Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1918-10-17
Late Chapter About
The Lost Dauhpin
Ry O. D. Brandenburg Madison
By O. D. Brandenburg, Madison

Assuredly one OF the most interest
ing of living characters in Wisconsin
znust be the Menominee Squaw rear
ed bv the widow of Eleazar Williams,
Nhe lost dauphin." To be sure, 1t is
an interest based on a connection
founded in romantic fraud, for Flea
gar Williams, the proof concluslyely
shows, was not the son OF Louis XVI,
but merely the child of Mohawk
admixture, born in Canada several
wears after poor little Louis XVII (as
he might have become except for the
French revolutiOn) died prisoner
after Louis, his father, and Marie
Antoinette, his mother, had lost their
royal heads by guillotine. Yet every
thing associated with Williams is
certain to possess a facination which
can not but increase asthe vagueness
of feeting time enshrouds the dra-
matte case more deeply.
~ y *
Williams died in 1858 at Hogans-
burg, N. Y, and is buried there. His
wife died July %, 1886, and in the
front yard at her humble but slightly
home ON the Fox river a dozen miles
above Green Bay [ passed part Of an
afternoon few days ago. in company
with J. B. Schumacher, an enthusi-
sastic antiquarian of Green Bay, and
II. E. Cole, of like predispOsition, the
latter a Baral 90 editor and an ener-
-getic curator of the State Historical
society. Mrs. Josephine Phillips
owns and occupies this place.
These remarked Mrs. Phillips,
care the only relatives l have in the
world" and she indicated her daugh-
ter of 26 and two grandchildren of
some nine or ten years, land |
presume l shall not be here long"
Mrs. Phillips is accredited with
being neice of Williams wife. |
asked her if she were related to Will
liams and her reply =" somehow, left
me in rather an equivOcal state of
mind, and l pursued the investigation
no further, but from other sources [
learned that Josephine was born in
Williams home, that her maiden
name was Josephine Penney, that she
woman, known later in life as "old
Man." and that her father was a
Frenchman, a ne'er-do-well, who de-
serted his wife some time before
Josephine was born. Nan died in
1898, always faithful servant to
Mrs. Williams.
mot be here long?" some one
0olx old
can you be-"
a'Sixty-three."
Whereat since some in the party
Were many years older, yet deemed
themselves a long way from the end,
there was a general exclamation of
protest, and even Josephine joined in
the mirth at her own expense. But
Josephine is old beyond her years in
infirmity,-a victim of rheumatism
and of obesity, its frequent promoter
and concomitant. She is of good
stature and leans on a cane heavily
and alighted with difficulty from her
One-horse buggy, even with my assist
ance. Perhaps one scarcely would
think of her Menominee ancestry did
he meet her in region where the
French-Tndian raven hair and high
CheekbOnes,, are not common as they
aare all over the Green Bay country.
In truth, our automobile passed the
buggy containing her, her daughter
and grandchildren, and none then
suspected that any of them were
'kIn6ffan. A swarthy complexion really
was no darker than that of the many
: girls and women in the harvest fields
along the countryside. But closer
association quickly removed all doubt.
TESl&6k eeyes black hair, the revealing
Cheekbone-these marked the Indian
clearly enough, though language did
not. Josephine talked correctly as
white women having limited educa-
tional advantages.
81 s. *
* Yes, l remember Eleazar Will
1;ams," she said, though l was only
three or four years old when he died.
He lived on this very spot, IN this
very house, now enlarged, though it
stood back there" and she pointed to
she rear some so feet. 1--WE wanted it
forward"
Nearer the brow of the hill for
q better view?" was suggested.
Yes. ?
And indeed the move was quite
worth while, for the prospect up and
down the Fox and many miles beyond
is a ranging one of unusual beauty;
and up and down this historic water
sway for centuries freely went In
adians, missionaries, fur traders and
adventures up ito the'port-
age" forty miles from Madison
thence into the Wisconsin and so on
20 the Mississippi or down from that
portage to Green Bay out into the
great lakes, to Detroit. Mackinac
the ST. Lawrence and the French
possessions later the English. Flea
gar Williams, himself part OF this
from flor life for forty wears ,DriOr TIC