History of Marathon County, Wisconsin and representative citizens, Part 6

Author: Marchetti, Louis. cn
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Chicago : Richmond-Arnold Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1042

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"With other means it was out of the question to open roads to the several water powers where saw mills were to be erected, as there was no money to build them with so long canoes were hewn out of woods and supplies of every

HISTORY OF MARATHON COUNTY

name and nature that were necessary for their sustenance were boated by canoes in summer season, and the ice on the river furnished the road in win- ter, upon which supplies were fetched into the country. At this time there was but one house between Madison and Fort Winnebago, and but two houses from the fort to Point Baussee, which were kept by men who had Indian women for wives. The population in 1845 of the valley from Point Baussee in the whole pinery was only 300, almost all men, only about 12 or 15 being women.

"The reputation given the country by the traders of the American Fur Company was that the land was stony, sandy and barren, mountainous and marshy, cold and unhealthy and not fit for farming, or ever to live in by a civilized people, and that was the impression of the lumber men for many years. They thought that all the lands that would pay them to cultivate were the islands on the river and the bottom lands on the banks which grew blue joint and red top grasses, where the hay used by the lumber men was cut. They soon found that the high grounds would raise hay and potatoes if noth- ing else."

The place so often mentioned at Point Baussee or Point Bois, was at the head of the low water navigation, where Daniel Whitney lived as an Indian trader, and where years before him, the Robert Wakely mentioned by John C. Clarke had a trading post. In the earliest days of the pinery an attempt was made to reach Point Baussee from Kilbourn or may be Portage City before the erection of the Kilbourn dam by steam boat, but the venture proved unsuccessful, the steam boat making only one trip.

The saw mill erected by Whitney was about three or four miles above Point Baussee on Whitney Rapids. In speaking of the Black Hawk war, Mr. Clarke evidently had in mind the war, or murders committed by Red Bird, the chief of the Winnebagoes, which preceded the Black Hawk war.

At the time of the settlement of George Stevens no land in Portage county has been surveyed, except probably a line had been established to mark the three-mile limits from the river, which land was ceded by the treaty with the Menominees in 1836.

CHAPTER VI.

First Settlements (Continued ).

George Stevens became the owner of the whole water power by his gov- ernment entry in 1840. He built the first mill on the east side of the slough, about four hundred feet above the present B. Heinemann Lumber Company mill. This mill and site was sold to Morris and Boswell of St. Louis in 1844 who in turn sold it to W. D. McIndow and Shuter in 1848. This mill was torn down and a new one put up in 1851 which was the mill of the Alexander Stewart Lumber Company, now B. Heinemann Lumber Company.

George Stevens had erected another mill on Clark's Island in 1842 which he sold to Barker and Woodward and which after several conveyances and sales (being operated by Walrad-father and son) came into the hands of John C. Clark in 1860, who operated it until 1883, when he sold out to Mc- Donald Brothers Lumber Company who after a few years, in turn sold out to Stegner Company, when it soon became idle, was sold under mortgage sale and came into the possession of Alexander Stewart, then to the Wausau Electric Light and Power Company, and the site is now owned by the Wausau Street Railroad Company. In the fall of 1842 Crosby and Loop erected a mill on Plumer's Island which burned in 1844, was rebuilt by Moore and Berry in 1845 and operated by James L. Moore until 1850, when it passed into Pope, Green & Barnes and finally to B. Barnes, and after fore- closure proceedings came into the possession of B. G. Plumer in 1861, and after his death in 1886 descended to his brother D. L. Plumer. It was sold by him a few years ago to the Wausau Street Railroad Company, together with the island and all water rights.

In 1849 Goodrich, Feheley and Levy Fleming built the fourth mill, located on Plumer's Island west and south of the B. G. Plumer mill, receiv- ing its water by means of a conductor. This mill was sold to G. N. Lyman in 1853, and Mr. B. G. Plumer became its owner in 1865. It was operated by John Brown and Daniel Fellows until 1870 and stood idle since that time. It caught fire evidently from sparks escaping from the slab burner of the McDonald Lumber Company's mill in 1886, which fire spread to the lumber

HISTORY OF MARATHON COUNTY

yards of B. G. Plumer and A. Stewart Lumber companies and consumed all the lumber in the yards. In about four hours, lumber valued at $150,000 was lost, the heaviest loss falling on B. G. Plumer, whose insurance had expired and not been promptly renewed .*

These three saw mills were running at Wausau (which name will now be used instead of Big Bull Falls), but the population was limited to the number of men engaged in sawing logs and getting the supply. Mr. Levy Flemming who came here in the fall of 1844 and is still living and a healthy gentleman past ninety years, and who lived here ever since, says that when he came to Wausau, the whole population was 28 men and two women.

The splendid water power at Little Bull was already appropriated as early as 1840 and 1841, John Henry Merrill, who conveyed to J. L. Moore, who had commenced operating there by building a dam and mill, having associated with him one Mitchell, a brother of Alexander Mitchell of Mil- waukee. Mr. Mitchell did not remain long with Mr. Moore and departed from the pinery.

The water powers in the Wisconsin, easy of development, having been taken up, the tributaries were eagerly scanned by the eye of the would-be saw mill owner, and every available site appropriated within the years from 1840 to 1849. Probably one of the first dams and mills erected outside of Wausau and Mosinee, was erected on the Eau Claire river below the mouth of Sandy Creek, somewhere near the bridge of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad. It was at a point where the old Indian trail from Mosinee up north crossed the Eau Clair river. The dam and mill were put up by John B. DuBay, but was not long in operation and passed out of his hands. This John B. DuBay was an interesting character. He was at different times in the employ of the American Fur Company at a high salary, being in charge of the Lac du Flambeau post of that company for five years. His father was native born French, who had come from Montreal to Green Bay as early as 1790 and become an Indian trader. His wife was an Indian woman, presumably a Menominee, and their son John B. learned the Indian languages as well as English and French. He acted as interpreter in nearly all the treaties made with the Indians for General Cass and the other govern- mental officers. After quitting the employ of the Fur company, he went into business for himself, had a trading point near Fort Winnebago and there had squatted on, or in the official language, pre-empted land.

*The fire would in all probability have been checked before doing much damage, but in a critical moment, the water supply at the pumping station gave out, and the engineers at the station failed to make the pumps draw the water supply from the river.

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

A man by the name of Reynolds at the head of a mob of thirty persons (as claimed by DuBay) sought to dispossess him and level down nis home, when DuBay came out of the house, gun in hand, and after unsuccessfully warning them to desist, shot and killed Reynolds, then gave himself up to the authorities.

A lynching in the Portage city jail was barely averted. At the trial of DuBay for murder held in Portage city, the jury disagreed and a second trial in Madison had the same result, after which he was discharged.

This was in 1857-58, and though discharged, his defense consumed most of his property. He had then and years afterwards a good equipped store for the Indian trade at a place on the Wisconsin river called "DuBay," about eleven miles above Stevens Point. He was a very intelligent man and had a reputation for integrity and honesty. He lived many years after the affair at Portage City at his place above Stevens Point, and was well thought of by the pinery men as well as by the Indians. He was married to an Indian wife. Dr. William Scholfield and Captain Lombard built the dam across the Ean Clair river at Scholfield about 1840 and put up their mill on the north side of the dam. On the south side Hiram Martin had a mill, which he in 1851 sold to Lombard & Scholfield. Doctor Scholfield then removed with his family to Stevens Point, where he practiced his profession as a physician, but returned in 1856 to help carry on the lumber business. The Martin mill was allowed to fall into decay after its sale.

Moe and Martin had a saw mill on the Eau Claire river which came into the hands of William and N. D. Kelly and became known as Kelly's upper mill; and a mill erected by Goodhue also passed into the possession of the Kelly Brothers. and became known as Kelly's lower mill. All these mills were erected between 1844 and 1849. The Scholfield mill is now owned by the Brooks & Ross Lumber Company, and Kelly's lower mill is owned by John Manser, and both are operated by steam, getting most of their log supply by railroads. The DuBay mill went to decay in the fifties, and the last vestige, some spars, were swept away by the flood of 1881.

In 1845 Benjamin Single erected a mill about four miles from Wausau on Litte Rib river, which was run by water power until 1852, when it was changed to a steam mill and was in good working condition until 1871, when it caught fire and burned down.

There were two mills erected on Pine river in the years from 1846 to 1848. One was near the mouth, built by Pearson and by him soon con- veyed to Dennis Warren. About four miles above the mouth was a mill built by Thomas Grundy and Isaac Coulthurst in 1845-1848. This was a

HISTORY OF MARATHON COUNTY

double mill having two saws and a slide to supply both saws. Isaac Coult- hurst sold out to Wells and in the middle or later years of the fifties, Grundy sold to Edw. Armstrong. It remained in Armstrong's possession until 1867, when it came into possession of John L. Davies, a lumberman at Davenport, Iowa, who operated it until 1881 or 1882, when sawing on Pine river ceased. The pine on Pine river was especially large and of fine texture. A little later another mill was erected at the mouth of Pine river by O. Rood, which was a steam mill. It run for some years, then lay idle, was run again three years from about 1862 to 1865 by John Erwin and Joseph Garland, and fell in disuse and was finally sold for delinquent taxes. This seems to have been the first steam mill in Marathon county.

The Trappe river mill was built by B. Berry as a water mill, and later changed to a steam mill. John F. Callon bought it in 1876. It ceased run- ning in 1889.

In 1849 Andrew Warren built the dam at Jenny, now Merrill, and a double mill, like the Thomas Grundy mill, selling one mill to O. B. Smith, and after passing through several hands, it finally became the property of Thomas B. Scott, or rather the Thomas B. Scott Lumber Company about 1877. After the death of Thomas B. Scott it was operated by his son for a short time, who removed from Merrill about 1891; then the mill lay idle. . and the water power became the property of the Merril Street Car Com- pany which uses part of the power and a pulp company the rest. It is located on the east end of Merrill.

There is a faint recollection that in early times there was a mill located on the Eau Plaine river, near its mouth, but it must have gone out of busi- ness, too, at an early date, because nothing in particular can be ascertained about the enterprise.

So there were located in 1849 fourteen saw mills in and near Wausau (not counting the Eau Plaine mill), all within from three to twenty miles of Wausau; still the population was not to exceed three hundred and fifty in 1849, and the settlements were confined to these mills and yards. Mills had improved somewhat by 1852, but a cut from four to five thousand in twelve hours was still excellent work.

One of the earliest settlers who became quite prominent was Thomas Hinton who came in 1844. He built the first tavern named "The Blue Eagle." It stood near the east bank of the slough directly west of Jackson street. Later he kept a store in the Riverside hotel; acquired the Trappe river mill ; he was sheriff, and held other county and town offices.

Another was Charles A. Single, who came in 1845. Charles Single

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

worked for his brother until 1850, when he came to Wausau and built the "Forest House and Forest Hall," which became the famous hostelry through- out the Wisconsin valley. The hotel burned down in 1878, but the Forest ' Hall is still standing. Charles Single was the second sheriff elected in Marathon county, and at all times prominent in national and state politics ; he was at all times a believer in the future of Marathon county and active in its behalf.

No attempt at farming had been made. What roads there were, were logging roads, and they were only crotch roads, the pine being cut close to the mill in each instance and dumped in the mill pond. The base of sup- plies was still Galena from where the provisions were brought as far as the Point, and then taken up on the ice in winter, sometimes in cases of dire need, by canoe. The men were hired to be paid in lumber or shingles- shave shingles; they sold their lumber or shingles to one another or put it together on a raft and sent it down to market, waiting for returns until sold. Men lived on the coarsest of fare and the few women shared their table. Thomas Grundy related that when he helped build the mill at the mouth of Pine river, the crew (perhaps six men) lived all winter on one ox who had died from sickness and whose frozen carcass furnished them their meals, besides some peas-no flour. Joseph Dessert told a similar story, only in this case the ox had not died of his own accord, but was killed for food. Potatoes were a rarity. J. L. Moor running the Plumer mill, in 1852 brought up a barrel of cooked and mashed potatoes from Belvidere, Illinois, which were salted to preserve them, which food was hailed with delight. Salt pork furnished the standard meal, and everybody was happy when there was plenty of it. The men had no time to go hunting, but they did resort to fishing which helped out the ever monotonous table course. There were then no trout in the creeks, but they never looked for any, as catfish weighing fifteen pounds was more in popular favor than would have been the finest trout. They got along too without any milk. John Le Messurier came here in the spring of 1845. He was then the landlord at the Henspringer tavern, near Fort Winnebago, and there became acquainted with Francis Brezette who had been here the previous year or 1844. The glowing description of the wealth which could be made out of the splendid pine which only needed to be cut and thrown in the river to make the possessor a rich man induced him to come. He hitched three yoke of cattle to one wagon, containing his wife and three children, all girls from seven to twelve years of age, and a little household goods; and another wagon with one yoke of oxen, con- taining nothing but a cook stove and utensils, driving as far as Stevens Point, 4

HISTORY OF MARATHON COUNTY

then brought his family in canoes to Wausau and drove his cattle through the woods on the trail, arrived safely here, bringing with him three cows, the first animals of that kind. When the J. Le Messurier family arrived here, there were only three women here-Mrs. J. L. Moor, Mrs. Hiram Pearson, and Mrs. Baxter. Le Messurier found a vacant log house, said to be Peter Kelly's house on the west side of the river, now the Gifford place, which his family occupied. One of the daughters, Mrs. Trudeau, still living in Wausau and in splendid health in spite of, or perhaps because of, the many hardships which she experienced in her early life says her father planted some potatoes on an island in the same season-it must have been Plumer's Island-and she also says they harvested some.

A few years afterwards, when Mr. W. D. McIndow had taken up his residence with his young wife, he brought two cows, and still another was owned later by Doctor Scholfield, which animals constituted the whole milk supply for Wausau and Scholfield.

In this year ( 1845) Mrs. J. L. Moor, who was residing with her husband on Clarke's Island, gave birth to the first white child in this county.

All the buildings in Wausau up to 1845 were the boarding houses around the mills on Plumer's and Clarke's Island, and the George Stevens house on Plumer's Island where J. L. Moor lived, and the George Stevens House on Clarke's Island, besides a few shanties on Shingle street, where shave shingles were made; hence the name. Shingle street was then and for the next four or five years the principal and only street in Wausau. The platted portion of Wausau was a thick forest in 1845, only broken by the cutting out of a particular fine shingle tree here and there.

The land from Point Baussee, in fact, from Portage up north as far as Stevens Point was open, prairie like, covered with black oak brush which an ox team would break down and walk through; but from there up commenced the heavy timber which had to be cut out. The trail from Stevens Point up followed the high bank of the river as close as possible, had many windings and crooks to avoid the low and marshy places. It was fully fifty miles by that trail between the two places, and the sled road referred to by Mr. J. C. Clarke, fit for use only in winter,followed the same trail, only cutting off some of the bends.

That condition of the road remained until 1851 when Marathon county was organized and the first attempts at road making were made, but there was little improvement until 1856 when the county issued bonds to the amount of $10,000 to commence work on the Wausau and South Line Road (now Grand avenue) which was to run from Wausau to the county line south.

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

Among the pioneers must be mentioned George G. Green, who came to Wausau in 1841 and lived here until his death in 1893. He was at one time interested in the Lyman, respectively in what afterwards became B. G. Plumer's mill. Like all pioneers, he was a strong, healthy man, and had a wonderful memory for dates. He said that in the first years of his residence here, he counted eight hundred Indians, going to the maple groves above Wausau to make sugar. Indians at that time, and for many years thereafter, occupied the land in and around Wausau in large numbers. Among the first settlers was Orlando Root, father of Doctor Root of Stevens Point, Hiram Pearson who built the mill at the mouth of Pine river. An- other was Henry Goodrich, a partner of Levy Flemming, who was elected as a delegate to the first constitutional convention, which drew up the first state constitution which was rejected by the people.

The first lumber was run out of Wausau in 1841 by Hiram Stowe; he had a half breed as his steersman, Joseph Wilmoth or Willamotte, who, under his tutelage became himself a first-class pilot and who in turn initi- ated William Cuer in the mysteries and dangers incident to guiding a raft over the treacherous falls and rapids of Wisconsin, and who for generations afterwards, was the "star pilot" of Little Bull Falls.

Each of the three mills at Wausau cut annually about one million feet, and the output increased very slowly for the next three or four years. The shingle output was large, and they were much in demand; they were all made by hand, from the best straight grained clear pine, and were held at $2.00 per 1,000 at Wausau, but the man that sold them here had to wait for his money until the shingles were sold on the Mississippi. The condi- tions in Mosinee were of course exactly similar.

In his reminiscences, Mr. Dessert says: "There was no money in the country. Men got their wages in the spring in lumber. The lumber was rafted and run down the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers to Galena and points below, sold to jobbers partly on credit, for six dollars a thousand." He (Dessert) was paid $1.00 per day for helping to run it. When he returned to Little Bull, his employer borrowed a part of his earnings to pay the woman cook. In 1844 everybody regarded the Wisconsin river region as an uninhabitable wilderness. In common with everybody else Mr. Joseph Dessert thought of it only as a place to remain a few years, endeavor to make and save money and return to Canada. In his own language, "He would not have promised to become a permanent settler at that time if he had been offered the whole country as a gift."

For a common laborer the wages was about $16.00 per month and board,

HISTORY OF MARATHON COUNTY

with pay in lumber, generally at the rate of $5.00 per 1,000 feet. One winter Joseph Dessert and another man took a contract for logging at 50 cents per 1,000 feet, and board, but they had to make 5,000 feet per day, or they would be charged for board; saws, axes, and files were furnished in addition to board.

There was only the mill boarding house at Mosinee then, a one-room log house, with a small log addition for two women cooks. The whole num- ber of inhabitants of the place is given by Mr. Dessert at from fifteen to twenty persons. Quite a settlement was on Pine river there being the two mills only four miles apart.

Where the up river trail from Wausau struck the first mill at the mouth of Pine river, erected by Hiram Pearson, but soon coming into possession of Dennis Warren, that point was christened "Point Washington."

The frequent changes in mill property in the first fifteen years of the coming of the pioneers plainly indicate that there were great difficulties in carrying on the lumber business, because had it been profitable, the men used to all sorts of hardships, the coarsest of fares, and the exposure to inclement weather, would not willingly sell out or give away their business established under such trying circumstances. Some, like Stevens, had some money when they came, but their capital was spent long before they would get any returns. Stevens sold out and left Wausau about 1850, and others with less capital were forced out by circumstances which were wholly beyond their control.

It was not only difficult and expensive to get supplies in the pinery to cut the logs and saw them into lumber, though the pine was close by and could be had in the first few years and even after ten years just for the cutting and hauling, but it did cost something after all to get them, still more to saw them into lumber with the slow up and down saw, but still more to run the lumber to market.

Another and one of the worst handicaps to the business was the long time it took before returns would come. The high hopes with which the pinery was entered slowly faded away, and only after many years were reasonable expectations realized.

The lumber that was sawed and piled in the summer was rafted next spring and reached the market during the summer and then sold, sometimes but not often for spot cash, largely on credit for a part at least. So at best when lumber brought money, it took at least one year before money could be had for the outlay in money and expenses in making it. It was sold in a bunch, that is, the fleet as a whole together and brought no high price.

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

Money being so rare, brought easily from 12 to 15 per cent interest, and after a couple of years of hard and perilous work the lumberman found him- self financially where he was two years before. If it was expensive and difficult to bring supplies up here, it was still more expensive and difficult to bring the lumber to market on the Mississippi. The many falls and rapids of the Wisconsin which could be so easily harnessed and made to serve man, correspondingly increased the lumber navigation.

For running it down the river the lumber was made up in this way : Lumber was put in cribs 16 feet square, from 14 to 18 inches deep and wedged down tight together; the cribs coupled together with two 2-inch planks called binding planks, and when six cribs were so coupled, it was called a rapids piece, because it was run over the rapids in this shape. The first lumber which was run out from here before the pilots became more familiar with the obstructions in the channel was only 12 by 16 feet square and only 9 inches deep. The size, however, was soon increased to 16 by 16 for the crib, and to 18 inches deep when the lumber was dry. and about 14 inches when green. The best of pilots could not wholly prevent damage in going over the rapids, caused by striking a rock or rocks, which would break loose the bottom, and a damaged crib had to be taken apart and rafted over again. In the front or bow crib was an oar firmly set in an oar stem, 40 feet long, the oar being two and one-half inch thick where it was pinned in the oar stem, and then tapering to three-fourths of an inch on the other end, and 16 inches wide. A similar oar was on the tail crib. It took a crew of from four to six men besides the pilot and the steersman to guide a rapids piece of Big Bull or Little Bull, but the dams and rapids below the last mentioned fall were worked with a smaller crew. Big Bull Fall was the most destructive to lumber, but the danger to men was greater on Little Bull; yet when the river was just in the best stage for running, there was no danger if one was careful. But running the rapids was an exciting and dangerous piece of work at all events. The men stood at the oar, watching the pilot, and when he dipped the oar, they had to push with all their might one way, give one or two clips with the oar, then jump under the oar and push the other way, and when the piece was in the act of going down the chute, jump back as quick as lightning almost and hold to a grub or the line run from one end of the piece to the other, to get out of the way of the oar stem which escaped sometimes, the pilot's hand, and swung around across the crib, and also to prevent being washed off the lumber by the flood of water which swept over the crib, sometimes from two to four feet high. The place at the tail was a little less dangerous, because in going down, the tail end didn't dive as deep as the bow.

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History of Marathon County, Wisconsin and representative citizens, Part 6

Author: Marchetti, Louis. cn Publication date: 1913 Publisher: Chicago : Richmond-Arnold Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1042

Author: Marchetti, Louis. cn
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Chicago : Richmond-Arnold Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1042