James H.Lockwood: (1793-1857)
He was the son of Ezekiel Lockwood Jr. &
Sarah Beckran (Brockran/Brochraw) born at Peru, N.Y. James married
Julia Warner in 1824 and they had a son (James Jr.) & a daughter born
in 1820.
During the War of 1812 James was a sutler
at Buffalo, N.Y. and after the end of the war accompanied an American regiment
to Detroit as a sutler employed by Lewis Rouse in July of 1815. He left
Detroit for Mackinac Is., traveling with Ramsey Crooks who was on his way
west to manage John J.Astor's newly purchased South-West Fur Company, arriving
in August. In 1816 James was at Prairie du Chien, employed by James Aird
and until 1819 he was trading at Lac Qui Parle on the Upper Minnesota River.
The following is from Lockwood's reminiscences
which he wrote at the request of the Wisconsin State Historical Society;
"...Tradition says that many years since, when there were many wintering
traders in both the Upper and Lower Mississippi, it was the custom of every
trader visiting Prairie du Chien, to have in store a keg of 8 or 9 gallons
of good wine for convivial purposes when they should meet again in the
spring, which occasions they would have great dinner parties and, as is
the English custom, drink largely...But when I came into the country, there
were but few of the old traders remaining...The traders and their clerks
were then the aristocracy of the country; and to a Yankee at first sight,
presented a singular state of society. To see gentlemen selecting wives
of the nut-brown natives and raising children of mixed blood, the traders
and clerks living in as much luxury as the resources of the country would
admit...all this to an American was a novel mode of living and appeared
to be hard fare...The traders in this country, at the time I came into
it, were a singular compound; they were honest so far as they gave their
word of honor to be relied upon; and in their business transactions between
themselves, seldom gave or took notes for balances or assumptions...Prairie
du Chien is generally spoken of as an old settled town. It is true
that the Indians inhabited it many years since; and about the year 1737
the French established a trading post there,...But what advantages were
these old trading posts to the settlement and development of the country
such as Detroit, Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Vincennes, St.Louis and St.Charles?
All these places remained stationary for many years, until the Americans
emigratrated to them and took hold of them with their enterprise, when
they at once improved and most of them became places of business and importance...At
this time at Prairie du Chien the events of the war of 1812 in that quarter,
were fresh in the minds of everyone...When Gen.Smythe first arrived at
Prairie du Chien, he arrested Michael Brisbois, then the most prominent
citizen of the Prairie and placed him under a guard of soldiers for several
days, charging him with treason, for having taken up arms against the U.S.
After keeping him in duress for several days, he was sent on board of a
boat under a guard to St.Louis...Although in a time of peace and our government
received the country by treaty stipulation, the officers of the army treated
the inhabitants as a conquered people and the commandants assumed all the
authority of governors of a conquered country, arraigning and trying the
citizens by courts-martial and sentencing them to ignominious punishments...And
during Col.Chambers' reign, for some alleged immoral conduct he banished
Joseph Rolette to an island, about 7 miles above Prairie du Chien, where
he obliged him to pass the winter...Mr.Brisbois informed me that he had
resided in Prairie du Chien about thirty years; and there was an old Scotchman
by the name of James Aird, connected with the company by which I was first
employed in the Indian trade, who generally wintered among the Sioux Indians
and had been a trader about 40 years. There was also another man by the
name of Duncan Graham, who had been engaged in
the Indian trade about the same length of time and was captain in the British
Indian Department during the war, from whom I obtained considerable information
of the Indian country and of the earlier days of Prairie du Chien. Prairie
du Chien was at this time, an important post of Indian trade and was considered
by the Indians as neutral ground, where different tribes, although at war
might visit in safety...Of the different Indian tribes that visited and
traded more or less at Prairie du Chien, there were the Menomonees from
Green Bay, who frequently wintered on the Mississippi; the Chippewas, who
resided on the headwaters of the Chippewa & Black rivers; the Foxes,
who had a large village where Cassville now stands, called Penah-i.e.Turkey;
the Sauks, who resided about Galena & Dubuque; the Winnebagoes, who
resided on the Wisconsin River; the Iowas, who then had a village on the
Upper Iowa River; Wabashaw's band of Sioux, who resided on a beautiful
prairie on the Iowa side of the Mississippi, about 120 miles above Prairie
du Chien, with occasionally a Kickapoo & Pottawattamie...There was,
when I firs visited the country, a band of Indians who had their village
on a prairie on the west bank of the Mississippi, where the village of
Winona, which means the eldest daughter, now stands, about 120 miles above
Prairie du Chien. The chief was called Wa-ba-shaw;
he was a very sensible Indian and was truly one of nature's noblemen. Although
only chief of his band, he had great influence with the other chiefs. Above
Winona was another large band of Indians, who had their village on the
west bank of the Mississippi, where the Presbyterian mission now is, a
few miles below St.Paul, whose chief was called Little Crow; a man of good
sense and generally considered a good Indian. There was another small band
who had their village at Mendota which signifies the meeting of the waters,
whose chief was called Black Dog. He was not a man of much consequence.
There was also another small band who had their village a short distance
above, whose chief was Pone-chon, a man of little
note. Where the village of Shakoppe now is, was an Indian village, whose
chief bore that name, which simply means six; he possessed a good intellect,
but was not popular among the traders, as he was considered very dishonest.
At the Little Rapids was another village, called by the French Gens de
Feuille or Leaf People. The name of their chief I do not recollect. There
was a village of the Sissitons at the Rocher Blanc; above which, I remember
no others. The Sissiton & Yankton bands seldom made any regular villages,
as they roved from place to place, encamping temporarily for the purpose
of hunting and that mostly among the buffaloes..."
By 1823 Lockwood was in both the trading &
the law professions in Michigan and by 1830 had a sawmill on the Chippewa
River while holding the county Judge seat.
In 1835 his brother, Ezekiel Lockwood III
was living in Iowa and sometime between1834 & 1842, another brother,
John Sherrod Lockwood had moved to Prairie du Chien.
George W.Featherstonhaugh, while staying with
Joseph R.Brown, the American Fur Co. trader at the headwaters of the Minnesota
River, remarks in his journal in 1835 of Brown's cook, "...he told
me that she was a Nohcotah woman, the widow of that brother of Renville's
whom the Chippeways had murdered and that Renville had sent her here to
live and lament her widowhood. When she came into the room to remove the
plates, I observed that she was tall and well made, with all the remains
of a handsome woman. Like many others, she had been the favourite Indian
wife of an American trader and had had a daughter by one Lockwood, a pretty
young girl, about fourteen,...Mr.Brown, had done her the honour to remove
her to his cabin, but this only en attendant, until he could persuade her
daughter, the young beauty of fourteen, to live with him as his wife..."
The brother of the Joseph
Renville Jr.(Chatka), referred to above was Victor Renville (Ohiya),
who was killed on the Mississippi River (near Little Falls) while leading
a Dakota war party in 1833. Victor was married to Abigail (Winona) Crawford
or Mazrdewin (Tinkling Iron), who was the daughter of Lewis Crawford &
Mazadehdegawin (daughter of Red Wing II). The daughter of Lockwood was
probably Susan Freniere (b.abt.1820), who may have taken the surname of
Winona's second husband, Narcisse Freniere,
who died while on a trip to the Missouri in 1831. Margaret Brown was born
to Joseph R.Brown & Susan Frenier on 14 November 1835, the first of
several children.
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