USA > Wisconsin > Columbia County > A history of Columbia County, Wisconsin : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests > Part 31
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HUGH JAMIESON'S YOUTH IN SCOTLAND
Hugh Jamieson was born at Underhill, Parish of Loudon, Ayrshire, Scotland, May 15, 1829. His father Hugh soon moved to a manufac- turing village named Newmilns, where he died when Hugh, Jr. was two years old. The mother, Janet Findlay, a daughter of John, was left with four children, John and Hugh, and Janet and Agnes, all of whom became residents of Wisconsin, and were living at the time the memoirs were written in the early '80s-John in Rock County, and the rest in Columbia County. Three other children died in infancy.
In the picturesque valley of the Irvine where Newmilns lay, beneath the lofty Loudon hill, in a land celebrated by Robert Burns, Hugh Jamieson grew from infancy through boyhood. When about five years old he was first sent to school, with his "A B C board" suspended by a string around his neck. In school he soon learned the use of the "taws" as the leather strap, ending in lashes, and employed for punishment, was called. There were few holidays. The dominie's presents of whiskey, rum, or brandy, among other gifts to the scholars, were a feature of that school experience which will strike Americans as the strangest contrast between the Scotch education of that time and our stricter American morality. Three years later he went to another school, where he made good progress and began the study of Latin at the age of ten. Mr. Jamieson claims that the methods and results of instruc-
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tions were not so far behind those of modern days as some people sup- pose. In that second school he attended four years, except for a few months of service as "the drawboy" in a weaving shop or "loomstead," conducted by Robert Wilson, who married the older Jamieson daughter.
At the age of twelve, Hugh got restless and wanted to earn his own support. His mother finally yielded, and he was bound for three years' apprenticeship at the weaver trade with his brother-in-law. He had his disappointments over his frequent failures at expertness of the regular artisan, and would gladly have annulled the contract, but in time was in a fair way to become a tolerable good weaver. His work hours were from six or seven in the morning, until eight or nine in the evening, with little time for meals. During that experience he learned much from association with and as an auditor to the weavers in their discussions of politics and other current questions. Though able to earn good wages by the end of his apprenticeship, he detested the trade and gladly accepted employment under a former captain of the British army, a very ugly tempered man, whose service by no means proved congenial. At the end of his first term he found an excuse for declin- ing re-employment, saying he hoped to go to America with his brother John, who had recently returned from that country. When he sug- gested to his employer the possibility of leaving Scotland for America, the latter exclaimed with an oath ! "Go to America! Do you know what the Americans are? They are nothing but a lot of cutthroats and thieves, that ran away from this country and other countries in Europe to escape hanging or other punishments that would have been inflicted upon them if they had not left." Despite this opinion, Hugh Jamieson held to his determination to leave his first place of employment, but instead of going to America, he attended the Kilmarnock Fair, where employers and employees met and arranged terms of service for the following six months. Hugh engaged with a farmer near Kilmarnock, at wages of four pounds sterling and board and washing. He was then between fifteen and sixteen years of age. His work was chiefly the delivering of milk to a route of customers, and he states that the training in system and order acquired during that time proved very valuable in his later business career. His service was continued two terms, and he then engaged for six months at a less home-like place, also as a milk seller. Toward the elose of the last term he spent a few days in Glas- gow, and secured work in a spirit shop at six shillings a week. A change was soon made to another similar shop, where he stayed some eight months. The employment was not congenial and during that period he witnessed many hard scenes and saw much of the coarser side of life. Mr. Jamieson then opened a spirit shop of his own, his brother taking
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a half interest. At the end of four or five months, his shop was fairly prospering, and as it required only one person to manage it, Hugh then took employment with a victualing and provision store. That was in the fall of 1847. The following winter was one of great scarcity, and was marked by many troubles and riots in Glasgow.
BOOKED FOR AMERICA
Early in the next spring, John Jamieson once more turned his atten- tion toward the United States, and secured passage on a boat sailing from Glasgow, April 15th. This caused Hugh Jamieson to resume the liquor business as proprietor and manager. A few days later an opportunity to sell was presented and accepted, and while he was negotiating for an- other location, an evening was spent in company with some people pre- paring to go abroad on the same vessel as his brother. One of the ladies inquired, why he too did not accompany his brother. His reply was that he had given the subject no thought, but the succeeding night his mind was so filled with the matter that he had little sleep. In the morn- ing he decided that if a passage could be secured he would go with his brother. A visit to the company's office resulted in his being booked, and thus one of those momentous problems in an individual career was solved and all his subsequent life given an entirely new direction.
THE ROUTE TO COLUMBIA COUNTY
He had not yet reached his nineteenth birthday. Youthful emo- tions are strong, if not persistent, and it was with a heavy heart he re- visited the home of his boyhood and took farewell of old friends and associations. Especially trying was his separation from his mother and sisters, who came to Glasgow to see him off. Then the good ship "Mar- garet" of Greenock bore him away towards the new western world. A stormy voyage of thirty-one days brought the ship to New York. Friends and relatives of the Jamieson brothers had already found homes in the then very young state of Wisconsin. That western frontier country was also their destination. A steamboat took them up the Hud- son river to Albany, where they entered upon their journey by boat through the Erie canal to Buffalo. At Buffalo they embarked on the "Queen City," then making her first regular trip up the lakes, four days later arriving in Milwaukee. Two farmers who had brought wheat to the city carried the travelers toward Whitewater, in which vicinity their uncle then lived. Two days then brought them to Whitewater. In a short time Hugh Jamieson hired out to a farmer in the neighbor- hood. It was a lonesome contrast between the busy city of Glasgow and
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the lonely cornfield in which he began his Wisconsin career. His work for Mr. Slocum lasted three months, chiefly in the heavy harvest sea- son, when eradles and scythes were the only implements, and his wages for that time was thirty-four dollars. However, owing to the scarcity of ready money, and the difficulty for transportation of product, these wages were delayed a long time, and in various parts of his early nar- rative Mr. Jamieson proved the difficulties which beset all the early settlers in Wisconsin who had little or no money themselves, and were only at long intervals to get a meagre supply by taking their products over the rough roads to the lake ports. The next winter, buying some oxen, he got out logs for a sawmill.
During the spring of 1849 Mr. Jamieson's two sisters and their hus- bands arrived at Whitewater. Mr. Jamieson and his brother-in-law, Robert Wilson, then started north to hunt some land for the latter. James Paton, whom they had known in Scotland, was then living in the town of De Korra in Columbia County, and him they determined to visit.
ARRIVES AT SITE OF POYNETTE
This brings the narrative within the scope of Columbia county, and hence forward direct quotations wherever practicable will continue the story of this pioneer. "Our journey was made on foot, and some time in the fore part of July we reached Mr. Paton's on the second day about noon, having traveled sixty miles in a day and a half. Here we found Mr. Hugh Sloan, who with Mr. Paton showed us what land they knew of that was for sale in their vicinity. The northeast quarter of section thirty-four, township eleven, range nine, where a part of the village of Poynette now stands, was at that time unoccupied. It belonged, however, to the heirs of Alexander Seymour Hoey." After a consid- erable delay they effected the purchase of this one hundred and sixty acres at a price of three hundred and twenty dollars, being two dollars ยท an acre, and then returned to Whitewater, where Hugh Jamieson com- pleted his harvesting. By the sale of his grain, after it was taken to Milwaukee, he had about one hundred and sixty dollars in capital, enough to buy a good team of horses at that time. To buy horses he and a companion went across country to Chicago and took a boat to New Buffalo, and thence to Laporte, in Indiana. There he secured a team for one hundred and fifty dollars. His intention was to engage in teaming, hauling grain to lake ports, returning with merchandise for the local merchants, and also giving transportation service to immi- grants and their families moving into Wisconsin. In the course of the
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winter of 1849-50 Mr. Jamieson made several trips to Portage, where he loaded with lumber, then cheap, and hauled it back to the neighbor- hood of Whitewater.
PRICES AND TAXES IN THE '40s
"Pork was also cheap in those days. I have bought it as low as $2.50 per hundred pounds in the carcass, sometimes I found wheat to haul from Dekorra or near there. The price paid for hauling wheat from Dekorra to Milwaukee at that time was from thirty to thirty-five cents per bushel, and when wheat brought eighty to eighty-five cents per bushel in Milwaukee, so that it netted the farmers and merchants who sent it fifty cents per bushel, they were generally well satisfied. This price, however,'was seldom attained unless the wheat was a very choice article. I have hauled wheat from the vicinity of Whitewater to Mil- waukee, and sold it for forty-eight cents per bushel about that time, but it was not a number one article, and after paying twenty cents for hauling, the farmer had but little left. Still such prices were not at all uncommon in those days. At this time taxes were very light, however, which was some help to the farmer. The first tax I paid in Columbia County was for the year 1848. This year's taxes should have been paid by the party from whom I purchased the land, as I made the purchase in 1849, but it had not been paid by them, and I found when I came to pay my taxes for the year following that the taxes on my eighty acres which was the east half of the northeast quarter of section thirty-four, township eleven, range nine, was two dollars and thirty cents for the year 1848, and two dollars and seventy-four cents for the year following."
TEAMING OVER SOUTHERN WISCONSIN
The experiences of Mr. Jamieson while teaming over all this south- ern Wisconsin country were marked by many interesting incidents, but only brief quotations can be made. The following throws some light on the early conditions of society along the well traveled highways and especially concerning the discussions and social habits which marked the old-time houses of entertainment. "The bar-room of a country hotel in those days was rather an interesting place, and on most public thor- oughfares and roads leading to the principal market was in the even- ings generally crowded with men from nearly all parts of both Europe and America, and many a good joke was played upon the innocent and unsuspecting stranger if he happened to venture any remark whereby it could be inferred that he thought he knew a little more than those
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around him. The eastern man, as he was termed, was very apt to fall into this error, for in his opinion, the habits, manners and customs of the western people were borrowed from the East, which to a certain extent were perfectly correct, and while the western man was perhaps willing to admit this, he could not admit that those who had first left the eastern states and came West were in any way inferior to those who remained behind him, or followed him a few years after. In the bar-rooms everything was discussed, politics, religion and agriculture being the leading topics ; no question whatever of any importance could arise, however, but what was thoroughly ventilated and keenly criti- cised. I have heard some very able arguments made in those bar- rooms, and although perhaps in some instances, they were not of a very refined character. in general there was something to be learned and many good points were made during their continuance."
THE RAILROADS
That was an era when considerable railroad building was being done in Wisconsin and throughout the United States, but many more roads were built on paper than on the ground. Mr. Jamieson's narrative throws much light on the attitude of the people towards railroads, but the following brief quotation is all that can be taken from the half dozen pages or more which he devoted to the subject. "In the early days of railroading in Wisconsin, a great many people were quite con- fident that railroads would prove a great drawback to the country. It was claimed that the market for coarse grains would be totally destroyed, and that after they were completed both man and beast would be left without anything to do. And to see the enormous amount of traffic in marketing grain, which was then all done by horses and oxen (the latter being very extensively used in hauling lead from the lead mines in the southwestern part of the state to Milwaukee), it did seem as though their fears were likely to be realized. Notwithstanding those sayings and the fears of many, railroads continued to be built, and who at that time dreamt of the magnitude these railroads were destined in a few short years to assume, and which undoubtedly far exceeded the most sanguine expectations of their most earnest advocates At a time when the carrying trade of the country was all done by horses and oxen, it would seem as though accidents resulting in loss of life should be almost entirely unknown; such, however, was not the case. Many a very serious accident occurred and quite a number resulted fatally."
COMMENCES TO IMPROVE LAND IN 1850
Mr. Jamieson's regular work as a teamster continued until the winter of 1850-51. Up to that time he had done nothing of any conse-
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quence for the improvement of his land in Columbia County. "I now determined to make some improvements and prepare a home, so it might be ready in case I should come to require one. I accordingly disposed of this team and purchased a younger one, and a yoke of oxen, and with axe, beetle, and wedges proceeded cutting timber and splitting rails for fencing purposes, with as much energy or vim as the veritable old Abe himself or any other rail-splitter probably ever possessed. It was hard work, however, and I soon found that out, but there was no help for it. The work must be done or the land would remain as it had done for centuries, perhaps, very beautiful indeed, but yielding nothing toward the payment of taxes or affording support for its owner. During the latter part of the winter, I succeeded in preparing quite a number of rails and had them hauled onto the ground ready for mak- ing fence when I should require it. In the spring I had some ten acres prepared for breaking up, and in the latter part of May and first of June, I got about six acres broke or ploughed, and planted some of it to sod corn. This was in the spring and summer of 1851.
PRAIRIE FIRES
"Early in the spring of this year I witnessed some of the largest prairie fires I had ever seen. The greater portion of the prairie, south of where I lived (and which, if I remember right, was at that time known as the town of Kossuth) was burned over and as there was no stock kept on this prairie at this time and the land being very rich, the grass grew very rank and heavy, and when dry in the spring, it required but the touch of a lighted match, or in some instances the burning ashes from a smoker's pipe to ignite it. Sometimes fires were set purposely, that the young fresh grass might spring up earlier than it would if the old dry grass was left to cover the ground and prevent it from thawing out as the old grass would do if not burned off. When these fires were set purposely, it was generally done by some of the few people who at that time lived along the margin of the prairie or in the timber near it, so that what few cattle they did have might find green feed as early in the spring as possible. And in many cases fires were set where people intended breaking up the land, for the purpose of getting rid of the grass, which if not burned was quite a serious impediment to the plough. And in fact, scarcely any land at that time on that prairie could be broken up without first burning it over. When I first traveled over that prairie, there was some where about ten miles without the sign of a human habitation. Soon, however, a house was built by Mr. L. S. Pratt. about a mile out on the prairie, when the distance was
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then only between eight and nine miles from his house to the next house south of him on the same road, and it was several years after before any one ventured to erect a habitation between. It was a tiresome, dreary journey, when performed on foot, to travel over this prairie in those days. Not even a drop of water was to be found except at a small pond, called the goose pond, near the center or about half the dis- tance across, and as this water was surface or seep water, it was unfit to use only by cattle or horses. A fire on this prairie, however, at that time was one of the most magnificent sights I ever witnessed. I remem- ber crossing it one time after nightfall when a terrible fire was burning on both sides of the road. The fire seemed to have been set by some one or more persons and was perhaps upwards of a mile in length. It had been carried east and west, while the road ran north and south. The night was calm and still, and the fire burned each way from where it seemed to have been set. When I reached it, it had burned so that the two lines of fire and smoke were from ten to fifteen rods apart, and on a straight and continuous line for a considerable distance. Such fires however, were quite dangerous, and sometimes very injurious, both to those by whom they were set and others who happened to live near them, when they happened to get beyond their control, which fre- quently occurred. Sometimes if the wind began to blow a little, these fires would bound over the ground at a furious rate, and would sweep everything that stood in their way, houses, stacks of hay and grain, and even live stock were often consumed by them. The only safe way to save property was to plow a few furrows some distance apart around it, and burn the dry grass between. If this could be done before the fire reached the property it could most generally be saved. In all new countries, however, a vast amount of fencing and other prop- erty is destroyed by such fires, and it seems impossible to prevent it.
BREAKING UP THE LAND
"The manner of breaking up the land, or ploughing it for the first time, was to me both unexpected and interesting. I had seen a great deal of ploughing done in Scotland, where it is done in the most scientific manner, but to tell a Scotch plowman that in breaking up the land for the first time a furrow some four to six inches deep and from sixteen to twenty-four inches in width is turned, according to the size of the plow, he would be very apt to say that it could not be done; and if told that in turning such furrows brushwood, and young trees, whose roots were in some instances four to five inches in thickness, were cut by the plow as clean as if it had been done with an ax, and rolled over with the furrow, he would be inclined to regard the person who made
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such a statement as insane, and would not hesitate, perhaps, in telling him so. Such, however, is nevertheless the case. I have often seen land broken up where the brush was so heavy and thick that it was with considerable difficulty that the oxen could be got through it, and the cutting of such roots was of quite frequent occurrence. Horses could not have performed this work where the brush was so thick, and were never used in doing it. From four to six yoke, or pair of oxen was the team usually used. Horses were used on the prairies for breaking up land when there was no timber or brush in the way.
PIONEER PLOW FOR HEAVY WORK
The plow used for such heavy work was of very singular construc- tion. The beam being a hewn log of wood, from eight to twelve feet long, some six inches in thickness and from five inches to a foot in width, being widest where the greatest amount of strength was required. The handles were also of wood, resembling other plow handles, but proportionately strong with the beam. The landside was iron, which was sometimes cov- ered with a thin steel plate and was from half an inch to an inch in thick- ness, and from four to five feet long. The shear, or lay, was of steel and about a fourth of an inch thick, and from six to nine inches wide, and from three to four feet long. The mould board was also of steel, of about a fourth to three-eighth inches thick, and from eight to ten or twelve inches wide, and always some longer than the shear or land- side, and rolled sufficiently to turn the furrow. Scotchmen in coming to this country frequently brought plows with them, but at that time we had a breed of swine or hog steer that far surpassed their most recently invented plows for breaking up the land among the brush. They soon found this out, and the plow which they had brought with them at so much cost, and. which they regarded as a perfect beauty, and a model of ingenuity and art combined, was thrown aside as utterly worthless and regarded only as a relic of the past .. At this time it was not at all uncommon to see a few deer scampering along near where the plow was running and wily prairie wolves and sly fox would also at times make their appearance.
"The farmer met with but very poor encouragement, however, in those days, as it was almost impossible to dispose of any farm produce except at lake ports, and even there prices were very low. In the settlement of a new country, many a difficulty has to be overcome, and obstacles surmounted, and it requires a brave heart and considerable determination at times to successfully battle with the troubles and trials that come in the way. A pair of oxen and a plow or two must be had
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before anything can be done on a new place, and as grain is not gen- erally very plenty and the fodder being made from the course wild grasses that grow on the marshes and prairies, which undoubtedly fill them up, but does not impart much strength to them so that when warm weather approaches and the crops have to be put in they are not gener- ally in very good condition to perform the labor required of them. And I have often seen it necessary, before a very small spring's work was done, to assist the poor brutes at times to get up. The grain, however, as a rule had to be got in whether the oxen lived through it or not. But few of them seemed to die, and when the spring's work was over and the cattle allowed to run at large, it was almost amazing to see how soon they would become fat and sleek, and in their appearance so much changed that a person could scarcely believe them to be the same animals that they had seen a couple of months before."
FIRST LAND ENTERED IN THE COUNTY
During the summer of 1851 Mr. Jamieson boarded with an old widow named Mrs. Ensminger, who kept a hotel near what was known as the "Old Rowan Stand." This hotel subsequently becomes an important feature in the career of Mr. Jamieson. "About the time, or soon after, I purchased my land in 1849, an elderly gentleman by the name of Samuel B. Thomas purchased the forty acres adjoining me on the south (October 9, 1849), and in the fall of the same year came there to live. The land bought by Mr. Thomas at this time was the same land Mr. Wallace Rowan entered at the Green Bay Land Office on the sixth day of June, in the year 1836, and is described as the northeast quarter of the southeast quarter of section thirty-four, township eleven north, of range nine east, in what is known as the town of Dekorra, and was the first land entered in Columbia County. It was at that time, however, Brown County, in Michigan territory, afterwards Brown County, Wisconsin territory, subsequently Portage County, Wisconsin territory, then Columbia County, Wisconsin territory, finally Columbia County, state of Wisconsin. The house which Mr. Thomas occupied when he came there to live was a double log house that had been built by Mr. Rowan, and which was used by him as a trading point with the Indians, and as a hotel for the accommodation of travelers. Mr. Thomas occupied this house nearly a year while engaged in the construction of a more commodious frame building, which he moved into in 1850.
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