Around A.D. 1100, a large Native American village stood on the north side of Stockbridge Harbor. Pottery recovered from archaeological excavations indicates that its villagers came from two formerly distinct cultural groups. Perhaps for protection from outsiders, people of the Effigy Mound tradition joined a group of Late Woodland agriculturalists, and they surrounded their village with a palisade. By A.D. 1200, both Late Woodland societies had disappeared from the shores of Lake Winnebago, leaving the region under the control of the Oneota people, considered the ancestors of the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago). In 1833, the Stockbridge tribe from New York State was relocated to the east shore of Lake Winnebago. Euro-American settlement began shortly afterward, and Stockbridge Harbor was developed for shipping, becoming important to the local economy as merchant and passenger vessels carried lumber, grain, goods, and people across the lake.