TOWNSHIP HISTORY.


wandering a long time we found an Indian trail, which brought us
to Mr. Jourdain's, on the Neff farm. It was late in the afternoon
and we were tired and hungry, but there we were served to a
good dinner of wild duck. After wandering about through woods
and brush, crossing the streams in a skiff, I concluded to make a
claim where I now live. In October following I moved my family
into a block house with Mr. Coldwell, who lived with an Indian
wife on the Blair place. Other families moved in that summer
and fall. We had no way to cross the lower lake with teams but
to ford it, going into the lake by the old mill and guiding our
course by an old oak on the Jourdain place, the water coming up
to the middle of the wagon box, so that we were obliged to place
ourselves and effects on top of the box to keep dry.
"Some Frenchmen with a load of calico and trinkets going
through to trade with the Indians at their annual gathering to
receive their annuity from the Government, in attempting to cross
just at night to stop with me, there being no place in Neenah to
stop, got out of the right course into deep water with a muddy
bottom. They called for assistance and I went to them in a skiff.
The men and horses were rescued, but wagon and goods were left
to soak over night. The next morning, by means of long poles
tied together and the oxen, the wagon was drawn ashore. They
dried their goods and resumed their journey, thinking they would
be none the less valuable to the redskins for having been soaked.
"My house, which consisted of three rooms with low chambers,
was the only stopping place for travelers that winter west of the
slough and the lake. That fall the settlers who were here clubbed
together, there being no town board to raise an extra tax, to hire
the Indians to cut a road through to the Oneida settlement, a dis-
tance of fourteen miles. We were to furnish them with provisions
while they'did the work. That road connected with a road to
Green Bay, which was the only way we could reach the bay with
teams. The Indians camped in rude huts as they worked their
way along, taking my house for the terminus of the road, which
they reached one night, headed by their chief, Mr. Breed. We
gave them (twenty in number) a good supper, after which each
took his blanket and lay down before our old-fashioned fireplace.
Before leaving in the morning they presented me a cane with a
snake 's head neatly carved on the top of it. These Indians
brought us our lumber for the first building in Neenah from their
mills on Duck creek.
"Some six or eight of the settlers agreed to pay me $100 to build

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