Historian Giles Clark

Giles Clark Presents Casey At The Bat

One of our nation's best known sport's poems is "Casey at the Bat." Written in 1898 by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, it supposedly referred to a famous ballplayer, Mike "King" Kelley of Boston, who at the time was being paid $10,000 per season, an unheard amount of money at that time. A dramatic and award winning performance of this famous poem is now being presented by entertainer and folklorist Giles Clark of Menasha, Wisconsin.

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Two Books Scanned Into PDF:

Historic Fox River Valley Volume 1 by Giles Clark.

Historic Fox River Valley Volume 2 by Giles Clark.

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Here is a portion of Wisconsin's Historic Fox River Valley, written by Giles Clark.

On Naming the Fox

In a letter published in the November 8, 1855 issue of the Menasha Advocate James Duane Doty tells how the Fox River received its name. It's an interesting story, and inasmuch as Judge Doty was one of the most knowledgeable men on Indian lore in the entire area, it bears repeating.

In the early days of the French occupation there was a band of Indians which inhabited the area around Green Bay and east of the Fox River. To this band the Chippewas applied the "Outagamie" which meant "people of the wet land" or "people of the marsh." But the French, due to some unrecorded episode, soon began to call theses same Indians, "Les Reynards," which, translated into English, means "The Fox."

The Winnebago Indians translated the French word into their own language and called this people "Wausharra." Judge Doty, in further relates, wanted the Fox river named the "Neenah river," to distinguish it from the Illinois Fox and to preserve its Indian name. "Neenah" is a Winnebago word which means "clear water," and the Winnebago referred to the river by this name. Doty writes:

"The Wisconsin Portage when I entered the country, thirty-five years ago (1820) was occupied and was called by them "Wau wau-o-hah." At this point they called the Wiskonsan river Neekooserah, which signified "the river;" and the Fox river "Neenah," which was known to mean "clear water," as differing from the Wiskonsan river whose water appeared turbid or colored by the sand in its bed and banks."

But the name Fox river was too firmly implanted to be changed by Doty's suggestion, and it continues to live to the present time.