Wisconsin River

“ Wisconsin is very justly famous for many things: its semi-civilized Indian tribes, its lakes, dense pine forests, and above all for its wondrous scenery, particularly along the Wisconsin River, where wonders the equal of those to be seen in Watkins’ Glen, New York, are met with in rapid succession some six miles north and south of Kilbourn City. ”

“ Its upper and middle courses are very picturesque. It flows at first through immense pine forests, in which it receives the water of a large number of small lakes. Farther down it is broken by several falls and rapids, the most noted of which are the Dalles of the Wisconsin. The river is navigable 200 miles to Portage, where a short canal connects it with the Fox River. ”

“ Wisconsin River, a branch of the Mississippi, rises in Lake Vieux desert on the northeastern border of Wisconsin, flows south 600 miles, and falls into the Mississippi four miles below Prairie du Chien. ”

“ The surveys of the whole country west of lake Michigan and south of the Wisconsin river, in Illinois and Wisconsin territory, will soon be surveyed and in market. Here are many millions of the [Pg 136] finest lands on earth, lying along the Des Pleines, Fox, and Rock rivers, and their tributaries, well watered, rich soil, a healthy atmosphere, and facilities to market. A temporary scarcity of timber in some parts of this region will retard settlements, for a time ”

“ These are certainly the two leading traits of the Wisconsin, which rushes with a great average velocity over an inclined plane, without falls, for a great distance. It originates in a remarkable summit of sandy plains, which send out to the west the Chippewa River of Lake Pepin, to the north the Montreal and Ontonagon of Lake Superior, and to the east the Menomonee of Green Bay, while the Wisconsin becomes its southern off-drain, till it finally turns west at the Portage, and flows into the Mississippi. ”

“ It is still a tempting scheme, to tap the main artery of America, and allow modern vessels of burden to make the circuit between the lakes and the gulf. The Fox River is reasonably tractable, although this season the stage of water above Berlin has been hardly high enough to float a flat-boat. But the Wisconsin remains, despite the hundreds of wing-dams which line her shores, a fickle jade upon whom no reliance whatever can be placed. The current and the sand-banks shift about at their sweet will over a broad valley, and the pilot of one season would scarcely recognize the stream another. ”

“ NORTHWESTERN RIVER SYSTEMS IN THEIR RELATION TO THE FUR TRADE.
The importance of physical conditions is nowhere more manifest than in the exploration of the Northwest, and we cannot properly appreciate Wisconsin's relation to the history of the time without first considering her situation as regards the lake and river systems of North America. ”

“ This is an impressive scene—the bold cliffs of the west bank of the Mississippi, with Pike's-hill rising in front on the west, while those of the Wisconsin Valley stand at but little less elevation on the north and south. At this season of the year the water is clear and placid, and mingles itself in its mighty recipient without disturbance. But it is easy to conceive, what the Indians affirm, that in its floods it is a strong and turbid mass of moving waters, against which nothing can stand. This character of the stream is believed, indeed, to be the origin of the Indian name of Wisconsin. ”

“ In Wausau are a U.S. land office, the Marathon County Training School for Teachers, the Marathon County School of Agriculture and Domestic Science, and a County Asylum for the Chronic Insane. Valuable water-power furnished by the Big Bull Falls of the Wisconsin (in the city) is utilized for manufacturing, and in 1910 water-power sites were being developed on the Wisconsin river immediately above and below the city. ”

“ Wisconsin.—Like the Chippewa, this stream brings down in its floods, vast quantities of loose sand, which tend to the formation of bars and temporary islands. It originates in the same elevated plains, and bespeaks a considerable area at its sources, which must be arid. It is a region, however, in which lakes and rice lands abound, and it may, in this respect, be geologically of the same formation as the higher plateaux of the Mississippi, above the Sandy Lake summit. Its sides produce many species to enrich our fresh-water Conchology. ”

“ The banks are for the most part sandy, and from five to fifty feet high. The river here merely fills its bed; being deeper, the wild rice and reeds do not grow upon its skirts. Were there a half-dozen more feet of water, the Fox would be a chain of lakes from Portage to Oshkosh. As it is, we have Buffalo, Puckawa, and Grand Butte des Morts, which are among the prettiest of the inland seas of Wisconsin. The knolls about Buffalo Lake are 162 pleasant, round-topped elevations, for the most part wooded, and between them are little prairies, generally sandy, but occasionally covered with dark loam. ”

“ Our route this day carried us through the most picturesque and interesting part of the Wisconsin, called the Highlands or River Hills. Some of these hills are high, with precipitous faces towards the river. Others terminate in round grassy knobs, with oaks dispersed about the sides. The name is supposed to have been taken from this feature. [44] Generally speaking, the country has a bald and barren aspect. Not a tree has apparently been cut upon its banks, and not a village is seen to relieve the tedium of an unimproved wilderness. The huts of an Indian locality seem "at random cast." ”

“ Wisconsin will be soon covered with a dense population, as it is now a favorite point for emigration. The soil is very rich, from one to ten feet deep, the surface undulating prairie and woodland, consisting of 100,000 square miles of fertile land. The grassy plains make fine pasture lands, and the lakes and rivers produce abundance of fish, and give great manufacturing power. Lakes Superior and Michigan, and the river Mississippi surround three sides, thus enabling them to send their produce to market. Flour, rye, corn, barley, white-fish, and many other articles have been exported this year. ”

“ The writer probably saw wild geese with the ducks.
125-8 It is not known certainly where this village was located, but it may have been near the present city of Berlin or Princeton.
125-9 Father Allouez arrived at the Sault Sainte Marie in 1668, and was engaged in missionary work between lakes Superior and Michigan. It is probable that he had visited the Indians the year before.
126-10 The Fox and Wisconsin river systems approach within a mile and a half of each other at Portage, Wisconsin. The land is low and swampy, and in flood times the current sometimes sets from one river into the other. ”

“ Before the opening of spring, 1659, Radisson and Groseillers had been guided across what is now Wisconsin to "a mighty river, great, rushing, profound, and comparable to the St. Lawrence." [7] On the shores of the river they found a vast nation—"the people of the fire," prairie tribes, a branch of the Sioux, who received them well. [8] This river was undoubtedly the Upper Mississippi, now for the first time seen by white men. Radisson and Groseillers had discovered the Great Northwest. ”

“ Provided, that the section of the boundary in the Brule and Menominee rivers shall follow the main channel thereof, except that where islands occur in the Brule river or in the Menominee river, down to and inclusive of the Quinnesec Falls, extending to the line between sections 5 and 6, township 38 north, of range 20 east, of the Wisconsin Public Survey, extended across said river, the line shall pass through the channel nearest the Wisconsin bank, so as to throw all such islands into Michigan ”

“ Together those three counties had over 20,000, which was considerably more than one-half of all the Germans (38,054) domiciled in Wisconsin at that time. The other lake shore counties, together with Calumet, Fond du Lac, Dodge, Jefferson, and Waukesha, accounted for 15,000 of the balance, leaving about 3000 scattered over the rest of the state. Thus the area embraced by Lake Michigan, Lake Winnebago and lower Fox River, the upper reaches of Rock River, and the south boundary of Jefferson, Waukesha, and Milwaukee counties was all strongly and in the main distinctively German. ”

“ Such an idea accords with the further conjecture that the symbolic mounds of Wisconsin may be memorials of sacred rites, or pledges of neutrality among nations from the various tributaries of the great river, as they annually met on this border-land of the common metallic storehouse. It is obvious that the Mound-Builders were a highly religious people. ”

“ We acknowledged our ignorance, up to this time, of the existence of any such feature in the geography of Wisconsin. But the lad, now joined by the others, who had by this time vanquished their bashfulness and all wanted to talk at once, assured us that we were actually on Smith's Island; that Smith's Island had an area of one hundred acres, was surrounded on the east by the river, and everywhere else by either a bayou or a marsh that had to be crossed with a boat in the spring ”

“ The Rock has practically two heads: the smaller, in a rustic stream flowing from the north into swamp-girted Lake Koshkonong; the larger, in the four lakes at Madison, the charming capital of Wisconsin, which empty their waters into the Avon-like Catfish or Yahara, which in turn pours into the Rock a short distance below the Koshkonong lake. Our course was from Madison almost to the mouth of the Rock, near Rock Island, 267 miles of paddling, as the river winds.
The student of history finds the Rock interesting to him because of its associations with the Black Hawk war of 1832. ”

“ We are supposed to know judicially the principal features of the geography of our country, and, as a part of it, what streams are public navigable waters of the United States. Since this case was presented we have examined, with some care, such geographies and histories of Wisconsin as we could obtain from the library of Congress, to ascertain, if possible, the real character of Fox River, and to render the fiction of the law, as to our supposed knowledge of the navigable streams in that State, a reality in this case ”

“ If the state chooses to resign to the riparian proprietor sovereign rights over navigable rivers which it acquired upon assuming statehood, it is not for others to raise objections. Barney v. Keokuk, supra, 338 (24 L. Ed. 224) . We assume, although judicial expression is not entirely consistent, that by the law of Wisconsin, in the absence of special circumstances, title to the bed of navigable rivers is in the riparian owner. ”

“ In process of time, as Wisconsin advanced in wealth and population, and had a variety of products to exchange for the commodities of sister States and foreign nations, Durham boats were found to be inadequate to the wants of the country, and Congress was appealed to for aid to improve the navigation of the river, so that steam power could be used. This aid was granted, and since the river was improved commerce is carried over it in one of the usual ways in which commerce is conducted on the water at the present day. ”

“ Wisconsin Territory.—This tract stretches from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi river, and from the northern boundary of Illinois to British America. It is a lofty table land, and contains the richest lead deposites in the world. The land is rich and of easy cultivation. It was erected into a territory in 1836. It is a portion of the tract known as the Black Hawk purchase, ceded to the United States by the Sacs and Foxes in 1832.—Population, thirty thousand seven hundred and fifty-two. ”

“ It derives its name from a beautiful clear lake on the western boundary near Clear Lake village. The west part of the town is timbered principally with hardwood, and is good farming land. The eastern part is more diversified, and there are some large groves of pine. Willow river runs through the town. The North Wisconsin railroad traverses the town diagonally from northeast to southwest: The town was organized June 20, 1877; S. D. Mann, J. C. Gates, and W. R. Ingalls, supervisors. The first settlers were John Hale, L. P. Nash, S. D. Starkweather, and Perry Clark. ”

“ That the boundary between the States of Michigan and Wisconsin along the following course be and it is hereby fixed and finally established as follows: From Lake Superior through the middle of the main channel of the Montreal river, to the headwaters thereof, as established in the survey of Captain Cram at the junction of the Pine river and Balsam creek (also known as Lehman's creek) ; thence along the line of the survey of William A. Burt of 1847, to the center of the channel between Middle and South Islands in the Lake of the Desert ”

“ No wilderness so far away that the little French fiddle had not been there; the Indians recognized it as a part of the furniture of every fur trader's camp. Music appealed strongly to these warm natures, and the songs of the voyageurs, as they propelled their canoes along the Wisconsin rivers, always greatly interested travelers. French Canadians are still living in Wisconsin, who remember those gay melodies which echoed through our forests a hundred years ago. ”

“ The name “suckers” was applied generally to all the people of Illinois, and the name “badgers” to the people of Wisconsin and “badger state” to the state. ↑ Besides the area as given here, the state has jurisdiction over approximately 7500 sq. m. of Lake Michigan and 2378 sq. m. of Lake Superior. ↑ The Fox and Wisconsin rivers are separated at Portage by a distance of only 2 m. ↑ At each preceding census the population was as follows: (1840) 30,945, (1850) 305,391, (1860) 775,881, (1870) 1,054,670. By the state census of 1905 it was 2,228,949. ”