THE OHIO VALLEY-GREAT LAKES ETHNOHISTORY
ARCHIVES: THE MIAMI COLLECTION
It is noted that the following work from the Miami Archives should be read and
considered within the historical context in which it was composed and printed.
The opinions expressed and the language used do not reflect the opinions or
standards of the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology, but are, rather,
indicative of thought in that historical moment during which the document was
published.
Notes on Early Lead Mining
in the Fever (or Gelena) River Region
Thwaites, R. G. in: Wisconsin Historical Collections, 13:pp. 271-292.
p. 273.
It is alleged(see fn. 1) that some French traders stationed in the vicinity of Peoria Lake, on the Illinois River, chased a quantity of lead in 1690 from certain Indian mines on what afterwards came to be known as Fever or Galena River.
When in the Green Bay region in 1690, after having made an expedition up the
Mississippi, Nicholas Perrot, on being presented by a Miami chief with a lump
of lead ore, promised that within twenty days he would establish a post below
the Wisconsin River. La Potherie says(see fn. 2) that the
chief gave Perrot information as to the locality of the mines, and the latter
accordingly visited them. Perrot, we are told, found "the lead hard to
work, because it lay between rocks and required blasting; it had very little
dross, and was easily melted." Perrot's post, built at this time, was
doubtless on the east side of the river, about opposite the Dubuque mines. . .
.
__________________________
1Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, xviii., p. 285.
2Edition of 1753, ii., p. 251; Wis. Hist. Colls., pp. 301, 331.
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