Chief Mishicott: Potawatomi Leader
In 1847, Daniel Smith, a lumberman from New York State, plotted a small village around his dam and mill, seven miles north of Two Rivers, naming it for his friend Old Chief Mishicott. The Potawatomi leader is also the namesake of the Town of Mishicot, organized in 1852, and the Mishicott River (now called the East Twin) in Manitowoc County.
Potawatomi Chief Abraham Meshigaud; photo courtesy of the Hannahville Indian Community
According to the writings of Potawatomi tribal historian Simon Kahquados, Mishicott’s Potawatomi name was Na-ya-to-shingh, or Hairy Leg, for the fluffy white feathers on the upper leg of a great horned owl. This type of owl is an important animal totem in Potawatomi society, often used today by dancers at American Indian powwows and festivities. Old Chief Mishicott raised his grandson, also named Na-ya-to-shingh, or Young Chief Mishicot, born in 1821.
Faced with European American land encroachments and the loss of traditional hunting grounds in the territorial land cessions of 1831 and 1833, Old and Young Mishicott, like many Potawatomi, fled to Canada to escape their forced removal to areas as far away as Iowa, Kansas and Oklahoma.
In 1842, both Mishicotts returned to Wisconsin from Canada via Potawatomi Island, now Washington Island in Door County. Old Chief Mishicott died shortly after returning to Wisconsin.
In 1846, Andrew Vieau, son of French fur trader Jacques Vieau and Angelique Roy, a Menominee woman, purchased 80 acres as a permanent home for the band from the U.S. government at the Potawatomi village and planting grounds of Mah-kah-da-wah-gah-cok (Black Earth) on the East Twin River, eight miles north of the Smith mill. According to tribal history, the Potawatomi grew the Three Sisters (corn, beans, squash), tapped maple trees for syrup, fished and hunted game here for 600 hundred years.
The Potawatomi (including Young Mishicott) lived there until 1862, but due to unpaid property taxes, were forcibly removed from the property by the Kewaunee County sheriff. They moved north to Whitefish Bay, Door County, where they lived for two years, before relocating to Cedar River in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where they endured many hardships. A smallpox epidemic claimed 121 families, of which only an estimated thirteen, including Young Mishicott’s, survived.
The Cedar River band then moved to nearby Harris Township. Their new settlement was named Hannahville for the wife of Methodist minister Peter Marksman, a trusted friend and spokesman. The Marksmans loaned money to the Indians for the purchase of homesteads. Young Mishicott was baptized there and given the biblical name Abraham. He died in 1916 at the age of 94 and is buried in the Hannahville Cemetery. Many of his descendants with the Meshigaud surname continue to live in the Hannahville Indian Community today.
Lakeshore residents and visitors interested in learning more about the history of the Mishicot area and the cultural heritage of the Potawatomi people are invited to view the new Wisconsin historical marker honoring Chief Mishicott recently erected on Main Street and to visit the Mishicot Historical Museum.
