Marathon County, Wisconsin - Chapter 5, 1913

Chapter 5

The time of the erection of the first mills in the Wisconsin river pinery rests in tradition. There are no records to assist a search unless access is had to the archives of the war department as well as the general land office. The mill sites as far up as Jenny Bull (Merrill) were actually entered upon by mill men long before the land was surveyed by the government and must have been claimed by pre-emption (squatter) right, to be paid for after survey, or settled on by direct permission from the war department or commissioner of the general land office.

The following is a copy of the records of the first entries of lands in the territory now in Marathon county, furnished by the very accommodating and courteous register of the United States land office at Wausau - Hon. John \V. Miller, to wit :

Date Of Sale Name Of Purchaser

Townships 31 to 44, inclusive, in ranges 2 to 9 east, were surveyed beginning in 1 86 1 and finished in 1865, and were not offered for sale until 1866, and consequently were not ta.xable until that time. Logging had been done on lands bordering the Wisconsin river many years previous, but that must have been done under special permission or license from the general land office.

It will be seen that the only entry made in 1840 was made by George Stevens on Lot 5, covering the Plumer and Clark Islands, and consequently the water power. There must have been a special survey: in all probability

The plats of the United States land office show that townships 26, 27, 28, 29, and 30, in ranges 2 to 10, inclusive, were surveyed in 1852 and 1853, long after the settlement of the pinery pioneers, but there is also an entry to this effect : Sections 25 to 28 and sections ^^ to 35 in township 29, range 7, ofifered for sale at public auction, October 5, 1840, which covers the largest area of the site of the city of Wausau.

In coming to Big Bull Falls, Stevens coming up from Shaurette Rapids (now Stevens Point) by canoe, left a portion of his goods and supplies at a point on those rapids, put up a log hut there to store what he could not take on the first trip, which log hut answered the purposes of a ware house.

It soon became known as "Stevens' Point," which name in time was adopted for the settlement arising afterwards in the vicinity and eventually became the city of Stevens Point.

When Mr. John C. Clarke says in his address, cited hereafter, that the population in 1845 -" t^^ whole Wisconsin valley from Point Baussee up was 300, of which only 12 or 15 were women, he rather over than underestimated the number. He also states how few houses there were between Fort Winnebago and Point Baussee, but even as late as 1848, there was not a single house between "Strong's Landing" on the Fox river (now the city of Berlin) and Plover Portage, the county seat of Portage county, and only a few buildings in Stevens Point, the first house there having been built in 1845, and others following in slow succession after the building of the dam there which was not completed until 1847.

Another index to the small number of inhabitants is furnished by the vote taken on the question of the adoption of the constitution on March 13. 184S, the whole vote in Portage county being only 266, of which 208 were for and 58 against it, and it must be remembered that nearly the entire population^ were voters.

An election precinct was established at Big Bull Falls as early as April, 1842, the polling place being the house of George Stevens, and on April 28. 1842, the county board of Portage county established another precinct at Little Bull Falls.

It is claimed that a dam was built and a mill erected at Little Bull Falls in 1839, contemporaneous in point of time with the building of the dam and first mill at ^^'ausau, but that is in all probability erroneous.

The man who knew the history of Mossinee better than any one else, Mr. Joseph Dessert, who came there in 1844 and continued to reside there for over 60 years, said in his reminiscences that the mill was built in 1842, only two years before he set foot in that place.*

The pioneers did not come to Marathon county to culti\ate the land. They had no thought of clearing, sowing or planting, or to take up a permanent residence in this supposed uninhabitable country. The land had been traversed by the fur trader who dealt with the Indians for over a century, but he no more than the pinery man ever gave a thought to agriculture. The policy of the American Fur Company was to monopolize the profitable Indian trade, and it had no desire to have the country settle and divide its rich trade with newcomers. It therefore discouraged in'advance all settlements by decrying central and northern Wisconsin as sterile, unfit for cultivation or the habitation of the white man, as a land only fit for the low Chippewa Indian who could make a precarious living as a hunter.

But the lead mines of Galena and neighborhood had attracted a large number of adventurers, who, failing to gain the expected quick riches from the mines, had settled on lands in the vicinity around Galena and Mineral Point and had become the pioneer farmers of Wisconsin. The lands were prairie lands, easily broken and cultivated.

The lead mines, like nearly all other land at that time in Wisconsin, belonged to the Indians, and the trespasses on the jealously guarded mineral lands caused the first hostile outbreak of the Winnebagoes led by "Red Bird," in consequence of which a permanent military post was established at the historic portage. The timber and lumber necessary for the barracks was cut on Pine Island in the Wisconsin river about ten miles above the ixjrtage. The timber was hewn and the lumber sawed by hand, and a rigging remaining on the island for many years afterwards, indicated that at one time a windmill had been rigged up and used for sawing out lumber.

It had already been stated how Major Twiggs, the commanding officer at the fort, had arbitrarily confiscated and taken 100,000 shingles made by Stockbridge Indians for Whitney and used them for the barracks. After

*The records of the U. S. Land Office show that lot 3 and Little Bull Island (so named in the official government plat), were entered by Henry Merrill, October 5, 1840, and lot 4 by the same person on January 29, 1841. These lots and island include the water power at Mosinee, and not only were they entered later in point of time than the Big Bull Fall water power, but it is also certain that Henry Merrill, the entryman, never built a mill there, which was built in fact by J. L. Moore, but it is wholly unlikely that JMoore had built the mill and dam before he had some title to the same from Merrill. The deed from Merrill however to Moore is dated years afterwards, after the mill had been built and was being operated by Moore.

Daniel Whitney had erected his saw mill in 183 1 under permission of the war department, and other mills were put up in succession on the Wisconsin river as far up as Conants Rapids, the Indians complained of the inroads made by white men in their territory which led to the purchase by the government of a strip of land three miles on each side of the river as far north as Big Bull Falls in 1836, and, with the Indian title extinguished by the treaty, it was but a few years when all eligible mill sites and water powers were taken up as far as Big Bull Falls. That was all accomplished in the years up to 1839.

It was George Stevens who came here from Pennsylvania. He came to Wausau in 1839, others claim in 1838. He made a preliminary survey of the land, river, and the islands, and marked locations for mill sites. In a letter written by him, dated September 29, 1839, to one George Morton, a lumber merchant at St. Louis, he informed him that he was engaged in the building of the dam and guardlock, complained of the scarcity of men in spite of the high wages paid ($25.00 and board per month), a very high price at that time. With the letter was enclosed a drawing, giving a fine side view of the water powers at this place, the location of the dam and guardlock (all on the present site), also locations marked out for three mills on what is now Plumer's island, one mill on the main land on the east bank, (the Stewart Lumber Company Mill, now Heinemann Lumber Company) and states that there is room for many more on what is now Gark's Island. The height of the fall on the east side mill is given at 13J4 feet, 14J-4 feet for the intended mills on Plumer's and Clarke's Island, and 8 feet for a mill at the dam (now the ]\IcEachron Flour Mill).

The map is singuarly correct and so is the height of the falls as nature made them, before they were improved. Considering that Stevens had to make a preliminary survey and send it to Washington with his application to enter, and did commence building the dam and guardlock in 1839, it is very probable that the survey was made in 1838, as claimed by John Haun. a Hollander, well known here under the cognomen of Sailor Jack, who claimed to have been one of the surveying party with George Stevens in 1838.

This George Stevens owned originally the whole of the water power at Big Bull Falls. His first mill must have been built and ready for operation in 1840, because there exists a contract (in possession of Mr. E. B. Thayer, together with the letter and map referred to it), in which Stevens obligates himself to pay to the other party, who evidenly was renting and running the mill, the sum of $4.50 per 1,000 feet for sawing he. Stevens, to furnish the

The saw mills at that time, and for years thereafter, worked with tlie so-called up and down saws, and were cutting from 3 to 4 thousand feet in twelve hours. Later, so-called muley saws were installed, making a larger cut, and still later so-called sash saws, which were hung in a frame, and were able to cut from seven to eight thousand feet per day of twelve hours. It did not take very much power to run one of these early saw mills, and the crew of men was correspondingly small.

Hon. John C. Clarke, who came to Wausau in 1845 ^"<^ was a prominent lumberman for upwards of over forty years, in an address delivered by him before the "Men's Club of the Presbyterian Church" in July, 1906, said:

"The locating of Fort Winnebago at the old Portage, between the Wisconsin river and Fox river, at the time of the Black Hawk war, was on the upper part of the Wisconsin river, started first settlements about 1832. The Menominee Indians held the country up as far as where the village of Plover now stands. To the north the Chippewas held the country, north of them, to Lake Superior. For the building of Fort Winnebago the first pine trees were cut and hewn on Pine Island, ten miles up the river from the location of the fort by Lieut. Jefferson Davis and a squad of soldiers. Zachary Taylor was the colonel in command. In the year "34 or '35, George Whitney, an employe of the American Fur Company, established a trading post at Point Baussee, this being the head of navigation. The river above there for two hundred miles had many rapids and waterfalls almost to its source. The pine forests and plains of the valley commenced at Portage and extended through to Lake Superior.

"My thoughts at times run away with me, when thinking of the long ago in these great forests. In 1835, Robert Wakely opened a tavern and trading post at Point Baussee; he being a live American, desiring to know where the river headed, wandered to the north and traveled up and up until he came to Big Bull, and on and on to Grandfather Bull, and after leaving Shaw Rapids (now Stevens Point), he first encountered the thick heavy timbered country of pine trees, and became enamoured with it. In 1839 he was down at St. Louis on lumber from Whitney mill, there met George Stevens, who was there with lumber from the Alleghany where he had lumbered for many years. He run his lumber down the Alleghany to Pittsburg, in rafts and on to Cairo, the mouth of the Ohio river, then by barge up to St. Louis.

"\Vakely told Stevens about the great pine forests and the water power on the Wisconsin river which greatly excited Stevens, for he thought that Wakely was telling him fairy tales. W'akely told him to come and see for himself, and he would go with him which invitation was accepted. Stevens soon after came to Wisconsin and found things to his notion far better than W'akely had told him. He went back home to Pennsylvania and made his arrangements to come west. He settled his family in Belvidere, Illinois, and then came to Wisconsin pines and located himself at Big Bull, under guidance of Wakely where he made his claim and built the dams and guardlocks, and the first saw mill above Grand Rapids. All this I derived from letters written by Stevens to his patron Boswell at the time. In this we have the foundation of the entering and developing of the Upper Wisconsin.

"So many of the pioneer settlers of this country have passed to the great beyond, their toils, troubles, and cares in opening the country being of such character that many of the weaker through some mishap or other have fallen by the wayside. I have lived amongst them for nearly sixty years, and have seen and known of the efforts used to get here from the civilized world and to open up the vast forest wilderness of the northern part of the territory, for such it was in 1845, when I came here. Then there was no road over which a sled or a wagon could be drawn north of Plover, then county seat of Portage county, which county extended from the north line of Dane county to Lake Superior. The trails of the Indians, used by the first white men, merely footpaths, was all there was in the shape of roads that extended to the north. There were no houses or dwellings at Portage city then, except those of the garrison at Fort Winnebago and a hotel or tavern kept by Dunn and McFarland. Richard Veeder built a house across the flats at Portage in 1847. the real beginning of Portage city. At Stevens Point, five miles north of Plover Portage, now Plover, there was no house or settlement until 1846, when Mathias Mitchell built the hotel and barns near the bank of the river. George Stevens, w'ho came from Belvidere, Illinois, in 184 1, had built a small log house here to store his goods that he was bringing up to Big Bull.

"George Stevens was the pioneer settler of the pineries north of Plover. \\'ith ox teams he hauled his supplies from Belvidere, to the Point, then hewed out logs to make canoes to continue the journey to Big Bull. This was the condition of afifairs until 1846 when a sled road was cut out from Big Bull to Stevens Point, touching Little Bull and Little Eau Clair. This was all that was done until 1855, when the Plank Road Company was organized here in this county and some $25,000 expended on the plank road between Big Bull and the county line south. Portage county refusing to spend a cent on the road. At that time, and even later, the road was mud puddle and sand pit in that county for eighteen miles.

"The name of 'Bull Falls' which is attached to nearly all the rapids in the Wisconsin river, of which there are many, was given by the voyageurs of the American Fur Company, who in going north from Indian station, known as Dubay, heard a terrible roaring sound, which upon investigation proved to come from the falls at Mosinee, and they named them 'Toro;' moving north they found a larger rapids, and to them they gave the name of 'Gros Toro.' Still further along they encountered the great falls, and these they named 'Grand Pere Toro.' From these names all the other falls have received the names they are known by.

"When George Stevens, with three ox teams, started from Belvidere, Illinois, to come here in 1839, it was mostly prairie land to near Fort Winnebago; from there on to Stevens Point were oak openings or sandy plains, with a trail made by the Indians to Point Baussee, where Whitney built the first lumber institution in the valley. Thereby Point Baussee became the basis of all migration to the north. It was at the head of navigation, being at the foot of the long series of rapids on the river.

"There the Menominee Indians would gather at times for their hunting and fishing expeditions. In 1848 there were over 500 Indians with Chief Oshkosh at their head, holding a pow wow or council, over the sale of their reservation to the government. Their lands extended from about Fort Winnebago to Big Bull Falls on the north, and from the Black river on the west to the Fox river on the east. This region was covered with heavy forests. The wealth in the magnificent pine was alluring to the pioneer as ever the gold fields of California were in 1849. The c|uestion of how to get at it to make it marketable was the all absorbing thought of all minds. Migratory pioneers are not generally possessors of much, if any, ready money; all the wealth they possessed was stout hearts, strong muscles and common sense, with physique enough to knock a bull down. Such were the men that first tackled this great forest.

"With other means it was out of the question to open roads to the several water powers where saw mills were to be erected, as there was no money to build them with so long canoes were hewn out of woods and supplies of every name and nature that were necessary for their sustenance were boated by canoes in summer season, and the ice on the river furnished the road in winter, upon which supplies were fetched into the country. At this time there was but one house between Madison and Fort Winnebago, and but two houses from the fort to Point Baussee, which were kept by men who had Indian women for wives. The population in 1845 of the valley from Point Baussee in the whole pinery was only 300, almost all men, only about 12 or 15 being women.

"The reputation given the country by the traders of the American Fur Company was that the land was stony, sandy and barren, mountainous and marshy, cold and unhealthy and not fit for farming, or ever to live in by a civilized people, and that was the impression of the lumber men for many years. They thought that all the lands that would pay them to cultivate were the islands on the river and the bottom lands on the banks which grew blue joint and red top grasses, where the hay used by the lumber men was cut. They soon found that the high grounds would raise hay and potatoes if nothing else."

The place so often mentioned at Point Baussee or Point Bojs, was at the head of the low water navigation, where Daniel Whitney lived as an Indian trader, and where years before him, the Robert Wakely mentioned by John C. Clarke had a trading post. In the earliest days of the pinery an attempt was made to reach Point Baussee from Kilboum or may be Portage City before the erection of the Kilbourn dam by steam boat, but the venture proved unsuccessful, the steam boat making only one trip.

The saw mill erected by Whitney was about three or four miles above Point Baussee on Whitney Rapids. In speaking of the Black Hawk war, Mr. Clarke evidently had in mind the war, or murders committed by Red Bird, the chief of the Winnebagoes, which preceded the Black Hawk war.

At the time of the settlement of George Stevens no land in Portage county has been surveyed, except probably a line had been established to mark the three-mile limits from the river, which land was ceded by the treaty with the Menominees in 1836.