Page 227 - La Société canadienne d'histoire de l'Église catholique - Rapport 1961

EARLY HISTORY OF WISCONSIN. 223

EARLY HISTORY OF MTISCONSIN.*
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BY REV. ALFRED BRUNSON, OF PRAIRIE DU CIIIEN.
HISTORY among tlie most pleasing and entertaining of
is
human studies. By it we converse and become familiar with
men and things of ages long in the past, and live as it were
from the beginning of time to the present hour; but we cannot
extend our researches into the future. HISTORY relatcs to the
past; PROPHESY to the future.
History embraces the biography of men and nations; their
ups and downs, rise and fall, detailing the incidents which hazle
been, the changes which have occurred, the improvements
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which have been made, and when known, the reasons therefor,
which is the philosophy of history.
There are, however, many things of interest on the face of
the earth, of which we have no history, for the reason that none
has reached us, if any was ever written; of such we can only
draw inferences of their causes from the effects which lie
before us. Such is the case in reference to the ancient Tumuli
which abound to an unknown extent in the Western States,
but in none of them more numerously than in our own.
Their forms, and the materials of which they are made,
clearly indicate the work of human hands, and intelligence
and design on the part of the builders. The Forts and fortifi-
cations indicate the existence of wars among them, and that
the combatants had more or less knowledge of -military science.
In some of them the existence of something like brick or
pottery, indicates some advances in the arts of civilization,
much more so than anything found among the aborigines which
the Anglo-Saxon race found in the country. ~utthe present
race of Indians have no traditions. of the people who made
these mounds, nor of the design for which they were built.
-- Up
"This aper we8 originally read before the Prairie du Chien District Min-
i8terial l~m~iation of the lelhodist Eplsoopal Church, held nt Virogua,
Sept.. 7th, 1868, and appeared in the Viropua Expositor in. January following.