As presented by Loren Sloan from the Gordon/Wascott historical Society at the upper

St. Croix Watershed Meeting held at Solon Springs Village Hall on Saturday July 25, 1998.

Throughout these notes I have used “Indians” Rather than “Native Americans to designate Chippewa or other American Natives because the former term is simpler, normatively neutral and sanctioned by tradition. I have used “Chippewa” to refer to the people of the various bands and have restricted the use of the term Ojibwa to the language itself.

Indian names are frequently spelled in a variety of ways in nineteenth century documents and misspelled other words also frequently occur in these sources.

After reviewing much information in the Solon Springs and Gordon-Wascott museums. Some of it hand written by older now deceased area residents I decided it would be unfair to them and their decedents as many would no doubt be left out. Perhaps at a later time more mention can be made of those brave adventurous people who developed modern “ White Birch” Solon Springs.

Some of the information contained in the following pages is from conversations with older residents, most deceased. Information from the Solon Springs Museums, Gordon-Wascott museum, Masinaigan, the Indian Newspaper published at Odanah History of Washington County from Washington County, Minn. Historical Society, St. Croix by James Dunn and other books not mentioned.

Some Ojibwa names used are as follows and taken from the Language section of the paper Masinaigan. Throughout these notes I have used Indians” Rather than “Native Americans to designate Chippewa or other American Natives because the former term is simpler, normatively neutral and sanctioned by tradition. I have used “Chippewa” to refer to the people of the various bands and have restricted the use of the term Ojibwa to the language itself. Indian names are frequently spelled in a variety of ways in nineteenth century documents and misspelled other words also frequently occur in these sources.

After reviewing much information in the Solon Springs and Gordon-Wascott museums. Some of it hand written by older now deceased area residents I decided it would be unfair to them and their decedents as many would no doubt be left out. Perhaps at a later time more mention can be made of those brave adventurous people who developed modern “ White Birch” Solon Springs

Masinaigan (Muz in I ay gin) the talking paper

White Birch Paper Birch Tree (Wiigwaasi-mitig)

Birch Bark (wiigwassi)

Birch Bark Canoes (wiigwaasi-jiimaanan)

Birch Bark Dwellings (wiigwaasi-sigamigoon)

Birch Bark Containers (wiigwaasi-makukoon)

White Pine (zhingwaak)

Sugar Maple (ininaatig)

From time immemorial Indians called the upper St Croix Lake area White Birch. The White Birch creates one of the most intriguing and beautiful displays within the forest. Its unique beauty easily matches its spiritual and functional importance to the Indian. The area of White Birch and Wisconsin's highland rose bleak and awesome out of the sea in a series of great earth movements, which geologists call the Laurentian revolution. This came roughly about one and one half billion years ago while most of North America was still submerged. The first living things of which we have evidence in Wisconsin, lived in the seas about a half billion years ago, in the Cambrian period. They were Crustacians. Next in the Devonian period, came the sharks and armored fish with bony plates and long jagged spines on their backs. The present day Sturgeon (kogen) is a decendent of this ancient armored fish.

During the next period, the Carboniferous, Wisconsin apparently became elevated above the seas and Wisconsin was left without the swamps thus the flora and fauna were not preserved in the form of coal and petroleum beds. Accordingly the record is missing, in which reptiles ranging in size from that of a small dog to monsters more than 100 feet in length roamed some areas of North America.

Abundant evidence has been on earth in our state, however, of the next great age of earth life, The Age of Mammals. Creatures such as the Mastodon and Saber Tooth Tiger lived in Wisconsin right up to the Pleistocene or Ice Age. They may still be here roaming our north woods, if a very important series of events had not taken place. The Climate here gradually grew colder; glaciers advanced and retreated several times. The last time perhaps a mere 17,000 years ago. The glaciers dug the Great Lakes and as they milted in retreat left thousands and thousands of smaller lakes scattered to serve humans as canoe, roads, fishing and hunting places. In the stream and lakes swam myraid fish, and in the forests roamed countless fur bearing and game animals " Such was the natural heritage of northern Wisconsin's people".

Historians, The Paleo - Indians, call the earliest inhabitants of the Upper St Croix Lake Region.

Those of us elderly folks, recall being taught in school that the first humans crossed over the Bering Straits to North America about 3000 years ago.

The invention of the Atomic bomb and its terrible devastation did on the other hand bring a great benefit to mankind and the study of history. The carbon dating system and the more refined methods of dating old human remains or camp sites now show that humans did occupy these regions Thirty or Forty thousand years ago even with the glaciers. Thus the history of human activity here is well established since ancient times.

The second group of Indians has been termed by historians as the Archaic 8000 BC until 800 BC. These Nomadic family groups used copper as well as the older tools. The Woodland Culture dates from 800 BC until present times. They used pottery, stone, copper, shell tools, spears, bow and arrows and lived by hunting, fishing and crude agriculture. So, for thousand and thousands of years, Indians have migrated to and from the upper St Croix Lake region using the St Croix, Mississippi, Brule River and Lake Superior routes. Such was the prehistory of our area, which is interpreted as the time before 1634..

The French Jesuit Priests, who were also explorers, followed by trappers, traders and others were probably the first White people to use the St Croix Lake, White Birch Area. James Dunn wrote one of the best accounts left by explorers I have found, in his book "The St. Croix". He tells of able and enterprising Daniel Geysolon, Sieur Du Luth as being the first Whiteman to leave any written record of visiting the pine clad “White Birch” area. In 1679 this member of the lessor French nobility made his way through the upper Great Lakes region. He errected the royal arms and claimed a vast unknown wilderness empire for Louis XIV King of France. Indians told him there were twin streams joined by a carrying place and leading south into the mighty Mississippi. He upper Lake Superior was a rough, tumbling river flowing North into the lake which the Sioux called Nemistsa-Kouat. To the Chippewa's it became Newissakoda (Burnt wood Point) and Wiskada Sibi (Burnt Pine River). The French called this narrow turbulant stream Bois Brule and we know it today as the Brule. Existing records are too vague and uncircumstantial to support the theory or claim that Etiene Brule; the interpreter for explorer Samuel de Champlain found and explored the Brule and St Croix area in early 1600.

In June 1680 a year after his first trip into the country of Upper Lake St. Croix, Du Luth and his voyagers again traveled this water highway in fragile white birch canoes (Wiigwaasi-jiimaanan) Du Luth's claim as the first white recorded explorer rests on a letter he wrote to Marquis de Seignelay of breaking a hundred beaver dams as they ascended the Brule River (pulled the canoes over the dams) and then portaged a half league (a league is three of our miles in linear measure) to the upper St. Croix Lake, the outlet of which fell into a fine river which took him down into the Mississippi. In 1693 LaSalle reported Du Luth again on the Brule-St Croix. Louis Hennepin's small volume of these experiences reached the book stalls of France and was translated into many languages.

Franquelin's map of 1688 locates Fort St. Croix on the upper reaches of the St Croix. The exact location of the Fort on the shores of upper St Croix Lake has not been established. However, it was customary as the English took over control from the French for the French and their Indian friends to burn and destroy all Forts and trading posts to prevent the English from gaining any benefit from them. This may be the main reason why so little remains as to the actual placement of those forts and trading posts. It seems to have been Nicolas Perrot, a French trader and explorer who applied the name St Croix to the lake and stream. He referred to it as the ST Croix in a proclamation issued May 8, 1689 and claimed for France all of interior North America, including the country of Lake St Croix and the "Riviere De Saint-Croix".

From the earliest days of white incursion into this country, white travel was motivated principally by the demand of European high fashion for Beaver Pelts. In 1693 Pierre Charles Le Sueur, voyager, was sent by authorities as a successor to Du Luth for the expressed purpose of keeping open to French trade the Brule-St Croix lake and river routes. The natives, although accustomed to the French, probably cared little whether they worked for the French or the English and changed allegiances after the 1760's brought end to the French and Indian wars and England began to slowly take possession of French Garrison's and trading posts.

Seven years after the end of the war, the first and only known English explorer (in July 1767), 57 year old Johnathan Carver with two fellow travelers, two interpreters, one Indian guide and some canoe men under order from soldier Major Robert Rogers ascended the Chippewa River from the Mississippi. He then descended the Namekagon River to the St Croix River and canoed up the St Croix to its source, the upper St Croix Lake. They were low on food and there he speared some "Delicate and finely flavored " Sturgeon and renamed the lake to honor this timely and exceeding fine "Piscatorial Delight” He called Lake St. Croix "Lac De La Providence". From Upper St Croix Lake he took the usual portage to Bois Brule which they decended to Lake Superior.

Indian agent Henry Rowe Schoolcraft and party used the Lake St Croix Brule river route to lake Superior in June 1832. Schoolcraft was a remarkable man. He was born 1793 in New York. Over his lifetime he won acclaim as a writer, scientist, American Indian authority and poet. In 1820 he joined the expedition of Lewis Cass and journeyed along the southern shore of Lake Superior and into the present state of Minnesota to explore the source of the river Mississippi. In spite of the great peace treaty of 1825, the wars were still going on between the Chippewa and the Sioux.

Schoolcraft was directed to meet with the Chippewa chiefs and stop the useless slaughter. Schoolcraft wrote a narrative journal of these explorations. Battles between the Chippewa and Sioux continued with two of the battles having said to have been witnessed by Benjamin G. Armstrong of La Pointe and Later of Ashland. Armstrong was said to have came from the south in the late 1820's. He was married to the niece of Chief Buffalo "Pezheke” of the upper St Croix. He traveled with the Chippewa and told of witnessing a battle between the Chippewa's and Sioux about October 1, 1842. He also told of the terrible battle, which killed hundreds on the lower St Croix. Armstrong evidently served as a go between in treaty talks and is frequently mentioned in accounts of the treaty signings.

At this time the area of "White Birch" was not yet Douglas County it was all under the heading of La Pointe County. On August 2, 1837, following the signing of the treaty on July 29, 1837, Nicollet, in company of traders William Aitken and Lyman M. Warren. Warren's Indian wife and other Chippewa Guides and canoe men left St Peters for La Pointe by way of the St. Croix River, St Croix Lake, Portage, and Brule River for La Pointe. Before they reached what is now Gordon, several Indians who were acquainted with the overland route left the party and took the trail Gordon to La Pointe. The written account of this trip tells of passing Chief ("Ka-Be-Ma-Be's") village about half a mile upstream or East of the dam (Gordon Flowage Dam). The village had a nice vegetable garden with a scalp pole set in the middle of it. The village location is now under water. A Monument marking the location was put up by the Douglas County Forestry Department about six years ago and can be driven to by those wishing to view the location from Look Out Point.

When Nicollet's party passed what is now Gordon they took a wrong turn and went up the OX Creek (Pe-zhe-ke for the Buffalo) in error and when the stream became too shallow and narrow they had to retrace and ascend the correct flow of water into upper Lake St Croix and White Birch. They made the usual portage, passed down the Brule after making many stops to repair their fragile bark canoes with birch bark (wiigwass) and sap which was heated to use as cement. They followed the South Shore of Lake Superior to La Pointe where they found the members of their party who left near Gordon had already been at La Pointe two or three days before them.

The local signers of the 1837 treaty were the Buffalo (Pe-zhe-ke) from upper St Croix and La Pointe, the Wet Mouth (Ka-be-ma-be) from the Upper St Croix River and the Kabemabe's son the Wind (Naudin) from the Snake River.

The ink was barely dry before settlers and lumber and mining interests began the inexorable march of the Whiteman into the Indians hunting and fishing grounds of the St Croix River and St Croix Lake. In fact according to Ronald Satz and his book Chippewa Treaty Rights, many traders had already married Chippewa women and obtained valuable sawmill sites and lumbering rights prior to the 1837 treaty signing.

Reports of vast copper deposits in the area led federal officials to push for new land cessions from the Chippewa Indians and helped to bring about the 1842 treaty of October 4, 1841 (called the Copper Treaty) signed At La Pointe. Throughout this period Chief Pe-zhe-ke (old Buffalo) and until his death when in his 90's was active on behalf of the Chippewa's and made several trips to Washington from La Pointe to argue their cause. The copper mines in the area of Lake St. Croix had been worked for centuries by Indians but did not live up to the large-scale hopes of modern business. The true wealth was in the Timber. By 1850 the lumber industry was growing and moving up the St Croix River. Government surveyors were mapping and Timber Cruisers were looking for the best stands of Pine to cut and be floated down the St Croix to the mills.

The construction of the Chicago, St Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railroad from Trego (Then called Superior Junction) to Superior in 1883 greatly increased the flow of settlers into and around the White Birch area. The town of White Birch prospered as a logging-lumber headquarters and as a Sportsman’s Paradise. Tourists began to visit and enjoy White Birch from Chicago, Milwaukee and the Twin Cities with several passenger trains giving good service. The original White Birch Depot was of the standard type of all small stations and an exact duplicate of the one at Gordon, Minong, Lampson, Sarona, Haugen and hundreds of others. As the town grew the railroad constructed a new larger station, which has now been moved to the west side of the highway and as of this writing is being used as an apartment house.

Near the end of the 1800’s a South Superior native proposed to White Birch a water bottling factory. He invented a liquid vending machine and patented it November 4, 1902. Tom F. Solon was that inventor and began the Solon Springs Bottling Company, which was located in a two-story frame building just north of the mouth of Leo Creek. White Birch residents got behind the new bottling company, which was expected to bring fame and prosperity to the village. The Omaha Railroad even built a spur to handle the expected business. Accordingly the village of White Birch was renamed Solon Springs. The depot still had the Old Original Brass Railroad Express Company Stamp with the name White Birch and kept it in a cigar box of mementos when I worked there as Agent-Telegrapher early in 1956, replacing Rod Hoard who had bid in to the agency at Drummond. Unfortunately when the Express Company went out of business the old White Birch Express Stamp was sent in, to be melted down for scrap. It would have been nice to have it in the Solon Springs museum as a memento of White Birch History.

A few years after the arrival of the C St P M&O Railroad through White Birch, workmen laid ties and rails for the Dobie Logging railroad David Dobie owned timber around Lake Minnesuing. His headquarters camp was located on the south side of Minnesuing Lake. Camp number 2 was south of the present youth camp and camp 3 was a little Northwest of the Lake. The log landing camp was on Lake St Croix above St Croix Lodge. The mainline was said to connect with Omaha railroad. A track branched off from the mainline near county roads A and P and ran about 4 blocks out into Lake St Croix on the timber trestle where the logs were dumped from the cars into lake St. Croix. The motive power was two wood burning locomotives. If you every wondered why county road A is so crooked, the reason is that it follows Dobie’s railroad grade. Old timers recalled that the lake was so full of logs that it was actually possible to walk across the lake on the logs.

Sauntry had a set of building and a large camp where the Solon Springs business district is now located. Cook shack, bunkhouses, blacksmith shop and the office were north of the main street. Oxen were shod where the village hall now stands.

It is impossible to mention all the important folks who built White Birch and modern Solon Springs. However I would like to mention the first white man to settle in White Birch, many of his descendants still reside here. Charles Lord is said to have been born in Montreal about 1827, came to Superior in 1854 as an Indian trader. He fell in love with the daughter of Chief Osangee and was married April 1855 by Father Corraine, a Catholic Missionary. Prior to the arrival of the railroad he staked out an 80-Acre claim in White Birch, Section 26, T45-R-12.

There on the site of the former Silver rail and present Depot apartments he constructed a large boarding house, A Saloon and real estate office. He was a fur trader and traveled the Northland extensively. He got along well with the Indians and spoke Ojibwa fluently. He also played the violin and usually carried it with him on his travels. The Indians called Charles Lord the “White Devil” because of his control over those who he played the violin for. When he played his violin everyone one got up and danced. Leo Lord, son of Charles Sr. was the first postmaster in White Birch. Leo was also the county surveyor and his name is found on many old plats and surveys in the register of deeds office of the courthouse. Leo and his wife Margaret Lucius had 13 children. There is so much more history to tell about. The history of Lucius Woods Park, the fire of 1914, Crownhart Island, and once again all those pioneers who lived here and died here.

Visit your local Museum and Historical Society for more information.