Marathon County, Wisconsin - Chapter with an unread heading (no. 11 of those read), 1913

The Tozvns of the Wisconsin Central R. R. nozi' M., St. P. & Saitlt St. Marie R. R. and First Settlements - Tax Exemptions of R. R. Lands - Toxim of Rietbrook - Athens in i8j9 - Settlements on the Extreme South, East and IVest - Incorporated Villages and R. R. Stations.

Up to the year 1871 the territory in ranges 2 and 3 was yet wholly unsettled and wild ; not a clearing, mill or road existed in that part. The farmers had gone in east and west from Mosinee, Wausau, and a few from Merrill not any further west, however, than range 4, so that for nearly eighteen miles from the east line of range 4 to the county line of the county the west line of range 2, there was an area of 10 townships, or a territory of 360 square miles in which no white man had yet set his foot with the intention of subduing wilderness.

In township 26; range 4, there existed a very small settlement, only a few families, the brothers Campbell, one Rozell, and one Beach, which was called the Campbell settlement after the brothers "Campbell," who had gone there from Weeks mill on the Eau Plain river; their beginning dates back to about 1868. These settlers have died or removed, and the last one of them known to be in Marathon county, Mr. Beach, died at the farm of his son in the town of Cleveland in 19 12. The only outlet for these farmers was the saw mill of John Weeks, and from there up to Mosinee, or later to the railroad station Dancy.

The settlement of the present towns of Spencer, McMillan, Day Brighton, Hull, and Holeton began with the building of the Wisconsin Central R. R. in 1 87 1 and 1872, the settlers following the track of the railroad, and slowly continuing their march in either direction, east and west from that line, into Marathon and Clark county, invading the present towns of Eau Plain, Frankfort. Bern, Johnson, and Halsey, in this county which at that time were attached to other towns.

The first train of cars ran into Stevens Point on the 15th day of November, 1 87 1, but the construction crew had already cleared out and surveyed the right of way at that time as far as where the village of Unity is now situated. As soon as a trail was cut and the line sun'eyed, the fine government lands invited homesteaders and settlement. They were taken very slowly at first, because when taken under the homestead law, settlement and residence was required, and without any other highway or road than simply the surveyor's line for a railroad track, a homesteader had to brave all the hardships and absence of all comforts of pioneer life. The entrymen in this section were not emigrants, but native Americans, many of them honorably discharged soldiers of the Civil war who saw a chance to become land owners with a small outlay of money, but they improved the opporunity and were willing to brave the discomforts of forest life and hard work incident to the making of a farm in the wilderness. It is true, the railroad was running cars as far as Colby in the summer of 1872, but the trains were still construction trains ; passenger service was subordinate to construction work, and consequently trains were not run on time table time, and while a person might travel as far as a railroad station, he was in the woods as soon as he had left the right of way of the road or the depot ground.

The first homestead entry (h. e.) in that territory was made by Ebenezer Lowe on September 6, 1871, in section 8, township 28, range 2 east in the present town of Hull and final proof made thereon 1873.

David B. Hull made homestead entry September 27, 1871, in section 20, township 28, range 2 east, in the present town of Hull, the town being given his name as the first actual settler, though the entry of Lowe precedes his by a few days.

Francis Parrot made homestead entry in section 30, township 27, range 2 east, October 30, 1871, and Edmond Creed and F. H. Darling made homestead entry each in section 6, township zy, range 2 east on November I, 1871, the first two mentioned ones being the first actual settlers, having come there in the summer of 1871 and made settlement prior to entry in the land office.

George Holeton made homestead entry on November 18, 1871. and final proof on December 9, 1873, and being the first homesteader to hold land in his own name, the town was named in his honor the "Town of Holeton."

That was the beginning of the settlements in the towns of Spencer, Brighton, Hull, and Holeton with the present villages of Spencer, Unity, and Colby.

As already mentioned all these settlers and all those that came years after them had to cut their roads out to their lands through heavy woods, swamps or low marshy lands where no wagon could be used, only crotches or in the winter sleds. The timber in that section of the county was, if anything, even heavier and thicker than in the older towns and therefore harder to clear, although there was sooner a market for the pine because mills sprung up at nearly every railroad station.

Among other earlier settlers must be mentioned George Burnett who made homestead entry in section 6, township ly, range 2 east, November 19, 1872.

W. L. Parkill, homestead entry May 3, 1873; Daniel Mahoney, homestead entry, November 10, 1873; Walter Pradt, homestead entry, November I, 1873; Augustus Wilms, homestead entry April 21, 1873, in section 24, township 28, range 2 east.

Other pioneers are John K. Hay ward who came to Spencer in 1873 ; C. K. Richardson, who came to the same place in 1875 ; to the town of Brighton came Alfred Cook in the summer of 1871 with a crew of men who cut out the road from Loyal Clark county to the railroad track to get men and material for the saw mill of D. J. Spaulding near Unity, and when that crew arrived they found nobody there but Ed. Creed and F. H. Darling on the ground where now stands the village of Unity, and one little log shanty which served as a boarding house for the working crew of the railroad.

In the year 1873 there settled at the village of Colby George Ghoca, who built the first store there, and the following year the hotel ; H. J. Blanchard who came the same year with George Ghoca, J. E. Borden, I. C. Gotchy, N. P. Peterson, J. W. Wicker and Frank Riplinger, and N. P. Peterson. George Ghoca played an important part in the new settlement. He was elected as sheriff in 1878, was a candidate for member of assembly in 1881 and defeated by John C. Clarke for fear that his election would be tantamount to an expression by the people of Marathon county that they were in favor of taking off a portion of Marathon county to form a new county with a part of Clark county.

All these farmer settlers took their land as near as possible to the railroad line, and while many of them entered their land at the land office in the year of 1871 when the railroad had not even reached Stevens Point, which place is at least forty miles from Spencer and fifty from Colby, still they had six months from date of entry to establish actual residence on their homestead, and it may safely be assumed that they waited until spring next before going with their families onto the land and establishing their homes thereon.

For some years following their settlements they had to go through the same experience of all pioneers in a new country, the same as the first settlers in the county. The influx of new settlers was very slow for the first six years ; true, provisions could be brought up from Stevens Point by railroad to the stations, but freight was high and therefore goods purchased at the local stores were sold at the advanced price. But with the establishment of depots there came saw mills, and work could be had at the mills in the villages.

The Wisconsin Central railroad traverses and runs on the line of Marathon county for only twenty-four miles, yet in this short distance there were not fewer than six depots, to wit : Mannville, Spencer, Unity, Colby, Abbottsford, and Dorchester; there was a saw mill at Mannville owned by Curtis Mann; four smaller mills were at Spencer; one large one at Unity, owned by D. J. Spaulding, and some smaller mills further north, and a mill settlement at every mill. Spencer, Unity, and Colby were growing rapidly after a few years and had quite a population, much of which, however, especially in Spencer, was floating, or of the temporary kind. From Mannville nearly up to Unity the white pine predominated as standing timber and supplied the mills with raw material. Above Unity there was more of hardwood mixed with hemlock. All these mills ceased to exist after a run of from fifteen to twenty years, the D. J. Spaulding mill being the last to cease operation in 1894.

When the brothers McMillan came to the present town of McMillan in 1873, there was just one settler in township 26, range 3 east, by name of

Thomas Woefle. He had come there in 1870 by way of the Campbell settlement, but his improvements were hardly worth mentioning. The McMillans found him when they looked over their land and for the location of a mill site, coming from Unity and following as much as practicable the course of the Eau Plain river. This Woefle committed suicide later, and nothing was ever heard of his family or where he had originally come from.

The McMillan brothers commenced building their mill in 1873 and had it in running order in 1874. It was rigged up with a band saw, the first in the pinery and also the first manufactured by the E. P. Allis Mfg. Co., Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A spur track was built from their mill to Mannville on the Wisconsin Central railroad, over which road the lumber was shipped. For the first years, up until about the year 1880, only pine was cut, but at that date commenced in a slow way the cutting of hardwood, which increased as the pine decreased.

Hardwood was at that time very low in price, not much in demand. Mc- Millan brothers sold 400,000 feet of basswood for $4.50 per thousand feet, half of the purchase price to be taken in woolen goods, the other half in money.

This mill was operated from 1874 until 191 1 when it closed down for good. It was supplied with logs cut on land in the neighborhood not very distant from the mill, and one gets a good idea of the standing timber on those lands from the fact that this mill sawed on an average ten million per year for thirty-seven years, or 370 million feet of lumber, of all kinds, of course, including hemlock. Especially in later years, hemlock was the staple product. After the mill had begun operations farmers settled upon lands, and the town of McMillan has now a large number of fiije cultivated farms. The township was soon thereafter set ofif from the town of Bergen and organized as a separate town. Only one large mill was operated above Unity, the mill of Angus Lamont about two miles south of Colby. Built in 1874 and operated from 1875 to 1896. But as the mills were going into operation more settlers came and moved eastward into Marathon and west into Clark county. The strongest farm settlement was in the town of Hull in which was located the village of Colby, and that town was the first newly organized town on the "line," meaning the boundary line of the county. The lumber industry employed many men on the "line;" it brought quick returns, and therefore was favorable to the new settlers. The population had so increased that for a number of years from 1877 to about 1898 there was a desire on the part of many of the people of the villages on the "line" to be set off from Marathon county and with some territory from Clark county establish a new county. This movement came nearest to realization in the session of the legislature in 1877. There was then no opposition to the creation of a new county, and a bill for the organization of one was ready to be favorably reported to both houses of the legislature and would have passed without doubt, had not the question of the location of the county seat cropped up as a disturbing factor at the most inopportune time for the scheme. Colby wanted the county seat. It had a plausible argument in its favor. It had the most settlers east and west for twelve miles; had the best buildings, and its population was not of the floating kind, there being no saw mills to swell the same ; the lobby from Colby therefore insisted to have their village named in the bill as the county seat. This was objected to by Spencer and Unity, which insisted that the place of the county seat should be left to a vote of the people. If so left to the voters there was great danger that Colby would not be selected because Spencer with its four mill crews and another mill crew at Mannville south and the settled portion west in Clark county could outvote both Colby and Unity. When this dispute arose between the contestants for the county seat, the legislature with the silent acquiescence of the lobby from the "line" postponed the whole project to the next session. The project was kept alive for many years afterwards, but it never advanced so far as in the first attempt, and although bills were introduced in nearly every session thereafter, they never were favorably reported and died the death in the committee room.

It may be interesting to know why the first attempt found no opposition from the two members representing the counties of Marathon and Clark. The reason is not far to seek. By the first bill it was sought to take ranges 2 and 3 from Marathon only. At that time they were very sparsely settled ; nearly all the land in that territory was either government or railroad land and yielded to taxes, the railroad lands being exempt from taxation. It was supposed that the territory was unprofitable to Marathon county. The question of division had not been agitated in the county, and the people were indifferent, did not care one way or the other. The members representing the counties of Marathon and Clark were of the opinion that expenses for roads, schools, and courts would be more than the territory would bring in taxes, and that it would be good policy to let this territory go. Other motives inay also have influenced their course. But afterwards a strong current agamst any division of Marathon county set in and also in Clark county, and from that time on the project was doomed to failure. Any man who was offered for member of assembly who was suspected to be in favor of division was invariably defeated, and in later years, after 1896 when Marshfield revived the project with the intention of being made a county seat, the people on the line opposed the scheme as strongly as those from any other part of the county. The extension of the Northwestern railroad from W^ausau to Marshfield, the building of good roads, the railroad from Abbottsford to Athens which has outstripped the villages on the "line" in growth, and other influences have put a quietus on the whole project, which is not likely to be revived in the near future. Good roads are running in every direction from east to west, railroads and automobiles make now a trip to Wausau one of pleasure to be made in a few hours, where it formerly never took less than two, often three days, and the people inhabiting this territory are at this time as much opposed to a division as any other part of the county.

The advantage which the early settlers on the "line" had over the earliest settlers in Marathon county by being nearer a railroad line and a base of supplies was nearly if not all counterbalanced by the fact that most of the lands in the town in which they had located were exempted from taxation for many years to come. The Wisconsin Central railroad was a land grant road. By act of congress approved May 5, 1864, enacted through the efforts of Hon. Walter D. Mclndoe, later amended so as to require the road to run through Marathon county, there was granted to such railroad "every alternate section of government land, designated by odd numbers for ten miles on each side of its line, to aid in the construction of a railroad from Portage City, Berlin, Doty's Island or Fond du Lac, to Bayfield, thence to Superior on Lake Superior;" and for any deficiency in the number of sections or acres of land lost to the railroad by pre-emption or settler's rights, the railroad had the right to select an equal amount of government land within twenty miles on either side of its line.

The lands so granted were by the legislature of the state of Wisconsin exempt for ten years, which exemption extended to the year of 1877, and by act of the legislature, chapter 21, laws of 1877, the lands were freed from taxation for three years more, or up to 1880. All the odd sections in the present towns of Spencer, Brighton, Hull, and Holeton for ten miles along on the railroad were thus made railroad lands and left untaxed, only such as were sold for the timber to lumbermen could come in the tax roll, and that was but an insignificant amount. On such lands the timber was removed as rapidly as possible and cut lands were almost deemed worthless at that time, yielding but an insignificant amount of tax. But the settlers had to make the roads, pay the tax for the maintenances of town and county gov- eminent, build school houses, pay the wages of the teachers; in a word, keep schools going, and were thus forced to pay high taxes with which to improve or raise the value of the railroad lands which no tax could touch.

Some of the pioneers who, like D. B. Hull and George Holeton, made early final proof by having their time of service in the army during the war, deducted from the required period of five years of residence whereby their land became taxable as real estate, were almost swamped with taxes which threatened to eat up their homes.

Yet before the exemption of the railroad lands expired by operation of law in 1880, the Wisconsin Central railroad asked for another exemption of their lands for five years more and came very near obtaining the privilege from the legislature. The bill did pass the senate by a comfortably large majority, but was fortunately defeated in the assembly by the narrow margin of two or three votes. The credit for defeating this iniquitous act belongs mainly to Hon. John Ringle, who was in the assembly as member from Marathon county for the first term, powerfully aided by Hon. T. W. Spence of Fond du Lac and W. E. Carter of Platteville, Grant county. Mr. T. W. Spence was himself a land owner on the "line" and knew the injustice done to settlers by the exemption under which he as well as all other land owners suffered. He convinced Hon. W. E. Carter that the bill should not pass, and both of these men being influential leaders with the Republican majority in the assembly and Mr. John Ringle using all the influence he could bring to bear on the Democratic members, they succeeded in overcoming the powerful railroad lobby at Madison. After that was accomplished, the early settlers on the "line" had a breathing spell from heavy taxation which almost amounted to a confiscation of their property. And there was another advantage by the defeat of this measure. Since the land became taxable, the railroad was eager to sell the land rather than hold it, and consequently could not ask exorbitant prices for the same. Selling at a reasonable figure brought more actual settlers, farmers, to that region and in a few years population increased, clearings were made, and the new towns assumed the character of an agricultural country. In the same measure as the pine was cut, the timber sawed and carried away by the railroad, the farms increased in number and \alue. and the "line" towns are now as fine agricultural towns as the oldest ones in Marathon county.

The lumber industry on the "line" is ended; the pine all along the railroad is cut and shipped long ago, but there are now^ farms as finely cultivated, productive; and profitable as in any part of the county. The farm population, which was first without exception all native American, is now mainly naturalized American emigrants, German, Polish, Austrian, and some Scandina\ians. The native Americans were the first to come, but did not receive much succor. When the new emigrant settlers arrived, the older settlers sold out and mainly left, some went into the villages, some left for other fields, and only in few instances are the first settlers or their children on the original farms.

As the lands near the railroad were first taken up later settlers had to go further away from it, because there they found virgin timber, readily salable and lower prices for the land. That they had to make miles of road at their own expense or with their own labor, did not deter them, for they were willing to undergo that hardship which they knew they would conquer, and that their industry and thrift would make them independent. They have been sooner rewarded than their brothers in the further east of the county. All the western townships of Marathon county are now settled : they have good roads, good schools, churches, creameries, cheese factories, their little mills and factories and brick yards.

The town of Day was formed out of portions of the town of Bergen. The door to these settlements was Marshfield, a very small village in 1880. Up to 1877, emigration went north from Marshfield, then it turned eastward towards Rozellville. The old Campbell settlement has already been referred to, where a few families existed for a long time until the tide of immigration turned in their direction. Leonhard Schmidt came to Rozellville in 1877; early in 1878 came William Raschke and Andrew Daul, the latter erecting a small saw mill ; also Peter Xicolay, Caspar Ably, Joseph Schmidt. Adam Zimmerman, John Derfus, John Holzmann, N. Benz, Louis Spindler, Jacob Reicher, N. Roehlinger, Math Folz, and Peter Riplinger. Joseph Schmidt, Adam Sturm, and John Brinkmann, came in the same year, the latter opening a store, and Kiefer came in 1879. The majority of these settlers came from the farms of southern Wisconsin, to whom the work of clearing land was familiar work, and they succeeded admirably in reducing the fine hardwood lands to farms in short time ; but there were also some emigrants from Germany among them. It was with hardly an exception a German settlement.

They were mainly from the south and west of Germany, from Bavaria, Hesse, and the Rhine. The town of McMillan was settled about the same time, the population, however, being from the north of Germany, the brothers Schilling and Brand being among the first. In the course of twenty years these towns have undergone a great change. Many of the first settlers died, but their children still occupy the lands; some have sold out and removed, but everywhere are the signs of progress and prosperity. The settlement of the towns of Riebrook and Halsey began in 1878. Fred Riebrook of the Milwaukee law firm of Johnson, Riebrook & Halsey colonized these towns mainly with settlers of the Polish nationality from Milwaukee. One of the first settlers in Riebrook was P. Theusz, the first chairman of the town, and I.udwig Findorf and L. Schwager, who kept tavern and was the first postmaster, the name of the postoffice being "Poniatowski."

About the same time or a little later came Fred Bradfish, who settled in township 29, range 5, east of Poniatowski, followed by other Germans, and in 1880 the town was already strong enough to demand and obtain recognition as an organized town. This new town was named Riebrook, and the first town election was held in the spring of 1881.

How slow migration was from the Wisconsin Central east is apparent from the fact that when Andrew Kreutzer bought land and settled in the forest, which spot afterwards became the village of Athens, in the year of 1879, there were at that time only two homesteaders, the brothers Olson, in township 30, range 3, and Charles Riemer, who had settled as early as 1858 on the east line of township 30, range 4, which had only one other farmer settler in that township, a relative, by the name of Charles Lindeberg. A dam was put in across Rib river in the northeast quarter of township 30, range 4, in the latter part of the seventies, and a water mill run there for a few years by Gustavus Werlich, and lumber was rafted as in olden times and run out of the river to the Wisconsin and down, but the experiment proved too expensive and costly. Only a rapids piece could be run at a time from the northeast of township 30, range 4, on Rib river to the Wisconsin, passing two dams and the winding crooked course of the Rib.

Operations of this mill ceased about 1880 or 1881. and. the erection and operation of that mill did not much advance the growth of the settlement. The eastern portion of Marathon county is attracting most settlers in later years, townships 28, 29, 30, in ranges 9 and 10. The G. D. Jones Land Company is doing most of the locating of farmers in that part of the county, the settlers being Hollanders, Germans, and Scandinavians. In the southeast portion in townships 26 and 2-], ranges 9 and 10, the Holway Land Company has succeeded in getting the same class of actual settlers on lands, and at this time every portion of Marathon county is settled and improved by good roads from east to west, from north to south, although there is yet wild land enough for thousands of farms.

In all of the incorporated villages and railroad stations are stores with well supplied stocks of goods where a farmer can supply himself with needed goods without traveling far from home, all of these villages having railroad connections.

The incorporated villages in Marathon county and railroad stations are: Dancy, Knowlton, Mosinee, Rothschield, Scholfield, Brokaw, and Heights, all on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad; then there are Norrie, Hatley, Ringle, Callon, Kelly, Marathon City, Edgar, Kenwood, Stratford, and McMillan on the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad, and Athens, Milano, and Corinth on the Sault St. Mary Railroad, and Spencer, Unity, and Colby on the same railroad, and Eldron and Gallowa on a branch of the Northwestern railroad, branching off and running south from Eland Junction. In citing railroad stations, the flag stations have been omitted.

Thus were settled the utmost western parts of Marathon county, mainly from the railroad lines of the Wisconsin Central. Ranges 4 and 5 were settled from Wausau and Mosinee, and the extreme southeast, townships 26 and 27, ranges 9 and 10, were the last ones settled on, but they can now boast of as large a population as other towns, and more are coming in every year.

The town of Pike Lake, being township 26, range 10, was settled from Stevens Point about thirty years ago, the population being nearly all Polish, with a sprinkling of Bohemians and Germans. J. Milanowski and Gustav Baranowski were the first settlers in that town in which is situated the village of Bevant. The farmers in that town had no road to Wausau for a long time; if they wanted to come to the county seat, they had to travel by way of Stevens Point. But that has been remedied and two goc5d highways connect Wausau now with that thriving settlement, one being the so-called Waupaca road and another one by way of the village of Hatley.