-----Original Message----- From: Nance Sampson <nsampson@spacestar.net> To: WIEAUCLA-L@rootsweb.com <WIEAUCLA-L@rootsweb.com> Date: Tuesday, December 12, 2000 7:46 AM Subject: [WIEAUCLA] The Beginnings of ECC, 12 November 2000 >The following story is from the book "Sawdust City" by Lois Barland. >This is the very beginning of the book and at first I was going to skip >over it. But this lays the groundwork for what is to come later, plus >it's interesting! So here we go with "The Beginnings of Eau Claire >County." > > The Chippewa Valley in the sixteenth century belonged to England but >was occupied by the Indians and the French fur traders. There was a >French village at Green Bay and one at Prairie du Chien. The French >bought furs from the Indians, trading guns for beaver skins. The price >of a gun was a pile of beaver skins, well pressed down, as high as the >gun was long; and guns made for the Indian trade were never made short. > The first white person to visit the area and leave any written >account was Captain Jonathan Carver. In 1767 he visited St. Anthony >Falls, Minnesota (Minneapolis), came down the Mississippi tot he mouth >of the Chippewa River, then up the Chippewa through what is now Eau >Claire on to Chippewa Falls and on up to Superior. Ten years later he >wrote a book, an account of his travels which ran several editions. The >Eau Claire library has a rare copy of the second edition, published in >London in 1779 which contains a map. The Minnesota State Historical >Society gave Mr. W. W. Bartlett photographic copies of an earlier map. >Both show our smaller river as River Rufus. > The Sacs and the Fox were to the south, the Winnebagoes and the >Menomonies east in the region of Green Bay. Along the Mississippi the >Sioux or Dakota Indians had their villages. Between us and the >Mississippi was a great country for game, buffalo, elk, and deer in >great numbers. Carver says that on the Chippewa River the buffalo were >larger and more plentiful than in any other place in his travels. > Two half breed traders, LaDuc and Penasha built a cabin about 1784 >on the west side of the river across from Mt. Simon. A few years later >there was a trading post at the head of the rapids about a mile above >where the Eau Claire paper mill now stands. > LaDuc and Penasha were not white men, but they were white enough to >be crafty traders for they got into trouble with a party of Chippewas >and were besieged in their cabin for several days. They killed two >Chippewas and the rest went up the river for help. As soon as the >Indians were out of sight, the traders packed up and moved down river to >do their trading with the Sioux Indians who had a large village on the >Mississippi near the mouth of the Chippewa River. > The period between 1830 and 1850 saw the depletion of wild game to a >large extent. The buffalo had been killed off or driven to the west, >the elk were becoming scarce, for unlike his smaller cousin, the crafty >deer, the elk is large and stupid and cannot conceal himself; so he is >easily approached and killed off by hunters. > The French voyagers in extending their traffic in furs, came from >Prairie du Chien, up the Chippewa River in their long log canoes called >pirogues, and named some of our smaller streams. At the mouth of what >is now called the Eau Galle River they found a heavy gravel bar, called >galet (pronounced glaay) in their language, and so they called the >stream La Riviere au Galet, the River of the Gravel Bank. When they >reached the present site of Eau Claire, t hey observed that the river >coming in from the east, was quite clear as compared with the water of >the Chippewa which was of a dark coffee color, being stained by needles >of the tamarac trees which grow in the large swamps. So they named the >river La Riviere del' Eau Claire, the River of Clear Water. > Sioux is the abbreviation of Naudousessioux, signifying enemy. They >called themselves Dakotas. When Father Hennepin first came in contact >with this tribe, in 1760, they were located in the vicinity of the Great >Lakes, but laid claim to indefinitely defined territory extending west >to the Rocky Mountains. > The name Chippewa is a corruption by English speaking people of the >Indian name Ojibway. They were a high type of Indian. The entire upper >Chippewa Valley had for several centuries been their home. > The Ojibways originated on the Atlantic coast, migrated west to >LaPointe on Lake Superior (Madeline Island) about 500 years ago and >roughly 400 years since they were discovered by white men. > >++++++++++++++ > >Tomorrow, we'll read about the 1825 Sioux-Chippewa Treaty. Cya! > >-- >Nance >mailto:nsampson@spacestar.net > > >