History of Buffalo County Wisconsin 10847607, Part 18

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stood it, he summoned the negligent debtor before his own court, passed judgment in his own favor and was only prevented from levying execution by some one, I think it was Jacob Bronnenkant of Fountain City, expostulating with him on the error of his pro- ceedings.

In Alma Berni built himself a shanty on a hill, both of which have since disappeared, but were close to the present railroad de- pot. In the lower part of the ravine north of his shanty he began to manufacture brick, which he probably continued for three years, when, his money being gone, he had to quit the business. After- wards he supported himself and his family by teaming. He died in 1878 and left quite a family, all of whom are now grown up. He was very honest, but also very improvident. In the laying out of Alma and its additions he had no part or interest.

JOHN CONRAD WAECKER.

Of this one of the early pioneers I know more than of most of the others. I did not know him in the old country, although by accident I might have seen him when we were boys. John C. Waecker was born in Unterhallau, Canton of Schaffhausen, Switz- erland. He was left an orphan or otherwise unprotected, and was educated at an institute under the control of some missionary so- ciety at the village of Buch, less then two English miles from the birthplace of the author of this book. The education he received at that place was probably limited to common elementary branches, and not much enlarged by his subsequent transfer to another of similar character at Beuggen near Basel. His experience from that place to the Twelve Mile Bluff we do not know, but it appears that he had parted from the missionaries and their labors, and learned to think and live, like other mortals. He was some- what eccentric and . unreliable. His land he selected in Sec- tions 19 and 30, of Township 21, Range 12, about 4 miles be- low Alma, between the bluffs and the slough and erected upon it a claim shanty, over which in course of time the government surveyors ran a section line. He built his house near the line again, but entirely north of it, In 1853 he married Sabina Keller. This was one of the earliest marriages consummated in Belvidere. Waecker lived on his first farm until 1872, when he bought the property of Henry Neukomm, about one mile nearer to Alma. He remained upon that until 1879, when he removed to Ada, Norman

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County , Minnesota, where he died in consequence of a kick from a horse in the year 1885. He left two daughters and one son.

CASPAR WILD.

He was born at Gossau, Canton of Zurich, Switzerland, in the year 1815. He is therefore now 72 years of age. Of his life before he settled in this country. we know but little. He enlisted in the volunteer army for the war with Mexico, and after the disband- ment of that army came to Galena, and soon after to Holmes' Lan- ding, where he arrived on the 7th of November 1848. He found in that place Henry Gokrke, Adam Weber, Andrew Baertsch and Claus Liesch, the two last named being his countrymen. He re- removed from the settlement about three miles to the southeast locating near his present place of residence, the well-known Stone House, at the angle of the river, where it turns for about three miles straight towards Winona. Here he maintained himself and reared his family by dint of hard work. During last spring he made application for and received his pension as a veteran of the Mexican war. He was undoubtedly the first settler in the present town of Buffalo, although he did not enter any land previous to 1854, at which time, and soon after, he entered land in Sections 23, 26, 27, and 35 of Township 19, Range 11.

MADISON WRIGHT.

The foregoing were the most generally known of the pioneers of Buffalo County, being for the most part connected with the two central points of settlement, Holmes' Landing, now Fountain City, and Twelve Mile Bluff, now Alma. Of pioneers located in the up- per part of the county before it attained political. existence I remember but one, Madison Wright of Missouri, who located in 1848, as a squatter upon the land that was afterwards owned by Andrew Wright, his brother, who did not, however, reside upon it. The situation of it is in Section 11, Township 22, Range 14, oppo- site Wabasha, a short distance above the ferry landing. The land was entered in 1858. In 1868 when I surveyed the land of Mr. Wright, he was an old gentleman, living in a loghouse in primitive wood-camp style, nor do I think he ever departed from this until his death on the 19th of August, 1879. The place of his residence being somewhat separated from, though situated in the town of Nelson, Madison Wright never meddled much in the politics of his town or the county, being more attached to Wabasha. He

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lived and died a bachelor. It is a remarkable fact that after his death an account for burial expenses, coffin etc., was presented to the county of Buffalo by the firm of Lueger Bros. of Wabasha which account was rejected as a piece of impudence, since it was well known, that, if Madison Wright had really died in poverty, it was because he had spent all of his means at' Wabasha, or had been done out of them by boon-companions or others of that place. General Remarks on Pioneers.

The name of pioneer is mostly synonym with first permanent settlers, though occasionly persons who merely make a temporary stay for some purpose in an unsettled country are called by the same name. In the latter sense we might claim the early French as pioneers, though they never intended to be such. Indeed they did little or no pioneer work, and all their attempted settlements or actual trading posts have disappeared from' this neighborhood, although traces of them remain in some names, as for instance: Prairie du Chien, La Crosse, Trempe-a-l'-eau, Eau Claire, Pepin, Frontenac, St. Croix, St. Paul and' a whole number of others too tedious to mention. The French were adventurers, which is not to be wondered at, as the country itself had passed out of the pos- session of their nation 130 years ago, and they could not hope to build up a French community, colony or state. It was similar with Englishmen or Scotchmen after 1783. Entirely different it was with Americans of every description Yankees, Southerners or from the Middle States. And it is true that Americans after a while were very efficient pioneers. At first, however, they assimi- lated themselves much with Frenchmen, English and Scotch ad- venturers, and even Thomas A. Holmes, considered as the pioneer of this county, was rather an adventurer, who left after the situa- tion ceased to answer his purpose. The real pioneers of our county those who stayed and opened roads, built bridges, cultivated lands, founded homesteads for themselves and induced others to come and do the same, were Germans or Swiss of German nation. ality. I do not mention this because they were of the same na. tionality with myself, but simply as a matter of fact. Neither do I wish to say they were the pioneers of every town of the county, since some of the towns were settled much later than the county as a whole.

In the above biographies, which are all that could be given at

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Milton, (changed to Eagle Mills 1858,) July 20. 1861.

Madena, November 12.

1867. Canton, May 8. Montana, July 8. 1870.

Dover, November 18. 1871.

Lincoln, at the Annual Meeting of the County Board.

Alterations of towns or boundary lines after that date had no connection with settlements.

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Whether there was any political organization connected with++ the supposed civilization of the Mound Builders; and what that : organization .was or seems to have been, can. not now be told with any certainty ... As we have no authentical monument of their .. presence within this county, it does not appear necessary to mention . them in this connection. The discovery of America, accomplished , as it was under the Spanish flag seems to have, according to cus -.. tom and tradition, made all of it a part of the Kingdom of Spain,. at least nominally .:: But if the country at that time had been lost. to the Spaniards, and discovered by some other nation, it would. .. have been very difficult for the former to prove property., or even . possession, for they could hardly have given any description of it, by which it could be known and recognized. We find, therefore; other maritime powers follow, not in the wake of the Spanish ships, but their example and discover parts of a new world, to the whole-of. which Spain might have laid claim by right of priority: . . But as early as five years after the first landing of Columbus: in the West Indies, Cabot discovered, under the English flag, the coast of North ... America. Cortereal under Portuguese flag. discovered and. ex- plored another considerable part of the eastern coast of the same .. continent. .. He was followed by the Verrazanis under the French . flag as early as 1523, though the French seem to claim that their .. fishermen visited the banks of Newfoundland as early as 1504. In the mean time the Spaniards, being in possession of the West India Islands began to explore the neighboring continent. The first seems to have been Grijalva 1510, but more important was the discovery of Florida by Ponce de Leon in 1512, for on this Spain founded its subsequent claim to the whole continent. His own attempt and that of Narvaez to take possession of and bold in subjection that country, as well as the attempt of Ayllou to subdue Chicora (South Carolina), though abortive still proved the claim.

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This was strengthened by the expedition of Hermando de Soto in 1538, the principal result of which was the discovery of the Mis- sissippi River in 1541, and the subsequent navigation of his sur- viving followers to the mouth of this river. After the failure of his expedition we find that for twenty four years nothing of conse- quence was attempted in Florida or or any of its dependencies, but 1565 San Augustin was founded by Melendez.

But in the mean time the French had sent over Cartier in 1534. He sailed up the St. Lawrence, spent the winter in Canada and discovered and named Montreal island.

Six years later De la Roque and Cartier tried with but little success to plant colonies of French on the St. Lawrence. Further attempts are not on record until 1598, but no success attended the different enterprises of the French, whether supported by the crown or the Huguenotts, until Samuel Champlain came to Canada in 1603, though the first colony of the French was not made by him nor on the St. Lawrence but by De Mouts, first at St, Croix Island at the mouth of St. Croix River, afterwards at Port Royal, now Annapolis, the spot being selected by Poutrincourt, who served under him.

In 1608 Champlain came in the employ of an association of private persons, incorporated by the government, and began to occupy and improve the present site of Quebec.

We find therefore, that Spain had made the first permanent settlement on what was properly considered the North American Continent. The English, whose marine was even then rivalling the marines of France and Spain, had not been entirely idle. After the discoveries of Cabot an attempt was made to find the Northwest Passage by Martin Frobisher, 1576, in which he dis- covered on the coast of Labrador what was supposed to be gold, which occasioned another expedition 1577, and still another with the intention of planting a colony for the purpose of working the supposed gold mines. In the mean time Sir Francis Drake had explored the Western coast of the continent up to Lat. 43º North in 1579.

In 1579 Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a stepbrother of Sir Walter Raleigh, made the first, and 1583 they both sent out a second ex- pedition with the intention of colonization. This expedition took possession of Newfoundland for the Queen of England, and on its

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same ocean and unlimited towards the north. In a similar man- ner the French considered that, de jure, the possession of the St. Lawrence River and its basin and dependencies extended the same "distance. " The territory now forming the State of Wisconsin was involved in all of these conflicting claims. Its western half be- longs undeniably to the valley or basin of the Mississippi, to "which Spain laid claim by virtue of the discovery of that river in the authorized expedition of De Soto and the possession of the adjacent countries of Texas and Florida: The same part of coun- try lies entirely between the latitudes of 42º 30' and about 47º, or the latitude of the present states, at that time colonies, of Massa- chusetts, New York, Vermont; New Hampshire, and Maine, and hente within the charter limits of them or some one or the other. Finally, its eastern and northern part belonged to the basin of the Great Lakes, the unquestionable dependencies of the St. Lawrence System of drainage, to which the French had' established their 'claim by discovery, exploration, settlement and military posses- sion. This was the position of affairs at the time of the earliest settlements on the Atlantic coast.

We find that the first permanent occupation of the St! Law- rence valley by the French happened one year after the English 'settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. From and after that time they secured and extended their power, at first under perpetual oppo- sition of the Indians, of which the Iroquois; (Mingoes or five Na- tions) were the most formidable. The company of Frenchmen, of whom Champlain was the representative and principal agent, soon surrendered their charter to the King and a royal government was instituted. The governors extended the dominion of France gradually and we find that as early as 1665 there was a post at Mackinaw and soon after there was one at Green Bay in this state. In the year 1680 the discoveries of Marquette, Joliet, La Salle and Hennepin extended the knowledge, if not the actual possessions, of the French to the Mississippi and its' eastern .tributaries.# La Salle went down the river to its mouth, and although he finally returned to Green Bay, Mackinaw and Quebec, he occasioned the first voyage from "France'to the Mississippi: Though this expedi- tion was a Milure; and disastrous to himself, it must nevertheless be considered as 'a l'egal acknowledgment of his action in claiming the Mississippi country for the crown of France and naming it

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Louisiana. ' The latter was soon after settled by Bienville at Biloxi and afterwards at New Orleans, and other places and the claim of France to Louisiana, which at that time included the whole basin of the Mississippi, remained thereafter undisputed according to the law of nations. As far as Wisconsin' was concerned the claim appears thus to have become a double one. We shall find more of the above named men and their achievements under the head of early explorations. The attempt of the French government to connect New : France, as Canada was then called, with Louisiana by a continu- nous chain of fortified posts led to the French and Indian war, the old French war of revolutionary times. The special events of this war, although otherwise very interesting, can not expect any place in this narrative. The final result of the war, however was most important for the country now within the limits of Wisconsin. This result was nothing less than a total surrender of New France including Canada, and the country around the Lakes as well as all the eastern part of the Mississippi Valley with the exception of a small tract near the mouth of the river, to England. At that time, that is in 1763, the French posts or settlements in Wisconsin were limited to two, at Green Bay and Prairie du Chien, though other temporary posts had probably existed and been abandoned. The English took possession of Green Bay in 1769. Whether they took formal possession of Prairie du Chien is not of record. The war of the Revolution, which terminated with the peace of Paris on the 30th of November, 1783, secured not only the independence of the United States, but also the surrender to them by England of all the claims, rights and titles the latter had to any lands; or territories in the Mississippi Valley. The United States did not, however, assume actual possession of posts established there until 1796, after the ratification of Jay's treaty. By the ordinance of 1787, which may be considered the Magna Charta of this western country, the several colonies relinquished. the claims, which they had to this part of the newly acquired territory in favor of the United States or the general government. This important docu- ment not only provided fundamental laws for the land north of " the Ohio River but provided also for a division of the same into five States, Wisconsin to be the fifth, but it must not be imagined "that' that name was used." This particular provision of the great

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ordinance will turn up at the time of organizing the state of Michigan, and, as a consequence thereof the separate territory of Wisconsin. As it was, the country north of, and bordering on the Ohio was organized into the North west Territory embracing the present states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, besides that part of Minnesota situated on the east side of the Mississippi River, to which the limits of the territory unquestion; ably extended.

The first governor of this vast, but very imperfectly known territory, was Gen. Arthur St. Clair, appointed 1787 and the first delegate to Congress from the same was Gen Wm. H. Harrison (old Tippecanoe) and afterward President of the United States.

Gen. Harrison was appointed 1798 secretary and ex-officio lieu, tenant governor of the territory, in place of Winthrop Sargeant, and held that position until 1802, when, Ohio having-been admitted a a state, and the remainder of the Northwest territory having been organized as the Territory of Indiana, he was appointed the first governor of the latter. In 1805 Indiana Territory was divided and the Territory of Michigan formed, which embraced also Wis- consin, designated at that time as the part west of Lake Michigan.

In 1809 Illinois Territory was organized in that part of the Territory of Indiana lying west of the Wabash River and Lake Michigan and from the Ohio northwards to the boundary line be- tween the United States and Canada. Indiana and Illinois having been admitted as states in 1817 and 1819 respectively, Wisconsin. was again united with Michigan into one territory and remained in that dependence until July 4th 1836, when it was organized as a separate territory. Its first governor was Henry Dodge. The Territory embraced at that time all the land north of the line of the state of Missouri between the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, hence all of Iowa and Minnesota with some parts of Dakota as well as the part now enclosed by the limits of the state. As a sum- mary of the political history I shall give the condension of much more than I intended to give from the History of Wisconsin Terri- tory by Moses M. Strong page 214 and 215.

1. From 1512 until 1627 claimed by Spain as a part of Flo- rida, which was discovered by Ponce de Leon. This claim, even allowing its validity, was never more than ideal, as far as Wisconi

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248 1.

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tinet part .: An essential part of political life and history is the administration of laws, but laws suppose the existence and pres-> ence of civilized persons acknowledging them. It is not necessary nor is it sometimes possible, to ask the consent, but: it is always important, to demand and compel,, if need be, the submission to the laws. , Confining ourselves now to the history of the precise spot, of which we intend to speak, we may . dismiss. the period of the supposed, Spanish possessions with the remark that there were no laws, nor any persons; to whom, and by whom, they could be administered ..: Whatever may have been the legal or actual period t. of the possession aforementioned, there is no trace left of any man- ifestation of power, or authority .. having been exercised . in this country by the Spanish with . the exception . of the settlement att St. Augustin, Long, nearly half a century, afterwards, the French power was established permanently in Canada, and began . to ex- tend itself like a thread, along the waterways and we find in: 1634 the first civilized man penetrating into a locality which now is in- cluded within our state. . During the 26 years which elapsed be- . tween the permanent settlement by Champlain at Quebec and the visit of Jean Nicolet to Green Bay an intermediate post had been established at Mackinaw, though not on any other point in the chain of lakes and rivers of which the St. Lawrence forms estuary. .

The French as well as the Hurons and other Indians went from Quebec by way of the Ottawa River to Lake Nipissing and Lake Huron and thence to Sault St. Marie and Mackinaw .. Dur- ing all these times of French supremacy. but little if any, law was , observed by the traders in transactions with the Indians, but in their dealings among themselves and with their dependents they were generally considered as amenable to the "Coutume de Paris," that is, the common law of Paris or of France.

By the Quebec Act of 1774 the criminal law of England was. introduced into the newly acquired possessions, in civil matters,. however, the law of Canada .was to prevail. . The constitution and the laws of the United States may be considered to have been in. force from and after the organization of the Northwest Territory, , and such special laws as may have been enacted from time to time by the legislatures of the territories, to which Wisconsin be. longed in succession as related above.

Having now brought down. the political history of the state

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to the time when Wisconsin, under that name and title, was established as the "Territory of Wisconsin " we must bring in a synopsis of the history of that territory, containing the names of the two representative officers of it, that is of the governors and secretaries, and the time during which each of them held his position. Governors and secretaries of territories are appointed by the President of the United States, and the secretary was the acting governor in the absence of the governor, or his disability to perform the duties of his office. He was not in the sense of the state constitution lieutenant governor, since be was not ex-officio president of the Council. The latter was elected by districts ac- cording to an apportionment of the territory by the governor.

The number of its members was regulated by the number of members of the Assembly. This also was an elective body of about twice the number of members of the council, similar to the proportion which has been adopted into the constitution of the state. The legislative sessions of the territorial times were some- times rather stormy on account of disagreements with governors and secretaries acting as such. They were, also, occasionly agit- ated or excited on account of disagreements with Congress, who had the supreme jurisdiction in all matters, and not only annulled laws passed by the territorial legislature, but also sometimes neg- lected to provide for the necessary expenditures to carry on the ter- ritorial government. Nevertheless it seems to have been a pre- judice of the population of the territory, that it was better to be dependent upon the general government, than to depend upon themselves. The growth of the population was not so very rapid as in territories organized at some later times, and its spread was, even after the adoption of the state constitution, very slow in the western parts lying north of the Wisconsin river, or its lower course.

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History of Buffalo County Wisconsin 10847607, Part 18

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