USA > Wisconsin > Marathon County > History of Marathon County, Wisconsin and representative citizens > Part 13
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In the year 1873 there settled at the village of Colby George Ghoca, who built the first store there, and the following year the hotel; H. J. Blanchard
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who came the same year with George Ghoca, J. E. Borden, I. C. Gotchy, N. P. Peterson, J. W. Wicker and Frank Riplinger, and N. P. Peterson. George Ghoca played an important part in the new settlement. He was elected as sheriff in 1878, was a candidate for member of assembly in 1881 and defeated by John C. Clarke for fear that his election would be tantamount to an expression by the people of Marathon county that they were in favor of taking off a portion of Marathon county to form a new county with a part of Clark county.
All these farmer settlers took their land as near as possible to the rail- road line, and. while many of them entered their land at the land office in the year of 1871 when the railroad had not even reached Stevens Point, which place is at least forty miles from Spencer and fifty from Colby, still they had six months from date of entry to establish actual residence on their home- stead, and it may safely be assumed that they waited until spring next before going with their families onto the land and establishing their homes thereon.
For some years following their settlements they had to go through the same experience of all pioneers in a new country, the same as the first set- tlers in the county. The influx of new settlers was very slow for the first six years; true, provisions could be brought up from Stevens Point by rail- road to the stations, but freight was high and therefore goods purchased at the local stores were sold at the advanced price. But with the establishment of depots there came saw mills, and work could be had at the mills in the villages.
The Wisconsin Central railroad traverses and runs on the line of Mara- thon county for only twenty-four miles, yet in this short distance there were not fewer than six depots, to wit : Mannville, Spencer, Unity, Colby, Abbotts- ford, and Dorchester; there was a saw mill at Mannville owned by Curtis Mann; four smaller mills were at Spencer; one large one at Unity, owned by D. J. Spaulding, and some smaller mills further north, and a mill settle- ment at every mill. Spencer, Unity, and Colby were growing rapidly after a few years and had quite a population, much of which, however, especially in Spencer, was floating, or of the temporary kind. From Mannville nearly up to Unity the white pine predominated as standing timber and supplied the mills with raw material. Above Unity there was more of hardwood mixed with hemlock. All these mills ceased to exist after a run of from fif- teen to twenty years, the D. J. Spaulding mill being the last to cease opera- tion in 1894.
When the brothers McMillan came to the present town of McMillan in 1873, there was just one settler in township 26, range 3 east, by name of
8
138
HISTORY OF MARATHON COUNTY
Thomas Woefle. He had come there in 1870 by way of the Campbell settle- ment, but his improvements were hardly worth mentioning. The McMillans found him when they looked over their land and for the location of a mill site, coming from Unity and following as much as practicable the course of the Eau Plain river. This Woefle committed suicide later, and nothing was ever heard of his family or where he had originally come from.
The McMillan brothers commenced building their mill in 1873 and had it in running order in 1874. It was rigged up with a band saw, the first in the pinery and also the first manufactured by the E. P. Allis Mfg. Co., Mil- waukee, Wisconsin. A spur track was built from their mill to Mannville on the Wisconsin Central railroad, over which road the lumber was shipped. For the first years, up until about the year 1880, only pine was cut, but at that date commenced in a slow way the cutting of hardwood, which increased as the pine decreased.
Hardwood was at that time very low in price, not much in demand. Mc- Millan brothers sold 400,000 feet of basswood for $4.50 per thousand feet, half of the purchase price to be taken in woolen goods, the other half in money.
The best of red oak lumber, clear, twelve inches wide, brought in Milwaukee $17.00 per thousand feet at that time.
This mill was operated from 1874 until 1911 when it closed down for good. It was supplied with logs cut on land in the neighborhood not very distant from the mill, and one gets a good idea of the standing timber on those lands from the fact that this mill sawed on an average ten million per year for thirty-seven years, or 370 million feet of lumber, of all kinds, of course, including hemlock. Especially in later years, hemlock was the staple product. After the mill had begun operations farmers settled upon lands, and the town of McMillan has now a large number of fine cultivated farms. The township was soon thereafter set off from the town of Bergen and organized as a separate town. Only one large mill was operated above Unity, the mill of Angus Lamont about two miles south of Colby. Built in 1874 and operated from 1875 to 1896. But as the mills were going into operation more settlers came and moved eastward into Marathon and west into Clark county. The strongest farm settlement was in the town of Hull in which was located the village of Colby, and that town was the first newly organized town on the "line," meaning the boundary line of the county. The lumber industry employed many men on the "line:" it brought quick returns, and therefore was favorable to the new settlers. The population had so increased that for a number of years from 1877 to about 1898 there was a desire on
DAM AT MARATIION PAPER MILLS, WAUSAU, WIS.
SCENE IN LIBRARY PARK, WAUSAU, WIS.
:
BIRDSEYE VIEW OF WAUSAU, WIS.
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the part of many of the people of the villages on the "line" to be set off from Marathon county and with some territory from Clark county establish a new county. This movement came nearest to realization in the session of the legislature in 1877. There was then no opposition to the creation of a new county, and a bill for the organization of one was ready to be favorably reported to both houses of the legislature and would have passed without doubt, had not the question of the location of the county seat cropped up as a disturbing factor at the most inopportune time for the scheme. Colby wanted the county seat. It had a plausible argument in its favor. It had the most settlers east and west for twelve miles; had the best buildings, and its population was not of the floating kind, there being no saw mills to swell the same; the lobby from Colby therefore insisted to have their village named in the bill as the county seat. This was objected to by Spencer and Unity, which insisted that the place of the county seat should be left to a vote of the people. If so left to the voters there was great danger that Colby would not be selected because Spencer with its four mill crews and another mill crew at Mannville south and the settled portion west in Clark county could outvote both Colby and Unity. When this dispute arose between the contestants for the county seat, the legislature with the silent acquiescence of the lobby from the "line" postponed the whole project to the next session. The project was kept alive for many years afterwards, but it never advanced so far as in the first attempt, and although bills were introduced in nearly every session thereafter, they never were favorably reported and died the death in the committee room.
It may be interesting to know why the first attempt found no opposition from the two members representing the counties of Marathon and Clark. The reason is not far to seek. By the first bill it was sought to take ranges 2 and 3 from Marathon only. At that time they were very sparsely settled ; nearly all the land in that territory was either government or railroad land and yielded to taxes, the railroad lands being exempt from taxation. It was supposed that the territory was unprofitable to Marathon county. The ques- tion of division had not been agitated in the county, and the people were indifferent, did not care one way or the other. The members representing the counties of Marathon and Clark were of the opinion that expenses for roads, schools, and courts would be more than the territory would bring in taxes, and that it would be good policy to let this territory go. Other motives may also have influenced their course. But afterwards a strong current against any division of Marathon county set in and also in Clark county, and from that time on the project was doomed to failure. Any man who was offered
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HISTORY OF MARATHON COUNTY
for member of assembly who was suspected to be in favor of division was invariably defeated, and in later years, after 1896 when Marshfield revived the project with the intention of being made a county seat, the people on the line opposed the scheme as strongly as those from any other part of the county. The extension of the Northwestern railroad from Wausau to Marshfield, the building of good roads, the railroad from Abbottsford to Athens which has outstripped the villages on the "line" in growth, and other influences have put a quietus on the whole project, which is not likely to be revived in the near future. Good roads are running in every direction from east to west, railroads and automobiles make now a trip to Wausau one of pleasure to be made in a few hours, where it formerly never took less than two, often three days, and the people inhabiting this territory are at this time as much opposed to a division as any other part of the county.
The advantage which the early settlers on the "line" had over the earliest settlers in Marathon county by being nearer a railroad line and a base of supplies was nearly if not all counterbalanced by the fact that most of the lands in the town in which they had located were exempted from taxation for many years to come. The Wisconsin Central railroad was a land grant road. By act of congress approved May 5, 1864, enacted through the efforts of Hon. Walter D. McIndoe, later amended so as to require the road to run through Marathon county, there was granted to such railroad "every alter- nate section of government land, designated by odd numbers for ten miles on each side of its line, to aid in the construction of a railroad from Portage City, Berlin, Doty's Island or Fond du Lac, to Bayfield, thence to Superior on Lake Superior ;" and for any deficiency in the number of sections or acres of land lost to the railroad by pre-emption or settler's rights, the railroad had the right to select an equal amount of government land within twenty miles on either side of its line.
The lands so granted were by the legislature of the state of Wisconsin exempt for ten years, which exemption extended to the year of 1877, and by act of the legislature, chapter 21, laws of 1877, the lands were freed from taxation for three years more, or up to 1880. All the odd sections in the present towns of Spencer, Brighton, Hull, and Holeton for ten miles along on the railroad were thus made railroad lands and left untaxed, only such as were sold for the timber to lumbermen could come in the tax roll, and that was but an insignificant amount. On such lands the timber was removed as rapidly as possible and cut lands were almost deemed worthless at that time, yielding but an insignificant amount of tax. But the settlers had to make the roads, pay the tax for the maintenances of town and county gov-
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ernment, build school houses, pay the wages of the teachers; in a word, keep schools going, and were thus forced to pay high taxes with which to improve or raise the value of the railroad lands which no tax could touch.
Some of the pioneers who, like D. B. Hull and George Holeton, made early final proof by having their time of service in the army during the war, deducted from the required period of five years of residence whereby their land became taxable as real estate, were almost swamped with taxes which threatened to eat up their homes.
Yet before the exemption of the railroad lands expired by operation of law in 1880, the Wisconsin Central railroad asked for another exemption of their lands for five years more and came very near obtaining the privilege from the legislature. The bill did pass the senate by a comfortably large majority, but was fortunately defeated in the assembly by the narrow margin of two or three votes. The credit for defeating this iniquitous act belongs mainly to Hon. John Ringle, who was in the assembly as member from Mara- thon county for the first term, powerfully aided by Hon. T. W. Spence of Fond du Lac and W. E. Carter of Platteville, Grant county. Mr. T. W. Spence was himself a land owner on the "line" and knew the injustice done to settlers by the exemption under which he as well as all other land owners suffered. He convinced Hon. W. E. Carter that the bill should not pass, and both of these men being influential leaders with the Republican majority in the assembly and Mr. John Ringle using all the influence he could bring to bear on the Democratic members, they succeeded in overcoming the powerful railroad lobby at Madison. After that was accomplished, the early settlers on the "line" had a breathing spell from heavy taxation which almost amounted to a confiscation of their property. And there was another advantage by the defeat of this measure. Since the land became taxable, the railroad was eager to sell the land rather than hold it, and consequently could not ask exorbitant prices for the same. Selling at a reasonable figure brought more actual set- tlers, farmers, to that region and in a few years population increased, clear- ings were made, and the new towns assumed the character of an agricultural country. In the same measure as the pine was cut, the timber sawed and carried away by the railroad, the farms increased in number and value, and the "line" towns are now as fine agricultural towns as the oldest ones in Marathon county.
The lumber industry on the "line" is ended; the pine all along the rail- road is cut and shipped long ago, but there are now farms as finely culti- vated, productive, and profitable as in any part of the county. The farm population, which was first without exception all native American, is now
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HISTORY OF MARATHON COUNTY
mainly naturalized American emigrants, German, Polish, Austrian, and some Scandinavians. The native Americans were the first to come, but did not receive much succor. When the new emigrant settlers arrived, the older settlers sold out and mainly left, some went into the villages, some left for other fields, and only in few instances are the first settlers or their children on the original farms.
As the lands near the railroad were first taken up later settlers had to go further away from it, because there they found virgin timber, readily sal- able and lower prices for the land. That they had to make miles of road at their own expense or with their own labor, did not deter them, for they were willing to undergo that hardship which they knew they would conquer, and that their industry and thrift would make them independent. They have been sooner rewarded than their brothers in the further east of the county. All the western townships of Marathon county are now settled; they have good roads, good schools, churches, creameries, cheese factories, their little mills and factories and brick yards.
The town of Day was formed out of portions of the town of Bergen. The door to these settlements was Marshfield, a very small village in 1880. - Up to 1877, emigration went north from Marshfield, then it turned eastward towards Rozellville. The old Campbell settlement has already been referred to, where a few families existed for a long time until the tide of immigration turned in their direction. Leonhard Schmidt came to Rozellville in 1877; early in 1878 came William Raschke and Andrew Daul, the latter erecting a small saw mill; also Peter Nicolay, Caspar Ably, Joseph Schmidt, Adam Zimmerman, John Derfus, John Holzmann, N. Benz, Louis Spindler, Jacob Reicher, N. Roehlinger, Math Folz, and Peter Riplinger. Joseph Schmidt, Adam Sturm, and Jolın Brinkmann, came in the same year, the latter open- ing a store, and Kiefer came in 1879. The majority of these settlers came from the farms of southern Wisconsin, to whom the work of clearing land was familiar work, and they succeeded admirably in reducing the fine hard- wood lands to farms in short time; but there were also some emigrants from Germany among them. It was with hardly an exception a German settlement.
They were mainly from the south and west of Germany, from Bavaria, Hesse, and the Rhine. The town of McMillan was settled about the same time, the population, however, being from the north of Germany, the brothers Schilling and Brand being among the first. In the course of twenty years these towns have undergone a great change. Many of the first settlers died, but their children still occupy the lands; some have sold out and removed, but everywhere are the signs of progress and prosperity. The settlement of
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the towns of Riebrook and Halsey began in 1878. Fred Riebrook of the Milwaukee law firm of Johnson, Riebrook & Halsey colonized these towns mainly with settlers of the Polish nationality from Milwaukee. One of the first settlers in Riebrook was P. Theusz, the first chairman of the town, and Ludwig Findorf and L. Schwager, who kept tavern and was the first postmaster, the name of the postoffice being "Poniatowski."
About the same time or a little later came Fred Bradfish, who settled in township 29, range 5, east of Poniatowski, followed by other Germans, and in 1880 the town was already strong enough to demand and obtain recog- nition as an organized town. This new town was named Riebrook, and the first town election was held in the spring of 1881.
How slow migration was from the Wisconsin Central east is apparent from the fact that when Andrew Kreutzer bought land and settled in the forest, which spot afterwards became the village of Athens, in the year of 1879, there were at that time only two homesteaders, the brothers Olson, in township 30, range 3, and Charles Riemer, who had settled as early as 1858 on the east line of township 30, range 4, which had only one other farmer settler in that township, a relative, by the name of Charles Lindeberg.
A dam was put in across Rib river in the northeast quarter of township 30, range 4, in the latter part of the seventies, and a water mill run there for a few years by Gustavus Werlich, and lumber was rafted as in olden times and run out of the river to the Wisconsin and down, but the experiment proved too expensive and costly. Only a rapids piece could be run at a time from the northeast of township 30, range 4, on Rib river to the Wisconsin, passing two dams and the winding crooked course of the Rib.
Operations of this mill ceased about 1880 or 1881, and the erection and operation of that mill did not much advance the growth of the settlement. The eastern portion of Marathon county is attracting most settlers in later years, townships 28, 29, 30, in ranges 9 and 10. The G. D. Jones Land Company is doing most of the locating of farmers in that part of the county, the settlers being Hollanders, Germans, and Scandinavians. In the south- east portion in townships 26 and 27, ranges 9 and 10, the Holway Land Company has succeeded in getting the same class of actual settlers on lands. and at this time every portion of Marathon county is settled and improved by good roads from east to west, from north to south, although there is yet wild land enough for thousands of farms.
In all of the incorporated villages and railroad stations are stores with well supplied stocks of goods where a farmer can supply himself with needed goods without traveling far from home, all of these villages having railroad connections.
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HISTORY OF MARATHON COUNTY
The incorporated villages in Marathon county and railroad stations are : Dancy, Knowlton, Mosinee, Rothschield, Scholfield, Brokaw, and Heights, all on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad; then there are Norrie, Hatley, Ringle, Callon, Kelly, Marathon City, Edgar, Fenwood, Stratford, and McMillan on the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad, and Athens, Milano, and Corinth on the Sault St. Mary Railroad, and Spencer, Unity, and Colby on the same railroad, and Eldron and Gallowa on a branch of the North- western railroad, branching off and running south from Eland Junction. In citing railroad stations, the flag stations have been omitted.
Thus were settled the utmost western parts of Marathon county, mainly from the railroad lines of the Wisconsin Central. Ranges 4 and 5 were settled from Wausau and Mosinee, and the extreme southeast, townships 26 and 27, ranges 9 and 10, were the last ones settled on, but they can now boast of as large a population as other towns, and more are coming in every year.
The town of Pike Lake, being township 26, range 10, was settled from Stevens Point about thirty years ago, the population being nearly all Polish, with a sprinkling of Bohemians and Germans. J. Milanowski and Gustav Baranowski were the first settlers in that town in which is situated the vil- lage of Bevant. The farmers in that town had no road to Wausau for a long time; if they wanted to come to the county seat, they had to travel by way of Stevens Point. But that has been remedied and two good highways connect Wausau now with that thriving settlement, one being the so-called Waupaca road and another one by way of the village of Hatley.
CHAPTER XII.
War Times-Indian Scare-Railroads and Railroad Litigation-The Wis- consin Central Railroad Company-The Wisconsin Valley Railroad Com- pany-The Lake Shore & Western Railroad Company-The Passing of the Rivermen-Lincoln County Set Off.
WAR TIMES.
The presidential election of 1860 did not create much of a stir, although the political questions involved in that contest were and had been aired in the debating club existing at Wausau for more than a year. In these debates the Democrats had always the best, because they were always there in the greatest number. It is easy, too, to understand why men in the pinery, work- ing hard for a living and without any of the comforts of life and settlers in the woods working day and night to keep the wolf from the door, did not give much thought to the wrongs of another race five hundred miles away. They had their own troubles, their own difficulties to solve, did not and could not give much time to politics, and they were almost cut off in their isolation from other parts of the United States. In the election of 1860 Lincoln received in Marathon county 219 votes to 481 for Stephen A. Douglas, Breckinridge had 4 and Bell I vote.
The votes by towns being as follows :
Lincoln
Douglas
Breckinridge
Bell
Wausau
IO.4
140
2
I
Jenny
25
20
·
·
Marathon
4
28
...
...
Mosinee
28
49
...
...
Knowlton
20
19
2
...
Weston
13
28
. ..
. .
Stettin
3
54
. . .
...
Berlin
5
128
. . .
...
Texas
17
15
...
...
147
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HISTORY OF MARATHON COUNTY
But when the crisis came, when the question was whether this country should remain as it was, one Union, or be broken up into fragments, when Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 men and Stephen A. Douglas answered -not 75,000 but 300,000 men, the last dollar, the last drop of blood in defense of the Union, the Democrats of Marathon county were not behind their Republican brethren in upholding the starry emblem of the Union. The bombardment of Fort Sumter reverberated through the country, the echoes of it were heard at Wausau, and Silas S. Stoddard with his fife, and B. F. Luce with his drum announced the breaking out of the war, and the patriotic pinery men rallied in defense of our common country.
On the first day of May, 1861, Leander Swope came to Wausau from Pine river and was joined here by Burton Millard, Preston Lord, John Cooper, Charles Tracy, and Alphonse Poor and took the stage to Berlin, where they enlisted. The county board and afterwards the towns made some provision for assistance to those families where the father had enlisted.
No record of names was ever kept; at least none can be found to show who served in the army from Marathon county, but the archives of the state show that there served in the army from Marathon county soldiers as fol- low's :
Recruits 143
Veterans
36
Distribution of excess. 45
Drafted 62
Total 286
Distributed over the county, to wit:
Berlin 40
Jenny
27
Marathon
12
Stettin
22
Wausau
I16
Easton
7
Knowlton
19
Mosinee
19
Texas
II
Weston
13
This is a very creditable showing for Marathon county, with only 705 votes of men of all ages, with one-third at least who had come but two or three years or less from Germany and were not yet citizens.
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The soldiers of Marathon county served in the severely buffeted Army of the Potomac, in the Army of the Cumberland, they were with Sherman at Atlanta and through Georgia, with Thomas at Nashville, some even with the ill-fated expedition on the Red river under Banks. Burton Millard was the first to fall; others followed him and are buried on the southern battle fields ; other carried honorable wounds to their graves; many did not return.
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