HISTORY OF WOOD COUNTY



(Fred Graham's farm). This place here and south of Auburndale good for sugar
camps. Skunk Hill especially good, south hill here, extra good.' These two
long
speeches were about all the old Indian could stand, and as he left us he
pointed
at his dinner of soup and unleavened bread which had been set out for him
some
time before. The village on the Saunder's place, which was in Wood and Mara-
thon Counties, held nearly 400 Indians, summer and winter. The Indians are
gone, but the springs which quenched their thirst on the Saunder's place
are still
flowing. And from their lands in Kansas the hills, rocks and stream-cut valleys
are forever beckoning them to the lands which delighted their forefathers-to
the
silent forests of Wisconsin.
   "The statement of the old Indian concerning the gathering at Prairie
du Chien
is corroborated in the Congressional record of the 57th Congress, in the
volume
on Indian treaties. August 19, 1825, the United States invited the Chippewa,
Fox, Sac, Menomonie, Iowa, Sioux, Winnebago, and a portion of the Ottawa,
Chippewa and Potawatomi tribes of Indians living upon the Illinois, to meet
its
commissioners, William Clark and Lewis Cass at Prairie du Chien. At this
time
the Menomonie claims were not settled as the boundary lines of the Menomonie
were not definite. The chiefs with a number of Indians from each tribe consti-
tuted an immense assemblage of red men."
   Grimm Mound Group.-A group of five mounds is located on the Charles
Grimm farm almost three-quarters of a mile east of Skunk Hill, in the northeast
quarter of the southwest quarter of Section 32, Arpin Township, and across
the
road in the southeast quarter of the northwest quarter of the same section.
One
prominent mound in front of the house was excavated. It was four feet high
and
30 feet in diameter. Three skeletons were found in it. The other mounds are
all conical in shape, from 25 to 30 feet in diameter and two to three feet
high. The
presence of this group of prehistoric earthworks as well as the discovery
of a large
cache of stone implements and other relics just west of the hill indicates
that this
hill was also a favorite spot for prehistoric Indians.
   G. H. Reynolds and H. C. Fish in 1906 described a village site and cemetery
on the old Meecham place at Skunk Hill, in the northwest quarter of the south-
west quarter of Section 33, Arpin Township, as follows: "A trail ran
westward
from a village site at Skunk Hill in Section 33, Arpin Township (passing
a village
site in the west half of the southwest quarter of Section 31) to the Yellow
River,
in Richfield Township; thence northwest along the river to the north half
of the
northwest quarter of Section 28. Here it divided, one branch crossing the
river
to a village site in the southeast quarter of the northeast quarter of Section
30, the
other running northeast for about a mile to Section 22, and thence northwest
to a
village site in the southwest quarter of Section 8."
   There was a village and cemetery in Marshfield Township near the center
of
Section 3, and in Lincoln Township, in the northwest quarter of the southwest
quarter of Section 24.
   Marshfield Village Site.-In the northern part of Marshfield, near the
City
park, and on Central Avenue, near A Street, there was an Indian camp or village.
Here they had a dancing-place and cemetery and wigwams covered with mats.
There also was a camp where the Fourth Ward School now stands. As the white
village grew in size the Indians moved farther and farther northward. Their
last



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