of grass and oats. Timber for lumber and fuel can be obtained conveniently and in unlimited quantity.
Respectfully submitted,
GEORGE R. STUNTZ,
Surveyor in charge of Exploration.
Comic Book
September 24, 2016
To whom it may concern,
One of the biggest complaints I get about Chequamegon History from friends and family is that the posts on the website are too densely-packed with historical information to be understandable to those who don’t have extensive background in the early history of this area. One comment, from my brother, went something like this:
You and Amorin need to write more clickbait stuff like “Top 10 Chequamegon Villains Compared to Game of Thrones Characters.” Otherwise only historians will read it.
While Cersei Lannister seems unlikely to appear on this site any time soon, my brother has a point. Not everyone who is interested in this history has hours of leisure time for diving into Warren, Schoolcraft, and old speeches and letters. While the introductory texts have gotten better in recent years (Patty Loew’s Indian Nations of Wisconsin and Howard Paap’s Red Cliff being notable examples), most of the mainstream secondary literature about this area’s history remains riddled with inaccuracies and misconceptions that offer little in the way of a bridge to the pre-1860 primary sources.
A couple years ago, the idea of a graphic novel came to me as a way to tackle this problem of access. Starting on Inkscape and finishing with pen and paper, I scratched out thirty pages of the first chapter of what could be a book about the American colonization of Chequamegon (c.1795-1855) and how it impacted the people who lived here. I quickly came to several realizations:
- A graphic novel on this topic can and should be done, but it needs to be awesome, not mediocre.
- It will not be able to get beyond mediocre unless people who actually do this kind of thing for a living take it over.
- Chequamegon History has enough material to easily make this thing exceed 200-300 pages.
- I don’t know if I’ve watched Little Big Man too many times or if the old stereotypes are too hard to shake, but transcribing old documents does not make one able to write cross-cultural 19th-century dialog. It’s hard. If most of the characters in this story are Ojibwe people, someone who can write a good joke, sexy pickup line, or solemn speech in realistic Ojibwe rhetorical style is desperately needed on this project. Otherwise it will just be the same old “Cowboys and Indians” crap, which is exactly what this shouldn’t be. The characters need to be real and multi-dimensional.
- There are many directions/perspectives this project could take that would be interesting. My brain always tends toward written documents and Euro/Western historical thinking, but a diverse group of people could make something like this a lot richer.
- My knowledge of of 18th and 19th-century clothing, material culture and manners is woefully limited.
- I never really did learn how to draw basic shadows, birds, and perspectives.
- Comic-Sans is a terrible font.
Anyways, the rough draft of Chapter One has been sitting on my shelf for over a year collecting dust. Finally, I have the courage to put it up here in all its imperfect glory:
Click to download the full 34-page pdf.
This does not mean this project is actually happening any time soon–at least not with my involvement. However, I am curious what people think. Does there need to be a Chequamegon History graphic novel? What should it cover? Who should do it?
~Leo
An Old-Time Trip
September 10, 2016
By Amorin Mello
This is a reproduction of “An Old-Time Trip” from Report of the Pioneer Society of the State of Michigan together with Reports of County Pioneer Societies: Volume IX, 1886, pages 108-118.
An Old-Time Trip
by F. R. Stebbins
Thirty-five years ago. These words awaken in the minds of the young people of to-day, no personal memories of the past, and have to them only the significance of a mention of the times of “long ago,” the times away back of their first look upon this fair land, the region of the great lakes.
Francis R. Stebbins was either the brother or grandson of Cortland Bliss Stebbins; an editor of The Adrian Michigan Expositor.
Our children listen to the simple story of our experiences thirty, forty and fifty years ago, with great interest, but can never realize the full import of our narratives; but to such of us as have been, during these years, the actors in this labor of moulding and working out, in fact largely creating the great material, social, and political grandeur of this fair home of ours, which we found a wilderness, these words awaken many memories. How does the mention of these years bring to our minds a flood of recollections, of the sorrows and the joys, the failures and the successes, the toils of all, and the resting from their labors of so many, who once aided us in this great work of founding a new and noble State. Now, as we look around our well furnished homes, our smiling farms, our stores, our manufactories, our schools, and school-houses, and churches, our railroads and wagon roads, the memories of the times of forty and fifty years ago seem a dream only, and a record of those times, as they pass, only a page from the romance of the novelist; and yet how that page glows and enlarges, and how even romance is dimmed by the stranger realities, as the individual experiences of those years are related in the many volumes of our pioneer collections, you all know. I have, in this paper, no strange tale to tell, no startling romance, and perhaps very little interesting reality to record; but, thinking that the incidents of a trip to our truly great lakes in 1851 might not be entirely devoid of interest, I present them on this occasion.
~ Report of the Internal Commerce of the United States for the year 1891, by S. G. Brock, Chief of the United States Bureau of Statistics, Treasury Department, appendix 1, page 19.
Early in the month of August, 1851, it was my good fortune, through the kindness of Sheldon McKnight, in company with my wife and two young daughters, to find myself and family pleasantly settled in a good stateroom on board the steamer London, one of McKnight’s line of boats, at Detroit, bound for Sault Ste. Marie, where we were to be transferred to a “propeller” of his line on Lake Superior. The charm of such a trip to these then new and wild sections of our State, for the first time, to our party, can hardly be described: but that such a tour, with quiet water on the lake, was one of pure enjoyment, I have no doubt many pioneers present, who have taken such a trip, can easily believe. The few isolated settlements, with their rude wharves, and scattered and cheaply-constructed houses along the St. Clair River, and the land on the south and west shores of Lake Huron, to our eyes gave little promise of their present beauty and population, Port Huron was just beginning to be recognized as a stopping place of a few of the lake steamers, and Lexington and Sand Beach were of no account to mariners, with Forester, Forestville, and other points, now visited by nearly all the coasting steamers, either having no existence at all, or being usually avoided as dangerous localities for steamers.
On the west shore of the lake, beyond Saginaw Bay, the wilderness was still more unbroken. Where now stands Alpena, with its thousands of population, and its great lumber and’fishing enterprises, a solitary pioneer, or fisherman’s shanty, marked the spot—the Indians having prevented all attempts of settlement—and there, as along the coast, the great pine forests came down to the water’s edge. All was unbroken wilderness, with its wealth of timber. A small and very rude settlement only at Cheboygan and Duncans.
John “Jack” Wilson was Captain of the propeller Monticello.
~ Portrait from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, September 22, 1860.
What a world of memories of the traditions and the romantic histories of the far-famed Mackinaw region came over us as we steamed by beautiful Bois Blanc, and came out in view of old Mackinaw, Point St. Ignace, and the gem of all, the peerless Mackinaw Island. All was new to many of our company, and save the fort and framed houses, and the rude wharf and modern vessels, instead of Indian wigwams, and the beach lined with bark canoes, much the same as when Marquette first looked upon the same scenery nearly two hundred years before. It did not detract from the interest I took in this beautiful island, when I remembered how, in my boyhood, in the old school-house spelling bees, in Vermont, so many of us used to wrestle with the old name “Michilimackinack,” and I am not sure that I can spell the word correctly even now. After a short stop we steamed away for Detour, and entered the river St. Mary. By this time our passengers became pretty well acquainted with each other, and we could call the roll for the then Governor John S. Barry, Auditor General John Swegles, John Harmon, a State senator, A. Harvie, Mr. Harris, editor of the Cleveland Herald, and we were joined at the Sault by Hon. Mr. Henry, from Vermont, and Hon. Truman Smith, U. S. Senator from Connecticut. The fact that four of us were staunch whigs, and four dyed-in-the-wool democrats, did not mar in the least our pleasant intercourse during the trip. Governor Barry, from his sedate countenance, in the early voyage, had been set down by the stranger passengers as a missionary to the Indians, on the way to join his charge, and we had to joke the governor on his missionary work, all of which he took without offense. To those of us who knew John Harmon in those days, I need not say he was not taken for an assistant missionary, although a listener might sometimes hear him exclaim, “I assist.”
May 13, 1851
“THE ‘SOO.’ – The London, Capt. Watts, came in last evening with a full freight of the commodities of Lake Superior, copper from the Cliff Mine, &c. The new steamer Monticello, of McKnight’s line, was on the ways, and the most active exertions making to launch her across the Portage to take her place along the line on Lake Superior. The London carried up 250 passengers, and considerable interest seems to be exhibited in relation to the copper mines. The Railroad across the Portage is in full operation, with all it can do. If a pleasure trip is desired, let a passage be taken on the favorite steamer London, via Mackinaw to the Sault and back. She leaves for the above places on Wednesday morning.”
June 17, 1851
“The propeller MONTICELLO has been taken over the portage—and was launched in the water of Lake Superior Monday week.”
At the ‘”Soo” we left the London and took quarters at the hotel, waiting a day or two for the arrival down of the propeller Monticello, upon which we were to take our voyage on Lake Superior. During our stop I had the pleasure of catching a string of speckled trout, in the rapids, fishing from the shore. The population of the village of Sault Ste. Marie at that time was made up largely of Chippewa Indians and French and Indian halfbreeds, and a few soldiers at the United States military post, and contained very little enterprise or trade beyond saloons, and stores for Indian supplies. There was no canal, and all transit to Lake Superior, and from the lake to the river, around the rapids, was overland about one mile, by teams, or by a tram railway, with platform cars; and the two and only steam vessels on Lake Superior had been taken over this portage from St. Mary’s river. What a contrast with to-day, when it is stated, on good authority, that the tonnage of grain, metals, ores, merchandise, etc., through the great locks at St. Mary’s, was during the last year, larger than that passing through that great world’s highway, the Suez canal. The next morning, after leaving the Sault, we were in sight of the Pictured Rocks. And who can describe the sensation of a traveler whose eyes for the first time rest upon these wonderful pictures of nature’s handiwork? And who shall describe the pictures as they appear? Weird, wonderful, beautiful is all we can exclaim. Passing Pictured Rocks, we tied up to the shore of Grand Island. Here was one house and a little clearing, where a solitary family was struggling for a living, by cultivating a few vegetables and furnishing fuel for the propellers on Lake Superior.
Gov. Barry was here taken with a fainting attack; but he was taken on board and soon recovered, and we proceeded on our way.
Peter White, circa 1860’s.
~ The Honorable Peter White: a biographical sketch of the Lake Superior iron country, by Ralph D. Williams, 1907, page 146.
Our next landing was at the present site of Marquette, then called “Carp River.” A settlement had just commenced here, but the bluff was covered with pine and spruce trees, with a few modest cabins, the whole presenting as dismal a looking pioneer beginning as one could find anywhere. A little iron ore had been quarried and smelted there, but the greatness of this industry and mineral wealth, since developed under the fostering care of protection to home industry, was not dreamed of. even by the most sanguine of the enterprising men who even then saw great things for the newly discovered mineral wealth of the Lake Superior region. Seeing Marquette, as I did then as Carp River, with no wharf, almost no settled population, a mere opening in the wilderness, I was not prepared for the wonderful change I saw when I visited it some thirty years afterwards, in the great ore docks, and an almost continuous line of cars, discharging into the boats the rich ore from Negaunee and Ishpeming, and the busy, beautiful city, with its brick blocks, costly residences and iron works, and other industries. To no one man, probably, has Marquette more reason to be grateful for her wonderful growth and prosperity, than to a member of this society, and one who has often added to its interest in recitals of accidents connected with the early settlement of the Upper Peninsula, the Hon. Peter White.
Giving Carp River a parting gun from a small cannon on our deck, we steamed away up the lake to Eagle Harbor. This was also a very small beginning of a settlement, with a few rude buildings scattered among the pine trees. Our next stop was at Eagle River. Here was no harbor and no wharf, and the steamer anchored some distance from shore, and the passengers went ashore in row boats. Here the steamer “landed” some cattle, which was done by pushing them overboard at the gangway, the cattle swimming ashore. Eagle River was the landing place for the Cliff and North American copper mines, which were located some three miles away, the road to the mines passing over a high land ridge some six or seven hundred feet in height. The Cliff mine that year was thought to have done a great work in the shipment of 1200 tons of copper. Another mine, since that, has shipped 18,000 tons in one year.
Marine Review, Volume 32, July 27, 1905, pages 44-45.
Another parting gun, and we headed direct for La Pointe. Soon after starting, we met and saluted heartily the other steamer on the lake, the propeller Manhattan, little dreaming of the coming events of our next meeting.
Our approach to La Pointe was one of great interest to many of our party, the larger part having never before visited the region of the Apostle islands.
On shore we saw the old mission house, a large trading house, a few other buildings, with a large sprinkling of Indian wigwams. From all parts of the little settlement we saw coming towards the landing a few white men, and a motley crowd of Indians, including squaws, and young and older children, all clad in Indian costume, or a mixture of Indian and white men’s clothing, the advent of a steamboat being at that time an uncommon event at La Pointe.
We were much pleased to learn that old Chief Buffalo was at home, and that a hundred or more wild Chippewas were encamped in the woods nearby, adding no little interest to our visit. We were soon all on shore, and exploring the settlement.
Of course the first objective point, for a few of us, was the Indian wigwams, made either of skins or bark, with the usual architecture of Indian skill, and the usual decoration of dirty blankets, kettles, and skins. Meanwhile the dancing portion of our party were entertaining a large party of the natives with a white man’s dance, in the trading house, which soon suggested an Indian dance; the first intimation of which I received by the arrival of the lord of a wigwam, the interior of which I was inspecting, who turned me out of his “castle,” peremptorily, with the excuse, imparted mostly by signs, that he wished to dress for the war dance. We found when we recognized the gentleman of the woods later, at the dance, that his “dressing” consisted in taking off what few clothes he usually wore, and painting his body with all manner of devices, rudely made with his several fingers for a paint brush.
We all lost no time in gathering at the mission house before which, on a wide lawn of short grass, the dance was to be held. Ere long we heard in the direction of the woods, where the wild Indians were encamped, the peculiar thump of the “tom-tom,” or Indian drum.
Detail of Benjamin Armstrong from a photograph by Matthew Brady (Minnesota Historical Society). See our Armstrong Engravings post for more information.
The excitement of the white tourists now became intense. We all knew we were to look upon a genuine war dance—all but the war—not by some mountebank company, but principally by the woods Indians, who so far had refused to be civilized and Christianized into doubtful saints, at the Jesuit mission stations. We all moved outside, and arranged on the wide platform in front of the house, which from a gentle elevation afforded a fine view of the dance ground. On one part of the platform were placed chief Buffalo, seated in the only arm chair to be found, with Governor Barry and the other dignitaries on either side of him. Chief Buffalo could only express himself through an interpreter, and he sat in stoical silence, without a movement of facial muscle during the whole dance. The rest of our party were standing on the other part of the platform, with our ladies in front, all in eager anticipation of the appearance of the Indians; and certainly not the least interested in the coming procession were our tourists who enjoyed the front seats, where nothing could obstruct a free vision of the warriors. On came the red men. First is seen the motion of the elevated staff adorned with large eagle feathers, borne by an aged warrior; next an old torn American flag; and soon, with steady tread, to the measured beatings of the Indian drum, the whole band comes in view. Now came a new sensation. The ladies had not been informed of the peculiar features of the elaborate ball dress of the Indians, and no sooner had the much-painted warriors come in sight, than the longest-sighted lady, shading her eyes with her hand for a moment, to get a better view of the details, was suddenly taken ill, and, hastily pushing our rear ranks of gentlemen asunder, she fled into the house, Nearer came the Indians, and another lady was attacked with the same disorder, and escaped inside. Thump, thump, louder sounded the tom-tom, nearer and nearer came the Indians, when another lady was attacked with the strange contagious disease, and then another, and another, quickly followed by a stampede of every lady on the platform, for which was made an open rank movement, and we, the men, were left alone on the platform to admire Indian warriors’ toilets. Now the motley band halted before us, the tom-tom ceased, and the naked loveliness of these forest dancers appeared, even to the most short-sighted beholder. Notwithstanding our great interest in the display, we could not help being anxious about our ladies, in the house, whose sudden illness was depriving them of an equal share in the entertainment. Our great regrets were uncalled for; and if we had in those earlier years of life known what riper experience has taught us, that the ladies, although timid at the start, on any great and unusual display of strange forces will always find a way to overcome the timidity, and push again to the front, and be the last to leave the conflict, our anxiety for these would have been less. And so it was on this occasion. My mind, reverting in sympathy to the unfortunate indisposition of our ladies, I naturally cast my eyes back towards the windows of the room in which they were concealed, just as the drum commenced to beat again for the grand dance; and what was my astonishment to see six distinct female faces instantly dodge back from six window panes, they were plainly and closely pressing. Soon, another fair face appeared, looking over the shoulders of the gentlemen in the doorway. The gentlemen naturally made way for the fair one to get a better view, and the lady improved the kindness. Another lady filled her place, and soon, in her turn, advanced for a better view; occupying the place of the first lady, who had now moved on nearer the front, and this movement went on by the ladies, until, in succession, as quickly, as they had been attacked by the Strange disorder, the invalids were all recovered, taking their old positions in the front, “fighting bravely until the last gun was fired,” and then complaining that the battle of the “breech-cloths” did not last longer.
John Quincy Adams “Indian Peace Medal” distributed at the 1825 Treaty at Prairie Du Chien. Buffalo was a signatory of this Treaty on behalf of the La Pointe Band.
~ Smithsonian Institute
Reverse side of “Indian Peace Medal” from the 1825 Treaty at Prairie Du Chien was reproduced from the 1801 Thomas Jefferson medal (pictured).
~ Smithsonian Institute
The warriors in this dance, as they moved around in a circle in close single file, presented a variety of dress enough to suit anyone. Very many of them had no dress, save the breech-cloth, and paint. One old warrior was dressed in a wolf skin, with the wolf head forming a head covering. Another, with spare spindle shanks, trotted around with a bright scarlet shawl on his shoulders, worn folded, with the corner points dangling at his heels. One nobly-formed savage wore, suspended on his bare breast, two large silver medals, presented by the U. S. Government in 1825, one stamped “peace and friendship,” the other, “John Quincy Adams, President of the United States.” The old men simply gave an occasional grunt, as they moved around with measured tread of spare and tawny limbs unclothed, in solemn dignity. The younger braves were profuse in grotesque postures and whoopings, barkings, wolf howlings and discharging their guns in the air. Some were dressed only in deer-skin breeches, with the usual ornaments of beads, tassels and feathers, and some had red shirts only.
After the dance the great Buffalo signified his desire to have a talk with Gov. Barry. State Senator Harvie introduced the Governor, who said: “The great chief of Michigan is glad to meet the great chief of the Chippewas. He desires to meet him as a friend and a brother, but not to confer upon political subjects. Let this meeting be one of friendship between the people of the great chief of Michigan and the people of the great chief of the Chippewas, and nothing more.” This was repeated to Buffalo in the Chippewa language, sentence by sentence, by the interpreter.
The great Buffalo replied, through the interpreter, as follows:
Buffalo was a signatory of the 1826 Treaty at Fond Du Lac:
“ARTICLE 5. In consideration of the poverty of the Chippewas, and of the sterile nature of the country they inhabit, unfit for cultivation, and almost destitute of game, and as a proof of regard on the part of the United States, it is agreed that an annuity of two thousand dollars, in money or goods, as the President may direct, shall be paid to the tribe, at the Sault St. Marie. But this annuity shall continue only during the pleasure of the Congress of the United States.”Buffalo was a signatory of the 1842 Treaty at La Pointe, which ceded the greater La Pointe region to the United States. Bagone-giizhig (Hole-In-The-Day) the Younger was the first signatory listed on this treaty. While La Pointe, Mille Lacs, and other Chippewa Bands did not recognize Bagone-giizhig as a leader, the United States did.“My father, I am glad to meet you here, on this land where my fathers lived, and the land which they have left me, and where their bones repose. Especially am I glad to meet you at this time, when on account of some things, my heart is sad. I was told I should be paid off here, in this place, twenty-five years ago; and now, before the time is half gone, I am told I must go to Sault Ste. Marie. It is a great way; I am old and cannot go. The man who sold these lands was but a child. Buffalo did not do it. My father knows the ways of the white man and the ways of the red man. In view of all this, the great Buffalo feels sad. I wish you to look at these papers.”
Here the chief took from beneath his dress a copy of a treaty with the Chippewas and handed it to the Governor, who, after looking at the title, handed the papers back to the chief, and replied:
“The chief of Michigan is only chief of another great tribe, and has no power in the matter of this treaty. He will do all in his power to promote justice and right, and he advises the great Buffalo to do as his great father, the President, directs, as he will do right.”
The same old “taffy,” as the boys now call it, always dealt out so liberally to the Indians. The “great father” at Washington no doubt “did right.” by enforcing the wrong in the bogus treaty with the “child,” of whom Buffalo spoke. As Buffalo told Gov. Barry, “he knew the ways of the white man.” I think we all know pretty well of the wrongs so many times enforced in accordance with the terms of fraudulently obtained treaties with the Indians by the government, which the wronged natives are told “always does right.”
Governor John Stewart Barry
~ Commons.Wikimedia.org
The pipe of peace was then passed around, and the “talk”‘ was over. At this point John Harmon and the mercurial Senator Harvie had concluded the scheme of a little joke upon a peculiar financial characteristic of Gov. Barry. It was well known that the Governor, although wealthy, was very prudent with his means, in his expenditures of money, and it required very adroit management to open his purse strings on any common occasion. But here was a very uncommon call, and when John Harmon suggested to the Governor that it was customary in such cases to make some small present to the Indians, the Governor, thrown off his guard by the excitement of the dance, and the words small present, in Harmon’s suggestion, replied: ‘”Very well, gentlemen, make them such a present as you think suitable for me.” Harmon and Harvie sped away to the trader’s store, and the small present speedily distributed to the red men and their squaws would have insured the Governor at least six votes each from the braves had they resided in Chicago or New York at the next election. But when, just before we were to embark for our departure, the bill, to the amount of some forty or fifty dollars, was presented to the Governor, those of you who knew him can imagine the pent up wrath which his dignity, before another great chief, restrained from explosion; but it cast over his dark features a look which reminded one of a black thunder cloud which seemed just ready to burst asunder with terrific lightning and thunder. He paid the bill in portentious silence, and said not a word; but had he, about that time, caught John Harmon and Senator Harvie alone, I think I would decline to record the merited rebuke he would have given them in his well known vigorous language, when occasion called for it. The clouds of the affair hung over him a long time; and when we landed at Ontonagon, the Governor would not go ashore, for fear, I suppose, of more Indians, to receive “small presents.”
We left La Pointe with regret, having our time so much occupied by the red men that we had no time to thoroughly explore the locality where Marquette was located about 1669, when only thirty years of age.
We were obliged to anchor nearly a quarter of a mile from shore, at Ontonagon, on account of the shoal water; and a part of our company went ashore in row boats. An old barn-like warehouse, a low double log house, one or two other log cabins, and a small frame house in process of construction, was all there was of Ontonagon; and we were soon on board and steaming down the lake.
Friday, August 8, 1851
“The Lake Superior Journal gives the following particulars of the collision between the Propellers MANHATTAN and MONTICELLO:- The accident occurred at midnight, about five miles this side of White Fish Point, and thirty five miles above the Sault, the MANHATTAN being bound up, and the MONTICELLO, bound down. There was a large pleasure party on board the MONTICELLO, and many of the passengers, were up at the time and were out on deck to see the other boat pass; but by some unaccountable mistake or misapprehension of the part of one or both, they came in collision; the MONTICELLO striking the MANHATTAN on the starboard side, about midships, and cutting through the narrow guard into the hull, so far that she filled and sunk to her upper deck in less than ten minutes.
The passengers on the MANHATTAN were generally asleep, but by most wonderful good fortune they all succeeded in getting on board the MONTICELLO, and it is not known that a single person was lost or was seriously injured. The MANHATTAN had just left port on an upward trip, and had a large quantity of wood and pine lumber in her hold, and on her lower deck, which prevented her from sinking altogether. In this condition she was towed back to a small bay at the mouth of the river, where she now lies. The most of the passengers left their baggage on the lower deck, which with much valuable property was lost, or buried for the present, several feet beneath the water.
Capt. Wilson is spoken of in high terms of praise for his conduct on this occasion, in affording every accommodation in his power to the distressed crowd of passengers from the wrecked vessel.”
We made two other landings on our way back, and as the last sunset we would be able to enjoy on Lake Superior bade us a golden good night, we gathered around the cabin lights, and congratulated each other upon the unvarying beautiful weather for the entire week we had passed upon this great water; and retired to our state rooms for peaceful rest, and the landing in the morning at the Sault. It was a beautiful starlight night, and when about five miles off Whitefish point, at midnight, we were all awakened by a terrific crash, and concussion of the boat, which nearly threw us out of our berths. Such of us as were thus rudely awakened, supposed we had struck a rock. On entering the cabin from my state room, I found the floor around the dining room table strewn with broken crockery, food, and glassware, which the collision had thrown from a table where the captain and the choice spirits of the passengers were having a farewell supper; and the passengers were running to and fro in great alarm. We soon found we had come in collision with the other and opposition steamer on the lake, the Manhattan, but did not know for a short time of intense suspense if one or both steamers would go to the bottom,’which was soon found to be beyond soundings. Very soon, we heard our captain, Jack Wilson, call out to Capt. Colwell, of the other steamer, “For God’s sake hurry your passengers aboard my boat, for you are sinking.”
In the midst of intense excitement, the few men, women, and children, were hurried from the sinking Manhattan, and lifted from the small boats on board the Monticello, nearly all of them in their night clothes, barely escaping with their other garments in their hands.
We saw the doomed steamer gradually sinking deeper and deeper in the water, and waited with anxious eyes for the moment, soon expected, when she would take the final plunge. She was soon down to the upper deck, and just as we held our breath to see the water engulf her, some one cried out, “She floats!” And so it proved. The boat was heavily loaded with lumber and wood, and, just sinking to her upper deck floor, floated, from the buoyancy of the loading. We took the wreck in tow, and the next morning, within a few miles of the landing at the Sault, I saw her keel plow into the sand bottom, in twenty-two feet of water, and the rest of that season, “our line” had no opposition.
It is often very amusing, even in the midst of events full of ruin and disaster, to witness the ludicrous acts of individuals.
A lady was brought on board our boat, who sank upon the cabin floor, in her night clothes, and, clasping her hands as if in utter despair, exclaimed, “Oh, dear! my trunks are all lost, and my two new silk dresses in them, and I have been way down to Massachusetts to get them; but I don’t care if I can get my new teeth! I left two new sets in my state room, and I must have them! Do tell somebody to get my teeth before the boat sinks. If I can only get my teeth, I don’t care for anything else!” One man came through the cabin, crying out to the passengers, “Get out of the way; she has powder on board, and will explode in a minute!”
As we all knew that powder was, at that time, ten feet under water, he did not alarm us much. But it was very touching to see the mothers clasp their children in their arms, when they realized their safety, and with tears streaming down their cheeks, thank God for their deliverance from the sinking boat. There were many tearful eyes in that cabin, besides those of the rescued. Before we left the wreck aground, I went aboard and found the stem of our boat had struck the Manhattan about midship, and almost at right angle, cutting completely into her hull and deck some seven or eight feet. As a piece of naval war practice, this collision would have been a great success. But as a peaceful meeting, on the broad, deep lake, on a bright, starlit night, I suppose the courts must have decided on its merits. I never learned the subsequent fate of the Manhattan.
We found the London at the wharf, below the St. Mary’s Rapids, and the tram railway soon transferred us to the new quarters on board. We took a direct course for Detroit from Mackinaw, in the face of a strong wind; and the next morning, when somewhere off Thunder Bay, it was blowing a gale, and the waves made our boat groan in every joint. The captain very prudently put about and made for Presque Isle harbor, where we remained all day, until the storm subsided. There was one board dwelling house at Presque Isle, and the old unbroken forest came down to the lake shore.
A pleasant ride down to Lake Huron, and we entered the River St. Clair, at Fort Gratiot, in the afternoon, well contented to enjoy the beautiful quiet waters of the river, after the somewhat uncertain waters of the lake; and at night we went to our state room for our last sleep on the steamer, before we should again walk the streets of Detroit, with its already known dignity as a city, and rejoicing that on our now fast closing tour we had safely escaped all the perils of collisions, the wild Indians, and wilder waves of the great lakes. But events proved it is not judicious to balance your books before your accounts are all posted. In my berth that night, while quietly enjoying the steady movement of our boat in the still water, I heard a low grating sound coming up from the bottom of the boat, and by a little attention soon discovered it was the keel of the boat scraping acquaintance with the gravel of the shoals in Lake St. Clair, and I was rather enjoying the novel entertainment, when, all at once, there came a crash below our room that shook the boat as if a torpedo had been exploded under us.
You may well believe the satisfaction I felt, at that moment, in the knowledge that the solid earth was not six inches below our boat’s keel was of no little magnitude, and as the wheels soon began to move, and the boat evidently was again on her course, we kept our berths, and slept until morning, counting two collisions on one trip of no small importance in the list of our adventures, for we found, in the morning, we had collided with the bowsprit of a large schooner, breaking it off, and it in return completely wrecking the cook room and pantry of the steamer.
The pleasant memories of that two weeks’ trip to Lake Superior, in 1851, are green in my memory yet; but with them is mingled the sad reflection that of the twelve persons of our party mentioned in this paper, only three remain, John Harmon, my oldest daughter, Mrs. Colvin, of Adrian, and myself. Oh how our pathway through the departed years is shaded by the many willows we have planted along the way, over the graves of our friends and loved companions. Fellow pioneers, our turn to stop and rest, as these have done, is not far away. May our lives be such that when it comes, kind hands may plant the cypress and the willow over our resting places with the same sincere regard we have cherished for the dear ones who have gone before us. On through the coming years we seem to see the unclouded brightness of the pathway, for those who shall fill our places; but let our children remember that an unbroken line of the cypress and the willow will follow them, as it has followed us, as the years move on, until we all gather on that shore, where there can be no shadows, because there is no sun; “for the Lord our God is the light thereof.”
The Monticello also sank a few weeks later circa September 25th, 1851. Portrait from “Shipwreck of the Monticello” from Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea, by James O. Brayman, 1852, pages 292-304.
Lake Superior in 1840
September 1, 2016
By Amorin Mello
“Soon after removing to Detroit, Bela Hubbard became acquainted with Douglas[s] Houghton, then State Geologist of Michigan, and in 1837, was appointed Assistant Geologist on the State Geological Survey, a position which he held until 1841. He accompanied Douglass Houghton on an important expedition to the southern shore of Lake Superior, in 1840, an account of which is given in his ‘Memorials of half a century.’ It is this book more than anything else that will preserve the memory of its author. It is his most fitting and most enduring monument and entitles the name of Bela Hubbard to a place on the short list of American authors who may be justly termed ‘nature writers.'”
Quote from Report of the Michigan Academy of Science, Volume 4,
by Michigan Academy of Science Council, 1904, page 163.
This is a reproduction of “Lake Superior in 1840” and illustrations from Memorials of a Half-Century, by Bela Hubbard, 1887, pages 21-62.
LAKE SUPERIOR IN 1840.*
* Read before the Detroit Pioneer Society, Jan., 1874.
Portrait and biographic sketch of Bela Hubbard are available in Report of the Michigan Academy of Science, Volume 4, by Michigan Academy of Science Council, 1904, pages 163-165. See the Bela Hubbard Papers: 1837-1893 for more information.
Among the pleasantest of all my reminiscences of travel is that of the exploration, in connection with the geological survey of Michigan, of the coasts of our upper peninsula, in 1840.
Portrait and biographic sketch of Douglass Houghton are available in Report of the Michigan Academy of Science, Volume 4, by Michigan Academy of Science Council, 1904, pages 160-162. See the Douglass Houghton Papers: 1829-1845 for more information.
The party for this expedition was composed of the State geologist, Dr. Douglass Houghton; his two assistants, C. C. Douglass and myself; Fredk. Hubbard, in charge of instrumental observations; and, for a part of the way, H. Thielson, a civil engineer, and Charles W. Penny, a young merchant of Detroit, supernumeraries.
We left Detroit in the steamer “Illinois,” arriving at Mackinac, May 23. Here two boat crews were made up, consisting of six Canadians. These belonged to that class so famous in the palmy days of the fur trade and the French régime, now extinct, and known to history as “coureurs de bois.” They were of mixed blood, in some, the French, in others, the Indian, predominating. Bred to the business, they would row without fatigue from daybreak until dark,—twelve or fourteen hours,—unlade the boats, pitch the tents for the bourgeois, pile up the baggage, prepare the evening meal, and then creep under their blankets in the open air and enjoy the sound sleep that labor bestows.
The principal dependence of these voyageurs for food—we had no leisure for hunting and little for fishing— was upon a soup of beans, with a most liberal supply of water, into which a piece of pork was dropped. A cake of hard-bread was allowed to each.
The boats for the passage of the Sault were each about twenty feet long by four broad, lightly constructed of pine and cedar, with sharp bows, and were drawn out of the water at night. At the Sault, to which provisions had been forwarded, one of these boats was exchanged for a “Mackinac barge,” sufficiently large to carry two months’ provisions and all our baggage.
A voyage to and upon our great lake at the time of my story was by no means the easy journey it is now. North of Mackinac, no steamers and no regular line of sail-vessels traversed the waters. The ship-canal around the waters of the Sault had not then been projected. Furs and fish constituted the only commerce, and the latter found too few customers to make the trade profitable. The American Fur Company had its headquarters at Sault Ste. Marie, where was a village of some twenty or thirty houses, mostly of logs, and the United States maintained a garrison. On the opposite shore was a small English settlement, consisting of a few white-washed cabins and Episcopal and Baptist mission establishments. Here also the Hudson’s Bay Company had a post.
At L’Anse had been established for many years a factory of the American Fur Company, the only buildings being a log house, storehouse, and barn, and near by a Baptist mission, consisting of a dozen neat huts of logs and bark. Near the extreme west end of the lake this company had another factory or trading-post, at La Pointe.
These were the only white settlements on the south shore of this great lake. At two or three points, transient fishing-camps might be met with. Else, all this region was wild and solitary almost as when, a century earlier, it was traversed by the canoe of the Jesuit missionary or echoed to the rude songs of the wild employees of the fur traders. In a large part of the country, on the southern border, within the territory of the United States, the Indian title had not been extinguished. But the settlements of the aboriginal race were rare; probably the whole region did not number 1000 souls.
Apart from the scientific animus of the expedition, our party, in the ardor of youth, could not but look forward to the new and strange scenes which awaited us with somewhat of the enthusiasm that inspired the first explorers of this region of vast forests and inland seas. We were to voyage almost in the same mode as those travellers, to witness scenes as yet little changed, and partaking of the same character of solitude and mystery.
Though I wander from my narrative, I must linger a moment over the impression produced by the romantic island which was our starting-point, Michilimackinac.
Connected with the story of the early wanderings of the French, their perilous missions in the far wilderness, the fur trade, with its fort, its agents, its coureurs de bois and numerous employees, its bustle, show, and dissipation, its traffic and its enormous profits, and with the numerous native tribes which here rendezvoused,—no place in the North-west possesses greater historic and traditionary interest. The town retained, as it still does, much of its old-time character. The crescent bay in front was still a lounging-place for the American Ishmaelite, whose huts often covered the beach; and this was the last place on the frontier where the Mackinac barge might manned and equipped, as a century ago, by a motley crew of half-breed voyageurs.
The natural beauties and wildness of the island, its situation, enthroned at the apex of the peninsula of Michigan and embracing magnificent views of water and island, its lake breezes and pure cold air, and the excellence of its white-fish and trout, have long made it one of the most attractive of watering-places. The proposal to conserve it as a national park is worthy of its character, and it is to be hoped that thus its natural beauties, and what remains of its woods, will be preserved forever to the nation.
On the morning of May 26 we took our departure from Mackinac, with a moderate breeze and a clear sky,—a thing to be noted where fogs are so frequent,—and coasting by St. Martin’s Island, entered les Cheneaux.
The river, or more properly Strait of Ste. Marie, is a series of channels, winding amid innumerable islands. Some of these, as St. Joseph and Drummond, cover many square miles, but the greater number are much smaller, and often occupy only a few acres. They line the whole northern coast of Lake Huron, and are occasioned by the junction between the silurian lime rocks and the azoic or primary rocks of Canada.
These islands are but little elevated above the water, and are wooded to the edge with cedar, fir and birch. The evergreen trees are completely shrouded in a tapestry of parasitic moss. This is a true lichen, and is not allied to the great Southern epiphyte which it so strongly resembles. It hangs in long festoons, giving the woods a fantastic and gloomy appearance, but the effect is very beautiful. What are called “les Cheneaux” are passages among islands of this description. They are seldom wide enough to admit any but the smallest craft, and so intricate as to form a perfect labyrinth, where any but the practised mariner might wander long, “in endless mazes lost.”
To the north and east of St. Joseph Island the Ste. Marie parts the two systems of rocks, and an instant change takes place in the character of the scenery. Instead of low, timbered shores, the islands rise in abrupt cones, rounded and water-worn, to the height of twenty to one hundred feet, presenting bare knobs of hornblende and quartz. The surfaces are worn smooth, by the action of glaciers, and are frequently covered with a thick carpet of lichens. Among these is, in profusion, the beautiful reindeer moss. A few miles to the right, in Canada, hills of granite rise to a height of 500 to 1000 feet, and form a background to the view.
To the geologist these low hills and rounded knobs have an absorbing interest. Agassiz tells us that America has been falsely denominated the new world; that “hers was the first dry land lifted out of the waters; hers the first shore washed by the ocean that enveloped all the earth beside.” The antiquary finds in this portion of America a very respectable antiquity. To its known civil history he adds evidence of the existence of a race of men familiar with this region ages before its discovery by the French, who were by no means despicable cultivators of the arts, and he infers a human history—could he but gather the full record—possibly as ancient as the pyramids. But science points a period infinitely more remote. We had reached and stood upon what was the skeleton of our earth, when but a crust above the seething fires beneath, not only ages before man had a being upon its surface, but probably ages before what we call the “Old World” had been raised by the forces of nature above the universal ocean. Here was antiquity unmeasured by any human standard. Time itself was young then. This backbone of the earliest continent still stretches unbroken, from the Atlantic to the western plains. During the unnumbered years in which the surface of the earth has been changed by successive upheavals and depressions it has stood unmoved.
Around the base of these low granite and metamorphic hills, in the bed of the river, lies a sandstone rock, which we shall find rising into cliffs along the coast of the lake above. It is the lowest of the paleozoic series, the first rock which brings to our eyes evidence of life upon this continent, and, if geologists speak truth, the first which bears witness to the dawn of life upon our earth. Of the earliest forms of organic life two only have with certainty been found in this rock, the lingula and the trilobite. And these, in the perfection and adaptation of their structure, equal the most perfect beings of their kind which exist at the present day. Thus the first record of the earliest life, upon the most ancient sea beach which the earth affords, is in apparent condemnation of the development hypothesis of Darwin. Are they then evidence of sudden and independent creation, or must we believe that these forms had their origin in some yet more remote and obscure past, and that we behold in these silurian rocks only their perfect development?
Following the northerly channel, the Ste. Marie soon expands into a broad and lovely sheet of water, twelve miles long, called Lake St. George. We have escaped from the labyrinth of rocky isles, the southern shores are again densely wooded, while the azoic rocks are seen on the Canada side, stretching off to the north-west, and terminating in a series of mountainous knobs,—the vertebræ of the world before the Flood. To this lake the Narrows succeed, and here for the first time the Ste. Marie assumes the appearance of a river, being contracted to less than 1000 feet, with a current and occasional rapids.
We passed frequent memorials of the Indian inhabitants. It is not to be wondered at that this region abounds with them, since with an eye to natural beauty this poetical race selects the loveliest spots for the resting-places, both of the living and the dead. The graves were close cabins of logs, thatched with bark, and the places selected are among the most beautiful and elevated sites, as if the souls of the departed braves could hear the echoing paddle and watch the approach of the distant canoe. The burial-place of the chief is designated by a picketed enclosure, and here it is customary for the voyaging Indian to stop, kindle his camp-fire at the head of the grave, and, on departing, to leave within the enclosure a small portion of the provisions he has cooked, for the use of the occupant. A flat cedar stake at the head exhibits in red paint the figure of some bird or brute,—the family totem of the deceased. Often is seen a small cross, erected as an emblem of his faith in Holy Catholic Church, while close by, in strange contrast, is that evidence of his unalterable attachment to the creed of his fathers,—the basket of provisions that is to support his journeying to the land of spirits.
The camping-ground of the voyageur has been that of the Indian from time immemorial. The wigwam poles are recognized from a distance, in some open glade along the shore, left standing after the vagabond inmates have departed. And there is often to be found an old canoe, a camp-kettle, a cradle swinging from the poles, and invariably a litter of picked bones and dirty rags, completely covering the spot, with the burnt brands and ashes of the cabin fire in the midst. Sometimes we meet a rude altar of stones, on which are laid bits of tobacco and other petty offerings to the Manitou. Sometimes the scene is varied by the cabin of a Canadian Frenchman, who, unable to resist the charm of savage life, is bringing up his family of half-breed children in a condition little akin to civilization.
Early on the morning of May 30 we reached the Sault, and proceeded to encamp at the head of the rapids. This required a portage of several rods. The remainder of the day was spent at the village, in witnessing the novel mode of fishing, and other sights pertaining to this remote frontier post.
Page 29: “Sault Ste. Marie, from the Canada shore.”
Preparations for our expedition being completed, on the first of June we took our departure from the head of the rapids. Here lay at anchor a beautiful light brig belonging to the American Fur Company, and which bore the name of its founder, John Jacob Astor. Close by its side was a schooner, which had been built by the Ohio Fishing and Mining Company, at Cleveland, and had just made the portage around the rapids. Another vessel was preparing for a similar transportation. With three such crafts floating on its bosom, our great lake seemed to have already lost something of its old-time character, when, a wide waste of waters, it was traversed only by the canoe of the Indian and voyageur. Its importance as a great commercial highway had thus begun to be foreshadowed, but, in fact, its waters still laved a savage wilderness.*
* The immense commerce since built up will appear from the statement, that in 1886 the number of vessels which passed through the Ste. Mary’s Falls Canal was 6203, carrying 3,701,000 tons and over 50,000 passengers.
Some natural phenomena pertaining to a high northern latitude had begun to exhibit what were marvels to our unaccustomed eyes. One of these was the lengthened twilight, the sun continuing to irradiate the horizon with a bright flash, until nearly midnight. In fact, it was quite possible to tell the hour of the night at any time, by the light which indicated the sun’s position. The Auroras, too, were surpassingly brilliant; often the electric rays streamed up from every point of the horizon, meeting at the zenith and waving like flame. I note these simple and common phenomena because they were novel to us, and it is only those who travel and encamp in the open air who enjoy to the full such scenes of beauty and wonder.
A summer temperature had now set in, and we witnessed another characteristic of this high latitude,—the sudden advance of the season. During the three days of our stay at this place, vegetation, which a week before had hardly commenced, sprung into active life. Trees then bare were now in full leaf. This phenomenon, though common to our side of the Atlantic, we had nowhere else seen so conspicuously displayed.
Time will not permit a narrative of our journey, a two-months’ coasting voyage along the whole southern side of Lake Superior. Nor can I speak, except briefly, of the beauties of the scenery, most of which is now so well known; of Gros Cap and Point Iroquois, those rock-built pillars of Hercules that guard the entrance, and
“like giants stand, To sentinel enchanted land;”
of White-fish Point and its surroundings; of the grand, wild and varied rocky coast; of the many beautiful streams, flashing with cascades, and filled with the speckled trout; or of our scientific researches and observations. I will venture only to relate an occasional incident, and to delineate some features of the coast scenery which seem to me to have been to little noticed or too imperfectly described by others.
Westward from White-fish Point stretch for many miles broad beaches of sand and gravel, backed by hills clothed with Norway-pines, spruce, hemlock, cedar, and birch. These beaches form extensive fishing-grounds, of which parties had already availed themselves. Every one knows the superiority of Lake Superior white-fish, in size and flavor, over those of the lower waters. Yet in relating the following experience I am aware of the risk which I run of being set down as the retailer of a “fish story.”
As we were rowing along the beach, some object was descried at a distance, making out of the water. All, at once, gave vigorous chase. On our near approach, the animal, which proved to be an otter, dropped upon the sand a fish which he had just hauled out, and retreated into the lake. This fish, which was scarcely dead, was of a size so extraordinary that it might truly be called—the fish, not the story—a whopper! It measured two and a half feet in length, and one foot five inches in circumference. We had no accurate means of weighing, but its weight was fairly estimated at fifteen pounds! The flesh was delicious in proportion, and made our whole party several capital meals.
These beaches terminate at a deep harbor called the Grand Marais. Hitherto the hills of dunes of sand have been of no great elevation. But now occurs a phenomenon which, though it seems not to have been classed among the wonders of this region, nor described in any books of travel, so far as I am aware, may well be called extraordinary, and worthy a place among the scenic wonders of America. It is a miniature Sahara, several miles in extent, and in many of its peculiar features resembling those lifeless, sandy deserts which are so distinguishing phenomena in some parts of the world. It is known to the French voyageurs as “Le Grand Sable.”
Page 33: “Grandes Sables.”
Steep cliffs are first observed rising from the water with a very uniform face, of about 200 feet in height, beyond which are visible barren dunes, rising still higher in the distance. On our approach the whole appeared like lofty hills enveloped in fog. This proved to be nothing less than clouds of sand, which the winds were constantly sweeping towards the lake, and which formed a mist so dense as to conceal completely the real character of the coast.
On ascending these steep and wasting cliffs, a scene opens to view which has no parallel except in the great deserts. For an extent of many miles nothing is visible but a waste of sand; not under the form of a monotonous plain, but rising into lofty cones, sweeping in graceful curves, hurled into hollows and spread into long-extended valleys. A few grass roots and small shrubs in some places find a feeble subsistence, and are the only vegetation. But thrusting through the sand are several tops of half-buried pines, barkless, and worn dry and craggy by the drifting soil, while below the surface their bodies appear to be in perfect preservation. To our imagination they seem the time-worn columns of an antique temple, whose main structure has long ago tumbled into dust, or been buried, like the ruins of Egypt, beneath the drift of many centuries.
The surface sand is mostly packed quite hard, and may be trod as a solid floor. This, in many places, is strewed thickly with pebbles; the deep hollows present vast beds of them. Among these are a great variety of precious stones common to the rocks of the country; agates, chalcedony, jasper, quartz of every shade of color and transparency, with hornstone, trap, and other minerals. All are worn smooth, and often beautifully polished by the sharp, drifting sands, and many rich specimens were obtained. We were reminded of the valley of diamonds in the Arabian tales, which it was the fortune of Sinbad to discover, in a scarcely less singular depository.
In the rear of this desert, about two miles from the coast, timber is again met with. Here, just at the edge of the wood, a small and beautiful lake lies embosomed; on the one side, a rich tract of maple forest; on the other, barren and shifting sand. It broke on our view, from amidst the realm of desolation, as did the unexpected fountain to which Saladin led the weary cavalier, Sir Kenneth, over the sandy plains of Palestine, as told in the magic pages of Scott. We named it, not inaptly, I think, “the diamond of the desert.” Around this sheet of water we found snow, on the tenth of June, in large quantities, buried beneath a few inches of sand.
From the diamond lake issues a small stream, which, after making its way through the sand, reaches the clay that constitutes the base of these dunes, and tumbles a perfect cascade into the greater lake. This rivulet separates the dense maple forest which lies on the east from cliffs of driven sand, which rise abruptly to a height that far overlooks the woodland, and are the commencement of the grand and leafless sables.
Page 35: “Grandes Sables from above – sand flying.”
The view on ascending these is most entrancing. On the one side stretches beneath, and far away, the verdant forest; while, by a transition as sudden as it is opposite in character, on the other side every feature of the landscape seems as if buried beneath hills of snow. The desert surface might be likened to that of an angry ocean, only that the undulations are far more vast, and the wave crests more lofty than the billows of the sea in its wildest commotion. Looking upward from one of these immense basins, where only the sandwave meets the sky, the beholder is impressed with a sublimity of a novel kind, unmixed with the terror which attends a storm upon the Alps or on the ocean. The scene, wild and unique, may well claim this brief praise, though hitherto unsung, and lacking the charm of historical association,—“the consecration and the poet’s dream.”
Twelve miles beyond this singular region the beaches terminate, and the sand-rock makes its appearance on the coast, in a range of abrupt cliffs. These are “The Pictured Rocks.” They have been often described, but no description that I have seen conveys to my mind a satisfactory impression of their bold, wild, and curious features. In attempting to convey some dear comprehension of them, I can only hope to impart a faithful, though it be a feeble conception of the peculiar features of this marvel of the Northern Lakes.
Page 37: “Distant view of the Pictured Rocks.”
These cliffs are composed of the same gray-and-red sand-rock which I have alluded to as the lowest of the paleozoic or silurian rocks. It appears in many places on the coast, and probably forms a large part of the bed of the lake. The cliffs here rise into a mural precipice, springing perpendicularly from the deep waters to the height of from 80 to 250 feet; and for the distance of fifteen miles, except in one or two places, are destitute of a beach upon which even a canoe may be landed. So dangerous is the coast that vessels all give it a wide berth, passing at too great distance for accurate view. A small boat that lingers runs imminent risks, from the liability of this lake to sudden gales, and the traverse is attempted only during a perfect calm. The sandrock lies in thick strata of varying degrees of hardness, from a coarse crag of the hardest cemented pebbles to a friable rock of aggregated sand. The predominant color is gray, sometimes light, often dark and rusty, and stained by oxides of iron and copper, with which the materials are charged. Bearing in mind these characteristics, the variety of aspects and the strange forms that these cliffs assume will find a ready explanation.
The great diversity of hues that give so beautiful and variegated an appearance to large portions of the surface, and from which the cliffs derive their name, are owing to the metallic oxides which have filtered through the porous stone in watery solutions and left their stains upon the surface. Beautiful as is the effect, it is due to candor to say that to my eyes there appeared but very imperfect representations of those various forms in the vegetable and animal kingdoms which figure in the highly-colored and fanciful descriptions in travellers’ tales. Too extravagant an idea could scarcely be conveyed of the exceeding brilliancy of the coloring; but in regard to what artists style the “laying on,” the picture presented a much closer resemblance to a house-painter’s bucket, upon the outside of which paints of all colors have trickled down in tapering streams. They represent not so much the picture which Nature has painted, as the palette upon which she has cleaned her pencils. Every hue of the rainbow, besides black and white, and in every possible circumstance of shade and alternation, are drawn in long lines, covering thousands of feet of surface.
Near the western extremity of the range, these colors assume a surpassing brilliancy, with a metallic lustre. Streaming over a gracefully curved surface, having an area of several thousand yards, they mimic, on a gigantic scale, the stripes on our national flag, as it waves in the breeze; or, passing down a fractured ledge, are contorted into long zigzag lines.
Upon close examination, these colors are found to proceed from slimy exudations, and to retain their brilliance only while fresh. When the face of the cliff has become dry, they possess a more faint and often mottled appearance. Then may sometimes be found depicted, upon a background of white, yellow or dun, as if rudely dabbed in by the artist, those vague similitudes, in which the imagination may realize verdant landscapes or fierce battle scenes; perhaps, if sufficiently vivid, a full set of Raphael’s Cartoons. As a whole, the general effect of the coloring is so striking, that the appellation conferred upon these cliffs is well deserved. Thus strangely drawn, upon as strange a canvas, they add, at least, wonderful beauty and effect to the greater wonders which Nature has here displayed.
But color is far from being the most notable feature of the Pictured Rocks. The disintegrating material of which the rock is composed renders it very susceptible to the effects of the elements. These cliffs present indubitable evidence that the lake once washed them at a height many feet above its present level. And as the strata are of differing degrees of hardness, they have been worn by the waves into a variety of forms. Huge cavernous fissures penetrate the massive wall, often to the distance of several hundred feet, piercing through its great projecting buttresses, and leaving the solid mountain supported by bare pillars. These, in turn, are worn by the eddying waters into cylindrical columns, connected by arches that sometimes spring with great regularity to a vast height.
Page 41: “La Portaille.”
An immense angular projection of the cliff, known to voyageurs as “La Portaille,” exhibits on its three sides arches of this construction, one of which springs to a height of about 150 feet. The openings form passages into a great cavern, or more properly a vestibule, the roof of which is beyond the reach of our longest oars, and which conducts through the entire projecting mass,—a distance of not less than 500 feet. Entering with our boat into this natural rock-built hall, its yawning caverns and overhanging walls strike a sudden awe into the soul. Echo gives back the voice in loud reverberations, and the discharge of a musket produces a roar like a clap of thunder. “Even the slight motion of the waves,” writes Governor Cass, “which in the most profound calm agitates these internal seas, swept through the deep caverns with a noise of distant thunder, and died upon the ear, as it rolled forward in the dark recesses inaccessible to human observation; no sound more melancholy or more awful ever vibrated upon human nerves. Resting in a frail canoe, upon the limpid waters, we seemed almost suspended in air, so pellucid is the element upon which we floated. In gazing upon the towering battlements which impended over us, and from which the smallest fragment would have destroyed us, we felt, and felt intensely, our own insignificance. No splendid cathedral, no temple built with human hands, no pomp of worship, could ever impress the spectator with such deep humility, and so strong a conviction of the immense distance between him and the Almighty Architect.”* Enthusiastic language! and yet it cannot be deemed exaggerated.
* Discourse before Detroit Historical Society.
The number and perfection of the wave-created pillars meeting the eye at every turn,— and which seem formed to support the immense weight above,—the various forms of the arches and of the overhanging rock, bear a close resemblance to the orders of human architecture. The rotundity of the columns is, in general, well preserved, and their tops swell into capitals. The supported mass, which is seldom less than 100 feet in thickness, often assumes characteristic forms, corresponding to the mock design. In one instance, for nearly half a mile, it resembles a vast entablature, of which the cornice,—jutting at least 20 feet, with a curve whose grace is not excelled by the best sculpture,—the pictured frieze, the mouldings, metopes, medallions, and other of those forms which pertain to Grecian architecture, are struck out, with a master, but giant hand, in magnificent relief, and with a perfection truly admirable. A portion of the structure had fallen, and lay at the base in heaps of ruins. But even the imperfections appear as if due to the gradual process of decay. It requires little stretch of the imagination to conceive the whole fabric to be an enormous edifice, the grandest of man’s construction, of which the main body has by some convulsion been suck and engulfed in the waters. We thought of these monuments of ancient art which the volcanic rain of Vesuvius has overwhelmed; but such a temple as this would have enclosed half of Pompeii!!
Page 43: “The gothic rock.”
The mind naturally inquires, Are the beautiful forms of ancient architecture the result of long and laborious study, or was some marvel like this exhibited in that distant era, from which cunning sculptors borrowed those designs that immortalized the Parthenon? And if—as the learned have supposed—the marble structures of that age received the addition of a coat of glowing colors,—of which time has left some traces—we here view the prototype, not only of the graceful forms upon which they labored so successfully, but of the overlay of colorings, in the glory of their original freshness!
These are but single features in the scenic display. The line of cliffs is not uniformly regular, but curves gradually to the south-west, and presents many angles and projecting points. Passing on to harder portions of the rock, the voyageur may encounter at the next angle a vertical and unbroken wall, rearing its solid front from the bed of the lake to the height of from 200 to 300 feet above the surface. The sharpness of the angular projection equals that created by the square and plummet; while the immense thickness of the strata causes the wall to appear as laid in immense blocks, a hundred feet in length. No such blocks were built into their mausolea by the proudest of the Pharaohs.
New changes present themselves as the traveller proceeds. Suddenly he is before the walls of an impregnable fortress, complete with glacis, bastion, and towers. The western cape of Miner’s River exhibits a curious display of this kind. It resembles the dilapidated tower of some timeworn castle. The base rests upon a series of short columns, connected by groined arches, through many of which a boat may pass with ease. There are eight or ten of these pillars; several have large entrances above, and the tower rears its broken battlements to the height of 120 feet.
Page 45: “La Chapelle, from the Lake.”
Among the characteristic features, none is more extra-ordinary than one to which the French voyageurs have appropriately given the name of “La Chapelle.” This rock was originally part of the solid cliff, of which the greater portion has been swept away, causing a valley about half a mile in breadth, through which a considerable stream enters the lake, falling over the rocks in a sheet of foam. Close by, reared upon the rocky platform, about twenty feet above the lake, and conspicuous from its isolation, stands the chapel. It consists of a tabular mass of sandstone, raised upon five columns, whose capitals swell into a uniform arch and support the ceiling or dome of the edifice. Its whole height is 56 feet. The pillars are somewhat irregular in form and position; including their bases, they are about 25 feet in height, and from 4 to 6 feet diameter in the swell. Regular proportion are not altogether preserved, for in most of them the central portion has the smallest diameter, like an hour-glass. Two uphold the front, and from these the arch springs to the height of 30 feet, allowing to the roof a thickness of five or six feet. The span of this arch is 32 feet, as viewed from the water, in which direction the spectator looks completely through the temple into the woodland beyond. The strength of the roof thus upheld must be considerable, since it is clothed with timber, and from the very centre shoots, spire-like, a lofty pine. The cliff on which the edifice stands forms a proportionate pedestal, ascending from the water in steps, which may be easily mounted.
This solemn natural temple might contain a congregation of several hundred persons. Nor are the usual accommodations for the preacher wanting. A column, the upper half of which has been broken, projects from a recess in the walls, and is worn into a curve behind, like the half of a letter S, creating a stand which would serve the purpose as admirably as it strikingly resembles the old-fashioned pulpit, the base of the column affording convenient steps.
Page 47: “La Chapelle, inside view.”
Upon the cliff, just without, a column stands detached, and worn into the form of an urn, no bad representation of the baptismal font.
At what epoch of the world, or for what class of worshippers, this almost perfect temple was created, we might ask in vain of geologist or theologian. Certainly it is well designed to raise in the beholders thoughts of adoration for its all-skillful Architect, while they assign to it a chief place among the wonders of his workmanship.
An urn-shaped mass, similar to the one here observed, of great regularity and beauty of form, and not less than 50 feet in height, may ben seen at another point of the coast. Several rills of water leap from the very top of these precipitous cliffs, and add much to the charm of the view. Indeed, taken in connection with the wide-sweeping lake, the distant mountain ranges, and the woodland, crowning the cliff, the scene presented is of the most picturesque and wildest character.
“Where’er we gaze, around, above, below, What rainbow tints, what magic charms are found! Rock, river, forest, mountain, all abound, And bluest skies that harmonize the whole; Beneath, the distant torrent’s rushing sound Tells where the volumed cataract doth roll, Between those hanging rocks, that shock yet please the soul.”
Against these huge ramparts in the hour of the storm the billows of this impetuous lake dash with terrific fury, rumbling beneath the open arches, until, from the hollow caverns within, the sounds return like distant echoes, and at times their spray is thrown to the very summits of the cliff. Woe betide the bark that is overtaken by the tempest before these hopeless barriers!
But when the winds are down, lulling the lake to gentlest murmurs, the cautious boatman piles along the lone rampart, and with beating heart ventures to explore its awe-inspiring recesses, those.
“Worn and wild receptacles, Worked by the storms, yet work’d as it were planned, In hollow halls, with sparry roof and cells.”
From this sketch some correct idea may perhaps be gathered of a few of those strange forms which Nature, in her sportive hours, has here carved out of the solid fabric of the globe, as if in mockery of the efforts of man, gigantic monuments of that immeasurable Power who formed the wonders of the universe.
Thirty miles west form the Pictured Rocks, at Chocolate and Carp rivers, we first met, in their approach to the shore, the azoic or primary rocks, which from here onward constitute so interesting and important a feature in the geology of the country. Of their scientific or their economical character it is not my purpose to speak, further than to say that to them belong the iron beds, which are such a mine of wealth to our State. Here, a few years after our visit, sprang into being the busy and thriving city of Marquette. But at the time of which I speak, all was a solitude.
From hence to Keweenaw Bay ranges of granite knobs rise into considerable hills, and around them lie a series of quartzites, slates, and metamorphosed sandstones. The granites are pierced by dykes of trap, which in some cases form straight, narrow, and often lofty walls, in others have overflowed in irregular masses. Here Pluto, not Neptune, has been the controlling spirit, and has left the witness of his rule upon the face of the country. Ascending the knobs of granite and quartz, the change is most striking. To the east the eye embraces a tract lying in immense broad steppes of the sandstone, extending beyond the Pictured Rocks; while to the west are seen only rolling hills and knobs, terminating in the Huron Mountains.
I can add nothing to what is so well known of the mineral riches of this part of the country. But there is in its building-stones a wealth that is hardly yet begun to be realized. No more beautiful and serviceable material than the easily-worked and variously-tinted sandstones is found in the West; and her granites, already broken by natural forces into convenient block, and as yet untried, will command a market in the time coming, when the solid and durable shall be regarded a chief requisites to good architecture.
Following our westerly direction to Point Keweenaw, we find the dominion of Pluto established on a most magnificent scale. Not only is his energy displayed in the stern and rock-bound coast, but in the lofty ranges of trap, which rise into rugged hills of from 400 to 900 feet above the lake. Within these are secreted, but scarcely concealed, those wonderful veins of native copper, here quarried rather than mined, in masses such as the world has nowhere else produced.
Page 51: “View from the cliff ranges.”
But of all this wealth nothing was then known, except that traces of copper were visible at a few places along the coast, and that a large mass of the native metal lay in the bed of Ontonagon River, long revered by the Indians as a Manitou, and mentioned in the relations of the early French historians.
I will but add, as the result of this season’s explorations, that the report of the State geologist, published the ensuing winter, unravelled the whole subject of the mode of occurrence of the copper and its associated minerals, in the most complete and scientific manner. It first made known the immense value which Michigan possessed in its hitherto despised Upper Peninsula; and its immediate effect was to arouse an interest in this then wild and uninhabited Indian territory, which has led to the opening up of its mines, and its present teeming prosperity.
On the third of July we encamped at Copper Harbor, and spent several days in exploration of the surrounding country, and in blasting for ores. Several blasts were got ready for the great national jubilee, which we commemorated in the noisy manner usual with Americans, by a grand discharge from the rocks. We succeeded in producing a tremendous report, and the echo, resounding from the placid water as from a sounding-board, pealed forth in corresponding reverberations for several minutes. Later in the day we retired to our camp and partook of an equally grand dinner. It consisted of pigeons, fried and stewed, corn and bean soup, short-cake and hard-tack, pork, and—last but not least—a can of fine oysters, which had been brought along for the occasion. Truly a sumptuous repast for a party of wilderness vagrants, even on a Fourth of July anniversary!
But time warns me to hasten my journey. I will therefore proceed at once to the Ontonagon, where an adventure befel, which it becomes a true knight-errant to relate. It was our purpose to pass up this river to the large mass of copper already alluded to. As we landed at the mouth there were noticed, on the opposite side of the river, several Indian lodges. As soon as we had dined, a few of the occupants crossed over in canoes, shook hands with us, giving the usual greeting of “Bo jou,” and received a small gift of tobacco and bread. Accompanying were half a dozen young boys, some of whom had remarkably fine features. We could not but notice, as an usual circumstance, that several of the men were painted black. One athletic fellow in particular, in this grimy coloring, and naked except the clout, made a very grotesque though savage appearance. The devil himself, however, is said not to be so black as he is painted, and this fellow seemed rather to act the buffoon than the noble warrior.
~ Douglass Houghton Papers: 1829-1845
“It is at this place, the Chegoimegon of early writers, that tradition places the ancient council fire of the Chippewa nation. […] The present chieftain, Chi Waishki, alias Pizhickee, or the Buffalo, is the representative of this line. He said to the Indian Agent, who, by direction of the commissioners at the treaty of Fond du Lac, in 1826, invested him with a silver medal. “What need I of this! It is known whence I am descended. […] Chi Waishki, the chief above alluded to, was met at Keweena, on his way to visit the Agency.”
~ Narrative of an expedition through the upper Mississippi to Itasca Lake, the actual source of this river : embracing an exploratory trip through the St. Croix and Burntwood (or Broule) Rivers, in 1832, by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, 1834, pages 20-21.
The party proved to belong to the Buffaloes, whose chief we had met at River Tequamenon, near the eastern end of the lake, and were under the command of the son of that chief. The latter was a resolute-looking fellow, of about 26 or 30 years of age. His face was painted red, and he wore a medal bearing the likeness of John Quincy Adams. We paid little attention to the Indians, although aware that on several occasions exploring parties had been stopped at the mouth of this river and turned back.
We had made but two of three miles progress up the stream when the rapid stroke of paddles was heard, and a canoe, manned with Indians, shot quickly around a bend below and came into slight. The savages were seated, as their custom is, in the bottom of their bark, so that only heads and shoulders were visible. As each applied his whole strength the canoe skimmed over the surface like a young duck, while the dashing of so many paddles caused her to seem propelled by a water-wheel.
“”By a comparison of the number of Indians vaccinated upon the borders of Lake Superior, with the actual population, it will be seen that the proportion who have passed through the vaccine disease is so great as to secure them against any general prevalence of the small-pox; and perhaps it is sufficient to prevent the introduction of the disease to the bands beyond, through this channel. But in the Folle Avoine country it is not so. Of the large bands of Indians residing in that section of country, only a small fraction of been vaccinated; while of other bands not a single person has passed through the disease.”
~ Narrative of an expedition through the upper Mississippi to Itasca Lake, the actual source of this river : embracing an exploratory trip through the St. Croix and Burntwood (or Broule) Rivers, in 1832, by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, 1834, page 253.
Our leader’s boat, which was ahead, immediately lay to and raised her American flag. “If they want to fight,” said the Doctor, “we’ll give them a chance.” Our two boats moved into line, and the doctor’s assistants armed themselves, one with a revolver, the other with a rusty shot-gun, our entire military resource. The canoe was soon alongside, and the heads and shoulders proved to belong the bodies of eight stout natives, headed by the young chief. Dr. Houghton held out his hand to be shaken as before. He then asked, through an interpreter, if they recollected the man who had put something into their arms when they were sick, a number of years ago. This something was vaccine for the small-pox, Doctor H. having accompanied the Schoolcraft expedition, in the capacity of physician and botanist. To this the chief, who doubtless well knew, made no reply, but demanded our errand up the river, and said that he and his men had been stationed at the mouth by his father, the head of the tribe, with orders to allow no boat to pass up without that chief’s permission. He added further, that we had not paid him, the son, the respect that was his due, by calling at his lodge and leaving a present. Our leader replied that he was sent hither by their great Father, whose instructions he should obey; that he should ascend the river as far as suited him, and that he did not recognize in them any authority to stop him.
Is this a photo of Jechiikwii’o wearing the 1826 medal in 1856-7? You be the judge.
~ Error Correction: Photo Mystery Still Unsolved
Chief. You must wait at the mouth until the Buffalo comes up. Else I and my band shall go with you, and see that you take nothing.
Doctor. I have been here before, and shall go now, as I am ordered by your great Father. I know the country and do not need a guide.
Chief. This country belongs to us.
Doctor. I know that the country is Indian territory, but the treaty of 1826 allows citizens of the United States to visit it. Neither shall I ask consent of the chief to take what I please. But, being acquainted with the Buffalo, I have no objection to showing him what I bring away.
At this stage of the alteration another canoe came in sight, which proved to contain the boys. By this time two of the Indians had made free to step into our small boat, where they seated themselves with great appearance of familiarity. The affair would have had enough of the ludicrous mingled with its serious aspect to warrant us in making light of it, and holding no further parley, but for two considerations, which we could not afford to overlook. Owing to the numerous rapids, the barge, which contained our whole stock, could be got up only ten miles, while we had to proceed to the forks, twenty miles further, in our smaller boat, and thence five miles by foot. And in case of a trial of strength with the Indians, no dependence could be placed upon our hired voyageurs, most of whom were allied to the opposite party, both in blood and training.
Pointing to a bend in the river, our detainers now said, “We are determined that you shall not go beyond that point to-night.” This audacious order determined us to at once break off all conference, so asserting our intention to be no longer hindered or delayed, we prepared for immediate departure. After some consultation among themselves, the chief answered, that if we would then and there make them a present of a keg of pork and a barrel of flour we would be allowed to proceed, but should be expected to bestow a further present to the head chief on our return.
To this bold demand, which plainly appeared to be a levy of blackmail, an act of piracy, Dr. Houghton replied that he would give them as a present such things as they stood in immediate need of, but nothing more. Nor should he recognize the shadow of a right to demand even that. Accordingly, a bag filled with flour, and some pork and tobacco were offered, and the leader agreed to accept his present in powder, lead, and provisions at La Pointe, whither we were bound.
The parley being at an end, we drew off and pushed up the stream. The hostiles remained awhile in consultation, and then withdrew in the opposite direction. A few miles above we encamped for the night.
It was a necessity, as I have stated, to leave our barge behind with all our stores, while the exploring party were absent for two days and a night. Of course this dilemma was known to the enemy. Holding a council of war the next morning, it was resolved to leave with our goods four of the men, together with the gun. They received most positive orders to fire upon the first Indian who touched the baggage, in case any of them should return, as we had reason to expect. And our captain added with solemn emphasis, that if any man failed in fidelity, his own life should pay the forfeit. Having thus played upon their fears, we pursued our laborious journey, reached the Copper Rock at nightfall, and tired with the day’s toils, laid down beneath the cover of the forest and slept soundly.
“Engraving depicting the [1820] Schoolcraft expedition crossing the Ontonagon River to investigate a copper boulder.”
~ Wisconsin Historical Society
But to conclude the narrative: on reaching camp, on our return, we learned that the chief, with several of this band, had been there, but had touched nothing, and according to his own account, had taken the trail for Lake Flambeau, in order to join a war-party, then organizing, of the Chippewas against the Sioux. Notwithstanding this story we fully expected to meet these fellows again at the mouth, and to whip them there if we could. But when we reached the place all was silent, and the lodges deserted.
Page 57: “Falls at the mouth of Montreal River.”
I will only add to this long story, that our captain’s order was never presented. We learned further, on reaching La Pointe, that the party which waylaid us had known of our journey from the first; that they had “smoked over it,” had dogged us the whole way up the lake, subsisting themselves by fishing, and that when we met they were nearly starved.
I will take my hearers but one stage further before closing this excursive ramble.
Charles William Wulff Borup
~ Minnesota Historical Society
Charles Henry Oakes
~ Findagrave.com
A few days brought us to the islands called by Carver “The Apostles.” On one of the largest of these, Madeline, at La Pointe, is located a general depot of the American Fur Company, for all the western parts of the lake, and the chain of lakes and rivers leading into it. It had become, in consequence, an asylum for all the old traders of that part of the country, and the temporary abode to great numbers of Indians. After pitching our tents on the beach, in front of the fort, amid a crowd of Indians and equally idle half-breeds, we were welcomed by the company’s factor, Dr. Borup, Mr. Oakes, the factor from Fond-dulac, and Mr. Bushnell, the Indian agent, and invited to all the hospitalities of the place.
During our whole voyage from the Sault we had not seen the face of a white man, except at the mission of L’Anse, and a casual fishing party. But here, at the end of our wandering, far from what we had been accustomed to consider the limits of civilization, we were greeted, in the families of these gentlemen, not only by features to which we had been so long strangers, but by all the attendant civilized refinements. The dress and manners of the East, the free converse with friendly voices of our own and the gentler sex, the music of a piano, the sound of the church-going bell and Christian services, seemed to us rather like a return to our homes than the extreme of a two-months’ journey in the wilderness.
It may interest my hearer to know in more detail what composed a post so remote, and which was to me so much a surprise.
La Pointe at that period was one of those peculiar growths known only to a era which has long passed away, or been banished to regions still more remote. What is called the company’s “fort” consisted of two large stores painted red, a long storehouse for fish, at the wharf, and row of neat frame buildings painted white. The latter were occupied by the half dozen families in the company’s employ. These dwellings, with the two stores, formed opposite sides of a broad street, in the centre square of which was planted a large flag-pole. Upon this street also clustered sundry smaller and unpainted log tenements of the French and half-breeds. Half a mile from the fort were the Protestant and Catholic missions. The former boasted a good frame mansion of two stories, attached to which was a school, numbering thirty scholars. The Catholic mission had a large number of followers, including the French and Indians. In all, the settlement contained about fifty permanent tenements. Beside these were perhaps an equal number of Indian lodges, irregularly disposed in vacant spaces, and adding to the size and picturesque character of the village. Several hundred Indians usually found constant employ in the fisheries at this place.
This was the oldest, as well as most remote, of the Jesuit missions in the North-west, having been established by Father Allouez, in 1665. It was then a gathering place of many Indian nations, and was hundreds of miles from the nearest French settlement.
It has additional interest from the fact that it witnessed the youthful and zealous labors of Pere Marquette, who came, in 1669, to take the place of Father Allouez, among the Ottawas, Hurons, and other tribes of the neighborhood. It was at La Pointe that Marquette planned that voyage of first discovery, exploration and missionary enterprise down the Mississippi which has rendered his name illustrious.
Page 61: “Pere Marquette. (From the statue at City Hall, Detroit.)”
In the families I have mentioned might be detected an intermixture of Indian blood, which detracts little even from the fairness of the daughters, and the ladies as well as the gentlemen are intelligent and highly educated. Their lives, when not occupied in business, are spent in reading and music; and during the long, cold winter, frequent rides are taken on the ice, upon which they pass from island to island in sledges drawn by dogs.
I could not but picture to my mind, outside of this intelligent circle, the festivities which marked this distant post, at that season, in the more palmy days of the fur trade; when it would be crowded with the hangers-on of such an establishment, returned-returned from their sojourn in the trapping grounds, or their toilsome voyages to and from Montreal and Quebec, bent on lavishing away their season’s earnings in days of idleness or debauch, and in “long nights of revelry and ease.”
Much of this old-time character still remained. The motley population, the unique village, the fisheries and furs, the Indian dances and pow-wows, the mixture of civilization and barbarism, the isolation, broken only be occasional and irregular arrivals from the world below,—made up a scene for which we were little prepared, which will not be easily forgotten, but of which I can give only this meagre description.
Martin Beaser
August 9, 2016
By Amorin Mello
Magazine of Western History Illustrated
November 1888
as republished in
Magazine of Western History: Volume IX, No.1, pages 24-27.
Martin Beaser.
Portrait of Martin Beaser on page 24.
On the fifth day of July 1854, Asaph Whittlesey and George Kilborn left La Pointe, in a row-boat, with the design of finding a “town site” on some available point near the “head of the bay.” At five o’clock P.M. of the same day they landed at the westerly limit of the present town site of Ashland. As Mr. Whittlesey stepped ashore, Mr. Kilborn exclaimed, “Here is the place for a big city!” and handing his companion an axe, he added, “I want you to have the honor of cutting the first tree in a way of a settlement upon the town site.” And the tree thus felled formed one of the foundation logs in the first building in the place. Such is the statement which has found its way into print as to the beginning of Ashland. But the same account adds: “Many new-comers arrived during the first few years after the settlement; among them Martin Beaser, who located permanently in Ashland in 1856, and was one of its founders.”1 How this was will soon be explained.
The father of the subject of this sketch, John Baptiste Beaser, was a native of Switzerland, educated as a priest, but never took orders. He came to America, reaching Philadelphia about the year 1812, where he married Margaret McLeod. They then moved to Buffalo, in one of the suburbs of which, called Williamsville, their son Martin was born, on the twenty-seventh of October, 1822. The boy received his early education in the common schools of the place, when, at the age of fourteen, he went on a whaling voyage, sailing from New Bedford, Massachusetts. His voyage lasted four years; his second voyage, three years; the last of which was made in the whaleship Rosseau, which is still afloat, the oldest of its class in America.
The young man went out as boat-steerer on his second voyage, returning as third mate. During his leisure time on shipboard and the interval between the two voyages, he spent in studying the science of navigation, which he successfully mastered. On his return from his fourth years’ cruise in the Pacific and Indian oceans, he was offered the position of second mate on a new ship then nearing completion and which would be ready to sail in about sixty days. He accepted the offer. They would notify him when the ship was ready, and he would in the meantime visit his mother, then a widow, residing in Buffalo. Accordingly, after an absence of seven years, he returned to his native city, spending the time in renewing old acquaintances and relating the varied experience of a whaler’s life. He had rare conversational powers, holding his listeners spell-bound at the recital of some thrilling adventure. A journal kept by him during his voyages and now in the possession of his family, abounds in hair-breadth escapes from savages on the shores of some of the South sea islands and the perils of whale-fishing, of which he had many narrow escapes. The time passed quickly, and he anxiously awaited the summons to join his ship. Leaving the city for a day the expected letter came, but was carefully concealed by his mother until after the ship had sailed, thus entirely changing the future of his life.
“… Martin, a sailor just from the whaling grounds of the Northwest Coast …”
Disappointed in his aspirations to command a ship in the near future, as he had reasons to hope from the rapid promotions he had already received – from a boy before the mast to mate of a ship in two voyages – and yielding to his mother’s wish not to leave home again, he engaged in sailing on Lake Erie from Buffalo to Detroit until 1847, when he went in the interest of a company in the latter city to Lake Superior for the purpose of exploring the copper ranges in the northern peninsula of Michigan. He coasted from Sault Ste. Marie to Ontonagon in a bateau. Remaining in the employ of the company about a year, he then engaged in a general forwarding and commission business for himself.
“Algonquin Company of Detroit.”
~ Reports of Wm. A. Burt and Bela Hubbard, by T. W. Bristol, 1846, page 97.
~ A History of the Northern Peninsula of Michigan and Its People: Volume 1, by Alvah Littlefield Sawyer, 1911, page 222.
Mr. Beaser was largely identified with the early mining interests of Ontonagon county, being instrumental in opening up and developing some of the best mines in that district.
In 1848 he was married in Cattaraugus county, New York, in the town of Perrysburgh, to Laura Antionette Bebee. The husband and wife the next spring went west, going to Ontonagon by way of Detroit. The trip from buffalo lasted from the first day of May to the sixth of June, they being detained at the “Soo” two weeks on account of the changing of the schooner Napoleon into a propeller, in which vessel, after a voyage of six days, they reached Ontonagon.
Here Mr. Beaser resided for seven years in the same business of forwarding and commission, furnishing frequently powder and candles to the miners by the ton. He was a portion of the this time associated with Thomas B. Hanna, formerly of Ohio. They then sold out their interest – Mr. Beaser going in company with Augustus Coburn and Edward Sayles to Superior, at the head of the lake, taking a small boat with them and Indian guides. Thus equipped they explored the region of Duluth, going up the Brule and St. Louis rivers. They then returned to La Pointe, going up Chaquamegon bay; and having their attention called to the site of what is now Ashland, on account of what seemed to be its favorable geographical position. As there had been some talk of the feasibility of connecting the Mississippi river and Lake Superior by a ship canal, it was suggested to them that this point would be a good one for its eastern terminus. Another circumstance which struck them was the contiguity of the Penokee iron range. This was in 1853. The company then returned to Ontonagon.
Closing up his business at the latter place, Mr. Beaser decided to return to the bay of Chaquamegon to look up and locate the town site on its southern shore. In the summer of 1854, on arriving there, he found Mr. Whittlesey and Mr. Kilborn on the ground. He then made arrangement with them by which he (Mr. Beaser) was to enter the land, which he did at Superior, where the land office was then located for that section. The contract between the three was, that Mr. Whittlesey and Mr. Kilborn were to receive each an eighth interest in the land, while the residue was to go to Mr. Beaser. The patent for the land was issued to Schuyler Goff, as county Judge of La Pointe county, Wisconsin, who was the trustee for the three men, under the law then governing the location of town sites.
La Pointe County Judge Schuyler Goff was issued this patent for 280.53 acres on June 23rd, 1862, on behalf of Martin Beaser, Asaph Whittlesey, and George Kilburn.
~ General Land Office Records
Mr. Beaser afterwards got his deed from the judge to his three-quarters’ interest in the site.
Beaser named Ashland in honor of the Henry Clay Estate in Kentucky.
~ National Park Service
In January, 1854, Mr. Beaser having previously engaged a topographical engineer, G.L. Brunschweiler, the two, with a dog train and two Indians, made the journey from Ontonagon to the proposed town site, where Mr. Brunschweiler surveyed and platted2 a town on the land of the men before spoken of as parties in interest, to which town Mr. Beaser gave the name of Ashland. These three men, therefore, were the founders of Ashland, although afterwards various additions were made to it.
Mr. Beaser did not bring his family to Ashland until the eighth of September, 1856. He engaged in the mercantile business there until the war broke out, and was drowned in the bay while attempting to come from Bayfield to Ashland in an open boat, during a storm, on the fourth of November, 1866. He was buried on Madeline island at La Pointe. He was “closely identified with enterprises tending to open up the country; was wealthy and expended freely; was a man of fine discretion and good, common sense.” He was never discouraged as to Ashland’s future prosperity.
The children of Mr. Beaser, three in number, are all living: Margaret Elizabeth, wife of James A. Croser of Menominee, Michigan; Percy McLeod, now of Ashland; and Harry Hamlin, also of Ashland, residing with his mother, now Mrs. Wilson, an intelligent and very estimable lady.
1 See ‘History of Northern Wisconsin,’ p. 67.
2 The date of the platting of Ashland by Brunschweiler is taken from the original plat in the possession of the recorder of Ashland county, Wisconsin.
Samuel Stuart Vaughn
August 8, 2016
By Amorin Mello
Magazine of Western History Illustrated
November 1888
as republished in
Magazine of Western History: Volume IX, No. 1, pages 17-21.
Samuel Stuart Vaughn.
Portrait of Samuel Stuart Vaughn on page 16.
Of the pioneers upon the southern shores of Lake Superior, none stand higher in the memory of those now living there than Samuel Stuart Vaughn. He was born at Berea, Cuyahoga county, Ohio, on the second of September, 1830. His parents were Ephraim Vaughn and Eunice Stewart Vaughn. Samuel was the youngest in a family of five children – two daughters and three sons. Although at a very early age possessed of a great desire for an education, he was, to a large extent, denied the advantages of schools, owing to the fact that his father was in straitened circumstances financially. It is related of the boy Samuel that he picked up chestnuts at one time, and took them into Cleveland, where he disposed of them to purchase a geography [book?] he wanted. Three months was the whole extent of his time passed in the common schools of his native place – surely a brief period, and one sorely regretted for its brevity by a boy who, even then, hungered and thirsted for knowledge.
~ FindAGrave.com
In 1849 the young man came to Eagle River, Michigan, where he engaged himself to his brother as clerk. He remained there until 1852, when the brothers removed to La Pointe, Wisconsin, reaching that place on the fourth of August. He now opened a store, and engaged in trading with the Indians and fishermen of the island and surrounding country. La Pointe was then the county seat of a county of the same name in Wisconsin, and a place of considerable importance, though its glory has since departed.
Vaughn advertisement from the August 22nd, 1857, issue of the Bayfield Mercury newspaper.
~ NewspaperArchive.com
Young Vaughn spoke the French and Chippewa languages fluently. This accomplishment was absolutely necessary, in the early days of this region of country to make a man successful as a trader. He was very fond of reading, particularly works of history, and through all his pioneer life his books were his loved companions. His taste was not for worthless books, but for those of an improving character; hence he received a large amount of benefit from his silent teachers.
In his relation with the Indians, which, owing to the nature of his business, were quite intimate, Mr. Vaughn commanded their fullest confidence. It is related that when at one time there were rumors of trouble between the white people and the Chippewas, and many of the settlers became frightened and feared they would be murdered by the natives, a delegation of chiefs came to him and said they wanted to have a talk. They said they had heard of the fears of the whites, but assured him there was nothing to be afraid of; the Indians would do no harm, “for,” said they, “we know that the soldiers of the white man are like the sands of the sea in numbers, and if we make any trouble they will come and overpower us.” Mr. Vaughn was abundantly satisfied of their sincerity as well as of their peaceful disposition, and he soon quieted the fears of the settlers.
“Being impressed,” says a writer who knew him well,
“with the future possibilities of this country and ambitious, to use a favorite expression of his own, to become ‘a man among men,’ he recognized the disadvantage under which he labored from the limited educational advantages he had enjoyed in his youth, and his first earnings were devoted to remedying his deficiency in this respect. Closing his business at La Pointe, he returned to his native state, where a year was spent in preparatory studies, which were pursued with a full realization of their importance to his future career. He spent several months in Cleveland acquiring a ‘business education.’ He became a systematic bookkeeper, careful in his transactions and persevering in his plans. Having devoted as much time to the special course of instruction marked out by him as his limited means would afford, he returned to La Pointe, at that time the only white settlement in all this region, where he remained until 1856.” 1
Mr. Vaughn, during the year just named, removed to Bayfield, the town site having been previously surveyed and platted. It was opposite La Pointe on the mainland, and is now the county-seat of Bayfield county, Wisconsin. There he erected the first stone building,2 built also a saw-mill, and engaged in the sale of general merchandise and in the manufacture of lumber. “In his characteristic manner,” says the writer just quoted,
“of doing with all his might whatever his hands found to do, he at once took a leading position in all matters of private and public interest which go to the building up of a prosperous community.”
Mr. Vaughn built what is known as Vaughn’s dock in Bayfield, and remained in that town until 1872. Meanwhile, he was married in Solon, Ohio, to Emeline Eliza Patrick. This event took place on the twenty-second of December, 1864. After spending a few months among friends in Ohio, he brought his wife west to share his frontier life. The wedding journey was made in February, 1865, the two going first to St. Paul; thence they journeyed to Bayfield by sleigh, “partly over logging roads, and partly over no road.” It was a novel experience to the bride, but one which she had no desire to shrink from. She was not the wife to be made unhappy by ordinary difficulties.
As early as the twenty-fifth of October, 1856, Mr. Vaughn had preëmpted one hundred and sixty acres of land, afterwards known as “Vaughn’s division of Ashland.” He was one of the leading spirits in the projection of the old St. Croix & Lake Superior railroad, and contributed liberally of his time and money in making the preliminary organizations and surveys. Being convinced, from the natural location of Ashland, that it would become in the future a place of importance, was the reason which induced him to preëmpt the land there, of which mention has just been made.
Vaughn was issued his patent to 40 acres in Ashland on June 1st, 1859. The other 120 acres of his preemption are not accounted for in these records.
~ General Land Office Records
As may be presumed, Mr. Vaughn omitted no opportunity of calling the attention of capitalists to the necessity of railroad facilities for northern Wisconsin. He became identified with the early enterprises organized for the purpose of building a trunk line from the southern and central portions of the state to Lake Superior, and was for many years a director in the old “Winnebago & Lake Superior” and “Portage & Lake Superior” Railroad companies, which, after many trials and tribulations, were consolidated, resulting in the building of the pioneer road – the Wisconsin Central.
The Vaughn Building
~ The Northwest Magazine, October 1890, page 18.
In 1871, upon the completion of the survey of the Wisconsin Central railroad, he proceeded to lay out his portion of the town of Ashland, and made arrangements for the transfer of his business thither from Bayfield. During the next year he made extensive improvements to his new home; these included the building of a residence, the erection of a store, also (in company with Mr. Charles Fisher) of a commercial dock. The Wisconsin Central railroad had begun work at the bay (Chaquamegon); and, at this time, many settlers were coming in. In the fall he moved into his new house, becoming, with his wife, a permanent resident of Ashland.
Mr. Vaughn and his partner just named received at their dock large quantities of merchandise by lake, and they took heavy contracts to furnish supplies to the railroad before mentioned. In the fall of 1872 they established branch stores at Silver creek and White river to furnish railroad men with supplies. They also had contracts to get out all the ties used by the railroad between Ashland and Penokee. In 1875 the firm was dissolved, and Mr. Vaughn continued in business until 1881, when he sold out, but continued to handle coal and other merchandise at his dock. In the winter previous he put in 10,000,000 feet of logs.
Mr. Vaughn represented the counties of Ashland, Barren, Bayfield, Burnett, Douglas and Polk in the thirty-fourth regular session of the Wisconsin legislature, being a member of the assembly for the year 1871. These counties, according to the Federal census of the year previous, contained a population of 6,365. His majority in the district over Issac I. Moore, Democrat, was 398. Mr. Vaughn was in politics a Republican. Previous to this time he had been postmaster for four years at Bayfield. He was several times called to the charge of town and county affairs as chairman of the board of supervisors, and in every station was faithful, as well as equal, to his trust; but he was never ambitious for political honors. He died at his home in Ashland of pneumonia, on the twenty-ninth day of January, 1886.
Ashland – Residence of Mrs. E. Vaughn.
~ The Northwest Magazine, October 1890, page 20.
Mr. Vaughn was one of the most prominent men in northern Wisconsin, and one of the wealthiest citizens of Ashland at the time of his decease. He had accumulated a large amount of real estate in Ashland and Bayfield, and held heavy iron interests in the Gogebic district; but, at the same time, he was a man of charitable nature, being a member of several charitable orders and societies. He was a member of Ashland Lodge, I.O.O.F., and one of its foremost promoters and supporters. Mr. Vaughn was also a Mason, being a member of Wisconsin Consistory, Chippewa Commandery, K.T., Ashland Chapter, R.A.M., and Ancient Landmark Lodge, F. and A.M.
Although an unostentatious man, Mr. Vaughn was possessed of much public spirit, and the remark had been common in Ashland since his death, by those who knew him best, that the city had lost its best man. Certain it is that he was possessed of great enterprise, and was always ready with his means to help forward any scheme that he saw would benefit the community in which he lived. It had long been one of his settled determinations to appropriate part of his wealth to the establishment of a free library in Ashland. So it was that before his death the site had been chosen by him for the building, and a plan of the institution formulated in his mind, intending soon to make a reality of his day-dreams concerning this undertaking; but death cut short his plans.
Vaughn Memorial Library
~ The Northwest Magazine, October 1890, page 18.
It is needless to say to those who know to whom was confided the whole subject of the “Vaughn Library,” that it has not been allowed to die out. In his will Mr. Vaughn left hall his property to his wife, and she nobly came forward to make his known desires with regard to the institution a fixed fact. The corner-stone of the building for the library was laid, with imposing ceremonies, on the fourteenth of July, 1887, and a large number of books will soon be purchased to fill the shelves now nearly ready for them. It will be, in the broadest sense, a public library – free to all; and will surely become a lasting and proud monument to its generous founder, Samuel Stewart Vaughn. She who was left to carry out the noble schemes planned by the subject of this sketch, now the wife of the Rev. Angus Mackinnon, deserves particular mention in this connection. She is a lady of marked characteristics, all of which go to her praise. Soon after reaching her home in the west she taught some of the Bayfield Indians to read and write; and from that time to the present, has proved herself in many ways of sterling worth to northern Wisconsin.
Mrs. Emeline Vaughn
~ The Northwest Magazine, October 1890, page 19.
“Years ago, when Ashland consisted of a few log houses and a half dozen stores – before there was even a rail through the woods that lead to civilization many miles away – this lady was a member of ‘Literary,’ organized by a half-dozen progressive young people; and in a paper which she then read on ‘The Future of Ashland,’ she predicted nearly everything about the growth of the place that has taken place during the past few years – the development of the iron mines, railroads, iron furnaces, water-works, paved streets, and, to a dot, the present limits of its thoroughfares. She is a representative Ashland lady.”
1 Samuel S. Fifield in the Ashland Press of February 6, 1886.
2 This was the second house in the place.
Another biographical sketch and this portrait of Samuel Stuart Vaughn are available on pages 80-81 of Commemorative Biographical Record of the Upper Lake Region by J.H. Beers & Co., 1905.
Edwin Ellis, M.D.
August 7, 2016
By Amorin Mello
Magazine of Western History Illustrated
November 1888
as republished in
Magazine of Western History: Volume IX, No.1, pages 21-24.
Edwin Ellis.
Portrait of Edwin Ellis, M.D. on page 20.
The subject of this sketch is a native of New England, and one of the “Oxford Bears,” having been in Peru, Oxford county, Maine, in 1824. His birthplace was on the banks of the Androscoggin river, among the mountains, a wild, romantic place. His ancestors came early from England to the Massachusetts colony, about the middle of the seventeenth century.
His maternal grandfather was in the Revolutionary army, and to the end of a long life was intensely patriotic and American in all his acts and thoughts. He bought one hundred and sixty acres of government land at the close of the War of the Revolution, on which he lived for more than seventy years, until his death. It still remains in the family. There were no roads in his neighborhood; and at first he was obliged to carry his corn and wheat to mill, for more than thirty miles, upon his shoulders and by a “spotted line.” He lived to break the ground for a railroad to his town and to see its completion.
Dr. Ellis received his early education in the New England common school, whose term was not more than three months in the year. At the age of fourteen years he began the study of Latin at home, going for occasional recitations to one of the celebrated Abbot family, who was a farmer in the town, some four miles distant. He was inclined to study the law, but his mother, who was a most conscientious woman, thought an honest lawyer could not live by his calling, often repeating to him this couplet –
“If I turn lawyer, I must lie and cheat,
For honest lawyers have no bread to eat.”
This had some influence upon him, and he chose the profession of medicine. He entered Waterville college (now Cobly university) in 1842, pursuing its first year’s course, when he began the study of medicine, teaching school in winter to raise money enough to pay his expenses, in which he was cheerfully assisted by his father to the extent of his means, which were very limited, he being a house carpenter and receiving the usual wages of those days of one dollar to one dollar and fifty cents per day.
Edwin Ellis graduated in medicine at the University of the city of New York, in March, 1846, being nearly twenty-two years of age. He at first settled at North New Portland, Maine. It was a frontier town, and the roads in such condition that he was obliged to travel on horseback, going sometimes forty miles in the night.
Brother-in-law Daniel A. J. Baker
~ The Eye of the North-west, pg. 9.
At the end of a year he settled in Farmington, Maine, where he had studied his profession, where, in 1847, he was married to Sophia S. Davis, who lived less than two years, leaving a daughter, Sophia Augusta, who married George H. Kennedy, who now lives at Ashland.
Dr. Ellis married Martha B. Baker of New Sharon, Maine, in 1850, a woman who has been a faithful and efficient wife for almost forty years. By her he has three children – Domelia, married to George C. Loranger of Calumet, Michigan; Edwin H., bookkeeper in the First National Bank of Ashland, and J. Scott, engaged in wood and coal at Ashland.
Dr. Ellis continued the practice of his profession in Maine, till 1854, with an increasing practice and fair prospects.
~ Minnesota Historical Society Collections: Volume XV, page 832.
But the west was then attracting much attention and the tide of emigration flowing with a strong current. His wife’s brother, Judge Baker of St. Paul, and been for several years in St. Paul, and his representations and inducements led him to sever his pleasant relations with the east and try his fortunes in the west. He with his family, wife and two children, reached St. Paul early in May, 1854. That year he carried on a farm where Merriam park now is, but he was not at home in this business, and abandoned it in the fall of that year.
The years 1852 to 1857 were years of great speculation throughout the northwest. Towns and cities, at least on paper, were springing up with marvelous rapidity. Men became, or seemed to become, suddenly rich by the rapid rise of farming lands and city lots. It was an era of strange speculation, demoralizing in its effects and leading to the terrible panic of 1857.
!["In 1845 [Warren Lewis] was appointed Register of the United States Land Office at Dubuque. In 1853 he was appointed by President Pierce Surveyor-General for Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota and at the expiration of his term was reappointed by President Buchanan." ~ The Iowa Legislature](https://chequamegonhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/warner-lewis.jpg)
“In 1845 [Warren Lewis] was appointed Register of the United States Land Office at Dubuque. In 1853 he was appointed by President Pierce Surveyor-General for Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota and at the expiration of his term was reappointed by President Buchanan.”
~ The Iowa Legislature
Ellis was issued his title to 125.72 acres of land in Ashland on July 15th, 1858.
~ General Land Office Records
Downtown in Saint Paul during the financial panic of 1857.
~ Minnesota Historical Society
![Leonard Hemenway Wheeler ~ Unnamed Wisconsin by [????]](https://chequamegonhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/leonard-hemenway-wheeler-from-unnamed-wisconsin.jpg)
Leonard Hemenway Wheeler
~ Unnamed Wisconsin, by John Nelson Davidson, 1895.
In 1877 he was appointed as county judge of Ashland county, by Governor Smith, to which he has been twice re-elected by his fellow-citizens. He is president of the First National Bank of Ashland. He has retired from the general practice of his profession, but is one of the surgeons of St. Joseph’s hospital, which he visits an hour each day. He is still active and deeply interested in all that concerns Ashland; has aided in securing the Holly system of water-works, the gas and electric works and the street railway. He is a firm believer in the Christian religion and in a personal God, whose guiding hand he recognizes in all the events of his life, and to whom he owes everything and to whom he desires to honor in all his journey of life, and is still alive to all efforts designed to improve and elevate the condition of his fellow-men.
Edwin Ellis, M.D., died in Ashland on May 3rd, 1903. This portrait and a posthumous biography of Dr. Ellis are available on pages 16-18 of Commemorative Biographical Record of the Upper Lake Region by J.H. Beers & Co., 1905.
Chequamegon History 