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 it is, however, a subject on which important and exhaustive histories should be written. The portages were, in numerous instances, the keys of the fur trade.

In the Revolutionary War, the Fox–Wisconsin portage bore a more or less important part in British plans of gaining the alliance of the Indians of the upper Mississippi Basin. The awakening in the Northwest is evidenced by the increasing importance of this pathway in the War of 1812. This was the route of British trade with the Mississippi Indians until the very last. The commercial and economic history of this route, the establishment of Fort Winnebago, the question of government ownership of land, the improvement of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, the Military Road across the portage, the days of the Durhams boats, and the building of the canal make this route more interesting than any other west of Niagara.