USA > Wisconsin > Sauk County > A standard history of Sauk County, Wisconsin, Volume I > Part 35
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November 17, 1910, J. T. Donaghey tendered his resignation as highway commissioner and on November 21 G. F. Post was elected to succeed him at the same salary, $1,000 per year. Seventeen towns petitioned for county aid, the total amounting to $18,958.09 and $6,000 was appropriated for machinery and repairs. The highway commit-
SAMPLE UNIMPROVED ROAD
tee of the county board consisted of G. Scharnke, William Halbersleben and R. F. Mercer.
In 1911 the highway committee was composed of G. Scharnke, James Gregory and R. F. Mercer. G. F. Post was re-elected commissioner. The sum of $23,991.39 was voted as aid to the towns and $16,570 was appropriated for machinery and repairs.
In 1912 the highway committee was composed of G. Scharnke, James Gregory and R. F. Mercer, with G. F. Post as commissioner. The following was voted: to the towns, $38,690.91: machinery and repairs, $28,250; Delton bonds, $1,600.
The same committee and commissioner served in 1913. The towns were voted $54,213.63; machinery and repairs, $27,500; Delton bonds, $1,600.
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In 1914 the same commissioner served and the following composed the committee: James Gregory, R. F. Mercer and R. B. Griggs, the latter being appointed after the death of G. Scharnke. The towns were granted $31,601.08; machinery and repairs, $14,500; Delton bonds, $1,600.
In 1915 R. F. Mercer, William Halbersleben and R. B. Griggs com- posed the committee with the same commissioner. The towns were voted $34,725.32; repairs, machinery and gravel pit, $52,500; Delton bonds, $1,600. Hugh Sarahan was named the bookkeeper in January. G. F. Post resigned February 22, 1916, and John Gunnison was selected and took the office March 20, 1916. He has since filled the position.
On November 14, 1916, R. B. Griggs, R. F. Mercer and William Hal- bersleben were selected as the highway committee and are still serv- ing. The largest appropriation in the history of road building in the county was made this year :
For bonds to meet bond issue of Town of Troy $ 12,000.00
For machinery
15,000.00
For moving machinery 2,000.00
For repairing county roads 30,000.00
For road and bridge contingent fund. 2,000.00
For office expenses . 3,500.00
To meet town appropriations 33,752.40
To meet amounts advanced by towns
6,238.63
Special appropriation to Baraboo-Portage Road.
2,000.00
Special appropriation to Baraboo-Reedsburg Road
1,000.00
Special appropriation to the W. W. Warner Road to Devil's Lake
2,500.00
Delton bonds
1,600.00
Total
$111,591.03
The work during 1917 was somewhat retarded on account of the war but plans are being made to prosecute the work as rapidly as pos- sible. During 1918 the county will receive about $30,000 Federal aid and the trunk line system adopted by the state will be an added ele- ment in road planning and work.
THE RAILROADS IN SAUK COUNTY
It happened that the railroad which, as a whole, has done the least to develop the resources of the county is the one which first entered its territory and also aroused one of its communities to a high pitch of expectaney, only to dash all such hopes to fragments. Newport, in the extreme northeastern corner, is no more, and the Chicago, Milwaukee
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& St. Paul line confines its activities and privileges to Spring Green, in the southwestern corner of the county. Although the Chicago & North Western Railway came in fifteen years later, it made up for lost time by passing through the leading centers of population and the rich agri- cultural sections of the Baraboo Valley, which, from the first had been . the prime aim of the leading citizens of the county, in the promotion of all the railway schemes which they hoped to be of benefit to them and the future.
THE ST. PAUL REACHES SPRING GREEN
The Village of Spring Green is a creature of the old Milwaukee & Prairie du Chien Railroad, afterward the Prairie du Chien Division of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Road. The first cabins erected on its site were the shanties of railroad laborers, and these were afterward occupied by Messrs. Thomas D. Jones and Holmes, the first permanent residents of the place. On the 3d of August, 1856, the first train to run over the road to the terminus passed through the site of the future village, then covered with trees, brush, weeds and grass. The next day the bridge was tested and found safe, the engine went over it and the Milwaukee & Prairie du Chien line was pronounced open to the public of this part of Wisconsin.
In the meantime the site of Spring Green had been entered from the government, and passed into the hands of A. C. Daley, B. F. Edger- ton and A. G. Darwin, who, in the spring of 1857, platted the Village of Spring Green. A hotel and several stores were erected and carly in the summer of the year it became so evident that a settlement of con- siderable size was bound to be born at that point that the railroad com- pany erected a little depot there and its trains commenced to make regular stops.
PROPOSED CHICAGO, ST. PAUL AND FOND DU LAC
Several years before Spring Green thus obtained raliroad connec- tions through the Milwaukee & Prairie du Chien Railroad, leading citi- zens of the county had obtained a charter for the building of the Fort Winnebago (Portage City), Baraboo Valley & St. Paul Railroad. Sev- eral Chicago promoters had projected a line from that city to Janesville, thence through Madison and the Baraboo Valley to St. Paul, with a branch, via Fond du Lac, to the Lake Superior region. Charters had been obtained under the names of the Rock River Valley Union and the Chicago, St. Paul & Fond du Lac Railroad companies, and consid- erable track was even laid between Chicago and Janesville in the early '50s. But the people of Sauk County were afraid that the section of this grand trunk line from Madison to St. Paul would be put through
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on a route too far south to be of benefit to them; henee the incorpora- tion of the Fort Winnebago, Baraboo Valley and St. Paul Railroad, as an intermediate section of the proposed system. But the defeat of the land grant bill designed to bolster up the enterprise and furnish funds for its prosecution compelled the project to take a rest. P. A. Bassett and Col. James Maxwell, of Baraboo, went to Washington, at differ- ent times, in the interest of the bill, but the opposition of the promoters of the La Crosse & Milwaukee Road (now the La Crosse Division of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad) was too strong for them and the chief leaders in the Chicago, St. Paul & Fond du Lac enterprise.
NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE CHICAGO AND NORTH WESTERN
But the leading citizens of the Baraboo Valley did not despair of seeuring a railroad, and Mr. Bassett was delegated to open negotiations with the Chicago & North Western Company, through its president, William B. Ogden, of the first named city. As spokesman of the largest industrial and business interests of the valley, Mr. Bassett promised that Sauk County would raise $450,000 in support of a line following that route; he also was authorized to pledge an additional $150,000 from the people of Madison. Mr. Ogden promised that the Baraboo Valley route should be surveyed in the following spring and work commenced on the grading as soon as possible; but the panic of 1857 nullified all such promises and put a temporary quietus on the railroad plans and hopes of the citizens of the Baraboo Valley. For lack of adequate means, the enterprise known as the Milwaukee & Western and, later, as the Milwaukee, Watertown, Beaver Dam & Baraboo Valley Railroad, fell by the wayside, and the weeds of negleet sprung up and choked it. Judge S. L. Rose was at the head of that project, made a tour through the Baraboo Valley, and secured pledges of $100,000 from the different towns along the route.
THE LA CROSSE & MILWAUKEE AND NEWPORT
Then came the campaign in Sauk County engineered by Byron Kil- bourn, the great railway promoter of Milwaukee, to push the interests of the La Crosse & Milwaukee Railroad. Any farmer who did not mortgage his place was considered lacking in enterprise and good busi- ness judgment ; for the stock of the railroad was considered the most solid and profitable investment on the market. Next eame the stagger- ing announcement to the confiding farmers and the expectant people of Sauk County, particularly of the Baraboo Valley, that the company had decided neither to cross the Wisconsin River at Newport (which had been projected and platted on that understanding) nor to carry it through the Baraboo Valley. Finally the La Crosse & Milwaukee Com-
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pany purchased land a mile and a half up the river, on the eastern shore, where it had decided to eross.
Many of the citizens of Newport were stockholders in the road, but made the best of the situation which was dark in the extreme. Their next step was to endeavor to seeure a depot on the line of the road op- posite their village, and in December, 1858, the railroad board of directors granted a memorial signed by the prominent business men of Newport, Baraboo, Reedsburg, Delton and the surrounding country, allowing Newport to ereet a depot on the east side of the river at her own expense! All that the railroad was required to do was to stop its trains at that point. By February, 1859, a handsome depot had been completed at that locality, and Newport was considered resurrected. But the revival of the place was temporary, for the La Crosse & Mil- waukee was soon pushed up the east side of the river and the develop- ment of Kilbourn City killed Newport.
The management of the La Crosse & Milwaukee Railroad placated those who had mortgaged their farms and homesteads with the under- standing that the line was to convenience them and develop their prop- erties, by assigning to them the state land-grant. As the lands were sold, the proceeds were distributed pro rata among the mortgagors, and gradually repayments were made to quite a large extent.
OTHER ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS
The facts concerning subsequent movements to secure railroad con- nections for the Baraboo Valley people are meager. In the midst of the disturbing times of the Civil war the Chicago & North Western made the preliminary survey of a route through the valley, as a portion of the projected line from Madison to La Crosse. That was in the fall of 1862. About a year afterward the Baraboo Valley Railroad Association was formed, with P. A. Bassett as president. The North Western made an- other survey through the valley, and then all pretense of such activities was dropped until the last year of the war, when the end of that troublous period was in sight. In January, 1865, the Portage City & Baraboo Valley Railroad was incorporated, and several months later it was reorganized under the patronage of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad Company. But the actual survey got no further than Pine Island, above Portage, where it stopped.
Neither did anything tangible grow out of the Madison, Lodi and Baraboo Valley Railroad of a later period, in 1865-66.
BARABOO VALLEYITES "GETTING SET"
Four years of apparent lassitude passed, but it would appear that the people of the Baraboo Valley were getting their second wind, or,
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as the athletes now say when a man is about to run a race, "getting set." In October, 1869, Col. S. V. R. Ableman and J. C. Lusk, through articles in the county press and persistent personal efforts in other directions, revived the movement of a valley road as part of some gen- eral through route. On the 19th of that month the Colonel headed a meeting largely attended by regularly appointed delegates, authorized to speak for the various sections of the county. He was named as the chairman of an executive committee, which was to apply for a charter for a road, the construction of which should be open to the large rail- road company of solid standing offering the best inducements.
THE FINAL SUCCESS
On July 1, 1870, therefore, the Baraboo Air Line Railroad Com- pany was organized with the following officers: President, T. Thomas; vice president, J. Mackey; secretary, T. D. Lang; treasurer, R. M. Strong; directors, S. V. R. Ableman, J. F. Smith, Moses Young, S. P. Barney and Jonas Narracong. Both the Michigan Central and the North Western made offers to build the line, and they were obliged to apply to the Baraboo Air Line.Company, as the local corporation held a charter for a route through the "lake gap." Within two weeks after organization, the Baraboo Air Line Company had reached a basis of agreement with the Chicago & North Western Railway, which resulted in the actual construction of the road in the following year.
THE CHICAGO & NORTH WESTERN BUILT THROUGH THE VALLEY
The Chicago & North Western Road was completed to Baraboo on Friday, September 8, 1871, and on Tuesday, the 12th, a grand cele- bration took place, "such a one," says a local publication, "as was never before held in these classic precincts. There were music, speaking, can- non-firing and great rejoicing generally. It is estimated that 10,000 people were present. One of the remarkable features of the occasion was the great arch erected over the track. On either side of the track a circle of hop poles had been formed. Through the spaces between the poles, hop vines were wreathed until the poles were entirely clad with green. On the top of the columns rested a broad arch, surrounded by a large keystone, upon which were piled immense golden pumpkins, strings of red-cheeked apples, sheaves of wheat and stalks of corn. In the center stood a flagstaff, from which floated a banner. The iron-horse reached Reedsburg on New Year's day, 1872, but on account of the unfavorable season for outdoor celebrations, the celebration of the event was postponed."
Later in the year La Valle Village was reached and, within a few years the entire valley of the Baraboo presented many evidences of the
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practical stimulus occasioned by the provision of an outlet for its agricultural and industrial wealth, and a convenient means of communi- cation between its scattered communities.
But the Chicago & North Western Railway is not the last of the good things which have been provided for the people of the valley and of Sauk County, important and desirable as it is.
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CHAPTER XIII
MILITARY AFFAIRS
SOLDIERS OF THE MEXICAN WAR-JAMES O'RILEY, OF REEDSBURG- CHARLES S. LADD, MERRIMACK-CAPT. LEVI MOORE-COL. STEPHEN V. R. ABLEMAN-FIRST CIVIL WAR ORGANIZATIONS-SAUK COUNTY CONTRIBUTES TO THE MADISON GUARDS-INTO CAMP AT CHAMBERS- BURG-BATTLE OF FALLING WATERS, VIRGINIA-RE-ENLISTED- REPRESENTATION IN THE "IRON BRIGADE"-THE SECOND WISCON- SIN INFANTRY-THE SIXTH AND SEVENTH REGIMENTS-THE IRON BRIGADE IN THE WILDERNESS-OTHER RECORDS OF THE BRIGADE- JOSEPH A. WEIRICH-COMPANY D, NINTH REGIMENT-THE ELEVENTH WISCONSIN-THE MARCHING REGIMENT THE FOUR- TEENTH WISCONSIN-COMPANY H, SEVENTEENTH REGIMENT- COL. JAMES S. ALBAN, OF THE EIGHTEENTH-COMPANY A, NINE- TEENTH REGIMENT-COMPANIES F AND K, OF THE TWENTY-THIRD- COMPANY K, OF THE TWENTY-SIXTH REGIMENT-COL. DAVID K. NOYES, FORTY-NINTH REGIMENT-THE CAPTURE OF JEFF DAVIS- JOHN G. KLEINLEIN-THE CAVALRY COMPANIES-COLONEL VITTUM, OF THE THIRD CAVALRY-THE SIXTH BATTERY-MEMORIES OF LIN- COLN-NEWS OF THE ASSASSINATION AT BARABOO-A LINCOLN GUARD OF HONOR-BARABOO TRIPLETS NAMED BY LINCOLN-WHEN THEY SAW LINCOLN-SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AT BARABOO-COL. W. A. WYSE-THE SAUK COUNTY COMPANY; HEADQUARTERS, REEDSBURG -COMPANY A, FIRST WISCONSIN INFANTRY-COMPANY I-THE HONOR LIST.
Although there were several residents of Sauk County who served in the Mexican war, and at least one who was a veteran of the Civil war at the time of his death ; some, like Colonel Ableman, who had earned a military title in other states, and others whose titles were purely honor- ary (?), and conferred for no known military service, the real history of the county in matters military, commences definitely with the period of the Civil war.
SOLDIERS OF THE MEXICAN WAR
Three soldiers of the war with Mexico were residents of Sauk County for many years-James O'Riley, of Reedsburg; Charles S. Ladd, of Mer-
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rimack, and Isaac Joiner, of North Freedom. Mr. Joiner moved to North- ern Wisconsin some time before his deeease, but the other soldier vet- erans passed away in Sauk County.
JAMES O'RILEY, OF REEDSBURG
Mr. Q'Riley was a native Irishman who came to America in 1843 when twenty-three years of age. He landed in New York City on the 3d of July, at an hour when the town had already commeneed to cele- brate, and was greatly excited and somewhat alarmed over the unusual hub-bub and display of fireworks, giving him an absolutely new expe- rience. He remained at the metropolis until the Mexican war broke out, enlisted in a New York company and boarded a sailing vessel bound for Monterey. Severe storms lengthened his voyage around Cape Horn, to his destination in Lower California, to a six months' trip. With his company, he fought at Monterey and did patrol duty at San Jose, Cali- fornia. At the conclusion of the war, instead of going home, he lin- gered in the gold regions with some thousands of other young men, for a year and a half, and then started for New York overland. He brought back some gold which he had minted into money at Philadelphia, and then decided to try his fortune in the West nearer the East than the Pacific Coast. Mr. O'Riley first took up a claim in the Town of Dellona, in May, 1850, was married in the following year and in the course of time became the father of twelve children. Impulsive by race and by nature, he joined the Union ranks in 1862, under the persuasion of a recruiting officer who met him on his way to Baraboo with a load of hogs. Mr. O'Riley joined Company F, Third Wisconsin Cavalry, when he reached the city, and served with that organization until the con- "lusion of the war. He continued to reside on his farm in Dellona until about 1900, when he purchased a home at Reedsburg and died there in January, 1913. He was in his ninety-fourth year, but up to the last a good, cheerful old man.
CHARLES S. LADD, OF MERRIMACK
Mr. Ladd, who shared Mexican war honors, was a New Hampshire man and left an arm on a battlefield of the far South. In 1873 he set- tled in Merrimack and for years was a watchman on the Chicago & North Western bridge at that locality. He died a month after the decease of Mr. O'Riley, eighty-six years of age.
CAPT. LEVI MOORE
In the early years of his youth and manhood Capt. Levi Moore, one of the founders of the milling interests of Baraboo and otherwise a leading early resident of that city, "followed the lakes" as a sailor and the owner and navigator of a vessel. He first shot the rapids at
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Grand Rapids, Wisconsin, and in the early '40s became acquainted with Skillet Creek and Baraboo. Clinging closely to the explanation of his title, it should be added that in 1846 the men of Sauk County had so strong a notion of organizing a military company that they recom- mended the lake captain as a proper person to command and drill them. Governor Dodge, in fact, commissioned him captain, although the com- pany which he was to lead was never organized. But Captain he was, and Captain he remained through life-a double-barreled Captain.
COL. STEPHEN V. R. ABLEMAN
Col. Stephen V. R. Ableman, one of the ablest and most enter- prising men in the county, never saw service in the field, but obtained his military title through years of experience in connection with the New York militia. He was born in 1809 and when thirteen years of age was apprenticed to learn the trade of a joiner and a carpenter, but in his sixteenth year, by the consent of his masters, enlisted as a drum- mer in the New York National Guards, Ninth Rifle Regiment. After a military service of seven years in minor capacities he was elected captain of the company. He was thus commissioned in July, 1833, by Governor . William H. Marcy, and five years later was elected Colonel of the 249th Regiment, New York State Militia. Subsequently and previous to his departure for Milwaukee, he held various civil offices, besides doing a large business as a carpenter and contractor. At the Cream City he engaged in the manufacture of sash, doors and blinds, and in 1850 sold his interests, moved temporarily to Baraboo and commenced to improve the lands which he had already taken up. Colonel Ableman served as United States Marshal for the State of Wisconsin in 1853-58, and while acting in that capacity he arrested the slave Glover. His important con- nection with railroad enterprises as they affected Sauk County has been described. He was president of the Baraboo Air Line Railroad Com- pany, which was the direct means of bringing the Chicago & North Western Railroad to Sauk County, and out of respect for him the station and Village of Excelsior became Ableman. While personally and unof- ficially surveying the route of a valley railroad, before it was actually surveyed and built by the North Western, the Colonel stopped at the strategic point in the route, known geographically as the Narrows, de- cided that a railroad never could miss that point, and therefore bought lands there. He was right, and in 1871 he realized one of the great ambitions of his life-"to sit on his porch and see a train go by." He died at his pleasant home in Ableman on July 16, 1880.
FIRST CIVIL WAR ORGANIZATIONS
No scetion of the state responded more promptly to Lincoln's call for the first 75.000 men "to put down the Rebellion" than Sauk County. Within a few days, still in April, 1861, fourteen men from Sauk County
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and Prairie du Sac, and twelve from Baraboo, had enlisted in the Madi- son Guards, which military body had promptly sent an enlisting agent into Sauk County. They were drilled by A. G. Malloy, also a volunteer, who had served in the Mexican war, and was employed after the war as a United States revenue collector in Texas. Meetings were also held to organize a home company at Baraboo, which was temporarily effected by choosing Mr. Malloy captain and D. K. Noyes, first lieutenant. On the 18th of April the Baraboo Volunteers to the Madison Guards drove out of town, with flying colors, and drum and fife.
SAUK COUNTY CONTRIBUTES TO THE MADISON GUARDS
Among those who thus joined the first ranks of the Sauk County soldiers of the Union army was Albert B. Porter, who, fifty years after- ward wrote as follows of the departure and subsequent career of Sauk County's first contribution to the Union cause, known in the service as Company E, First Wisconsin Infantry, "for three months:"
"Fifty years ago, in response to President Lincoln's call for seventy- five thousand volunteers, there responded to that call eleven; and the first of Sauk county's youthful citizens who came forward and enrolled themselves under the leadership of Corporal Sam Nash of the Madison guards, afterwards known as Company E, First Wisconsin Infantry, were for three months. Here appear the names of those who enlisted April 17, 1861 : Oscar Allen, Harvey Ames, Scuyler Hill, John Foster, A. D. Kimball, Fay Lock, E. N. Marsh, C. W. Porter, A. B. Porter, Ferdinand Stone and Amer Sutcliffe. The next day being Sunday there assembled on the public square, now called the park, the greater portion of Baraboo to bid the volunteers good-bye, the exercises being opened by prayer and followed by an address by F. W. Jenkins. Then came hand-shakes, kisses and tears when we were loaded into a conveyance driven by four horses and with drums beating and flags flying we left our homes to assist our country in fighting for the flag and the Union.
Arriving at Madison at sunset we were driven to the American House, our temporary quarters, and refreshing ourselves with supper we soou sought rooms for sleep and rest. On the following morning we received a call from our future captain, Geo. E. Bryant, who informed us that there was already enrolled for his company two hundred recruits wherein eighty was the limit as required for a company. He requested that we come down where all recruits were being drilled and par- ticipate in drilling, and being so well pleased, he informed us to con- sider ourselves as members of his company. Soon after, the company was ordered to Milwaukee to go into camp where the First Wisconsin Infantry was being organized and on receiving uniforms, guns and equipments, we commenced our first arduous duties of the life of a sol- dier in company and battalion drill, which continued for one month. Vol. 1-22
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Then each company was ordered to be mustered into the United States service; said duties being performed by Major MeIntyre of the regular army, our command being known thereafter as the First Wisconsin, three months' Regiment, commanded by John C. Starkweather. Soon after the regiment received orders to proceed at once for the seat of war, and on one Sunday morning in the month of June, a train con- sisting of twenty ears, divided into two sections, pulled out of Milwaukee loaded with the youth of Wisconsin, some of whom soon gave their lives and limbs as a sacrifice to their country.
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