Note 97 — X

By order of the war department (May 19, 1834), Lieutenant-Colonel S. W. Kearny was sent with companies B, H, and I of the 1st United States dragoons to establish a fort near the mouth of Des Moines River. The present site of Montrose, Lee County, Iowa, at the head of the lower rapids of the Mississippi, was chosen. The barracks being completed by November, 1834, they were occupied until the spring of 1837, when the troops were transferred to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

As early as 1721 a French fort (La Baye) had been erected at Green Bay, on the left bank of Fox River, a half league from its mouth. After suffering many vicissitudes during the Fox wars it was later strengthened, and when occupied by English troops in 1761, was re-named Fort Edward Augustus. After the close of the War of 1812-15, the United States government determined to exercise a real authority over the forts on the upper Great Lakes, where, in spite of the provision of Jay's Treaty (1794), its power had been merely nominal. In 1815 John Bowyer, the first United States Indian agent for the Green Bay district, established a government trading post at Green Bay, and made an ineffectual attempt to control the fur trade of the region. The following year, Fort Howard, named in honor of General Benjamin Howard, was built on the site of the old French fort. With the exception of 1820-22, when the troops were transferred to Camp Smith, on the east shore, Fort Howard was continuously occupied until 1841, when its garrison was ordered to Florida and Mexico. Later, from 1849 to 1851, it was occupied by Colonel Francis Lee and Lieutenant-Colonel B. L. E. Bonneville, and then permanently abandoned as a garrison, although a volunteer company was stationed there for a short time during the War of Secession. Almost every trace of the old fort has been obliterated. Consult Wisconsin Historical Collections, xvi, xvii; also William L. Evans, "Military History of Green Bay," in Wisconsin Historical Society Proceedings, 1899, pp. 128-146.—Ed.