HE ONTONAGON COPPER BOWLDER IN THE U. S. NATIONAL 



MUSEUM. 



By Charles Moore. 



In a corner of the National Musenm a bowlder of native copper, 

 weighing perhaps three tons, rests upon a plain wooden base. Trans- 

 ferred to the Museum from the Patent Office, in 1858, the coi)per frag- 

 ment was accompanied by no records, and this paper has been written 

 with the view of tracing the intricate but interesting story of the once 

 celebrated Ontonagon bowlder. 



Worshipped as a manitou by the superstitious Indians during 

 uncounted years, the siren of mining adventurers while yet the flag 

 of England floated over the Lake Country, the objective point of haz- 

 ardous expeditions by explorer and scientist, the Ontonagon bowlder 

 has never been so left to itself as it has been during the half century 

 that has elapsed since it was brought to the national capital, where 

 the expectation was that all eyes might gaze upon it as the represent- 

 ative of national wealth and enterprise. 



About the middle of the seventeenth century the Jesuit missionaries 

 and the French explorers, penetrating the wildernesses about Lake 

 Superior, found among the most treasured possessions of the Indians 

 pieces of copper weighing from 10 to 20 pounds. Often these frag- 

 ments of copper were regarded as household gods, and from an 

 indefinite past had been transmitted from generation to generation. 

 Tradition also told of larger masses of copper situated at several 

 points along the shores of the great lake, whose shifting sands often 

 covered up the bowlders for years at a time, thus causing the super- 

 stitious savages to declare that their ofl:ended deities had disapj)eared 

 for a season.^ 



In 1067 a piece of copper weighing a hundred pounds was brought 

 to Father Dablon. "The savages," he reports,- ''do not all agree as to 

 the i^lace whence this coi)per was derived. Some say it came from 

 where the [Ontonagon] Eiver begins; others say close to the lake; and 

 others from the forks and along the eastern bank." Whether the 



'Journal du Voyage du P^re Claude Allouez, Relation de la Nouvelle France, en 

 l'Ann6e 1667. Sagard, p. 589. Voyages of Pierre fisprit Radisson, Third Voyage. 

 ^Relation of 1670. 



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