USA > Wisconsin > Milwaukee County > Memoirs of Milwaukee County : from the earliest historical times down to the present, including a genealogical and biographical record of representative families in Milwaukee County, Volume I > Part 10
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Dr. Francis Huebschmann, one of the early physicians of Milwau- kee, who became especially prominent in public affairs, and for years was widely known throughout the state, settled here in 1842, and was the first German physician in the city. He was born in 1817 in Riethnord- hausen, Duchy of Saxe-Weimar, Germany. After being graduated at the Universities of Erfurth and Weimar, he studied medicine in Jena, receiving his diploma from that institution in 1841. Young, enterpris- ing, active and ambitious, he looked about for a field for professional work, and reached the conclusion that in America he would find a land of splendid opportunities and good government, in which intelligent effort must be rewarded by success. Coming to this country in the spring of 1842, he stopped a short time with friends in Boston and then came to Milwaukee, where he opened an office and at once began to practice his profession. As early as 1843 he was elected a school com- missioner of Milwaukee and in this capacity he served eight years, aiding in every way possible to promote the educational interests of the city. Notwithstanding the opposition of the "Know Nothing" element of the population he was elected a delegate to the first constitutional convention of Wisconsin. In 1848 he was chosen a presidential elector from Wis- consin, and again in 1852 ; and in 1851-52 he served as a member of the state senate. Several times he was elected a member of the board of aldermen and in 1848 served as president of that body of municipal
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legislators. In 1853 President Pierce appointed him Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Northwest, in recognition of the valuable services he had rendered to the Democratic party and the general public, and he discharged the duties of the office with credit to himself and to the satis- faction of the administration, until the term for which he was appointed expired in 1857. Entering the Twenty-sixth Wisconsin infantry as regi- mental surgeon at the outbreak of the Civil war, he was promoted first to brigade and then to division surgeon with rank of major, participating in the battles of Chancellorsville, Gettysburg. Kenesaw Mounttain, Peachtree Creek, Atlanta and many other less important engagements. At the battle of Gettysburg, in company with nine assistants and 500 wounded, he was captured by the Confederates and held for a short time a prisoner. In 1864 he was honorably disharged, and retiring from the service he returned to Milwaukee, where his family continued to reside during his absence at the front. In 1870 he was again elected to the state senate, receiving two-thirds of all the votes cast in his district for the candidates for that office. At the close of his term of service in the legislature he withdrew in a measure from public life, but he continued to take a decp interest in all matters involving the public welfare. In politics he was always a Democrat. He came to America a Democrat, served his adopted country as a Democrat and died a Democrat. He affiliated with that party because in his judgment it was in thorough harmony, in the main, with the purpose an intent of the framers of the government, whom he had revered always for their wisdom and pa- triotism. Dr. Huebschmann died on March 21, 1880, lamented by the people of a community with which he had been identified nearly forty years.
Garrett Vliet was born at Independence, Sussex county, New Jer- sey, May 10, 1790, and came to Milwaukee with Bryon Kilbourn, in 1835. He was by profession a civil engineer, and was one of those ap- pointed by the government to survey a portion of the lands in Wiscon- sin. He was employed in his younger days upon the Ohio canal, in con- nection with Dr. Lapham and Byron Kilbourn, and it was at the solici- tation of the latter that he came to Milwaukee. In political faith he was a Democrat of the Jeffersonian school, and he was also a member of the Old Settlers' Club. Mr. Vliet died on Aug. 5. 1877, and was buried in Forest Home cemetery.
The most important event of the year 1847, in the county of Mil- waukee as well as throughout the entire Territory, and the one that ex- cited the greatest interest among the people and engendered the greatest amount of contention, attended by no small degree of acrimonious feel- ing, was the submission to a vote, on the first Tuesday of April, of the
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constitution framed by the convention. The article "on Banks and Bank- ing" in the main drew the fire of those opposed to the adoption of the constitution, and the matter is thus explained by Moses M. Strong in his admirable work, "History of Wisconsin Territory":
"At this time (1846-7) the country was overrun with a depreciated currency, and the channels of circulation were flooded with wild-cat' bank notes, and the article on banks and banking was intended as a rem- edy for the evil and a security against its recurrence. It strictly prohib- ited banking of every description, whether of issues, deposits, discounts or exchange by corporations. And although the legislature could confer no banking power or privilege whatever, upon any person or persons, and although it was declared not to be lawful for any person or persons to issue any evidence of debt whatever, intended to circulate as money ; yet all the other branches of banking-discounts, deposits and exchange -were left entirely free and open to private enterprise. It was this pro- hibition of the power to issue, in other words to manufacture currency, that excited the opposition to the constitution of a certain class, espe- cially in Milwaukee, that could not tolerate a constitutional law which would deprive them of the power of making paper money by which they alone would reap all the benefit, while the mass of the people would be subjected to all the hazard of loss in the event of the inability or unwill- ingness of those who issued it to redeem it. This class were earnest, de- termined, and to some extent systematic and organized in their opposi- tion. The great mass of the Whig party, by the teachings of their party. became the ready and willing supporters of the ideas upon which this op- position was founded, and allies of those most interested in their pro- mulgation. This reason for opposing the adoption of the constitution was readily supplemented by other objections to it which were pre- sented ; the most prominent of which were the elective judiciary, the rights of married women, exemptions, too numerous a legislature, and that it legislated too much.
"A number of able and influential leading Democrats were found ready and willing to aid these opponents of the constitution, so many that a sufficient number of the rank and file, following their lead, united with the nearly solid body of the Whig voters, were able to affect its re- jection by a large majority.
"The advocates of the constitution predicted that if those of its fea- tures which were most antagonized should be then defeated, they would ultimately be adopted either in a new constitution or by a legislative enactment, and their anticipations have been completely verified in every particular except the sixth section of the bank article, which provided for the suppression of the circulation of small bank notes."
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At the election, however, the constitution was defeated in the terri- tory at large by a majority of 6,112, and the admission of Wisconsin into the Union as a state was thus delayed. The adverse majority in Milwaukee county was 318, of which 289 was in the city, the vote in the outlying districts being very close.
At the regular election, held on Sept. 6, 1847, the following officers were elected : Isaac P. Walker, James Holliday, and Asa Kinney, mem- bers of the territorial House of Representatives ; John E. Cameron, reg- ister of deeds ; Sidney L. Rood, county treasurer ; James McCall, county surveyor ; Leverett S. Kellogg, coroner ; and Charles P. Evarts, county clerk. At this election, also, John H. Tweedy was elected as the Wiscon- sin delegate to Congress, being the only citizen of Milwaukee to achieve that distinction during the territorial days.
On Sept. 27, 1847, the governor of the territory issued a proclama- tion, appointing a special session of the legislative assembly of the Ter- ritory, to be held on Oct. 18, to take such action in relation to the admis- sion of the state into the Union and adopt such other measures as in their wisdom the public good might require. Upon convening the assembly , confined its action to the one subject of admission to statehood, and after a brief session of ten days it adjourned sine die. It passed an act providing for an election, on Nov. 29, of delegates to another con- stitutional convention, to be composed of sixty-nine members, of which number the apportionment gave seven to Milwaukee county. The act further provided that a census should be taken between the Ist and 15th days of December, of all persons residing in the territory on Dec. I. The enumeration in Milwaukee county showed a toal population of 22,791, an increase since June 1, 1846-a period of eighteen months- of 7,199, which gives a good idea of the rapid development of that por- tion of the state.
This second convention to form a constitution for the state met at Madison on Dec. 15, and the following gentlemen were present as the representatives from Milwaukee county, they having been the success- ful ones in a spirited contest for the honors. John L. Doran, Garret M. Fitzgerald, Albert Fowler, Byron Kilbourn, Rufus King, Charles H. Larkin, and Morritz Schoeffler. John L. Doran was a native of Ireland and a lawyer by profession ; Garret M. Fitzgerald was also a native of the Green Isle and a farmer by occupation ; Albert Fowler has been biographically mentioned on a preceding page of this work, as has also Byron Kilbourn; Charles H. Larkin was a native of Connecticut and a farmer by occupation ; and Morritz Schoeffler was a native of Bavaria and followed the occupation of a printer.
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Gen. Rufus King, whose name appears in the above list as a mem- ber of the Milwaukee county delegation in the second Constitutional convention, and who for many years occupied a prominent position in Milwaukee as a journalist and educator, is deserving of more than a passing mention at this time. He was born in the city of New York on Jan. 26, 1814. His father was President Charles King, of Columbia College, and his grandfather, Rufus King, had the honor of being the first senator from the Empire State upon the formation of the Federal government, and also served as minister to England during Washı- ington's administration. The prestige of such an ancestry could not fail to have great influence in shaping a future career, and as a natural sequence young King was honored with the appointment to a cadetship at West Point, which was then the Mecca of the sons of the wealthy and influential citizens of the young Republic, and there he graduated in July, 1833, with high honors, ranking fourth in his class ; and he was assigned to duty with the engineer corps of the regular army. His first employment in his new vocation was to aid in the construction of Fortress Monroe under Robert E. Lee, who subsequently became the Confederate leader during the war of the 60's. But the youthful soldier wanted something more stimulating, more exciting, something outside of a strict military occupation, and in order to obtain it he resigned, in 1836, and accepted a position as assistant engineer upon the preliminary survey then being made for the New York & Erie railroad, which posi- tion he held until 1838, when he left and accepted that of editor-in-chief of the Albany Advertiser, thereby commencing the life in which he be- came so famous in after years. He had now found his proper sphere, and at once commenced to take an active and prominent part in all the excit- ing political contests of the day. In 1839 he was also commissioned as adjutant-general of the state, a position which his thorough military education rendered him eminently well qualified to fill, and which he held until July 1, 1843. He remained upon the Advertiser until 1841, when, at the solicitation of Gov. William H. Seward, he severed his connection with that paper and became associate editor upon the Albany Evening Journal, in which position he was the trusted friend and adviser of that renowned journalist, Thurlow Weed, who was then editor-in- chief of that paper. There he remained until 1845, when, induced by liberal offers, he came to Milwaukee and assumed the editorial chair of the Milwaukee Sentinel, then the leading Whig organ in the Territory, and during the next twelve years he made that paper a power in the dissemination of Whig principles. During the most of that time he also held the responsible office of school commissioner, having had the honor of election as the first president of the board upon the organization
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of the public school system in 1846. Financial embarrassments during the commercial panic of 1857 necessitated a change in the ownership of the Sentinel, although General King remained as editor-in-chief for a season, but he was ultimately compelled to let it pass into other hands. This disaster was a sad blow, after which he remained somewhat in obscurity until in March, 1861, when, without solicitation on his part, he received from Abraham Lincoln the appointment as minister to Rome. He accepted the position and had placed his baggage upon the vessel which was to convey him to that historic city, when the attack was made upon Fort Sumter in April and the Civil war became a reality. This changed the programme, the commission to Rome was surrendered, and, resuming the sword, he was at once commissioned a brigadier-general, his brigade being composed of Wisconsin volunteers and the Nineteenth Indiana, afterward famous as the "Iron Brigade." General King par- ticipated in General Pope's campaign of 1862, but the arduous duties incident thereto were of such a nature as to greatly impair his health, and he asked to be relieved, which request was granted. He was assigned to court-martial duty and in the defenses of Washington, being thus engaged until the spring of 1863, when he again took the field in command of a division at Yorktown and was actively engaged in watch- ing and counteracting the Confederate movements in that region until the fall of the same year, when he was again appointed to the Roman mission, where he remained until its abolition in 1867, after which he returned to his native city and died there on Oct. 13. 1876. General King was a born journalist, wielded a ready pen, and was the acknowl- edged leader of the Whig party throughout the state of Wisconsin during the early history, being for several years one of the regents of the State University. He was a prominent official in the old volunteer fire department, and in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, in which latter organization he took great pride. It may also be of interest to state that he was the president of the first base-ball club in Milwaukee, organized in April, 1860. There is a fine portrait of General King in the Milwaukee city library.
The constitutional convention adjourned on Feb. 1, 1848, after pro- viding that the result of their deliberations should be submitted to the electors of the proposed State for their ratification or rejection on the second Monday in March ; that in case the Constitution was adopted the election of state officials, members of the state legislature, and repre- sentatives in Congress should be chosen on the second Monday in May ; and that the first session of the state legislature should convene on the first Monday in June. On March 13. 1848, the proposed Constitution was ratified by a majority of the electors, the vote in Milwaukee county
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being 2,008 "yes" and 208 "no," and with the final adjournment of the territorial legislature on the same day the Constitution was ratified. the Territory of Wisconsin, after a turbulent existence of twelve years, be- came only a memory.
And the change from territorial to a state government was re- ceived by the people of Milwaukee county with unfeigned satisfaction. as it signalized the end of the pioneer epoch and the beginning of a de- velopment that has few if any parallels among the many counties into which the "Old Northwest Territory" has been divided. But yet in many respects the annals of those pioneer days are filled with subjects of the most intense interest, and a study of that portion of the county's history cannot fail to be instructive to a people who have, by one leap, as it were, placed themselves out of sight of the immediate past. and merged themselves so deeply in the concerns of the present as to regard the scenes through which their immediate ancestors passed as almost a myth. Let the reader try to forget the present for a few moments, and transport himself to the log cabin of his grandfather, with its curl- ing smoke striving to make its way through the little break in the forest : let him contemplate his grandfather out in the "clearing" at work, or seated by the fire on a winter's evening with a family of healthy children about him, and his wife with them, dressed in homespun. preparing the evening meal of the simplest articles over a fire whose unruly smoke is seriously affecting her vision, and perhaps her temper, too. The "big boys" have fed the cattle and are making ax-handles or scrubbing brooms around the fire, while the faithful dog by their side pricks his ears at every sound, as if placed on guard by the family. How interesting those early scenes! Why can we not pause in the hurly- burly of busy life and contemplate them, if not for the instruction they afford, at least for the diversion they would give? Severe were the trials through which our forefathers passed in the early years of western life ; but they laid the foundation of the better times that we witness, during the formative period of Milwaukee county.
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CHAPTER VII.
COUNTY ROADS, BUILDINGS, FINANCES, ETC.
EARLY ROADS-GOVERNMENT ROAD TO MADISON-THE "BRIDGE WAR"- EARLY STAGE LINE-PLANK AND TURNPIKE ROADS-MILWAUKEE AND ROCK RIVER CANAL-FIRST PUBLIC BUILDINGS-PRESENT COURT-HOUSE -OTHER COUNTY BUILDINGS-FINANCES OF MILWAUKEE COUNTY.
The first thought taken by early settlers, when a few homes are once established, is of facilities for communicating with a modest sec- tion of the outer world, and the realization of this desire becomes a business and social necessity. Afterward, when the limits of a village are expanded into a city, comes the thought of general means of com- munication and transportation, not only within the bounds of the cor- poration, but far beyond into the distant districts of the state and nation. The first roadways leading into and out of Milwaukee were not public highways. They were adopted by accident ; belonged to nobody in par- ticular, and extended across the country without regard to the cardinal points of the compass, but as irregular as a cow-path. When Americans first visited the present site of Milwaukee, there were four principal Indian trails centering at the trading post that was destined to become the Wisconsin metropolis of Lake Michigan. Two of these diverged from the South Side, one of which led to Chicago and the other to Fox River ; another led from the West Side to Green Bay, and one proceeded up the peninsula to Port Washington. The wagons of the pioneers usually followed these trails ; and as they were found to be the best routes, the principal roads to the interior were established on very nearly the same courses, and in 1835 these were all the roads that led to into Milwaukee. In 1836 Byron Kilbourn made a road across the Menomonee marsh, extending the same southward into the country, and it is still known by his name.
But these roads were mere openings through the timber, with logs
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laid across some of the streams-and varied occasionally by stumps and hollows. Still the tide of immigration passed through these channels with an unceasing flow, and spread out over the rich country to the west. As the population increased, however, the demand for more and better highways became constant and imperative. In response to these demands the territorial legislature at its first session authorized a road to be laid out, at the expense of the several counties through which it ran, from Milwaukee via Madison to the Blue Mounds. Madison had been selected as the seat of the territorial government, and as Milwaukee was slowly but surely becoming a place of importance it was but natural that a road connecting these two villages was the first to be suggested. As illustrating the difficulties of travel in those days, on May 31, 1837, Augustus A. Bird, one of the commissioners for the erection of public buildings at Madison, left Milwaukee with thirty-six workmen and six yoke of oxen, and all the necessary mechanical tools, provisions, cook- ing utensils, etc., to enable operations at the capital to be commenced immediately. The territorial road had not as yet been laid out, and the men were compelled to make a pathway for their teams and wagons as they went along. It rained incessantly, and the obstructions to their progress presented by the drenched ground, fallen trees, unbridged streams, hills, ravines and marshes, and the devious course which they necessarily pursued, so delayed them that they did not reach Madison until June 10.
In the early part of 1838 Congress appropriated $30,000 for the construction of roads in Wisconsin, $15,000 of which was for a road from Fort Howarrd, via Milwaukee and Racine to the Illinois state line, and $10,000 for the road from Milwaukee to Madison and thence west- ward. As a result of this appropriation the road to Madison was com- menced in 1838, and by Sept. 1, 1839, the roadway had been cut and cleared as far as the capital, a distance of seventy-nine miles. Other roads were also opened and improved into the interior at about this time, among which was the one running north and south along the lake shore. At the session of the legislative assembly in the early part of 1839 acts were passed appointing commissioners to lay out territorial roads from Geneva to Milwaukee, and from Milwaukee to Watertown. These matters at that early day were regarded as of great local importance. The legislative assembly of 1840 passed an act prescribing the manner in which territorial roads should be laid out, surveyed and recorded, and one of the provisions of this act was that, "No part of the expense of laying out and establishing any Territorial road * * shall be paid out of the territorial or county treasury." The effect of this pro- vision was that all such expenses had to be provided for by individual
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personal contributions, and the only advantage of an act to provide for locating a territorial road was that if laid out according to the require- ments of the law a legal highway could be established. It can easily be inferred that this gave no great impetus to the construction of new roads.
The "Bridge War" in Milwaukee first assumed practical shape by the enactment at the winter session of the legislative assembly of 1840 of a law which authorized and required the county commissioners of Mil- waukee county to locate and construct a drawbridge across the Milwau- kee river from the foot of Chestnut street to the foot of Division street. This was the first bridge joining the East and West sides of the embryo city, and much historic interest attaches to it for the reason that it involved the pioneers in controversies assuming at times a threatening and dangerous aspect. What has passed into local history as the "bridge war" was in fact a war of contending factions, and of rival sections, cach seeking to obtain a temporary advantage over the other. The first bridge built in the vicinity of Milwaukee was the one constructed by Byron Kilbourn across the Menomonee river, near its junction with the Milwaukee river. It connected the Chicago road with the road which terminated in the village on the west side of the Milwaukee river, and its tendency was to divert travel from a road which led up to a ferry at Walker's Point and terminated in Juneau's village on the east side of the river. In the legislative enactment of 1839, consolidating the two villages, provision was made for the building of a bridge at Chestnut street under the auspices of the new village government, but no action was taken under this authority, and in the face of much opposition the bridge was built under a contract let by the county commissioners, in accordance with the legislative enactment mentioned above. A bridge was constructed at Spring street in 1843, and in 1844 another bridge was built, connecting Oneida and Wells streets, both of which were erected and kept in repair mostly at the expense of the citizens of the east ward, the west ward claiming that if the people on the east side wanted the bridges they must pay for them. In this way the matter remained until February, 1845, when, for the purpose of finally settling the vexed question, a bill was introduced into the territorial legislature, and favor- ably acted upon, providing that the people in the east ward "shall for- ever have the right and authority to maintain, repair, rebuild and keep in operation, at the sole expense of said ward, the present bridges across the Milwaukee river." naming "the bridge from the foot of Chestnut street on the west side to the foot of Division street on the east side. and the bridge from the foot of East Water on the cast side, near Dousman's warehouse, to Walker's Point." It will be noticed that this bill did not include the bridge at Wisconsin and Oneida streets, nor the
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