17th Book Excerpt: The People of Pahquahwong Part 3

The following is the 17th of a series of book excerpts the LCO News will feature from local author, John Dettloff. The excerpts will be from his  new book.

Detloff has lived on the Chippewa Flowage, near New Post, for over 50 years.  His family has had a small resort just east of New Post for 56 seasons and for 40 years he has been writing historical articles about the flowage, tribal history (especially Old Post), old guides, old resorts, and fishing.

His new book called Whispers of the Past, A History of the Chippewa Flowage, released on November 1st, gives a comprehensive history of the flowage going back to the fur trade era. 

According to Detloff, the book profiles in great detail the people of the "Chippewa Basin" (the area that became flooded by the flowage) and talks about the 300 plus people who were affected by and displaced by the flowage.  There were probably 250 plus tribal members and nearly 100 non-tribal members that were affected. 

From the Book:

Indian Jim (or Oji-wash-ko-gi-jig Jr.) is pictured on the left and the man pictured on the right may be Jim’s half-brother Chiz-ui-aw.

Indian Jim and Chiz-ui-aw

     A quarter mile southwest of Hattie and Ollie DeBrot’s place and the farm of Charley and Delia Thayer, up on the high ground overlooking the east end of Pokegama Lake, lived two half-brothers named Indian Jim and Chiz-ui-aw.  Although Indian Jim’s own allotment was located on the west shore of Two Boys Lake (not yet named that at the time), he chose to live in the heart of Pahquahwong on his late son Bi-da-na-kwad’s allotment.  

     Building a fine home in which to live on the land he had inherited from his son, Indian Jim had one of the finest views in the village.  By the standards of the day, his frame house was quite spacious, and it even had a large front porch, supported by four mortared stone pillars, which gave him a spectacular view of the setting sun.  Within the middle of his house, beneath his wooden floor, was a root cellar dug deep into the ground to keep his food stuffs preserved.  Metals shingles covered his roof.  For Indian Jim, things had come a long way since the days of living in a wigwam only a few decades before.  The concrete stonework foundation of his place is all that remains today, as evidence of the fine home that once stood on its site… perhaps as much as one hundred and forty years ago.

     Indian Jim was born around 1840, the son of Odjitchat and Bemosadum, somewhere along the south shore of Lake Superior.  Odjitchat was the son of Asabekamig.  Indian Jim’s Ojibwe name was Ma-ji-gi-wish, but he was also known as Oji-wash-ko-gi-jig Jr.  Indian Jim himself said this about his lineage:

     “My father Odjitchat had two wives and lived with them in separate wigwams near Fond du Lac (Duluth).  He provided for both families.  They moved to Chequamegon (Bay) and later Odanah, Wisconsin.  From Odanah, Odjitchat moved to Lac Courte Oreilles together with his wife Bemosadum and myself.”

     Oji-wash-ko-gi-jig Jr.’s mother, Bemosadum, was the daughter of Chief Gwewezensish (also spelled Gwiwizensish) and the sister of Chief Bluesky.  Her family had been living at Pahquahwong for many years.  After the death of her husband Oditchat, Besomsadum married Chingwanakodam, and they had a son named Chiz-ui-aw in about 1842.  After separating from Bemosadum, Chingwanakodam remarried, to a woman named Sagimakwe, and fathered three more children: two daughters named Gijigokwe and Niganigijigokwe and one son named Oga-be-gi-jig (also known as Yankee Joe).  Niganigijigokwe later became Chief Bluesky’s first wife.  Bemosadum died around 1880.

     Oji-wash-ko-gi-jig Jr. was about nineteen years old in 1860 when he married, by Indian custom, Na-bi-kwa-ni-kwens, with whom he had four children: Mi-no-gi-jig (Joe James), who died on January 21, 1915; Bi-da-na-kwad, a son, who died at the age of fifteen; Newakwegijigokwe, a daughter, who died at the age of ten; and Ombigijig (Antoine James), who died at the age of nine.  After his first wife died in 1868, Oji-wash-ko-gi-jig Jr. married Wa bi-gi-ni-kwe around 1875, with whom he had three more children: John James, born on June 16, 1878; Esther James, born around 1879; and Alice James, born around 1882.  After a while, the using of their Indian names faded and Oji-wash-ko-gi-jig Jr. and Wa-bi-gi-ni-kwe became known as Indian Jim (or Jim James) and Julia James.

Indian Jim, the man near the center of the photo wearing a black jacket and hat and holding a cane, visits with his fellow villagers at the flat near the Post Store “where the old folks used to sit and talk.”  The man to the right of Indian Jim (wearing a white shirt and black vest and hat) is George Fleming.  Note the two story government building in the background.  This is the building where the Post constable (Henry Thayer) lived with his family.  Attached to the back side of the building is the jail.

    Indian Jim remained a regular fixture in the village of Post well into his eighties, often sitting and talking at the gathering place near the flat at the bottom of the hill by the Post Store.  Those who knew him said that he had a good sense of humor; he was often seen wearing his favorite black hat and coat; and he had a big pocket watch that he always carried with him.  On February 9, 1928, Indian Jim died at the age of ninety-four. 

     At the time of his death Indian Jim’s estate was worth $1,655.78, which included: the allotment of his deceased son on Pokegama Lake where his house was located; his own 58 acre allotment along the west shore of Two Boys Lake; the two allotments of his late brother Joe Rain and his brother’s late wife, located near Odanah; personal property which included one team of work horses weighing about 2,600 pounds, one set of work harnesses, and farm machinery consisting of one wagon, one buggy, one sleigh, one plow, one harrow, and one disc harrow; and finally, various Liberty Bonds and other funds that were held to his credit at the Office of the Hayward Indian School.  The above-mentioned assets were all split amongst his three surviving children. 

     Because his wife Julia (Wa-bi-gi-ni-kwe) had preceded him in death on June 4, 1923, Indian Jim’s house overlooking Pokegama Lake, and all its household goods and furnishings, went to his son John James.  At some point before the flowage was created in 1923, part way down the slope from Indian Jim’s house towards Pokegama Lake, a six-foot-tall, field stone foundation was built into the hillside which had a small building over the top of it.  Whether it was also used as a residence or storage building, there is no doubt that the lower portion of it served as root cellar.  Old timers have always referred to it as John James’ root cellar.  Today, the foundation of that structure stands as one of the last visible remnants of the village of Post.

     During the 1930s, Indian Jim’s old house on the hill stood silent and unused, with Mother Nature’s wrath slowly eating away at its rustic beauty.  The young daughter of the couple who had built Indian Trail Resort, Jeannine Scheibel, lived close by and used to sneak into Indian Jim’s abandoned home, through an open window, and play in the house with her friends.  The house was fully intact and had a big, beautiful bed inside that the animals had ravished over time.  Around 1940, Henry Smith dismantled the building so that its materials could be used in the construction of other buildings.

     About three hundred yards to the east of Indian Jim’s place, his half-brother Chiz-ui-aw lived on an equally scenic overlook above the south shores of Pokegama Lake.  Born around 1842, the son of Chingwanakodam and Bemosadum, Chiz-ui-aw’s roots run deep in the village of Pahquahwong.  His maternal grandfather was Chief Gwewezensish.  It was likely sometime during the mid-1860s when Chiz-ui-aw married Bi-son-i-ga-bow-i-kwe Bo-ko-way, the daughter of the headman Be-bo-ko-way Potack.

     By 1870, Chiz-ui-aw and his wife had two young children, a boy named Joseph and a girl named Neanakwadokwe (Mary).  Although Chiz-ui-aw did not receive his land allotment on Pokegama Lake until June of 1881, it is likely that he and his wife had already been living on that land for quite some time.  Chiz-ui-aw and his wife may have started out living in a wigwam, but once the villagers like him saw the fine log buildings of Thad Thayer’s trading post and home, they began to follow his lead by constructing cabins for themselves.  Chiz-ui-aw probably built his log house as soon as he gained title to his allotment… but it could have been sooner. 

Chiz-ui-aw’s final venture out onto the waters of Pokegama Lake... on November 1, 1922.

     Chiz-ui-aw built his sixteen by twenty-foot house out of hand-hewn logs, with Scandinavian styled dovetail joints at its corners.  Constructing such a structure required precise cuts to make the logs fit properly.  There was no doubt a strong European influence in the building of his place.  Like his brother Indian Jim’s house, Chiz-ui-aw’s home was positioned on the hillside in a way that provided a fine view of the lake, with it perched at least forty feet above the waters of Pokegama Lake.  His house was said to have had a dirt floor and only one large room.     

     Many herbs and tall, beautiful wildflowers grew outside his cabin.  Chiz-ui-aw – also known as “Indian Pete” – was considered a medicine man who used these plants for various remedies, and he was known to make a kind of tea out of the sumac plants that were growing nearby.  Sumac tea was used as a blood thinner, and, among other things, to treat high blood pressure.  Its leaves were smoked to treat asthma.

     It was around 1885 when Chiz-ui-aw’s daughter Mary (Neanakwadokwe or Man-a-meg) married Mike Mustache (Mad-ji-osh), who was born in Pahquahwong in 1867 to Charlie Mustache and O-ba-ba.  The Mustaches lived on the west edge of the village near – what was called – Connor’s Lake, a small, narrow lake that was just to the west of Pokegama Lake.  Charley and O-ba-ba Mustache had three boys (Mad-ji-osh or Mike, in 1867; Kat-chi-ch-gi-jig or John, in 1870; and Antoine, in 1873) and three girls (Ni-go-be-min-se-kwe or Mary, in 1875; Wa-ze-kwe, in 1882; and Ot-wuis, in 1884).

     Mike Mustache and his wife Mary had four boys and two girls between 1885 and 1896, only two of whom lived to be adults: John and Sophia Mustache.  Mike and his family had a home and farm buildings in Pahquahwong, not far from his parent’s place, just west of Pokegama Lake.  Around 1898, Mike Mustache’s wife Mary died, and he remained living with the rest of his family west of Pokegama Lake for another seven years.   Once Mike got married to Julia Isham in 1905, he and Julia moved from Pahquahwong to his Chief Lake allotment, where he had built a house on the south end of the lake. 

     Mike’s mother, O-ba-ba passed away in Pahquahwong on December 3, 1906, at the age of fifty-eight.  Shortly after that, Mike’s brothers, Antoine and John, and their families, along with their widowed father Charley, left Pahquahwong and moved to the Chief Lake settlement, where they made their permanent homes near Mike’s allotment.

     In 1905, Chiz-ni-aw and Bi-son-i-ga-bow-i-kwe’s thirty-eight-year-old son Joe was no longer listed on the census record… presumably he had died.  The next year, Chiz-ui-aw’s wife died at the age of sixty.  Chiz-ui-aw spent his remaining years living on his own in his cabin on Pokegama Lake, tending to his garden of herbs and medicinal plants and often strolling down to the gathering place on the big flat near the Post store to confer with his brother and fellow villagers. 

     On November 1, 1922, at the age of nearly eighty, Chiz-ui-aw paddled out onto the freezing waters of Pokegama Lake, for his final time.  Perhaps he was on his way to go trapping, hunting, or fishing.  Or perhaps he was just surveying his home waters and taking in all of its peaceful splendor before “progress” would change it all forever.   Maybe he knew it was his time and it was his desire to become one with the lake that he knew would soon be submerged beneath the rising waters of the flowage that everyone knew was coming.  

     His canoe was found overturned and it was discovered that he had drowned in front of his cabin.  After his body was retrieved from the lake, he was buried in the Catholic cemetery where his wife had been interned sixteen years earlier.  Ten days later, the coffer dam around the work area where the Winter Dam was being built was removed… and the waters of the Chippewa Flowage slowly began to rise.  A short time later, the waters of Pokegama froze with the coming winter… never to be seen again in their natural state.

     Chiz-ui-aw indeed had become one with the lake… for both he and the original waters of Pokegama had died together.    

     (To order a copy of John Dettloff's new book, send a check or money order for $29.95, plus $6 shipping and 5 1/2% sales tax, made out to Trails End Publishing and send it to: Trails End Publishing, 7431 N Flowage Rd., Couderay, Wi 54828.)