He was born in Watervliet, Albany County, New York. The only source of information regarding him is the series of his dictated reminiscences, published, with a brief editorial note, in the Prairie du Chien Courier in 1858, and republished in the Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.
Education
After considerable schooling Fonda was put in a lawyer's office, where he remained two years.
Career
The lure of the West claimed him, however, and with a small party he started, probably in the spring of 1819, for Texas. Near the site of Fort Towson, Oklahoma, established five years later, he parted from his companions, and after various activities in that region decided on a journey to Santa Fe.
With two other men he set out upon his trek in the spring of 1823.
A considerable part of the route was probably then first traversed by American white men (Southwestern Historical Quarterly, July 1919). Arriving in Santa Fe, he went on to Taos, where he wintered. By October 1824 he had returned from the Southwest and was in St. Louis, where for a year he worked as a mason and bricklayer.
In the fall of 1825 he started by steamboat up the Mississippi, but at the mouth of the Illinois debarked and with five companions set out for the little settlement of Chicago at Fort Dearborn. From Chicago he went by boat to Juneau's trading house (Milwaukee) and then to Fort Howard and the Green Bay settlement.
In the winter of 1827-28, as a dispatch-bearer, he made the hazardous journey to Fort Dearborn and back in the creditable time of a little more than two months. He might have continued in this service, but preferred to move on.
He next appears, in the summer of 1828, at Fort Crawford (Prairie du Chien) where, in the following April, he enlisted as a soldier. Zachary Taylor, who became the commandant in July, seems to have regarded him highly, and he became a corporal and later a quartermaster's sergeant; but he fell ill, and at the end of two years' service obtained his discharge.
In the following year he enlisted for the Black Hawk War and was on board the Warrior when it aided in the destruction of the Sauk chief's band at the mouth of the Bad Axe.
Achievements
Views
Quotations:
He says that he had been "over about every one of the States and Territories. "
Connections
Twelve years of wandering seem to have satisfied him, for he then obtained a land warrant for his services as a volunteer, married Sophia Gallerno (September 4, 1834), and settled down.