Grant County, Wisconsin - Chapter 6: Grant County in the Fifties and Later, 1900

Chapter 6: Grant County in the Fifties and Later

The Gold Fever - The Cholera - Great Agricultural Development - The Great War - Oil Excitement - Emigration from the County - Weather Extremes - Centennial Year.

The Gold Fever

The reports of wonderful discoveries of gold in California contin¬ ued to come in during the winter of 1849-50, and in the spring of 1850 began the enormous exodus of the miners from Grant County to the golden land which, continuing two or three years, seriously de¬ pleted the population of the county and deranged its business. Al¬ though many men left their families at home, intending to return soon, others took their families and sold their lands and houses in this county. So much real estate being thrown on the market at once greatly depreciated its value. Building ceased, for in every village were vacant houses left by absent gold-seekers. The Herald of Febru¬ ary 5, 1852, says editorially : " By May next Grant County will have disgorged more than a fourth of her adult population, and California, like the whale that swallowed Jonah, will have swallowed this entire animal export. We have lost none by migration to other parts ; all have gone to golden California. They were the bone and sinew of the country, and we parted with them as reluctantly as King Pharaoh did with the children of Israel. In 1849 the California fever com¬ menced and the end is in the misty future. We dare not venture an opinion as to when the disease will abate. Grant County has invested $1,000,000 in the gold mines." Referring to the depreciation of real estate, a curious bull occurs in the editorial. It says: ''We set down the average depreciation [of land values] at one hundred per cent. In many cases two hundred per cent, would be a closer estimate. Village property has slid lower than farm property." As a depreciation of one hundred per cent, would bring the price down to nothing, it is hard to tell what the editor of the Herald meant by a depreciation of of two hundred per cent.

Herald predicted. Every ferry along the Mississippi, from Dunleith to Prairie du Chien, was blocked by the crowd of emigrants, and many of them, eager to be on their way to the gold fields, had to wait near¬ ly a week for an opportunity to cross the great river. The lead mines probably sent a larger proportion than any other region, as the miners were ever the devotees of Fortune and most easily lured by the prospect of mineral wealth. It is true that after 1850, many came back from the gold mines with empty pockets and shattered health, but occasionally one came back with "a pocket full of rocks, " and this one example of success outweighed all the failures, and thousands were ready to brave the terrible hardships of a six months' journey across the plains, mountains, and deserts, or a voyage "around the Horn," or across the fever-stricken Isthmus of Panama.

The census of 1850, taken in June, showed a population of 16,169, an increase of more than two thousand in two years, despite the em¬ igration to California, showing a large immigration from the East.

The Cholera

In the fall of 1850 that dreadful scourge, the cholera, made its first appearance in the county. Beetown was the theater of its first out¬ break and its most dreadful ravages. A more particular account will be found in the history of Beetown in this volume. The towns of Fennimore and Wingville were also severely afflicted, and there were some deaths in the southern part of the county. In other towns the people held their breaths with awe and dread until the awful shadow of death withdrew as winter advanced. The scourge re¬ turned in 1851, but was not so severe, and in 1852 there was another outbreak in Millviller which caused many deaths. As late as 1854 some deaths in Patch Grove and other places were attributed to the cholera and the epidemic in Lancaster occurred that year.

Great Agricultural Development

With the close of 1852 the adverse tide against Grant County ebbed away. The cholera abated and the emigration of the goldseekers became so small as to be imperceptible and many of them be¬ gan to return, a few with a goodly capital to prosecute business ener¬ getically.

At this time began the subjection of the hitherto almost vacant prairies to the plow. Several causes coincided in this sudden develop¬ ment. Charles Augustus Murray, the great English land monopolist, was dead and his timber lands in Grant County were sold by his ex¬ ecutors. The farmers who opened prairie farms bought lots of ten acres or so in the timber, in some cases ten or fifteen miles distant, from which they hauled their fuel and fence posts. The northern pineries had had a sudden development and lumber for fencing the prairie farms could be obtained at a much reduced price at the land¬ ings along the Mississippi. The great influx of California gold sud¬ denly entering the currency of the country caused a marked advance in the price of grain. This was further enhanced by the Crimean War, beginning in 1854, which shut off* from Western Europe the vast grain fields of Russia. For a few years the erstwhile solitary prairies re¬ sounded with the cracks of the long whips of the drivers of the great ox-teams with their enormous breaking-plows, turning up the smooth, green, flower-decked sod. Then another change came over the scene. Wheat was king. Over the rolling prairies, miles on miles, was one vast ocean of waving wheat, its billows green in June and early July, but shining golden in the sun as harvest came on. During harvest the clatter of the reaper was heard on every hand. From every village and mining settlement: the men turned out as harvest hands, and even came up from Illinois (where the harvests had been finished), like the "sucker miners" of old. After harvest those prairies, which a little before had resembled the ocean with its green or golden billows, now resembled a country from which a forest of great, yello vv -trunked trees had been cleared, the shocks of wheat looking like so many treestumps.

In the latter part of the fifties corn became comparatively higher than wheat and, as the yield of wheat declined after a few years of cropping, and the price of pork and beef went up, another change came over the face of Grant County. Its prairies were no longer a sea of wheat, but checkered with fields of corn and clover. This change is thus described in the Centennial Poem quoted from at the beginning of Chapter II :

The high price of grain continued, with a few fluctuations, for many years, and the development of the region was rapid, only tem¬ porarily checked by the money panic of 1857. The injection of a large amount of California gold into the currency had also raised the price of mineral, and the mining business revived.

In 1855 the population of the county was 23,170; in 1860 it was 31,189, of which 16,569 were males and 14,620 were females, show¬ ing that the comparative scarcity of women which characterized the early history of the county was fast disappearing. The colored popu¬ lation was 35.

In 1855 the seventeen-year locusts visited the county in enormous numbers. Their noise in places was almost deafening. They killed many trees by stinging them . There have been some subsequent visi¬ tations of these insects, but none to compare with the swarms in 1855. It was said that the letter "W" on their wings portended war ; but they were too late for the Crimean War and a good deal too early for the War of the Rebellion.

The winter of 1856-7 was one which for length and severity sur¬ passed anything of which the "oldest inhabitant" could boast. It snowed "early and often." On election day the ground was deeply covered with snow. This was soon covered by a deep sleet wliich made the roads impassible and utterly blocked the new railroad which the county had just acquired. Several deep snows, with violent drift¬ ing winds, occurred during the winter, followed by sleets, crusting over the deep drifts. The deer all through the county were well nigh exterminated, being hunted with doge, which could run over the crust while the deer broke through. Those which were not hunted to death perished of starvation. Quails froze and starved in flocks, and the prairie chickens were noticeably scarcer after that terrible winter. The editor remembers that one terribly cold day of that winter he caught eighteen quails in one trapful and severely froze his fingers in getting them out.

The Great War

In the early part of 1861, Grant County, like all the North, was in a blaze of excitement over the outbreak of the war of the Rebellion. For a time it seemed as if all business would be paralyzed, and the whole eneigies and thoughts of the people be turned to war. But gradually affairs settled down, and the great demand for all sorts of products stimulated business. The only obstacle to the great increase in business was the lack of laborers, as, during the four years of war time, nearly one-eighth of the whole population, and these the very pick and flower of manhood, were drawn off for a greater or less time into the camps. To add to the drain of able-bodied men caused by the departure of the soldiers, news of rich gold discoveries in Idaho caused considerable emigration, particularly of those who feared the draft. It was estimated that two hundred men went from the county to Idaho in the spring of 1864. For particulars of the county history during this war see the Division of Military History.

At the special session of the County Board in July, 1861, the County Treasurer reported that the county funds in his hands were principally in Wisconsin currency, and that the town school treas¬ urers had refused to receive this money from him, and that he had been informed that the said currency could be converted into specie at asacrefice of ten percent. The Board, upon this report, adopted a resolution to have the paper currency converted into specie on the best terms the Treasurer could get, the loss to be apportioned among the several towns.

The winter of 1863-4 was a very severe one in Grant County and all over the country. In the South the soldiers suffered severely with cold. January 1, 1864, was long known as the "cold New Year." The ice at Dubuque was so thick that a railroad track was laid on it from Dunleith to Dubuque, there being then no railroad bridge there.

Oil Excitement

cnt parts of the county over alleged discoveries of petroleum oil, par¬ ticularly at Annaton. Companies for leasing ground and operating oil wells were formed, with the names of many prominent men in the county as directors. J. W. Vanorman, of McGregor, was the leading spirit. At Tafton (Bloomington) Prof. Parsons was very active in trying to organize an oil company. He was a very able, earnest, and zealous educator, but he did not know much about oil. All the socalled oil was simply a film formed of a hydro-carbon resembling marsh gas in composition, generated by the decay of swarms of minute .animalculae in the mud of marshy places, colored a rusty red by the minute particles of sulphuret of iron it brought up from the mud and held in its tenuous embrace. It was as good a hydro-carbon as petrol¬ eum, what there was of it; but, being generated only by the minute beings living and dying in the mud, the quantity was very small.

Shortly after the close of the war a great emigration from the county, principally of young, single men, began. The returning sold¬ iers, grown impatient of the old life and adventurous in spirit, looked with longing to the promising new lands opening in western Iowa, Minnesota, Dakota, and even far-off Oregon and Washington. But the census of 1865 showed a population of 33,168, a small increase in five years, despite the ravages of war and the drain of emigration. In 1870 the population of Grant County was 37,975, the increase in five years being probably due to excess of births over deaths. In 1875 the population of the county reached high-water mark, being 39,086, but even then some towns had decreased in population. In the latter part of the seventies the terribly hard times, caused by the contrac¬ tion of the currency with a view to the resumption of specie pay¬ ments, forced many of the farmers to sell their heavily mortgaged farms and go to the cheaper lands of the new West. This time the emigration was of whole families instead of single young men. The result was shown in the census of 1880, the county having a pop¬ ulation of 37,852, exhibiting the unwonted spectacle of a loss in five years, notwithstanding there was undoubtedly a large excess of births over deaths.

In agricultural products and live stock the county showed a gen¬ eral increase from 1870 to 1880. In 1870 there were in the county 13,112 horses, 15,312 cows, l,017xwork o*en, 24,936 sheep, 51,254 swine, and there were produced that year 274,137 pounds of wool,

1,095,482 pounds of butter, and 61,303 pounds of cheese. In 1880 there were in the county 15,953 horses, 16,96 cows, 82 work oxen, 25,910 sheep, 100,243 swine, and there were produced that year 169,- 750 pounds of wool, 1,188,952 pounds of butter, and 57,610 pounds of cheese. But in manufactures there was a steady decrease from 1870 to 1890 ; in the former year the total value of the manufactures was $1,122,900 and in 1890 only $693,612. The manufactures of the county, necessarily on a small scale, have not been able to compete with the great manufacturing " trusts."

In 1890 the population of the county was 36,651, showing still a further decrease in ten years. In 1895 the population was 38,372, 19,348 males and 19,024 females, the former great excess of males having disappeared. There was some increase of population, but not nearly as much as the excess of births over deaths should have made, showing that emigration was still active. The county for the last twenty-five years has been a breeding-ground for colonizing the far Western States. Why this is so, and why Grant County, in an early day the leading county in the State, with one-sixth of all the members of the lower house of the legislature, now has only one-fiftieth of the members, is explained on geological principles in the Geological Histor in this work.

In 1895 there were in the county 25,114 horses and mules, 24,- 540 sheep, 151,661 swine, and 77,321 cattle. Since that date agri¬ culture, stock-raising and dairying have been very flourishing in the county, and the towns and villages have been filling up with farmers, past their working days, and retiring with enough to live upon com¬ fortably the rest of their days, leaving their sons upon the farms.

Weather Extremes

The winter of 1873 - 4 was remarkably mild. On New Year's Day there was a breeze from the north as mild and balmy as if it were April. The winter of 1880 - 81 was notably severe. The summer of 1885 was so cool that the corn crop was very poor and the winter of that year was very severe, the temperature ranging from 25 to 30 de¬ grees below zero for eight successive days at one time. The winter of 1889-90 was notably mild until March, when it set in severely cold. The winter of 1898-9 was notably severe.

The Centennial Year

the history of Grant County. In March occurred the terrible and death-dealing cyclone at Hazel Green, particulars of which will be found in the history of that town. On the night of the 29th of August oc¬ curred the most wide-spread flood in the history of the county. The down-pour upon all the land was tremendous. Every river and creek in the county was a raging flood from bluff to bluff. Hardly a bridge in the county was left. Thecostly iron bridges across Grant and Platte, though placed high above ordinary high water, were carried away by the floating haystacks piled against them by the swift waters.

The hundredth anniversary of American Independence was fitly celebrated in several towns in the county, but the most notable cele¬ bration was at the county seat. The celebration was attended by the county's one centennarian, Robert Lumpkin, of Bloomington, who was born in Virginia March 2, 1776, and came to Wisconsin in 1849. Another unique feature of the celebration was an oaken box of quaint and apt design, to hold relics to be gazed upon again only by those who should be in Lancaster in 1976. Some of the objects placed in the box were: historical collections of the towns, cities and villages, of the county; specimens of the principal agricultural products of the the county ; copies of the latest issue of each of the county papers; copy of Monteith's & McNally's Geography; sectional map of Wisconsin; county maps; village and city maps; Wisconsin Blue Book; postal card and specimens of postage stamps and fractional currency; copy of Centennial poems, bv George M. Hood and C. N. Holford ; a book containing the signatures of many of those present at the celebration, following an appropriate address to those who should open the box in 1976. The box was sealed with the seals of the several county of¬ ficers and securely fastened. One of the inscriptions carved upon it read : "Accursed be he who opens me ere a hundred years are gone."