USA > Wisconsin > Vernon County > History of Vernon County, Wisconsin, together with sketches of its towns, villages and townships, educational, civil, military and political history; portraits of prominent persons, and biographies of representative citizens > Part 108
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EXEMPTIONS.
A homestead not exceeding forty acres, used for agriculture and a residence, and not inclu- ded in a town plat or a city or village; or, in- stead, one quarter of an acre in a recorded town- plat, city or village. Also, 1, family Bible; 2, family pictures and school books; 3, private library; 4, seat or pew in church; 5, right of burial; 6, wearing apparel, beds, bedsteads and bedding, kept and used in the family, stoves and appurtenances, put up and used, cooking utensils and household furniture to the value of $200, one gun, rifle or fire-arm to the value of $50; 7, two cows, ten swine, one yoke of oxen and one horse or mule, or in lieu thereof, a span of horses or mules, ten sheep and the wool therefrom, necessary food for exempt stock for one year, provided or growing or both, one wagon, cart or dray, one sleigh, one plow, one drag and other farm utensils, including
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HISTORY OF VERNON COUNTY.
tackle for the teams to the value of $50; 8, pro- visions and fuel for the family for one year; 9, tools and implements or stock in trade of a mechanic or miner, used and kept, not exceed- ing $200 in value; library and implements of a professional man to the value of $200; 10, money arising from insurance of exempt prop- erty destroyed by fire; 11, inventions for debts against the inventor; 12, sewing machines; 13, Sword, plate, books or articles presented by Congress or Legislature of a State; 14, printing material and presses to the value of $1,500; 15, earnings of a married person necessary for family support for sixty days previous to issu- ing process.
LIMITATIONS OF ACTIONS.
Real actions, twenty years; persons under disabilities, five years after removal of the same; judgments of courts of record of the State of Wisconsin and sealed instruments when the cause accrues within the State, twenty years. Judgments of other courts of record and sealed instruments accruing without the State ten years. Other contracts, statute lia- bilities other than penalties and forfeitures, tres- pass on real property, trover, detinue and replevin, six years. Actions against sheriffs, coroners and constables, for acts done in their official capacity, except for escapes, three years. Statutory penalties and forfeitures, libel, slan- der, assault, battery and false imprisonment, two years. Actions against sheriffs, etc., for escapes, one year. Persons under disabilities, except infants, may bring action after the disa- bility ceases,provided the period is not extended more than five years, and infants one year after coming of age. Actions by representatives of deceased persons, one year from death; against the same, one year from granting letters testamentary or of administration. New promise must be in writing.
COMMERCIAL TERMS.
$-Means dollars, being a contraction of U. S., which was formerly placed before any de-
nomination of money, and meant, as it means now, United States currency.
£-Means pounds, English money.
@-Stands for at or to; ib for pounds and bbl. for barrels; } for per or by the. Thus: Butter sells at 20@30c # 1b and flour at $8@$12 bbl.
May 1. Wheat sells at $1.20@$1.25, "seller June." Seller June means that the person who sells the wheat has the privilege of delivering it at any time during the month of June.
Selling short is contracting to deliver a cer- tain amount of grain or stock at a fixed price, within a certain length of time, when the sell- er has not the stock on hand. It is for the in- terest of the person selling short to depress the market as much as possible, in order that he may buy and fill his contract at a profit. Hence the "shorts" are termed "bears."
Buying long is to contrive to purchase a cer- tain amount of grain or shares of stock at a fixed price, deliverable within a stipulated time, expecting to make a profit by the rise in prices. The "longs" are termed "bulls," as it is for their interest to "operate" so as to "toss" the prices upward as much as possible.
MINERAL RESOURCES.
The useful mineral materials that occur with- in the limits of the State of Wisconsin, come under both of the two grand classes of such sub- stances: The metallic ores, from which the metals ordinarily used in the arts are extracted; and the nou-metallic substances, which are used in the arts for the most part without any pre- liminary treatment, or at least undergo only a very partial alteration before being utilized. Of the first class are found in Wisconsin the ores of lead, zinc, iron and copper, besides minute traces of the precious metals; of the second class, the principal substances found are brick- clay, kaolin, cement rock, limestone for burning
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HISTORY OF VERNON COUNTY.
into quick-lime, limestone for flux, glass-sand, peat and building stone.
LEAD AND ZINC.
These metals are considered together because they are found occurring together in the same region and under exactly the same circumstances being even obtained from the same open- ings. Lead has for many years been the most important metallic production of Wisconsin, and, together with zinc, whose ores have been utilized only since 1860, still holds this promi- nent position, although the production is not so great as formerly. Small quantities of lead and zinc ores have been found in the crystalline (Archæan) rocks of the northern part of the State and in the copper-bearing rocks of the Lake Superior country, but there are no indiea- tions at present that these regions will ever produce in quantity. All of the lead and zine obtained in Wisconsin comes then from that portion of the southwestern part of the State which lies west of Sugar river and south of the nearly east and west ridge that forms the south- ern side of the valley of the Wisconsin, from the head of Sugar river westward. This dis- triet is commonly known in Wisconsin as the "lead region," and forms the larger part of the "lead region of the Upper Mississippi," which includes also smaller portions of Iowa and Illinois.
What European. first became acquainted with the deposits of lead in the upper portion of the Valley of the Mississippi is a matter of some doubt. Charlevoix (Histoire de la Nouvelle France, III., 397, 398) attributes the discovery to Nicolas Perrot about 1692; and states that in 1721 the deposits still bore Perrot's name. Perrot himself, however, in the only one of his writings that remains, makes no mention of the matter. The itinerary of Le Sueur's voyage up the Mississippi, 1700-1701, given in La Harp's History of Louisiana, which was written early in the 18th century, shows that the former found lead on the banks of the Mississippi, not far from the present sonthern boundary of Wis-
consin, Ang. 25, 1700. Capt. Jonathan Carver, 1766, found lead in abundance at the Blue Mounds and found the Indians in all the coun- try around is possession of masses of galena, which they had obtained as "float mineral," and which they were incapable of putting to any use. There is no evidence of any one min- ing before Julien DuBuque, who, 1788 to 1809, mined in the vicinity of the flourishing city which now bears his name. After his death in 1809 nothing more was done until 1821, when the attention of American citizens was first drawn to the rich lead deposits of this region. By 1827 the mining had become quite general and has continued to the present time, the maximum production having been reached, however, between the years 1845 and 1847.
Until within the last decade the lead mines of the Mississippi valley, including now both the "Upper" and the "Lower regions, the lat- ter one of which lies wholly within the limits of the State of Missouri, have far eclipsed the rest of the United States in the production of lead, the district being in fact one of the most important of the lead districts in the world. Of late years, however,these mines are far surpassed in pro- duction by the "silver-lead" mines of Utah and other Rocky Mountain regions, which, though worked especially for their silver, produce inci- dentally a very large amount of lead. Never- theless, the mines of the Mississippi valley will long continue to be a very important source of this metal. The lead ore of the Wisconsin lead region is of one kind only, the sulphide known as galena, or galenite. This ore, when from mechanically mingled impurities, contains 86.6 per cent. of lead, the balance being sul- phur. Small quantities of other lead ores are occasionally found in the uppermost portions of deposits, having been produced by the oxidiz- ing influence of the atmosphere. The chief one of these oxidation products is the earthy carbonate known as cerussite. Galena almost always contains some silver, commonly enough
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HISTORY OF VERNON COUNTY.
to pay for its extraction. The Wisconsin gale- nas, however, are unusually free from silver, of which they contain only the merest trace.
The zinc ores are of two kinds, the most abundant being the ferruginous sulphide, or the "black-jack" of the miners. The pure sul- phide, sphalerite, contains sixty-seven per cent. of zine, but the iron bearing variety, known mineralogically as marmatite, generally con- tains ten per cent. or more of iron. A ferrugi- nous variety of the carbonate, smithsonite, also occurs in abundance, and is known to the miners as "dry-bone," the name being suggested by the peculiar structure of the ore.
Both lead and zine ores occur in limited de- posits in a series of limestone beds belonging to the Lower Silurian series. The lead region is underlaid by a nearly horizontal series of strata, with an aggregate thickness of 2,000 feet, which lieupon an irregular surface of ancient crystal- line rocks (gneiss, granite, etc.).
The lead and zine ores are entirely confined to the galena, blue and buff limestones, an ag- gregate vertical thickness of some 350 to 375 feet. The upper and lower strata of the series are entirely barren. Zine and lead ores are found in the same kind of deposits, and often together; by far the larger part of the zine ores, however, come from the blue and buff limestones and the lowest layers of the galena, whilst the lead ores, though obtained throughout the whole thickness of the mining ground, are especially abundant in the middle and upper layers of the galena beds.
The ore deposits are of two general kinds, which may be distinguished as vertical crevices and flat crevices, the former being much the most common. The simplest form of the verti- cle crevice is a narrow crack in the rock, hav- ing a width of a few inches, an extension later- ally from a few yards to several hundred feet, and a verticle height of twenty to forty feet, thinning out to nothing in all directions, and filled from side to side, with highly crystalline,
brilliant, large-surfaced galena, which has no accompanying metallic mineral or gangue mat- ter. Occasionally the vertical extension exceeds a hundred feet, and sometimes a number of these sheets are close together and can be mined as one. Much more commonly the vertical crevice shows irregular expansions, which are some- times large caves or openings in certain layers, the crevice between retaining its normal charac- ter, while in other cases the expansion affects the whole crevice, occasionally widening it throughout into one large opening. These openings are rarely entirely filled, and common- ly contain a loose, disintegrated rock, in which the galena lies loose in large masses, though often adhering to the sides of the cavity in large stalactites, or in cubical crystals. The vertical crevices show a very distinct arrange- ment parallel with one another, there being two systems, which roughly trend east and west and north and south. The east and west crevices are far the most abundant and most productive of ore. The vertical crevices are confined near- ly altogether to the upper and middle portions of the galena, and are not productive of zinc ores. They are evidently merely the parallel joint cracks which affect every great rock for- mation, filled by chemical action with the lead ore. The crevices with openings have evident- ly been enlarged by the solvent power of at- mospheric water carrying carbonic acid, and from the way in which the ore occurs loose in the cavities, it is evident that this solving action has often been subsequent.to the first deposition of lead ore in the crevice.
The "flat crevices," "flat sheets" and "flat openings," are analogous to the deposits just described, but have, as indicated by the names, a horizontal position being characteristic of cer- tain layers which have evidently been more susceptible to chemical action than others, the dissolving waters having, moreover, been di- rected along them by less pervious layers above and below. The flat openings differ from the ver- I tical crevices also in having associated with the
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HISTORY OF VERNON COUNTY.
galena much of either the black-jack or dry-bone zinc ores, or both, the galena not unfrequently being entirely wanting. Cleavable calcite also accompanies the ores in these openings in large quantities, and the same is true of the sulphide of iron, which is the variety known as marcasite. These materials have sometimes a symetrical arrangement on the bottom and top of the open- ing, the central portion being empty. The flat openings characterize the blue and buff and lower galena beds, and from them nearly all the zinc ore is obtained.
It is not possible, in the limits of this short paper, even to mention the various mining dis- tricts. It may merely be said that the amount of galena raised from single crevices has often been several hundred thousand, or even over a million pounds, and that one of the principal mining districts is in the vicinity of Mineral Point, where there are two furnaces constantly engaged in smelting. Between the years 1862 and 1873, these two establishments have produced 23,903,260 pounds of metallic lead, or an average of 1,991,938 pounds, the maximum being, in 1869, 2,532,710 pounds, the minimum, in 1873, 1,518,888 pounds.
The zinc ores were formerly rejected as use- less, and have only been utilized since 1860. An attempt to smelt them at Mineral Point was not successful, because the amount needed of fnel and clay, both of which have to come from a distance, exceeding even the amount of ore used, caused a very heavy expense for transporta- tion. The ores are therefore now taken alto- gether to LaSalle, III., where they meet the fuel and clay,and the industry at that place has be- come a flourishing one. The amount of zinc ore in the Wisconsin lead region is, beyond doubt, very great, and will be a source of wealth for a long time to come.
Since the ores of zinc and lead in this region are confined to such a small thickness of strata greatly eroded by the atmospheric waters, the entire thickness having frequently been removed, it becomes a matter of great importance to
know how much of the mining ground re- mains at every point throughout the district. The very excellent topographico-geological maps of the region, made by Mr. Moses Strong, and just published by the State in the Report of the Geological Survey, make this knowledge acces- sible to all.
IRON.
Iron mining in Wisconsin is yet in its infancy, . although some important deposits are producing a considerable quantity of ore. A number of blast furnaces have sprung up in the eastern part of the State, but these smelt Michigan ores almost entirely. Much remains yet to be done in the way of exploration, for the most promis- ing iron fields are in the heavily timbered and unsettled regions of the north part of the State, and are as yet imperfectly known. It appears probable, however, that iron ores will, in the near future, be the most important mineral pro- duction of Wisconsin. The several ores will be noted in the order of their present importance.
RED IIEMATITES.
The iron in these ores exists as an anhydrous sesquioxide, which is, however, in an earthy condition, and entirely without the brilliant metallic luster that characterizes the specular hematites. Pure hematite contains seventy per cent. of metallic iron, but the red hematites, as mined, are always so largely mingled with me- chanical impurities that they rarely contain more than fifty per cent. The most important red hematite mined in Wisconsin is that known as the Clinton iron ore, the name coming from the formation in which the ore occurs. This formation is a member of the Upper Silurian series, and is named from a locality in Oneida Co., New York, where it was first recognized. Associated with its rocks, which are limestones and shales, is constantly found a peculiar red hematite, which is so persistent in its charac- ters, both physical and chemical, that one familiar with it from any one locality can hardly fail to recognize it when coming from others. The iron produced from it is always "cold-
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HISTORY OF VERNON COUNTY.
short," on account of the large content of phosphorus; but, mingled with siliceous ores free from phosphorous, it yields always a most excellent foundry iron. It is mined at numer- ous points from New York to Tennessee and at some points reaches a very great total thiek-
ness. In Wisconsin the Clinton rocks merge into the great Niagara limestone series of the eastern part of the State, but at the bottom of the series, in a few places, the Clinton ore is found immediately overlying the Cincinnati shales. The most important locality is that known as Iron Ridge, on sections 12 and 13 in the town of Hubbard, in Dodge' county. Here a north and south ledge of Niagara limestone overlooks lower land to the west. Underneath, at the foot of the ridge, is the ore bed, fifteen to eighteen feet in thickness, consisting of liori- zontally bedded ore, in layers three to fourteen inches thick. The ore has a concretionary structure, being composed of lenticular grains, one twenty-fifth of an inch in diameter, but the top layer is without this structure, having a dark purplish color, and in places a slight me- tallie appearance. Much of the lower ore is somewhat hydrated. Three quarters of a mile north of Iron Ridge, at Mayville, there is a total thickness of as much as forty feet. According to Mr. E. T. Sweet, the percentages of the sev- eral constituents of the Iron Ridge ore are as follows: iron peroxide, 66.38; carbonate of lime, 10.42; carbonate of magnesia, 2.79; silica, 4.72; alumina, 5.54; manganese oxide, 0.44; sulphur, 0.23; phosphoric acid, 0.73; water, 8.75 - 100: metallic iron, 46.66.
It goes to Chicago, Joliet and Springfield, Ill., St. Louis, Mo., Wyandotte and Jackson, Mich .. and Appleton, Green Bay and Milwaukee, Wis., The Clinton ore is found at other places farther north along the outerop of the base of the Niag- ara formation in Wisconsin, but no one of these appears to promise any great quantity of good ore. Red hematite is found at numerous places in Wisconsin, highly charging certain layers of the Potsdam sandstone series, the lowest one of the horizontal Wisconsin formations. In the eastern part of the town of Westfield, Sank county, the iron ore excludes the sandstone, forming an excellent ore. No developments have been made in this district, so that the size of the deposit is not definitely known.
BROWN HEMATITES.
These ores contain their iron as the hydrated, or brown, sesquioxide, which, when pure, has about sixty per cent, of the metal; the ordinary brown hematites, however, seldom contain over forty per cent. Bog iron ore, a porous brown hematite that forms by deposition from the water of bogs, occurs somewhat widely scattered nn- derneath the large marshes of Portage, Wood and Juneau counties. Very excellent bog ore, containing nearly fifty per cent. of iron, is found near Necedah, Junean county, and near Grand Rapids, Wood county, but the amount obtaina- ble is not definitely known. The Necedah ore contains: silica, 8.52; alumina, 3.77; iron perox- ide, 71.40; manganese oxide, 0.27; lime, 0.58; magnesia, trace; phosphoric acid, 0.21; sulphur, 0.02; organic matter, 1.62; water, 13.46-99.85; metallie iron, 49.98-according to Mr. E. T. Sweet's analysis. An ore from section 34, town- ship 23, range 6 east, Wood county, yielded, to Mr. Oliver Matthews, silica, 4.81; alumina, 1.00; iron peroxide, 73.23; lime, 0.11; magnesia, 0.25; sulphuric acid, 0.07; phosphorie acid, 0.10; or- ganie matter, 5.88; water, 14.24; - 99.69: me- tallic iron, 51.26.
Two small charcoal furnaces at Mayville and Iron Ridge smelt a considerable quantity of these ores alone, producing an iron very rich in phosphorus. An analysis of the Mayville pig iron, also by Mr. Sweet, shows the following composition: iron, 95.784 per cent .; phosphorus, 1.675; carbon, 0.849; silicon, 0.108-100.286. The average furnace yield of the ore is forty- Brown hematite, mingled with more or less red ore, oceurs also in some quantity filling five per cent. By far the larger part of the ore, however, is sent away to mingle with other ores. cracks and irregular cavities in certain portions
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HISTORY OF VERNON COUNTY.
of the Potsdam series in northwestern Sauk county and the adjoining portion of Richland. A small charcoal furnace has been in operation on this ore at Ironton, Sauk county, for a number of years and recently another one has been erected at Cazenovia, in the same distriet.
MAGNETIC ORES AND SPECULAR NIEMATITES.
These are taken together here because their geological occurrence in the same, the two ores occurring not only in the same group of rocks, but even intimately mingled with one another. These ores are not now produced in Wisconsin; but it is quite probable that they may before many years become its principal mineral pro- duction. In magnetic iron ore the iron is in the shape of the mineral magnetite, an oxide of iron containing 72.4 per cent. of iron when pure, and this is the highest percentage of iron that any ore can ever have. Specular hematite is the sune as red hematite, but is crystaline, has a bright, metallic luster, and a considerable hardness. As mined the richest magnetic and specular ores rarely run over sixty-five per cent., while in most regions where they are mined they commonly do not reach fifty per cent. The amount of rich ores of this kind in the northern peninsula of Michigan is so great, however, that an ore with less than fifty per cent. finds no sale; and the same must be true in the adjoining States. So largely does this matter of richness affect the value of an cre, that an owner of a mine of forty-five per cent "hard" ore in Wisconsin would find it cheaper to import and smelt Michigan sixty- five per cent. ore than to smelt his own, even if his furnace and mine were side by side.
The specular and magnetic ores of Wisconsin occur in two districts -- the Penokee iron district, ten to twenty miles south of Lake Superior, in Bayfield, Ashland and Lincoln counties, and the Menomonee iron district, near the head waters of the Menomonee river, in township 40, ranges 17 and 18 east, Oconto county. Specu- lar iron in veins and nests is found in small quantities with the quartz rocks of the Baraboo
valley, Sauk county and Necedah, Juneau county and very large quantities of a specular quartz- schist, charged with more or less of the mag- netic and specular iron oxides, oceur in the vicinity of Black River Falls, Jackson county but in none of these places is there any promise of the existence of valuable ore.
In the Penokee and Menomonee regions the iron ores occur in a series of slaty and quartzose rocks known to geologists as the IIaroman se- ries. The rocks of these districts are really the extensions westward of a great rock series, which in the northern Michigan peninsula contains the rich iron ores that have made that region so famous. In position, this rock series may be likened to a great elongated parabola, the head of which is in the Marquette iron district and the two ends in the Penokee and Menomonee regions of Wisconsin. In all of its extent, this rock series holds great beds of lean magnetic and specular ores. These contain large quanti- ties of quartz, which, from its great hardness, renders them very resistent to the action of at- mospheric erosion. As a result these lean ores are found forming high and bold ridges. Such ridges of lean ores have deceived many explor- ers, and not a few geologists. In the same rock series, for the most part occupying por- tions of a higher layer, are found, however, ores of extraordinary richness and purity, which, from their comparative softness, very rarely outerop. The existence in quantity of these very rich ores in the Menomonee region has been definitely proven. One deposit, laid open dur- ing the summer of 1877, shows a width of over 150 feet of first-class specular ore; and exceed- ing in size the greatest of the famous deposits in Michigan. In the Penokee region, however, though the indications are favorable, the exis- tence of the richer ores is as yet an inference only. The Penokee range itself is a wonderful development of lean ore, which forms a continu- ous belt several hundred feet in width and over thirty miles in length. Occasionally portions of this belt are richer than the rest, and become al-
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