USA > Wisconsin > Brown County > History of Brown County, Wisconsin, past and present, Volume I > Part 23
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For a couple of years the prospect for a speedy completion of the conten- plated work seemed bright. A steam dredge was constructed and put to work on the upper Fox. Contracts were let for the canal and locks at Portage, and for the improvement at Rapid Croche. At De Pere it was found that Joshua F. Cox was so anxious that the work should be done on the east side of the river that he was willing to undertake it for one dollar; while Curtis Reed was to pay five thousand dollars for the privilege of building the northern channel at Winnebago Rapids. Sales of land had in 1849 amounted to $49,500 and in 1850 to $53,161.
But the next year told a different story. The land sales seemed to have reached their limit and as this was the only source of revenue from which the board could meet its expenses the work at Grand Chute and Cedar Rapids had to stop for lack of funds. With liabilities of $75.000 and only $8,000 in the treasury affairs may well be termed in bad shape.
While matters were in this condition Morgan L. Martin made a proposition to the Wisconsin legislature through its Governor Nelson Dewey to do the work from Green Bay to Lake Winnebago excepting that which the board of public works had finished or was already under contract for. The board had dug the canal at Portage before there was any steam navigation possible on the lower Fox.
Martin's proposition was in effect that the state should not be held liable for expenses attending the completion of the improvement, but that the tolls and the sale of lands should supply the means to reimburse him. The governor in his message to the senate said: "It is believed that the proposition of Mr. Martin is a very favorable one for the state, and if accepted will ensure the final com-
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pletion of this important work at a much earlier day than the state can possibly accomplish it, in any other constitutional manner. *
* The early com- pletion of this improvement will be promoted by its acceptance and would be economical."
The legislature of 1851 accepted Martin's proposition and he went to work with about five hundred men commencing at Kaukauna. Operations were carried on throughout that season, along the entire distance from Green Bay to Lake Winnebago.
The contract read: I propose to complete the whole work on or before the first day of May, 1853, the same to be accepted as fast as completed. The work to be paid for from the sales of land granted (and to be granted) in aid of the improvement, so far as the funds can be raised from that source. The amount due for the whole contract when completed, and remaining unpaid, to constitute a debt against the improvement, the interest of which at twelve per cent, shall be paid from tolls to be collected on the work, and whenever the state shall realize funds. either from sale of lands or any other source, and pay the balance due on the contract. debt to be discharged.
Governor Farwell came into office on the 5th of January, 1852. On the 16th in his message to the legislature, the governor reported that $26,000 had been paid for the season's work, in state scrip, and intimated that Martin's contract was unconstitutional. Ile afterwards refused to give Martin any of the serip that had been lawfully earned. and the incorporator was obliged to secure the passage by the legislature of an act authorizing the secretary of state to give certificates of indebtedness, instead of the governor. This was vetoed April 9. 1852, Governor Farwell laying great stress on the claim that the bill was in violation of the spirit of both the act of Congress making the land grant and the constitution of the United States.
Public indignation ran high over the governor's action which practically meant ruin to the work and its incorporators. Attorney General Experience Estabrook however gave it as his opinion that the scrip issued to Martin was constitutional, , and a joint committee of the legislature reported unanimously that the work had been conducted well and honorably. The legislature, therefore, passed the bill over the governor's veto. and Martin resumed work. The trouble with the governor. however, had greatly shortened the season, and it was not until July 14th that Farwell consented to have certificates issued under the act, and work could be recommenced.
At the legislative session of 1853, the governor proposed, in a message dated February 9th, to "submit the works to private enterprise" and have the skirts of the state cleared from all financial responsibility. It was urged by Farwell that the moneys realized from the sale of lands were insufficient to meet the state's obligations ; a company was therefore formed styled the Fox and Wisconsin Improvement Company, of which Morgan L. Martin, Mason C. Darling, Otto Tank, Edgar Conklin. Benjamin F. Mooers, Joseph G. Lawton, Uriah H. Peak, Theodore Conkey and others were members. The articles of association were dated the Ist of June. 1853. This company was incorporated by the state under act approved July 6th, and to it was transferred the entire work, under condition that it fulfil the obligations of the state to all classes of contractors on the improvement.
GRASSY ISLAND LIGIIT
ENTRANCE TO FOX RIVER
THE. PUBLIC LIAALE
AUTOR, LEPRIX SPECY TILDER FOUNDATMAN.
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In April of the same year it was resolved by the board of supervisors of the county of Brown, "that the faith of the county of Brown is hereby pledged to the punctual payment of seven per cent of interest on any certificates of indebted- ness hereafter to be issued to Morgan L. Martin and White, Riley and Arndt, contractors in the Fox River Improvement Company, provided that the principal sum of said certificate of indebtedness to said Martin does not exceed the sum of $40,000 and to the said White, Riley and Arndt the sum of $6,000. No such pledge or guarantee shall be placed upon said county unless approved by the legal votes to be polled upon the subject at an election for this purpose to be held pursuant to the provisions of an act passed the 14th of May, 1853, in the several towns thereof."
Meanwhile the great advantage accruing to the lower Fox river had become apparent in the utilization through the "improvement" of the river's tremendous water power. By the year 1856 the southern line of the bridge at De Pere had a succession of saw mills in busy operation. The prediction made by Brown county citizens in their satisfaction over the land grant made by Congress, had been more than fulfilled. "The emigrant has said of the Fox river valley that there are no mills or at least very few. * When the work of improving the navigation commences dams will be thrown across at the different rapids, for the purpose of making slack water, and thus half the expense of erecting mills is done away with" wrote a prospective millwright in September, 1846.
The heart and soul of the people were bound up in the successful completion of this work which meant much in a commercial way to this whole section of country, but sectional and official jealousies were ever hatching new troubles and the delay and litigation incident on the continual wrangle at Madison hampered the work. Charles D. Robinson, secretary of state, in 1852 wrote editorially in the pages of the Advocate. "From a paragraph in a Madison journal we infer that an attempt is on foot at the capital to see what can be done in the way of frustrating the whole plan of the enterprise ( The Fox-Wisconsin Improvement )-to kill it.
"We say to all, construct your railroads, build your plank highways, dig out your water courses when you can profitably do so, create your harbors, and you shall hear from us nothing but words of encouragement and congratulation on your good fortune and fair prospects-only show a little of the same spirit of liberality and neighborly good will toward us when we are striving to do a little something for ourselves."
Notwithstanding these drawbacks the improvement company went bravely on with the work, and the following notice was published :
"September 26, 1855 .- In compliance with a resolution passed by the Board of Directors of the Fox and Wisconsin Improvement Company, I hereby give public notice that the water will be let into their canals between Lake Winnebago and Green Bay and after the Ist of October next, and that passage for boats may be expected within a fortnight thereafter.
"Until the lock and dam at Little Kaukauna are completed, or until the present low stage of water is raised it is not advisable to pass boats with more than three feet draught of water. The old locks at De Pere and the Croche also will Vol I-12
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not readily admit boats of greater dimensions than 130 feet in length by 30 in width.
C. D. WESTBROOK, JR. Chief Engineer."
In June. 1850. the first boat, the Aquila, passed through the works- coming from Pittsburgh down the Ohio to its mouth, then up the Mississippi to the Wisconsin river and thence to Green Bay. The Green Bay Advocate of June 19, 1856, devotes three columns to the glorification of this great enterprise :
FOX RIVER IMPROVEMENT COMPLETED :
The First Steamer From the Mississippi River
When news was received that the Aquila was really on her way a meeting was called, Mayor Harry E. Eastman in the chair and Hon. Frank Desnoyers acting as secretary. "A committee of five consisting of James H. Howe, Judge Arndt. Hon. John Day, Colonel Charles Tullar and Edward Hicks was then appointed by the chair to superintend the arrangements for the reception of the Aquila. A special committee consisting of Edgar Conklin, J. C. Brown and Mayor Eastman was also appointed to meet the band at De Pere."
At De Pere
Its denizens were up and dressed and many of them had gone forth to meet the bridegroom. Their house tops and hill tops and mill tops were decorated in the most enthusiastic manner. In the absence of any big guns the boys had loaded up the furniture of two blacksmith shops and when at four and a half o'clock the boat hove around the point half a mile above the dam there was such a thundering of blacksmiths' tools as if Vulcan had employed Jupiter to do a special job. * There was but one throat in De Pere and it was hoarse with loud and long repeated exultation. The music of many waters roared with new vigor. The shrill steam pipes shrieked with increased delight. The dozen saw mills seemed to see plainly as saw mills ever saw that the long expected contingency had arrived, that the good time had come. in short that "the logs had come down" and all that saw mills cared a pinch of saw dust about on this earth was aboard. The spoke factories spoke sixty times a minute.
"Now let the lazy world wag on, We'll have an easy ride."
After discharging cords of freight the Eagle darted through the lock like a shuttle, and "the child was born" and was cradled on the bosom of our own beautiful "La Baie Verte."
The boat was in command of Captain Steve Hotaling, son of the late Captain Peter Ilotaling, who in 1841 brought the first river steamboat ( the Black Hawk) from Lake Erie to Fox river and made an unsuccessful attempt to take her over the rapids to Lake Winnebago.
A mile this side of De Pere, off Point Chapman, the Aquila was met by the steam tug Ajax. The splendid brass band of Menasha, a magnificent troupe (God bless their souls) from the hurricane of the Aquila struck up "See the Conquering Ajax Comes." Every where along shore were the wildest demon-
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strations of delight. The grounds of Hon. M. L. Martin, the father and architect of this great work, were hung with banners, flags and appropriate symbols, giving them the appearance of a hard day's washing.
That glorious old veteran, Major Shaler, keeper of Fort Howard, had gone home to an early dinner, which he forgot to eat-to feed other wide open mouths of metal and brass, who too would rather speak than eat on such an occasion, and as the Aquila rounded to, opposite Fort Howard, they did utter a language intelligible to all the nations under the sun. The shores and docks and ware- houses and lumber piles and stranger steamboats and sail craft and all the aisles and avenues leading to the water side were filled and covered and crowded with a living mass of crazy humanity.
The company and officers of the Aquila landed at the dock of Messrs. Hayward, Goodell and Whitney, where they were received by the Germania Fire Company. the Turner Society and citizens forming a procession, at the head of which was that prince of marshals, Nathan Goodell, Esq .. the mayors. H. E. Eastman of Green Bay and General Turner of Menasha, the foreman of the fire company, H. Reber. Chief Engineer F. Lathrop and the leaders of the Turner Society, B. Bosenfeld and H. Althof.
A stage had been erected outside of the United States hotel, and here the speaker of the day, James H. Howe, gave his welcoming and congratulatory address, which ended with these words, "Above all and beyond all this, the Fox river valley shall be the nursery and the home of free men, and side by side dotting al! its rich landscape shall be those two agencies of civilization, the school- house and the church of God." Following addresses by Judge Cotton and others the company adjourned to the steamier Sultana, Captain Appleby in command, where was held a dance and a banquet.
By act of Congress, approved August 3, 1854 ( construed by resolution of March 3, 1855), the Improvement Company had obtained an increase in the grant of land made by government to aid in the completion of the work, for the work was broadening out as years went on and the depth of water sought was greater than at first. The state had not received the entire amount of land contemplated in the original act, as many of the alternate sections covered by the grant had been previously disposed of by the government. The act of 1854 authorized the selection from any public lands in the state then subject to entry at $1.25 an acre, enough to make good this deficiency.
Under the act of incorporation this increase in the land grant was of course claimed by the Fox and Wisconsin Improvement Company, but the state also set up a claim on the ground that only the lands originally granted should be conferred on the company. In a controversy of this sort the state naturally had the upper hand and in 1856 the company was required to reconstruct a portion of the improvement, and the improvement itself, as well as the lands, then unsold, was placed in the hands of trustees, who were to pay the indebted- ness which the state had already incurred, and after that the bonds of the company.
The legislature under chapter 64, general laws of 1855, authorized the Improve- ment Company to increase its capital stock to $250,000, and that same year its incorporators were compelled to seek outside capital to swing the enterprise. Assistance from New York was solicited, and prominent capitalists, including
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Horatio Seymour, Erastus Corning, and Hiram Barney, gave their support to the work. This aid however proved too much for the Fox river valley finan- ciers. The New York men deranged the company's plans, and affairs were soon in such a condition that the trustees were forced to sell the improvement and the remaining lands which passed into the hands of the New York capitalists.
The sum received from the sale was sufficient to pay the expense which had been incurred in the execution of the trust, the indebtedness which was then outstanding against the state, and to leave an amount equal to the estimated cost of the remainder of the improvement. The state thus retired from the field without financial loss, but with a stain on its honorable record that is made more apparent each year as the completed story of. the Fox-Wisconsin River Improvement is rehearsed. Not only did the principal incorporators of the enter- prise from Brown county suffer financial ruin from the state's repudiation of its just debt, but the whole Fox river valley was involved and crippled by the refusal of aid by the state and its attempt rather to hinder and handicap in every way possible the success of this important work.
The New York company which had purchased at the sale organized as the Green Bay and Mississippi Canal Company but the work did not long remain in their hands. The interposition of Congress was secured and an appraisal ordered of the improvement, water power and lands of the company. The board appointed for this purpose found that there had been expended on the work in the twenty-five years since the land grant had been made, over two million dollars. The value of the property of the company was fixed at $1.048,070, and the law directed that there be deducted from that the amount raised from the sale of lands, or $723,000, leaving $325,000 to be paid the company. But it was further provided that the secretary of war might elect to purchase the whole property, or either the water power, the improvement or the personal property. The secretary decided that only the improvement should be bought and for this $145,000, the sum fixed by the appraisers was appropriated by Congress.
The Fox-Wisconsin Improvement thus passed into the hands of the federal government, and since that time has been treated as any other piece of river improvement. Under government superintendence the old wooden locks were replaced by substantial ones of stone and concrete. Very considerable sums have been appropriated for the work, the greater part of which seem to have gone for damages to the property holders along the river. Work on the Fox river, particularly the part below Lake Winnebago, still continues and the great water power has been developed.
Six hundred and eighty-four thousand, two hundred and eighty-nine acres of land, nearly two million dollars of private capital and much more in public money has been expended on the two rivers, but for navigable purposes only that portion from Green Bay to Oshkosh has proved of any great value. A regular line of boats has for years plied between these two cities, connecting at Oshkosh with boats to Berlin and up the Wolf river. The immense results anticipated by its first incorporators were never realized but in interest the story of the Fox-Wisconsin River Improvement and its heroic fight against odds, holds prominent place in Wisconsin history.
( References for Chapter XVII : Sanborn, Story of the Fox-Wisconsin Rivers- Improvement, Proc. 1899: Green Bay Advocate, 1846-56; Ms. Papers of M. I .. Martin ; Legislative Council of Mich. Ter. 1829 : Wis. Hist. Colls. Vol. II.)
CHAPTER XVIII
LUMBERING IN BROWN COUNTY
It is a saying that America presented a timbered front to every settler who approached her shores; her glorious forests stretching for thousands of miles with little break in their even expanse were at once the despair and the salva- tion of the carly emigrant of Brown county. The country was heavily tim- bered to the water's edge with beech, maple, oak, pine, ash, elin, birch and bass- wood, and through this forest land the settler must hew his way in order to carve out a home. The French colonists never attempted to penetrate the in- terior, building their comfortable cabins close to the edge of river or bay, clear- ing only so much land as would give them a fair expanse of garden soil.
Among the most interesting records of early days in the register's office at Green Bay are the Indian deeds ceding lands for milling sites along Fox river and the bay. We find one executed by the Menominee nation in favor of Jacob Franks in 1794, and which probably included his mill site at DePere. In the census of 1820, Michigan which included Brown county had 491 sawmills. By 1850 Wisconsin was in the field with 278 mills. Capital of $1,006,892. In 1870 Michigan had come to the front in value of products with a valuation of $32,000,000. In order came Pennsylvania, New York, and fourth Wisconsin. In 1880 she took third place, New York having dropped fourth in rank, and in 1890, Wisconsin had jumped forward to second place in valuation of products, Michigan still in lead with $83.133,000, while Wisconsin stood at $60,960,444. In 1900 Wisconsin led with 1,066 sawmills.
By 1825 sawmill "sites" were in great demand along Brown county's wind- ing streams. John P. Arndt in August, 1826, leased a mill site on the west side of Green bay, and the deed which transfers the property from the Indian own- ers is an especially fine example of dignified language. "Whereas our Great Father, the President of the United States has for the benefit of his red chil- dren of the Menominie Nation directed that a grist and sawmill be erected in our neighborhood and has given permission to John P. Arndt to do the same ... Know all men by these presents that we Oaskash alias 'the Claw' Oh-ke-me-ne- shaw alias 'Great Wave' Sthai-ki-tok alias 'Scare all' chiefs of the Menominie Nation of Indians residing in the vicinity of Green Bay," etc. The conditions were, "that the said John P. Arndt his heirs and assigns shall yield immediate and quiet possession of said mills with all their privileges to the United States government when it may be required; and that he will also saw any timber which may be required for the public service upon reasonable terms. 2d, That the said John P. Arndt, his heirs and assigns shall commit no unnecessary waste of timber. 3d, That the said John P. Arndt shall furnish the Menominie
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Nation with all the lumber they may want for their own proper use, and grind any grain they may want at the said mills gratis. 4th, That the said John P. Arndt * * * shall pay annually to the Menominie Nation on the first day of June the sum of fifteen dollars."
In 1831 Samuel Stambaugh in a report on the quality and condition of Wis- consin territory speaks of the many fine mill sites. Already the lumber in- dustry marked a second epoch in the commercial life of our county. The fur trade was rapidly dying out, settlers were too few to make agriculture a gen- eral and profitable business, but the great forests of pine that stretched in ap- parently boundless extent towards all points of the compass opened up a field of unlimited opportunity and sure results.
Judge Arndt seems to have been one of the most enterprising of these mill men of the thirties. In 1836 he built a sawmill on Duck creek, in addition to the one erected by him in 1827 on the bay shore.
One of the most interesting industries of this day was the pioneer furniture factory of Wisconsin, started at Green Bay, in 1836, by Emmons W. Follett. The building in which this factory operated is still standing on the corner of Walnut and Washington streets and is known as the Bay City House. Follett went out into the forests, felled the trees, sawed the timber, hauled and sea- soned it, and then made the entire machinery used in the making of the furni- ture. No iron was used in the construction of the machinery. The motive power was supplied by a horse, yet Follett's furniture was well made and his business increased to such an extent that he was obliged to fit up larger quar- ters for his work.
In 1850 we read that. "Our magnificent and boundless forests of pine are alive with hardy industrious men engaged in getting out vast quantities of timber, and yet there is an urgent call for more laborers at higher wages than was ever before offered. New sawmills and shingle factories are springing up all around us, yet there is difficulty in filling orders as fast as received. One of our extensive shingle manufacturers, I. Ingalls informs us, that he got the highest price for the very heavy lot he shipped from here to Chicago by the last trip of the Michigan' than has been found any previous season."
The Ellis mills and farm in the town of Preble, the property of A. G. Ellis, first surveyor general of Wisconsin, were on Ilell creek, which became Hill creek when the newspapers wished to be respectful and polite. There were on this pretty stream a saw and grist mill, a machine shop, two dwelling houses, a barn and a blacksmith's shop, all built by General Ellis and his home was there for many years. It was so far out in the woods that bears roamed in the vicinity of the house, and the pine cut grew directly around the mill. This was the case with all these early mills. One old lumberman says: "we built our mill anywhere in the woods where there was a good stream, and cut the tim- ber all about us. It usually kept us busy for a good many years then we began to buy up lands a little farther off." Gerhart Bong, when he came to Green Bay from Germany in 1859, then a boy of eighteen, went to work in one of these forest mills and helped to build it out in the woods. It was the only industry at that time that employed any large number of men.
In 1850 the government census shows that the amount of capital invested in Wisconsin mills was $1,006,892, value of products $58,611.978. In 1854,
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