By this time the influence of the fur trader had so developed mining in the region of Dubuque, Iowa, Galena, Ill., and southwestern Wisconsin, as to cause an influx of American miners, and here began a new element of progress for Wisconsin. The knowledge of these mines was possessed by the early French explorers, and as the use of firearms spread they were worked more and more by Indians, under the stimulus of the trader. In 1810 Nicholas Boilvin, United States Indian agent at Prairie du Chien, reported that the Indians about the lead mines had mostly abandoned the chase and turned their attention to the manufacture of lead, which they sold to fur traders. In 1825 there were at least 100 white miners in the entire lead region,[243] and by 1829 they numbered in the thousands.
Black Hawk's war came in 1832, and agricultural settlement sought the southwestern part of the State after that campaign. The traders opened country stores, and their establishments were nuclei of settlement.[244] In Wisconsin the Indian trading post was a thing of the past.
The birch canoe and the pack-horse had had their day in western New York and about Montreal. In Wisconsin the age of the voyageur continued nearly through the first third of this century. It went on in the Far Northwest in substantially the same fashion that has been here described, until quite recently; and in the great North Land tributary to Hudson Bay the _chanson_ of the voyageur may still be heard, and the dog-sledge laden with furs jingles across the snowy plains from distant post to distant post.[245]
[Footnote 221: In an address before the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, on the Character and Influence of the Fur Trade in Wisconsin (Proceedings, 1889, pp. 86-98), I have given details as to Wisconsin settlements, posts, routes of trade, and Indian location and population in 1820.]
[Footnote 222: Wis. Hist. Colls., XI., 377. Compare the articles used by Radisson, _ante_, p. 29. For La Salle's estimate of amount and kind of goods needed for a post, and the profits thereon, see Penna. Archives, 2d series, VI., 18-19. Brandy was an important item, one beaver selling for a pint. For goods and cost in 1728 see a bill quoted by E.D. Neill, on p. 20, _Mag. West. Hist._, Nov., 1887, Cf. 4 Mass. Hist. Colls., III., 344; Byrd Manuscripts, I., 180 ff.; Minn. Hist. Colls., II., 46; Senate Doc. No. 90, 22d Cong., 1st Sess., II., 42 ff.]