USA > Wisconsin > Marathon County > History of Marathon County, Wisconsin and representative citizens > Part 12
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In the same meeting of the county board it was ordered to advertise for letting the contract for the clearing and fencing of the courthouse block.
On the 27th day of April, 1858. the new county board met for the first time with Milo Kelly of Eau Clair, Perley Dodge of Wausau, Joseph Dessert of Mosinee, Thomas Hinton of Texas and William Wilson of Jenny and Milo Kelly was elected as chairman.
The primitive condition of the county building appears from the follow- ing order of the board: "Ordered, that the chairman be authorized to pro- cure the materials and employ some person to build a chimney in the county office."
The need of a poor farm seemed necessary, at so early a stage, for the county board purchased ninety acres from Thomas Hinton for $3,100. This
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looks like a big price for those times, but the order specifies that the purchase price was to be paid in county orders, which were probably worth 60 cents, or less, on the dollar face value.
M. D. Corey had his home on the corner of Third and Jefferson streets, where the National Bank now stands, and east of the house he had a large cabinet-maker's shop, with a steam engine to furnish power. On the floor above the shop circuit court was held sometimes, and also a school. In 1858, N. Daniels came to Wausau and associated himself with Corey, and this shop was converted into a shingle mill, until it was destroyed by fire in 1866. H. Daniels built a new and larger steam mill on the west shore of the river, where Spruce street intersects First avenue, which was operated until 1877; this site was afterwards sold to McDonald and Dunbar Lumber Company in 1881, which was in operation until 1888, and subsequently burned down. The land is now owned by the Curtis and Yale Lumber Company.
R. E. Parcher arrived in 1858; first worked as a clerk in the drug store of Taylor & Ellis; soon purchased the interest of Ellis, and later that of Taylor; the drug store was situated in a part of a store standing where the Marathon County Bank now stands, the front part thereof being occupied as a postoffice, and the rear as a drug store.
B. G. Plumer and John Irwin had a vacant store on Main street, half way between Washington and Jackson streets, still standing, which R. E. Parcher purchased about 1862 or 1863, and opened his general merchandise business, combined with a drug department, and conducted it until about 1880, when he sold out.
August Kickbush arrived from Milwaukee in 1860, with a wagonload of merchandise, opened a store in a little shanty on Clarke's Island and soon thereafter acquired the Doolittle place on corner of Main and Washington streets, where he engaged in general merchandise business, becoming in a few years the leading merchant in the pinery.
A boarding house, styled the United States Hotel, had been erected towards the end of the decade closing with 1860, on Second street, between Washington and Jackson streets, which was rented and conducted by Sebas- tion Kronenwetter, until it burned in 1863 he losing his whole investment of personal property in the fire.
Nearly all business houses were on Main street and Second and Third streets, and from Forest to Washington street, excepting the postoffice, already referred to, and the Bank of Interior, opposite the courthouse ; some dwelling houses and shanties further east and north; especially on Forest and Main streets. Shingle street had lost its importance by that time.
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In 1860, there were the four large saw mills and one shingle mill in Wausau, and three portable mills from three to five miles from the village; three general stores, one drug store, and four lawyers and four physicians. Some farmers continued to arrive every year after the first settlers had come in 1856, but the influx of German emigrants practically ceased during the war between the states, followed by the wars on the continent in 1864 and 1866. By this time a very large part of the lands entered after their survey in 1852 and 1853 had become county lands for the nonpayment of taxes. Speculators had bought the lands, expecting quick sales, which did not mate- rialize, and then failed to pay the taxes. The large amount of such lands sold for nonpayment of taxes can be estimated from the fact that as early as 1858 the county board engaged Asa Lawrence to make an abstract (prob- ably only a list by description) of such lands, in order to keep them out of the tax rolls, for which service the county agreed to pay $700.
The salary of the county clerk was fixed at $350 for the term beginning January Ist, 1859; that of the district attorney at $300; other officers, in- cluding the county treasurer, received fees up to this time and for some years to come.
The town of Berlin was created in February, 1859, to consist of township 30, ranges 2 to 6 inclusive, and all of township 30, range 7 west of the Wis- consin river, the first election to be held at the house of John Kopplin, and at the first election held in April, 1859, William Drost was elected chairman.
At the same meeting the county board created the town of Marathon out of township 28, ranges 2 to 6 inclusive; also the town of Knowlton, out of township 28, ranges 8 and 9 and all of township 28, range 7 east of the Wisconsin river.
Francis Mitsch was the first chairman of the town of Marathon, and C. Washburn from the town of Knowlton. Perley Dodge, the county treasurer, vacated his office, going to Pike's Peak, and the county board elected J. A. Farnham to fill the vacancy, but in the next election, Charles Hoeflinger was elected for the first time as county treasurer.
A resolution passed by the county board July 8. 1861, throws some light on the paper money misery of those times. It reads: "That a committee of three be appointed to investigate in relation to discredited money in the hands of the county treasurer," and from orders of the county board at a later date, it seems that the difference or discount, whatever it was, was charged up to the treasurer, and he was directed to pay the same. Besides the mills mentioned, there was a number of smaller shops, blacksmiths, wagonmakers, and shoemakers.
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George Ruder began building his brewery in 1860; had his first brew on the market in 1861 ; and five saloons administered to the wants of the popu- lation for a light stimulant. The hotels and boarding houses were filled to overflow in the spring by hundreds of men coming out of the logging camps, waiting to go rafting and running lumber out.
A village government became now a necessity; a charter was obtained in the session of the legislature of 1861, and by the election of officers in the same year, on April 8, 1861, Wausau became an incorporated village.
Its first officers were: F. A. Hoffmann, president of board of trustees; Charles A. Single, Jacob Paff, John Irwin, John C. Clarke, trustees; Thomas Single, clerk.
This John Irwin was one of the pinery pioneers; he was a millwright of exceptional ability, continuously employed either in building or remodeling mills, a thoroughly competent and honest man; sobor and industrious, his ability only rivalled by his modesty, a gentleman in speech and manners. He remained a bachelor and removed from Marathon county in 1880.
F. A. Hoffmann, the village president, kept a hardware store on the corner of Third and Washington streets, and at the time of his election had some interest in the Central Wisconsin. He must have been a reformer of the violent kind, to judge from his record in the county board, where he rep- resented the village. At the first meeting of this board, in 1861, which con- sisted of himself, from the village of Wausau; Dr. I. E. Thayer, of the town of Wausau; William Cuer, of Mosinee; M. L. Winslow, of Knowlton; W. V. Lambereaux, of Weston; John Lemmer, of Marathon; C. Buttke, of Stettin; William Drost, of Berlin; J. E. Armstrong, of Texas, and Harrison Combs, of Jenny, being ten in number, if all present; he moved for a set of rules for the government of the county board in conducting the business, and being · appointed as the committee to propose the rules, he reported a code consisting of twenty-nine sections, one among them, that all motions should be in writ- ing, etc. These rules, besides a number of others relating to the duties of . each and every county officer, were adopted before the board started to do any business, except electing a chairman. Page after page of the minutes of the proceedings is taken up with his motions, never failing to begin with the enacting clause : "The board of supervisors of Marathon county do order and determine," and winding up with the stereotyped phrase: "This act shall take effect and be in force from and after its passage." To show what sort of a practical reformer he was, and how he attempted to cure some of the bad practices which seemed to have grown up, the following resolution is cited, which he introduced and which was passed in the first meeting of the board, to wit:
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The board of supervistors of the county of Marathon do order and determine :
Sec. I. That the chairman of the board appoint a committee of one to proceed to Milwaukee or such other place as he shall deem expedient and consult such lawyer of ability as he may decide in regard to the following questions as to their legality :
A. Is it legal for this county board to issue county orders payable at some specified time hereafter?
B. Is it legal for this county board to pay interest on such orders as mentioned in paragraph I ?
C. Is it legal for the county board to build the road to the north line of this state as provided in chapter 310 by paying the contractor in county orders, the county to take said lands as a reimbursement ?
D. What is the remedy if the county officers do not obey orders of this board ?
E. Can the credit system of the county treasurer and the clerk extended to land agents be stopped ?
F. Is the county treasurer responsible for loss of any money deposited by him in a bank ?
Sec. 2. Said committee so appointed shall also engage the services of such lawyer to defend all suits in which Marathon county may become a party and which may have already been instituted or may be instituted here- after in consequence of bonds of said county, and that said lawyer shall defend and protect this county in all such cases.
Sec. 3. That the commissioner shall receive $100.00 in Marathon country orders, etc., to defray expenses of this trip and return the balance, if any, to the county.
Sec. 4. That the lawyer engaged to defend all such suits shall receive not more than $500.00 for his services in Marathon county orders, or so much less, as the committee shall decide to be paid, when the present case pending for the amount of $5,000 instituted by J. V. Peace is decided.
Sec. 5. The expense of such lawyer in coming to this county for the purpose of investigating such case to be paid by this county, provided it does not exceed $50.00.
The bonds referred to were bonds issued for the building of the Wausau and South Line Plank Road.
Of course Hoffmann was appointed as such committee, and he made his trip to Milwaukee and later reported, but as to what the report was, the record is silent. There were some lawyers here, and if he did not trust
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them, there were good lawyers in Stevens Point, Plover, and Waupaca, and as to the bonds, the county could have really no defense. Some of the com- plaints against one or the other of the county officers may have had good foundation to rest upon; there might have been incompetency or carelessness in collecting taxes, but never anything come from this investigation. The reform movement left no impression.
In another resolution of J. A. Hoffman introduced November 13, 1861, and adpoted relating to settlement for delinquent taxes, leaving out the sev- eral preambles, the following appears :
"WHEREAS, Most of the lands, so bid in by the county in the years 1857- 1858-1859 and 1860, have not been redeemed but the county orders issued for the purpose of settling with the towns have increased at a fearful rate so that their real value stands at this moment at one-half of their nominal value," etc., which is simply cited as an authorative admission that Mara- thon county orderse in 1861 were worth only fifty cents on the dollar.
The county had now been organized for ten years, and the question may arrive, why were county orders still at such a frightful discount? When the county began business as a municipality, it had no money, no property. The expenses were necessarily greater than the income, and at this time the county was substantially a wild territory as yet. Lands were not thought to be worth enough to redeem from tax sale, which went to the county in lieu of taxes, and there was no sale for them. The county had too much land, was land poor. There may have been other causes tending to keep county orders at a heavy discount. If there were, they were not discovered or remedied. Hoffmann may have acted from the best of motives, or it may have been otherwise.
The fact remains that as a reformer he was a failure, expecting too much from resolutions without work, and often self-denial, to see that they were executed.
Towns were organized and they, too, issued their orders without money in the treasury to pay them, which also were discounted; the only town making an exception was the town of Berlin, where through the efforts of their chairman, G. Plisch, and later Aug. W. Schmidt, no orders were issued unless there was money to pay, and people taking road contracts or other work for the town knew they would have to wait, and were satisfied to wait until tax paying time, when they were paid. The town thus receiving full value for work contracted, while when orders were issued with no money to pay that fact was always taken in consideration, and contracts were based upon a scale of depreciated currency. These orders circulated as money to
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a limited extent in buying goods, etc., but the county and town was always a heavy loser by doing business along those lines. This condition of things remained nearly sixteen years longer, only to a lesser degree so far as the county was concerned, and the change will be duly noted when it came.
Hoffman was not re-elected. His store burned down the following year, and after running a tin shop for about two year's longer, he removed from Marathon county.
In the same year ( 1861) the county was divided in three districts, each was to elect one commissioner at the general election, the three commis- sioners so elected to constitute the county board.
The first district included the towns of Jenny, Wausau, Texas, and the the village of Wausau.
The second district: Towns of Weston, Mosinee, and Knowlton.
The third district: Towns of Berlin, Stettin, and Marathon.
On January 13, 1862, the new county board met for the first time.
First district represented by Jacob Paff.
Second district represented by John Weeks.
Third district represented by Aug. W. Schmidt.
Before closing the narration of events which happened up to 1860 it may not be out of place here to cast a glance backwards on the general con- dition of the business in the pinery.
Joseph Dessert in his "Reminiscences" speaking this time said :
"The panic of 1857 was followed by the hard times of 1858 and by the spring of 1859 the outlook was very dark. Everybody was in debt and nobody could pay. In the spring of 1859, after a trip to the lower river markets, which was discouraging, everything looked blue, and he set his bookkeeper to work to see how the concern stood. He found that the firm owned $82,000.00 and had a large amount outstanding. Of this, thirteen thousand dollars was owing their store from laboring men and others in the neighborhood. They owed a large amount in Galena. Henry Corwith of that place was their principal creditor, the amount due him being about $25,000.00. After getting a full understanding Mr. Dessert suggested to his partner, Henry Cate, that he should send for his brother, George W. Cate (already referred to as the circuit judge). When he arrived the con- dition of affairs was explained, and Mr. Dessert told the Cates they could have the business if they would agree to pay the debts, and he (Dessert) would give up everything. He told them that he had worked there since 1849 with Henry Cate, and had besides his hard work put in about fifteen hundred dollars in money. George W. Cate advised his brother against
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accepting the offer. He did not think he could ever get out of debt. When they reached this conclusion, Mr. Dessert took the opposite tack and said he would take the business on these terms and would undertake to pull it through. Practically Cate accepted the offer. Henry Cate had an outside partner in a mail and stage line between Mosinee and Stevens Point and had invested the firm's money in the team and outfit. Mr. Dessert allowed him that team, which was all he took out of the concern. Mr. Dessert then went to Galena and saw Mr. Corwith and stated to him the condition of affairs. Mr. Corwith did not think he could weather the storm, but Mr. Dessert insisted upon trying, and as Mr. Corwith could make nothing by forcing him, so he consented, and Mr. Dessert struggled along. Towards the end of the war and for some years after, lumber prices began to rise, and by 1870 he was well upon his feet, and ultimately paid off every obliga- tion. This was not alone the condition of Joseph Dessert, but was the con- dition of every lumberman on the Wisconsin river with but slight varia- tions, but not all weathered the storm; some went down in spite of their hard work to save themselves, in spite of all exertions made and privations endured. The only mill owner who seemed to be able to stand safely in these perilous business years, was William Scholfield of the Eau Clair mill. His mill and business had been safely operated by S. Hutchinson until 1856, while he was in practice as a physician in Stevens Point, and no doubt by his earnings in his profession was able to put his business on a firm founda- tion. Men working at this mill were always paid promptly, which is more thạn could be said of other concerns.
CHAPTER XI.
The Towns of the Wisconsin Central R. R. now M., St. P. & Sault St.
: Marie R. R. and First Settlements-Tar Exemptions of R. R. Lands- Town of Rietbrook-Athens in 1879-Settlements on the Extreme South, East and West-Incorporated Villages and R. R. Stations.
SETTLEMENT OF THE EXTREME WESTERN PART OF THE COUNTY.
Up to the year 1871 the territory in ranges 2 and 3 was yet wholly unset- tled and wild; not a clearing, mill or road existed in that part. The farmers had gone in east and west from Mosinee, Wausau, and a few from Merrill not any further west, however, than range 4, so that for nearly eighteen miles from the east line of range 4 to the county line of the county the west line of range 2, there was an area of 10 townships, or a territory of 360 square miles in which no white man had yet set his foot with the intention of subduing wilderness.
In township 26, range 4, there existed a very small settlement, only a few families, the brothers Campbell, one Rozell, and one Beach, which was called the Campbell settlement after the brothers "Campbell," who had gone there from Weeks mill on the Eau Plain river; their beginning dates back to about 1868. These settlers have died or removed, and the last one of them known to be in Marathon county, Mr. Beach, died at the farm of his son in the town of Cleveland in 1912. The only outlet for these farmers was the saw mill of John Weeks, and from there up to Mosinee, or later to the railroad station Dancy.
The settlement of the present towns of Spencer, McMillan, Day Brighton, Hull, and Holeton began with the building of the Wisconsin Central R. R. in 1871 and 1872, the settlers following the track of the railroad, and slowly continuing their march in either direction, east and west from that line, into Marathon and Clark county, invading the present towns of Eau Plain, Frankfort, Bern, Johnson, and Halsey, in this county which at that time were attached to other towns.
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The first train of cars ran into Stevens Point on the 15th day of Novem- ber, 1871, but the construction crew had already cleared out and surveyed the right of way at that time as far as where the village of Unity is now situated. As soon as a trail was cut and the line surveyed, the fine govern- ment lands invited homesteaders and settlement. They were taken very slowly at first, because when taken under the homestead law, settlement and residence was required, and without any other highway or road than simply the surveyor's line for a railroad track, a homesteader had to brave all the hardships and absence of all comforts of pioneer life. The entrymen in this section were not emigrants, but native Americans, many of them honor- ably discharged soldiers of the Civil war who saw a chance to become land owners with a small outlay of money, but they improved the opporunity and were willing to brave the discomforts of forest life and hard work incident to the making of a farm in the wilderness. It is true, the railroad was run- ning cars as far as Colby in the summer of 1872, but the trains were still construction trains ; passenger service was subordinate to construction work, and consequently trains were not run on time table time, and while a per- son might travel as far as a railroad station, he was in the woods as soon as he had left the right of way of the road or the depot ground.
The first homestead entry (h. e.) in that territory was made by Ebenezer Lowe on September 6, 1871, in section 8, township 28, range 2 east in the present town of Hull and final proof made thereon 1873.
John Gardner made homestead entry September 11, 1871, in section 4, township 26, range 2 east, and final October 2, 1873.
Edgar Tenant made homestead entry on September 15, 1871, in section 30, township 26, range 2 east, and final proof October 2, 1873.
David B. Hull made homestead entry September 27, 1871, in section 20, township 28, range 2 east, in the present town of Hull, the town being given his name as the first actual settler, though the entry of Lowe precedes his by a few days.
Francis Parrot made homestead entry in section 30, township 27, range 2 east, October 30, 1871, and Edmond Creed and F. H. Darling made homestead entry each in section 6, township 27, range 2 east on November I, 1871, the first two mentioned ones being the first actual settlers, having come there in the summer of 1871 and made settlement prior to entry in the land office.
George Holeton made homestead entry on November 18, 1871, and final proof on December 9, 1873, and being the first homesteader to hold land in his own name, the town was named in his honor the "Town of Holeton."
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That was the beginning of the settlements in the towns of Spencer, Brighton, Hull, and Holeton with the present villages of Spencer, Unity, and Colby.
As already mentioned all these settlers and all those that came years after them had to cut their roads out to their lands through heavy woods, swamps or low marshy lands where no wagon could be used, only crotches or in the winter sleds. The timber in that section of the county was, if anything, even heavier and thicker than in the older towns and therefore harder to clear, although there was sooner a market for the pine because mills sprung up at nearly every railroad station.
Among other earlier settlers must be mentioned George Burnett who made homestead entry in section 6, township 27, range 2 east, November 19, 1872.
Henry Pradt, homestead entry made May 20, 1872, in section 14, town- ship 29, range 2 east.
Namon Hodge, homestead entry made May 14, 1872, in section 28, township 29, range I east.
Theophile Bouciere, homestead entry made November 13, 1872, in section 2, township 28, range 2 east.
James Brown, homestead entry made April 27, 1872, in section 10, town- ship 28, range 2 east.
Peter Beckins, homestead entry November 9, 1872, in section 18, town- ship 28, range 2 east.
N. J. White, homestead entry April 1, 1873, in section 18, township 28, range 2 east.
WV. L. Parkill, homestead entry May 3, 1873; Daniel Mahoney, home- stead entry, November 10, 1873: Walter Pradt, homestead entry, November I, 1873; Augustus Wilms, homestead entry April 21, 1873, in section 24, township 28, range 2 east.
Other pioneers are John K. Hayward who came to Spencer in 1873; C. K. Richardson, who came to the same place in 1875; to the town of Brighton came Alfred Cook in the summer of 1871 with a crew of men who cut out the road from Loyal Clark county to the railroad track to get men and mate- rial for the saw mill of D. J. Spaulding near Unity, and when that crew arrived they found nobody there but Ed. Creed and F. H. Darling on the ground where now stands the village of Unity, and one little log shanty which served as a boarding house for the working crew of the railroad.
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