USA > Wisconsin > Rock County > Rock County, Wisconsin; a new history of its cities, villages, towns, citizens and varied interests, from the earliest times, up to date, Vol. I > Part 20
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The first house out from Chicago was four miles to Butter- fields. While there we were talking with the people. Bearsley, the father of the man I was helping, was pretty old, and he was so distressed with the snow, etc., that he declared that he would not come over that road again, until he could come on the rail- road. The whole crowd discouraged him from ever coming again, but he did live to see many railroads coming into Chi- cago.
The next man living north was Ouilmette. He lived at Gross Point. About four miles further lived Pattersons, ten miles from there to McCuens, ten miles from there to Sunderlands. The next house from Sunderlands, I don't know the name of the party, but the place was called Grand Myer, which is now back of Kenosha. The next house was twenty miles or more to Skunk Grove. This was on the old Indian trail from Milwau- kee to Chicago. From Skunk Grove it was two miles to D. F. Smith's.
Two miles from D. F. Smith's lived Henry F. Janes. There were no other settlers until you reached Milwaukee.
While I was in Chicago, in 1834, I helped load a schooner for George H. Walker, a man named Hubbard, Byron Kilbourn and some others, who were going with this schooner to Mil- waukee to make their claims there. At this time there were no settlers in Milwaukee, except Solomon Juneau. The Government had a few men working at the harbor in Chicago, I recollect. Three feet or three and one-half feet was the deepest water on the bar at that place, and we had to take the goods out into the lake in a batteau and put them on board.
I was in Milwaukee in the fall or early winter of 1835, and during 1835 they had built up considerable in the village.
I helped Colonel Isaac Butler build the second frame house in Racine, which was in the winter of '35 and '36.
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In the spring of '37 I went from here to Otter creek in the northern part of this county, and made a claim. My nearest neighbor was about a mile and a half this way from Janesville, and there were no settlers between here and Otter creek at that time.
We made a claim there the fourth of March. 1837. The sixth of March, I made a claim out in the town of Harmony, east of Mount Zion a mile or so, on part of sections 24 and 25. This was the first claim in the town of Harmony, unless some one had taken up one back of the high school, but there was not a settler in the town of Harmony at the time I made my claim.
In March while I was in the town of Harmony, I took a team and cut some maple brush and bushes and staked out a road from Johnstown to Milton avenue now, and so induced the men to come that way instead of going down by Black Hawk Grove. The town board afterwards adopted this road.
This last year and the year before I attended the Scotch games in the town of Harmony, and I did not meet a man who could call me by my own name.
After disposing of that claim I returned back to Otter creek in the northern part of the town of Milton. My brother's family came there in May, 1837. We built a saw mill on the creek, and sawed lumber for ourselves and neighbors.
I used to get my washing done down at Smiley's, (2) about a mile and a half away, north of Janesville, consequently I had occasion to walk there without a road, as there were no roads then.
I helped Judge Whiton raise a house the first of April, 1837.
I built a cart, and with a yoke of cattle, started with pro- visions in the month of May to go to Otter creek. When I got to the north side of the prairie, I found Spauldings just raising a cabin. After passing them a mile or so, my team tired out, and I came back and helped them raise their cabin, and as they had had no experience in the building of our western cabins, consequently I was considerable help to them. They did not understand how to fix the gable, and so I helped them about that, so that they could cover it with shingles and hold them down with a pole instead of nails.
(2) Now the Culan place.
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After a few days I came back, and went through on to the road to Milton, which is the same road to Milton now, with the exception of a very little variation near Spaulding's house. That was the first road from here to Milton. Before this they used to go east to the Indian trail, a much longer way.
In the spring of 1837 I made a claim for a friend from the East on lands about a mile or a mile and a quarter this side of Milton Junction. I went with him from Smiley's to show it to him. He refused to accept it because it was so far from neighbors and roads. He said that he would never have any neighbors nor churches nor roads.
In the spring of 1838 I was living two miles up the river from here, Janesville, and the United States marshal summoned me on a jury for circuit court here. This was the first court of the kind in this county. We came accordingly, and our names were called, we proved our attendance, and received our money. There were no cases on the docket.
During the spring of 1837 I was stopping with the Janes' here, who were friends of ours. One evening we heard a man call on the west side of the river, and myself and Aaron Walker came over with a ferry boat; he proved to be Joe Payne, of Monroe, with mail, the first mail ever brought here. He had a, contract for carrying the mail from Monroe to Racine.
In the fall of 1838 I went to the land sale at Milwaukee on foot with Volney Atwood, Theodore Kendall and others, and stayed there until our land was offered in market and bid off. I was sent by my brother to buy land for Strunk and MeNitt. When the land was bid off I went in to pay my money to the receiver. My money was in gold in a belt, and I opened the belt and took my money out. I had bid off three quarter sections, which would amount to $600. The receiver counted out $600, and there was money left. He says to me how much money have you ? I replied, I don't know. Well, he says, how did you come by it? I said, my brother gave me the belt, and told me to come and buy the land. He says, Did not you count it? No. Did you not receipt for it? No. Whose money it is? Was it his money ? No. Whose money is it? I said it was Strunk's money, a man in western New York. And you neither counted it, nor receipted for it, nor he did not tell you how much there was? I said no. What kind of folks have you out there? Well, I said,
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you come out there and you won't have to bar the doors nights to keep out bad men. There were a great many people in Mil- waukee at that time, and I did not hear of a case of a man being robbed by another.
I slept in a large room, a ball-room covered with sleeping cots, and every man, or nearly every man must have had more or less money with him, and not a man reported a loss.
Some time in 1838 I bought some land in Dane county without seeing it, and afterward I made up my mind to go out and look at the land. I took my brother with me, who had just come on from western New York. We crossed Lake Koshkonong at the foot of the lake. Thibeau's son ferried me over the lake.
Then I took a trail toward Madison leading to the first lake. At the foot of the first lake lived a trader named Rasdal. He had a squaw wife, who was his second wife. He had lost his first wife, who was a sister to this one. Rasdal was a Ken- tuckian. He told me that when he first came into the lead mines if anyone had told him that he would marry a squaw, he would have knocked him down if he had broken an arm. I stayed with them for supper, and we had muskrat and warm biscuit for supper, and I learned from him that the land man I wished to see was several miles from there. He directed me, and I followed the trail he directed until I came to a section corner. Then I discovered by the section corner that I had passed the land, and my brother was so unaccustomed to camping out during the night, and I found that I had to stay out all night, that I sent him back. I put him on a section line and told him to follow that to the river, and he would come to Churchill's at Lake Koshkonong. After I got him started I went the other way towards my land, and accidentally ran a rosin weed into my foot through a hole in my boot. The weed splintered into several pieces, and I had to ford the river, and took cold in my foot. As I crossed the river I saw two squaws hunting for mud- turtles. I went on until I found my land, and rather than to camp out without supper, I thought that I would go back, and find their wigwam. I returned, and found them still in the boat. My foot pained me to such an extent I tried to get these splinters out. I could see some of them under the flesh, but I could not get them out. I gave my knife to the old squaw, and told her to dig them out of my foot. She worked at it, but
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without success, and then she turned it over to the younger one, and thought she might succeed. She could not get them out. When the old Indian came in I set him at it. I sharpened my knife, and he went at it. These slivers were near the flesh, and you had to cut the flesh in order to get them out. I told the Indian to cut around so that he would be able to take them out, and he tried it with the knife. It hurt so much that I could not stand it any more, and I had to abandon the idea of trying to get them out.
For supper that night we had a turtle, whose shell was ten inches long. The turtle was cut into four pieces, and boiled for supper. Not being used to such, I did not relish it very much, and did not eat very much of it. The next morning for break- fast, we had what was left of the turtle from supper the night before.
I wanted the Indian to bring me down to the Catfish, but he being a Winnebago, and I not being able to understand his language, I had hard work to make him understand what I meant. . But by making a map of Lake Koshkonong in the ashes, and Rock river, I gave him to understand what I wanted, and I could not get his consent to come for some time. I was very lame, but I started to walk, and got a little ways, when he called me back and gave me to understand that he would bring me down, and then the squaws went to work to take down the wigwam and pack it in the canoe, and the Indian hid some of his effects that he could not carry, and the two squaws walked. They took a trail down the Catfish river, and cut across from point to point. We progressed until we were almost to Roek river. Rock river was high, and at that time pickerel were plenty and the old Indian saw a ripple in the water. He took off his moccasins and leggins and took his spear, and by and by struck and brought up a pickerel with it. We came on to Rock river, I was getting very weak with pain, and hunger, and when we undertook to paddle up the river he could not paddle alone. The result was that I was obliged to walk. I told him that I must walk as I could not paddle it, so the two squaws got in and paddled up the river without any trouble.
It was at least six miles to the nearest house. When I got there I sent that man Churchill to our place, which was about four miles, to get a sack of meal and bring a horse. I
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paid the Indian with the sack of meal, about 100 pounds or more. I saw the old fellow afterward; he was always a friend of mine, but I have never liked turtle since.
Judge Irwin was a man who had a good deal of notoriety here as a great lover of dogs. A great many took a prejudice against the judge by reason of his remark that they kept Berk- shire dogs and lean hogs.
I was at the first wedding in Rock county in the early winter of 1836, I think it was. At the legislative session held at Bur- lington, Iowa, Daniel Smiley and a man named Brown, were appointed justices of the peace for this county. We were attached to Racine county for judicial purposes, and Smiley had to go to Racine to qualify, so as to be able to aet.
Our laws were the Michigan laws. We had no Wisconsin laws at that time. He went to Racine to qualify, and a Clark Waterman sent by him to get a license to marry Betsey Hale. But he was unable to get the license under the law. He returned here without the license, and told the party that he could either go to Racine and get it himself or it could be published in three conspicuous places in the county. So the notice was written out. One was placed upon Janes' door at the hotel here, where the girl was working, and the man was boarding, and one on Smiley's door, up the river two miles, and one on St. John's, below here.
At the expiration of the required time, we all came down for the wedding. There were no ladies around to invite in, and the only lady beside the one to be married was Mrs. Janes. They were, however, married in due form. I think that woman is still living on the North Fox river. The man is dead, his name was Waterman.
There was only one person's grave in this county when I came here, and that grave was the grave of Mrs. Volney Atwood's brother.
I. T. Smith's Account of a Tramp in 1838.
(He lived on Otter creek, town of Milton, Rock county, Wis.)
In 1838, my brother, D. F. Smith, and myself proposed to find a place for making pine lumber and running it to St. Louis. As siekness in his family kept him at home, he hired a man named Lewis Norman to go with me. Each of us had a gun,
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and we were provided with blankets for camping, and a small kettle and a frying pan for cooking. Our idea was to find pine on the north side of the Wisconsin upon unsettled lands belonging to Indians or which had lately been treated for. We planned to pacify the Indians by giving them some presents of food or blankets, and so gain their consent to build mills and cut timber.
We started on the trail from our house on Otter creek to Thibeaux cabin at the foot of Lake Koshkonong, in September, 1838. At Thibeaux's we met a man named Simeon Towle, who had bought of Thibeaux his land-serip, granted him by the government after treating with the Winnebagoes for their lands. His serip was located at or near the mouth of the Kishwaukie, in Illinois. Towle had paid Thibeaux some money on a verbal bargain, but had no writing. They wished me to make out a paper showing the bargain between them, which I did. Thi- beau's boy took us across the lake and we proceeded on the trail towards the Four Lakes. (Madison.) As I had a pair of new boots my feet soon became sore, and then I put on a pair of Indian moccasins; was much crippled, made a short day's journey and camped early. Flocks of flying pigeons, of which we shot enough for supper and breakfast, led us to water and we camped on the bank of a creek. As we were getting breakfast next day two men came from the east, the direction of Fort Atkinson, who had passed the night without supper or blankets, and one of whom was sick. I added more water and plenty of black pepper to the pigeons in my kettle, and with coffee for all, we made a fair breakfast. We went on slowly together on account of the sick one, and thought it not far to Madison. But we took a trail that led to the third lake, opposite Madison, and then followed around the north side of the lake until we came to a creek, but no bridge. Tracks of wagons led down the creek to the lake, where they extended around the mouth of the creek. I then learned that the way to pass a creek which flows into a lake is to go around it on a bar that forms in the lake between the current of the creek and the waves of the lake. My hired man, who was large and strong, carried the sick man across the water on his back. On account of growing darkness, we hurried on, but soon found the light increasing and that we had been having an eclipse of the sun.
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We arrived at Madison in good time, where we left our fellow travelers. I never knew their names or what became of them. Madison was then a small place with only the people who had come to work on the capitol building, the walls of which were but little above the ground.
We stayed over night with a Mr. Peck, whose wife was very indignant because an Englishman named Featherstonhaugh had called her Mrs. Quarter-of-a-bushel. The next day we took the road for Blue Mounds, and at Black Earth bought potatoes of a settler, who had raised them on the prairie without a plow. He used a spade, made a trench and threw the dirt on the grass, and upon that dropped his potato seed. Then with the spade he covered the seed, and when they needed hoeing the spade brought the earth from the bottom of the trench. The crop was harvested by throwing the earth back into the trench, and made quite a fair crop.
At the Blue Mounds we stopped with a Mr. Brigham, a brother of Ebenezer Brigham, the early miner of that place.
From there we took the road to the shot tower, or Helena, at the mouth of a creek on Wisconsin river. The road ran on the top of a remarkable ridge for about nine miles, and then gradually followed down the valley of the creek to its mouth. At the shot tower we found but seven men and two women. Captain Sands, an old sea captain, had charge, with a man to attend him and his horse. Two men poured the shot, one worked in the finishing house, one, a cooper, made kegs in which part of the shot were sent to market, and one was the boarding house keeper. These constituted the permanent population of the place. There was a perpendicular wall eighty feet high, and timbers set up against it and boarded on three sides, formed with it a chimney, down which the poured shot could fall down with- out being disturbed by the wind. From the bottom of this a well or shaft was dug down into the rock about 100 feet with water at the bottom. The shot had thus a 180 feet fall and then struck in water, which saved them from being flattened. From the finishing house a tunnel extended to the bottom of the shaft, along which was a railway carrying a small box on wheels. The shot were scooped out of the water with a long- handled ladle and loaded into the box, which was then run out to the upper part of the finishing house, where the shot were
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dumped into a revolving barrel and were polished. From there the shot were run down several short, inelined tables, having a narrow trough between them of such width that the round shot would skip over the trough while the imperfect ones would fall into it and be sent baek to be melted over. The lead was drawn by ox teams from the smelters to the top of the ridge, where the pouring house stood. In two large kettles there the lead was melted and tempered with arsenie. Two men then dipped it out of the kettles, turned around, rested the ladle- handle on a board placed for that purpose, and poured the lead so that it would fall to the bottom of the shaft.
I was here shown the grave of a Mr. Whitney, one of the first lumbermen on the Wisconsin.
While detained there a day by rain, I bought a canoe, larger than some, but quite small for a green hand. We were told that a party of Indians were there a few days before, who run a lot of bullets and said they would kill any white man found on the north side of the river, as it had been sold by that part of the tribe who lived on the south side, and those on the north side would not consent to the sale. The shot tower people advised me in a friendly way to not risk myself on the north side, but I would risk it as I had started for that side and never heard of one of our family turning back.
We started down the Wisconsin, but the wind blew the water into our canoe so that we had frequently to land and bail it out. Reaching the mouth of Pine river, the stream for which I had started, we landed and walked up it some distance. Having found it too narrow to run a raft down, we took to our canoe again and proceeded down the river. When about to land on the north side after dark we saw a fire and, pulling in elose to shore, were hailed by Indians, who said we were bad white men and had stolen our Indian canoe. One of them gave a whoop, which was answered by another farther back, who came running down to the river, and we expected they would come out and try to take the canoe away from us. My man had sold his gun, and we had but one gun to stand them off with. I understood their language enough to know what they intended, and told them that if they came out there I should shoot. We pulled over to the other side, ran on down for some time and were about to land on an island to camp without
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fire, when we saw a light on the south side. We ran to it and found there a settler's house near the furnace of John B. Terry, at the place now called Muscoda, where we spent the night. Next morning we learned that a keel boat, loaded with lead, was aground on a bar a little way down the river and that the captain wanted more men, so we went down and hired out to him for the run down to the mouth of the river.
As keel boats are now seldom seen, I will describe it as I recollect it. The boat was about sixty feet in length and four- teen or sixteen feet beam, and drew twenty or twenty-four inches of water.
It had a cargo box over all that would permit a man to stand upright in the center, and roofed over so as to protect the freight from rain, &c.
A plank about sixteen inches wide on each side the whole length, with slats nailed across the plank to prevent the feet of the men from slipping when pushing, while poling up the stream.
This boat was built at Pittsburg, Penn., by some men who wanted to move to Wisconsin near the Kickapoo river. They floated down the Ohio river and hired a steamboat to tow them up the Mississippi and Wisconsin rivers.
After landing their families and goods, they ran the boat to St. Louis and sold it.
The present captain, Elliott, bought it and loaded it with corn to be delivered to the garrison at Fort Winnebago, now Portage City, at the portage between the Fox river and the Wis- consin river.
The captain had a contract with the government to deliver corn there. He loaded at Alton or St. Louis, and was towed up the river until the steamboat could not go farther on account of low water, and he was left some miles below the portage.
He hired as many men as he could get, and some Indians, but could not make headway against the current, and was obliged to tie up and send a man down the river to Prairie du Chien for more men.
His man hired the number required and borrowed a large canoe of Joseph Ronlitte, and they paddled up to the keel boat, and then the labor began.
They could not get along with poling the usual way, as the current was too strong, and in places the water was too deep.
LUCIUS S. MOSELEY.
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So they cordelled by having a long rope fast to the boat and the men walked along the river bank, but in many places they could not walk along the bank, as the bank was steep and bluff, and timber and other obstructions.
They finally cleared a space inside the eargo box and put up an upright windlass, and then run out a long rope, and made fast to a tree and wound up with their windlass in the boat. Although this was a very slow way, it was the only possible way for them to pass some points where the water was deep and swift. In due time the eorn was delivered at Fort Winnebago, and then he started for home down the river.
The empty boat ran down the Wisconsin without trouble or accident. They found some pine boards that were lost from a raft that was wrecked on an island. The raft was owned by Whitney, the first lumberman on the Wisconsin river.
Whitney was taken sick at Helena and died, and was buried there. I saw his grave.
We loaded the canoe with lead, and ran down until we found a place to pile it, where the keel boat could land at and take it on board again.
The lead was smelted at the Terry furnace at the place now called Muscoda.
As the river was low and none of the men were acquainted with the channel, we were often aground and had to lighten to get off another bar. We made slow progress, and arrived at the mouth of the river on Saturday noon, so we were all the week coming down, when we ought to have run it in one day.
As usual, in case of too many guides, while disputing as to the channel we would be aground on a sand bar. Finally the captain said, one should be pilot for one day and we would run as he said, and if we stuek, another should be pilot, and no one should dispute or disobey him. After that we got along much better.
We landed on the south side, and all but one went up to the town of Prairie du Chien. We found the town filled with In- dians, who had come for the money and goods promised them in payment for the land lately treated for.
As some of the Indians were dissatisfied with the treaty, and refused to come in, but threatened trouble, Governor Dodge sent out runners to tell them to come in and get their pay, and
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if they committed any murders, that he would come out after them and take their scalps as long as he could carry scalps, and then he would take their ears. They knew him too well to risk their ears, and came in and took the promised payment.
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