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 61

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 61

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A. R. SOUTHMAYD, farmer, town of Wheaton, came to Wis- consin in 1866, and bought present farm, which he has brought to a high state of cultivation. He has been prominent in the government of the town ; was born in Cayuga County, N. Y., 1821 ; married Aurelia H. Wightman, in 1856, in Allegany County, N. Y., of which place she is a native. They have one son, Frank M.

IN MEMORIAM.

HARVEY P. COLEMAN .- Mr. Coleman came to the Falls in 1855, and died in St. Paul, where he had gone for medical treatment, on Sat- urday. Nov. 24, 1860, at the age of thirty-five, leaving a wife and one son. He was a man of strict integrity, good ability, enterprising, gen- erous and genial-respected by all who knew him.

MISS LAURA ALLEN, daughter of Mr. H. S. and Mary Allen .- This young woman was twenty-three years of age at the time of her death, which was on the 7th of April, 1866. She was an amiable and capable young lady, beloved by all.

MILLER F. THOMPSON .- Mr. Thompson was a graduate of Ann Arbor, Mich. He came to the Falls in 1866, and went into busi- ness with A. K. Gregg, making a good strong law firm. In 1869, he was elected County Judge. He died March 2, 1879.

THOMAS MORRIS .- Mr. Morris was among the comers of 1857. He was a genial, kind-hearted man, whose manly, open ways won many friends. He held varions public offices, always discharging his duties in a faithful manner. At one time, he was City Treasurer. He died Nov. 3, 1872.

CHARLES COLEMAN was an early settler, a master mechanic, and superintended the building of the first bridge in Chippewa Falls. He had built many fine residences near Rochester, N.Y. He was ambi- tions in his profession, and went to San Francisco in 1874, and died on the 12th of September, the following year.

FRANCIS GANTHIER .- This man came with Jean Burnet, in 1837, and was steadily in his employ until in 1878, when Burnet died. He worked on the construction of the first saw-mill, forty-four years ago; was always faithful, and secured the respect of all who knew him, for upon the labor of such men depends the prosperity of every community. He died on Sunday, Jan. 24, 1880.

DR. R. W. BRADEEN .- Dr. Bradeen was born in Porter, Me .; re- ceived his medical degree at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me. He came to Chippewa Falls in 1874, and began the practice of his profession, and, as he confined himself to legitimate methods of making himself known, business was rather slow in coming ; but as his valne as a physi- cian became known, he had plenty to do, and rapidly rose to a high rank in his profession. He was a thorough student and most competent phy- sician and surgeon, a man of good conversational powers, a fluent speaker and possessed of general intelligence. His wife was Miss Mary A. Wood.

LOUIS VINCENT, born in Canada, February, 1833, when eight years of age was taken to Prairie du Chien, remained there twenty years, then came to Chippewa Falls. He was at the head of the firm of Vin- cent, Mandalert & Co. ; was president of the French Lumber Co. He was an honest and influential citizen, a member of the Assembly in 1877, Mayor in 1879. He left a much loved wife and six children. He died May 22, 1880, of apoplexy, at Manasha while there on business. The whole city turned out at his funeral.

CLARK COUNTY.

LOCATION AND NATURAL FEATURES.

Clark County, situated a little northwest of the cen- ter of the State, settled as early as 1844, and created out of territory taken from Jackson County, by act of the Legislature, approved July 6, 1853, is one of the most valuable if not the most valuable lumber dis- tricts in the State. It is bounded on the north by Chippewa County, on the east by Marathon and Wood counties, on the south by Jackson and on the west by Chippewa and Eau Claire counties. Its cen- tral part is drained by the Black River and its branches; its eastern part by branches of the Wis- consin, and its western by affluents of the Chippewa River. Black River, running from north to south, divides the county into two nearly equal parts. The West Wisconsin railway crosses the southwest cor- ner of the county, the Wisconsin Central along the northern boundary, and the Chicago, St. Paul, Minne- sota & Omaha runs a branch from Merrillon to Neills- ville, a distance of about fourteen miles. This latter was completed and opened in July, 1881. The county contains twenty-two townships and is nearly forty miles wide.

The surface of the country is for the most part gently undulating, and is divided naturally into lum- ber, swamps and prairie, the former predominating. East of Neillsville for a distance of twenty miles, the country presents a rolling appearance with a dense growth of heavy timber, embracing oak, hickory, bass- wood, elm and butternut. The pineries are located

along Black River and its tributaries and are sources of immense wealth to those interested, from two to three hundred millions of feet of lumber being cut an- nually. In the Winter the smoke of the camp fires can be seen for a distance of forty miles, it is said, along the Black River, and the ring of the ax and the song of the workman can be heard from morn till night during that season of the year.

The soil in the southern part is a sandy loam, and in the northern part a clay loam. It is admirably adapted to the growth of cereals and vegetables, which are cultivated as successfully as in the southern portion of the State.

The water available in the county is abundant. The Black River, for nearly its entire course through the county, is one continuous succession of rapids, with a full averaging for over forty miles fully fifteen feet to the mile. This power is susceptible of improvement at any point, the bed of the stream and its banks being rocky and the soil of such compact nature as to render the building of dams a comparatively safe and easy operation. When the material resources of the county are fully developed, as seems now to be the intent, all its water power must and will be employed. It is of priceless value and estimated at its true worth by the inhabitants.

The only one of the lower silurian formations oc- curring in this county is the Potsdam sandstone which forms the basement rock of its southern portion, the primary rising to the surface in the northern portion.

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HISTORY OF NORTHERN WISCONSIN.

The peculiar irregularities of the line of junction be- tween the two formations, the extension southward along the stream valleys of long strips of the crystal- line rocks, the corresponding northward extension, along the divides of the sandstone and the difficulties met with in tracing the boundary are familiar to all.

A large proportion of the sandstone area in the county is level and to a considerable extent occupied by marshes. Underneath these marshes, which, to a large extent, have peat bottoms, sandstone is commonly found at shallow depths. On some of the dividing ridges again, the sandstone country becomes considera- bly elevated, and has more or less a rolling character. The divide between Black and Yellow Rivers in the eastern portion of the county is considerably elevated above the surrounding country, but is very heavily cov- ered with glacial materials and presents therefore a much more even surface. The larger part of this sand- stone area is within the region of heavy timber, chiefly pine ; usually the sandstone of these counties is but a thin covering upon the crystalline rocks which appear in all of the deeper stream valleys. High bluffs of the sandstone, however, occur, carrying its thickness up into the hundreds of feet, and bearing witness to the great thickness which once must have existed over all the region.

Along Black River from Neillsville to Black River Falls, sandstone is quite frequently exposed in or near the banks of the river, the bed of which is on the crys- talline rock. West of the river is a sandstone outlier 175 feet high and about one-third of a mile in length ; the upper portions of which are perpendicular ledges of bare rock. The sandstone is heavily bedded, indu- rated, coarse grained and light colored. From the sum- mit of the bluff a number of similar outliers can be seen dotting the country to the west and south and one or two to the north.

For a half a mile below French's mill the Neillsville road follows the west bank of the river at an elevation of thirty feet above the water. On the east side of the road, granite is exposed in the river bank and on the west side a ridge of horizontal sandstone thirty to fifty feet high. The sandstone is cross laminated, coarse, yellowish, and made up of much rolled quartz grains, which reach sometimes as much as one-eighth of an inch in diameter.

In Town 21, Range 4 west, and Town 22, Range 4 west, ledges of sandstone form the river bank for long distances, rising twenty to forty feet from the water, and are in a number of places to be seen overlying or abutting against primary schists. This sandstone is usually of a light yellowish color, coarse, and somewhat indurated, and includes beds of red and green sandy shade. The lowest layers are often affected by a very marked cross-lamination, the thickness so affected, being often as much as six to ten feet.

SETTLEMENT.

The original incentive to attract pioneers thitherward, were the immense pine forests, which with other species of timber occupied not less than sixty-five per cent. of the surface of the county forty years ago.

It was this that attracted the Mormons into the

present limits of Clark County, in 1844, and theirs was the first visit of white men, with the exception of St. Germain. In the Fall of 1836, the latter, then in his sixteenth year, hired out in Canada, to the American Fur Company, made his way to the then Territory of Wisconsin, by the Lake Superior route, and was sent sonth the same Fall with a party of traders, passing the ensuing Winter on the east fork of Black River, in the present county of Clark. At the date above mentioned, the Mormons came into Black River for the purpose of cutting logs, and sawing them into lumber at Black River Falls, thence to be run down the Mississippi, for use at Nauvoo in the erection of the Mormon taberna- cle projected at that point.

The representatives of Hyrum Smith, accomplished their work in time, without endeavoring to proselyte or preparing to practically illustrate their peculiar creed in this section. For a year after their departure, Clark County, as it afterwards became, was uninhabited.

In September, 1839, James and Alexander O'Neill, who had resided in Prairie du Chien for a number of years, determined to abandon that point, and visit the pineries, skirting Black River and vicinity, with a view to engage in the business of milling at some available point on that stream. Accordingly, having laden a canoe with furniture and provisions, they proceeded up the Mississippi to the mouth of Black River, thence continuing their journey, reached Black River Falls late in the month of their departure from Prairie du Chien. An examination of the resources of the coun- try decided them to remain, and selecting a site three miles below the Falls, on a creek to the east of the river, erected a mill. Here they remained for nearly six years, during which period they did a large and lu- crative business.

In the Spring of 1845, they decided to once more change their base of operations, and in June of that year, James O'Neill, Henry O'Neill, who died in 1859, with E. L. Brockway, who subsequently became a res- ident of Little Falls, in Jackson County, and Samuel and William Ferguson, accompanied by a number of laborers, removed to the present village of Neillsville, and became the first settlers in what has since been or- ganized as Clark County. The party came overland in a wagon, drawn by an ox team, cutting their way through the brush and other obstructions, and were two days on the trip. This was the first road ever made in the county.

At that time the village site, as also a large portion of the county, was an uninhabited wilderness. Game of all kind was abundant ; deer, wolves, otter, mink, beaver and martin were very plenty. Deer could be shot from the door of O'Neill's log cabin, and wolves would frequently chase them around into the clearing, the deer escaping by taking refuge in the dam behind the mill. The Indians inhabiting the county were principally Chippewas. The dividing line between that tribe and the Winnebagoes on the south was nearly at the confluence of the East Fork with the Black River. They received the new comers in a friendly spirit, and as settlers began to come in, brought peltries to sell or exchange for pork and flour. They excelled the Win- nebagoes in cleanliness and intelligence, were neither

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HISTORY OF CLARK COUNTY.

vicious nor dangerous, though given to stealing, and it was the boast of their chief that none of his tribe ever shed the blood of a white man or his family.

Immediately upon their arrival, trees were felled, hewn and shaped, and within a brief period, a rough cabin, 18x24, was erected on the bank of O'Neill's Creek, near where the mill was afterwards built. This was the first house raised in the county. It was, as com- pared with the domiciles which have since been substi- tuted, a cheerless abode, but for the times, comfortable if not luxurious. Upon its completion, the mill was begun, and before the close of the year in readiness for work. It also was of logs, and was located in the present bed of the creek. It was of sufficient dimen- sions for all business of that day, supplied with one upright saw, with capacity of 4,000 feet every twelve hours, and worked continuously, as pine logs could be easily obtained along O'Neill's Creek, which were floated down to the mill. When the same were cut, the lumber was rafted in platforms at the foot of the mill, run to the mouth of the creek, where ten platforms were arranged in a more compact and solid manner, and com- bined in rafts which usually contained about ten thous- and feet. Having reached the falls, these rafts were combined into large ones containing from forty to fifty thousand feet, and run to the Mississippi, thence to Bur- lington, Iowa, consigned to Alexander O'Neill, and sold for an average of ten dollars per thousand.

The year following it is said but few visited Clark County to settle permanently. James O'Neill, how- ever erected a more commodious house to live in, on present site of Frank Darling's residence ; and when the old log house was vacated, the water in the creek undermined the bank upon which it stood, when the first building was precipitated into the waters, and floated on ward to the Mississippi. This year Mr. O'Neill became wearied of housekeeping without the aid of female intelligence and expedient, to remedy which he procured the services of a Mrs. Kennedy, who had come into Wisconsin some time before, from Rock Island, accompanied by her husband. She arrived at Neillsville in the Summer, and, taking charge of affairs in the O'Neill honsehold, is to-day remembered as the first housekeeper, and the first white woman to take up her residence in Neillsville, Pine Valley Township, or Clark County.

At this time, the Mormons had not yet bade adieu to Black River and its vicinity, and a number of them had strayed down into that part of Crawford County now included in Clark County, to log. While thus en- gaged, one of the " latter day saints," named Cunning- ham, inadvertently slipped into a creek that ran through the forest wherein himself and companions were at work, and before assistance could be afforded him, was drowned. His body was subsequently recovered, and removed to Black River Falls, where it was interred according to the rites of the Mormon church. His was the first death in the county, and the stream wherein the rider of the pale horse claimed his allegiance, is still known as "Cunningham's Creek." In 1846, An- drew Grover, accompanied by Hamilton McCullom and a man named Beebe, reached Neillsville, and erected a mill on Cunningham's Creek, two miles below the village, of dimension and capacity similar to the O'Neill

mills. Jonathan Nichols, John Perry and wife, who located in what is now the town of Weston.

These enterprising speculators, together with Ken- nedy and wife, composed the arrivals of 1846, and the buildings cited the only improvements completed.

An event occurred during 1846, which occasioned inestimable enjoyment to the settlers for miles around, and put a period to the bachelorhood of James O'Neill, it might be added without benefit of clergy, for the union between himself and Miss Jane Douglass was accomplished through the intervention of a Justice of the Peace. On Christmas eve, 1846, Mr. O'Neill gave a dancing party at his house, to which the world at large, in Clark County and about Black River Falls, were invited. Among those who attended were : W. T. Price, Jacob Spaulding, Jonathan Nichols, Thomas Sturges, B. F. Johnson, Levi Avery, John Perry and wife, Mr. Yeatman, Mr. and Mrs. Van Austin and daughter, Joseph Stickney, Alon- zo Stickney, Miss Susan Stickney, Benjamin Wright, Samuel Wright, the Misses Wright, Thomas Douglass, Robert Douglass, Mark Douglass, the Misses Isabella and Jane Douglass, Miss Lucinda Nichols, and some few others. Hudson Nichols and James Bennett were the fiddlers, and the dance was kept up until daylight on Christmas morning. That day the guests returned to their homes, and Mr. O'Neill, hitching up his team, accompanied the Douglasses to their farm, near Mel- rose, going thither on the ice, up Black River. It is to be presumed that as the sleighs glided down beneath the branches, which, silvered with frost, over-reached Black River, on that lovely Christmas morning, the maidens were as happy, and their lovers' hearts were as strongly moved with the tender passion, as are those of lovers to-day, when the forests have given way to beautiful farms and thriving villages. Here began the courtship of James O'Neill, which culminated in his marriage to Miss Jane Douglass, the event being cele- brated on the 7th of March, 1847, at Melrose, now in Jackson County, John Valentine officiating, in his capacity of Justice of the Peace. The happy couple came at once to Neillsville, where for many years they drifted, hand in hand, down the tide of time, until her race had run its course, and her firmament was rolled up like a scroll.

The first marriage within the present limits of Clark County is claimed to have occurred this year, also. It was that between Simon Winfield and a girl in the employ of Mr. O'Neill. She was the first "young lady " to settle in the county, and before she had been long established, plighted her troth and dis- missed the frivolities of youth, to assume the cares of married life. A Justice of the Peace was called into requisition, Mr. O'Neill commemorated the event by a select party, after which they left the vicinity, and were heard of no more.

Another claim is made that William Lewis was married prior to this date. While in LaCrosse, he be- came acquainted with an ex-Mormon wife, to whom he made overtures that resulted in her consenting to return with him to Clark County, as housekeeper. The rela- tions of the pair, however, were not acceptable to their neighbors, who urged them to procure legal sanction to a condition of affairs that existed by sufferance. To

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HISTORY OF NORTHERN WISCONSIN.

this they consented ; a parson and a jug of whisky were obtained at Black River Falls, the couple were united, and a general carousal succeeded.

In 1847, emigration to Clark County was extremely limited. Among those who came were : Samnel Cow- ley, after whom Cowley's Creek is named ; I. S. Mason, Thomas LaFlesh, Nathan Myrick, H. J. B. (" Scoots ") Miller, and a man named Dibble, who built a mill on Cunningham's Creek, two miles below Neillsville. Another mill was built this year, by Jonathan Nichols, three miles above the village, on Cowley's Creek. These constituted the improvements completed in 1847.

The 7th of June, 1847, will ever be remembered by old residents as the day when the most extensive and disastrous flood ever known in Clark County over- took and destroyed many of the material improvements which had been completed at that time. On the af- ternoon of the previous day, the rain began to fall and a refreshing shower was hailed with delight. With each succeeding hour the area of the storm was in- creased, and from gentle drops, which were eagerly lapped up by the parched earth, it gradually assumed a violence never before witnessed. The rain fell in torrents until after midnight, and when morning dawned, Black River had risen twenty-five feet and was flooding the country in all directions. As a result, every mill on that stream was swept off, causing great damage, which required months to repair. But as day advanced, the sun came out, the waters receded, the river retired within its banks, and within twenty- four hours after the rains had ceased, the debris of mills, logs which had been left far in the woods, and other evidences of loss, were all that remained to re- mind one of the recent war of the elements.

About this time occurred the first murder in the county, which happened under the following circum- stances : A man named Bill Flynn, a logger on Black River, became involved in a row with one of the Chip- pewa Indians during a drunken bout, and the alterca- tion resulted in a hand to hand encounter, during which the latter received injuries which were speedily followed by death. Thereupon Flynn fled, and the Indians to which his victim belonged sought his where- abouts without avail. He escaped the penalty of his crime, but never returned to the vicinity of its commis- sion.

In 1848, settlers came in more numerously than during previous years, but without sufficient frequency of arrivals to materially augment the number, or ac- celerate the clearing of the lands, or enrichment of their owners. The new comers included J. W. Sturde- vant, a Mr. Van Dusen, Mr. Waterman; Leander Mer- rill, Benjamin Merrill, John Morrison, probably Moses Clark, John Lane, Robert Ross, Elijah Eaton, Albert Lambert, and doubtless a very few others, whose names do not occur to the informants of these facts. The Merrills built a mill one mile below Myrick & Miller's old site, Lane another in the same vicinity, and Morri- son near that of Lane's. Van Dusen & Waterman be- gan milling eighteen miles above Neillsville, in what is now known as Eatontown, as also did Albert Lam- bert. Somewhat later, Elijah Eaton purchased the mill of Van Dusen & Waterman, and carried on the business for many years.

The year 1849 was neither characterized by large accessions to the population nor important events cal- culated to mould or concern the future of the county. Benjamin F. French, Allen Bidwell, James French and John French came in this year to stay, and in March Isabella Jane O'Neill, a daughter to James and Jane ('Neill, was born, the first birth in the county. The event took place in a house on the site of which stands the residence of Nelson Covill, to whom the most im- portant arrival of 1849 was married in after years.

The California fever, it was thought, was the cause of this absence of settlement, though stragglers, shin- gle makers, loggers, etc., came in, but remained only a short time before seeking other scenes and engage- ments.

In 1850, there was, it is estimated, about fifty acres cleared where Neillsville now stands, begun in 1845, when James O'Neill began razing the trees and opened the first farm in the county, and continued until a vil- lage site was provided. The clearing extended up the hill and included the ground where the school-house now stands, but there was a lack of improvements then, nowhere visible to-day. At that time, the settlements were embraced within a comparatively small area, ex- tending to Eaton's mill on the north and that of My- rick & Miller on the south, with no prospect of break- ing the solitude which inhabited the eastern and west- ern portions of the present county. During this year, Hamilton, McCullom & Co. added a small farm to the resources of his mill, the second resident of the county to engage in agricultural pursnits, and meeting, it is supposed, with fair rewards for his enterprise.

For the ensuing two years, Mr. O'Neill is confident no one came into the county as a permanent settler. Why, can scarcely be explained. As already stated, a large number of laborers arrived here during the early Fall, but after engaging all the Winter in the lumber camps, abandoned their temporary citizenship in the Spring and returned to the cities. Like the class of men who were known as " suckers " in the lead regions fifty years ago, because of their similitude to fish of that name in their disposition to tarry not long in one place, the loggers were peculiarly nomadic and would not be satisfied to remain after the " run of logs " had been started. For the period above mentioned, the prospects of the future county realizing unto the set- tlers a fruition of their hopes, were far from promising. The mills were run daily, and large quantities of lum- ber, as also booms of logs, were prepared and shipped to market. Supplies were obtained at La Crosse, Bur- lington, St. Louis and elsewhere, landed at the mouth of Black River, and " poled " up that stream in boats of the most primitive construction and conveniences. Gradually, of course, time was found to clear up farms and raise grain, but for many years boats " poled " up the rapids were the only means of obtaining supplies.

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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