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 34

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 34

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son came to Galena in 1822, I desire to set this error aright. I was, in that year, at Prairie du Chien, running a keel-boat on the Mississippi for Jean Brunet and one Disbrow. Col. Rich- ard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, was then stop- ping at Prairie du Chien-the same who had served at the battle of the Thames, and has since figured so prominently in public life. It was then that Old Buck, a Fox Indian, not a Winnebago,came to Prairie du Chien to sell some diggings he had on Fevre river, near Galena. Col. R. M. Johnson, in the fall of that year, hired the boat of the owners, Brunet and Dis- brow, and they sent me down with him, in charge of the boat, to Fevre river; and I had orders that if Johnson bought the diggings of the Indian, Old Buck, and wanted some help to put up cabins, to remain and assist him in the matter. He bought the diggings, and I aided in putting up three houses in 1822. Johnson then started for Kentucky, and left at the dig- gings Thomas January, Amos Farrar, one Ander- son, nick-named "Kentuck," myself, and two other Frenchmen, one of whom was named Tre- panere and the other Barney. I sent back the boat and hands to Brunet; and by request of Johnson, and consent of Brunet, I staid there that winter. Johnson never returned; but in June, 1823, James Johnson, his brother, came with provisions, tools and several Negroes.

Major Legate mentions that Col. Johnson sent me with goods with which to buy old Buck's diggings. I only conveyed Col. R. M. Johnson from Prairie du Chien to Galena, with his goods, to buy them. I am certain that it is a mistake that anybody came to Galena in the fall of 1822 from Cincinnati ; but a good many did come in the spring of 1823. During the winter of 1821-22, there were but the six of us there all winter, whom I have named.

After Col. James Johnson's arrival, I quit working for the Johnsons, and engaged in the employ of A. P. Van Meter and David G. Bates, continuing with them until the spring of 1826, when I went to digging mineral on my own

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HISTORY OF GREEN COUNTY.

account. I, in company with eight others, went prospecting, and discovered the New Diggings, and did well there.

Sometime in August, 1828, in company with John Sweetslow and Major Adney as partners, I came from the mouth of Big Platte, to Sugar River Diggings, at Exeter ; my partners not liking the place, soon took their departure. About that time Mr. Deviese came there, and proposed to join me in digging mineral and trading with the Indians, and I accepted his offer, but he had no interest in the smelting business. We then sent to Galena for provis- ions and goods, and in the meanwhile put up cabins and went to work. The Indians troubled us a good deal. The Winnebago village of "Spotted Arm" was about eight miles north, and that of "White Breast" about twelve or fifteen miles south of our diggings, on Sugar river ; each of which had about eight or ten Indian houses. Now Mr. Deviese knew very well that he could not stop there, had I not been there myself to keep the Indians off. It is well known that Mr. Deviese and I had three houses at Exeter, near to each other, with a gar- den spot ; we built them as partners, and had an equal ownership in them. He says I burnt his place to spite a man by the name of Dougherty; now that man Dougherty had no property there at all, but he had a cabin about a mile and a half. east of us ; and I can prove in Mineral Point to this day, that had I felt disposed to do so, I could have cow-hided that Dougherty any time that I chose. Had I wanted to injure such a man, is it reasonable to suppose that I would burn my own, and my partner's houses and property to spite him ? On the contrary, from Mr. Deviese's own statement, is it not reasona- ble to conclude that the Indians burned them during his absence that summer of the war?

Mr. Deviese makes his statement as though I was not at Sugar river during all this early period. I was there, however, all the time, up to April, 1832, when I left. I did not sell or transfer my interest in the houses and im-

provements because I intended to return, but the war soon breaking out, I did not go back until May, 1833. When I departed from Sugar river in April, 1832, there was not, according to my judgment, 5,000 pounds of mineral at the diggings. From that time until May, 1833, the period during which the buildings and property at Exeter, on Sugar river, were burned, I state unequivocally that I was never nearer Sugar river than the Blue Mounds, Mineral Point and Col. William S. Hamilton's, at Wiota; I did not, and could not, have burned them. Messrs. Deviese and Lake have done me great wrong and injustice, to wait forty years, and then make such misstatements. I never heard of these accusations until I saw them published, and cannot imagine any reason why Major Deviese should do so, never having had any disagreement him, and he having paid me a friendly visit, and spent several days at my house in Mineral Point, long since the oc- currence of these transactions. As to French Lake, it may be that he does it out of revenge ; for when I commanded the fort at the Blue Mounds, I was obliged several times to reprove him.

The battle of the Pecatonica occurred on the 16th of June, 1832. Mr. Deviese says that one man came up after the battle, "spoiling for a fight." He seems to refer to me, for I was the first who came. I had command of a party of friendly Winnebagoes on foot,* who, of course, could not travel as fast as Dodge's command on horseback, but I was not more than 400 yards behind. When I got up to the battle ground I was ahead of my Indian party. Adjt. Wood- bridge told me that he had shot one of the hos- tile Indians as he was rising the bank on the opposite side of the pond. By that time two or three of my Indians had overtaken me. I told them of the one Woodbridge had shot, when they went around the pond, found the dead Indian, and brought back his scalp. They

* Forty-nine in number, as stated by Mr. Beouchard in his narative in Smith's History of Wisconsin.

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HISTORY OF GREEN COUNTY.

also searched in the water, and found the re- mainder, eleven in all, securing also the guns and lances of the defeated enemy.

Mr. Deviese says that Col. Hamilton was ab- sent from his station, Fort Hamilton, just after the fight was over, and the dead Indians and their guns and their lances were found; Col. Hamilton came up with his party of friendly Menomonees. My Winnebagoes now asked Col. Hamilton's Indians to take some scalps; they said: "No, the scalps don't belong to us, they belong to him"-pointing to Gen. Dodge -meaning that they, the Menomonees, were too proud to appropriate and display scalps from enemies whom they had not slain.

We then went to Col. Hamilton's fort at Wi- ota, and started home. When we arived at the fort at Dodgeville, Gen. Dodge ordered me to go to the Wisconsin river and collect all the Winnebagoes that I could get to go with us to Rock river, after the Sacs and Foxes. On the 20th of June, 1832, I was ready to start; I was then at the Blue Mounds. My horse be- ing ready, and while taking leave of my friends, George Force and a man by the name of Green, started to ride out. Presently we heard the firing of guns; I spoke and said that they were Indian guns. On looking in the direction of the gun reports, we saw Green running toward the fort, and a good many Indians after him. I threw the baggage off my horse, and started to meet him, but the Indians overtook him before he got half-way to the fort. I saw a good many around him, perhaps fifteen or twenty. On reaching the fort, I told the people, and then started for Gen. Dodge's at the Dodgeville fort about half-past eight in the morning. I reached there at 10 o'clock, and gave the general intel- ligence of the presence and depredations of the Indians. I then returned to the Blue Mounds, and found that two men had gone after Thomas McCraney and his family, who were then living on their place between the Mounds and Peter's Grove, and I started after the body of Green,

brought it into the fort, and we buried it the next day.

Previously, on the 6th of June, when Capt. James Aubrey was killed, I started ont from the fort by myself to get his body, and after I had gone a half mile or so, John Dalby and Jefferson Smith came after me on horse back to assist me, and we got the captain's body and brought it in. I had, on that occasion, asked Lieut. Force to go with me, to get Capt. Au- brey's body, but he refused to go, and I told him if he got killed, and was only six feet off, I would not go for his body. When Force and Green were killed, on June 20, and I went and got Green's remains, and brought them to the fort, they asked me if I would hold spite against a dead man. I replied that I would do what I said, whether a man was dead or alive, and Lieut. Force's body lay where it fell for four days.

While at Gen. Dodge's, my orders about go- ing to the Wisconsin, to collect Winnebagoes, were countermanded. Four days afterward, Gen. Dodge and his troops came to the Blue Mounds fort, buried Lieut. Force, Col. Gratiot being present at the burial. Gen. Dodge told me that I would have to go with the army to pilot them to Rock river, and if need be, to act as interpreter. After preparations we started, and kept on until we got out of provisions; when we reached Fort Winnebago, my horse got lame, and I was sent back as express to Dodge's Fort. I remained there until the bat- tle of the Wisconsin, when I was ordered with a party of men to go to Helena to build rafts, on which to cross the army in pursuit of the fleeing enemy.

The next morning after we got there, one of the guards told me that my horse and others were in the field of Mrs. Green. I jumped up and ran into the field, the grass and everything was wet, and I got wet up to my neck and by 10 o'clock I was almost speechless. Gen. Dodge sent me back to his fort, with some other men, who had lame horses, or were themselves

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HISTORY OF GREEN COUNTY.

unwell. I remained there until after the battle of Bad Ax. After the capture of Black Hawk, I had to go to Rock Island to make my return to the commissioner, Gen. Winfield Scott, of my agency at the Blue Mounds, and of the de- livery to me, at the Mounds, of the captive Hall girls, by the Winnebagoes. When Capt. James Aubrey was killed at the Blue Mounds, I, as lieutenant, succeeded in command at the fort there. So soon as Gen. Dodge came, he ordered an election for captain, and I was beaten by one vote. Col. Gratiot, Indian agent, then ap- pointed me his sub-agent, to look after and care for the Winnebagoes about the Mounds. On my return to the Blue Mounds, I was ordered to Fort Winnebago, to receive four Winnebago Indians, who had joined the Sauks during the war. I staid there until they were brought to me, and I delivered them to Capt. Plympton, commander at that place, and there I was dis- charged, Nov. 19, 1832.

Now, I do not want to speak of a man after he is dead; but for the sake of truth, I must say one thing about the rescue of the Hall girls, as given by John Messersmith in Gen. W. R. Smith's History of Wisconsin. Had I seen the account before, I would have given it a no- tice. Mr. Messersmith says that an express came to the Blue Mounds, and they found that the dispatch with which he was charged was on public business, and they prevailed on me to open it, as perhaps it would be of benefit to us all.

In the first organization of the militia at the Blue Mounds, I was elected first lieutenant; Mes- sersmith, McCraney and some others did not like to be commanded, using a rough prefix to the word, by a "foreigner," and the same rude lan- guage was used at the election for captain, after Aubrey's death.

Now I leave it to anybody that knows me, if I would go to men who were my enemies for information or instruction. No, sir: it is well known that at that time the commander, in ad- dition to his military duties, acted as postmas-

ter; now this express arrived there after Capt. Aubrey's death, and I, as lieutenant, had suc- ceeded to the command. There were present Col. Ebenezer Brigham, Esau Johnson, John C. Kellogg, and others of my friends, who sup- ported me. Messersmith had no more to do with the letter or express than the man in the moon. On getting the letter, I spoke to Col. Brigham and others of my friends, and by their advice opened and read it to the crowd; then sealed it up, and got a man by the name of Henry Starr to take it to Gen. Dodge, who was requested to send it on to Col. Gratiot; he did so, and Starr returned to the Blue Mounds.

An old settler, whom I do not now reinem- ber, has said that Col. Hamilton went to Du- buque and got Menomonee and Sioux Indians to the number of 500 for the Black Hawk War. This is a mistake, so far as the Sioux are con- cerned, for the Sioux and Menomonees were al- ways at war; when they met at Prairie du Chien, or at other places, they always attacked each other. I only saw Col. Hamilton's Indians at the battle of the Pecatonica, and I think he had thirty or forty, possibly fifty or sixty, and all Menomonees; and my Winnebagoes were generally about fifty or sixty. But this seems to be the way in which history is too often written.

In May, 1833, I returned to my old diggings at Exeter. Mr. Deviese was not there. After cleaning up what mineral I had there, I went to Dubuque and remained there until 1834, when I came to Mineral Point, where 1 have since resided. I was some time at Centerville, on Blue river, and some time at the New Dig- gings.

I have no knowledge of Grant, who is said to have given name to Grant river, and since to the county of that name. Grant river was so called when I first came to Prairie du Chien in 1819.

I served as a private in Col. James Collins' regiment of Illinois volunteers, from August, 1847, to July, 1848.

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HISTORY OF GREEN COUNTY.

For forty-two years Mineral Point has been my home, and I am satisfied that none of my old neighbors, those who have known me long- est and best, and for whose good opinion I care the most, will give any credence to unkind and unworthy reflections cast upon me. Those who know me best, I am sure, will acquit me of all such charges and insinuations as foreign to my character and nature.

MINERAL POINT, September, 1876.

VI .- BY ROBERT L. REAM.

In the latter part of April, in the year 1838, I first visited Madison. I traveled there in company with Mr. Wells, who, with a two-horse team, was supplying the people of Madison with produce from his farm in Green county. Madison then consisted of not more than a dozen houses, built and in process of erection, counting every shanty and cabin within three miles of the capitol, and was the only market for Green county farmers.

Mr. Wells and I left Monroe, then called New Mexico, in the morning, and reached Grand springs, near Sugar river, late in the afternoon, and camped there for the night. This was before the land there was entered by Mr. McFadden, and the springs had not yet been named. We built a large log fire (to keep off the wolves, as Mr. Wells said), and fried our bacon and boiled our coffee. The aroma of our dainty dishes must have soon filled the at- mosphere; for the prediction of Mr. Wells was verified in an incredibly short space of time, by the surrounding of our camp with prairie wolves in droves. Then commenced such a snarling, fighting, barking and howling, as I never heard before or since. They made the " night hide- ous," and kept up the music with a thousand and one variations until morning's dawn. During the night we chopped down more trees, cut them into logs, and kept up a rousing fire, the roar and crackle of which made a splendid accompaniment to our opposition concert in camp, which consisted of Negro melodies and camp-meeting songs, which we had learned

from Hoosier prairie-breakers in Green county, where it had been my good fortune to serve an apprenticeship at prairie-breaking. Thus we spent a sleepless night (my first night in Dane county). We struck eamp early next morning, without bidding our recently made acquaint- ances a very formal adieu.

We found the then traveled road very crook- ed and winding, and running at almost all points of the compass, and when within five or six miles of Stoner's Prairie, we halted and took observations. After determining the proper course to take in the direction of Madison, I went ahead with an ax, blazing trees. Mr. Wells followed with his team. We struck the prairie where George Vroman's farm was after- ward located. The road which I then blazed, was afterward adopted by the public, and traveled for many years. After passing through the prairie, we followed the old trail to Madi- son, where we arrived the second day. *

From Madison back to Monroe, there was no mode of conveyance, and I made this journey on foot, in one day. It was then fully forty miles by the meanderings of the road. There were no bridges, and I was obliged to wade Sugar river and its tributaries as well as sever- al large marshes, in some of which the track lay knee-deep under water, and I suffered se- verely with the rheumatism in consequence thereof. In the latter part of May, of the same year [1838], I made another trip to Madison, when I negotiated with Mr. Peck for the Madi- son House, and in the month of June removed my family there and took possession as the land- lord .*

VII .- BY HIRAM BROWN, 1884.

I was born on the 23d of September, 1803, in the town of Sommers, in Holland county, State of Connectient, and about twenty-two or

*Says Mrs Roseline Peck : "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 un- til we left the place, has since been removed. Mr. Ream was the father of Vinnie Raum, who was born in the cabin after we left it." It is hardly necessary to say that Vinnie is the famous American sculpter. She is the wife of Richard L. Hoxie .- El.

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HISTORY OF GREEN COUNTY.

twenty-three miles in a northeast direction from the city of Hartford, in that State. When I was about three years old my parents moved into the State of New York and located about 100 miles west of Albany, in the town of Madi- son, Madison county, on the Cherry Valley turnpike road, or thoroughfare from Albany to Buffalo. My parents lived there till the death of my mother in 1837. My life up to near that time was occupied at least till I was about twenty-one years of age in assisting father in procuring the necessary things for our daily living-spiced with some little wanderings as to locality to near the time of my majority, but always with the knowledge and consent of my parents. A part of this time I was at work in a cotton mill at low wages ($1 per week, includ- ing board and washing) was supposed to be learning the trade of managing or overseeing the carding room; but they instructed me slowly, keeping me most of the time at clean- ing the cards. After one month's work at that, I could do it as well as the best and as quick also; but after some nine month's labor at that craft, I bid the cotton-mill good day and sought some more Incrative business and found it in being a farm hand. I soon was able to com- mand the wages of a common hand to-wit: $8 per month, washing and mending thrown in. This was in the summer season ; in the winter I found work at threshing out grain with a flail and got every tenth bushel of wheat, and for rye and oats I sometimes got every eighth or ninth bushel. Sometimes this included my board. At other times I got an occasional job of cutting a few cords of wood at twenty-five cents per cord and boarding myself, or twenty cents per cord and boarded. The timber was mostly beech, sugar and maple. In the spring of 1827, I started for Chantanqua Co., N. Y., some 250 miles from home ; and there I found work with an old school-mate at $10 per month and washing. That year, about the Ist of June, Gen. La Fayette passed through Fredonia on his way east. The military, in that vicinity,

were all called out to give the general a recep- tion, and most nobly did they obey the call, thinking themselves highly honored to assist in the reception of a man who had assisted, both by his sword and purse, the colonies in their struggle for that freedom which they were then enjoying.

The general, by special request, took the overland route from Cleveland to Fredonia, and thence three miles to Dunkirk, where a steamer awaited to carry him to Buffalo. It was ex- pected that he would arrive about 1 or 2 o'clock P. M., so, in order to have things ready at the proper moment, they improvised a sort of telegraphic communication for some fifteen miles above by putting trusty men on the housetops along the line with a flag which was to be raised as soon as the general arrived at the first station; and that was the signal for the man at the second station to raise his flag; and his flag raised was the signal for the next man to raise his; and so on to the last one. But, with delays and receptions, he did not arrive till between 1 and 2 o'clock in the night; then a reception-speech and answer, and the military passing in review, and each one shaking hands with him, detained him so long that it was not till sunrise that he reached Dunkirk, where the steamer was still in waiting to convey him to Buffalo.

Fredonia was illuminated with a lighted can- dle at each light of glass in every front window and at Buffalo, there was a similar illumination.

The next winter, by the aid of friends, I got a school in a back district, as teacher, at $8 per month, and boarded among the scholars. In the spring, or forepart of the summer, I attended a select school more particularly to get a better knowledge of grammar. The teacher was known as a good grammarian and a fair writer. These comprised most of his qualities as a teacher. The next winter I got a school at $12 per month, and the succeeding winter at $13, at same place. My health not being good, I found light work, attending bar at a hotel or tavern, and other

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light work, till the fall of 1835, when I found myself some two and a half miles down the Susquehanna, below Wilkesbarre, where I kept a school for three terms. I then took a wife and started the same day, for Wisconsin, where my wife had a brother, John Inman. We took a steamer at Buffalo, for Michigan City, where my wife had several relations; but when we ar- rived at Chicago we were politely told if we would wait till they got ready they would take us there.

We then took a stage and went to Michigan City, where, the next day, John Inman came.

After a few days spent there in visiting, we started for Wisconsin where we arrived on the 13th day of September, 1836, with provisions sufficient to last us five or six weeks, and be- tween $84 and $85 in money, without a stove or the first hoof of any stock. My wife, for some four years, had the charge of her brother's son, a lad then some ten or eleven years old. She boarded, clothed and schooled the lad for four years without any pay, though he supposed she was getting her pay quarterly.

We moved into his (Mr. Inman's) house just below Janesville, mine making the eighth fam- ily in Rock county. The house was a log one, 12×14 feet inside, with a fire-place about half in the house, and the other half out doors, and the chimney entirely outside. The house had one window by the side of the door, consisting of two lights of glass, 8x10 inches. The door was made of shakes nailed to two sticks, with a sort of wood hinge. There was a wood latch, the same being raised with a string.

Mr. Inman got a team and went to Chicago for some winter provisions, where he got some sour flour at $7 per barrel and two barrels of pork, at $20 cash. lle also got a few groceries such as coffee, tea and sugar with some rice. He there learned that his brother with a large family would be along in a few days. Finding his load of provis- ions heavy, he left one barrel of pork some twenty-five miles out from Chicago, which he

afterward sold for $45. The pork we got was of a miserable quality, poor and scant of salt and soured. It consisted of heads and shanks, hardly affording fat sufficient to cook itself in; but, bad as it was, what with all of us together it did not last till January. We could get fish all we wanted but we lacked any fat to cook them with. No butter, no milk, no grease of any kind.

About Christmas Richard Inman moved on to his claim a little above Afton on the east side of Rock river. We (that is, my wife; her girl, say eleven years old; John Inman and his boy) by dint of good management, made our flour last until the middle of February, when I went to Rockford with one of my neighbors,-he to get grain for his horses and I to get flour. There had been a thaw the day before we started which made it difficult to cross ravines. Some- times we had to go up them and at other times, down. At Roscoe, we had to cross a small stream which was swollen. It was without a bridge and the water had washed off the snow and left the banks icy and very slippery. A person living on the opposite side told us to keep up as high as we could and we tried to cross according to his direction; but the current took both horses and wagon down stream, so that my neighbor jumped into the water and got hold of the horses bits but could not get them over. I then jumped into the water and got ahead of him and took hold of one of his hands to help him and the team out, but as I stood on smooth and slippery ground, I could help but little. The man living there then waded into the stream and took my hand, by which assistance we got the team and wagon out and across the stream, but we were wet to the middle. We went into the house to dry ourselves and finally staid there all night. We went to Rockford next day where I bought a barrel of flour at $16 offering to take two at $15 each, which was refused. On our return, we passed through Rockton where we found two barrels of flour at $15 each of which my neigh-

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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 34

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