Wisconsin School for the Deaf - Tattler Yearbook (Delavan, WI)

Page 18 text:

GOVERNOR'S GUARDS THE EARLY HISTORY OF WISCONSIN By Reuben Rosenficld In the northern part of Wisconsin there is the oldest land formation in the slate, as well as one of the oldest in the world. The land in the northern part of our state came above the surface of the sea before that of surrounding states. So Wisconsin was up and doing while its neighboring states were still slumbering beneath the gen. Later the great continental glacier that eiept down from the north did not touch the southwestern part of the state and so the soil and laud formation there is considerably different from that where the glaciers left their drift. We have splendid roads in Wisconsin and they are made possible because of what these glaciers did many thousands of years ago. The glaciers brought and left gravel and sand and today we use it to make gravel and concrete roads. The scenic beauty of Wisconsin which is becoming famous throughout our nution, also owes much to the work of these glaciers because they dammed up the beds of creeks making lakes and leaving deposits that now form our rounded hills and peaceful valleys. Who the first dwellers within the borders of Wisconsin were and whence they came, history dees not tell. We know that there were two or three different tribes of Indians in Wisconsin because of the various mound that cun be seen today. A young French man named Jean Nicolet, who was exploring the country adjacent to the Great Lakes was the first white man to set foot on Wisconsin soil. Nicolet came to Green Buy with his men and they thought they had discovered a town in China. On account of his belief that he had reached Asia; he did not go on but returned to Champlain’s settlement in Canada. In the spring of 1061 the wandering Black Gowns, Father Marquette and Joliet paddled through the Great Lakes and up the Fox River to Portage. Here they made a portage, carried their canoe overland a mile to the Wisconsin River, and so the city got it name. Father Marquette and Joliet mude notes describing what they had seen hut later their canoes overturned and they lost their note hooks. The travels of Nicolet, Father Marquette and La Salle brought other French men here, who established fur trading posts along the rivers. The rivers were the chief highways ns it was easier to travel in boats than on horseback or on foot through the wilderness. During the French and Indian War. English soldiers came to the Northwest Territory, to which Wisconsin then belonged, and drove the French out. In 1783 English buxine - men established the Northwest Fur Co. in Milwaukee, because it was on Lake Michigan. They carried fur in canoes to the Straits of Mackinac and then through the other lakes. John Jacoh As tor, an American, founded u great fur company. The fur trade lasted as a business of prime importance to Wisconsin until about 1835. It wus at its greatest height in 1820, at which time Green Buy wo the chief settlement in Wisconsin. During the Revolutionary War there was not much trouble in Wisconsin except that the Indians from Wisconsin enlisted in the British army. They marched with Langlade and Gautier to capture Clark und his men. but they were beaten and surrendered. In 1783 a treaty of peace wa made and England gave up the Northwest Territory to the United States.

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CAMP FIRE GIRLS OLD ABE, THE WAR EAGLE OF WISCONSIN By Lind Prill The eairle ha been honored by almost all civilized nations, ami has been used by most of them an an emblem of war. Columbus found the uncivilized Indians wearing war-bonnet made of feather from the fierce, black eagle of this country. This king of birds” is our national emblem and represents the freedom, fear-Imnes and power of the nation. During the war of the Rebellion a live eagle was carried into many battle by a Wisconsin regiment. He wu called “Old Abe by the soldier . The story of his life is rather interesting. Old Abe was horn in a large tub-like nest of mud and sticks in a tall pine tree, in 1861. A Chippewa Indian, named Chief Sky, captured this bird near Ashland, Wisconsin and sold him to Daniel McCann of Eagle Point for a bushel of corn. Then Mr. McCann sold him to a company of soldiers at Eau Claire and at once he was enlisted as a soldier. At this time Old Abe weighed ten and a half pounds. His feathers were brown with a golden tinge. The hark part of his large head was snowy white and so was his tail. Ill beak was over two inches long. Hi wings measured six and a half feet from tip to tip. A handsome perch wus made for him, where he sat in a dignified manner, when the soldiers were marching; but during a battle he was always excited and would scream and fly around. He was present at twenty-five battles of the Civil War but was never wounded. The soldiers felt that he brought them good luck. When the war was over Old Abe was presented to the state of Wisconsin by Victor Wolf o! Company C of the 8th Regiment, which was also knowtl A the Eagle Regiment, ('apt. Wolf -aid that Old Abe had been u good soldier und never flinched in battle. A comfortable room in the capitol at Madison was given to this soldier bird, and o man was appointed to take good care of him. One day in February, 1881, a fire broke out near Old Abe’s room and he was overcome by dense smoke and gas. He lived for about one month; then, on the twenty-sixth duy of March, 1881, he died. Major C. G. Meyers, who hud been an officer of the Eleventh Wisconsin, mounted his skin and it was placed in u fine glass case and was kept in Memorial Hall in the capitol building at Madison. where visitors could see It- Twenty-three years later. Memorial Hall caught fire and Old Abe’s stuffed body was destroyed by the flames. Today we have nothing left in Wisconsin to remind us of this bird but two fine paintings. One was made from life by n famous artist; the other was painted by a Madison woman. These paintings now hung in the Memorial Hall in our capitol at Madison. Not far away are the old buttle flags of the Eagle Regiment besides which the bird was carried to battle. A few of his feathers are also framed and hang near by. In 11 12 at Chippewa Falls, a monument was erected to his memory.

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The Winnebago Wnr wu a quarrel between different tribes about their boundaries. In the ymr of 1826 a treaty was signed at Prairie du Obion between the United States and the Indians of Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota. The treaty set boundaries between the quarrelsome tribes and agreed on u general peace along the border. In April 1832, Black Hawk urged the .other tribes to fight against the white people to get their lands back. Black Hawk and his Indians surprised many towns and massacred the inhabitants. The United States government sent an army of 1800 militiamen into Illinois. General Atkinson took churge while Abraham Lincoln was the captain of a company of Illinois rangers. Black Hawk sent a messenger to inform General Atkinson he would surrender, hut the drunken picket killed Black Hawk's messenger of peace. So the enraged Bluck Hawks attacked the whites and drove them down into Illinois where they swept several towns. Soon General Atkinson reorganized his army and marched to capture Black Hawk who was driven bnck to Prairie du rhicn and later captured and imprisoned. It was in 1608 thut Quebec was founded and it is supposed that Wisconsin was discovered twenty-six years later. It was considered a part of French territory until before the French and Indian War. In 1783 a treaty of peace was made in Franco and it declared that the Northwest Territory belonged to America. It was due to Roger Clark and his men that the territory was given to America. In the year 1800 Indiana Territory which included Wisconsin was set off from the Northwest Territory.. Nine years later the Illinois Territory was formed and Wisconsin was a part of it. loiter Wisconsin became n part of Michignn. In 1836 Wisconsin became a territory with its own government under Governor Doty. In 1836, during the administration of Polk, Wisconsin became u state. The capital was established at Madison. Upon the 7th of June Governor Nelson Dewey and his fellow officers were sworn into office and the legislature opened Its first session. This state is called the Badger State. Lead and zinc mining was one of the early industries in southwestern Wisconsin and the miners, who wintered here, made dugouts on the hill sides and so were dubhed badgers by which name the Wisconsin people are now known. The Illinois miners who wintered farther south and came back by way of the rivers in the spring were called suckers, after a fish that ascends the streums in incredible numbers every spring. The lakes and rivers of Wisconsin with their fish and wild life attracted the early French traders likewise today thousands of tourists come here to enjoy its splendid summer climate, its scenery and opportunities for camping and fishing. So Wisconsin has become the plny-giound of people who live in the states farther south where nature has not been so kind.