Northern Historically

Equadon and Park of a Hundred Springs
From The Ashland Daily Press - July 6, 1933
Here's the History of the Prentice Park
By Guy M. Burnham
(The following is the address prepared by Guy M. Burnham for delivery at the Old Settler's picnic on July 4th and read by Mrs. Lew Anderson.)

The Park of a Hundred Flowing Wells
  Web Springs, Ashland Mineral Springs, Prentice Springs have without doubt attracted men to their pure and healing waters, for ages. We usually refer to them as the 'Flowing Wells of Prentice Park.'  Whatever their name they are a priceless gift. Some of the flowing streams have been piped, and we call them artesian wells, which they are. Some of them have been connected by pipes with other wells, and sometimes new wells come to the surface, to be curbed with pipes or allowed to flow for a time. They feed the Lagoon just below the flowing wells. Like the wells, the Lagoon is wholly composed of this marvelous artesian water, and I have not the slightest doubt, that there is healing not only in the Lagoon, but also in the clean mud that forms its bottom.
  Our Park of a Hundred Flowing Wells occupies the site of an old Indian Settlement, for what man, be he white or red, is not attracted by the pure water that comes from these wells.
  It will be just 79 years ago tomorrow that Asaph Whittlesey and George Kilbourne rowed a small boat from Bayfield across the bay of Chequamegon to the south shore of the bay. This was all Indian land then, but Whittlesey believed in take time for the forelock, looking he said, for a place that 'might prove to be the most available point for a town, at or near Equadon (pronounced E Quay don, the second syllable emphasized.) The word 'Equadon,' is the Chippewa word meaning 'settlement near the head of the bay.'
  Just west of the place where Whittlesey landed, was the staggering Indian settlement, clustered around the 'place of many springs,' with paths leading down to the bay pretty much as they do now.
  That was on July 5, 1854.
  Four years later, Robert D. Boyd, whose blood was the first that was shed in Ashland, lived in the Indian settlement just west of Ashland - with his Indian wife, who was a grand daughter of Michel Cadotte. He came from his residence in Equadon, west of Ashland up to Whittley's third house one evening, where he was shot and killed by Joseph H.M. Cross. There or four years ago, I accidentally discovered the half breed son of the first man who was killed in Ashland, was living on the Bad River Reservation, and from this half breed, Robert Boyd, Jr., I obtained some new facts about the killing of his father. His wife, a very intelligent full-blooded Chippewa woman said to me, "My father lived in a wigwam, in Equadon, west of Ashland, near the springs."
The Historical Background
  The founding of Ashland, the Treaty of 1854, and the development of Prentice Park, are closely related.
  During the month of February 1854, Leonard Wheeler, the missionary and an Odanah Indian met at Odanah, where Mr. Wheeler then lived, and drove on the ice along the south shore of the Chequamegon Bay, from Kakagon to Fish Creek. It was the year of the great treaty, in which the Indians agreed to cede most of their lands to the United States and to reserve tracts for their permanent homes. The Indians were glad to do this, for only four years before; the government had decided to move the Chippewa to the Minnesota country. William Whipple Warren led a large delegation to Minnesota but like all others who were interested, they much preferred Wisconsin. Leonard Wheeler himself, took up the cudgel of his wards, and practically led the fight to prevent the removal of the Chippewas from Wisconsin, but in 1854, it was understood that some sort of agreement was going to have to be reached, for white settlers were looking to the north, and they need an outlet to Lake Superior. The Indians realized that they would have to do something so Wheeler, the missionary and Little Current, the Chippewa, were delegated to look over the south shore of Chequamegon Bay. William Wheeler who was a small boy accompanied his father and the Indian on the trip, says that the Indians furnished the pony and the missionary the cutter, and they drove down past where Ashland now stands, to the extreme head of the bay. From the head of the bay region, at Fish Creek to nearly where Whittlesey afterwards built his first house, there was a straggling Indian settlement, which the Indians called Equadon.
  Every foot of land from Fish Creek to Odanah was Indian Land. It was in this settlement or village, which the wife of Robert Boyd, Jr., told me her father, lived in Equadon, near the many flowing springs, which we now call Prentice Park. The Indians thought the western limits of the proposed reservation of Bad River, should be the west end of the bay, but the missionary pointed out that that would keep the white men from building a city on the south shore of the bay, and that it would be advantageous to the Indians to have such a city built, as it would furnish a market for their furs and other products they might have for sale. Little Current agreed to this, and then and there, the agreed on the western limits of the Bad River Reservation should begin at the Kakagon just as it is now, extending the reservation far enough south to make up for the loss of the frontage from Kakagon to Fish Creek. Asaph Whittlesey frequently talked with Leonard Wheeler about good sites along the south shore and so about four months after the momentous trip of Leonard Wheeler and Little Current, near the end of February. Asaph Whittlesey and George Kilbourne rowed a boat over from Bayfield and felled the first tree, built the first house, establishing the settlement, which was to be known for about six years as Whittlesey. When Whittlesey felled the first tree on July 5, 1854, the land still belonged to the Indians. Three months later, on September 30, 1854, the Treaty of La Pointe was signed, under which Bad River, Lac Courte Oreilles, Red Cliff, the tip of Madeline Island, and Lac du Flambeau were reserved, but it was not until January 10, 1855, that the Senate ratified the treaty, which became a law by proclamation of President Franklin Pierce, on January 29, 1855.
  Although Whittlesey built his first house on land, which still belonged to the Indians, there was little danger of the Wheeler-Little Current agreement being disturbed, and Whittlesey became Ashland in 1860. The head of the bay, which then, as well as now, swarmed with fish and game, became a part of the white man's domain, and this included the Place of Many Springs, Prentice Park.
  As for the Indian settlement of Equadon, after the Treaty of 1854 became effective in the year 1856, the dwellers in Equadon went over to Odanah, with most of the Chippewas who moved from La Pointe, to the village, which Leonard Wheeler had formed for them on the Bad River.
The Site of Equadon
  The attraction of inexhaustible fish and game always made the head of the Chequamegon a gathering place for Indians. Allouez who arrived at Chequamegon on October 1, 1665 says:
  "It is a beautiful bay, at the head is situated the large village of Indians who there cultivated fields of Indian corn, and do not lead a wandering life. There are at this place, men bearing arms who number about 800; but these gathered together from seven different tribes."
  Indian corn is not a crop that is grown in swamps or wet low lands. The historian Verwyst, whom we here know as Father Chrysostom, says that Allouez lived for a short time at least, at the village of the junction of South Fork and Fish Creek, which of course was one of the villages of the seven tribes. Verwyst further says that on east side of Fish Creek was one a large and populous village of Ottawas who raised corn. The map of Bellin also much later, in the year 1741 has a mark showing a village east of Fish Creek. E.P. Wheeler, writing to our committee on the establishment of a Radisson Marker, mentions the Ottawa village east of Fish Creek. The Ottawas, by the way, called the Courte Oreilles or Short Ears, have there name perpetuated in Lac Courte Oreilles, near Hayward. All these villages east of Fish Creek, whose people raided Indian corn, obviously resided quite close to this place of Many Flowing Wells, and I think their cornfields grew right across the railroad track on the level land south of Prentice Park. I was brought up in corn country, and the field where Mr. Maslowski has established his park nursery, is the place where there were cornfields, and it is altogether probable, that the many flowing wells, which line the bluff just above the Lagoon, furnished the drinking water for generations of people. We know, that there stood the settlement of Equadon, near which Asaph Whittlesey felled his first tree.
Webb Springs
  The Indians title to the head of the bay region was extinguished by President Franklin Pierce, on January 29, 1855. About two years later Joseph Webb entered the land where we now stand. The many springs became known as Webb Springs. The name is so persistent, that during the month of April this spring, when I wrote the story about Ashland, which was broadcast from Cincinnati on April 24, a member of my family, listening to the broadcast at Milwaukee wrote me that he recognized my style in the story, but he wondered where I got the name Webb Springs from, if I wrote it.
  When I first saw Ashland in the year 1890, two or three names appeared to be struggling for preeminence; Webb Springs, Mineral Springs and Prentice Springs. A common expression was, Mineral Springs at Prentice Park. Frederick Prentice who had established the brownstone quarries on Hermit Island and Houghton Point, had bought the park, and it was he I think,who build the place up as a park, in fact I think he was the real creator of Prentice Park. He had a hard time of it shaking the name Webb Springs; and so have I. As I have mentioned, Ashland Mineral Springs at Prentice Park was a usual expression. There was a fish hatchery at the right of the sidewalk leading down to the lagoon, and a small fenced in place in the lagoon at the left for the swans, who where the predecessors of the pair of German Mute Swans, that we know have.
  The streetcar line was partly laid out to the park. There was a pavilion near the present building, where I came out one evening with a ski club. It was a place of entertainment.
The Mineral Springs
  The springs or wells, more properly artesian wells than springs - are part of a great waterworks system, that has it source in the Great Watershed or Great Divide, where we placed a marker last summer, 39 miles south of Ashland, by Highway 13, three miles north of Gordon Lake. This watershed 20 miles wide, receives and stores the waters that flow north into Lake Superior, or southwesterly into the Mississippi River. The surface water comes down to Lake Superior through the Bad River, or southwesterly through the Chippewa River, into the Father of Waters. The greater part of the water sinks into the earth, forming and inexhaustible supply that comes underground some of it emerges into Lake Superior. In some places, the underground supply comes to the surface as it does here in this park. It is as if great pipes from 25 to 40 miles long connected the subterranean water supply of the watershed with Lake Superior. Some of these pipes end here, in this park of a hundred flowing wells. The supply of water will last, as long as rain continues to fall on the Penokee Hills and the watershed of northern Wisconsin.
  The pure water that falls on the watershed, take the toll of the things, which they come in contact on this forty-mile trip to this park. The mountainous line of hills of the watershed, are rich in minerals, especially in iron and in copper, but they are full of minerals of many kinds. And so when we take a cup of water from one of these wells, we take a little iron, nearly three tenths of a percent, which is sufficient as to iron. In drinking our cup of water, we also drink 3 and a half parts of sulphate of soda, 18 parts magnesia, nearly one percent alumina, 1 and a half parts silica, 13 parts lime, 1 part sulphate of soda, and a quarter of a percentof sodium.
  Now what do these things mean? Mineral water, as fine as you can get anywhere. The figure from which I get this, are from an analysis of the Bethesda Well at Waukesha. They were run I the same column, to show the greater purity and better quality of the water taken from the springs at Prentice Park, which were then called 'Ashland Mineral Springs' and the park 'Mineral Springs Park.'
  That's what the analyses shows, but Waukesha's chief source of revenue is still from its baths and its water. I have even seen Waukesha's water on sale in Ashland, and it is sent all over the country. The comparative analyses of water from Waukesha and these flowing wells is published in the Ashland Press Annual for the year 1892. Without any question, the purity of the water from Prentice Park and its hundred wells, bully warrants it being placed on the market just as the waters of Waukesha are. It is all a matter of exploitation and advertising.
  I have heard of the yarn of some old medicine man who lived in this place of a Hundred Springs, which he called Ohahkee, which is suppose to mean 'Hope.' I am not strong at all on Indian legends, unless they are backed by some facts or semblances of truth, so I am not featuring this old story. Some future storyteller who wants to use this legend and enlarge on it has my permission. No facts are needed, simply an implicit faith in a legend. However, if we had been smart we could have found out the Chippewa name for 'The Place of a Hundred Medicinal Springs' or wells, and used that in advertising, maybe we could have developed as big a business as Waukesha has.
  I hereby delegate the president of the park board as a suitable person to change the words, 'The Place of a Hundred Medicinal Springs' into the Chippewa words and post it beside this pavilion.
  Now here is a suggestion. Listen closely, Mr. Dhooge. One of the approved projects for this park is to deepen the lagoon. Begin now. Begin deepening it. Employ the unemployed. Throw up a few board shacks, and advertise the mud baths, and mineral spring water. There is a lot of mud at the bottom of this lagoon. The mud is a dead image of that at the Moor Baths at Waukesha, and our mineral water is better. This will give a lot of people who go away for their bud baths, a chance to stay at home, and bathe here. I wouldn't be surprised if the Park Board could make enough money in return from its mud baths to reopen the banks.
The Various Owners of the Park
  The Treaty of 1854 went into effect on January 29, 1854, by the proclamation of Franklin Pierce. Almost exactly two years afterwards, on January 18, 1857, the records of Mr. Knowles office, in the Register of Deeds files show that Joseph Webb of La Pointe County, made entry of the SW 1/4 of section 47 4 west, comprising 160 acres. This included the springs, which we know as the Flowing Wells. After a number of changes of ownership the property was sold at sheriff's sale by Ashland County to Fredrick Prentice on December 28, 1887. The next change of ownership of particular interest to us was the deed of December 3, 1921, by which the Prentice Park was given to the City of Ashland by L.N. Boisen and his wife Ingrid, Walter J. Hodkins and his wife Grace M., and Allan T. Pray and his wife Helen Palmer Pray. This deed conveyed the city about 60 acres of land. Additions have been made, by which the acreage has been more than doubled, being now about 130 or 140 acres. It includes the bathing beach, and the lowlands of the bay. It is magnificent heritage for the people of Ashland, who are entitled to a share in the great park. I had intended from the abstracts in the Register of Deeds Office, and in the City Clerk's files, to show the names of those who have owned the lands comprising the park, but there have been a number of purchases, which were added to the park ground proper and as the Park Board doubtless has the abstract on file, or has access to the records, I have omitted the job. I notice a few names however, that I might mention. Webb sold the property to one George Hall and Hall sold it to William Paisley. Webb's patent by the way was issued by President Buchanan. Although Prentice had obtained the title in 1887 as I have said, tow year previous, on September 8, 1885, Edwin H. Abbott sold Prentice an interest in the property. The matter of prior ownership in this park property will be taken up at a future date. Mis Agnes Benoe having promised to prepare the abstracts for the Old Settler's Club, which will be another story.
Phelps Wyman the Architect
  The landscape architect, Phelps Wyman of Minneapolis, planned this park. It cost the city $500, and it was worth it. He established a plan, which has been followed, I believe. Although he recommended dredging of the lagoon in some place, he believed I think, that the nature has already done in the space between the railroad tracks and the lagoon, can hardly be improved on. I think there is a clause in the deed covering this property to the city, in which it is provided that no changes shall be made on these grounds until they have been approved by a landscape architect of established reputation, and who is active in the business. Any other system would in time ruin the grounds. The Park Board and the city, will of course zealously follow he selected plan, so that the Park of a Hundred Flowing Wells may be preserved in its natural beauty and continue as a thing of beauty and joy forever.
The Park Nursery
  In connection with Prentice Park, is the nursery. This extremely important and interesting addition is owing to the fact that Ashland has a Charles Maslowski, an efficient, enthusiastic and altogether fine type of public official. He established a nursery on these grounds for the purpose of raising trees and shrubbery, not only for Prentice Park, but also for the other parks of Ashland and to beautify the highways were ever needed.
  In this nursery, Mr. Maslowski is growing 3,000 evergreens, including spruce with its several varieties such as the blue spruce, Norway spruce, white spruce, ingelmania spruce, and the silver white variety; likewise the Scotch fir, white pine and other trees. He is also raising native Linden or Basswood, which is not an evergreen, but is a native tree, of which specimens are growing within a few feet from where I stand. He is also raising in this wonderful nursery, which is just east or south of the adjacent railroad tracks, hundreds of native elms, and also various kinds of native shrubbery. He goes into the woods and gets many of these native trees and shrubs, having for instance gathered 200 small elms last fall near the head of Chequamegon Bay. For some of his shrubs, he has gone as far south as Mellen. Many of the seeds have been obtained from the state. He plants them in his home garden, lets them grow two years until they are too large for the rabbits to destroy, and then transplants them in the Prentice Park nursery. From this wonderful nursery, many trees have been transplanted I the city parks, and along the highways in Ashland and Bayfield Counties.
  This is simply an allusion to a very import adjunct of Prentice Park. Hereafter, it will not be necessary to send to other states or other parts of Wisconsin for trees and shrubs for our parks. We are raising them right here in this park.

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