Brooks family has deep local roots
By James Card
Dairy farmer Ron Brooks was recently elected to the Waupaca School Board.
If he ever has to handle any disputes, he can draw upon the diplomatic dexterity of his great-great grandfather.
His ancestor, Luther West, quit his job working at a cotton mill in Lowell, Massachusetts, and moved to Wisconsin in 1853.
In 1855, he took advantage of a homestead claim that allowed him to purchase 160 acres for $1.25 per acre. His only requirement as a settler was that he had to improve the land by clearing five acres and building a claim shanty – a simple wood structure that could be likened to a pioneer starter home.
He grew wheat at first and later started milking shorthorn cows.
“The Menominees were forced to a reservation by Nekoosa. They were still given the right to travel to harvest wild rice in what is now Lake Poygan. Our hills on our property would be a halfway point, a stopping point. So they would traverse from Nekoosa to our hills, camp and spend the next day going to the rice beds. They harvest the rice, come back, camp and then the last leg was back to Nekoosa,” said Brooks.
Problem arose between the local settlers and the Menominee party moving through the area.
Private land ownership was a foreign concept to many Native Americans.
“As the story goes, shots were fired and arrows were flung. I don’t know if anybody was ever killed or injured but they finally came to something of a truce and they sat on top of the hill and smoked that peace pipe which was then given to my great-great grandfather,” said Brooks.
The agreement was that the gunfire and arrow shots would cease, the Menominee could camp on the land and travel through it but they could not hunt. They lived peacefully for years until the Menominee stopped traveling to Lake Poygan to harvest wild rice.
Pipestone and tradition
The tomahawk-shaped pipe is made from catlinite also known as pipestone. The feel of the pipe is unusual as if it were an alloy of stone, metal, porcelain and earthenware.
The red pipestone is a sacred material and there is a Native American legend that pipestone is formed from the flesh and blood of their ancestors.
The stone from the pipe could have originated from the quarries of Pipestone, Minnesota, which is now Pipestone National Monument. Tribes from many nations would journey to southwestern Minnesota to acquire the material.
However, it could have also originated in Wisconsin. According to the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey, there were pipestone quarries mined by Native Americans in the Blue Hills of Barron County.
Pipestone has also been discovered on Wausau’s Rib Mountain, in the area of Devil’s Lake and near the town of Radisson in Sawyer County.
“The peace pipe has always been a rite of passage in the family, being passed father to son for five generations. Except for my father,” said Brooks.
As a boy, Brooks’ father found the peace pipe in a bureau drawer and put a stick in one end of the pipe and used it as a toy tomahawk. Caught goofing around with the family heirloom, his livid grandfather never passed it onto him and it was later passed to Brooks.
In 2016, the Brooks Farms won the Wisconsin Aldo Leopold Conservation Award.
Named after the famed conservationist Aldo Leopold, the award recognizes farmers, ranchers and other private landowner’s achievements in voluntary conservation.
During the award ceremony in front of 500 people, Brooks passed the peace pipe to his four daughters who are the future caretakers of the peace pipe and the family farm.