USA > Wisconsin > Buffalo County > History of Buffalo County Wisconsin 10847607 > Part 25
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43
The first regularly graded road in the town of Nelson was the one up Spring Creek ravine, by which a numerous population, on the bluffs between Trout Creek Valley and the Chippewa or Beef Slough Bottoms was accommodated. This was followed by the grading from Centre Creek Valley to the bluff in a general south- ern direction. Then came the grade up from the Norwegian church near the Southeast Corner of Sect. 12 in Township 23 North of Range 13 West, all of which was executed by myself, as well as some smaller operations, one of which was the equaliza- tion of the grade on western decline of so-called Norwegian road.
In 1877 the eastern descent of the Alma and Waumandee road was planned and built, and the crossroad from the upper part of Little Waumandee Valley to Montana. Numerous other graded roads have since been built, but it is to be hoped, that many more
345
TRANSPORTATION.
will yet be planned and finished. The introduction of the railroad necessitated the dislocation of some roads along of it, which in cases led to decided alterations. So for instance, was the road from Rieck's house in Section 24, Township 20 North of Range 12 West, changed towards the east, to avoid the Sand Prairie. There had been a road in that direction for a long time, but on account of some difficulties in the proper construction, it was only occasionly used. A similar dislocation took place between Alma and Beef River bridge. Something ought to be said of the way the immi- grants arrived in the northern parts of the county, in most cases transporting all the necessary furniture for kitchen and house. Some of them came by way of Mississippi and landed at Fountain City or Alma, and moved to their respective locations as the roads were beginning to be marked out. Others came directly by land by the old road, from La Crosse to Black River Falls and then, keeping together in groups for mutual assistance, not against In- dians, but on account of difficult roads, wending their ways to their several destinations. One of the earliest pioneers of that region, Mr. S. S. Cooke, moved in 1856 in the month of June to his place in Section 27, Township 23 North of Range 10 West, in the south- ern part of the Town of Dover, where his oldest son Chauncey C. Cooke, Esq., still resides. It took the family two days to reach their destination, but they already found an intermediate stopping place at Patrick Mulcare's house in Glencoe. Of prominent people at or near Mondovi I know from accidental mention in my pres- ence, that they came by the landway, as indicated, and it stands to reason that they did not always have a roof to go under when night arrived, being obliged to camp out. One who has never seen the " Prairie Schooner " creeping through the valleys and over the hills, followed by the passengers who might also be called its crew, and by the few domestic animals that could be driven, or followed voluntarily, would not realize this once most prominent mode of travel and transportation. It was seen by myself as late as 1886, when out surveying a few miles from Mr. Cooke's place. The disadvantages of this way of traveling through an unimproved country, destitute of roads and bridges, and of places of shelter, present themselve, so vividly to the mind of every reader, as not to require particular description; but the advantages, at least those who adopted it, were almost equal to the inconvenience. They
346
TRANSPORTATION.
could live on what they had along with them, or what they were able to purchase cheaply at some cultivated station; they therefore needed but little or no money. Against rain they were in some measure protected by the cover of the wagon, and fuel to start and maintain the necessary fires was in most places in this county abundant, and had not to be carried along, and this life in the wilderness was, after all, not so very different from that which many of the travelers had been leading in the frontier settlements from which they came, and which they would probably have to live for a time in those they intended to plant. It must especially be re- membered and considered that most of this kind of travel was per- formed during the later spring or during summer and early fall. This was necessary especially on account of cattle and horses, for which even steamboats, as far as they might be employed, had but very unsatisfactory arrangements. But on land grass cost no more than the cutting, while water of the purest kind was to be found everywhere along the roads or trails across the country.
The ranks of old settlers who came to their homes in this primitive manner, are now sadly thinned, and soon no one will remain to tell the tale of the mingled hardship and enjoyment of. these expeditions, but all of them that I had the pleasure to get acquainted with, looked back upon their adventures with much more satisfaction than regret.
We have mentioned all kinds of transportation but one, which I know from personal observation, sometimes was executed. This is the transportation of flour, and very likely of other things, occasionally, upon the backs or shoulders of early pioneers. Even as late as 1859, most of the provisions were brought into the county by steamboat from Galena, although a mill had been started at Fountain City and one at Eagle Mills, possibly also the one at Gilmanton, then Mann's Mill. There were still some set- tlers who had either no wagons, or no passable roads to their ca- bins, but bread was needed, and flour must be brought, so the most natural, though at the same time most primitive, tedious and exhaustive, way of transportation had to be resorted to. It is well to mention this, if for no other purpose than to show our posterity to what toilsome expedients their predecessors were sometimes reduced for the maintenance of themselves and their families.
THIS PAGE IS LOCKED TO FREE MEMBERS Purchase full membership to immediately unlock this page
DELVE INTO FANTASY, MAGIC, MYTHOLOGY & FOLKLORE
Forgotten Books Full Membership gives access to 797,885 ancient and modern, fiction and non-fiction books.
Continue
*Fair usage policy applies
348
TRANSPORTATION.
commodate itself to circumstances wherever it was introduced, until from the solitary postillion, mounted on a stout horse, and armed to the teeth, it gradually metamorphosized into the stages, still sometimes accompanied by guards, lumbering along slowly and heavily on poor roads, finally on carefully constructed ones, until to-day it comes along at railroad speed in comfortable quar- ters. It is one of the most interesting phases in modern develop- ment, how out of such a small and unsatisfactory arrangement in the course of time the gigantic service was developed, which now is ramified into the farthest corners of the world and by which a letter is brought across an ocean for the insignificant sum of five cents, and for two cents is carried through thousands of miles in the United States. It is impossible to follow the march of im- provement in all the details connected with this important factor of modern public life but I imagine it must have been about thus:
1. Regularity, dependent on security and reliability of ex- ternal provisions and arrangements, such as roads, bridges and relays.
2. Speed, requiring great improvements of roads and bridges more and extensive relays, hence a greater number of stations, horses and vehicles.
3. Cheapness. Establishments having to be kept up, they could only be remunerative, if used by the public in general, and the public could only use it, if prices were reasonable, and would use it the more in proportion to cheapness.
Of course this does not apply to our own country and present time, as far as development is concerned, yet it may not be amiss to call attention to it, since to a certain extent this development must occur in about the same successive steps in every country and may be traced from colonial times to the present.
Experience has demonstrated the necessity of retaining the mail or postal service as a government monopoly, though in this country it is modified by the contract system. The extension of mail routes is concommitant to the extension of population, and the means of transportation used are determined by circumstances. Below I shall give a table showing the successive establishment of post-offices in this county. As every one knows, we received the mail at first by steamboat at the regular landings, and from these it was distributed to the interior offices as soon as such were estab-
349
TRANSPORTATION.
lished. In the intermission between the seasons of navigation the mail was carried by stage coaches or wagons, frequently sleighs, from some places already reached by railroads. to every interme- diate point, a mode of conveyance still necessary and practiced for the interior offices not on railroads. In these cases the passenger transportation is independent of the mail service, and has never been connected with it here, except as the arrangements for mail ser- vices would furnish regular opportunities of conveyance.
The following table shows the names and most other things of interest concerning the post offices of Buffalo County. Names of consecutive incumbents of these offices will be found in the de- scription of the several towns.
350
POSTOFFICES IN BUFFALO COUNTY.
Names.
Location.
Time of Establishment.
First Postmaster.
Present Postmaster.
Time of taking Charge.
Ada ......
In the city.
Sect. 30, T. 21, R. 11 ...
Feb. 12, 1868.
Robert Henry ...
Robert Henry.
.Feb. 12, 1868
Camp No. 1 ..
May 9, 1887 .. ... March 1858.
Charles Schaettle.
Nicholas Weinandy
June 16, 1886
Near station.
June 14, 1887. ... Ang. 23, 1872 ...
Bb Bohri .....
Gottlieb Bohri
Aig. 23, 1872
Fountain City. .
In the village. Sect. 14, T. 23, R. 11.
1858.
W. Loomis.
J. W. Howard.
. May 15, 1866
Lookout.
.
ald not get any report from this office, At the R. R. station. |1874.
J. Zatsch.
Lawrence Schneider.
.1878
Mha Mokwa ..
In the village ..
1871.
Jas. W. Kelley.
Wm. Chafey.
April 8, 1887
Modena ..
Sect. 23 T. 23 R. 12.
1863.
Benj. F. Bek
H. J. Canar.
Oct. 18, 1886
Mondovi.
In the village ..
1858.
Robert Nelson ..
J. D. Pace.
Mfch 22, 887 .. $80
Montana ...
Sect. 36 T. 22 R. 11
1870.
Fred. Zeller ....
Aug. Helwig, Jr ..
Nelson.
In Fairview Village
Ernst Warner ..
John F. Butler.
.. July 28, 1886
Sect. 8 T. 23 R. 12 ..
1872.
Ole P. Urnes.
S. S. Braford ..
Dec. 6, '77 and July 20, 883
Urnes. Wu AIdee .. . | Sect. 21 T. 21 R. 11 .
857.
J. H. Manz ..
Chas. Kirchner
.. In 1871
.
W. H. Gates. ...
M. W. McDonnell.
.. Sept. 21, 1885
Anchorage. Beef Slough. .... Buffalo .. .. Cochrane ... · Cross ...
In the cy ..
Jos. L. Rohrer ..
Jos. L. Rohrer
.June 14, 1887
Sect. 5, T. 19, R. 10.
1854.
7 fain Pierce ...
John B. Oenning.
Jan. 18, 1886
Gilmanton ..
Glencoe'.
Sect. 28, T. 21, R. 10 .....
[Sept. 1858.
Phil. Smitb ..
.Spring 1887
kih may sply be abandoned soon.
Marshland. .
George Scott ...
Geo. Scott
.May 8. 1887
TRANSPORTATIO
T
THIS PAGE IS LOCKED TO FREE MEMBERS Purchase full membership to immediately unlock this page
----
Rijs YoGs
RiJA YOGA
Rig: Boc
RAJA YOGA
Answers
€
RAJA YOGA
RAJA YOGA
Za&cce PC
Never be without a book!
Forgotten Books Full Membership gives universal access to 797,885 books from our apps and website, across all your devices: tablet, phone, e-reader, laptop and desktop computer A library in your pocket for $8.99/month
Continue
'Fair usage policy applies
352
TRANSPORTATION.
idea were made. The permission of the Indians being necessary for settlement and establishment of any factories or posts, Judge Lockwood of Prairie du Chien obtained that permission of Waba- sha, the chief of the Sioux, to build a saw mill on the Red Cedar, now Menomonie River. Gen. Street, Indian Agent at Fort Craw- ford was his partner in the business. It would be tedious to fol- low up the development of the trade thus begun, but after the ex- periences of almost forty years after the first beginning, during which time the valleys of the Chippewa and the most important of its tributaries had become settled and were finally inhabited almost exclusively with white men, the Indians being expelled, cities like Chippewa Falls and Eau Claire founded, it became ap -. parent that the transportation of the pine timber had become not only necessary for the wants of the people dwelling below along the Mississippi, but that it would no longer be profitable to have all the lumber manufactured upon the spot, thus submitting this immense interest to the exclusive control of a comparatively nar- row strip of country and the few men it, who had the means to build and run saw mills, and who virtually had the monopoly of the pine lands. It is true, that the establishment of mills had been attended with risks and dangers, with losses and disasters, but it is just as true that many of these losses and disasters could and would have been avoided if the experience of the past could have been made available in the beginning. The owners of pine land had an indisputable right to dispose of their timber as it suited themselves, and navigation upon the Chippewa for their logs could not be prevented nor prohibited. The question was to find some safe reservoir for the reception, storage and manipulation of these logs. This reservoir was found in the Beef Slough and its connections and ramifications. There are rumors of quiet explora- tions of the slough by several men even in the earliest times of the settlements. Victor Probst, one of the earliest settlers at Alma, used to relate that a stranger, whom he met somewhere on Beef Slough, almost directly told him, that this would in no very distant days be used for the very purpose for which it now serves.
I have under the head of Topography given a description of Beef Slough and its relations to the Chippewa, the Beef River and the Mississippi so that it will not be necessary to say more about that. The obvious connection of the Slough with the Chippewa
353
TRANSPORTATION.
River was known to pilots and if they also knew the difficulties and intricacies of it, they were quite excusable, if they preferred the main channel, though it did look smaller at the parting from the slough. This circumstance was illustrated in the following anec- dote: In the year 1835, Jefferson Davis, then a young lieutenant in the United States service, stationed at Fort Crawford, was sent up to the mills on the Menomonee to get lumber to rebuild the fort or make some addition to it. The order had been filled, and Davis and the soldiers were coming down the Chippewa under the command of an old voyageur who acted as pilot. At the critical point where Beef Slough sets off to the left, or rather seems to go on straight, while the main river turns to the right, the French- man, well aware of the situation, called out: "To de right, hard." "What's that," said the West Pointer, "you're going to run this raft right to hell? I tell you to pull to the left where the main river is." It was done and the lumber lost in Beef Slough. The crew of the raft returned to the mills for more lumber, and the officers to the fort in a canoe to report the raft broken. Though we cannot vouch for the truth of the anecdote, it still illustrates the relative situation of the parts concerned. As times wore on, and about thirty-two years after Jeff Davis' adventures on Beef Slough and two years after the explosion of his confederacy, the initial steps were taken to put the idea of creating Beef Slough a log harbor into operation. On the 27th day of April 1867, in the village of Alma the
Beef Slough Manufacturing, Booming, Log-driving and Transportation Company
was organized by the following persons: M. M. Davis, M. D. of Appleton (now of Baraboo,) Wis .; Jas. H. Bacon of Ypsilanti, Mich .; Elijah Swift of Falmouth, Mass .; C. Moser, Jr., Jno. Hun- ner, Jr., and Fred Lane of Alma, Wis.
The first meeting of the stockholders was held at Alma, May 23d, 1867, and the following Board of Directors were elected :
M. M. Davis, T. E. Crane, Elijah Swift, Francis Palms, Jas. H. Bacon, Fred Lane, and Jno. Hunner, Jr.
At a meeting held the same day, the directors chose M. M. Davis, President; C. Moser, Jr., Secretary ; Elijah Swift, Treasurer; and T. E. Crane, Superintendent.
Violent opposition to this organization was manifested on the
354
TRANSPORTATION.
Chippewa River and its tributaries by the lumbermen of the region, who had until then enjoyed a virtual monopoly of the lumbering business, not only by being the only ones in the business, but by dictating their own price in the purchase of logs cut upon land not their own. Most determined in this combined opposi- tion was the firm of Knapp, Stout & Company, whose mills were on the Menomonee, but who were also largely interested in the village of Read's Landing, Minn., where at that time the coupling and combining of lumber and lografts from the Chippewa was car- ried on, and which on account of the large number of men em- ployed in that business and other items connected with lumbering was a very thriving place, but has since dwindled down to insig- nificance. This opposition did not manifest itself in idle words only but went to work to create obstacles, which, if not removed, would render it impossible to get logs into the Slough. A dam was thrown in at the head of the slough, where Knapp, Stout & Co. owned the land on both sides. The Beef Slough Co. secured an entrance to the place by having a road laid out from a place on the Durand road close to the Chippewa, along the river and the slough, which road was an open higway as soon as recorded. The people from Alma and along Beef Slough were all in favor of the new enterprise, and when called upon to assist in the removal of the obstructions put in by the Menomonee firm, assembled in large numbers, armed and equipped in various ways. I never at- tended any of these gatherings, but I had laid out the above men- tioned road, and so was acquainted with the locality, and as excite- ments are never silent, I learned much of what happened from acquaintances, and on one of these occasions Mr. Thomas B. Wil- son was brought before me in my office of Justice of the Peace, then residing in the town of Belvidere, about nine miles below Alma. He had come down in company with Mr. A. Tainter, who with Wilson was the Co. attached to Knapp and Stout, and with a force of their men to prevent the removal of the obstructions they had placed into Beef Slough at the head of it. In course of lively debates carried on in the choicest English of river-men, with appropriate retorts from the other side, Mr. Wilson, accord. ing to complaint, seized an axe and cut a cable, and threatened summary vengeance upon all who dared to oppose his sovereign will, whereupon he was arrested by a constable of Buffalo County,
THIS PAGE IS LOCKED TO FREE MEMBERS Purchase full membership to immediately unlock this page
DELVE INTO FANTASY, MAGIC, MYTHOLOGY & FOLKLORE
Forgotten Books Full Membership gives access to 797,885 ancient and modern, fiction and non-fiction books.
Continue
*Fair usage policy applies
356
TRANSPORTATION.
and mill to guard the interest of the new company. A moderate freshet favored the drivers this spring, and it was well into June before the main force of the Beef Slough Company reached the Slough, who on their way down had cut or opened almost every boom on the river, and taken out, indiscriminately, whatever logs they contained. It seemed as though the agent of the new com- pany aggravated every hardship by ruthless, unnecessary and ar- bitrary destruction of property, and loud and bitter were the de- nunciations against him. It had been a doubtful problem even among the friends of the measure, whether logs could be success- fully driven over the broad sand bars of the lower Chippewa, and cost what it would, its feasibility must be demonstrated now, or the stockholders, already assessed for the last dollar on their stock would abandon the undertaking; the drive was therefore contin- ued after the water got so low, that the cost of driving was more than the logs were worth. But the drive was a fixed fact, and henceforth the Chippewa pinery must furnish its quota of logs, for the mills, and build up the cities on the shores of that great river, whose tributaries span two-thirds of a continent. The next session of the Legislature, 1869, witnessed a renewal of the struggle for charters, but it was a tri-party fight, with a leaning of Chippewa Falls interests towards Beef Slough, and a final coalition of the two to defeat the Dell's bill. It was not until the season of 1870 that the final charter for the Beef Slough Company became a law."
I omit some remarks of Mr. Randall, which, though perhaps not entirely without foundation, are stated in his book with the zest of partisan spirt, excusable with him, who could not but be prejudiced against the Beef Slough Company. But he was fair- minded enough to add the following:
"Although stoutly opposed, and the establishment of those works much deprecated by a large share of our people as deroga. tory to our manufacturing interests, their existence has not been without its benefit, even to its most strenuous opposers. For in 1869 the Company at the Falls having planted some immense piers directly in the channel in the big eddy just below Paint Creek Rapids, a jam of logs of vast proportions was formed against them during the spring drive, filling up the entire river for several miles with logs, piled by the force of the current twenty or thirty feet high, totally obstructing the passage of logs and rafts, __ and
357
TRANSPORTATION.
presenting a grand, almost sublime spectacle to the beholder- which jam, when broken in the July following, by the aid of two steam engines and a great force of men, filled the river for miles in extent with floating logs, pouring down in such rapid profusion, that any force the mills below could command was powerless to arrest their onward course, or to secure a hundreth part that be- longed to them. Millions on millions of feet of logs would have gone into the great river, and been lost in its thousand lagoons and bayous, which were saved to their owners by the Beef Slough boom."
In connection with this we must relate the history of the first drive, as far as our county and especially the village of Alma were concerned. The drive came down, under the command of Mr. Bacon, almost down to Alma, the Jam-Boom in Nelson not being established, or else not capable of holding the logs. The crew having been told, that they were to be paid off at Alma, they came there, and waited in vain for their money. That they grew impatient, was quite natural. It had been asserted before, that the most desperate characters had been engaged in the dangerous work to force the drive through. At first they were patient enough, but when the means for gratifiying their sharpened appetites failed to come forth, they grew riotous, and committed acts, which finally led to the arrest of six of the most desperate characters and lodg- ing them in the jail at La Crosse. Sheriff Turnbull, residing in Fountain City had but little inclination to keep order anywhere else. A company of militia was organized and armed, and the crew being at length paid off, the danger passed and has not re- turned. Even I, not a resident of Alma at the time, was stopped and insulted in coming through the street, and it was only owing to the interference of Mr. Thomas Kennedy, whose acquaint- ance I had made at the survey of the above mentioned road, that my surveying staff was returned to me and worse was prevented. Cleaning out this " one horse town " was a favorite phrase among the " boys." I do not mention it as a grudge against anyone, not even the said "boys" for I think the whole trouble and disturbance would have been prevented, if the money, which, I understood to' have been provided for the purpose, had been properly applied, and not, as was said afterwards, used for speculating in logs, in which, as rumor had it, it was lost. The company had the morti.
358
TRANSPORTATION.
fication to have its own agent after a while turning against it, try. ing to run a lumber raft through the slough to the manifest annoy. ance of its legitimate operations. The attempt was, however. made only once, and was unprofitable. Secretary Irvine of the Mississippi Logging Company says as follows:
"The first effort was not altogether successful or satisfactory to the stockholders; there were only 5,785,000 feet rafted the first season." In fact the old Beef Slough Company had become bankrupt.
At a meeting of the Mississippi River Logging Company held at Winona in September 1872, a proposition was made to them by the Beef Slough Company to sell them a controlling interest in the Beef Slough Co.'s stock. The proposition was accepted, and a new organization was formed with F. Weyerhaeuser of Rock Is- land, Ill., as President; Artemus Lamb, Clinton, Iowa, Vice Presi- dent; and Thos. Irvine of Muscatine, Iowa, Secretary and Manager, which persons have continued in their respective offices to the pre- sent time.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.