Note I-41 — Chapter I · ITINERARY: ST. LOUIS TO ST. PAUL, AUGUST 9TH-SEPTEMBER 21ST, 1805.

R. des Ouisconsins on Hennepin's map, 1683, and thus near the modern form, though in the plural for the Indians and with ou for the letter w that the F. alphabet lacks; in Hennepin's text, passim, Ouscousin, Oviscousin, Onisconsin, Misconsin, etc., according to typesetter's fancy; Ouisconsing, Misconsing, etc., in La Salle, and there also Meschetz Odeba; Miscou, Joliet on one of his maps, Miskonsing on another; Ouisconching, Perrot; Ouisconsinc, Lahontan's map; Ouisconsing, Franquelin's map, 1688; Ouisconsin, Carver; variable in Pike; Owisconsin and Owisconsing in Beltrami; Wisconsan, consistently, in Long; Wisconsin in Nicollet, and most writers since his time. Were it not for La Salle's appearance on the Illinois r. in 1680, and his sending Hennepin down it to the Mississippi, when he dispatched Michael Accault and Antoine Auguelle from Fort Crêvecœur to trade with the Chaas, the Wisconsin would rank first in historical significance as a waterway to the Mississippi from the Great Lakes; and such priority of date is offset in favor of the Wisconsin as the best and most traveled route from the lakes to points below the Falls of St. Anthony. It was already an Indian highway when it was first known to the whites, and did not cease to be such when the paddle was exchanged for the paddlewheel. A pretty full account of the Fox-Wisconsin route will be rendered beyond in this work. There are accounts of white settlements, or at least trading-posts, at Prairie du Chien about 1755; but white men may have lived in this vicinity, if not upon the spot, long before that, for Franquelin's map of 1688 locates a certain Fort St. Nicolas in what appears to be the position of P. du Chien, as well as I can judge. Moreover, Joliet and Marquette reached the Mississippi r. by way of the Fox-Wisconsin, June 15th or 17th, 1673. Our most definite information, however, dates from Oct. 15th, 1766, when Carver came to the spot. He reached it by the Fox-Wisconsin route, went up the Mississippi as high as the river St. Francis, wintered 1766-67 up the St. Peter, returned to P. du C. in the summer of 1767, went up the Mississippi again to the Chippewa r., and by that river back to the Great Lakes in July, 1767. He called the place Prairie le Chien; at the time of his visit it was "a large town containing about 300 families," with houses well built after the Indian fashion, and a great trade center for all the country roundabout. Carver also called the place Dog Plains. This is plain as a transl. of the F., and nobody doubts what Prairie du Chien denotes; what it connotes, however, or its actual implication, is another question which has been much mooted. Pike states elsewhere in this work that the place—which, by the way, he seldom if ever calls Prairie du Chien, but de Chein, des Cheins, etc.—was named for Indians who lived here, known as Reynards, etc., and would translate this F. nickname either Fox, Wolf, or Dog; in one place he has Dog's Plain. But Wolf or Dog does not seem to have been the name used for this tribe, which, when they were not called Ottagamies (or by some form of that word) were either the Reynards of the French or the Foxes of the English and Americans. Beltrami, II., p. 170, has that "it takes its name from an Indian family whom the first Frenchmen met there, called Kigigad or Dog." The whole weight of evidence is on the side of a personal name in the singular number. Long states that P. du C. was named after an Indian who lived there and was called the Dog. This may bear on Pike's statement, and the latter may be explicable upon the understanding that it refers to certain Indians, not necessarily of the Reynard tribe, who were called Dog Indians, i. e., The Dog's Indians. Nicollet marks the Indian town by the Chippewa name, Kipy Saging; Schoolcraft renders this Tipisagi, with reference to the treaty of Prairie du Chien. At the time of Long's 1823 visit the village had about 20 dwelling-houses besides the stores, most of them old and some decaying; the pop. was about 150. He located the place as in lat. 43° 3´ 31´´ N., long. 90° 52´ 30´´ W.; magn. var. 8° 48´ 52´´ E. Long speaks of one Mr. Brisbois, who had long resided there; of Mr. Rolette of the Am. Fur Co.; and of Augustin Roque, a half-breed and whole-fraud, to whom we shall refer again. Fort Crawford began to be built July 3d, 1816, by the troops under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel William S. Hamilton of North Carolina, who had attained that rank in the 3d Rifles Feb. 21st, 1814, and who resigned from the army March 8th, 1817; it would hold four or five companies, but was a mean establishment, poorly built on a bad site, too near Rousseau channel and the Kipy Saging slough. Long relates that in 1822 the fort as well as the village was inundated, so that the water stood three or four feet deep on the parade ground and ran into the officers' quarters and the barracks, forcing the garrison to camp for a month on higher ground. One of the blockhouses of the fort was built on a mound which was large enough to have supported the whole establishment, though only the stockade ran up to it. Through the attentions of Wm. Hancock Clark of Detroit, Mich., I am in possession of a water-color picture of the fort, roughly but tellingly done by his illustrious grandfather, William Clark, who with Governor Lewis Cass effected the important treaty of P. du C., Aug. 19th, 1825. This measures 18 × 15 inches, and shows a part of the stockade straggling up to that one of the blockhouses which was on the hill or mound, as described by Long. The general effect upon the beholder is to suggest something of a cross between a penitentiary and a stockyard, but unsafe for criminals and too small for cattle. The remains are extant, and may be observed about 40 rods W. of the railroad track, half a mile S. of the station of the C., B. and Q. This Fort Crawford must not be confounded with the earlier one of the same name, built in 1812 or sooner, at the N. end of the town, close to Rousseau channel. This site was near the positions of the two early French settlements, as distinguished from the later one that grew up S. of the site of the second Fort Crawford. Our actual settlement, continued on as the Prairie du Chien of to-day, only dates from 1835 or thereabouts, after the cessation of Indian hostilities in that quarter; the town is now the seat of Crawford Co., Wis. It is in the very S. W. corner of the county, which is separated from Grant Co. by the Wisconsin r. The bridge across the Mississippi to N. McGregor was built in 1873-74 and altered in 1888; C., M. and St. P. R. R.; Act of Congr. legalizing, June 6th, 1874. Notwithstanding its prominent situation, its distinguished history, and its comparative antiquity, Prairie du Chien has never amounted to much, and probably never will. There is nothing the matter with the place—the trouble is with the people. The place to-day cuts a lesser figure than it did in Pike's time, when it was our extreme frontier post in that direction, and it continued to be such until Fort St. Anthony (Snelling) was built. A part of the difficulty is ecclesiastical; no priest-ridden community can expect to keep up with the times. Prairie du Chien is an antique curio, comparing with the rest of Wisconsin very much as Quebec does with Ontario—and for similar reasons.