History of northern Wisconsin, containing an account of its settlement, growth, development, and resources; an extensive sketch of its counties, cities, towns and villages, their improvements, industries, manufactories; biographical sketches, portraits of prominent men and early settlers; views of county seats, etc., Part 49

Author: Western historical co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago, Western historical company
Number of Pages: 1052

USA > Wisconsin > History of northern Wisconsin, containing an account of its settlement, growth, development, and resources; an extensive sketch of its counties, cities, towns and villages, their improvements, industries, manufactories; biographical sketches, portraits of prominent men and early settlers; views of county seats, etc. > Part 49

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The State valuation of the county in 1880, was $5,514,248 ; State tax, $9,512,163; bonded debt for roads and bridges, $50,000 ; all other indebtedness $105,663.98 .- Total $155,663.98.

This county is in the Eleventh Judicial District. Henry D. Barron is the present Judge. The court is held on the first Monday in June and the fourth Mon- day in December, at the Falls.

At the treaty with the Chippewas in 1854, they

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HISTORY OF NORTHERN WISCONSIN.

took three townships near Lac Courte de Oreilles as a reservation, and they were to receive a yearly stipend for a term of years.

Water-Power .- The amount of water-power on the Chippewa and its tributaries can hardly be computed. At Eau Claire is the first fall, then at Chippewa Falls, at Paint Creek, Eagle Rapids, Jims Falls, Cotton Rap- ids, Little Falls, and at many other points. These falls vary from ten feet to twenty-four, and must be utilized in manufacturing hard wood very extensively at no distant day.

WAR RECORD.

The voting of themselves out of the Union by the Southern States, the firing upon our flag while proudly floating over Fort Sumter, so promptly followed by a call from Washington for troops, was supplemented here by the usual scenes enacted all over the State and in every Northern State.

To put down the rebellion, Chippewa furnished its full quota, and most of them went before bounties were offered, and they went to recruit the army, and not to fill the quota. As an illustrious example, the little town of Lafayette, which had never been able to muster more than seventy-one voters, actually sent sixty-five men to the front. Large numbers went and enlisted in distant cities, which often received the credit.

In the very complete work of Rev. M. Love, on the " History of Wisconsin in the Rebellion," and other works, the valorous deeds of regiments, companies and individuals are recorded, and men from this county hold a conspicuous place on its pages ; and it is a matter of regret that they can not all be mentioned here.

HISTORY OF THE SETTLEMENT.

This busy and thriving city is located on the right bank of the river and falls which furnish its name. The business part of the town is situated in the valley of Duncan's Creek, a stream which supplies valuable water-power and enters the Chippewa below the falls, at nearly right angles, coming from a northerly direc- tion. On either side of this stream, there are bluffs rising to table-lands, upon which residences are found, and which must become more and more fashionable as the city fills with business and manufacturing estab- lishments.

The soil is sandy, and facilities for draining could not be better. As there is none of the magnesian limestone so abundant in some other parts of the State, the water is soft.

There are many substantial buildings of brick and stone in the city, but on account of the cheapness of lumber, most of them are of wood. The city is most admirably laid out diagonally with the four cardinal points of the compass. There is no north side to the buildings. The sun shines on two sides in the fore- noon, and the other two in the afternoon.

When we remember that less than thirty years ago the blood-curdling war-whoop of the terrible Sioux and the sagacious "Odjibwa" was heard at this place when these ever-hostile tribes were engaged on the banks of this turbulent river, in mortal combat, and remembering, also, the trials, troubles and tribulations, the discouragements, disasters and devastating destruc-

tion that by fire and flood so often assailed the heroic pioneers, we are indeed struck with astonishment at the results of the pluck, perseverance and power with which the obstacles have been overcome, and a city planted where the restless river had been rolling for ages and ages, and the trees growing for a thousand years, awaiting the westward march of the Caucasian star of empire.

The broad hunting grounds of the Indian have been narrowed into constricted reservations, but supple- mented by the ration of food and the stipend of cloth- ing, his wants are more fully met than when roaming to find his own subsistence.

The city has an extensive trade with the neighbor- ing country, and is the base for supplies for the numer- ous logging camps sent into the woods every Fall, to remain until Spring. It is the headquarters for rafts- men, also a sturdy class of men who take the lumber rafts down the river, returning to Eau Claire by steamer, and thence by rail to the Falls. The pros- perity of the city depends largely upon the " big mill," which certainly merits its cognomen. The size of the mill is 180x200 feet. On the first floor are the water- wheels and propelling works ; on the second, the shaft- ing, machinery and rafting sheds; on the third, the active work is done. Here you find the different kinds of saws in full operation, including two " line gangs," one " flat gang " and one " Yankee gang ; " one " muly," three rotaries, six edgers, twelve butters, three lath saws, one picket saw and one shingle mill. In the different gangs, there are ninety saws in constant motion. A visit to this mill is worth a long journey.

The number of inhabitants in the city, as deter- mined by the United States enumeration, was as fol- lows : First Ward, 1,209; second, 1,255; third, 784; fourth, 755 ; total, 4,003. Of these, 1,150 were French, 1,061 Irish, 821 Germans, and the rest Americans.

Growth of the county : Population, 1850, 615 ; 1855, 838; 1860, 1,895; 1865, 3,278; 1870, 8,311; 1875, 13,995 ; 1880, 15,987.

Settlement .- When the prairies of the West were being settled, and the cities of Burlington, Davenport, Rock Island and Galena were in process of construc- tion, the difficulties of procuring lumber were very great. Most of it came from the Alleghany River by raft to Ohio, and thence by steamboat to its destina- tion, there selling for from $75 to $100 a thousand. It even paid to haul lumber from the Wabash by oxen over the untrodden prairies, to supply the timberless Illinois region.

When Fort Crawford, at Prairie du Chien, required lumber, Jeff. Davis, who was then a young West Point Lieutenant, was dispatched up the Mississippi and Chip- pewa to procure it. And it is supposed that the expe- dition was accompanied by Jean Brunet, a native of France, who emigrated to St. Louis in 1818, where he was employed by the Chouteau Brothers, by whom he was sent to Prairie du Chien in 1820, which had just been fixed upon as the headquarters of the American Fur Company, and also selected as a military post by the Government, occupying the fort used by the British troops in 1813, '14 and '15.

The English troops then in possession of Green Bay, desired to occupy a station on the Mississippi.

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HISTORY OF CHIPPEWA COUNTY.

It was said, and most generally believed at the time, that a French voyageur, named Rolette, served them as a pilot in conducting the expedition up the Fox and down the Wisconsin to Prairie du Chien, receiving therefor $20,000 in gold ! Jean Brunet subsequently married this man's sister.

The Territory of Wisconsin had three counties in 1836, Brown, Crawford and Milwaukee. The next year, 1837, Jean Brunet was one of the Members from Crawford County, serving in place of J. H. Lockwood during session of 1837-38, and extra session of 1838.

In a treaty with the Indians, held at Prairie du Chien in 1825, it was stipulated among other things that a farm and blacksmith shop, with a competent workman, should be stationed on the Chippewa, near the falls.

Lyman Warren, formerly from Newburg, N. Y., was appointed farmer, blacksmith and sub-agent, and he was afterwards, by Gov. Dodge, commissioned as Jus- tice of the Peace. His establishment was fitted out and embarked on a keel boat to its destination, which was at Chippewa City, five miles above the falls, and was the first permanent settlement in the county.

The Gotha family and several other half-breeds lo- cated there, and it became at once a central point for an extensive trade in furs and goods in demand at that time ; the business being under the management of the American Fur Company through its agents.

A treaty was held with the Indians at Fort Snell- ing on the 29th of July, 1837. Gov. Dodge repre- sented the United States, while Hole-in-the-Day with forty-seven others, represented the Chippewas. A large tract of territory was then ceded to the United States, which included a part of the Chippewa valley, and extended a half day's march below the falls.

Immediately after these lands had thus come in pos- session of the United States, a number of the Fur Com- pany's agents, including H. L. Dousman, Gen. H. A. Sibley, Col. Aiken and Lyman Warren, fitted out an expedition at Prairie du Chien, to erect a saw-mill at the Falls of the Chippewa. This enterprise was placed in charge of Jean Brunet, who engaged as operatives, boatmen, axmen, loggers, and mechanics, for the most part, the French Canadian voyageurs and others, for- merly in the employ of the Fur Companies, together with a number of half-breeds who had of course been reared on the frontier. Among the number whose names are preserved as the first settlers, was Louis De Marie, a Canadian of French extraction, with some In- dian blood, and his wife, who was born in Detroit of a French father and Chippewa mother, and who, with a number of other families, came from the Red River of the North, where they had settled, to Prairie du Chien.

They had five sons and three daughters, the elder of whom were blooming into maidenly womanhood be- fore leaving Prairie du Chien and were regarded with great interest by all who then lived in that outlying suburb of civilization. It is well authenticated that Lonis De Marie, with his family, came up the Chippewa River in 1832 and remained through the Winter at what is now West Ean Claire, as an Indian trader. Near the mouth of the river he was stopped by the ter- rible Sioux, who exacted $300 worth of goods to allow

him to pass and refrain from molesting him after he was stationed. He built a log house there, and left it in the Spring, returning to Prairie du Chien. The next two Winters he spent higher up the river at the Blue Mills, returning loaded with furs each season. The Winter of 1836-7 found his trading-post at the Falls.

Angeline, the wife of Louis De Marie, was a very capable woman, and seemed to be an almost intuitive doctor, and her skill was often called into requisition in those rude times, and her remedies, though simple, were remarkably efficacious. Her work in this direc- tion was always gratuitous, and she is entitled to great credit for bringing up her family in habits of industry, and for doing what she could in the interest of the community. She still lives at the ripe age of eighty- five, about two miles from town, with her daughter Rosalie,-Mrs. George P. Warren. She speaks French and "Odjibwa," as she calls the Chippewa, and is an in- teresting connecting link between the past and the present, as she has lived while civilization was march- ing from Lake Hnron to the Pacific.

The daughters of De Marie, who still live, are pos- itive as to the time of their first coming up the river, as being early in August, 1832, because they saw at the mouth of the Bad Axe, the bodies of the Indians who had been slain in that last battle of the Black Hawk War, still unburied.

This then makes De Marie the first white man with a family to spend a season in Eau Claire.

In this connection it may be well to state that Mary, who afterwards married H. S. Allen, was a daughter of Mrs. De Marie by a former husband, an Englishman, and therefore a half-sister to the other children. Their cabin at the Falls was on the south side of the river.

H. S. Allen, who came to Menomonee in 1832, vis- ited the Falls in 1834, coming up with others in a birch canoe.

The building of the mill under Brunet proved to be a more tedious process than was supposed, the dif- ficulties of handling the rock to be excavated had been very much under-estimated, its hardness exceeded their expectations, and the contractors were unable to com- plete the race for the original stipulation.

The Spring of 1838, found the little colony short of provisions, and, the snow having disappeared, sup- plies could be obtained only by going to the nearest store, which was at Menomonie, about thirty miles away, and bringing a limited amount on horseback. On this errand Mary and Rosalie De Marie were sent. H. S. Allen kept the store, and it is not to be wondered at that this enterprising young man from the Green Mountains, who was founding one city in the then far West, and who was about to be the practical founder of another, should have been deeply impressed by the charming Mary, whose coyness and maidenly modesty was such a contrast with the uncouth roughness so universal in that logging and lumber camp.

Mr. Allen, as a specimen of a man, was one to ex- cite pride in the heart of any young woman in whom he might manifest an unusual interest, and that his suit should have been successful, was to be expected from the very nature of the human constitution.

In the course of several months Lyman Warren,

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the only available Magistrate, joined them together in a union which, after a lapse of forty-three years, has not yet been broken.

Among the employés who came with Brunet none are now known to remain, and but few names even can be rescued from impending forgetfulness.

Among them was a Mr. Stacy, Jim Taylor and Francis Gonthier, who remained in Mr. Brunet's em- ploy for forty-one years, or until the latter's death. Cadott, who was a brother of Mrs. Warren, and who was seven-eighths Indian, was among the earliest com- ers. John Mede was another mill man. There are perhaps others, but as they have not been prominently identified with the interests of the settlement, they are disremembered. A brief digression will now be made to record another settlement ante-dating this by some years.

The very first settlement in the county was not on the river at the Falls where the lodgment, which has been so successfully extended, was subsequently made.

In the year 1802, Alexis Corbine, a French Cath- olic and an educated man, settled at Lac Courte Oreil- les, in the northern part of the county. He married a Chippewa woman and they had a large family of sons and daughters who spoke Chippewa, and were well educated in the French language.

For thirty years the nearest white neighbors were 100 miles away. The family subsisted mostly on fish, wild rice and maple sugar, which was made in large quantities. A few years ago the old man was still alive and in the possession of all his faculties.

This account is well authenticated and makes Mons. Corbine among the earliest settlers on Wisconsin soil. The alleged reason why he thus left his country and excluded himself from civilization was the old story of disappointment in love.

The mill at the Falls was not in operation before the Spring of 1839. Meantime the settlers had erected comfortable dwellings. Mr. Warren had a house of hewn logs two-stories high. His wife, who was only one-eighth white, was an excellent cook and house- keeper ; and, moreover, he was the Chief Magistrate of the place and sub-agent or " Father" to the Chip- pewas. Mr. Warren had quite a library. Expedi- tions were sometimes fitted out for distant points. A journey to La Pointe took ten days, and was accom- plished by " trains " as they were called-a sled made from hard wood, fifteen inches wide and ten feet long, turned up at the front and with strips on the outer edge, with holes for stakes or to bind on the load. These were drawn by dogs or a single horse.

In June, 1842, the exiled people at the Falls were regaled with what created more excitement than a circus. It was nothing less than an overland expedi- tion from Prairie du Chien to the newly purchased copper mines of Lake Superior, under the leadership of Alfred Brunson. The procession, as it entered town, consisted of three wagons, nine yoke of oxen, three horses and fourteen men. They were ferried over by lashing keel boats together, and covering them with plank. After recuperating, getting a new guide and a few additional men, the expedition moved on, arriving at Lake Che-tack on the fourth of July, where an ora- tion was pronounced by the Rev. Doctor in charge.

During the Winter of 1833-4, Mr. Warren died, and as five years had passed away without any return to Mr. Dousman and others at Prairie du Chien for their investment, the necessity for a change in the manage- ment became imperative. Failing to secure a compe- tent person to take charge, the whole property, includ- ing the mill, improvements, teams, tools, boats and fixtures, was sold ontright to Jacob W. Bass and Ben- jamin W. Brunson, one the son and the other the son in-law of the Lake Superior adventurer just mentioned. The price to be paid was $20,000, in annual installments, with interest.

Mr. Bass and his wife were the leading spirits-a most estimable couple, with mutual ambition and self- reliance and an endowment of hope, which bridged over many an unpromising ravine of privation and toil and continued exile which, faith in the future could only make endurable. Mr. Bass had been in several kinds of business already, which had shown his capacity.

By untiring exertion the new management had succeeded in placing the property, which had been unprofitable on account of want of experience by the managers. and repeated disasters; by the want of proper booms, piers, or suitable devices to secure and hold logs for a season's supply, and with the mill and race out of repair ; in an improved condition, so that in 1846, when H. S. Allen bought into the firm and added his experience and capital, the tide was turned into one of prosperity.

Mr. Allen had been several years at Menominee, having bought the mills of Street & Lockwood in 1835, which had been erected in 1828-9, on Wilson's Creek. He had associated with him G. S. Branham, and the firm had accumulated considerable capital, and began to look around with a view of larger undertakings.

It was finally decided that the lower dells of the Chippewa was the proper place to handle logs on a large scale. A new firm was created. Simon and George Randall were taken in, and the name was Allen, Branham & Randall. It is most remarkable that the plan, although much beyond the financial ability of the firm, was that finally carried out by the Dells Improve- ment Company more than thirty years afterwards. Contracts for lumber were made, shanties erected, the work actually began, and considerable sums expended. Meantime during a temporary suspension of the work, while the individual members of the firm were attend- ing to personal business, Mr. Allen realizing the magni- tude of the undertaking, and fearing that the firm would be swamped before its completion and an opportunity to realize on the investment ; and having a most favor- able offer from Mr. Dousman, who looked with suspicion upon the dells improvement, and who may be placed as the first active opponent of that enterprise, accepted the offer, and a dissolution of the old firm was the result, the Randalls remaining to start mills on the Eau Claire, while the strong and at once reputable firm of Allen & Bass were pitted against the apparently un- surmountable natural obstacles at the Falls.

The water-power at the Falls is almost incalculable, there being a total fall of twenty-six feet, which originally extended over a distance nearly three-fourths of a mile. The difficulties, however, of securing and holding logs on the extensive scale demanded by the

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present proportions of the supply, in a stream where rafting logs, as on less turbulent waters, is utterly impossible, could not have have been appreciated or understood by lumberman inexperienced in such unusual conditions. But that these almost insuperable obstacles have been overcome by the construction of the Paint Creek system of piers, dams and booms, speaks in no uncertain way of the indomitable energy, perseverance, ability and confidence of the men to whom civilization itself is indebted for thus harnessing the wild and restless torrent, struggling within its rocky confines, and not infrequently bursting its barriers and carrying devastation and death in its course, and making its power available in contributing to the continual and ever-accumulating wants of the great human family.

When the new firm took the mill, it had two muley saws, one lath and one shingle mill, the capacity being almost 16,000 feet per day.

On the 6th of June, 1847, the decennial flood for which the valley is noted came upon this young and struggling firm. The usual Spring rise in the river did not occur that year and the supply of logs which had been hauled on the Yellow River were hung up there. On the 5th, the long-looked for rain came, and in such a generous and copious way that by noon the next day the river at the Falls was several feet higher than it has ever been since, even in the memorable freshet of 1880 which carried down two bridges here. All the season's supply of lumber was swept away, and as there was no boom at Beef Slough, with its capacious maw to take it in, it floated on and on, probably most of it passing through the delta of the Mississippi, to be borne on the bosom of the Gulf Stream, until finally, water-logged, it wonld sink off the banks of Newfoundland, there to be covered by the ever-depositing sediment, to form coal for man's use, some millions of years from now. This thought may be some compensation for those who witnessed the depressing sight of seeing their hard earnings carried from their grasp with no possible power to prevent it.

At this juncture in the affairs of the firm, Mr. Bass withdrew, and he and his wife went to St. Paul, an embryotic city at that time, and securing land on the site of the present city, the legitimate result followed. He became one of the heavy men of St. Paul. Mr. Allen used his credit to rebuild and to pay for gather- ing up what stray logs could be found along the river bottom. As to the loss at the Falls it is sufficient to say that all the expensive structures placed in the river the previous season, to stop and hold the logs, were washed away. Nothing was left but the bare mill; its race and guard-locks were demolished or filled with gravel. Ten thousand logs from the Yellowstone went down in that flood.

In 1846 the Sioux came up on invitation of the Chip- pewas and held a council. They went through the ceremony of burying the hatchet and smoking the pipe of peace. A dinner was served the next day. Both sides protested eternal peace and friendship, evi- dently with mental reservations. Wahagha, Big Thunder, Red Wing and others were there.

Some time in the Summer of 1848, a wealthy gen- tleman by the name of Bloomer, from Galena, which

was then the largest city on the Mississippi, north of St. Louis, sent up a party of men to fix a site for a saw-mill and soon came on himself and began opera- tions at the lower part of Eagle Rapids. He soon sickened of the nndertaking and sold out to Mr. Allen at the Falls, returning to Galena. The teams and sup- plies were brought to the Falls, and as many of the men as chose remained. Among these men were the two " Tim's," Hurley and Inglar. Hurley was married, and he built a house and a saloon, said to be the first in the whole valley. On the 4th of July, 1849, a party from the saloon, who had been drinking freely, among them Martial Caznobia, went to the wigwam of an In- dian, and attempting to take liberties with his squaw, was repelled by the husband's driving a knife to the hilt into his body. He was taken to the Hurley House and was supposed to be dying. As it was on Sunday morning, a large crowd congregated. Some one yelled, "Let us hang the d-d Indian." A rush was made for his place, a rope was brought, he was taken out and hanged to the limb of a pine tree. Mr. Allen re- monstrated with all his power against the outrage, well knowing that the very existence of the settlement was thus placed in jeopardy. The news spread instantly, and 1,500 enraged Indians came down upon the place, resolved to burn it, unless the murderers should be turned over to them. The exertions of George P. Warren, a Chippewa interpreter, and James Erma- tinger, and their confidence in and respect for Mr. and Mrs. Allen alone prevented the execution of the threat, and after an explanation that no wrong was intended against the Chippewa nation, that it was the result of fire-water, the chiefs concluded that they would be satisfied if the ringleaders should be arrested and tried according to our laws. Tim Inglar and two others were accordingly placed on a boat to be sent to Prai- rie du Chien for trial. Eight braves volunteered as an escort. On reaching the vicinity of the Sioux, the fear of their hereditary enemies seized them, notwithstand- ing their late treaty of peace, and they returned. The prisoners kept on and never reported in person again on the river. Caznobia recovered and made no unneces- sary delay in relieving the village of his presence.

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Author: Western historical co., Chicago, pub Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Chicago, Western historical company Number of Pages: 1052

Author: Western historical co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago, Western historical company
Number of Pages: 1052