Money to build Agency House hard to get

              Tales of Old Porlage
by DOROTHY G, McCARTHY Daily Register Special Writer
Money to build Agency House hard to get
The Indian Agency House, near the banks of the Fox River, has been a familiar land¬ mark and historic site at Portage for over 100   years," but   few  visitors   realize the negotiations, problems and expenditures that went into its construction, to say nothing of the kind of life that went on within its walls. The house stands today, sturdy and strong, restored," so far as historical records can testify, to its original beauty. It is now owned and  maintained by the National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of Wisconsin. It was built  in  1832 for the government Indian Agent  John Harris Kinzie, who was stationed at the portage to oversee the affairs of the Winnebagos and to supervise the an¬ nual payments in silver due them from the sale of their  Indian lands," Kinzie had ar¬ rived in September of 1830 with his lovely bride   Juliette   Magill," whom he had met while on a visit to Boston a few years be¬ fore. She was fascinated by his tales of fron¬ tier life and the wild country to the west. When he was sent as sub-agent to the new outpost of Fort Winnebago, she was eager to accompany him and to share the excite¬ ment and dangers which the new life might bring to them Iwth." To her eternal credit, she adjusted to the rugged. Inconvenient and culturally limited life she found here, and met every crisis with good humor and cour¬ age.
Mrs. Kinzie, a young woman of excellent education and good breeding, recorded her im¬ pressions of this new life in her lx)ok "Wau Bun," the  Early  Day  in the Northwest," which has become, since its first published edition in  1856,  a veritable storehouse of intimate and fascinating details of daily life on  the   frontier."" The book is now in its ninth  edition," and  profits go toward the malntainance of the Agency House,
According to an Ojibway vocabulary, "Wau Bun" means "the dawn or break of day" and indeed one feels this early light of a new life breaking through as she describes these events. Although the Klnzies re¬ mained at the portage only three years, their first home does remain four square to all winds and weather, a lovely museum house which may stand another 100 years. When the Kinzles first reached the pro- tage, they were housed at the fort proper. Major David E, Twiggs had been dispatched only two years previously with three com¬ panies of the First United States Infantry to establish a fort at the Fox-Wisconsm portage, Mrs. Twiggs offered the new¬ comers a few rooms in the officers' quar¬ ters which were double frame houses, two rooms each side of a central hall, heated by large fireplaces in each room. Some were three stories In height, with a sep¬ arate kitchen in the rear or In the base¬ ment for married officers. The Kinzles occupied quarters here for their first wint¬ er. Mrs. Twiggs was delighted with the fe¬ male companionship of Mrs. Kinzie because she had been the only woman in the com¬ pound for four months.
By   April   of   1831," they   vacated   these quarters to accommodate married officers of
This is the Agency House, built in 1832. It was occupied by Portage attorney E. S. Baker for years. It has now been restored.
a new contingent of the Fifth Infantry which had come to replace Major Twiggs' com¬ mand. They took up residence at the Agency across the Fox River where an old log bar¬ racks was prepared for them, plus a dairy, stable and a smoke house. In this make¬ shift Agency House, Juliette Kinzie set up housekeeping by arranging her fine furni¬ ture, spreading a few Indian mats on the floor and hanging a few pictures on the log walls. These, however, were soon taken down be¬ cause the heavy spring rains found entry through the yawning cracks and crevices between the green, shrinkmg logs, and any¬ thing that would be damaged by moisture, including her piano, had to be otherwise protected. She found her roof so leaky that she wore her bonnet around the house to protect her hair. She reports these in¬ conveniences graphically, but always with good humor.
Later on that summer, they moved into a blacksmith's house, consisting of a par¬ lor and two bedrooms on the ground floor, two low chambers under the roof and a kit¬ chen in the rear. But to the Kinzles it was a palace compared to thir first log home.
It wasn't until June that the government made an appropriation for a permanent and satisfactory house for the Agent. Though the architect of this new house is not known, it may have l)een Kinzie himself, with the counsel and assistance of some of the fort officers, many of whom were West Point graduates and who had had courses in draw¬ ing and engineering, and probably some work in architectural planning.
With this first appropriation of $1,000 went a government recommendation that the commanding officer at the fort assign sol¬ diers from the garrison to build the house. However, the fort needed more barracks
by this time and all the soldiers that could be spared were needed for this detail. Fear¬ ing that construction might be delayed an¬ other few years, Kinzie appealed to Lewis Cass, then Secretary of War, to solicit further funds to hire workers.
Cass, who had Ijeen governor of Mich¬ igan Territory (of which Wisconsin was a part) and who had been Superintendent of Indian Affairs and therefore one of the most Influential men in the formation of Amer¬ ican Indian policy, was sympathetic with Kin- zie's request, and must have used his in¬ fluence to make another !1,200 available for the completion of the house.
This was the summer of the Black Hawk War and no extra man power from the gar¬ rison was abailable. The soldiers were constantly out on duty, particularly after the hostilities had pushed from northern Illinois into southern Wisconsin. Although Fort Win¬ nebago was spared any of the war's dev¬ astation, the women of the Agency cros¬ sed the Fox River bridge leading to the fort every night to spend the hours there with their children within its protecting walls.
Kinzie's itemized estimates for the con¬ struction of his new home are as follows; square timbers, planks, boards, lathing, shin¬ gles, etc. $972,50; carpenter and joiner work, $1208; mason work, stone, brick, lime, chim¬ neys, cellar and foundation $602, of which the stone foundation Itself cost $92.50; paints, oil, putty, glass and two coats of paint, $197; glass, nails, locks, etc. $175.87.
In his October report to the government, he wrote: "The estimate ($2,115.96) seems high, but when the difficulty of procuring the mechanics, the lumber, and other building material is taken into consideration, the price will be considered as low as possibly can be expected."  No one could have used
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a doctor in Illinois who is sup¬ posed to have been successftil with a treatment for cancer us¬ ing horse serum.
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be very helpful. Your own physi¬ cian, an eye specialist, or a neurologist could arrange to have such a test conducted, and pro¬ ceed from there depending upon
greater economy in the construction of the house than I have done."  Kinzie later re¬ ceived due credit from his superiors for his economy.
He  also  wrote  that ""mechanics could not be had short of St.  Louis."" Lumber came   from   Green Bay, probably through Daniel Whitney who had built a mill there in 1831.
Brick was burned at what later became Armstrong's Brick Yard near Pauquette Park in Portage."  Lime was burned at Bellfoun- taln Farm, twelve miles northeast of Por¬ tage,  on the Military Road to Green Bay, and owned by Pierre Pauquette." The stone came from Stone Quarry Hill, about four miles east of the fort and which also sup¬ plied   the   stone for the fort foundations.
Some of this original stone taken from the same quarry was used In 1957 to build the Curator's Cottage at the Ft, Wmnebago Surgeons Quarters historic site on Route 33.
The total cost of the Agency House con¬ struction   came to $3,497.18,  the balance from the estimate quoted above paid by Gov¬ ernor Porter, out of allowances made him for Inldan supervision.
The  Kinzles  occupied their new home, which was to them a splendid mansion, in ¦ early November, 1832, but they lived there only eight months." Kinzie was still rated as a sub-agent, with a commensurate sal¬ ary." When the government refused to raise the service at Ft. Winnebago to a full agency, he  decided  to go to Chicago which was a thriving community by then and which pro¬ mised more of a future." His father, also a John Kinzie, had been one of Its earlier settlers and himself an agent.  The Kinzles called Chicago "home"  until their deaths.
No new agent was appointed after the Kln¬ zies left, chiefly because the Winnebagos were induced to sell to the government all their lands east of the Mississippi and were forced to move across the river to Iowa, Nebraska, and some to Minnesota. This involves another familiar and tragic story in the annals of American history for which the white man has just cause for remorse.
The Agency House was used thereafter for various purposes, once as a tavern and trad¬ ing post by Satterlee Clark, a well-known sutler at the fort. It became in succession a farm house and rental property and was finally boarded up In 1878. It was purchased shortly thereafter by Edmund S. Baker, well-known Portage lawyer who occupied it until his death in 1928.
In 1930, some civic minded Portage women purchased the property with the idea of restoring it, but it soon l)ecame apparent that the enterprize required the work and sup¬ port of an organization. It was at this point that the National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of Wisconsin bought the property and undertook the restoration. It was opened to the public in 1932, furnished with authen¬ tic pieces, a very few of which belonged to the Kmzies. They had lost most of their possessions in the Chicago fire of 1871.
Remaining are a few pieces of flat silver and a rude, wooden chest on which is carved the name "Kinzie", believed to be the chest in which he transported his first shipment of government silver to pay the Indian an¬ nuities. The chest was a gift of his great- granddaughter, Daisy Lawrence of Savannah, Georgia.
A new administration building, known as the Stone House, was built in 1967 to house the museum pieces and provide reception rooms for visitors.