given way to the lowing of kine and the hum of peaceful industry. The primeval forest has disappeared and the giant trees have been manufactured into lumber to build homes for civilized man, or into furniture for his comfort. Where once stood the totem pole the church spire now points toward the skies; the school house has taken the place of the tepee; halls of legislation have superseded the tribal council, and in the place of the Indian villages have been built cities with paved streets, electric lights, public libraries, street railways, and all the evidences of modern progress. And all this has been accomplished within a period of four score and two years. To tell the story of this progress is the province of the subsequent chapters of this history.

CHAPTER III

THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION

EARLY EXPLORATIONS IN AMERICA · SPAIN, ENGLAND AND FRANCELAND GRANTS TO THE LONDON AND PLYMOUTH COMPANIES - THE JESUITS - MARQUETTE AND JOLIET-LA SALLE - OTHER EARLY FRENCH EXPLORERS — CONFLICT OF CLAIMS THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR PONTIAC'S CONSPIRACY - THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY WISCONSIN UNDER VARIOUS JURISDICTIONS - WISCONSIN TERRITORY - WISCONSIN AS A STATE -RECAPITULATION.

The people of Racine County today enjoy all the comforts and many of the luxuries of modern civilization and development. Surrounded by all these evidences of progress, do they pause to. consider the long, tedious process of evolution by which they were obtained? The old saying, "Rome was not built in a day," applies with equal appropriateness to every city, every political division or subdivision, in the civilized countries of the world. Long before Racine County was ever dreamed of, the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus formed the first link in a chain of events that led to the establishment of the Republic of the United States. and the division of the central part of North America into states and counties. It is, therefore, deemed advisable to give a brief account of these events, in order that the reader may form some idea of the manner in which the State of Wisconsin and Racine County came into being.

In 1493, the year after Columbus made his first voyage to America, the Pope granted to the King and Queen of Spain "all countries inhabited by infidels." At that time the extent of the continent of North America was unknown to Europeans, but the inhabitants were regarded as "infidels," and in a vague way this papal grant included the present State of Wisconsin.

It was not long until other European nations began to contest with Spain the ownership and possession of the newly discovered continent. Henry VII of England, in 1496, granted to John Cabot, an Italian, and his two sons authority to fit out an expedition at their own expense "to search for islands or regions inhabited by infidels and hitherto unknown to Christendom; to take possession in the name of the King of England; to enjoy for

themselves, their heirs and assigns, forever, the sole right of trading thither; and to pay to the King of England one-fifth of all the profits of such trade."

On the 24th of June, 1497, the Cabots sighted the Atlantic coast near the southeasternmost point of Labrador, and were the first to discover the mainland of the continent. During the next two years they explored the coast as far south as Cape Hatteras and made discoveries upon which England, at the close of the Fifteenth Century, claimed all the central portion of North America.

Farther northward the French, through the discoveries of Jacques Cartier in 1534-35, laid claim to the Valley of the St. Lawrence River and the region about the Great Lakes, from which they subsequently pushed their explorations westward toward the headwaters of the Mississippi River and southward into the Valley of the Ohio.

No settlements were founded by any of these nations for many years. Spain undertook to strengthen her claims, under the grant of the Pope, by sending Hernando de Soto into the interior to ascertain and report the character of the country. He left Havana in May, 1539, and arrived at Tampa Bay a few days later. From that point he marched north, then west, and, after fighting several engagements with hostile tribes of Indians, discovered the Mississippi River, not far from the present City of Memphis, Tennessee. Moving westward, he reached the vicinity of Hot Springs, Arkansas, and followed the course of the Arkansas River down to the Mississippi, where he died and was buried in the great stream he had discovered. The remnant of his band finally reached the coast and ultimately returned to the Island of Cuba. About 1565 a small Spanish colony was planted at St. Augustine, Florida.

In 1604 Samuel Champlain assisted in bringing out a number of colonists from France and tried to establish a settlement on Dochet Island. After many hardships they moved to Nova Scotia and settled where Annapolis now stands, but their settlement was broken up by the British in 1613. The oldest permanent settlement in Canada is Quebec, which was founded by Champlain in 1608.

Early in the Seventeenth Century, two companies known as the London and Plymouth Companies were chartered by the Eng

lish crown and authorized to establish settlements in America. The former planted the English colony at Jamestown, Virginia, the year before Quebec was founded by Champlain, and the latter was expected to occupy the country farther to the north. When the London Company was granted a specific tract of land by a new charter, dated May 23, 1609, the Plymouth Company asked for a similar charter and received what is known as the "Great Patent," granting to that company "the whole of North America from the fortieth to the forty-eighth degrees of north latitude, excepting, however, all places possessed by any other Christian prince or people." This "Great Patent" included all the present State of Wisconsin, though no attempt was made to establish settlements in the region by its possessors.

THE JESUITS

As early as 1611 Jesuit missionaries from Quebec and the other French settlements in Canada were among the Indian tribes along the shores of the Great Lakes, but it was not until 1634 that the first white man set foot upon any portion of the territory now comprising the State of Wisconsin. In that year Jean Nicolet, who had been in Canada for some sixteen years, was sent as a delegate to the Winnebago Indians, who were then at war with the Hurons, to negotiate a peace between the tribes, a mission in which he was successful. One account of Nicolet says he passed up the Green Bay and the Fox River, crossed the portage and descended the Wisconsin River, "until within three days of the Mississippi."

Nearly a quarter of a century passed after Nicolet's visit before the next white men came to Wisconsin. In the fall of 1658 two fur traders penetrated to the southern shore of Lake Superior, where they spent the winter, trapping and trading with the natives. They remained in the country until the summer of 1660, when they returned to Quebec with sixty canoes laden with furs and accompanied by about three hundred Indians. This was the beginning of the great fur trade of the Northwest, though it was several years later before any further explorations were made in that direction.

In 1665 Father Claude Allouez, one of the most zealous of the Jesuit missionaries, went among the tribes of Northern Wisconsin and established a mission. He erected a small chapel

the first structure of any kind ever built by civilized man in Wisconsin. On October 1, 1665, he held a council with representatives of the leading Indian tribes of the Northwest at the Chippewa village, near where the City of Ashland now stands. At this council were chiefs of the Chippewa, Sioux, Sac, Fox, Potawatomi, Ottawa and Illini. Allouez promised the Indians the protection of the great French father and thus opened the way for a profitable trade. At the council some of the Sioux and Illini chiefs told the missionary of a great river farther to the westward, "called by them the Me-sa-sip-pi, which they said no white man had yet seen (they knew nothing of De Soto's expedition), and along which fur-bearing animals abounded."

At La Pointe, in what is now Ashland County, Wisconsin, Allouez established the mission of the Holy Ghost, and in 1668 he and another missionary, Father Claude Dablon, founded the mission of St. Mary, the oldest white settlement within the present State of Michigan. The reports carried back to Quebec by Nicolet and the missionaries led the French authorities in Canada to send Nicholas Perrot as the accredited agent of the Government to arrange for a grand council with the Indians. The council was held at St. Mary's in May, 1671, and before the close of that year Father Jacques Marquette, another Jesuit missionary, founded the mission among the Huron Indians at Point St. Ignace. For many years this mission was regarded as the key to the great unexplored West.

MARQUETTE AND JOLIET

Father Marquette was born at Laon, France, in 1637, and at the age of seventeen years entered the Jesuit Order. In 1666 he was sent as a missionary to Canada and two years later established the mission at Sault Ste. Marie. Soon after coming among the Indians about the Great Lakes, he heard of the great river and was filled with a desire to discover it, but was deterred from doing so until after Perrot's council, which resulted in establishing friendly relations between the French and Indians. In the spring of 1673 he received authority from the Canadian officials to make the attempt, and Louis Joliet was appointed by the French governor to accompany him.

Joliet was born at Quebec in 1645 and was educated for the priesthood, but became a fur trader. He joined Marquette at