THE WAUPACA COUNTY POST

August 19, 1993

 

WHEN THEN WAS NOW

By Wayne A. Guyant

 

Long before the appearance of the white man here in Waupaca County and the Chain o’ Lakes area, there existed a race, or civilization, that farmed, hunted, fought, fished and buried their dead there.

            These aborigines, the first known man to roam the wilds of this area, were here well before the birth of Christ.  They have also been referred to as prehistoric man and ancient Indians.

            According to F.M. Benedict in the “Standard History of Waupaca County,” the findings that were unearthed around the turn of the century from many of the effigy mounds that existed in Waupaca County clearly revealed artifacts and soil disturbances of a civilization that once existed.  Moreover, the Indians as we know them today knew nothing of this race of man.

            It seemed certain that these people practiced cremation, but it is not known whether it was a means of disposing their dead, or was by sacrifice.

            Under some mounds were found layers of charred human bones, ashes and charcoal.  The charcoal was as fresh as though it had come from the fire that had died in the hearth in the evening before, and not from a flame over 2,000 years before.

            Mr. Benedict had no real information or explanation concerning the identity of the earliest Indian inhabitants, as we know them today, who inhabitated the Otter Lake village.

            The character of the pottery and some of the implements which they left behind indicated that they were Algonquins, which were much like the Menominee, but more likely they were members of some early Menominee band.  There was a Menominee Indian village here when the first white man came to the Waupaca area in 1849, and according to Indian history they had been here many years before.

            Otter lake is a long, narrow lake lying in a northeasterly-southwesterly direction, connected to Taylor Lake by Otter Creek.  Otter Lake has a water area of only 14 acres and its greatest depth of 40 feet.  The Menominee called it Mikek (Otter).

            Otter Lake was more or less surrounded by woodlands and marshes, and was a favorite lake for fishing and hunting.

            Our home is located across the road from the north end of Otter Lake (Otter Lake Drive), on land that belonged to F.M. Benedict at the time that he made many discoveries.  The north end of Otter Lake was a main Indian camping area.  It had always been a favorite lake for the Indians in the pioneer days and before, erecting their wigwams about its shores.  On the north shore of the lake there was a marshy area 400 feet in width, and about the same distance to the north was a sandy, cultivated field elevated at least 30 feet above the marshland. It was here that heartstones and other debris of former campsites were scattered about.

            There was a narrow strip of woodland that separated this site from the richer main Indian village site that was located on the land that became the property of F.M. Benedict before the turn of the century.  This area today is south of Highway 54 and east of Otter Drive.

            Mr. Benedict’s description of this village site, near the clear springs of Otter Lake, seemed to have been the residence center.  Here the earth was full of pottery, variously ornamented. Sixty different varieties have been preserved from this locality, while all around were implements of flint, polished stone and copper.

            Mr. Benedict, himself, collected from this former Indian campground numerous flint, quartz, quartzite arrows and spear points, knives, scrapers, axes, celts, hand hammers, and other types of heavier stone implements, bone awls, slate gorgets, copper points, knives and awls, as well as a large number of ornamented potsherds.

            Also recorded were some iron axes, spear points, harpoon points, awls, glass beads, and other material which had been obtained by the native from white traders or storekeepers.

            After years of cultivation and well into the 1900s, visits to this site yielded scattered fireplace stones.  The greatest concentration of these were found on a small point of land adjoining a swampy kettlehole on the northern edge. Some of these burned, angular stones were as large as a human head.  Although this site had been cultivated for many years, ships, flint and quartz have been found for years since.

            Mr. Benedict also reported the presence on this site of eight refuse heaps.  In an address that he gave to the members of the Wisconsin Natural History Society at Milwaukee in November 1900, he told about the refuse heaps in some cases were large in size and slightly raised above the surface.

            The materials in these heaps contained bones, ashes, and charcoal mingled with potsherds and fire-cracked stones.  He also stated that, “at two points on this village site were common grave burials. In one was found quartzite, a few flint arrowpoints and a bone knife, eight inches long.”

            The other graves contained ordinary burials.  In one the right parietal plate of a skull was broken, as if by a club or a stone.  This person evidently survived this blow as bony matter had filled in and knitted and bulged around the break.