Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2015 All Rights Reserved USGenNet Data Repository Please read USGenNet Copyright Statement on this page: Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott for the USGenNet Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ =========================================================================== Formatted by USGenNet Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== History of Door County, Wisconsin by Charles I. Martin - 1881 DOOR COUNTY Door County was the fifteenth division of the State into counties; or, in other words, as the State gradually became divided up into counties, Door came fifteenth among the early divisions, and is bounded as follows: "Beginning on the west shore of Lake Michigan, where the south line of township 26 intersects Lake Michigan; running thence west on the town- ship line to the center of Green Bay; thence northeasterly along the center of the main channel of Green Bay to the boundary line between the State of Michigan and State of Wisconsin to a point in Lake Michigan, where the east and west line on the south side of township 26, extended easterly, would intersect the eastern boundary of the State of Wiscon- sin; and from thence west to the place of beginning." Door county is some 60 or 70 miles in length, and averaging perhaps, 10 miles wide - varying in width from 4 to 18 miles, and is a peninsula running northeast and southwest; the north and west shores being washed and purified by the clear waters of Green Bay, while the east shore borders on, and is rinsed by the crystal waters of Lake Michigan. The proxim- ity of the lake, the waters of which remain open throughout the year, exercise great power in equalizing the temperature; of course reducing it in the summer and cooling the extreme heat of the mid-summer sun, and acts as a balance in avoid- ing the extreme low temerpatur of winter - the lowest range ----------------------------------------------------------- [5] of the termometer bing about the same as that in the south- ern part of the State, two hundred miles farther south. The conty was heavily timbered with various species of wood. Of the hard woods there was Beech, the various kinds of Maple, white and blackAsh; red, white and blue Oak, Ironwood, Elm, etc. Of the soft woods, Pine, Hemlock, Cedar, Basswood, Spruce, Balsam Fir, Tamarack, Poplar, etc., were abundant. for manufacturing and ship building purposes, perhaps no place in the Northwest equalled what is now door county for furnishing timber. For the largest variety of tim- ber and shrubs, our evergreen and forest tree dealers have scattered broadcast the fact that no section in America is equal to this peninsula. A MYSTERY That this section of the State was settled to a meagre extent long years before any record is given by history, is pretty gen- erally believed. Since the work began of cutting and using the large growth of timber, there are several places in this section where leaden bullets have been extracted from near the heart of large trees - said bullets being covered with from 138 to 171 rim layers or season's growth of the timber; which would indicate that the bullets had been entombed from 138 to 171 years. At the best, it is a query as to the date the bul- lets were serviceable, and we'll leave the matter for our read- ers to ponder over. Another matter that is worthy of ment- tion, is the small mounds so numerous throughout this sec- tion. These small mounds look like the hills in the Southern States hoed around the roots of the mammoth corn grown in that locality. What was grown in the small hills or mounds in this section is only surmise work, but that something was cultivated is evident. In some parts of the county there are patches containing many acres where these small mounds or hills are quite regular, and average from 4 1/2 to 6 feet each way, from center to center of the mounds. From Washington Island, the extreme northern part of the county, to the towns of Union and Brussels on the extreme southern boundary, said hills or mounds may be numerously seen in patches. In every instance, where these mounds are most numerous, large forest --------------------------------------------------------------- [6] trees are now growing; the trees apparently being from 50 to 150 or more years old, which would indicate that if the mounds were once utilized for agricultural purposes, that it was gen- erations ago. As with the leaden bullets, we will leave the matter for our readers to carefully investigate and solve as their own ideas may dictate. While certain theories might possibly bear one out in forming an idea that this was once a mild climate, it is also evident that there are indications that it was once the extreme reverse. Even within the past ten or twelve years, large sugar maple trees were not a few that showed cuts or "taps" six to eight feet from the ground, which would go to show that longer ago than memory now reahes, snow falls of great depth must have visited this re- gion, and the harvest of the maple sugar crop (which was probably attended to by the Indians, or a white people of which we can find no record) was far more difficult than at the present time. We also leave this matter with our readers, which may be set down as quandary No. 3. =========================================================================== If you've reached this file through a SEARCH, you can access more of our growing collection of FREE online information by going to the following URL: http://www.us-data.org/ ===========================================================================