The history of Sauk County, Wisconsin, containing an account of settlement, growth, development and resources biographical sketches the whole preceded by a history of Wisconsin, Part 68

Author: Western historical company, Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago, Western historical company
Number of Pages: 840

USA > Wisconsin > Sauk County > The history of Sauk County, Wisconsin, containing an account of settlement, growth, development and resources biographical sketches the whole preceded by a history of Wisconsin > Part 68

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On Thursday morning, March 8, we found a bridge of ice at Sauk City about four rods wide, between the swift-flowing currents, above and below. Taking with us heavy clubs, with which we pounded on the ice in front of us, we crossed in safety. Making our way to Lodi, we took our horse and cutter and started for Madison, which we reached at night in the midst of a severe rain-storm. The next day, through mud, snow and running water, we reached Cambridge. On Saturday morning the snow was all gone. Leaving our sleigh, and taking turns in riding and walking, we reached home, forty miles, Saturday evening, thoroughly exhausted by our journey. I succeeded in entering, through the mails, every piece of land which I had selected, and was well satisfied with my two weeks' work.

Early in November, 1849, I set out with two passengers on my third trip to Reedsburg, having been employed by several of my friends to enter lands for them. We pursued essen- tially the same route as I did the spring before, except that we left the Madison road at Cottage Grove, and came through the American settlement on Sun Prairie, and the Scandinavian at Norwegian Grove, and then through Hundred-Mile Grove to Lodi. It was a splendid portion of country, much of it improved by settlers. The grove was said to be named Hundred-Mile from its being just 100 miles from Galena, and the same distance from Green Bay on the old traveled road through the Indian lands, before any portion of Wisconsin was purchased of them by the United States Government. We found that several families had been added to the population of Reedsburg. The mill was covered, and a bridge constructed over the river. The east por- tion of the mill-house had been built and occupied by A. C. Reed and family, who kept a house of entertainment. Austin Seeley had put up the main part of a house now owned by J. F. Danforth, and used the lower part for a cabinet-shop and the upper as a dwelling.

William McClung had built the L part of the house now owned by Robert Greenwood. Rev. J. S. Saxby had erected a part of what was afterward the Green Tavern, standing where Henry Dewey now lives. It was afterward enlarged by H. H. Treadwell, and used for many years as a public house. It was at length removed by R. B. Percival to his farm on Babb's Prairie, and still occupied as a dwelling by A. S. Winckler. Proceeding to Narrows Prairie, we found some increase of population there. On our previous visit, L. M. Swallow's was the farthest house, and he lived on Bear Creek, where Levi Craker now lives. Old Mr. Daniel Clark had built a lon house where Maj. McClure now lives, and was removing his family into it from Big Foot Prairie, in Walworth County. Horace N. Smith and A. R. Sprague had just settled in log cabins as the first families in what is now Westfield, two miles north of where Logansville is situated. I spent two days in making careful selections of lands just south of the present village of Logansville, and also in the prairie valley west of it on the line of the present town of Washington. The selections were all valuable, and I succeeded in entering each one of them for the several men for whom they were intended. Most, or all of them have since been improved and are now valuable farms. I returned to Reedsburg to spend the Sabbath, and listened to a sermon by Rev. Mr. Saxby, at the house of Eber Benedict, which he had just built, a little east of the mill-house. This was the first regular preaching in this valley west of Baraboo, except the appointment of Elder A. Lock, on Narrows Prairie and on the Little Bar- aboo, near where Ironton Village now is. These were made a few months earlier. Mr. Saxby

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had removed here with the intention of settling upon a tract of land upon Copper Creek, which I had entered for him the previous spring. He thought it best, however, to make his first set- tlement in the village, but soon sold and removed to his farm, which he improved, and event- ually sold to Joseph Osborn, who resided upon it until his death, a few months ago.

Mr. Dwinnell came to Reedsburg with his family and settled permanently, in July, 1852.

A TRIBUTE TO SOME OF THE FIRST PIONEERS .*

Thirty years have now elapsed since he who now addresses you first became acquainted with a few, less than one out of a hundred, of your number present, who were then each of them a pioneer of pioneers. They had severed the strong ties of kindred and of home in the heart of civilization to seek new homes at its furthest extremity on the prairies of the West, where the trail of the savage had been uncrossed by the foot of a white man. I speak now of the pioneers who preceded my arrival in 1842, and of them I need not say, since it is a self-evident proposi- tion, that they were and are men of no ordinary mold. Bold, hardy, industrious, witli a zeal that never abated, and with hearts that never faltered, they encountered all the hardships and privations of pioneer life, broke the virgin soil and plowed the furrows deep, fatted the pork and stall-fed the beef, sowed the grain and planted the corn that fed not only themselves, but also supplied the wants of the straggling hundreds who followed them. When, in 1842, 1 first became a resident of Sauk County, all the necessary comforts of life were cheaply furnished and easily obtained. To their untiring patience, unremitting toil and herculean efforts-to that old pioneer plowt-is this consoling fact to be attributed. They thus laid the foundation of almost an empire in this broad territory of ours. Largely, these men were of American birth. But there were other pioneers here not of American birth. It is a singular fact that in that early day most of the nations of Europe were represented among the few inhabitants of Sauk Prairie. There were one or more immigrants and estrays from England, Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Ger- many, Poland ; " the furious Frank," "the fiery Hun," and even one of " Afric's dusky sons " were there. On the evening of the 4th of July, 1842, at a ball held in the lower town, where "music arose with its voluptuous swell" and "flying feet" kept time to its harmonies, tlie favorite dance of each nationality (the last excepted) succeeded the other in regular order. The music was that of a piano, the keys of which were touched by the fingers of a lady recently from London, and again by a "wee Scotch lassie," not then in her teens, since known as one of the most gifted vocalists and accomplished musicians of the State, now a resident of Madison, and to whom we of Baraboo had recently the pleasure of listening. This occurred at a time when the wigwam of the Indian was still in view, and before his moccasined feet had made their last indentation on his war-worn trail. Full well do I remember the tall and graceful form of the Indian Chief, " De- ko-ra," who was looking on, and hearing him exclaim, "Heap dance ; heap music ; neisheshent squaw !"

A number of the Hungarians and Germans were co-immigrants with, and formed part of, the retinue of Count Augoston Haraszthy, an Hungarian nobleman, in many respects a very remarkable man, and probably the first pioneer of foreign birth to set foot on the soil of Sauk County. In person and mind, he fully typified " the fiery Hun " of Campbell. Leaving his native home, amid the vine-clad hills of far-off Hungary-a home surrounded by every luxury which extravagance could desire, and which had descended from father to son through a long line of nobility-having resolved to become a citizen of Republican America, he visited many of its famous localities for the purpose of selecting (as he told me) a new home which, to himself and his family in Hungary, should prove not less attractive in its natural characteristics than the home they were to abandon for it. He wandered from place to place, from village to city, and through the rural districts of many States in the Union. Many places were beautiful, but not

*Address of W. H. Clark before Old Settlers' Society, 1872.

+ " Uncle " William Johnson's.

Į Nice.

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HISTORY OF SAUK COUNTY.

altogether what he sought, until chance led him to the banks of the Wisconsin River. Ascend" ing to the top of the nearest bluff, opposite to where is now Sauk City, his delighted eye gazed on the unrivaled landscape which lay outstretched before him : "Eureka! Eureka !" he exclaimed, " Italia ! Italia !" Without going into the particulars of his remarkable career, filled with adventures stranger than fiction, or relating any of the numerous anecdotes concern- ing him, I will only say further, that soon after the discovery of, and settlement upon, his minia- ture Italy, he set out for his native home, and, on his return, was accompanied by his wife, a lady of Polish origin, of great beauty and rare accomplishments, by their two children, and by his father and mother. But his mercurial activity unfitted him for a quiet life. Now the owner and captain of a steamboat on the Lower Mississippi; then again, at home tilling his many acres ; now a merchant dealing out to customers (whom he always trusted) large quantities of merchandise ; then a lumberman on the Upper Wisconsin ; now at San Francisco, a member of the Legislature and Assayer of the United States Mint, or in the interior of California, carrying on, perhaps, the largest vineyard in the world ; now again in the Old World-finally, while pur- suing another avocation in the heart of Central America, his restless spirit was forever quenched in its murky waters. Death accorded to him a fate as strange as his life, and his body was

devoured by alligators. Who that ever knew can forget the " Old General," the father of the Count ? Father and only son and child-in the structure of their minds, in their habits, tastes and dispositions, they were the very antipodes of each other, as unlike as ever could be. Never- theless, their attachment for each other was unbounded. Naught but death would separate them ; where went the son, there accompanied or followed the father. In sunshine and in storm, through good and evil report alike, he cherished "mein son Augosta," as he called him. He was probably the best-educated man who ever came to this country from abroad, having studied and mastered all the sciences through the medium of the Latin language, which was lisped by his infant tongue before that of his native land. He soon became a proficient in the English language, which he constantly made his study. After he had mastered it sufficiently to commu- nicate his ideas intelligibly, a more entertaining and agrecable companion could not be found. I have thus briefly alluded to the character of these two men-father and son-not only because they were among the first settlers of our county, and had great influence in attracting' foreign population hither, but because, also, they are now among the number of those who have passed away, it being one of the duties of this association, and its most sacred one, to extol the virtues of its dead pioneers.

Another of the favorite and distinguished pioneers of our county, whom not to mention and commemorate on this occasion and in this connection, would be an omitted duty and a criminal neglect, is also now among the lamented dead. James S. Alban was the first white man who cver pitched his tent and erected his cabin in our county. We all knew him well, and loved him much. Nestled among a cluster of trees that grew in the southern extremity of the prairie, was his cabin home, which, though rudely constructed and scantily furnished (as a mat ter of course in those days), yet sheltered from the storm and protected from the sun as happy a family as any other. Having been a boarder in his family for many months, I am a good witness to the fact that his wife, the " Amanda " of his bovish love and the mother of his children, was as fine a specimen of a pioneer matron as ever administered to the necessities of way-faring human- ity. When the latch-string of the cabin door was pulled by either friend or stranger, the incomer was ever saluted with a kind " Come in " and greeted with a smile of welcome. With few of the so-called accomplishments of the modern lady, and with none but a common education, she was eminently adapted to the situation in which Providence had placed her, and her cabin home was as happy as industry, cheerfulness, gentleness and truth could make it. When, blown by the breath of the fell destroyer the lamp went out, and her gentle spirit ascended from her paradise on earth to the paradise above, and her body was "consigned to the sepulcher at Prairie du Sac, the scalding tears burned hot on the cheeks of all alike-husband, children, friend and neighbor ! This sad occurrence broke the family up, and the children were sent to Ohio to be reared and educated by a kind old uncle. He must have discharged his duty well, for the only son of

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HISTORY OF SAUK COUNTY.

Amanda is now a prominent young lawyer at Stevens Point, this State, and the eldest girl became the wife of a member of Congress. Mr. Alban, after the death of his wife, became a lawyer, then County Judge, Assemblyman and Senator from the same county, and when the war of the late rebellion broke out became the Colonel of a regiment of volunteers and fell at its head on the bloody field of Shiloh.

"Green be the grass above thee, Friend of my early days- None knew thee but to love thee, None named thee but to praise."

THE FIRST WHITE WOMAN IN THE BARABOO VALLEY.

In the autumn of 1840, we arrived at Baraboo. . Our nearest white neighbors here were on the other side of the Bluffs, six miles. Land on this side of the Wisconsin River was not as yet in market. We made a claim of a mill privilege, and settled near it on one side of the Baraboo River, and claimed a piece of farming land on the other, and got it fenced and a larger part improved ; then my husband left, under the pretense of going to Oregon, and claiming the offers of Government then held forth to actual settlers. From that time, I have struggled alone to bring up my little family. Other settlers soon began to come into the place; I received numerous families into my house, sometimes with seven and eight children, until they could hunt claims, and frequently sent our teams to assist in erecting their houses, all without charge -too glad, you see, to get neighbors. Well, it was a hard place, and we strove hard to live for seven long years, and then the land was thrown into market, and, no money to be got, a great many were deficient in the means to enter their land ; finally, the mill privilege and land that we were residing on was entered from under us by a speculator, and then a drunken man broke into the house and drove us out, and destroyed everything in it that he could, and threw the rest out of doors. I took my children and went to the neighbors, and never lived in the house again. I soon got a board shanty put up on the opposite side of the river, near our improved part of the claim and moved into it. I then went to the land office to try and get a pre-emp- tion on my improvements, but was informed that I must bring proof of my husband's death, or I could have no pre-emption. I immediately wrote to my parents, residing in York State, requesting them to send money to enter my farm. They sent it, but while on its way hither, a man named Brown, then residing at Whitewater, came here to visit his parents, and, my farm taking his fancy, he immediately went to the land office and entered it. The settlers had

previously formed a claim society, and had their officers all elected-Esquire Crawford, Presi- dent-and a constitution framed and published. One of its articles was, "that if any actual settler had his improvements entered from him, there should be a committee appointed to wait on the purchaser, and endeavor to repurchase." Finally Brown returned to Baraboo, and I had an interview with him. He said I could have it back by paying him $60 more than he gave. I informed him that my money had arrived; this being Saturday, he said he would call on Monday morning and complete a settlement with me ; and so that same morning our claim society met and chose their committee to wait on him, provided he did not settle with me. The committee waited for him to fulfill his promise until noon, and, learning that he had not called, they went to see him, and found that he had gone to the land office, as was supposed, to enter another claim. They followed and overtook him at Sauk Prairie and brought him back two or three miles toward Baraboo, intending to have him fulfill his promise. He finally voluntarily proposed to go back to Sauk Village, take his money and deed the land over. They concluded to let himn do so. Two or three of the committee went back with him for that purpose ; the rest returned to Baraboo.

Brown and the two or three witnesses went before Esquire Leland and got the deed executed. Leland asked Brown if it was his own voluntary act. He said yes. If it had not been, he could have just as well said no, as he was before power legally authorized to command the

*Written by the lady herself-Mrs. Rosaline Peck, of Baraboo.

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HISTORY OF SAUK COUNTY.

peace ; supposing that they had previously had him in duress, there was no compulsion at that time. The witnesses paid my money over to him, and he authorized Leland to take charge of it until he (Brown) called for it-but he never called. Brown wrote to me to go to Leland and get my money, as I could not have the land. He waited two years, until two witnesses to the deed had gone to California, then threw it into chancery to make a forced deed of it ; and after adjournments and appeals for four or five years, our beautiful "Court of Equity" at Madison pro- nounced it all Brown's-fences, improvements, everything-and mulcted me in the cost of some hundreds of dollars. Now, according to Leland's testimony, there was no force. Their other point, or quibble, was, that he had never received the money. Then, what business had he to put my money into another's possession ? True, Brown had a right by United States law to enter the land ; he had also a right to deed it.

After I lost my improvements, I sold my last cows, at the rate of $12 and $15 apiece, and thereby raised money and bought the piece of land I now live on, and afterward entered some more; but it was a long time before I got ahead far enough, besides supporting my family, to make improvements on any part of it.

But the robbing is not all done yet, for within the last year I owned a delightful little grove of timber, consisting of about three hundred trees, mostly large forest shades, situated on a beautiful elevated building-lot in town, near the banks of the Baraboo River, reserved for my own use, where, if my life was spared long enough, I anticipated building a snug little residence to die in. And during a freshet one spring, some two or three hundred citizens, with twenty or thirty teams, cut the whole of it down, and, without saying " by your leave," hauled and rolled them into the Baraboo River to save a flouring mill, valued at $25,000 or $30,000, owned by some of our rich capitalists ; and they saved it, and do you think that either of the propri- etors, or those who committed the trespass, have called on me to say, "Thank you, madam ?" Not a bit of it. If they had offered me their mill, water privilege and all, at that time, I should have been reluctant to make the exchange, for if I owned a mill, somebody would be sure to steal the grist and toll both. Now this was robbing Peter to pay Paul, with a ven- geance. And so my whole life, it seems, thus far has been spent in striving to accumulate for others' benefit ; and if I am taxed in future as formerly on what little I do possess, I think, when I leave the world, I shall leave the young Peck-quite independent.

A TILT WITH REDSKINS .*

Blue Mound, we ascertained, was not the permanent home of my uncle' He had, during the summer previous to our arrival, determined to locate in Sauk County, and had abandoned a long, dark hole in the ground that for years had absorbed every surplus dol- lar and the best years of his life in attempts to secure the leaden treasure which he believed to lie just beneath the last stroke of pick and gad. Sauk County was, at this time, only a county in name. Its territorial limits had been fixed ; to use a Western phrase, it had been " staked out." but there were scarcely white men enough to fill the usual county offices. Of Indians, there were enough and to spare. Their title to the land had been extinguished, but it was not yet surveyed. Each emigrant selected such portion of the public domain as seemed to him good, and either staked out the boundaries or marked the dimensions of his claim by " blazing " the trees. In case of dispute between claimants, the matter was settled by a squatter's court, acting under a code of laws adopted by themselves in mass meeting, from whose decisions there was no appeal, for the unhappy man who attempted to evade a decision of that court had better never have been born. My uncle had made a claim at what is now called the Bluffs, seven miles west of Prairie du Sac. The latter was then a village containing one log store, wherein was also a hotel, one blacksmith-shop, one cabinet-shop and four log dwelling-houses. One mile south was Sauk City, then called Haraszthy, named after the principal proprietor, an Hungarian refugee Count. It was a rival village of Prairie du Sac, containing about the same number of inhabitants. The

* By Gen. John A. Kellogg.

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HISTORY OF SAUK COUNTY.

principal business of these two villages was to fight each other, the residents of each believing that all which prevented their village from rivaling New York City was the close proximity of the other, and the inhabitants of eachi seemed fully convinced that, to attain greatness and prosperity, the first step was to destroy its rival. A more beautiful site upon which to build a city, so far as nat- ural beauty of location is concerned, than that upon which Prairie du Sac is built, is hard to find. In 1840, it was confidently believed that at no distant day the Wisconsin River would bear upon its bosom the commerce of the West ; that at Prairie du Sac, or Haraszthy, would be the grand outlet and market for all that vast and beautiful farming country lying for thirty miles on either side of the river. It was considered very doubtful whether either Madison or Milwaukee would ever amount to much. Baraboo, the present flourishing village and county seat, was then unthought of. It consisted of one saw-mill and two or three shanties.

As I have before stated, Indians were numerous; they were not only numerous but troublesome. Their visits to the settlers were made without reference to the rules of etiquette, the night being generally selected as the time to make them, and they were usually successful in carrying away with them as souvenirs any little useful articles found lying around, especially " kokcosh," " wahampra " and " washcobra."* If the man of the house was temporarily absent, the family were sure of receiving a visit from one or more of them. At the time of which I am writing, the Black Hawk war had so recently taught them lessons of prudence that they did not dare make any open attack upon the settlers. Still, their numbers so greatly predominated over the whites that they plundered us whenever occasion served, believing we would submit to little annoyances rather than attempt to punish them, and by so doing provoke hostilities. And, upon general principles, they reasoned correctly.

Our nearest neighbor on the north, or up the river, was Mr. Garrison, whose family con- sisted of himself and wife. The latter belonged to one of the first families in New Brunswick, and had been accustomed to good society. Mr. Garrison had been compelled to leave his wife alone while he made a visit to Mineral Point on business. The Indians soon discovered that there was no man about the premises, and determined to take advantage of the situation. Dur- ing the first night of Mr. Garrison's absence, they visited the cabin used as a storeroom, which was adjoining the dwelling-house, and carried away the major part of the provisions intended to supply the family during the summer, or until they could harvest the first crop. 'The next morn- ing, Mrs. Garrison discovered her loss, and in the flour the Indians had spilled upon the floor moccasin tracks were plainly discernible. Unlike many ladies, who, in her situation, would have abandoned all and fled to the nearest neighbors for protection, Mrs. Garrison determined to stay and defend her property. There was a double-barreled shotgun in the house, and plenty of ammunition, but she lacked the skill to load it. Fortunately, about this time "Bob,"t then a boy of thirteen years, came along upon his regular morning errand of hunting the cows. Mrs. Garrison called him in and showed him the tracks in the flour. She told him of her loss, and asked him to load the gun for her.

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The history of Sauk County, Wisconsin, containing an account of settlement, growth, development and resources biographical sketches the whole preceded by a history of Wisconsin, Part 68

Author: Western historical company, Chicago, pub Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Chicago, Western historical company Number of Pages: 840

Author: Western historical company, Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago, Western historical company
Number of Pages: 840