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How Manitowoc Cities and Villages got their name
Tells How Manitowoc Was Named
Manitowoc Herald Times
February 1, 1934
Manitowoc people who join in the tribute to Father Claude Jean Allouez at the Green Bay historical pageant next summer, will be honoring the man to whom Manitowoc owes its name, according to officers of the Manitowoc County Historical Society.
In 1677, Father Allouez planted a large cross near the mouth of the Manitowoc river. No Indians lived here at the time, but the exploring missionary wrote that "a number of savages resort here for hunting, some by canoe on the lake and others through the woods on foot."
A small Potawatomi village grew up around the cross which was visited by Rev. Father Marais who wintered here with a party of Frenchmen, and by Father J.B. St. Cosme who passed this way, October 4, 1699. Perhaps Father Marquette saw it when he came up the lakeshore on his return from the discovery of the Mississippi.
The worship which the Potawatomi gave the cross led to the village being known as "The People of the Manitou or Great Spirit," in the opinion of Hjalmar Holand, the Ephraim histoiran, as told in the current bulletin of the Wisconsin Historical Society. This also gives the commonly-accepted translation, "Home of the Great Spirit," a Christian rather than a pagan significance. It is known that Indians often looked upon curiously shaped trees as the dwelling places of spirits, and it was natural for them to accept the great, wooden crosses of the Jesuits as the home of the Great Spirit of the Christians.
Submitted by LinksToThePast
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