History of Grant County, Wisconsin, Part 83

Author: Butterfield, Consul Willshire, 1824-1899
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago : Western Historical Co.
Number of Pages: 1044

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As I have said when I first arrived at Galena, there were but few residents there; in fact, they might almost have been counted on your fingers, but during the year a great immigration set in that soon built up the town.

Just about the time of my arrival the Hard Scrabble mines had began to show indisputable- signs of heavy leads of ore, and accompanied by Henry W. Hodges, Thomas Shanley, Eli Per- kins and Kidge Williams, I started for these mines. After having first obtained the following permit :

James Grushong is hereby permitted to dig or mine on United States land which is not leased or otherwise rightfully occupied. He is not to set fire to the prairie grass or woods, and deliver his mineral to a licensed smelter and comply with all regulations. CHARLES SMITH, Acting Agent and Superintendent Lead Mines, Fevre River. FEVRE RIVER, April 30, 1826.

There were no teams in the country, or at least none that we could get, therefore we pro- cured a pirogue and loaded it with provisions, including a barrel of pickled pork and a barrel of

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HISTORY OF GRANT COUNTY.

flour, and started for the Hard Scrabble. Arriving there we found two or three cabins, in one of which were John .Ewin, McKnight and Steve Thrasher. Another was occupied by a French- man, who was married to a Menomonee squaw, and speaking of the Frenchman reminds me of a joke he played on some Indian friends who had come to pay him a visit. Having first worked upon their imaginations until they were fully inoculated with the belief that the whites were conspiring to attack and massacre them, and had hid themselves in a hazel thicket near by, the Frenchman came to the miners' cabins and induced us to come over and furnish the grand finale to the plot. Accordingly, armed with a few fowling pieces, unloaded save with powder, we crept to the thicket where the Indians were lying in a tremor of fear and excitement. With a yell and a discharge of firearms we broke in upon them. Our yell was nothing to theirs, as with a bound like a frightened deer, each one of the crowd broke from the covert and struck out in a bee-line for Galena, fully persuaded that their pursuers were close on their track. Some of them did not stop running until they got to Galena, where they reported the other portion of the party massacred by the miners. They found out their mistake afterward, while we all had a hearty laugh over their scare. Although they learned of the trick that had been played, they were too thoroughly frightened ever to return.

I remained mining with fair success at the Hard Scrabble until September, when I returned down the river. Light-draft steamers, capable of running at all times of the year, whether the river was high or low, were then unknown. The few boats running could only ply between the up-river places during the high water of spring and early fall. Consequently my compan- ions and myself secured a pirogue and started down the river. We passed canoes without num- ber, laden with corn and Indians, but they were peaceably inclined, as in fact were all the In- dians in early times, their weaknesses being whisky and tobacco. The last part of our trip we were without provisions for two days and nights, and got nothing until we reached " White's," at the head of the rapids, where we obtained a "square " meal, that tasted extremely good after our long fast.

I came back in the spring accompanied by my brother, and started mining on the Coon Branch of the Fevre River, now included in La Fayette County. While here the Winnebago scare broke out. One night we were awakened about 12 o'clock by a great noise, cattle low- ing, dogs barking, and a terrible racket generally, and upon turning out in the morning, found it was settlers fleeing from the Indians. Not being particularly frightened ourselves, we re- mained where we were, and continued raising mineral, and soon after the country quieted down, with the surrender of Red Bird and We-kaw, and settlers gradually returned to their homes.

When coming up the next spring I took the land route. There were eight of us in the party. We were obliged to head all the rivers, as we did not care to expose ourselves to an in- voluntary bath in attempting to ford them. Not a house was seen from the foot of the lower rapids until we reached Apple River. Previous to reaching the Apple our provisions ran low, and for a two days' stretch we were obliged to tighten our belts, as the only way of counteracting the gnawings which beset us in that portion of our anatomy, which should have been filled with something more substantial. At Apple River we found a sort of tavern kept by a landlady. Upon reaching it one of the party went in and ordered dinner for sixteen persons. The meal was prepared, and after we had filed in and taken onr seats, the landlady instituted inquiries as to the whereabouts of the other eight. We told her that we thought those present could do ample justice to the preparations which had been made, and if anything was left we would in- stitute a search for the others. The landlady saw the joke, and it is needless to say that there was no reason to look for any more of the party. The meal was disposed of by those present.

This season my brother and myself went on a prospecting tour up to the Pekatalic. On our return trip in the fall we passed over the present site of Lancaster, where no indications of the present village were visible, the only inhabitants being wolves, deer and other wild animals. We crossed over what is now known as Boice's Prairie, and while looking for a place to camp for the night, we heard a dog bark, and upon following up the sound, found a cabin inhabited by a man named Allen and his wife. Allen's father also lived with them. From the appearances

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HISTORY OF GRANT COUNTY.

about the house, I should think they must have come there at least a year before, although I do not recollect whether we asked them the question. The men were engaged in mining. Further on down the Platte, my brother's horse was bitten by a rattlesnake while we were following a path through the woods. We killed the snake, and feeling sure the path must lead to a cabin somewhere, I told him to take my horse, ride on, and get some sage tea and sweet milk if he could ; he was gone some time, but came back with the tea and milk. In the meanwhile the horse had swollen to an enormous size, but we dosed him with the sage tea and the milk. The tea did its work, as I felt sure it would, and by sundown the horse was able to move, and we started on for the Menomonee diggings. I did not go to the cabin where my brother got the sage, but it was situated on the Platte, and they must have been living there a year or more.

In 1832, during the Black Hawk war, I was at Coon's Branch, about two miles from Hazel Green. There was a great excitement, and companies were formed for defense against the Indians. Two men were needed at Hazel Green to make out the complement necessary to draw arms and equipments. My partner and myself enlisted, but did not do any fighting, as the company was not ordered out, and all through the trouble we continued our work on the Branch, and raised 47,000 pounds of mineral out of a hole we only paid $40 for. The Indians were pretty thick, and frequently we would not see white men for a week. A Mr. Cottell was my partner here. I went back to Missouri again, and, in the spring of 1833, I came back. Dur- ing the winter following, I and my brother mined again on Coon Branch, and raised 40,000 of mineral. I went back and returned in 1836 to Galena, and brought up a considerable number of cattle and horses. When I got to Galena, I had about $100 in " wild-cat" money, and while fooling around there, lost my pocket book. I went to Farnsworth & Furguson, and told them I was broke, and they let me have $50. I then helped my folks, who were on the way to the Hurricane, up as far as Hazel Green. There I determined to get that money back some way, and so went to prospect for a lead. I took an auger and went out, and the first hole I dug into I raised a chunk weighing 100 pounds. We took out 15,000, and then sold it out. I struck another lead and raised considerable mineral out of it, and then let my brother have it, and he raised 60,000 out of it, and, in three months after I left Galena, I had $500 ahead. We went to the Hurricane district in 1836. I think Harvey Bonham went there in 1833. I know he was there some time before we came, as sixteen of his hogs strayed down near us, weighing about 120 pounds apiece. I bought them for $60. I had to pay $1 a bushel for corn that winter for them, and my brother thought it was a poor transaction ; but the next fall pork went up to $10 a hundred and I had 1,000 pounds to sell off from this drove, besides what we wanted for our own use.

There were but few families in that section then ; but little farming had been done. People were just beginning to find out that they could raise good crops in this country. Deer, wolves and wild-cats were plenty in those days. I have seen, often, droves of from thirty to forty head of deer running through the woods. Wild bees were also numerous. Bee-trees could be found most anywhere in the woods. A bee-hunter who came here in early times found seventy-five bee-trees in the woods west of Lancaster, between there and Beetown, which he afterward sold for a horse. Although others were not quite so lucky as this, still no one had to go long with- out honey, if they cared to look up the trees.

In 1839, myself, Joe Bonham and Gen. Brown struck the Pigeon Diggings. The first hole I sunk I struck mineral in good sized chunks. I first sunk a claim on the old Bonham range. There has probably been 3,000,000 pounds of mineral taken out since. George Cox, of Lancas- ter, and a man named McMillan owned two forties, and George Jones, with a partner, struck a good lead on it, but kept it covered up for awhile. Finally, I secured a sixth interest for $300, after some dickering. The lead was as good as I expected. At one time we had 300,000 pounds of mineral on the ground that we had raised out of this lead. We raised 18,000 pounds one day with five or six hands. Mineral then averaged about $16 a thousand. Altogether a million and a half pounds were raised from this lead. Among other lodes of importance there is the Black lode, owned by Maj. Anderson, Clark and Roundtree, which turned out about

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HISTORY OF GRANT COUNTY.

300,000 pounds. Bonham and McDonald struck one that turned out 500,000; and I struck another that turned out 300,000.

Of the early settlement in other parts of the county, I cannot say much. I know, how- ver, that Tom Himer was at Cassville as early as 1824. He and some others went with some horses up to the Selkirk settlement, and on his return down the river, he stopped at Cassville, and remained a short time. He lived in a cabin formerly built by a Frenchman. Himer afterward came to the Hazel Green diggings.

In 1836, when I was up through there, Price was keeping a store in the new settlement, and Mr. Ramsey was working a farm a short distance out. We bought some corn of his raising it that time. A Mr. Forbes was also there keeping a tavern.

In the early part of the settlement of the county, the in-comers were miners almost without exception, but in the years along about 1840, and later, bona fide settlers began to arrive, al- though it was a long time before their work began to show. The change in the aspect of the country between the time I landed from the old pirogue at Hard Scrabble and the county as it stands to-day is almost beyond belief. But all must yield to the law of progress.

BY COL. JOSEPH DICKSON, IN 1855.

My parents were natives of Pennsylvania, and emigrated to and settled in St. Clair County, Ill., in the year 1802, where I was born January 28, 1805. That county was then a frontier region and but sparsely inhabited, except a small district of country on the American Bottom, settled mostly by French people.

In the year 1818, my father and family moved to within nine miles of where Springfield, the present capital of the State, was afterward located, where I assisted my father in building the first white man's log cabin in Sangamon County, where I remained until the spring of 1827, when I emigrated with many other young adventurers to what was then called the Fever River Lead Mines, making the journey from Keokuk, on the Lower Mississippi Rapids, on foot through an entirely uninhabited wilderness, packing my provisions and blankets, in the month of March.

I spent the first summer in mining until the 15th of August, when I commenced improving a farm one and a half miles south of where Platteville is now situated. The next spring I plowed up twenty acres of prairie land, and planted and raised a crop of corn that season, which I think was the first field of corn raised in what is now Grant County. I continued to carry on farming until the spring of 1832, when I exchanged it for mining.

The Black Hawk war commenced in the month of May, when, on the first intelligence of hostilities by the Indians, I joined a mounted company of volunteers raised at Platteville. At the organization, I was selected Orderly Sergeant in John A. Rountree's company ; and in that capacity I served one month, when, in consequence of the absence of the Captain, I was chosen to command the company, and thus served about one month. Then, by the order of Col. Dodge, I took command of a spy company, and continued in that capacity in front of the army during the chases to Rock River, Fort Winnebago and to the Wisconsin Heights; and, at the latter place I, with my spy company, commenced the attack on a band of Indians who were kept in the rear of the retreating Indian army, and chased them to the main body of Indians, when we were fired at several times but without injury, and I returned to the advancing army without loss or injury to my command.

After the battle of the Wisconsin Heights, and the army was supplied with provisions, we again pursued the Indian trail, and I took the lead with my company and followed to the Bad Ax River, by command of Gen. Atkinson. At the Bad Ax I discovered the evening before the battle, the trail of Black Hawk with a party of about forty Indians, who had left the main trail and gone up the river, which fact I reported to the Commanding General. On the next morning, my company encountered and engaged a company of Indians at a place near to where I had the evening before discovered the trail of Black Hawk and his party. During the battle that ensued, my command killed fourteen Indians, and, after a short time, say an hour's engage- ment, Gen. Dodge with his force, and Gen. Atkinson with his regular army, arrived at the place

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where I had engaged this party, consisting of about forty Indians ; and, about the time of their arrival, we had killed and dispersed the whole party. The main body of the enemy had gone down the river, after they had entered on the River bottom. I pursued with my command, passing Gen. Henry's brigade formed on the Mississippi bottom; I crossed the slough and en- gaged a squad of Indians, who were making preparations to cross the river, after which we were fired upon, and returned the fire of several bands or squads of Indians, before the army arrived. I and several of my men were wounded before the other troops came up.

After the battle was over, I was taken with others on board of a steamer, which came along soon after, to Prairie du Chien, where I was properly cared for and my wounds received suitable attention. Since which I have spent a short period in Illinois, and the balance of the time to the present I have devoted myself to agricultural pursuits on my farm, four miles southwest of Platteville.

BY ORRIS MCCARTNEY.

" I was born in Harford, Washington Co., N. Y., May 9, 1794; started West in 1817; got as far as Bristol, Ontario County, and went to New Connecticut in 1818; then bought a farm at $400, raised a crop, land title bad, lost my money and land ; then went to Delaware, Dela- ware Co., Ohio, got the ague, and left in 1819; drove a two-horse team for a man to Illinois- 600 miles ; stopped at Milton, Madison County, January 8, 1820 ; was in Illinois drifting about- several years ; was twice elected Sheriff of Schuyler County, Ill., and served about three years; then resigned and came to the lead mines ; fell in with Maj. Rountree, and we came together in 1827 ; was married to Eliza Barber, near Jacksonville, November 12, 1826; in 1828, settled at Beetown, bought part of the Bee Lead for $500, from which Beetown took its name. This lead was found by Cyrus Alexander, Tom Crocker, Jim Meredith and Curtis Cadwell, while out looking for bees. Finding a large, hollow, upturned maple-tree, they looked under the roots, and saw a chunk of mineral which weighed 425 pounds. About the same time, Tom Cegar and Ben Stout found another lead on Bushnell's land. The Indian troubles began soon after. In June, 1828, sold out, and removed in August to farm near Cassville, where I have stayed ever since, except during the Indian difficulties ; traded lead for a six horse team, hauled 100,000 mineral to Cassville; Judge Lawyer built the first furnace, and Tom'G. Hawley built the first house in Cassville. Arthur L. Johnson came in 1828, and built a log furnace, and put up a store in Beetown, but the mineral soon gave out, and the miners went to Mineral Point and Dodgeville. Moved temporarily to Belmont in 1829, stayed four months ; hauled rails to fence seventy-five acres ; returned to Cassville farm in fall, having raised a crop of corn. Hodges and Shanley built a log warehouse at Cassville in the year 1828. Christmas of 1830, my house was burned and all with it; the first ball at Cassville same time.

" The Indian alarms began in 1831, and in 1832 came the Black Hawk war. We all went into fort at Cassville ; sent my family to Illinois July 4, 1832, to be safe from Indians. The Indian war then lasted four months.

" In 1828, Tom Cegar, Nahem Dudley and Ben Stout settled at Lancaster. William Mor- rison settled on the Morrison place that year, and H. C. Bushnell settled on what is now the Gulick place ; Hodges and Shanley built on the prairie near Lancaster in 1831.

"Guy Hackett had a furnace near the double log cabin at Muscalonge, in 1828; he broke, and returned to Illinois and died. De Tantabar settled at Paris in 1826 or 1827. [1828-ED.] St. John found mineral and the den of snakes, which gave to Potosi its first name of Snake Hollow, in 1831." [Other authorities place this discovery in 1833 .- ED.]

BY W. DAVIDSON.

In the spring of 1828, I arrived at Galena, situated on what was then called Fevre River- the Indian name of which was then said to be Ope-a Le-pee. At that time, Galena was sub- merged by the river, and presented rather a dull prospect; but I thought of an old adage, "keep a stiff lip and a light toe nail, and you may come out yet ;" and so I have-at the middle of the horn. I then became acquainted with a few men in Galena, who afterward

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proved to be friends indeed. After looking around a few days and making many inquiries, . Yankee-like, I commenced digging at Scrabble-since called Hazel Green. I started a prospect hole, expecting to find a mineral lode in a few days ; but I found out that success was not so much in hard labor as in good luck; and being a stranger, if I discovered a lode, the country was then staked off in what was called mineral lots, agreeable to the mining regulations, I would either have to fight my way through fifty claimants or be swindled out of my prospect.

After a few months labor in that way, and finding nothing, I started to view what was then called Sugar Creek Diggings. T. D. Potts had then made what was considered a valuable discovery ; but I thought differently, and so it turned out. The first night on our journey we reached Col. W. S. Hamilton's diggings. He had made a valuable discovery ; it is now Wiota -so named by the Colonel himself. We then started for the Blue Mounds and spent the night with Col. E. Brigham ; he had made what was then considered, as it has since proved to be, a valuable discovery. He treated us very kindly and told us " our hats were chalked. " We then went to what was called the Cole, Downing & Dudley Diggings, then supposed to be proven for four million pounds of mineral, but they did not turn off more than half that amount. Mineral was then low in price. We then went to John Messersmith's diggings ; his prospect was fine. We got there the best dinner I had met with in the country. At that time, owing to the low price of mineral, and living some distance from market, and having a large family to provide for, Mr. Messersmith was only able to secure a comfortable support for his family. Times have since changed, the old man and his boys persevered, and have been well repaid for their enterprise. We next went on to the Dodgeville diggings, and there found a town, as it was then called, with five or six cabins, and in three of them "rot-gut " whisky and poor tobacco were sold; since then quite a village has grown into existence there.

We then journeyed to what is called Mineral Point, which there went by the name of Little Shake Rag. After looking round the various diggings, I returned to Scrabble and moved my provisions, tools and furniture, consisting of blankets, spider, frying-pan, etc., into the neighborhood of Little Shake Rag; I found that. neighborhood staked off; and after spending three weeks or a month, and not getting permission to dig where I wished, I pulled up stakes and moved off. My next mining was in the neighborhood of the old Buck lead, near Galena, but meeting with the same luck as formerly, I moved into the vicinity of the Finney patch, which was discovered in the fall of 1828 by men of the name of Clark, who sold to Finney four-fifths and to one Williams the other fifth. Finney afterward swindled the men out of some $250 he was to have paid them in July, 1830. I struck a vein of mineral that yielded 97,000 pounds, and paid one-third for ground rent. This was the custom when you dug on a lot where mineral had been raised and sold. Part of that mineral I sold at $7, and the next spring I sold the last 50,000 at $12 per 1,000. The next fall we struck a vein that turned off 600,000 of mineral that brought $18 per 1,000; and in the spring of 1839 I struck another vein, south of the second, that turned out 405,000. The range altogether pro- duced over two millions of mineral. The old Finney patch turned off 2,000,000 more, and good diggings there still.

In May, 1832, I bought a horse and rigging, and rode as a volunteer, serving in Dodge's squadron during the Black Hawk war. During that campaign I saw more of human nature than I had before in several years. We had many difficulties to encounter, of which a majority of the present population can form but a faint conception. But to return to my occupation. I have done what no other man has done in these mines. I have worked on one mineral lot for seventeen years and worked in the ground all that time; blasting occasionally, winter and summer, and never used an air pipe. I have been well paid for my labor; having toiled late and early-no eight hours have answered me for a day's work. After the sales of the reserved land I moved to my present residence to watch my timber and dig mineral in the winter. Unless some unforseen occurrence should take place, I expect to end my days in Wis- consin.

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HISTORY OF GRANT COUNTY.

BY SAMUEL DRUEN.

I came to Grant county on the 20th of April, 1832, passing my first night on Wisconsin soil at Sinsinawa Mound, where some two or three cabins had been erected. The next morning 1 learned that a party of U. S. Surveyors had made rich discoveries of lead ore at Potosi, and started thither at once, having neither track nor path to follow or guide me. I crossed Big Platte River at its confluence with Little Platte, a place known as Paris, composed of a smelting establishment and a small store, owned by a Mr. DeTantabar.

Proceeding on my way, I came to a place where a dozen men or so busily engaged in build- ing a cabin-the first white man's structure ever erected on the site of Potosi, and the property of Messrs. Ham and DeTantabar, the former of whom, I believe resides at Dubuque at the present time. A number of us pitched our tent and went to work. Potosi grew, and its popu- lation, mostly miners, rapidly increased. By the first of June there were upward of a hun- dred persons in the place-the square, I might almost say, of the original number I found there on the 21st of April preceding.

All went on prosperously until one night about 11 o'clock, when a man rode wildly into camp bearing the news of Stillman's defeat by the Indians at Rock River. We were all badly scared, turned tail and fled, some toward Galena, some toward Jamestown, and some toward Platte. Only two men had the courage to stand their ground and risk their scalps. The next day we recovered from our fright, assembled in considerable force, and held a sort of council of war. Some were for building a fort right there in the diggings, others thought it would be rather a good thing to go to Galena. Hearing that a company was organizing at Cassville, three others and myself set out for that town at once. Where British Hollow now stands we found a cabin occupied by Terrence Cail, his wife, and three children, and at Hurricane the shanty of Messrs. Hodges and Shanley stood open to receive us. Then on we went, across the hills and far away fording Grant River and entering Beetown, then comprising only about three cabins, all told and inhabited principally by an elderly gentleman named Arthur. Had the place and its surroundings looked a little more flowery, we should have set it down as the spot where Mr. Tennyson's Arthur went to heal him of his grevious wound :

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History of Grant County, Wisconsin, Part 83

Author: Butterfield, Consul Willshire, 1824-1899 Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Chicago : Western Historical Co. Number of Pages: 1044

Author: Butterfield, Consul Willshire, 1824-1899
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago : Western Historical Co.
Number of Pages: 1044