The Fort Winnebago Surgeons Quarters is a historic site in Portage, Wisconsin. Located between the Fox River and the Wisconsin River, the site contains two historic buildings: the "surgeon's quarters" and Garrison School. The "surgeon's quarters", built circa 1819 by portage Francs LeRoi and sold to the US Army in 1828 and used as a sutler store and then as a home for the Fort surgeon. Garrison School was built circa 1850 on the former Fort property. Both properties are owned, operated, and maintained by the Wisconsin Society Daughters of the American Revolution, which operates it as a historic house museum with 19th century period furnishings and fort artifacts.
History
"The Portage" was a land bridge just 1 1/4 miles wide separating waterways that flow into the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. The Fox River flows north toward Green Bay, providing access to the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence River, and the Atlantic Ocean. The Wisconsin River flows southwest to the Mississippi River, which empties into the Gulf of Mexico. The area around Portage was an early travel route for Native Americans. Centuries before the white men arrived, they traversed the 2700-pace footpath between the rivers and recognized it as an important travel route. In the early 1800s, the U.S. government recognized the geographical importance of "le Portage", which became known as "Portage". Fort Winnebago was one of three forts built to protect settlers and commerce along the Fox-Wisconsin water system in the territory that later became the state of Wisconsin. The other two were Fort Howard in Green Bay and Fort Crawford, in Prairie du Chien.
"By Command of Maj.-Gen. Macomb"
"R. Jones, Adjt.-Gen."
"here was necessity for some means of protection to the fur trade from Winnebago exactions;... the general government at the solicitation of John Jacob Astor, who was then at the head of the American Fur Company, and upon whose goods the Indians levied exorbitant tolls, authorized the erection of a post at portage."
The building now known as "the Surgeons Quarters" was built in 1824 by Francois Le Roi and Therese L'Ecuyer, a Métis. In it, they operated a fur trading and sutler's post and a portaging business. It is one of the oldest French colonial log homes in Wisconsin still standing on its original foundation and is the only remaining building of the historic Fort Winnebago, which was active from 1828 through 1845. During the War of 1812, the British ventured into the territory in an attempt to reclaim this important waterway. Soldiers arrived to build Fort Winnebago in 1828. The log house was used by the United States Army as a surgeon's quarters for the fort and as an officers' residence. In 1845, the garrison left the fort, ordered west to protect the frontier. Garrison School, a 19th-century one room schoolhouse that was in use until 1960, was moved from its former location to its current site next to the surgeon's quarters.
