Dane-Rock-Jefferson County WI Archives History - Books .....Lake Koshonong 1877
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com April 28, 2006, 6:52 pm

Book Title: Madison, Dane County And Surrounding Towns...

LAKE KOSHKONONG.
BY AN OLD SETTLER.

  LAKE KOSHKONONG is principally situated in Jefferson county, Wisconsin, but
its southwest end touches Dane county, and its southern part, Rock county. Its
main length is about nine miles, in the direction of northeast and southwest;
its broadest part about four miles. Its shape is somewhat irregular, and it has
its bays and promontories, and which are known as Buffalo and Bingham's bays,
and Lee's, Taylor's and Bingham's "points." Rock river enters the lake at the
northeast end, at Blackhawk Island, and leaves it at the southwest end, at
Newville. On the northwest side, Koshkonong creek and Alpeter's creek, and on
the southeast side, Otter creek, add to the volume of its water, as also do
innumerable springs all around and in many places even in the lake, which is
rather a shallow sheet of water, with mostly muddy bottom.

  What is called " Blackhawk Island" is an island only at high water, and is
formed by having the Rock river on the east, and the lake on the south and west
side, being connected with the main land only by a narrow strip of low land on
the north.

  The land surrounding the lake consists to a great extent of low and very
extensive marshes, on which thousand of tons of hay are annually cut; but
limestone bluffs exist in many places all around the lake, viz.: at C. Lee's, R.
Bingham’s, Taylor’s point, Newville, R. Bingham's, and the place of Mr. Langhoff.

  The lake, with its, in many places, marshy shores and hundreds of acres of
wild rice, and the grass-like plant, known to botanists as Vallisneria spiralis,
growing in it in the greatest abundance, used to be a great favorite place for
ducks, and especially the far-famed Canvassback (Aythya vallisneria), which,
with the Redhead, is particularly fond of the Vallisneria spiralis. Geese,
cormorants and white pelicans were also very numerous, and fifty to one hundred
of those latter birds could be seen at one time in the latter part of April or
first of May.

  In the marshes and on the shores were a great variety of waders, viz.: the
great blue heron, the large white heron, the snowy heron, the night heron, and
the least heron, six species of the plover family and Wilson's Phalarope, the
most beautiful of all our waders, was in abundance. Of the snipe family, twenty
species, besides curlews and godwits. Three species of rails, and gallinules and
coats, very plenty. But owing to a continued sporting kept up every spring and
fall for years, the birds have either greatly diminished in number or found
other places where they are less disturbed, as now-a-days but few visit the lake
compared with what they did only ten years ago. Ducks, even such as shelldrakes,
whistlers and butterballs, bring something in the markets of the large cities,
and hence they must be killed and sold for the little they bring. Coots are yet
numerous, though not so numerous as formerly; but though they don't sell as well
as shelldrakes and butterballs, yet, if nothing else can be had, the fun of
shooting them is all the same.

  As for the fish in the lake, the time is past when twenty-eight to thirty-five
pound pickerels can be found, or twenty-five pound catfish. Bullheads and perch,
sunfish, garpikes and dogfish are common yet; but the pike, pickerel, bass,
redhorse, sucker and catfish are not near as plentiful as formerly. Perhaps the
dams across the Rock river, below the lake, are too powerful hindrances for the
fish of the Mississippi river to go up to our waters to spawn; if so, we are
effectually prevented from ever having shad successfully planted in this part of
Rock river.

  Having been more interested in the ornithology and botany of the lake and its
vicinity than in the archaeology, I am not able to give such information in
regard to the latter as I should wish, and will only mention a few facts that
have come under my observation, mostly on the west side of the lake, where I
have lived nearly 34 years, facts proving that this lake and vicinity have been
a great resort of the Indians.

  On the land of Mr. R. Bingham are patches of ground where yet can be seen what
is supposed to be cornhills worked by the Indians. While plowing or hoeing,
Indian arrows, stone implements and pieces of pottery are frequently found;
these relics are especially numerous on the farms of Mr. R. Bingham and Mr.
Charles Lee, who has an extensive and interesting collection, picked up on his
farms.

  Indian mounds of different sizes and shapes were numerous on the west side of
the lake, but many of them are now leveled by the plows. Of the large mound "at
the foot of the lake" lately opened and investigated, and where interesting
relics were found, I can say nothing, as I have never visited the place. At
Busseyville, near the creek, there used to grow a very large oak which,
thirty-four years ago, and at that time considered old, had a very plain and
good figure of a mud turtle cut on the side, towards the creek, and on the hill
north of it, were several mounds, some of which had the shape of mud turtles.
These mounds are now leveled, and the land cultivated.

  About thirty years ago, while botanizing near the lake, I found tobacco
(nicotiana, rustica lin) growing in a wild state among the grass on Mr. R.
Bingham's land, and I understood that tobacco was found growing even on the
other side of the lake at about the same time. This was at a time when the first
settlers never had heard of raising tobacco in the state. Since which there is
scarcely a farmer for miles around that is not engaged in raising tobacco.

  In 1844, there was a steamboat going through the lake, said to have come up
from St. Louis. The new settlers hailed this occurrence with great pleasure and
hopes, expecting to have a communication by water opened with the cities on the
Mississippi river, and having no railroad nearer than Buffalo, M. Y., and sixty
to seventy miles to haul their grain to Milwaukee, it is no wonder that they
considered the coming up of this steamboat as a Godsend. The idea never occurred
to them that this big Rock river, on which with their own eyes they had seen a
steamboat from St. Louis, ever could be, by any authority, pronounced an
unnavigable stream, and dams allowed to be built across it.

  There is, after all, a steamboat on the lake now, built and moored at Taylor's
point, where there is also a good hotel for visitors, but this boat will
probably have to confine its trips between Taylor's point, Fort Atkinson and
Newville, or to making excursions around the lake.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

Towns Adjacent Section

MADISON, DANE COUNTY AND SURROUNDING TOWNS;
BEING A HISTORY AND GUIDE
TO PLACES OF SCENIC BEAUTY AND HISTORICAL NOTE FOUND IN THE TOWNS OF DANE COUNTY
AND SURROUNDINGS, INCLUDING THE ORGANIZATION OF THE TOWNS, AND EARLY INTERCOURSE
OF THE SETTLERS WITH THE INDIANS, THEIR CAMPS, TRAILS, MOUNDS, ETC.

WITH A COMPLETE LIST OF
COUNTY SUPERVISORS AND OFFICERS,
AND
LEGISLATIVE MEMBEES, MADISON VILLAGE AND CITY COUNCIL.

ILLUSTRATED,
MADISON, WIS.:
PUBLISHED BY WM. J. PARK & CO.,

BOOKSELLERS, STATIONERS AND BINDERS, 11 KING STREET.
1877.

COPYRIGHT.
WM. J. PARK & CO. 1877.

DAVID ATWOOD, STEREOTYPER AND PRINTER, MADISON, WIS.

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