USA > Wisconsin > Brown County > History of Brown County, Wisconsin, past and present, Volume I > Part 22
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The amount of personal and real property in the several towns at this time was :
Real estate. Green Bay
$184.075
Personal
$34,650
Real estate. De Pere
117,857
Personal.
1,950
Real estate. Howard
33,908
l'ersonal
5,900
Real estate. Wrightstown
29.354
Personal.
250
Real estate.
Lawrence
24,260
Real estate. Pittsfield
13.277
By legislative cnactment of February 27. 1854, Green Bay was incorporated as a city, and on April 4, of the same year, a popular vote transferred the county seat from De Pere to the former place. The contest caused much more excitement than was usually manifested at town elections, but everything, so it is reported. passed off very quietly, without any exhibition of ill feeling or angry rivalry. Jonathan Wheelock, of Lawrence, was again the chairman of the county board in 1854, but became disqualified through his removal from that town during the year and Andrew Reid was elected in his place, John P. Arndt being elected chairman.
With the removal of the county seat from De Pere, the question of a suitable court house and jail became a pressing subject of debate with the board of supervisors. The only building in Green Bay at all of reasonable size or adapted for the purpose was the Town Hall, even then an old building, which stood on the southeast corner of Adams and Doty streets. The building comprised one large room on the ground floor and four in the upper story. It was never considered by the Board of Supervisors as suitable or proper, but lacking any- thing better, was rented for the purpose.
On July 6, 1854, five hundred dollars was appropriated for the purchase of stone for a fireproof court house. \ building committee was appointed to consist of John P. Arndt, Francis Desnoyers and Oscar Gray. In the interim of waiting the Board decided to rent for county offices and a place to store the records, two upper rooms in the newly completed building of Howe and Haynes, which stood on the southeast corner of Washington and Doty streets ; in later years used for a small hotel, the Whittington House. This square two- storied house, built by James H. Howe and his partner in law, Silas Haynes,
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HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY
was unusual in that day because of the material used, which was brick made directly on the ground, described at the time as "a very beautiful wall, little if any inferior to granite, and far handsomer than any brick with which we are acquainted. The machine and material can be taken directly on the ground where the building is to be erected." (G. B. Advocate. ) The concrete blocks were about twelve by six inches in size and look as though they may have been made from the sandy loam on which the house was built. The front and sides of the building have been covered with modern brick, but at the rear can still be seen ( in 1912) the original gray blocks.
The court house committee reported to Chairman Daniel W. King and the members of the board on January 25, 1855, that they had contracted with Nathan Goodell, Astor's real estate agent. for the purchase of lot II, block 13, Astor, for $500. This was the lot on Adams street adjoining lot 12, on the corner where stood the town hall. The resolution was then passed that the county board should erect a fireproof building, forty-four by twenty-four feet in depth, two stories in height, to accommodate four offices and on March 8, 1855, three months later, a committee of three. composed of John l'. Arndt, Oscar Gray and F. E White, were instructed to accept bids and close contracts for a building forty-eight by twenty-four feet.
The fort buildings were at this time regarded with favor by the County Board of Supervisors as a place for county meetings and also as a possible jail. but Major Shaler, the retired officer in charge, stated that he had no power to lease them for any purpose, and Judge Stephen R. Cotton gave his judicial opinion that the buildings were totally unfit for jail purposes because of their insecurity and also because of being on government land. The board acquiesced in Judge Cotton's opinion.
The court house building proposition hung fire for lack of funds, and no report was handed in by the building committee of work having been begun. On the fifteenth of November, 1855. the sheriff was authorized to remove the judge's bench, desk and the benches from the De l'ere court house to the court house in Green Bay. Meantime the county building in De Pere was still used for jail purposes ; the upper floor was also rented for the sum of one dollar for public gatherings of various sorts, religious services or business meetings relating to public affairs. The building was kept clean and neat by the keeper in charge, but was five miles from the seat of justice, and for this reason as the board reported, was an added expense.
John P. Arndt, one of the most useful of inen in the practical management of county and city affairs, was again elected chairman in 1856, with Myron P. Lindsley as clerk and John Last, district attorney. Repairs were put on the old court house, a low picket fence was built around the building and a bridge across the slough. On March 27, 1856, Joel S. Fisk petitioned the county board to rent the upper rooms in the court house building for a select school for young ladies, the teacher, Mrs. Jeremiah Porter. This school was continued until January 1, 1857, when the rooms were rented to the city for a public school.
Judge David Agry of the county court appears to have held his judicial sessions in his own office, for which the county paid rent annually $150. When Henry S. Baird completed in 1858 his stone building with iron shutters on the north side of Pine street between Washington and Adams. now used as
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HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY
a storage warehouse, the county board decided at a meeting held on August 3, of that year, to rent Baird's new fireproof building for county offices, where the records might be kept in comparative safety. The rent to be paid $540.
The attention of the county board during these years was largely devoted to providing a place for the county poor. Up to 1856, the several towns cared for their own poor and found it a heavy responsibility and expense, but on March 12, 1856, the Board of Supervisors decided to abolish this distinction and to make the poor a county charge. The United States government was petitioned to sell private claim 18, on the east side of Fox river, for a poor farm. This property was a part of Camp Smith, and was originally owned by Judge Jacques Porlier. On it stood the old Protestant Episcopal mission house, which the county board hoped to utilize temporarily, but at the November meeting of 1856 the commissioners for the poor reported that they had used their best endeavors to secure the property without success.
At the March meeting of 1857. the committee in charge of the county house brought before the board the following offers of land for this purpose: A site on Fox river, six miles above De Pere, offered by Daniel Whitney for $10.00 per acre ; James Boyd, a farm of 120 acres for $6,000; Paul Fox, one of 129 acres, $2,500: Dr. Israel Green's farm in Ashwaubenon, 140 acres, $5,000, and H. S. Baird's farm of 120 acres for $1,500.
Two months later on May 14, 1857, the county board decided on and ordered the purchase of the present poor farm site, 112 acres from David P. Saunders for $1,600. The property was on the regularly travelled road to Bay Settlement,-the lower road which followed the line of the bay shore ; the upper road was not opened until several years later. This county purchase proved an excellent investment. The land was good and well adapted to farming purposes and in the course of ten years was reported as being nearly self supporting from the fine crops raised there. A comfortable house was built, and the management from the beginning seems to have been almost uniformly satisfactory.
In 1860, Dorothea Dix of New York state, the famous philanthropist and the one above all others who improved the condition of prisons, poor houses and insane asylums throughout the United States, visited Green Bay and De Pere in her tour of inspection through Wisconsin. Iler report on the Brown county institutions is most encouraging and commendatory of the poor commissioners. The neatly kept, although small buildings, the beautiful situation and well culti- vated bit of farm land 'backed by its acres of still untouched forest impressed Miss Dix most favorably. In a letter to "Honorable John P. Arndt and Mayor Goodell" Miss Dix writes that her visits to the county jail in De Pere and to the poor house lately established beyond Green Bay were necessarily short. She found the jail clean and well ordered, unusually so for an old building, and humanity and kindness were shown by the warden, Mr. Cooley. Her impressions were also favorable in regard to the poor farm and the care bestowed by Mr. and Mrs. Wright on the inniates.
In July, 1857, Lorenzo Brown was elected chairman of the county board. The committee having the matter of the poor farm property in charge were, David Agry, John P. Arndt and William Field, junior. The members reported at this meeting that the property had been purchased from Saunders.
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HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY
At the July meeting of 1857 the court house committee presented their plans for a new building, complaint being constantly made of the old town hall and jail and their inadequacy for the purpose being obviously manifest. It was to be a structure 45x90 feet on the ground floor, two stories high with four fireproof offices on the lower floor, and a court room 45x70 feet on the upper floor. The building was to be of brick or stone, with a belfry in the centre of the roof. At the November meeting of that year a resolution was adopted to issue $30,000 bonds to build the court house and to begin its erection and that of a jail early in the spring.
The heirs in the Astor estate had released for the county court house the public square, known as Calhoun Square, in the plat of Astor and today known as St. John's Square.
At the November meeting of 1857, John P. Arndt, chairman of the court house committee, reported that it would not be expedient to erect both court house and jail at that time. The total valuation of the county in 1857 was $1,228,830 but money was terribly scarce because of "hardtimes," and Judge Arndt, who had a generous sympathy toward the overburdened taxpayer, urged that the court house project be allowed to rest until there was more cash avail- able, and recommended that "as prison the county has none," a jail be erected early in the following spring. Times were indeed bitter hard in the year 1857. and the financial depression in Wisconsin. in common with the whole country was only equalled by that of 1837. Banks all over the United States went to the wall, and the lumber interest which had become the great moneyed industry of Brown county received a heavy blow. It was very difficult to collect taxes: farmers for the most part were emigrants from the old country, who were hewing out their way from a dense wilderness. The taxes were exorbitant for the real value of the property and Green Bay the largest town in the county only extended in the fifties as far back as Madison street, and that was ju the woods.
The government census for 1850, gives the entire population of Brown county as 6.215, and that of 1860 as 11.795. Roads and bridges were an urgent necessity with the increase of population, but the board with limited means found it impossible to make muchi practical headway in this direction. In 1858, the application of Ilarry E. Eastman, mayor of Green Bay, that the board give the city of Green Bay authority to bridge "East or Devil river" was approved by the supervisors. A petition to open Doty street to Devil river was received in August of that year, and at this same meeting in 1858. $75 was allowed to Lawrence and Holland for bridges, $30 for a bridge across Plum creek, $100 to Borough of Fort Howard for completing bridge on Wolf river road ; also on September 14, $200 to the town of Bellevue to complete a bridge then in process of erection across Devil river.
The history of Brown county is difficult to follow at this time each year brought changes and the rapid increase in the population from foreign countries changed economic conditions. The county board increased in size each year members from newly organized towns taking their seats.
The road to Shawano was ordered opened in January 1858, and recommended as of great public benefit to the county and as opening up a fine section of country for settlement. In the meantime a large number of plank road companies had
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HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY
been organized, that of Green Bay and New Franken in 1856 being amorg the first, with George S. Armstrong as incorporator.
It was agreed that the meetings of the supervisors should be conducted with more formality and in May, 1859, John P. Arndt, James H. Howe and James S. King were appointed a committee to draft rules of order and it was voted that the rules of procedure and order of business should be strictly adhered to.
The following year the board signed a petition to the state legislature asking that the onerous tax imposed on the county for state purposes be lightened, and that the owners of land in the county of Brown be relieved from an unequal and burdensome tax.
The war period meant busy times for the county board. The first railroad the Chicago and Northwestern went through, bridges were built and the court house project was definitely settled. Schools throughout the county were begin- ning to be established and it was voted that the county school superintendent be paid $700 a year ; also that supervisors, many of whom came from a distance, be given one dollar a day extra. The first district school house in De Pere was ordered built in .August 1857, at a cost of not more than $1,000.
There was some opposition to the railroad and complaint that it was pushed through in the interests of the mill men, but on May 19, 1862, the county board to aid in the enterprise, resolved, that, "in conformity with the provisions of the act of the legislature of 16th of March, 1860, and act of April IOth, 1861, and in accordance with the vote of the legal voters of the County of Brown under the said law, there be issued bonds of said county to the amount of $49,500. The sale of stock to be negotiated through the Bank of Green Bay."
On February 24, 1864, the question of the unfitness of the town hall for court house purposes was again discussed, and two months later it was resolved. John Last, chairman, that the lots 87, 88 and 89, offered by W. D. Colburn be purchased for $2,800. Later in the same year a contract was entered into by members of the board with J. B. Van De Mosselaer and H. J. Busch, acting as a committee from the Holland Catholic congregation for the sale of the court house building to that congregation for $475 and the lot for $1,200. On November 16, 1864 the property was handed over to the Holland congregation.
On April 15, 1865, the County Board of Supervisors met pursuant to agree- ment, John Last, chairman presiding and members all present. Mr. Aldrich offered the following resolution which was adopted. Resolved, That the members of this board have heard with the most unfeigned regret and sorrow the startling news of the sudden death of His Excellency, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, and of the Honorable William H. Seward, Secretary of State, who have fallen under the ruthless weapon of the assassin, Resolved, That out of respect to the memory of the illustrious deceased, the board do now adjourn-to meet two weeks from this day, Saturday the 20th inst. Signed, M. P. Lindsley, clerk.
In the fall of 1865, the soldiers were crowding home from the war just ended, and in November the county board in discussing the much vexed subject of taxation decided "that all those persons possessed of property *
* still are and will in all probability for many years to come be liable to have their means
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HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY
curtailed by the large amount of taxes direct and indirect which they have to pay to government in consequence of the expenditure incurred by the latter in carrying on the terrible conflict in which we have lately been engaged. Yet that expenditure has been of vast benefit to the lower classes through the immense bonus and high rate of wages paid to the soldiers and others employed about the army during the war."
Prosperity shone over Brown county. Money was made rapidly and easily. the lumber industry was booming and Green Bay said to be manufacturing more shingles than any other part of the world. The fish business too was a lucrative pursuit and the new railroad was carrying to Chicago carloads of the finest fish to be found in market, sturgeon, muskellunge and white fish. There were no refrigerator cars in those days but the fish were thrown into open cars, and covered with ice and reached the Chicago market in prime condition.
The new court house was finished in 1866, Kemnitz Brothers the contractors. It was a square substantial building the lower part stone, the upper stories of brick crowned by a cupola, the court room was on the upper floor, the county offices on the second story, the jail and keeper's house in the basement. It was considered well built and altogether a credit to the county, and was used until the handsome and modern court house completed in ign, was ready for occupancy.
( References for Chapter XVI: Proceedings of the Board of Supervisors : Hist. of Northern Wisconsin ; Strong, Territorial Wisconsin : Journal of Legis- lative Council; Maes. Souvenir Blue Book of De Pere; Ms. Notes on De Pere from Wis. Hist. Soc. ; Green Bay Advocate. )
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CHAPTER XVII
THE FOX RIVER IMPROVEMENT COMPANY
By far the most important subject occupying the attention of Brown county and its several towns during the two decades' following the year 1840, was transportation and the opening up of roads throughout Wisconsin.
The waterways that form an important feature in the settlement and growth of any country are of special interest in the history of Brown and neighboring counties, for through them ran the historic Fox-Wisconsin highway that from 1634 onward was traversed by a procession of picturesque and awesome figures. The Indians with blackened faces and spears hung with the scalps of their victims stealing up the river's vine-hung course in their birch canoes, intent on surprising some other tribesman's camp; the keen, decisive faces of Perrot and Dulhut, who knew that they stood daily in danger of treachery and sudden death ; the black robed fathers of the Jesuit mission making pastoral visits, their canoes propelled by an Indian or a Canadian donné .- all, as we study the history of this area of country now called Brown county seem connected primarily with its water highways of bay and river.
Following the period when Indians or singing voyageurs carried various forms of water craft across the rapids of Fox River came the strenuous attempt of early pioneers to make this stream the accepted route of communication between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi, and the "Fox-Wisconsin River Improve- ment" the confident hope of this entire section of country was inaugurated. The story of this ambitious venture, its vicissitudes and triumphs occupy many pages of our local newspapers up to the year 1860, and the reports of congressional com- mittces and the legislative bodies of Michigan and Wisconsin in regard to it would alone fill a volume.
The first movement made by the inhabitants of Brown county toward the furtherance of this project was in the year 1829 when "An act to incorporate the President, Directors and Company of the Summit Portage Canal and Road Company" was introduced before the legislative council of Michigan Territory, and was approved by that body on October twenty-third of the same year. The bill recites that the company is formed "for the purpose of cutting a canal to connect the Fox and Ouisconsin rivers at what is usually termed the Portage of the Ouisconsin and for the erection of piers, wharves, warehouses and other necessary improvements in and about said canal and road.
"That the stock of said company shall consist of one thousand shares of ten dollars each and that John P. Arndt. Morgan L. Martin, John Lawe, Lewis Rouse, Henry S. Baird and Joseph Watson shall be and they are hereby appointed commissioners to receive subscriptions for said stock." Provision was further made for a turnpike road to be built running parallel with the canal.
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HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY
Following the approval of the Michigan legislature a convention was called in Menomineeville to discuss the best method of carrying on the projected improvement. Railroads at that time were a scarce luxury even in the eastern states, the only line in use being that between New York and Washington which included in its meanderings the city of Philadelphia. It was not to be imagined that this mode of travel would reach the Green Bay region for many years to come, but a cut through the portage which was little over a mile in extent and formed the only barrier separating Fox river from the Wisconsin would give free communication from all lake ports through to the Mississippi and New Orleans.
Morgan L. Martin as the delegate from Brown county to the Michigan council in 1831 actively pushed the enterprise, and so vigorous was the effort to obtain an appropriation wherewith to inaugurate the work that Governor Dodge in his first message to the Wisconsin territorial legislature in 1836, recommended that a memorial be sent to Congress asking for means to carry on the survey and improvement of the Fox river from its mouth to Fort Winnebago. In 1838 the governor also recommended that the legislature memorialize Congress for a grant of land to aid in the improvement of both the Fox and Wisconsin rivers.
In 1839 the first movement by the general government toward the improvement of the Fox-Wisconsin river highway was made. Captain Thomas J. Cram of the topographical engineers under direction of the war department made a prelimi- nary survey of the rivers and an estimate of the cost of their improvement.
The project continued to be steadily pushed by practical promoters and in 1845 the measure petitioning Congress for a grant of land for its accomplish- ment was again introduced. In September of the same year Morgan L. Martin was elected as member of Congress from the Brown county district and immediately threw all his influence and enthusiastic championship of the pro- posed measure toward the successful furtherance of the work. He secured the passage of an act, approved August 8, 1846, making a grant of land to the state upon its admission into the union for the improvement of the Fox river alone, and the building of a canal across the portage between the two rivers. The grant covered every odd-numbered section within three miles of the canal, the river and the lakes, en route from the portage to the mouth.
The second issue of the Green Bay Advocate, August 20, 1846, hails this auspicious event in mighty headlines of black type, "Passage of the Appropriation Bill for the Improvement of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers" and predicts a new era for Green Bay and the country thereabouts. "All praise is due to our delegate, the Hon. M. L. Martin, for his unremitted exertions in effecting this measure."
Green Bay, ever given over to many merrymakings, immediately called a meeting of its citizens at the town hall to decide on an appropriate reception for their congressional member which was enthusiastically attended; and a banquet, ball, and supper were promptly arranged, all which events took place in due order. "The dinner at the Navarino House was well attended, and the way the good things were piled on to the board, and vanished before the guests
did honor to the excellent catering of the host, Mr. DeQuindre. * * * Many excellent toasts were given. *
* In the evening the ball at the Astor House drew the dancers together, and the way matters went off there was evidence
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HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY
enough of the excellence of Mr. Green's way of doing things. The music was excellent : the managers acquitted themselves well, and the whole party wore glad faces as they wound through the mazy dance, and
"smiles Played meteor like on beauty's cheek, As if contagiously ; and sparkling lamps Poured forth a deluge of lustre o'er the crowd, While music, like a siren, weaned the heart From every grovelling and contentious thought, From every care."
The supper won a thousand compliments for the worthy host, and he never was more "at home" than on the present occasion. * The small hours came and found the music and assembly still there and not idle-and we are not sure but that many had the morning sun to lighten the way home."
When the second constitutional convention was held, this proposition on the part of Congress was endorsed, and at the first session of the state legislature the latter body passed an act, approved August 8, 1848, appointing a board of public works, consisting of five persons, and providing for the improvement of the river. The members of the board were elected in joint session of the legislature the same day as follows: Hereules L. Dousman, Curtis Reed, John A. Bingham, Albert S. Story and James B. Estes. (W. Il. S. Colls. V. Il.)
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