146 PUBLIC PARKS OF IOWA 



giniana), Dutchman's breeches (Dicentra cucullaria), violets (Viola pu- 

 bescens, V. cucullata, V. delphifolia, V. pedata), hepatica (Hepatica acuti- 

 loba), trillium (Trillium erectum), May apple (Podophyllum peltatum), 

 blue cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides), meadow rue (Thalictrum dioi- 

 cum), moccasin flower (Cypripedium pubescens). 



This list, is only a partial and very incomplete one. It shows, how- 

 ever, the interest attached to the region, from a scientific standpoint. 



TETE DES MORTS AND VICINITY. 

 By Eli Cole, Jr. 



In looking over the township map of the state of Iowa one's attention 

 is immediately arrested by a certain township bearing a peculiar name, 

 and not like hundreds of others bearing the name of some American 

 statesman, or some geographical significance. 



This township referred to is located in the northeast corner of Jackson 

 county, and is named Tete des Morts. This name was given in 1684 by 

 Father Louis Hennepin and his associates, La Motte and Le Fevre. 



The town of La Motte is located on a high hill seven miles westward, 

 and the name Le Fevre was given to the river opposite Tete des Morts, 

 an affluent to the Mississippi which in the two decades prior to 1860 bore 

 a large commerce, for Galena, Illinois, located thereon was then the 

 metropolis of the west. 



Tete des Morts township was necessarily one of the- first townships in 

 the state of Iowa to be settled by the white man, by reason of its 

 proximity to Galena, being immediately opposite and across the Missis- 

 sippi river from Galena, Illinois, situated on the Fevre river. 



It was according to tradition the battle ground between the Winne 

 bagoes, Sacs and Foxes on the one side and the Sioux on the other, 

 wherein the Sioux were victorious and drove their adversaries over the 

 high cliffs bordering on the river and was given that suggestive name by 

 the Jesuit missionary, Father Louis Hennepin, '"Tete des Morts" or the 

 "Head of Death." 



The name given, however, was not the sole and only distinction, but 

 it was in an early day of Iowa history settled by French and until re- 

 cently the French language and Luxemburg dialect was the sole medium 

 of speech. French and foreign customs have ever prevailed and it seems 

 like a little French island surrounded by an immense American sea. No 

 more picturesque village is to be found on the American continent, out- 

 sideside of Quebec Province, and it has ever retained every foreign and 

 antique characteristic, than the village of St. Donatus, changed in 1870 

 by the United States from Tete des Morts. 



The creek is still called Tete des Morts and is one of the chief charms 

 of the valley winding through a broken and rugged country until its con- 

 fluence with the Mississippi whose capacious and insatiable maw seems 

 never satisfied with these hundreds of little feeders. 



