470 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Jan, 2, 1890, 



CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 



THE NEE-PEE NATJE: CLUB, PERE MARQUETTE AND 'STETTB 

 I>E LA SALLE. 



ONE of our city papers here recently published a long 

 article describing the discovery near Peoria, in this 

 State, about Nov. 15, of the ruins of the old fort of 

 Creve-Cceur built by the soldier and explorer Robert de 

 La Salle, upon the banks of the Illinois River, and written 

 of by Father Hennepin more than 200 years ago. The 

 ruins were found in Fond du Lac township. Tazewell 

 county, upon the summit of a lofty bluff overlooking the 

 river for many miles each way. The location was ad- 

 mirably chosen from the simple military standpoint of 

 the time, which was in the year 1680. As the writer of 

 the interesting narrative points out, that was the time of 

 Charles IT., of Peter the Great, of Louis XIV., of Dryden, 

 of Moiiere, of Sir Isaac Newton, of William Penn. La 

 Salle and his devoted followers, pursued to the last 

 moment by treachery and misfortune, had made their 

 stand here by the Illinois, near where our hunters of to- 

 day part the receded waves of the river-lake with their 

 ducking boats. Craft of another sort then glided across 

 those same waters, and hunters of a more savage sort 

 lay in camp on the banks above the bluffs. Anions: these 

 savage hunters enemies had spread dissension. Fear of 

 surprise and treachery created dissatisfaction in La 

 Salle's little party. Some of his followers deserted him. 

 He knew not when he might expect an attack. So, fear- 

 less, determined, manly in his worst extremity, but suf- 

 fering keenly of those near hurts which come from the 

 faithlessness of friends, La -Salle slowly and laboriously 

 erected the simple fort which was to be his home for a 

 time, and in his sadness called it Fort Creve-Coeur, or 

 the fort of the Broken Heart. There are tears in the 

 lines which tell of the discovery of these old enibattle- 

 ments, and record the proof which make their identifi- 

 cation complete. The writer of the article alluded to is 

 Mr. Charles T. Lambert, of Peoria. 



The spirit of Robert de La Salle broods over all this 

 great Western country, restless, discontented, misfortun- 

 ate, but noble and determined. He was the very Achilles 

 of our explorations. His was the battle, not his the 

 victory. The very type of early destiny, he stands out 

 clear on the dimming page which tells us of those days, 

 bold, romantic, melancholy, grand, possessor of a life 

 which we might envy in spite of its distress and grief. 

 When we look at that life, when we read his fateful his- 

 tory and when we reflect that he time and again passed 

 over the country that is now our pleasure grounds, the 

 temptation is strong to take space to write about La Salle. 

 That must be, however, only on the way toward writing 

 of somebody else. 



La Salle was the first white man to launch a boat on 

 the Great Lakes. He sailed across Lake Erie and up the 

 lake system to Mackinaw, and from there down Lake 

 Michigan to Green Bay, the starting point of the great 

 Indian water trail which led to the Mississippi Valley. 

 He did not, however, go inland, but bought a cargo of 

 furs, which, with his little vessel, was swallowed up by 

 the waves of the inland sea. When he knew his ship 

 was lost, La Salle gave up the route he had at first 

 thought led to China and Japan. He coasted Lake Michi- 

 gan till he struck the St. Joseph River, on the east shore. 

 This stream he ascended with eight canoes, to a spot 

 within six miles of the Kankakee— so says the narrative 

 above mentioned— and then portaged over. Descending 

 the winding and swamp-lined Kankakee, he struck the 

 broader Illinois, and as stated above, erected the Fort of 

 the Broken Heart. 



About seven years before this time, however, white 

 men had visited these same waters, and chief among 

 those earlier voyagers was the gentle figure of the old 

 priest Pere Marquette. The latter, with Louis Joliet, a 

 fur trader, left Quebec in the spring of 1673, we are told, 

 and made the water journey all the way to Green Bay, 

 Wisconsin. The5 r paddled down the wide stream which, 

 drains the great Lake Winnebago, passed through that 

 lake into what we now call the Northern Fox River, and 

 ascended that stream to the spot of the old Indian port- 

 age, just where the modern city of Portage now stands. 

 At this point the Northern Fox runs within two miles of 

 the Wisconsin. Here our priestly-guided party — we can 

 almost see the ghostly train — carried over and swam on 

 down the Wisconsin, until they reached the Mississippi. 

 Down the great river they sailed till they reached the 

 Illinois — further than that, indeed, for they went to 

 where Memphis now stands. They then ascended the 

 Mississippi, went up the Illinois River, crossed to Lake 

 Michigan and coasted to Green Bay, which they reached 

 in September, after a canoe voyage of 2,500 miles. Then 

 followed ill health and misery for the gentle priest- ex- 

 plorer. He lay sick all winter in camp just where the 

 city of Chicago now stands. But he wanted to go back 

 to the Illinois River country, to keep his promise of visit- 

 ing again the Peoria Indians he met there. He did fo, 

 going by the St. Joseph and Kankakee, as La Salle did 

 later. Then he knew he must die, and started back for 

 Mackinaw. His lonely, but noble and devout death, at 

 the altar in God's first temples, in the wailing pine woods 

 of Southern Michigan, has become one of the most 

 touching and best known bits of the early history of our 

 country. 



All this is preliminary, written because one cannot 

 help writing it after he has read Mr. Lambert's story of 

 the fort of the Broken Heart, and after he has begun 

 some sort of an investigation of the modern sporting re- 

 sources of The lakes and streams which lie about this 

 point, and whose names, familiar as they are to all of 

 this section, appear so often the above brief recountal. 



These early adventurers passed through a country teem- 

 ing with game of all sorts, and especially with wildfowl. 

 Gentle Father Marquette must often ' have looked in 

 wonder at the ranks of wildfowl as he passed Winnebago 

 and ascended the winding Northern Fox. This stream 

 often broadens out into marshes and lakes wherein the 

 character of the river is lost. One of these lakes to-day 

 is known as Puckaway Lake. Time out of mind it has 

 been a wild celery lake, and time out of mind it has been 

 a great resort for wildfowl. It is known all through this 

 country as one of the canvasback lakes. There are a few 

 canvasbacks that stop on Swan Lake, on the Illinois 

 River: the next point above there is Fox Lake, of which 

 so much is written; there is wild celery there also". To 

 the north of that lies Lake Koshkonong, in Wisconsin, a 

 great celery lake and a great canvasback point. Yet 

 above this, and the most northern of any shooting lake 



taken into definite view by our Chicago sportsmen, lies 

 Puckaway Lake. Father Marquette passed through this, 

 and near here his dusky pupils must have lived and loved, 

 warred and died in great numbers, for on the bluffs of 

 the lake shores the curious hunter may even to-day find 

 relics of their time, and large collections have been made 

 in the neighborhood of axes, skinning knives, spear 

 heads, arrow head3, and all the simple tools or weapons 

 used by the savages of that day. They say there are 

 ghosts of Indians in those woods, and that spirit canoes, 

 led by a white Marquette, at times sweep silently along 

 those* storied streams. 



It was at the end of Puckaway Lake, a nice little 

 steamer ride from Princeton, that the men of t he Ne e - 

 pee-nauk Club selected their site, erected their service- 

 able club house, and began the acquisition of the land, 

 which resulted in their present domain of between 5,000 

 and 6,000 acres of land, which includes both the valuable 

 marshes of that locality and secures, perhaps, the best 

 natural canvasback grounds we have in this part of the 

 country. 



The 'methods of the Nee-pee-nauk Club, its organiza- 

 tion, etc., are much similar to those of other Chicago 

 clubs described earlier in these columns. Its members 

 may be called wealthy and disposed to be recherche. 

 Nearly all are middle-aged men, and there is, I believe, 

 only one young man on the list, a son of one of the 

 officers. Gen. Phil. Sherislan was one of the members of 

 this club. The club is amply able to make such additions 

 to its territory as it wishes. It owns one main club house 

 with eight sleeping apartments, and several smaller 

 buildings obtained with certain parcels of land. It 

 owns the tidy little steamer that comes down to Prince- 

 ton to meet the members, and it owns the further belong- 

 ings that such an organization needs in such a spot. 



After writing of so many different clubs it is a relief to 

 the writer, and doubtless also to the reader, to find a 

 club which may fairly be said to write up itself. I can- 

 not do so well in attempting to convey an idea of the 

 club and its environments as to quote literally from the 

 report made in 1886 by the president of the club, Mr. A. 

 H. Sellers: 



"There are but few duck shooting places in northern 

 Indiana, Illinois, or the southern 200 miles of Wisconsin 

 that I have not visited, as well as many in Kansas, Iowa, 

 Minnesota and on the Pacific Coast, and I unhesitatingly 

 say that I know of no better grounds for a duck and 

 snipe preserve than those now partly controlled by our 

 club under long leases. To make a good duck-shooting 

 place, there must be large open water where ducks can 

 sit undisturbed. This constitutes the reservoir: con- 

 tiguous to this must be marshes, one or more, with good 

 feed. The ducks flying 1o and from these marshes and 

 the reservoir afford the shooting. All these require- 

 ments are found at our club house at the head of Lake 

 Puckaway. The lake, seven miles long by about two in 

 width, is a shallow, open water lake, varying in depth 

 from two to eight feet, with its bottom thickly grown 

 with wild celery (Vallimeria) and other aquatic plants, 

 with its accompanying life, such as leeches and fresh 

 water mollusca, upon all of which, plants and animal life, 

 the different kinds of ducks feed. The favorite food of 

 the mallard, teal, and several other kinds is, however, 

 principally to be found in the marshes. At the head of 

 the lake, and in front of the club house, is the Puck- 

 away Marsh, two miles wide and four miles long, through 

 which winds the crooked channel of the old Fox River, 

 and runs the swift current of the new Fox, made by the 

 Fox River Valley Improvement Company. In this marsh 

 are many holes, ponds and sloughs, with a fine growth 

 of wild rice and the Indian potato, the best of duck food. 

 Lying parallel to this marsh and the lake, and separated 

 therefrom only by a low range of hills from three-fourths 

 to one mile in width, is the Grand River Marsh, from one 

 to two miles in width by five miles long, running east 

 and west, and turning north at its western end and con- 

 necting with the southwestern portion of the Puckaway 

 Marsh. This (Grand River) marsh is one of the finest 

 duck marshes in the State of Wisconsin, growing a pro- 

 fusion of wild rice, and owing to its seclusion much 

 frequented by ducks and easily protected. 



Thus it will be seen that in this lake and the two fine 

 marshes we have one of the finest habitats for ducks to 

 be found in the State of Wisconsin, and one in which, 

 owing to its profusion and variety of food, ducks would 

 be inclined to remain, when on their migrations, as long 

 as the weather would permit. Our superintendent and 

 myself have, from careful observation, become convinced 

 that the length of the stay of each species (excepting, 

 perhaps, the mallard) is each year growing shorter. The 

 cause of this is clearly the multiplicity of guns. Last 

 year the daily flight from the lake to the Puckaway Marsh 

 was markedly less than it was the year previous, and 

 this year there was almost none; in fact, the marsh was 

 all but deserted by everything except hunters. Of course, 

 the low water had much to do with this, but the main 

 cause was the fact that when a bird had succeeded in 

 passing the guns on the marsh lake front, he found a 

 hunter at every slough and pond hole ready to receive him, 



"The remedy for all this is clear; protect them, and 

 allow them and their kindred species several days' weekly 

 undisturbed access to the marsh. 



"The east end of Puckaway Lake is owned and leased 

 by the Caw Caw Club, of Milwaukee, who will protect 

 their grounds; thus the two clubs working in unison 

 would protect a tract of forty square miles, and forming 

 one of the finest and grandest game preserves in the 

 country. I am informed that the shares of stock in the 

 Caw Caw Club have cost $500 each, with dues of $80 per 

 year." * 



That will do to show what the Nee-pee-nauk Club pos- 

 sesses. As a matter of fact, however, forty-five canvas- 

 backs is the largest bag I can learn of to a single gun in 

 a day. Young Mr. Sellers, who shot on this marsh for 

 about three weeks this falls, tells me he only averaged 

 about ten birds a day. He said there were thousands and 

 thousands of canvasbacks on the lake, and they had 

 fairly filled the water with torn-up celery; but they kept 

 to the open water and steered wide of the points in their 

 flight. Had it been lawful to use a sneakbox beyond the 

 line of the natural cover very large bags could have been 

 made. Singularly enough, precisely the same reports 

 came down from Koshkonong and Fo.t Lake. The law 

 stopping the sneak-boxes seems to have been a good one. 

 Under this head, also, Mr. A. H. Sellers's remarks as to 

 the change in the habits of the ducks are particularly 

 noteworthy and true. 



It is necessary to make quite a long run from the club 

 house to the shooting grounds at Nee-pee-nauk, but the 

 boat in general uae is well adapted to this. In the Nee- 

 pee-nauk boat we have yet another distinct club model. 

 The boat is a modeled bow, low-sitting, roundish-bot- 

 tomed model, with no ribs visible except under the deck- 

 ing, fore and aft of the cockpit. It is a comfortable and 

 easy paddling boat. It is not clinker built, but is more 

 nearly that than anything else. It is built altogether of 

 tin. strips, square, fastened one directly on top of another. 

 The boat is built on a frame; when done, it is a shell per- 

 fectly smooth, within aud without, yet very stiff . The 

 shell is smoothed with sandpaper, in and out, the deck 

 put on and the cockpit adjusted. A little canvas cock- 

 pit is so arranged that it can be thrown up to keep the 

 navigator dry in a sea, for the boat sits quite low to the 

 water. These boats are built by the club keeper, and 

 probably every member has one. We have not found any 

 similar boat in our travels among the various clubs. 



Nee-pee-nauk is a delightful summer club. The bass 

 fishing there is magnificent and very many, perhaps 

 half, of the bass taken are the small-mouthed bass. Fly- 

 fishing for these noble fish is very successfully practiced 

 in the Northern Fox River, Following is the member- 

 ship of Nee-pee-nauk club: President. Mr. Morris Sellers: 

 Vice-President, Mr. Edward E. Flint; Secretary and 

 Treasurer, Mr. James S. Carter; Board of Directors, 

 Messrs. Morris Sellers, Edward E. Flint, Ira. S. Young- 



of Geo. C. Campbell. H. P. Crane, John Cudahy, Geo. L. 

 Dunlap, Geo. C. Eldredge, W. K. Fairbank, E. E. Flint. 

 Robert Forsyth, R. H, Fleming, James J. Gore, Alpheus 

 M. Hawes, Albert Hayden, Marvin Hughett, Jr.. N. S. 

 Jones, Samuel M. Jones, Clifford P. Johnston, Sidney A. 

 Kent, J. C. Knickerbocker, Francis J. Kenneth, Win. 

 Kent, W. R. Linn, William H. Locke, C. F. Lawrence, 

 W. G. McCormick, Charles D. Peacock, A. B, Pullman, 

 John Parsons, Charles W. Rodman, Theodore Rogers, 

 D. G. Reid, Norman B. Ream, Peter Schuttler, Morris 

 Sellers, A. H. Sellers, Chas. J. Singer, Philip E. Stanley. 

 W. R. Stirling, Chas. T. Trego, N. C. Turner, Geo. C. 

 Walker, Francis T. Wheeler, Lewis D. Webster, Wirt D. 

 Walker, Ira S. Younglove, Francis W. Goddard, F. O. 

 Wyatt. E. Hough. 



INCIDENTS OF FORTY YEARS. 



MY first deer was killed in the Adirondacks, when 

 but a lad of ten or twelve years old. The great 

 North Wood was but little traversed by white men then. 

 Wild animals were plenty, and the Indian trail between 

 Canada and the Mohawk Valley was still plain if not 

 fresh. 



A long heavy rifle rested on its wooden hooks in the 

 kitchen of my father's.house, and it was a subject of 

 ambition with me to learn to shoot and kill some large 

 game. Early one morning, I saw two deer in the 

 meadow down by the river, and at once I climbed into 

 a chair placed so as to reach the rifle, and got it out of 

 the house without being seen. But, before I had gotten 

 to the rail fence where I went to get a rest for the rifle, 

 my mother and sisters discovered me with the. gun, and, 

 with much alarm, made all effort to have me returr. 

 It was too late, for just then I fired and killed a large 

 buck. The news of my exploit soon got out, and my 

 playmates regarded me as a sort of hero, and I was for 

 weeks one of the proudest boys in all the North Woods. 



Wolves and panthers were troublesome in these days. 

 I remember of seeing the carcass of one of my father's 

 sheep in the crotch of a big birch tree, fully forty feet 

 from the ground. Wolves and panthers, hunting to- 

 gether, had raided our farmyard the night before, nor 

 did they cease their raids until all our little flock of sixty 

 sheep had been destroyed. 



It was my ambition when a boy to catch some does in 

 winter when the snow was deep, and without injury to 

 put them in a park and raise some fawns. One day, with 

 my brother and a three-months-old pup, I went to the 

 hills to catch a doe. From the top of the hill, where was 

 a deer yard, we soon started a deer, but could not over- 

 take it until it reached the river. The stream had been 

 high from a recent thaw, and in that condition had frozen 

 over with three inches of ice. It had suddenly fallen, 

 leaving the middle free from ice, with a strip several 

 yards wide adhering to the banks but a foot or more 

 above the water. The deer was discovered lying on the 

 bank and under the ice nicely hidden. I prepared to 

 cross the river and break down the ice above the deer, by 

 jumping upon it, and, as the ice fell, to catch the deer 

 about the neck and hold her until my brother could fasten 

 a birch withe about her neck. 



This I did, but my doe was a full-grown buck, his 

 horns had dropped off some time before. As I caught 

 him about the neck he took me out into the middle of 

 the stream. It was as full of rocks and boulders as could 

 be, with plenty of water rushing between. During our 

 short journey together the deer and I were in all possible 

 positions, and what with the cold water, the bumps on 

 the recks, and the kicking received, I was never more 

 bruised nor more angry in my life. But I field the buck; 

 and my brother put on the withe. We then got the deer 

 to a smooth place on the bank, and holding on to the 

 withe let him up. The deer gave a jump high into the 

 air, fell on his back, and putting his hindfeet into the 

 loop about his neck did his best to break the loop. Not 

 succeeding he got up, and we led him quietly toward 

 home. Several times on the way he cropped buds from 

 the bushes; but after a few days, "in spite of the greatest 

 care, he died, and. as we said, from homesickness. But 

 if he bruised himself as badly as he did me, his death 

 might well be attributed to another cause. 



Our club was once having its usual fall hunt on the 

 Au Sable River in Michigan. We drove deer with hounds 

 into this swift-flowing river and shot at them as they 

 came down the stream toward the hunter, who was 

 lucky enough to be the first one placed where the deer 

 took to water. Judge H., of Cleveland, was one of our 

 party that season, and we were anxious to give him some 

 shooting. The first morning he took station with me on 

 the bank of the river. Soon we saw a buck with a fine 

 head of horns coming down the river toward us and 200 

 or 300yds. away. I said to the Judge that, when the 

 deer had come down to a place indicated, he should 

 shoot, and I would fire later if the deer was likely to 

 escape. This was quietly assented to, and we waited. 



