Early times and events in Wisconsin

              134   Wisconsin Historical Collections     [voi.ii
perintendent, carpenter and blacksmith, with laborers, provisions, teams, and tools, to erect a mill on the Chippewa Eliver or its tributaries. The mill-wright selected the site of the old dam of Perkins for his dam, and built the mill on the Menomonee^ Eiver, and dug a canal across a point of land from: the small stream to tlie mill. The hands we were obliged to eauploy w^ere mostly Canadians, and we engaged tlie w^ife of one of them:, a Menomionee half breed, as cook for the hands. Few Americans can manage the Canadian voyageurs to advantage. They suppose that they must be treated, with the same familiarity as American! laborers, and reason them into doing their duty; but this is not the proper treatment. The voyageur has been so long accustomed to look upon his employer as his superior, and tOi be treated by him as* his inferior, that so soon as he is treated as American hands expect to be treated by their employer, they at once conceive a contempt for him, and become mut.inous. Such w^as the case with our superintendent, and he proved not be qualified to superinteud any kind of m.ein or business, and all the hands looked upon him with contempt.
Three or four OhippeW'^as came to them and the Menomonee half breed woman, she being the only one that understood the Chippewa language, and told them that if they did not leave there they would kill them all. This was about night-fall, and the super¬ intendent was so much alarmed that at dark he got into a canoe with one man, as much frightened as himself, and went down in the night over the rapids, that were diflScult to naviga,te eve.n: in the day time, leaving orders with the men tO' load the provisions, tools, &e., into the boat, and to start in the morning down the Chippewa Eiver near to its mouth, which they did, driving the oxen by land. The superintendent, whose name was Armstrong, arrived at the Prairie evidently much alarmed, and gave me a terrible account of his escape; and not until he had been at the Prairie some considerable time did he inform, me that he had ordered all the men to leave the mill, and that they were probably