History of Green County, Wisconsin. Together with sketches of its towns and villages, educational, civil, military and political history; portraits of prominent persons, and biographies of representative citizens, Part 21

Author: Union publishing company, Springfield, Ill., pub. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Springfield, Ill., Union publishing company
Number of Pages: 1168

USA > Wisconsin > Green County > History of Green County, Wisconsin. Together with sketches of its towns and villages, educational, civil, military and political history; portraits of prominent persons, and biographies of representative citizens > Part 21

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Before leaving this place I wish to make a few remarks of a general nature.

Though I neither am, nor ever pretended to be a military man, yet I venture a few remarks on some of the military establishments in the northwest.

The fort on Rock Island is commanded by hills on both sides of it, and could not stand an hour against an enemy with cannon posted on the heights.

Why this fort was placed here where it is, no man of sense can tell, if the British were to be the attacking enemy. If this work was intended to protect this frontier against Indians it is in so dilapidated a state that by crossing on the island above the fort, or gliding along in their canoes under the western side of the island, which forms the outside of the fort, the Indians could in any dark night make themselves mas- ters of the garrison in fifteen minutes. When- ever they please they can collect at this point in ten days 4,000 warriors, to contend with 400 soldiers. There is no regular mail connecting this post with the United States, and war might be declared for three months, in some seasons of the year, without the garrison's knowing it.

There is a postoffice established here, and in summer the officers sometimes go to Galena for their papers and letters, 100 miles above them -and sometimes they go to Springfield, in the Sangamo country, a distance of seventy miles perhaps, for their letters. The officers must go themselves, as the soldiers, if permitted to go, would desert the service. Cut off from all the world, that is, the civilized world, during six months of the year, the officers and soldiers lead a life as dull as need be. The officers who have families have established a school for their children, which is doing very well.

Ascending the Mississippi, 200 miles or more above Rock Island, we arrive at Fort Crawford, at Prairie du Chien. This post like that at Rock Island, stands near the Mississippi on its eastern shore, and is entirely and completely commanded by the hills on each side of the river. It enjoys, too, a situation so low that nearly every summer, during the dog days, its site is under water from six to ten feet in depth, from the overflowing of the river.

This work is in so dilapidated a state that I presume it is now abandoned for another site somewhat more elevated but nearer the high hill that will forever command it, just east of it. Major Garland pointed out to me the spot where he supposed a new fort would be erected.

There is a propriety in placing a military post somewhere, at or near the month of the Wis- consin, in order to form a line of posts situated on Green bay, where there is a fort-and in the interior, at the spot where Fort Winnebago is ; but what consideration could have induced the government to place a garrison at St. Peters, 300 miles and more beyond a single white set- tlement-unconnected, too, with any other post in the very heart of the Indian country, I am unable to determine. If this post was intended to strengthen this frontier, it certainly weakens it to the amount of the force stationed there added to an amount of force enough to succor and defend it. If the object was to station a garrison where an intercourse with the Indians, for the purposes of trade, was sought, Lake Pepin, far below it, is the place where it should have been located. As it is, it so happens often that the officers and others who pass and repass between Prairie du Chien and St. Peters are taken prisoners on the route by the Indians. Unless some one wished to get a good govern- mental job by getting this post established, then I cannot account for this strange location, and I am equally at a loss to account for the continuance of this worse than useless estab- lishment where it is,

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All the officers in the Indian country, who have been there ten years, onght instantly to be relieved by others. Lient-Col. Z. Taylor has been in the Indian country constantly with his family, about twenty years. Here he and his lady, who were bred in the most polished and refined society, have been compelled to rear, as well as they could, a worthy and most interest- ing family of children. Col. Taylor commands Fort Crawford, at Prairie du Chien. . Dr. Bean- mont and his amiable and accomplished lady ; Major Garland and his, belonging to this garri- son, are doing the same. It is an interesting sight to see such persons, located as they are, in a fort, on the very verge of civilized life, educating a family of young children. The situation of delicate females, belonging to some of the best families in the Nation, reared in tenderness, amidst all the luxuries and refine- ments of polished society, now living in a fort, calls for our sympathy and admiration of their fortitude, which enables them to bear with all the ills, and overcome all the difficulties attend- ant on their mode of living. When I was very unwell, from exposure, miserable water, and the worst of cookery, and worn down too by fatigue of body and mental suffering, I always found sympathy, food that I could eat, and smiles and kindness which touched my heart, in the fami- lies I have named, nor can I ever forget the females belonging to the families of Mr. Rolette and of Judge Lockwood, at Prairie dn Chien. Without their kindness towards me, I must have perished. I do not deny my fondness for woman, because I know that in cases of distress and suffering, her sympathy and cheering voice infuses into man new life, new vigor, and new fortitude, and he marches on ward with redoubled energy, to climb over every alps that is placed in his way. Living as these ladies do, amidst dangers, in an Indian country, they are familiar- ized with them, and their animating voice is worth an army of men. I never can forget them, nor their families while I live. Would the government hear my feeble voice, such offi-

cers would not be compelled, with their fami- lies, to spend all their days, in an Indian coun- try, while others who have known no suffering in the service, are attending lerees and gallant- ing about the ladies at Washington City.

There is something wrong in all this, that I hope will be rectified yet.

At each of the military posts, the officers have established a library and a reading room at their own expense. Their books consist of use- ful works, connected with their pursuits. His- tory, geography, mathematics, chemistry and scientific books, are in the library, and the offi- cers and their families are well read in them all. Though they may be uninformed as to the pass- ing events, at the very moment they occur, yet at unequal periods, their regular files of all the best newspapers published in the United States, are received and read with care. The National Intelligencer, National Gazette, all the literary periodicals, worth reading, are carefully pe- rnsed.

The younger officers were all educated at West Point Academy, and whenever I met one of them, I always found a gentleman, and man of science, brave, active, vigorous, energetic, high minded, honorable, strictly honest and correct in all his deportment. He claimed all that belonged to him, and not one title more, of any one. These officers, belonging to the first families in the Nation, educated in the very best manner, are induced by their self- respect, to conduct themselves in the very best manner on all occasions. They fear nothing but disgrace, originating in their own bad con- duct, and they scrupulously avoid it everywhere and at all times As officers, as gentlemen and as men, I feel proud of them as my countrymen.

I pray them to accept this testimony in their favor, as a small payment towards a large sum justly due to them for their good conduct in every part of the Union where I have had the pleasure of meeting with them. My only re- gret is, that this honest, heartfelt approbation of them is all I have it in my power to bestow

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upon persons so worthy. Those who are in actual service on the Indian frontier, deserve more pay than they receive, in a country where everything is so extravagantly dear. Congress ought to remember these worthy men, and make future provision for them, and to Congress I submit their case. While those who shine in every fashionable circle at Washington, under the eye of Congress, are well paid for their services, it is to be hoped that others, who un- dergo nothing but hardships, will not be for- gotten, as I know they will not be by the Senate.

Having completed all our business of a public nature, so far as we could at this place, abont the middle of August, as near as I now remem- ber we coneluded to give our friends here a ball on the evening preceding our leaving them. It was attended by all the respectable part of the people in the garrison and in the village. It was a most interesting scene. Within the council house, where the civilized people were assembled, might be seen persons of both sexes, as polished and as refined in their manners, as well bred, and educated as well, too, as any per- son in the United States ; and at the same mo- ment might be seen on the outside of the house,

at the doors and windows, looking on and ocea- sionally daneing by themselves, by way of ex- periment, or to show what they could do as dancers in the open air, as motley a group of creatures, (I ean scarcely call them human be- ings) as the world ever beheld. They are a race peculiar to those parts of the upper Missis- sippi, where settlements were originally made by the French, soon after the conquest of Can- ada by the English, under Gen. Wolf. They are of a mixed breed, and probably more mixed than any other human beings in the world ; each one consisting of Negro, Indian, French, English, American, Scotch, Irish and Spanish blood ; and I should rather suspect some of them to be a little touched with the prairie wolf. They may fairly elaim the vices and faults of each and all the above named Nations and animals, without even one redeeming virtue.

The reader will see that we were on the very confines of civilized and savage life.

The officers and their families from Fort Crawford, and the best families in the Prairie, were all very happy, and we parted with them all in friendship, and retired to rest at abont midnight.

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HISTORY OF GREEN COUNTY.

CHAPTER IV.

FIRST SETTLEMENT OF THE COUNTY.

Among the questions which naturally in- terest the citizens of Green county of to-day is this: "Who were the first settlers within its limits and where did they locate? There is a curiosity always manifested by those who come after the pioneers, not only to learn their names and their place of settlement, but also the dates of their arrival. Especially is the time of their coming a matter particularly desirable to be known. The county itself, so far as the people constitute it, begins then, although its forma- tion and organization did not take place for some years subsequent to their arrival. The better to understand the first settlement of the county and the condition of things at that time in this region-let us first consider, in a general way.

EARLY TIMES IN WISCONSIN.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to convey to the present generation a correct impression as to the actual state of affairs in Wisconsin, even if we go no farther back than the existence of Wisconsin Territory; since, except among pio- neer settlers, there is nothing in its experience that furnishes a standard for comparison. The most it can conceive is a vast and fertile region as yet unsurveyed and scarcely penetrated by the white race, without settlements, roads, bridges or population, except in a few widely scattered and detached farms, hamlets and vil- lages, clustered generally about military posts. In 1830, the population west of Lake Michigan by census enumeration aggregated less than 8,000, which in 1840 had only increased to 30,- 948 .. When the capital was located at Madison,

what is now Green county, contained but very few permanent white settlers, and many others now teeming with industrious multitudes were then wholly unoccupied. Isolated communities was the rule, to which there was no exception, and lack of means and rontes of travel scarcely permitted other than slow and most difficult communication. Gradually, however, mail service was secured, and the swell of incoming immigration brought the early settlements nearer and nearer to each other. The move- ment at first slow, yearly gained in intensity, until the waste places were nearly all absorbed.

It was fortunate for Wisconsin that State-or- ganization did not take place until the financial affairs of the country had settled down upon a safe business basis, and wild and reckless enter- prises received no countenance. The bitter ex- perience of the States formed out of the old northwest territory served as a lesson and warn- ing, which was not lost when the essential fea- tures of our proposed constitution received a preliminary discussion. At one period, these States can scarcely be said to have had either eredit or resources, while their debts, incurred for works which even when completed scarce paid the cost of repairs, were out of all propor- tion to the assessed valuation of property. As late as 1843, the State of Ohio sold its bonds at fifty cents on the dollar to raise funds to meet obligations, while the bonds of Michigan, Indiana and Illinois were for several years quoted in market at from twenty to thirty cents, with few or no buyers. Such was the penalty paid for embarking the public credit in wild

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schemes, without resources to meet even the ordinary expenses of local government.

Except about military posts, and with slight other exceptions, permanent settlement first began in Wisconsin about 1826, in the Lead Region, or present southwest counties, and for many years, population pressed in by way of the Mississippi river, before the route by the great lakes was fairly opened. For a long period Galena was more of a commercial mart for supplies for the interior of Wisconsin than Milwaukee or other lake ports, while Chicago was scarcely known in that connection. The southern States were at first more numerously represented than the eastern. Lead mining had developed into a great leading industry on one side of the territory, while agriculture was commencing on the other. The two streams of settlers finally met about midway, but several years elapsed before the eastern current largely predominated. As a result, the diversity of interests, ideas and modes of thought between the two sections were much more striking in early times than at present. Time, which has obliterated so many pioneer landmarks, has not even yet effaced the peculiar characteristics of the two sections.

Naturally, the first efforts of the pioneer era were directed to securing channels of commu- nication with the interior and outer world. Laws for surveying and marking out roads were among the first enactments of the territo- rial legislature. Canals were projected from several of the lake ports, among which may be mentioned one from Sheboygan to Fond du Lac; another from Milwaukee to Rock River, and thence by way of the Four Lakes to the Wisconsin; while the Fox and Wisconsin river route was universally believed destined to be- come the great central channel of commerce. To the buoyant imagination of the time all rivers of any size were deemed navigable, while their branches were regarded as routes for future canals. So many village and city sites were laid out and platted, whose names eren

are now wholly lost, that the present realization is almost a blank by comparison. It was a period of vast projects, limitless enterprises, and chimerical speculations which has had no parallel. All this, too, when the population imported most of its provisions, and, except the product of lead furnaces, exported nothing.

Railroad projects received early attention, and charters were actually granted before even highways were laid out in many places from lake ports to the interior. Often the line and terminal points were not even indicated. Among the earliest efforts in this direction was a memorial to Congress, passed in 1840, asking for the survey and construction of a railroad from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi river. It was not until ten years later that any of our existing rontes were definitely decided upon, companies really organized, and work of con- struction seriously commenced.

The period from about 1830 to 1837 was one of great and almost limitless financial currency expansion. In that year, in the States east of us, it reached a natural culmination, followed by a crash that speedily carried down most of the banking institutions in the United States. The Banks of Green Bay and Mineral Point, the only ones within the Territory, ended in the same way, and for some years the early settlers had little or no currency other than the small sums brought in by newly arrived immigrants. In the southwest counties or Lead Region, citi- zens of all classes combined and refused to re- ceive or use anything but gold and silver as a measure of exchangeable values. Immigration, which had commenced coming in a flood soon after Territorial organization, was not only checked, but actually recoiled eastward, and it was not until about 1843-4 that the current turned westward again, since which time it has known no abatement.

Pioneer settlers in the Northwest, if they cannot be said to have witnessed the exodus of nations, have certainly been spectators of the ingress of multitudes so vast in number as to

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well deserve that name. Within the limits of a generation in point of time, they have seen almost limitless wastes of forest and prairie, in natural and normal wildness, changed from a desert to the home of teeming populations, pos. seśsing every appliance of art, and every ad- vantage of moral and material improvement. Looking upon the mighty movement in gross, it might be said with truth that representatives of all Europe had marched upon western Amer- ica. But the invasion was peaceful-the march a silent one. The hosts encamped upon the waste places so quietly as scarcely to awaken surprise. Experience of the mighty change grew, indeed, to be habitual. . It was not until it ended in particular localities that it began to attract much attention. The frozen north equally with the semi-tropical south have been almost equally overrun-and yet the impulse has as yet scarcely known pause. It is to continue until the world's populations, productions and perhaps means of livelihood, reach an equilib- rium. Like the glacial era in geological records, it is the grand mixing of diverse peoples-the abrading force, grinding prejudice against prej- udice, religious system against religious sys- tem, nationality against nationality, until from the ultimate product there shall spring, as we believe, a higher development and nobler race to elevate the career of humanity. History furuishes no parallel to this wondrous move- ment. It will ever stand out single and isolat- ed as the greatest event in human annals.

Pioneer settlers found and opened the way for the teeming multitudes that have followed. The early comers were almost exclusively of American birth and parentage. At the period of the conventions to frame a State constitu- tion, foreign emigrants composed but a small per cent. of the population. They had gained a foothold, indeed, but in were no part a controll- ing authority. Pioneer experience, therefore, was unique in its way-in all its conditions and sur- roundings, unlike the present. It could occur but once, and will be reproduced to no future

generation. It was a Golden Era, the twilight of the morning of the birth of mighty States, and must ever remain one of the most interest- ing chapters in our history. It is for this reason that its details, hardships, purposes and modes of life, hopes and expectations, interesting even now, will, as the years progress, be esteemed more and more valuable. They err sadly who think such records puerile, or of small value. The future will cherish and perpetuate them as the choicest gifts this generation can confer.

Before entering upon a consideration of the first settlement of Green county, we must pre- mise that this county was, when the first set- tlers came, for a short time a part of Crawford county, but soon became, most of it, a portion of Iowa county, and so remained for over seven years-the very years of the early settlement of not only the last mentioned county as it is now constituted, but of the present Lafayette as well. To correctly understand the history of the first settlement, therefore, of Green county, we must first take a birds-eye view of early times in the neighboring counties of Iowa and Lafayette; for the histories of the three coun- ties, as to their first settlements, are most in- timately blended.

FIRST SETTLEMENT OF IOWA COUNTY.

When the country south of and immediately adjoining the Wisconsin river, but extending so far away from that stream as to reach the pres- ent State of Illinois (including all of what was Iowa county when it was first constituted by name and boundaries), was first visited by the whites, it was apparently a derelict region. In the middle of the eighteenth century, however, the Sacs and Foxes had taken possession of it, they having settled down on the Lower Wiscon- sin, from the Fox river country. These, in time, gave way to the Winnebagoes, who occu- pied this territory when pioneer settlers began to invade this region, and was recognized as their land by the United States government in subsequent treaties.

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HISTORY OF GREEN COUNTY.

By an act of the Legislative council of the Territory of Michigan, approved Oct. 29, 1829, to take effect the 1st of January following, the county of lowa was established, embracing all the present State of Wisconsin south of the Wisconsin river, and west of a line drawn due north from the northern boundary of Illinois, through the middle of the portage between the Fox and Wisconsin rivers; in other words, it included the whole of what was previously Crawford county lying south of the Wisconsin river. By the same act Samuel W. Beale and Louis Grignon, of Brown county, and Joseph M. Street, of Crawford county, were appointed commissioners to fix the county seat of the new county, and were required to perform the duty on or before Jan. 1, 1830, and file their written decision with the county clerk. The place designated by them was to become the county seat. But should they not agree, or should they be prevented from performing said duty, then the county seat was, by this act, temporarily es- tablished at Mineral Point. Terms of the Ter- ritoral district courts were ordered to be holden on the first Mondays of June and December of each year.

Mineral Point became the county seat; but prior to Wisconsin becoming a Territory the records give but little information as to the election or action of county officers. Commis- sioners and a sheriff were chosen, however, as is shown by the sheriff's bill for jailor of $85, at $15 per month, presented in 1831, which bill was rejected by the board as exorbitant. This year also the board selected a lot for a jail, and let the contract for building the same to John Brown for $538, to be completed by the first Monday of May, 1831, George B. Call going security on the contract. Economy seemed to prevail in those early times, as will appear in the fact that for copying original county records and furnishing a blank book for the purpose, M. G. Fitch received the sum of $4, and each member of the board received seventy-five cents a day for his services. Samuel W. Beale, who

was appointed by the Legislature as one of the commissioners to locate the county seat, pre- sented a bill for $100 for forty days' services, and it was reduced to $65 and paid.

By an act of the sixth legislative council of the Territory of Michigan, approved Sept. 6, 1834, the eastern boundary of Iowa county was changed to "the principal meridian dividing the Green Bay and Wisconsin land districts." This took from Iowa county a strip of territory three miles wide on its eastern side, and made what is now the range line between ranges 8 and 9 the boundary line on the east. In 1835 the people of Mineral Point subscribed $575 for the purpose of building a court house, and the sheriff was directed to contract for its erection. The building was to be twenty-four feet square, two stories high, the lower story eight feet and the upper seven feet high; to be built of hewn oak logs, with oak floor one and one-fourth inches thick. The upper story was to be divided into four rooms, with plank partitions. Three rooms were to have one window each, and all the doors were to be hung with good butts and screws. The upper rooms were to be ceiled with one-half inch plank, dressed on the under side. The judge's bench was to be raised two feet, with steps leading to it. There was to be one table, seven feet long and three feet wide. Seats for a jury were to be provided in both stories. The building was to be well stocked and painted with lime mortar, furnished with good and sufficient sash for the windows, with good glass put in with putty, and the shingles to be of pine, eighteen inches long and four wide.

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History of Green County, Wisconsin. Together with sketches of its towns and villages, educational, civil, military and political history; portraits of prominent persons, and biographies of representative citizens, Part 21

Author: Union publishing company, Springfield, Ill., pub. [from old catalog] Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Springfield, Ill., Union publishing company Number of Pages: 1168

Author: Union publishing company, Springfield, Ill., pub. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Springfield, Ill., Union publishing company
Number of Pages: 1168