History, Winnebago County, Wisconsin: Its cities, towns, resources, people

              TOWNSHIP   HISTOEY. 287
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, cross^ing 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 haA^ng been soaked.
"My house, which consisted of three rooms with low chambers, w^as. the only stopping place for travelers that winter west of the slough and the lake. That fall the settlers who w^ere 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 clown 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