Green Bay

“ The long journey by water and shore brought us in October to the head of Green Bay. We had seen Lake Michigan, of a light transparent blueness, with fire ripples chasing from the sunset. And we had rested at noon in plum groves on the vast prairies, oases of fertile deserts, where pink and white fruit drops, so ripe that the sun preserves it in its juice. The freshness of the new world continually flowed around us. We shot deer. Wolves sneaked upon our trail. We slept with our heels to the campfire, and our heads on our saddles. ”

“ Green Bay, in the North West Territory, where we were destined, is commonly reckoned the end of the world. It is not even imagined, by the vulgar, that there is any place, or any human being, or any thing with which mortals may have to do, 35 beyond it. Besides, the way is long—the seas dangerous and ever liable to sudden and disastrous storms—the shores uninhabited, or tenanted only here and there by the inhospitable savage. Latitude and longitude and clime were all to be changed, and changed too by a long stretch—not long perhaps to such a voyager as Captain Cook, or Captain Parry ”

“ The whole is whitewashed, and presents a neat military appearance. The gardens of the military denote the most fruitful soil and genial climate. Data observed by the surgeon, indicate the site to be unexcelled for its salubrity, such a disease as fever, of any kind, never having visited it, in either an endemic or epidemic form.
The name of Green Bay is associated with our earliest ideas of French history in America. When La Salle visited the country in the 17th century, it had been many years known to the French, and was esteemed one of the prime posts for trading with the Indians. ”

“ THE GREEN BAY MISSION.
Besides the Saut Ste. Marie and Michilimackinac, both noted fishing-places, there was another spot, no less famous for game and fish, and therefore a favorite resort of Indians. This was the head of the Green Bay of Lake Michigan. [30] Here and in adjacent districts several distinct tribes had made their abode. The Menomonies were on the river which bears their name; the Pottawattamies and Winnebagoes were [Pg 43] near the borders of the bay; the Sacs, on Fox River; the Mascoutins, Miamis, and Kickapoos, on the same river, above Lake Winnebago ”

“ Passengers on the Clyde can transfer at Exploits to the Home without returning to Lewisporte. The eccentric sculptured cliffs of Leading Tickles appear beyond Fortune Harbour. Springdale, at the mouth of Hall's Bay, is the starting point for noted trout and salmon streams. The Home continues across Green Bay to Nipper's Harbour where weird-looking rocks rising out of the sea remind one of scenes about Brigus. This coast is so pregnant with minerals that in places the ore may be seen glittering beneath the water. ”

“ We made no entrance into Green Bay, for there was nothing there but a newly established mission station, and perhaps a hunter’s camp, scarcely worth our wasting two days in seeking. Besides the night we made camp at a spot marked on the map as Point de Tour, we found waiting us there the advance canoe, and both De Artigny and the chief counseled that our course be south across the mouth of the bay. I sat in my tent and watched them discuss the matter in the red glow of a fire, but this was my only glimpse of De Artigny, until he led the way the next morning. ”

“ Green Bay is an important railroad center, and is connected by interurban line with Oshkosh and Fond du Lac. An excellent harbor provides access for the largest vessels upon the Great Lakes, while a line of pleasure boats runs to Mackinac and the “Soo.” Population 25,236. ”

“ Lake Michigan, called by the early voyagers Lac des Illinois, is next in size to Superior, being 320 miles in length and 100 in breadth, with a circumference, including Green Bay, of 1300 miles. It contains 22,000 miles of surface, with a depth of 900 feet in the deeper parts, though near the shore it grows gradually shoal. The rocks which compose its rim are of a sedimentary nature, and afford few indentations for harbors. The shores are low, and lined in many places with immense sand-banks. Green Bay, or Bale des Puans of the Jesuits, on the west coast, is 100 miles long and 20 broad. ”

“ Some several days beforehand, Indian canoes were seen floating and gliding along on the placid bosom of Fox River, part of them coming down the current from the south and west, and part coming up from the 217 shores of the Bay, towards the place of rendezvous, near Fort Howard, on the north bank and some four or five miles from the mouth of the river, in the heart of what is called the settlement of Green Bay:—all filled with men, women, and children, and with tackle, not for war, but to build lodges. ”

“ When it is considered what a small population of civilized beings inhabit that part of the world, it is not to be wondered at that so little knowledge about it exists. I went from Green Bay, with the Express, where but few people ever travel, which was attended with fatigue and danger; but the journey produced this conviction on my mind, that the Michigan Territory has in it a great extent of fine country.
I regard Green Bay, at the mouth of Fox River, and Chicago, as two very important positions, particularly the latter. ”

“ On the western shore it has the great indentation of Green Bay; itself equal to the largest lakes in England, being one hundred miles long and thirty broad. It is well sheltered at its mouth by the Traverse Islands, and has for its affluent the outlet of Winnebago and the Fox River.
"Grand Traverse Bay is a considerable inlet of Lake Michigan, which sets up into the lower peninsula, one hundred miles south from the Island of Mackinac. It is a good farming and lumbering country. There are two mission stations and six or seven steam and water mills located at this point. ”

“ About seventy-five traveling men were snowed in at Green Bay during a late blockade, and they were pretty lively around the hotels, having quiet fun Friday and Saturday, and passing away the time the best they could, some playing seven up, others playing billiards, and others looking on. Some of the truly good people in town thought the boys were pretty tough, and they wore long faces and prayed for the blockade to raise so the spruce-looking chaps could go away. ”

“ Green Bay, Wis., June 13, 1887.
My Dear W——: We had a quiet Sunday at Little Kaukauna. Being a delightful day, we went with our entertainers to the country church, a mile or two back across the fields, and whiled away the rest of the time in strolling through the woods and gossiping with the farmers about the crops and the government improvement,—fertile themes. It appears that this diminutive hamlet of four or five houses anticipates a "boom," and there is some feverish anxiety as to how much village lots ought to bring as a "starter" when the rush actually opens. ”

“ Passing from the ultramarine deeps of the Rubicon Point, we round a sharply jutting promontory and glide into the jade-green waters of Emerald Bay, a long, oval-shaped inlet at the southern end of the lake. Surely, it is rightly named, for here green predominates, from the steep sides of the encircling hills to the very center of the shallow bay. At the upper end of the bay, rising almost sheer from the green water, is a rocky, scantily-wooded island where for many years an eccentric Englishman made his home. ”

“ Dickson's use of the term "La Baye" requires qualification to prevent misreading him. 1. The old Baye des Puans or Puants, Stinkers' bay, so called from the malodorous fish-eating Winnebagos who lived thereabouts, became from its verdure la Baie Verte, our Green bay, i. e., the whole water of that great N. W. arm of Lake Michigan, into the head of which Lower Fox r. empties. The last 7 m. of this river makes a sort of estuary from the foot of the last rapids, or head of natural river navigation, to the waters of Green bay ”

“ The Four lakes are strung along on a stream called Catfish, which enters Rock river 25 or 30 miles above the boundary of Illinois. They are 6 or 8 miles long, abounding with fish, and are surrounded with an excellent farming country.
Green Bay settlement and village is 230 miles north of Chicago, 220 north-east from Galena, 120 from Fort Winnebago, and in N. latitude 44° 44'. Navarino is a town recently commenced in this vicinity, with an excellent harbor, grows rapidly, and bids fair to become a place of importance. Property has risen the last year most astonishingly. ”

“ On the left bank, nearly opp. present Green Bay, but rather nearer Green bay, was the site of our Fort Howard, which flourished say 60 years ago, and bequeathed the name to the town of Howard or Fort Howard, now opposite Green Bay. On the left bank higher up, opp. Depere, is a town called Nicollet, no doubt a belated bud of promise, as no such place appears on maps of 25 years ago. 7. None of the foregoing localities or establishments on Fox r. must be confounded with the recent outgrowth called Bay Settlement, which is out on the S. E. shore of Green bay, toward Point Sable. ”

“ He left Montreal with twenty men, and arriving at Green Bay, some Indians told him that they had visited countries toward the setting sun, where they obtained the blue and green stones suspended from their ears and noses, and that they saw horses and men like Frenchmen,—probably the Spaniards of New Mexico; and others said that they had obtained hatchets from persons who lived in a house that walked on the water in the Assineboine region,—alluding to the English established at Hudson’s Bay. ”

“ They all bowed their heads while the minister, with one eye on the dollars, pronounced the benediction, and the services were over.
The traveling men filed out through the smiles of the ladies and went to the hotel, while half the congregation went forward to the anxious seat, to “view the remains.” It is safe to say that it will be unsafe, in the future, to speak disparagingly of traveling men in Green Bay, as long as the memory of that blockade Sunday remains green with the good people there. ”

“ It was at its greatest height in 1820, at which time Green Bay was the chief settlement in Wisconsin. By 1835 new interests had arisen, with the development of the lead mines in the southwest, and with the advent of agricultural [86] settlers from the East, upon the close of the Black Hawk War (1832) .
The fur trade led the way to the agricultural and manufacturing life of to-day. The traders naturally chose Indian villages as the sites for most of their posts, and such villages were generally at places well selected for the purpose. ”

“ John Day of Green Bay, Wis. Later Mr. C. R. Wright and son, also one of the [Pg 221] old pioneers of the island who had carried on the fish business so many years, sold his dock property and store building, moving to Harbor Springs, still continuing in the dry goods business. About that time others of our island people moved to the main land, settling in different parts, making new homes. Several of the young men filling responsible positions as captains, mates and clerks on the lake steamers, and several of the young women being trained nurses in city hospitals. ”

“ Of all the lovely spots in Alaska, commend me to this little landlocked bay, where the clear green waters are stirred with the leaping of thousands of salmon, and the shores are clothed with an enchanted forest of giant pines, and the undergrowth is a tangle of ferns and salmon-berry bushes, and the ground and every log are covered with wonderful mosses, into which the foot sinks at every step. ”

“ They purchased a suitable territory from the Monomonees of Wisconsin, a wandering and non-industrious race, seated about Green Bay, and expended a part of their annuities in the payment. This turned out a wise measure. They soon began to remove, and have at this time a very flourishing settlement on Duck river, in that territory. At that location they have established schools, temperance societies and a church. They bear a good reputation for morals and industry, and are advancing in civilization and the arts. ”

“ Wood abounds every where, except at Green Head, which is mostly covered with grass. Of the four islands in the bay, Smooth and Gull Islands were found superior in fertility to the main land: the first contains about forty acres of tolerable pasturage.
In North Bay, the upper part seemed to be circumscribed by a sandy beach, and to offer nothing of particular interest; we therefore steered downward, on Dec. 20, for the Derwent River; but rainy squalls coming on from the south, ran for a small beach on the western shore, and anchored off it in 21⁄2 fathoms. ”

“ It was a little cluster of houses at the head of a bay or inlet of the sea, where the lovely transparent water was green as grass, and stood in the opening of a valley enclosed by high, steep mountain-walls, with sharp ridges down their sides clothed with rich forests. All around us grew delicate, luxuriant ferns, of which there are one hundred and fifty varieties in the islands. Along the shores of the bay some women were wading, their dresses held above their knees, picking shellfish and green sea-moss off the rocks for supper. ”

“ We have been driving across a narrow mainland, from the ocean to the ocean, and before us, gleaming softly in the evening sunlight, is the beautiful Bay of Conception. The surrounding cliffs are quite purple, the ocean is a golden sea broken up by green islands. Far below us is a cluster of houses, a fishing settlement, with a lobster factory and some flakes run out over the rocks. There are boats idly rocking at the quay, whilst others are catching bait for a fishing schooner, lying at anchor in the bay. ”