USA > Wisconsin > Milwaukee County > Milwaukee > History of Milwaukee from its first settlement to the year 1895 > Part 7
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HISTORY OF MILWAUKEE.
1842, and was made Speaker of the lower house. In 1844 he was again chosen to represent the city at Madison, and was again elected to the speaker- ship. His personal appearance was very much to his advantage, and in any public assemblage of men the spectator would have selected him as a man of mark. In 1850 he was elected mayor of Milwaukee, and held that office for one term. He held few offices of consequence after that, al- though it is said his great personal popularity would easily have made him governor of the state, if his ambition had been in that direction. He had, however, a supreme contempt for the deceit, intrigue, and double-dealing of professional politicians, and preferred social life and leisure to the excitement and turmoil of public life. In politics he was a Democrat, but at the breaking out of the Slave-holders' Rebellion he took a de- cided stand in favor of the preservation of the Union. He was the leader among the men then known as War Democrats, and together with Judge Arthur McArthur, Levi Hubbell, Matt H. Carpenter, C. D. Robinson and others, gave to the state and national administrations, assistance of in- estimable value in the prosecution of the war. He was always active in every movement calculated to advance the material prosperity of the city and state. The city was largely indebted to him for the building of the Milwaukee & Mississippi Railroad; he was at one time president of this railroad company, and long a member of the Board of Directors. IIis influence was freely given, also, to other railroad projects that were beneficial to the city and state. He built the first street rail- way in Milwaukee at a considerable loss to him- self, and thus laid the foundation of the present splendid system. One of the last public acts of his useful life was to aid in securing the location here of the National Soldiers' Home, and his arduous labors in that connection undoubtedly shortened his life. He died at his home on Biddle street, September 20, 1866, and has left no children.
Unquestionably the three most conspicuous names connected with the early settlement of Milwaukee, are those of Solomon Juneau, Byron Kilbourn and George H. Walker, each of whom, in his own way, contributed vastly to the upbuild- ing and development of the city. These three men laid the foundations of the present metropo- lis, and when its history is written in the form of
grouping the principal actors together, they will come first. Although they were in one sense rivals, they were never personal enemies, and at last they all worked together in perfect accord for the common good. All three were large, fine- looking men, but mentally they were very unlike. Both Walker and Juneau were uneducated men, while Kilbourn had been well trained in early life, and his long experience as a civil engineer was of great advantage to him.
Juneau had the advantage of the other founders of divisions of Milwaukee in the location of the land which he platted as a town site. Between the river and the lake the land was well adapted to general building purposes, and its residence sites were numerous and attractive. It over- looked the bay and access to it from the river was easy. Juneau comprehended fully its advantages of location and contemplated the efforts of Kilbourn and Walker to build up rival settlements without a feeling of jealousy. This lack of jealous feeling in the start, was due in part, perhaps, to his gener- ous nature, and in part to the fact that his envi- ronments had been such that he knew little of the manner in which great cities are built up and comparatively little of the agencies which build up such cities. His range of vision, com- pared with that of Kilbourn, was limited and while he became impressed with the fact that Milwaukee was to become a city of considerable consequence, soon after immigration to Wiscon- sin began, he thought there was room enough on the east side of the river for the future city and in view of its natural advantages had little fear that "Kilbourntown" and ".Walker's Point" would become more than outlying settlements.
Kilbourn viewed the situation in an entirely different light. He was a skillful engineer, and, as remarked elsewhere, had been identified with some exceedingly important enterprises. Hle had had occasion to make a study of the growth of cities and the causes which contribute to their development. IIe looked forward to a time when Milwaukee should become one of the great cities, perhaps the great city of the West, when its harbor would be crowded with shipping and it would teem with wealth and population. To plant a settlement which should become the trade center of a large city was the thought in his mind when he came to Milwaukee. lle first saw the place in company with
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MILWAUKEE SOUTH OF THE RIVER.
Garrett Vliet and others, the company traveling from Green Bay on horseback, there being no settlement between the two points at that time, and the road being simply an Indian trail through the forest, which was marked by the blazed trees. Mr. Kilbourn's experienced eye took in the situa- tion at once, and the first thing he did was to make a survey and the next was to make a pur- chase of the tract of land on the west side of the river, "with a mile of water front and an infinity of morass." No sooner had he secured his patent than he took immediate steps to improve and ad- vertise his town-site. Some of his claim was hilly, but more of it was a dense tamarack swamp, "bristling on the outskirts with black alder and ash." He made two contracts in 1835; one was to clear the tamarack swamp, and the other was to build a stationary bridge across the Menom- onee river. The most favorable ground he had for building-lots was along what is now Chestnut street, and there he began his city.
Mr. Kilbourn commenced the improvement of his town with the vim and energy that characterized all his acts and in a short time the two solitary dwellings belonging to himself and Garrett Vliet, on Chestnut street, were separated by a score of others. He had been on to Washington during the winter of 1835, and removed the cloud from the title to his land, and that made purchasers of lots in " Kilbourn town " feel secure in their investments. Substantial improvements had also been made. A good portion of the tamarack swamps that had disfigured what is now the Second ward had been cleared away, and the Menomonee river had been spanned by a substantial bridge. He soon had a steamboat plying on the river, and a newspaper made its appearance. Jealousy between the two sections of Milwaukee was not long in mani- festing itself. Kilbourn's little steamer, "the Badger," used to visit the bay when a big steam- boat made its appearance, and bring in all the pas- sengers that wanted to land. Of course they were taken to Kilbourn's town, and informed that the future city of Milwaukee was to be built on the west bank of the river, with Chestnut street as the main thoroughfare. As for the East side, "it was well enough as an Indian trading-post, but no one would seriously think of ever building a town
between the river and the lake, for the simple reason that there was not land enough." Not all visitors were impressed favorably with Milwau- kee as the place appeared to them in 1835, how- ever, even when they were aided by a look at the city's future greatness through the highly magni- fying optics of Byron Kilbourn, Garrett Vliet or D. H. Richards. The simple fact was that the first impressions of the location were not favor- able. The Milwaukee river at that time was not very sure where its own mouth was, but had the uncertain habit of sometimes emptying itself into the lake at one place and then at another. The town was approached by nearly two miles of tor- tuous channel, through a wet morass, the little steamers having to paddle through the maze of wild rice and grass from the mouth of the river to the foot of Wells street. Much of what is now the Third, Fourth and Fifth wards was under wa- ter, or covered with the thick undergrowth of bush peculiar to swamps, and a good deal of the hard land was occupied by high hills or knolls that made straight streets impossible until an im- mense amount of grading had been done-a kind of work that the city has not got done with to this day.
Mr. Kilbourn and his associates on the West side not only possessed a good share of the enter- prise, enthusiasm and aggressive tendencies of the incipient town, but they represented a good deal of the brain power. At the head stood Mr. Kil- bourn himself, whose executive ability and leader- ship in great business enterprises are known and read of by all men who are at all familiar with the development of the state. Wisconsin has had few men who were his equals in laying out prodigious schemes for the future, though he sometimes failed in carrying out the details of his plans. He was ably seconded by John HI. Tweedy, Hans Crocker, D. II. Richards (who es- tablished the first newspaper, parent of the Eren- ing Wisconsin), H. N. Wells, Garrett Vliet and others, all of whom were more or less familiar with the use of the pen. Some of them, especially Kilbourn, Wells and Tweedy, were ready and convincing public speakers. All of them were conspicuous figures in business and political circles for many years.
CHAPTER VHIL
THE NUCLEUS OF A SETTLEMENT.
BY THE EDITOR.
THE maps of the Northwest territory indicated a trading-post located at the mouth of the Mahn-a-waukee-Milwaukee-river, and prior to the fall of 1834 nothing more could have been claimed for the settlement at this place. Solo- mon Juneau was here, and his brother, Peter Juneau, had also settled near him, while meinbers of the Vieau family and other French Canadians, were occasional visitors to the post. It was not, however, until well along in 1834 that the place could have been appropriately styled a " white settlement." The vanguard of settlers, as distin- guished from Indian traders, arrived in the fall of 1833, when Albert Fowler, Rodney J. Currier, Andrew J. Lansing and Quartus G. Carley took possession of an abandoned cabin, which had probably been built by Vieau or Le Claire. These men had journeyed thither from Chicago, and had been six days making the trip, traveling with a team of horses and wagon through a country which bore no evidence of having been previously traversed by vehicles of any description. Attracted to "the West," by reports concern- ing its wonderful resources, which had traveled back to the Eastern states immediately after the Black Hawk War, they had stopped for a time in Chicago, but concluded to move to this point
. when they learned that fine lands lying on the Milwaukee river had been ceded by the Pota- wat-a-mie Indians to the United States Govern- ment, at the Chicago treaty of 1833. With the coming of these four men, the Anglo- Saxon settle- ment of Milwaukee began. All four lived during the winter of 1833-34 in the trader's cabin, which they found ready for occupaney. They did their
own cooking, and lived in much the same manner as traders and adventurers who had preceded them as visitors to Milwaukee, had lived, but their plans and purposes were of an entirely different charac- ter. They were home-seekers, and came here for the purpose of becoming permanent residents. Currier, Lansing and Carley drifted away from Milwaukee within a few years after their arrival, but Fowler remained here for twenty years or more, and was a conspicuous figure among the pioneers. He was born in Monterey, Berkshire county, Massachusetts, September 8, 1802. His father was Dr. Elijah Fowler, a soldier in the Revolutionary War and a lineal descendant of William Fowler, first magistrate of the colony which settled New Haven, Connecticut. Brought up in New York, to which state his father's family removed soon after the War of 1812, Albert Fowler remained in that state until he came to Chicago in 1832. Soon after he came to Milwaukee he entered the employ of Solomon Juneau as a clerk, accompanied him on his trading expeditions among the Indians, and when Juneau was appointed postmaster of Milwaukee, in 1835, assisted him in the postoffice, making out the first quarterly report ever made from that office. He opened the first real estate office in Milwaukee in 1834, and in 1835 was commissioned first justice of the peace and clerk of the court in and for Mil- waukee county, his commission being issued by Stevens T. Mason, then Governor of Michigan ter- ritory. Ile removed to Rockford, Illinois, in 1853, and for many years thereafter was a prominent resident of that city.
In the spring of 1834, "the ancient trading-
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THE NUCLEUS OF A SETTLEMENT.
station at the mouth of the Milwaukee river," at which the Menomonees, Winnebagoes, Pottawato- mies, Chippewas and Ottawas had long been accustomed to meet their traders, had developed into a white settlement, with a population of seven men, and three of these men-Solomon Juneau, Peter Juneau and Paul Vieau-had families. Mrs. Carley, who had remained in New York State when her husband started on his exploring expe- dition, joined him here in the summer of 1834, and has passed into history as the first female resident of Milwaukee who was not of mixed French and Indian extraction. George H. Walker, who had spent the winter of 1833-34 at Skunk Grove, came back to stay when the spring opened. Two new settlers, one of whom was named White and the other Evans, formed a partnership and opened a store on the lake shore, at what is now the foot of Huron street. Morris D. Cutler, Alonzo R. Cutler, and Henry Luther arrived here about the first of May, but remained only a short time before making their way back into the interior and "locating claims," on which a portion of the city of Waukesha has since been built. A con- siderable number of travelers, land-seekers and adventurers, visited and passed through Milwau- kee during the summer, but a comparatively small number of those who saw the place were favora- bly impressed with it, if one may judge of this from the number who became actual settlers here. In addition to those whose names have been men- tioned, Horace Chase, Skidmore E. Lefferts, Morgan L. Burdick, D. W. Patterson, Samuel Brown, George F. Knapp, Daniel Bigelow, Otis K. Hubbard and George W. Hay became actual settlers before the close of the year 1834. Bigelow and Hubbard paved the way for improvements of more substantial character than any which had been made up to that time, by beginning the con- struction of saw-mills, from which was obtained, a little later, building material for many of the dwellings, stores, shops and offices erected by early settlers.
Next to Kilbourn and Walker the most inter- esting of the pioneers of 1834, considered as his- torical characters, was Horace Chase, who con- tinued to reside here from the date of his first settlement to the date of his death. He was born in Derby, Vermont, December 25th, 1810, and came of a New England family, descended from one of the colonists of 1629. Jacob Chase, his
father, was a farmer, and the son was brought up to that occupation. Before he was seventeen years of age, however, he manifested a fondness for trade, and went to Barton, Vermont, where he became clerk in a country store. In 1833 lie went to Stanstead, Canada, and found employment there in the same capacity for a year or more, when he determined to "go south" and fixed upon Charleston, South Carolina, as a desirable place to locate. Stopping for a time in Boston, before setting out on his contemplated journey, he pro- ceeded to New York, where he happened to meet P. F. W. Peck, who had settled in Chicago two or three years before that time, and who became later a conspicuous figure and left a vast estate in that city. Through Peck's representation, he was induced to change his plans and come to Chicago instead of going to South Carolina. He remained in Chicago only a few months, being employed a portion of the time as a clerk in Peck's store and the remainder of the time in other similar capaci_ ties. In the fall of 1834 his attention was called to Milwaukee and in December he set out for this place accompanied by Morgan L. Burdick, and Samuel Brown. They followed the old Indian trail along the lake shore to Milwaukee, passing but two dwellings on the way, one on the site of the present city of Evanston, and the other near the site of Racine.
When he arrived at the Milwaukee settlement, he proceeded to select a couple of tracts of land, on which he filed claims after the fashion of that period, after which he returned to Chicago where he spent a considerable portion of the winter of 1834-35. In April of 1835 he brought a stock of goods to Milwaukee, being compelled to cut a road through from Root river rapids to the month of Milwaukee river, in order to reach his destina- tion by what he regarded as the most direct route.
From that time forward he was conspicuously identified with the upbuilding of the village and city, and the advancement of Wisconsin as a com monwealth. He served as a member of the first constitutional convention of Wisconsin, and also as member of the first Legislature of the State which convened in 1848. In 1861 he served as alderman and supervisor of the Fifth ward, and at a later date was for several years a conspicuous member of the City Council. He was Mayor of the city in 1862-63 and as a public official and an enter- prising, public-spirited citizen, left a marked im-
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HISTORY OF MILWAUKEE.
press upon the city with which he became identi- fied in the infantile stage of its existence. He died in September of 1886.
Morgan L. Burdick, who accompanied Mr. Chase to Milwaukee, and a native of Jefferson county, New York, and was born in 1813. He came west as far as Dayton, Ohio, in 1833, and two years later traveled on foot from that city to Chicago. While in Chicago he helped build the first frame dwelling erected in that city, and after he came here in 1834, he also helped build the first frame dwelling erected in Milwaukee. He settled on land in the Town of Lake in 1834, re- turned to Ohio in 1837, and married Olive S. Pat- terson, a native of St. Lawrence county, New York, and lived during the remainder of his life on the farm which he claimed from the public domain and brought under civilization.
Samuel Brown-who was known to all early set- tlers as "Deacon" Brown-settled, in 1835, a few months after his arrival in Milwaukee, on land which is now the Ninth ward of the city. Born at Belchertown, Hampshire county, Massachusetts, January 8, 1804, he grew up on a farm, which he left when eighteen years of age to learn the carpen- ter's trade. In 1833, he came to Chicago, where he found employment as a builder, remaining there until he came to Milwaukee. Here he was engaged for many years as a master builder, and took a lively interest in everything pertaining to the upbuilding of the city, up to the time of his death, which occurred September 22, 1874. He was a man of strong character and excellent qual- ities of head and heart; so thoroughly honest, upright and conscientious, that he commanded the respect and esteem of all his contemporaries among the early settlers. A devout Christian from early boyhood, he was one of the organizers of the First Presbyterian Church established in Milwaukee, and one of the first elders of that church. As a public man he rendered valuable services to the city as a member of the State Legis- lature and City Council, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Milwaukee & La Crosse railway he was an active promoter of that pio-
neer railway enterprise. A sagacious, far-seeing man, his early investments and well-directed efforts brought him an ample fortune in later life, and no one of the pioneers is held in more kindly remembrance for his generosity, kindliness and benevolence.
D. W. Patterson, who was also one of the pio- neers of "'34," appears to have been one of the first blacksmiths in Milwaukee, his shop having been opened early in the spring of 1835, in a cabin which he had built on his "land claim," compris- ing what became Sherman's addition to the city at a later date.
While the settlement of Milwaukee showed but slight growth in 1834, there were numerous evi- dences that the place was becoming known to some extent to the outside world. The few set- tlers who came, and the transient visitors and speculators, brought word that it had been heard of in some of the Eastern States, and was spoken of now and then as a rival of Chicago. The Green Bay Intelligencer-the only paper published at that time in what afterward became Wisconsin Territory-predicted early in the year that the "Milwaukee country" would be "much visited by northern emigrants and by all who fear the billious fever and other diseases incident to more southern climates." Milwaukee county was segregated from Brown county by legislative enactment before the close of the year, the area embraced in this new subdivision of Michigan Territory comprising that of the present counties of Ozaukee, Washing- ton, Waukesha, Jefferson, Rock and Racine, and portions of the counties of Green, Dane and Dodge. At Racine-then called Root River- there were one or two settlers. There was one log house at Muckwanago, another at Skunk Grove and two or three at Janesville. These and the few settlers' shanties at Milwaukee were about the only evidences of civilization to be found in the county, when the winter of 1834-35 set in, and with the coming of winter, progress came to a standstill until the following spring. The nucleus of a white settlement had been formed, however, and the era of development had begun.
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LAYING THE FOUNDATION OF A CITY.
CHAPTER IX.
LAYING THE FOUNDATION OF A CITY.
BY THE EDITOR.
T was in the year 1835 that the foundation of Milwaukee as a city was actually laid. That is to say, in that year began the subdivision of lands into small parcels, the laying out of streets and the grouping of buildings, which are distinctive features of an urban settlement. Al- though Juneau and Kilbourn did not purchase their lands from the government until late in the summer of 1835, their claims to the tracts. of which they had taken possession were generally respected, in accordance with the- unwritten law relative to the occupation of the public lands, and their plans and purposes were therefore matters of interest to incoming settlers and visitors. That both men intended to lay out town-sites became known early in the year, and this had its influence upon those who came here to "spy out the land" and seek homes for themselves and families. While some of them penetrated the interior of the Terri- tory in search of choice farming lands, a consider- able number of these immigrants were impressed with the view that a town of some consequence was about to spring into existence bere, and sought locations in close proximity to the prospective town-sites. The United States survey of public lands in Milwaukee county had been commenced in December of 1834 by William A. Burt, and in February of 1835 he had completed the survey of fractional townships Seven and Eight, in Range Twenty-two, between Milwaukee river and the lake. It should be stated in this connection that in the treaties made with the Menomonee Indians, by the general government at Washington, in 1831, the Indians ceded all the lands north and east of the Milwaukee river to which they had previously laid claim, and in the treaty of 1833, made at Chicago, the Pottawatomie Indians ceded to the government the lands west and south of the river, which they had long claimed as their own. The survey made by Burt was designed to include only lands ceded by the Menomonees, but in order to fill out the two townships the survey was extended west and south of the river into
lands which had been reserved to the Pottawat- omies by treaty stipulations until 1836, when their final removal from the lands was to take place. This invasion of the Indian rights, led to some threatening demonstrations against settlers on the part of the red men, but the danger was averted and they were pacified without serious trouble. This tract of land was sold at Green Bay in 1835, and the tracts purchased by Juneau and Kilbourn respectively were platted and town lots were offered for sale long before the close of the year. In fact, Juneau had platted his lands in ad- vance of purchase, and made his first sale of a lot to Albert Fowler, in August of 1835. The first sale of a " West side" lot was made by Kilbourn to Samuel Brown, October 16, 1835, and the first recorded plat of that portion of the city, made by Garrett Vliet, was placed on record October 9, 1835. On the 17th day of September, 1835, the first election was held in Milwaukee and the whole number of votes cast was thirty-nine. The only law authorizing such an election was the law of necessity, which required that some provision should be made for the government of the settle- ment, and by common consent a supervisor, a town clerk, three assessors, two commissioners of roads, one constable, two inspectors of schools, three pathmasters, one poundmaster and three fence-viewers were elected.
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