This list was originally produced by John A. Christy in 1989 and based on the county distribution maps from Bowers and Freckmann (1979). Since then, it has been augmented by literature found after that publication, holdings at the Milwaukee Public Museum Herbarium (MIL), and one specimen housed at the Chicago Academy of Sciences (Splachnum ampullaceum). Examination of herbarium collections elsewhere may yield other species.
“The most exciting phrase in science is not ‘Eureka!’ but ‘That’s funny…’”
~ Isaac Asimov, American Scientist & Author
The Nature & Culture Museum of Wisconsin will not just continue that tradition, but make it the heart of the Museum.
The Stockbridge-Munsee are descended from Algonkian-speaking Indians, primarily Mohicans (also spelled Mahican or Mahikan, but not to be confused with the Mohegan Tribe of Connecticut) and Munsee Delawares, who migrated from New York, Pennsylvania, and New England to Wisconsin in the 1820s and 1830s. The Stockbridge originally lived in western Massachusetts and moved to north-central New York between 1783 and 1786 to form a new Christian community near the Oneida.
“I would rather be a superb meteor,
Women’s Work: The WPA Milwaukee Handicraft Project
By Jacqueline M. Schweitzer, Honorary Curator of American History
“Why should I feel lonely? Is not our planet in the Milky Way?”
- Henry David Thoreau, American naturalist and writer
They were largely drawn from the Mohican (or Mahican) people living in that area. During the American Revolution, the Stockbridge sides with the colonists. In the 1780s, the Stockbridge moved to New York to escape encroachment by White settlers in Massachusetts and live alongside the Oneida tribe.
There is also a reconstructed façade of a house and two black and white photographs of daily life; a stool; peanut grinding board; combs; food stirrers; and calabash spoons. The exhibit case, called "Bush Negro of Suriname South America" is located on the third floor of the Museum, at the end of the African Hall and the beginning of the South American Hall.