Memoirs of Waukesha County. From the earliest historical times to the present with chapters on various subjects, including each of the different towns, and a genealogical and biographical record of representative families in the county, prepared from data obtained from original sources of information.

              MEMOIRS  OF WAUKESHA COUNTY 67
and the southern part of Crawford into Iowa county. These were the political divisions of Wisconsin when, by act of Congress, approved April 20, 1836, it was organized into a territory with, how¬ ever, a much larger dominion to the northwest than was accorded it when admitted as a state twelve years later.
The settlement of Waukesha county—then a part of Milwaukee county—had begun some two years previous to the organization of the Wisconsin territory, and while the native Indian tribes still were possessed of the country. The latter resigned their rights the same year that the territory came into existence, by a treaty made three years previously. Governor Doty, in a document dated "Washington, Dec. 25, 1827," makes a claim that this country was already ceded to the general government by the treaty of 1804. He says: "By the 2nd article made by Genl. Harrison with the Sac and Fox tribe on the 3d day of Nov., 1804, those tribes ceded, in absolute terms, all the country which lies south of the Wisconsin river and a line drawn from a point 36 miles in a direct line up the same, to Sakaegan lake, which is sup¬ posed to be 30 or 40 miles from the shore of Lake Michigan, and continued from thence to a branch of the Illinois river and then down that river to the Mississippi. If this treaty gave the U. S. the right to the Lead Mines on Fever (Galena) River, I cannot see why we did not take possession of the whole country by the same title, previous to 1816."
The location of "Lake Sakaegan," which has been in dispute, is now conceded, after careful investigation,. to be Pewaukee lake, and the "branch of the Illinois river" to be the Fox. If this interpretation is correct there was included in these "absolute terms," not all of Wau¬ kesha county, but that considerable portion of it which lies south and west of a parallel drawn through Pewaukee lake, and the boundary of the Fox river. It will be noted, however, that this earlier treaty was made with "the Sac and Fox tribe," who had been succeeded in the occupation of the country about the Fox river by the Pottawattomies, with whom the later treaty was made. In the same document, speak¬ ing in reference to a plan which it appears was as early as 1827 under consideration, for the erection of a new territory west of Lake Mich¬ igan, Governor Doty says: "In that part of Michigan territory which lies to the north and west of Lakes Huron and Michigan," "The most turbulent and powerful nations of Indians are within the pro¬ jected territory."