History of Dane County, Wisconsin, Part 102

Author: Butterfield, Consul Willshire, 1824-1899; Western Historical Co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago : Western Historical Company
Number of Pages: 1304

USA > Wisconsin > Dane County > History of Dane County, Wisconsin > Part 102

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).

" The earliest inhabitant will also remember Tom Jackson. He was of Scottish origin, a man of intelligence, but peculiar in his manner, amounting to eccentricity. 'Jack,' as he was com- monly called, was a ship-sawyer by trade, and came to Madison to assist in ripping out with a whip-saw much of the lumber used in the building of the first capitol. Standing in the saw-pit, the old fellow would labor hard and patiently during the long hours of the day, looking forward to the pleasures of the mug and pipe at night. He was a man of 'infinite mirth,' good natured, but awfully profane in the expression of his views, seldom if ever uttering a sentence without mixing in a fearful number of hard words. In person, he was a short, thick-set, ruddy-looking fellow, gray eyes, and his head, with a very narrow belt of yellow hair about its base, shiningly bald. Jack seldom wore anything in the shape of a head covering, and, when he did, it was but the sorry remains of a plaid cap that he brought from Edinboro' town with him. So accustomed had he been to going without one that, on returning from his work, he would frequently tuck his cap under his arm and march off bare headed, but, on being told he was not wearing it, he would place his hand on his bald head, swear good-naturedly at his carelessness, and trudge back to the saw-pit for the lost cap, never dreaming that he had it under his arm. Jack was once very much confused at a fire. The house where he was boarding, a small log house, caught fire in the night, causing no little confusion among the boarders. Jack was soon on his feet, as crazy as a bed-bug, could find nothing, and relieved himself by many a hard oath directed at persons and things about him. In his search for his pants, he caught hold of a sailor jacket belonging to one of his room-mates, and, imagining the garment to be his breeches, thrust his feet through the sleeves, and, finding them too short for his legs, uttered a fearful judgment upon the man who had cut off the legs of his pantaloons ! Many an anecdote will be remembered of old Jack by those who long ago listened to his story and song. Tom has been dead many years, and the hope is a fervent one that he has gone to a better place than he often wished his own soul."*

" Jonathan Butterfield, of Topsham, Vt., and his partner, Pinneo, who carried on a shingle factory toward the Sugar Bush, were the kind of pioneers it necessarily takes to build up a new country. They were good workmen, and useful in their way, and, when on a bender, they were the liveliest as well as the noisiest boys in the country. Near our house stood a large oak tree, the one under which Mr. Peck's family had camped when they first landed in Madison. This was a beautiful tree, valued for its shade as well as for its beauty and from association. Butter- field knew how we prized it, and, when strapped and his credit gone, his last resort was an

* George Hyer in the Madison Union.

+ Park's " Madison, Dane County, and Surroundings," p. 562.

677

HISTORY OF DANE COUNTY.

onslaught on this old tree with an ax, and the only condition on which he would stop from damaging it was to give him an order on Nelson's or Than's grocery. In this manner, to save the tree, we were repeatedly obliged to compromise with him ; then Pinneo came in for his share of the spoils. Some of the old settlers of Madison will remember the time when Pinneo, on a spree, without hat, shoes, coat or vest, captured an old white horse which had been turned out on the common to recruit, mounted the animal bare-backed, minus bridle or halter, in his right hand holding extended the jawbone of some defunct quadruped (either horse or ox), and pro- claimed himself Samson in quest of the Philistines, as he dashed through the most prominent streets of the town, creating a decided sensation. There were then no police or constable to interfere with any kind of sport or amusement one chose to indulge in.

" Another odd character of those days was Baptiste, the half-breed Frenchman, living with some Indians in the adjoining woods, who had a natural propensity to possess himself of valuable articles, such as axes, hand-saws, hammers, hatchets, shovels, etc., almost any article for which we had daily use. He often came to know if we had lost anything, and, if we had, would at once commence negotiations for the missing article. His terms were from one-half to two-thirds of its value. When the contract was concluded to his satisfaction, he would immediately go to camp and return with it, stating that some bad Indian had stolen it. My wheelbarrow was valu- able as well as very useful. It was made by a Milwaukee cabinet-maker, and cost me $12 or $15. One day it disappeared. Baptiste had taken the precaution to ascertain its value before proposing terms for its surrender. We failed to agree on the price to be paid for its restoration, and I never saw my wheelbarrow again."*

" A good many years ago, an incident occurred in Madison, illustrating high integrity, great generosity and singular unselfishness, which, I think, should be preserved.

" Among the early settlers of Madison were two single men-Robert Moore, an English- man, and James Dow, a Scotchman. Robert was always called ' Bob,' and James 'Jimmie.' ' Jimmie' Dow lived always, when I knew him, all alone in a sort of hole in the ground on the Sauk road, about two miles west of Madison. 'Bob ' lived in town with old Uncle John Mal- low, a brickmaker, with a large family. 'Bob ' often visited ' Jimmie' at his cabin ; in fact, I think he made 'Jimmie's ' house his headquarters. They were both genial, jolly good fellows; and both excessively fond of their toddy. "Bob' was famous as a whistler. Every year, for many years, he used to whitewash the old capitol fence. when he would always draw crowds by his remarkable whistling. 'Jimmie' was a well-digger, and often worked at day's work with his team of mules, which he always owned while I knew him. He could repeat Burns' poems by the hour, and was always, to use his own expression, as ' dry as a fesh.' One afternoon, " Bob' went out to ' Jimmie's,' and in the evening, feeling quite unwell, he startled his friend 'Jimmie' by telling him he was sure he should not live until morning. 'Jimmie ' protested that he was only fidgety and frightened. 'Bob ' was deeply impressed that he should die that night, and he said: Jimmie, I owe you for borrowed money $30 or $40, and I owe Uncle John Mallow more than that for board. Now, Jimmie, I am sure I shall die before morning, and, if I do, I want you to take my gun and a note I have against a man in Columbus for $30, all I have in the world, and give them to Uncle John, for he is poor and has a large family to support, and you must lose your debt. If I live, I will pay you both.' 'Jimmie' said he would. Sure enough " Bob ' did die that night. When the funeral was over, 'Jimmie' took the gun and the note to Uncle John Mallow, and that very morning he brought the note to me at my house for collection, and told me this story. I collected the note, Mallow got his pay, 'Jimmie' lost his debt. 'Jimmie' remained in Madison for a few years after the death of 'Bob,' but finally left. Where he went to I do not know. Two or three years ago, he returned to visit his old friends, but this was no place for 'Jimmie.' I did not see him, but those who did said he was still as ' dry as a fesh.'"t

* Robert L. Ream, io Durrie's " History of Madison," pp. 111, 112.

+ George B. Smith, in Park's " Madison, Dane County, and Surroundings," pp. 559, 550.

678

HISTORY OF DANE COUNTY.

AN EARLY VISIT .*

About eleven years ago [1835], a young gentleman left this city to take a tour through the Western country. His object, at first, was to go no further than Fort Wayne, in the State of Indiana. He journeyed that far in company with the late Commissioner of the Patent Office, Mr. Ellsworth, who had been deputed by the Government of the United States to make a treaty with an Indian tribe, then in the vicinity of that Fort. Mr. Ellsworth, after remaining there a short time, returned to Washington, while the young man, not then more than eighteen years old, proceeded to the State of Missouri, where he met his cousin, about his own age, residing at or near Hannibal. These young men crossed the Mississippi, reaching Rock River, and ascend- ing to the first of the celebrated Four Lakes, in Wisconsin, where they engaged the only inhabitant residing there to carry them in a canoe up the river of the Four Lakes [the Yahara ], to the north side of the Fourth Lake [Mendota], at which place there resided a solitary Indian, [Michael St. Cyr, a half-breed]. In their course up the river to the Fourth Lake [Mendota] they saw but one white man, and no Indian, except the one already referred to. The land in the neighborhood had then just come into the possession of the Government, and the Indians had, of course, left that beautiful region of country.

The travelers slept on the margin of Lake Koshkonong, near an Indian burial-place, on their journey.

They stopped also at the point between the Third [Monona] and Fourth [Mendota].Lakes, where the beautiful village of Madison, the seat of government of the Territory of Wisconsin, now stands.

At that time, the only village in the western part of Wisconsin was Mineral Point. Janes- ville, in Rock County, now one of the finest places in the interior of the Territory, had not then been thought of; nor had Beloit, a large and flourishing village in the same county. No Legislature had then met in Wisconsin, for the Territory had just been separated from Michigan. No white man lived near the site of Madison, to think of building a town then.

Two or three years after that period [the next year-1836], it was fixed upon as the seat of government; and a fine spacious building was afterward erected for the reception of the Leg- islature.

The two young gentlemen, who traversed this section of the country together, and who looked over it, while the imprint of the Indian was still npon the shores of the lakes, returned East, the one to reside in the city of Baltimore-from whom most of the particulars of this article have been obtained, while the other, delighted with this captivating section of the West, as soon as he reached the maturity of manhood, returned, and settled in Madison, and is now the presiding officer under the charter of incorporation granted to the village at the last session of the Wisconsin Legislature. t

PIONEER RECOLLECTIONS. I .- BY ROSELINE PECK.

It may be interesting to make a note of the first-born child in Madison-my own daughter, born September 14, 1837. When she was less than a week old, J. D. Doty, one of the Commissioners for the erection of the capitol, and Treasurer of the Board, arrived from Green Bay, with a large sum of specie, guarded by Capt. John Symington and a squad of soldiers from the garrison at Fort Howard, accompanied by Charles C. Sholes, an early editor and legislator of Wisconsin. They put up at our house. Doty ordered a table spread with wine, and he and his party, standing around it, as solemn as a funeral, sipped their wine, and named the young babe Wisconsiana. Simeon Mills said, as my boy's name was Victor, his sister's name should be Victoria, in honor of the young Queen, who had but a few weeks before ascended the English throne ; so that name was added, making her full name Wisconsiana Victoria Peck.

*From the Philadelphia American Sentinel, 1846.

+Thomas W. Sutherland.

679

HISTORY OF DANE COUNTY.

I visited Madison last summer [1873] with my daughter and a lady friend. The old "stamping grounds " were so changed that I could hardly recognize them. The old log house, which we used as a hotel for over a year, then leased or rented to R. L. Ream, and by him kept as a house of entertainment until we left the place, has since been removed. Mr. Ream was the father of Vinnie Ream, who was born in the cabin after we left it. I think my daughter and Miss Vinnie were the only children born there .*

You, doubtless, wish to know how we enjoyed ourselves at those times; well, in various ways. We had a regular dancing school twice a week the first winter in the old cabin. There was quite a number of young ladies and middle-aged people. Mr. Stoner brought four daughters. A. A. Bird had a young lady sister. There were two Brayton girls; one lived with Charles H. Bird and mother, the other at A. A. Bird's. Charles H. Bird married one of them ; the other taught, I think, our first school, afterward. A. A. Bird and lady used to call at our dances, and trip the light fantastic toe, and, frequently, visitors from Milwaukee, Fort Winnebago, Galena and Mineral Point were present. Among them were Uncle Ab. Nichols, his wife and daughter. The latter two went ahead of us in dancing, and stayed with us a week. We had two girls as helps of our own, and plenty of the other sex. So we could hardly call it succotash ; there was too much corn for the beans.

We had various other amusements-euchre parties, Christmas and New Year's suppers, and verbal and practical jokes interspersed. We had also turtle soup suppers, the turtles caught by cutting holes through the ice on what was called " Mud Lake," brought to us by Abel Rasdall. Mr. Peck sent some of them to a Mineral Point hotel-keeper, who informed us he netted $50 on the sale of the soup. The turtles were frozen solid, and rattled together like stones. They were put in the cellar to thaw, before we could dress them, and, going down a few days after, I found they had thawed out and were crawling around on the bottom of the cellar.

I have not mentioned our boating amusements. Before any one else was in Madison but ourselves, we found a big canoe, about forty feet long, supposed to have been abandoned by the Indians during the Sauk war ; and, while the wind was blowing almost a hurricane from Straw- berry Point (then called; now, Winnequah), across Lake Lonona, Mr. Peck, his brother Luther, myself and a boy manned and womaned the canoe, with various implements, tools, sheets, etc., and struck out for the place before mentioned, rigged our sails and returned to Madison ; but it made our hair whistle; the waves were running high, but we headed her straight, she being such a length she struck two waves at once, which steadied her sufficiently to carry us safely back. We had quite a number of rides in the old canoe, but after " Uncle Sam's boys" came in, it was appropriated by others, and soon disappeared. I was determined to have another vessel of some kind to sail or paddle; so, when the Indians were about to be removed, I purchased of the old Chief Wauconda his canoe for $6, painted with Indian hieroglyphics, in which I took a number of pleasant rides, until the same parties who took the first boat carried off the other through the Yahara to the further end of Lake Mendota, where they were quarrying stone from the bluff on its bank for the capitol, and, in rolling them down and loading the scow, they smashed my little boat all to pieces. I was informed of the accident, but never of the person who did it. So you see I paddled my own canoe alone then, as I have since, in more ways than one.

* Vinnie Resm, the famous American sculptor, once designated hy an eloquent Senator as "Wisconsin'e fair daughter," was born, es sbove stated, in Madison, in the first house occupied in the city. This was when Wisconsin was a Territory. After Wisconsin was admitted as s Stats into the Union, her parents removed to Washington, D. C., and subsequently to the State of Missouri, where Vinnie received the greater part of her education. At a later period, her parents moved over the border into Arkansas, residing at Little Rock and Fort Smith, where little Vinoie hecame well known and a favorite as a school girl. At the breaking-ont of the late war, her father received 80 appointment in the Treasury Department at Washington, and Postmaster General Blair appointed Miss Vinnie to a clerksbip in his depart- ment, where abe distinguished berself for ber extraordinary facility in penmanship. At the time she was thus engaged, she chanced to pay a visit to the studio of Clarke Mille, and while witnessing the operation of modeling ie clay, she remarked, '' Why ! I can do that." She took home some clay, end in two or three days returned to the studio with the model of her arst work, "The Dying Standard Bearer," which greatly surprised Mr. Mille, for its effectiveness of design, as well as for being the production of one who had never attempted anything of the kind before. From this time sbe pureusd ber artistic studies and work at home, after department hours, for ahout a year, when she gave up ber situation and determined to devote berself to art. Wealthy friends offered every inducement to prevail on her to abandon thie idea. She also at this time received an advantageous offer of marriage, but her iovariable answer to every inducement was, "I am wedded to my art." Vinnie's success In her profession is well known to the American people, and need not here he dwelt upon. She is now married. Her hus- band, Richard L. Hexis, le an officer in the regular army. .

680

HISTORY OF DANE COUNTY.

You may desire me to give some account of the men who built our cabin. In addition to Joe Pelkie and Abraham Wood, there was a Mr. Lavec, a Frenchman. He had a squaw wife. It was her brother that was stabbed and killed by another Indian, just below our house, on the bank of Lake Monona, which caused such an excitement among " Uncle Sam's boys," as they called themselves, I suppose on account of being employed to work on the capitol at the expense of the Government. They collected around our house under great excitement. Some were for taking the murderer prisoner, and sending Gov. Dodge word; finally, they appealed to an old miner that had been through the Sauk war, who was sitting upon a wood-pile, for advice. "Well," said he, "you are a pretty set of Yankees ! What do you suppose Dodge would say to you ? I will tell you ; he would say you were a set of fools. If that dead Indian was a white man, I would be the first to take him prisoner ; but because one Indian kills another Indian, not a bit of it! I don't move a foot ! Let them," said he, "work at it-it is the only way to civilize them and clean them out." The boys finally dispersed to their different avocations. Old Mrs. Pierce and family were very much frightened, and said we would all be massacred before morning. We finally got them quieted, and the sister of the murdered Indian got me to go with her to see the body, and there we found the murderer sitting upon the body of his victim smoking a long pipe as deliberately as if he had just taken a hearty supper, and was about to retire for a peaceful nap, and to dream of happy hunting grounds .*

II .- BY SIMEON MILLS

Madison having been selected as the seat of government, I determined to locate there, long before Horace Greeley had uttered that immortal sentence, " Go West, young man, and grow up with the country.'

On the 2d day of June, 1837, with my scanty wardrobe in a carpet-sack on my back, I started, on foot, from Chicago, for the new capital of Wisconsin.

Passing over a sparsely settled country, with here and there a house, often ten, fifteen, and even twenty miles apart, with roads but faintly marked, I arrived the evening of the 9th at the house of Mr. Holmes, located on the west bank of Rock River, perhaps half or three-fourths of a mile below where the depot now stands in the city of Janesville.

On the morning of the 10th, I again set out to hunt my way, as best I could, over a country forty miles in extent, which bore no indication that it had ever been seen by white man, except the blind marks left by surveyors two or three years before. Were it in my power, I would describe the feelings and impressions that thrilled my very existence, as I wandered over this landscape of hills and valleys that spanned the distance between Janesville and Madison. But language cannot paint the intoxicating beauty of this garden of the world, before it was touched by the utilizing hand of civilization. It was a vast rolling prairie, broken here and there with groves and openings, and every hill and valley was radiant with the glossy foliage and the gayly variegated wild flowers of June. It was a paradise of loveliness, a veritable Garden of Eden ; at all events, it bore this striking resemblance-there was but one man in it.

At every step, at every turn, new and startling beauties came to view. The burr oaks stood out upon the hillsides, like old orchards, while longing eyes peered beyond to catch a glimpse of the plowman at his work, or of the smoke ascending from his dwelling. But none was there; the people had all gone from home, and taken their houses with them. These fair and fertile fields, studded with mirrored lakes and coursed with silvery streams, covered with a carpet of mellow-green, figured with wild-roses, and crimsoned with ripening strawberries, these undulating meadows, as they lay spread out and laughing in the midday sun, revealed a country "ready-made " for use.

Reader, you who never behold the world you inhabit, except by fitful glances through the narrow confines of a car window, how do you like the picture ?

A portion of the way, I followed Indian trails, which finally led to the outlet of Third Lake, where I found two Indian boys fishing. I could speak no Winnebago, and they no English,

*Adapted from Durrie's " History of Madison," pp. 82-86.

681

HISTORY OF DANE COUNTY.

but when I said Madison, they pointed across the lake, and finally, through the medium of two half-dollars as interpreters, I made them understand that I wished to be taken over. The con- tract was soon closed, and they finally landed me, about sunset, on the shore near where the East Madison depot now stands. This, I said, shall be my life-long home.

Upon my arrival, I found the " city " consisted of one log house, about eighteen feet square, one-story high, with shed roof, and used by the family of Eben Peck as a kitchen, parlor and sleeping-room, and in front of which he had put up two square log houses, eighteen feet by twenty, perhaps, set apart, so as to leave an open space in front of the kitchen. These houses had roofs, but were without floors, doors or windows. Also, on the north side of the square, where the post office now stands, was the body of a log house, erected by John Catlin, but without roof. The body of this house, I have always understood, was put up by Michel St. Cyr, a half-breed, before the house occupied by Mr. Peck was commenced, but, as it was not made habitable for some months after, it was never regarded as the first house.

Angustus A. Bird, with a company of about forty persons, including the family of Josiah A. Pierce, had arrived the same day, and a few hours before. Bird was one of the Commission- ers, appointed at the Belmont session, to erect the capitol, and had brought out this company of workmen from Milwaukee to break ground and commence the work. We were then between forty and fifty persons to be provided for, with the accommodations that I have described. It requires no stretch of the imagination to suppose that Mrs. Peck was put to her wit's end to provide for such an unexpected arrival (for it must not be forgotten that there was not only no telegraph, but no mails, in those days), and for my part I was in a good mood to enjoy a supper, and I do not remember to have ever eaten one in Madison with better relish. Mrs. Peck was, indeed, a model woman for frontier life, and nobly did she perform the onerous duties that fell to her lot in this trying emergency.

The morning sun saw a busy crowd, and early in the day, Sunday though it was, were men hard at work building a boarding-honse to be occupied by the family of Mr. Pierce ; and also a log building, about twenty-four feet square, was erected midway between the east corner of the public ground and the capitol, for a lodging-house for the men. There was no lumber, and flooring was split ont of large logs and hewed, called " puncheons," and long shingles were rived out of oak, and called " shakes," and doors were unnecessary, as burglars never emigrate to an uninhabited country.

Thus was laid the foundation of the political metropolis of Wisconsin.

There was, however, an inhabitant here before us, and the mosquito, who never cultivates the acquaintance, or claims any blood relations with Indian tribes, held high carnival over the advent of the Caucasian to the shady shores of Lake Monona. So persistent were these winged pests in thrusting their bills in our very faces that rest by day and sleep by night were quite out of the question. If the truth was known, there probably never was a place on this broad earth worse infested ; and yet the old story was as current then as now-that they were much worse a little further on, so much worse that out on Rock River they actually took the lives of cows that were compelled to forage in the woods for a living.

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.

History of Dane County, Wisconsin, Part 102

Author: Butterfield, Consul Willshire, 1824-1899; Western Historical Co., Chicago, pub Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Chicago : Western Historical Company Number of Pages: 1304

Author: Butterfield, Consul Willshire, 1824-1899; Western Historical Co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago : Western Historical Company
Number of Pages: 1304