The Minnesota pioneer. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn. Territory) 1849-1855, 1849-08-02
Early History Of wisconsin.

Wisconsin. forms a portion of the gseat
! .sssorih Western Territory. which formerly
embraced within its broad limits, all that
vast extent of country comprising the now
States of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana. Illinois;
Missouri, Iowa and Wisconsin,, aud the
Territories of Minnesota and Nebraska.
Its early history, therefore, Is the morning
history of all these States-rhe narrative of
the discovery, exploration aud first settle
,nent of each, enter into and help form the
records of the Great West.
| Here was one vast world, separated ana
far removed from civilization in the East,
by chain of great lakes; its solitude un-
disturbed and its silence unbroken by The
presence. and the falling footstep of the
white man--a land of primeval forests, of
boundless prairies, of broad rivers and i'll
land seas, of sunny dells and spa, king
fountains, over which rOaaued the savage
Indian, the proprietor and monarch of it all.
Of its history we have nothing written
beyond the year 1858, and the light furnish
ed Us by that early time is faint ami dim.
1t is scarcely less uncertain than that which
emanutes in Pickering and broken fragments
from amid old ruins, the crunlling re-
mains of demolished temples and fortifca-
tons, the raviShed mounds and sepulchres
of the dead-the remains of a civilization
aud an unknown race long since passed
away.
Cartier, the old French Mariner, was in
deed told at the village Of Hochelaga on the
St. Lawrence, more than three centuries
ago, of great country west-north-west-
of strange people there in that far distant
region, 'whO were clad as the French. and
lived in towns, who were very honest, and
had great stores of gold and copper''-that
! l..
there were great lakes, aud fresh water
sea, the end of which no man had ever
found; and farther on, Il mighty river, down
which they might sail month ere they
reached its termination.
| This, then, is the date, and this the COM
,nencemeut of the history of the NORTH
| NEST.
This history is blended somewhat with
that of the early French settlements in Cam
ada, which as we have seen. extends as far
back as 1858. After the founding of Que
bee in 1908 by Samuel Champlain, the lead
err Of the French Colonial Expedition, set
Elements continued to be extended farther
into toe wilderness; and during the admin
| istration of Count de Prontenac, which be-
gan in 1868, the country bordering on lakes
Erie, Huron, Michigan and Superior, was
explored and military stations appointed at
MackInaW, and at the + allS OF 81. Mary 10
Michigan.
The first white men, so far as we have
any account, to set foot upon the shore Of
what is now Wisconsin, were Fathers AL
Ioues and Dablow, two Catholic Missiona-
aries, employed by. the Societies of the Jes-
uits to carry the Cross into the western VIII
derness, and among the wild tribes of saw
age men. Fired with the zeal and indomit-
able courage Of the old martyrs, DESTROYS to
serve their Church and their King, these
stout hearted apostles of the Romish reii.
gion, set out to explore the unknown region
Of the far West, and through many priva
tons, hardships and perils, they found their
way across the Great Lakes, and established
Missionary Pos. at Green Bay, on the
western shore of Lake Michigan. This
was between the years 1865 AMI 1868.
And thus penetrating many hundreds of
miles into the wilderness, there was yet u
vast extent Of territory stretching out before
them, inhabited by red men, and uDdisturbed