USA > Wisconsin > Racine County > Racine > Racine, belle city of the lakes, and Racine County, Wisconsin : a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Vol. I > Part 43
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The first printing press in the county was a home-made one, constructed by Rev. Jason Lothrop, which he afterward de- seribed thus: "A wooden box was made about 12 by 24 inches in size, with sides the height of the type, rising above the base on which the types were made to stand. I made my own ink and used the old-fashioned ball with which to distribute the ink on the type, and then a roller was passed over the paper on the form, resting on the sides of the box or table that did the press work. The whole expense of my printing materials, including type, could not have been $10.00. By these simple materials I have printed some things when and where no other printing could be had. At one time I printed 250 copies of a volume of about one hundred and thirty pages. When out of 'sorts' I cast some of
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certain letters, made quads and spaces, and thus I managed to manufacture books, bound them myself and read them."
The first sawmill in the county was the one built by William See at the Rapids early in the year 1835, and the first fanning mill was made by Richard E. Ela in the cellar of his house at Rochester. The first newspaper was the Racine Argus, which was issued on February 14, 1838. The first bakery was estab- lished by J. C. Smith, about 1842, and the first woolen mill was that of Pliny M. Perkins, which was established in Burlington in 1843.
WOLF HUNTS
The pioneers of Racine County were greatly annoyed by the constant depredations of wolves, of which there were two species -the large black timber wolf and the small gray wolf-which lived chiefly upon the prairies. For several years after the first settlements were made, it was almost impossible for the settler to keep small stock of any kind, and those who tried to raise sheep suffered a most unhappy experience. Many a night, in some lonely cabin, little children have cuddled together in their trundle beds and trembled with fear as they listened to the dis- mal howling of a pack of wolves in the woods near their home. During the winter, hunger would often drive them close enough to a cabin for the settler to get a shot at them, and the pioneer was not slow to avail himself of such an opportunity to put one or more of them out of business. Smaller animals, such as the lynx, panther, catamount, fox, etc., also caused the settlers some annoyance, but the wolf did more real damage than all the others combined.
Under these circumstances wolf hunts were occasionally organized. In these hunts the settlers would gather at some ap- pointed time and place, surround a given tract of country and march toward the center, driving the pests before them and gradually contracting the lines until it was impossible for the wolves to break through the cordon by which they were sur- rounded. Sometimes as many as fifty wolves have been killed in a single day by one of these "drives," but at other times the "drivers" were less fortunate. The "Great Wolf Hunt of 1838," in Waterford Township, was one of the latter class. For some time the wolves had been particularly troublesome in that part of the county and the "hunt" was advertised far and wide, ex-
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tending invitations to everybody to take part. The settlers armed themselves with rifles, shotguns, corn knives, seythes, dinner horns and cowbells and started out with sanguine expectations. Under the leadership of competent officers the line surrounded the greater part of the township, with the understanding that the "drive" was to concentrate in a certain piece of woodland. Stead- ily the lines advanced, the shouts, horns and bells being sufficient- ly stentorian to drive any lurking wolf from his covert. When the drive reached the center of the woods, not a solitary wolf was to be seen. The feelings of the disappointed hunters can be better imagined than deseribed.
As the tired settlers were returning home over the "big marsh," they came upon a man with a wagon laden with goods on his way to Elkhorn, who had turned his horses loose to graze while he took a rest. Among the supplies in the wagon was a quantity of whisky. Chagrined at their failure as wolf hunters and feeling the need of a "stimulant," they formed a hollow square around the wagon and proceeded to confiscate the liquid portion of the cargo. The "stimulant" did its work with start- ling impartiality. Some of the settlers managed to reach their homes unassisted, others were brought in by their neighbors, and a few spent the night upon the prairie. It is said there were seolding wives in Waterford for several weeks, and when one of them wanted her husband to do something it was only neces- sary to refer to the great wolf hunt and its sequel, as the freight- er who had been despoiled obtained redress at the hands of the law and the hunters paid the full price of the whisky they had confiscated.
The lowland immediately west of the Root River, at Racine, was originally covered with hard maple trees and in 1837 the grove was converted into a "sugar camp." While passing through the camp collecting the buckets of sap, Joel Sage came upon a wolf's den, in which were a family of young ones. The site of this den was almost upon the exact spot where MeGinnis' Tavern was afterward bnilt. The incident is mentioned here to show how little the wolves cared for the proximity of man. But civilization finally won the day and the wolf, like the Indian, disappeared from Racine Connty.
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UNLOADING A VESSEL
In the fall of 1835 the few settlers in Racine and the adjacent country were threatened with a famine. But just when the out- look was darkest a vessel loaded with provisions arrived from Chicago. There was no harbor here at that time and the anchor- age was somewhat uncertain. A line was fastened to the stern of the vessel, which was pulled up on the beach as far as possi- ble, to facilitate the unloading, and the work of discharging the cargo commenced, settlers from the surrounding country coming in to secure a share of the foodstuffs. Everybody was busy. Capt. Gilbert Knapp, having had experience in such matters, superintended the work. The sky was dark and threatening, the wind freshened and waves began to roll. Gulls came flying in to herald the near approach of the coming storm. Captain Knapp, with the customary austerity of the skipper, admonished his men to redouble their efforts, with the result that the pro- visions were safe ashore before the storm came. That evening a number of families sat down to a "square meal" for the first time in weeks. The famine was broken.
MORE HARD TIMES
In the winter of 1837-38 there was another scarcity of pro- visions. The guests of the Racine House, kept by JJohn M. Myers, complained of the paucity of their fare, and Mr. Myers engaged L. S. Blake to take his team, go to Chicago, and bring out a load of hams, bacon and a barrel of flour. Mr. Blake was gone ten days, the guests of the hotel keeping up their spirits as well as could be expected under the circumstances. As soon as Mr. Blake arrived and the provisions were safely housed in the store room, Mr. Myers came out rubbing his hands and exclaimed: "Now, boys, we shall live again."
The next winter the supply of salt in the village gave out. Some one reported that a man named Mitchell, living on the prairie in what is now Kenosha County, had a barrel of salt, and Norman Clark was appointed a committee of one to go out there for a supply, with the instructions "not to come back without it." Mr. Clark set out on horseback on a cold, wintry day and wan- dered around through the snow drifts until he found the Mitchell cabin. He was rejoiced to learn that his trip had not been in vain, for Mr. Mitchell really had a barrel of salt, as had been re-
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ported. But the day was so far spent that he was compelled to pass the night with the Mitchell family. The next day he re- turned to Racine, bringing with him a peek of salt, which was divided among his neighbors and used with great frugality. The Mitchell, who was so fortunate as to have a barrel of salt in such an emergency, was Henry Mitchell, who afterward removed to Racine and became the head of the firm of Mitchell, Lewis & Company, the well-known manufacturers of wagons.
During those early years the only way to obtain meats of any kind was to buy them in Chicago, where the packing industry had even then attained to considerable proportions. Hogs from Indiana and Illinois were driven to Chicago and there packed for the lake towns. Very little bacon or other smoked meats was sold, nor did the packers of that period go to the trouble of put- ting up what was known as "mess pork." Instead, they cut up the entire animal and salted it in the same barrel, which was then labeled "one hog pork." In the fall of 1836 the firm of Strong & Ives sent to Chicago $60.00 for two barrels of this "one-hog" product. Several weeks elapsed before the arrival of the consignment, during which time the people visited the store daily to make inquiries about the meat. When it was learned that the pork had arrived a crowd gathered at the store, each one desirous of being the first to be served. Mr. Ives care- fully removed the head from one of the barrels. Nothing ap- peared but brine. Getting a hook, he fished around in the salt water and drew out a pig's tail, ahnost a foot long, with a sec- tion of backbone, upon which was a pound or so of pork. The merchant kept on "fishing" until he had caught thirty-nine of those choice morsels-the entire contents of the barrel. It is said that Mr. Ives joined in the laughter that followed and, the barrel being labeled with the usual "one hog pork." the local editor was inspired to write that "no Bashaw of ancient history ever had more tails than the wonderful Hoosier hog that had been packed in that barrel."
PASSENGER PIGEONS
Apropos of the scarcity of meat at times, it is worth while to remember that the settlers depended upon the wild game for a considerable portion of their food supply. Wild dueks and geese could often be shot by the pioneer from his door yard. and
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quail and prairie chicken were easily obtained by any one who owned a gun or could borrow one. In the spring and fall of each year the wild or passenger pigeons, in their migrations, would fly over the village in floeks that would darken the sun for half an hour at a time, and the pigeon was a fast flier. It would be no exag- geration to say that some of these flocks actually contained mil- lions of birds. In the fall of the year they would generally ap- pear first coming around Wind Point, following the curve of the · shore until they reached the mouth of the river. There they would turn inland and follow the general course until they dis- appeared in the west.
Their flight was generally low, frequently not more than twenty-five or thirty feet above the ground, and thousands of them were killed by the citizens as they passed over the village. Alexander Hood used to tell how he remembered, when a boy 11 or 12 years old, of seeing some older boys and young men, among whom were his brother Samuel, Charles Bunce, John King, Charles Smith and a young man named Moore, fix up a "pigeon killer" on the high bank of the river, near the east end of the present State Street Bridge. They planted a long hickory pole in the ground and attached cords to it, extending in opposite directions. At this point the birds generally flew low, and as they passed over the bluff the boys would vibrate the pole rapidly by pulling the cords alternately, the top of the pole knocking hun- dreds of them to the earth. While some of the boys worked the pole, the others would be busy in gathering up the pigeons that had been killed or stunned, with visions of "pot pie" before their minds.
South of the city, about where Lakeside is now, Capt. James Easson and his brother, Lawrence, had a pigeon trap of a differ- ent character. They had an old seine about one hundred feet long, which they would stretch between two trees, as high as they could manage to adjust it. The small cords of the seine were invisible to the pigeons in their rapid flight. When they struck the seine some would fall to the ground and others would be- come entangled in its meshes. Then the boys would drop the net to the ground and capture the birds thus imprisoned.
Many pigeons were killed with common garden rakes, pitch- forks, ete., as they skimmed along near the ground within reach of these improvised and merciless weapons. This indiscriminate
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slaughter was not confined to Racine County. It went on all over the Central United States, from the Appalachian to the Rocky Mountains, and its painful sequel is the passenger pigeon has become extinct. Ornithologists have sought in vain for speci- mens of the species and responsible parties have offered a re- ward of $1,000 for a nesting pair of these birds.
TOM O'SPRIG'S OXEN
Among the early settlers of Racine was a jovial Irishman by the name of Tom O'Sprig. He was a mason and plasterer by trade, and when the Racine House was built in 1837 Tom was awarded the contract for doing the plastering. O'Sprig was not exactly lazy, but he had evidently never read Wilkins Micawber's comment upon the evils of procrastination, for he was in the habit of putting off until tomorrow whatever he could avoid doing today. The owners of the hotel were anxious to have the plastering done so that they could have the "grand opening" according to the advertised schedule, but the Irish- man could not be hurried. However, one Sunday, while most of the people were at church, he concluded that "the better the day the better the deed," and started to work upon his contract. But upon arriving at the hotel he found that some of the neces- sary materials were lacking. As he had no conveyance of his own, he set his Irish wit to work to devise means of bringing the sand, lime, or whatever it was he needed, to the hotel. He knew that Stephen Campbell and Paul Kingston each had a yoke of oxen grazing somewhere in the woods, and he also knew that it would not do to seek the owners and ask permission to use the oxen on Sunday. He therefore decided to act on his own initi- ative, use the oxen and ask permission afterward. Hunting up an ox-yoke, he set out for the woods and soon found the animals quietly browsing upon the herbage. He had no trouble in placing the yoke upon their necks, but that was as far as he got. Persuasion and the "gad" were alike unavailing, and it is said that the language used by O'Sprig would hardly have been fit for a Sunday School address. Patience finally exhausted, he unyoked the oxen, sneaked back to town and no plastering was done on that Sunday. He subsequently learned the cause of his failure. Not being acquainted with the cattle, he had yoked Campbell's off ox and Kingston's off ox together and they re-
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sented the arrangement by refusing to pull together as Tom wanted them to do. But the Racine House was completed in due time and dedicated by a grand ball, as told in another chapter.
CARROLL'S MASS MEETING
In 1855-56 Thomas Falvey represented Racine County in the Lower House of the State Legislature. During the second session (1856) some action of his gave M. W. Carroll what he regarded as good grounds for denunciation, and he called a "mass meeting" at the court-house to register a protest. Mr. Falvey's friends were mmerons and some of them were not loath to express their disapproval of Carroll's conse. A few of them even went so far as to threaten to break up the meeting. and there was a prospect of a lively time, which brought out quite a number of the curious, who were not particularly inter- ested on either side. In calling the meeting to order, Mr. Car- roll said:
"I have been given to understand that the minions of Tom Falvey have announced their intention of breaking up this meeting. (Here he pulled out an old-fashioned brass horse pistol about two feet long, and after looking over the audience significantly continued.) If anybody here has any such inten- tion, I want to inform him that at the first attempt to do so, I shall fill him so full of holes that his hide won't be good for any- thing but a colander afterward."
The meeting proceeded according to program without dis- turbance, Mr. Carroll had his way and possibly derived great benefit from this public airing of his grievance, but is certain that no harm was done to Mr. Falvey, who still retained his pop- ularity.
FRUITION OF A HOPE
A. P. Dutton, a well-known resident of Racine, in writing of early days for one of the local papers in 1897, tells the fol- lowing story of the building of the first railroad-now the Racine & Savanna division of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Pant System:
"When the railroad work was first started, Racine formed a «lub to inspect the roadbed. About a dozen of the commercial men would start out every Sunday morning right after break- fast and walk out as far as the road was graded. This was kept
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up until the grading had been finished to Mygatt's Ridge, where the Insane Asyhm is now located. The club then gave up the Sunday walks. but when the cars reached a station on the road they went out and helped to celebrate the occasion. The last of these celebrations was held when the road reached Savanna. "John Dickson, who was one of the inspection party, al- ways said he wanted to live until the road reached the Missis- sippi River, and he wanted to go out by ears and drink out of the Mississippi like a horse. He lived to see the time and the writer saw him lie down and drink like a horse."
There is another story to the effect that Mr. Dickson, when he arrived at Savanna, was perfectly willing to forego the pleas- ure of drinking out of the river, but other members of the party, who had so often heard him express his wish, informed him that he must either drink like a horse or they would give him a ducking in the great Father of Waters. Concluding that discretion was the better part of valor, he lay down and took the drink. Thus his dream of years before, expressed in a spirit of levity, was realized.
AN OLD LAND-MARK
About four miles north of Racine on the shore of the lake, a little north of where the Wind Point Lighthouse now stands, was once a tall tree that could be seen for miles in nearly every direction. It was used by mariners on the lake (there were no lighthouses then) to guide the course of their vessels. The tree stood on the farm of Mrs. Francis and when she sold the farm she reserved a spot forty feet square, with the tree in the cen- ter, that the sailors might not lose their faithful friend by having it out down and taken to a saw-mill. Gradually the waves under- mined the bank upon which it stood. until one day the old tree that had served to guide the course of so many ships toppled over. It is still remembered by many of the older settlers. Fortunately, the Wind Point Lighthouse had been built before the tree fell, but its destruction was regretted by a number of old-time sailors whom it had so often befriended.
A DISASTROUS FIRE
In 1903 " An Old Resident," in a communication to one of the Racine newspapers, described several of the early Racine hotels-the Racine Exchange, Congress Hall, the Fulton House,
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the Racine House, the Frontier Hotel, which stood out on the old plank road, and the Baker House (now the Merchants' Hotel). The writer, whoever he may have been, was evidently endowed with a sense of humor, for in closing his description of these old hostelries he relates the following incident: "I remember that upon the burning of one of these hotels (I'll not say which one) the story ran through the town that hundreds of lives had been lost in the fire, and the terror-stricken hearers of the tale were only comforted by the subsequent assurance that they were the lives of bed bugs."
A SLIGHT CORRECTION
Mention has been made in some of the earlier chapters of this history of Jacques Jambeau's trading post at Skunk Grove, in the northwestern part of Mount Pleasant Township. The story, as it is there told, was first given by Judge Charles E. Dyer in his address to the old settlers at Burlington in 1871, and it was afterward repeated in the History of Racine and Kenosha Counties, which was published in 1879. In an inter- view with Andrew JJ. Vieau, in the Wisconsin Historical Collec- tions (Vol. XI, p. 218), Mr. Vieau says:
"My father was Jacques Vieau, the first man to engage in the Indian trade on the ground now occupied by the City of Milwaukee. The family name was originally De Veau, but as that meant calf, or veal, other children would annoy my ances- tors by bleating in their presence, so the name was changed to Vieau in self defense.
"You have called attention to the statement in the History of Racine and Kenosha Counties (Western Historical Company, 1879, p. 286) that 'a Frenchman named Jacques Jambean estab- lished a trading post as early as 1832 at what was called Skunk Grove, in the northwestern part of Mount Pleasant Township, Racine County, and there conducted a thrifty business with the Indians.' My father was called Jean Beau by the Indians, and this was frequently corrupted by Americans into Jambeau. Now, this carly trader was not my father, as one might suppose, but Jacques Viean, Jr., my brother, who came to be called Jacques Jambean, as the Indians have a habit of naming sons after the father - all of us Vieaus being called by them Jean Bean, or Jambeau, after our father, who was very popular with
4
Photo furnished by Billings
"J. I. C." RACINE'S MOST FAMOUS RACE HORSE, AND EDWIN BITHER, HIS DRIVER
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the Pottawatomies. My brother Jacques, whether called Vieau or Jambean, has been frequently confounded with his father by writ- ers on our early history.
"I do not know when my brother Jacques went to Skunk Grove, with my brother Louis as his partner, to trade and live with the Pottawatomies, among whom they married. But I do know that they never had what might be called a regular trading post there. They carried on farming as well as trafficking, in a small way, at the Grove, and afterward claimed their place under the pre-emption law. When the Pottawatomies were removed in 1837, Jacques and Louis sold ont their claims and emigrated with the Indians to Council Bluffs and then to Kan- sas, where they both died."
Mr. Vieau is in error about his father having been the first trader on the site of Milwaukee. That distinction belongs to Alexis la Framboise and Solomon Juneau. But he undoubtedly knew his family history and the correct name of Jacques Jam- beau was Jacques Viean. The claims of Jacques and Louis Viean, covering the original plat of Racine, were those bought by Capt. Gilbert Knapp and Gurdon S. Hubbard to strengthen their title. Judge Dyer speaks of them as "Jacques and Lewis Vaux," and the error is probably due to an incorrect prommeia- tion of the name.
FAMOUS RACE HORSES
Racine County has been the home of a number of horses that have made records upon the race track, the stables of Jerome I. Case, the threshing machine manufacturer, standing at the head of the list. Mr. Case's first noted horse was the stallion Governor Sprague, whose best record was 2:18, which was considered wonderful for that day. He was foaled in Rhode Island in 1871 and was purchased by Mr. Case in 1876 for $27,500. Other horses owned by Mr. Case along in the '70s, and their track records, were: Narragansett, 2:24; Mila C., 2:261/5; Dom Pedro, 2:27; Edwin B., 2:21; Weston, 2:30, and Capitola, 2:29.
But the horse that lowered all these records and did more to advertise Racine to the world than all of them put together was "Jay-Eye-See" (a name thus formed by spelling out the initials of Mr. Case's name). He was bought by Mr. Case from Col. Richard West when a colt for $500, was trained by Edwin
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D. Bither, and in 1884 trotted a mile in 2:0914 at Cleveland, Ohio, a feat that was heralded far and wide, and some horsemen predicted that the record would never be lowered by a stallion. Subsequently he made a record of 2:04 as a pacer, and hekdl the world record for combined trotter and pacer. After retiring from the track his owner provided him with every comfort a horse could desire until his death in July, 1909.
Richard Richards, proprietor of the Meadow Lane Stock Farm, about four miles southwest of Racine, raised a number of good horses, some of whom made records between 2:20 and 2:30. Among them were Swigert, 2:20; Protine, 2:24; Lucy Cuyler, 2:281/5; Baybrino, 2:30, and a number of others. Mr. Richards had a good half-mile track on his farm and superin- tended the training of all his horses, but no horse in the county was ever able to equal the record made by "Jay-Eye-Sce."
After the death of this celebrated horse in 1909, a state- ment was published in one of the Racine papers that he was considered the joke of the J. I. Case string of trotting horses, and that Colonel West "threw him in" to satisfy Mr. Case on account of other colts purchased by him. This brought a reply from Edwin D. Bither, who was Mr. Case's trainer for fifteen years and who developed the speed in the horse, whose fast mile in 1884 spread the fame of the Belle City over the entire world.
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