Historic Map - Florida State Map - 1874
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Historic Map - Reedsburg, WI - 1874
Description
Bird's eye view of Reedsburg, Sauk County, Wis. 1874. J. Knauber & Co. print.
Beautifully colored and detailed historic map of Reedsburg, Wisconsin, published by J. J. Stoner in 1874, reprint.
During the same year that this map was published, "The Reedsburg Free Press" ran a series of articles in serial form throughout the summer of 1874 that detailed the experiences of early settler S. A. Dwinnell, who arrived in the region in 1836. Below is an excerpt from his "Enter Wisconsin Territory".
Features numbered references to the following locations:
1. Rail Road Depot.
2. Mansion House. W. H. Finch, Proprietor.
3. Public School.
4. Public Square.
5. Mackey's Flour Mill.
6. Mackey's Saw Mill.
7. Wagon & Carriage Factory.
8. Stafford's Stave Factory.
9. Presbyterian Church.
10. Baptist Church.
11. Lutheran & German School.
12. Methodist Episcopal Church.
13. Congregational Church.
Enter Wisconsin Territory.
FUGITIVE PIECES - NOW AND THEN
BY S. A. DWINNELL.
On the morning of the 15th day of November 1836, I set my face towards the north, from Belvidere Illinois, with a view on exploring Wisconsin. As timber was scarce and land sharks had seized the most valuable claims in the vicinity of settlements, for the purpose of speculation, I resolved not to locate in Illinois. Crossing the Piscasaw at its confluence with the Kishwaukee, where four years before, Blackhawk had sunk his huge canoes, in which he had brought his army from Iowa, through Rock river and its tributary, and took the land, I followed his trail. I was on foot and alone. The remains of his encampments and camp fires, were visible every six or eight miles, as I proceeded north. Much of his army, I was told, was composed of women and children, which indicated that he did not set out with a hostile purpose and may account for the slow stages of his march.
The country was as wild as when the Indians left it. The day was cloudy, cold and cheerless. The streams were swollen by recent rains. Several times I was obliged to wade from four to six rods, with the temperature near freezing. At noon I lunched upon a log. At 4 P.M. I entered Wisconsin at Big Foot Prairie, of 16,000 acres, where not a furrow had been turned; soon after which I left the Indian trail for the white man's dim track through the grass, and proceeded east on the south side of Big Foot Lake, which was from time to time in view. As night set in snow fell plentifully. At length a welcome light from a distant window appeared and I soon crossed a stream and a newly made mill race, upon the north bank of which was a human dwelling.
I had reached the "Outlet of Big Foot" as Geneva Lake, in what is now Walworth county, was then called -- having traveled, in solitude, thirty five miles without seeing a human dwelling. I knocked at the rude door of an equally rude log cabin and heard the back-woods-man's welcome "come in." As I entered, there seemed to be a poor chance for my entertainment. -- About a dozen men sat upon a backless bench before a hot fire of huge logs, piled in the north end of the cabin. There was no chimney and the smoke and sparks made their way through an opening left in the roof for that purpose. The floor of the cabin was the natural earth and there was no chamber. The roof was made of shakes held in place by small logs laid upon the ends of them. Not a nail was in any part of the structure I think. There were two chairs near the north-east corner of the room, in which two females were plying their needles.-- After an apology for the rude fare I should get, which I supposed was intended as a kind of bar against grumbling, I was permitted to remain. The meals were plain but bountiful and good.
During the evening, I wondered where they would lodge all their family and guests, as there was but one bed in the cabin and no other room apparent. My fears were removed at bed-time, however, by finding that there was a small room adjoining, over the door to which was hung a blanket, which I had not distinguished from the clothing which hung in profusion around the room. In each corner of this sleeping room, was a bedstead which illustrated the truth of the proverb that necessity is the mother of invention; for it had by one leg -- the rails at the other ends being inserted in the logs which composed the walls of the building. The bed was made of dried grass called "prairie feathers" and laid upon shakes instead of cords. A bed0stead thus constructed was known by the name of "catamount". A slight covering for it, to which the clothes of the sleepers were added, furnished a more desirable resting place than the wet ground on a cold stormy night, of which I then had a recent experience. A comforter was spread upon us before morning in the shape of a mantle of snow sifted through the shakes of the roof over our heads.
I have been thus particular in describing this cabin because it was really a hotel, not much inferior to the best at that time in the Territory, between the little villages on the shore of Lake Michigan and those of the mineral region, of which Didgeville and Mineral Point were the nearest -- a distance of more than 100 miles. It was kept by Greenlief S. Warren, afterwards the proprietor of a much more commodious hotel, in what is now an important village and rapidly becoming a noted watering place.
I found four other families in that little hamlet which had all come in a few months before and were living in similar circumstances to the one just described. All were waiting for a sawmill, which they were building, to commence operations before they finished their cabins. Some of the other pioneers, scattered over the Territory, I found in dwellings equally rude and primitive -- a specimen of frontier life at that time in the far west.
INCIDENTS IN PIONEERING.
As I arose, at what is now Geneva Lake, in Walworth County, on the morning of Nov. 16th, 1836, to take a look at the Territory of Wisconsin, the ground was covered with snow. Winter seemed to be upon us. I had been told, while in Illinois, that Wisconsin was a stony, hilly, heavy timbered region, hardly fit for settlement. My informants, however, had seen but a small portion of it, and I chose to take a look at it for myself. If found the country better than it had been represented, as I anticipated that I should.
The settlers at the "Outlet", now Geneva Lake, were indulging the hope of building at that place, one of the most populous interior villages or cities of the Territory and not without good reason. It possessed a level, lovely site, upon the banks of a lake unsurpassed for size and beauty by any other inland sheet of water, in Illinois or Wisconsin, within a radius of a score or two miles. It has also two good water powers within its limits, both of which could be easily improved. The water was abundant and durable. Adjacent to the village, was the largest body of heavy timber in all the region. Building material was abundant and easily accessible. The country all around was fertile, well timbered and watered. It was also suitably divided between prairies, openings and timbered lands and therefore attractive to the most valuable class of emigrants. The impression was very general far and near, that an important town was to be built up there. Several gentleman in Chicago purchased an interest in the prospective village, paying large sums for their investment, although the land was not yet in market. Among these were Col. James Maxwell and his brother, Dr. Philip H. Maxwell, then a practicing physician at that place, both of whom afterwards removed to Wisconsin and settled -- the latter, at the village of Geneva and the former on a farm a few miles distant, from which he removed some years afterwards to Baraboo.
The anticipations of the founders of the place were not, however, fully realized; for by the last census it is seen that Delavan, Whitewater and Janesville in the same vicinity 00 and then un-thought of as sites of villages -- have far exceeded it in population. Geneva did not become a railroad centre. No important one passed through it. None reached it until recently. It was impossible for the pioneer settlers to foresee how indispensable to the building up of a town, those thoroughfares were soon to become. Hence arose the mistakes so frequently made in regard to sites of future villages. The wisest of men were often deluded as well as others.
While I was at Belvidere, Illinois, a few days previous to my coming to Wisconsin, I saw Col. S. F. Phoenix, afterwards one of the proprietors of Delavan, in this state, who was out upon an exploring tour. He told me that he had just settled on Turtle Creek in Wisconsin Territory and that it was a fine portion of country.
After spending a few hours on the morning of the 16th, at the "Outlet", and finding some of the people whom I met more anxious to sell me a claim, for one or two hundred dollars, than they were to point out a location for a farm, of which there were plenty in the vicinity to be had without price, I resolved to look elsewhere. I enquired for the Phoenix settlement, and was told that it was twelve miles away. An Indian trail was pointed out as leading to it. I took it and had proceeded a mile or two through the heavy timber which lay between Duck and Big Foot Lakes, when I met two men, hailing from Spring Prairie, one of whom had been connected with the party of United States surveyors, which had subdivided that portion of the Territory into Sections, the previous winter and spring. He told me that at the Bay of Big Foot Lake, some three miles further on, I should find the remains of an Indian village, where their trails diverged in various directions -- that I could not tell which one to take and should probably lose my way. I knew that this would be attended with great danger to life or limb, to one without a tent, blanket, or means of starting a fire at that season in the year in that sparsely settled portion of the country. So I returned to Geneva "Outlet".
My thoughts have often reverted to this incident, and others in my pilgrimage, as evidence that the hand of God has directed me as to where I should live and labour. The men whom I met, instead of taking a trail leading directly to Geneva, which they usually traveled, had pursued a round about way, that morning, for reasons they could hardly give. The Infinite Mind probably directed them for the purpose of guiding me. How often our whole future history and that of our prosperity turns upon a circumstance which at the time seemed most trifling. Let us then regard no event as trivial, under the Divine Government, which relates to beings like ourselves destined to an eternal existence and who are constantly exerting an influence upon others who are also immortal. How much evidence we can each of us find in our own history, to illustrate that passage in the bible which says "Man deviseth his way but the Lord directeth his steps." How important that we should seek his direction from day to day, that we be not left, for guidance, to the short sighted and often foolish devisings of our own minds and hearts.
SOME MATTERS IN REGARD TO THE POTOWATTOMIE INDIANS.
Before proceeding further with a description of pioneer days in Wisconsin Territory, I may as well give a brief account of the aboriginal occupants of the soil in the portion where I settled. The Pottawattomies possessed much of the southern part of the Territory, as well of Northern Illinois and lands further east. In the year 1832, John Kinsie of Chicago, as agent of the United States, bought of them their title to all their lands west of Lake Michigan, agreeing to make annual payments, as was usual in such cases, in coin, guns, blankets and other articles needed by them. The government agreed also to protect them in the occupancy of the soil for four years more, or until 1836, then provide another possession for them, west of the Mississippi and remove them to it.
The lands which they sold were much better adapted to the wants of the Red man, in his uncivilized state, than the vast prairie regions west of the Mississippi, although less so, by far, than the heavy timbered lands of Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana with a mild climate and abundance of game of almost every variety.
Although our climate was rigorous, and in consequence of abounding prairies and openings, and the absence of hills and mountains, was often swept in winter by cold northern blasts, they obtained a comfortable living, for savages, from the animals of the forest, the fish of the lakes and streams, wild honey from the trees and sugar from the rock maple. Their game was taken with guns -- their fish with hooks and traps and their honey by climbing trees by means of rude ladders and cutting into them with their hatchets, taking out the comb, often obtaining fifty or sixty pounds in each tree. Their sugar was made by boiling down the sap in brass kettles. The sap was caught in trays made of white birch bark. Most of the Indians also cultivated patches of corn and beans, eating them not only in their green state but drying them for winter use.
Their largest villages in the region where I settled, soon after the Indians left, were at Mukwanago, also at the Bay of Big Foot Lake and at the head of that lake. At the last named place, lived Big Foot, a prominent chief of the tribe. His village was situated upon an elevated plateau overlooking the upper portion of the lake. It had a council house made of posts set in the ground and covered with mats near which was planted a signal pole some twenty-five feet in height. Their permanent wigwams were usually about ten feet in diameter. Some of them were square, make of posts and poles, fastened together with bark, and covered with slabs made from hollow trees, both on the sides and the roof. Upon each side of the wigwam awas a platform some four feet wide elevated two feet from the earth, which served for a bedstead while the fronts were used in place of chairs. They could by this means, enjoy the warmth of the fire which was made in the middle of the cabin -- a hole being left in the centre of the roof for the egress of the smoke. Other and more temporary wigwams were circular and oval, the framework being made of saplings and covered with mats woven from rushes and flags.
When the time arrived in 1836, for their removal, the Indian agent collected the various bands at Chicago, preparatory to their removal to their lands on the north banks of the Kansas river, opposite to where the city of Lawrence has since been built.
Big Foot's band was all gathered into his village at the head of the Lake, so as to be taken to Chicago. This was in the month of September. James Van Slyke had removed to that point a few weeks before and his family were living in a partially finished log cabin in full view of their encampment. Noticing one morning a great commotion in the Indian camp, and not knowing the cause of it, he imagined that an outbreak upon the white settlers who had trespassed upon their lands, was contemplated. For some reason, not now known, whether from cowardice or not, he at once fled for his life, leaving his family in the cabin. Mrs. Van Slyke watched every movement of her savage neighbors, through the un-chinked walls of her dwelling. After a time she was relieved of anxiety by seeing them pack their movable property upon their ponies and squaws, and taking a trail towards the south, disappear one after another through a wooded ravine.
After all were gone, as she supposed, Big Foot appeared and proceeding to the council house and placing one arm around the signal pole, stood for some time in silence, thoughtfully viewing the scenes which had been familiar to him from childhood and which he was never to behold again.
He had refused to sign the treaty of 1832, but was overruled by a majority of the other chiefs who, through some influence brought to bear upon them, either just or unjust, were induced to cede their lands. The time had now come for his unwilling removal. He was evidently sad. His soul was burdened. He wished to be alone with the great spirit and the graves of his fathers and kindred. A year or two previously he had lost a youthful son, whose body he caused to be encased in a rude coffin and fastened to the limbs of an oak some forty feet from the ground and overlooking the lake. He gave as a reason for this novel mode of sepulture that his son was unusually fond of lake scenery and he wished him to enjoy a fine view of it from that country to which he had gone. The usual mode of disposing of the dead among the tribe was by a slight burial in the earth, protecting the graves from the inroads of wild beasts by a small covered pen made of small trees. They usually deposited with the dead, food, tobacco, trinkets and other articles of which the deceased was fond or which they imagined they would need in the state to which he had gone. This gives us only additional evidence of the vague and materialistic notions entertained in respect to a future state by those upon whose minds the gospel has not cast its light, and one motive among many others, even more important, to encourage efforts and sacrifices to furnish it to them.
After this silent leave-taking the chief walked over to see Mrs. Van Slyke. Leaning his tall form against the door-less doorway of her cabin, he talked kindly to the woman who was ever a friend to his race and then bidding her a final farewell, turned away to join his band and was seen no more.
The Pottawattomies were not pleased with their location on the Kansas river and many of them afterwards returned to Wisconsin, and are found roving over the wild and partially settled portions of the state. In June 1867, I met at Necedah, Juneau County, an Indian who was formerly connected with Big Foot's band and removed with them in 1836 to the west. He seemed to be intelligent. His answers to my enquiries as to the Indian names of several lakes and streams in Walworth county, convinced me that he was truthful, as they corresponded precisely with those given by the Indians to the whites before they left. He told me that Big Foot was alive when he left Kansas in 1865, although a very old man, and that the reason of their dissatisfaction with their new home was a sickly climate and the scarcity of wild game in that locality.
The United States, by recent treaties or legislative enactments, have admitted to citizenship 1,604 of this tribe, and we have information, official and semi-official, to the effect that a majority of them, after selling their lands in Kansas which each family received when made citizens, have gone to the Indian Territory and associated themselves as a tribe.
INCIDENTS OF THE FIRST WEEKS UPON THE SOIL.
On the morning of the seventeenth of November, 1836, I was at the "Outlet" of Geneva Lake. Determining to proceed to Spring Prairie, eight miles north, I took the Indian trail leading through it to "upper Forks", a name by which Rochester, upon Fox River, in Racine County, was then known. I found the place to be unsurpassed for beauty and fertility. It was one mile in width by four in length, with a gently undulating surface, surrounded on all sides by beautiful groves of timber. Upon one side were several hundred acres of heavy timber, consisting of oak, ash, basswood, butternut and maple, in which was a large sugar-bush, which had been the annual resort of the Indians for making sugar. Their wigwams, sap-troughs and boiling kettles had been left -- evidently for future use -- a pleasure which they were never again to enjoy. In the groves, surrounding the prairie, were springs of the purest water, from which flowed streams in all directions -- one of which was sufficiently large to turn the machinery of a flouring mill, afterwards erected, a short distance from its source. I decided at once to remain there. The settlement was composed of six families, the first three of whom had arrived there on the first day of June previous. Others had come only a few days before. Their wives, children and stock, being poorly sheltered, suffered much from the severity of the cold during the ensuing winter. Two fields one of ten and the other of twelve acres, had been broken and fenced that season. Two other fields, one of ten and the other of forty acres, constituted the entire area under cultivation, in what is now Walworth County.
A short time after my settlement, I wrote to friends in Massachusetts. Several of them, well versed in the geography of the country, did not know where, upon the American continent to locate me. Our principal river was known, on the atlases then extant, as the Ouisconsin which bore little resemblance to Wisconsin, as the name of the new Territory was spelled. Some of these friends, however, remembered that the country west of lake Michigan, known as "The North West Territory" had, during the preceding session of Congress, been organized by the name of Wisconsin and they were able to point the others to the locality of my new home. Some of them thought that I had got so far "out of the world" as to render it inexpedient to take a helpmeet, from the refined society of New England, to these far off, wild and barbarous regions. For a short time I almost thought so myself. It seems hardly credible that such was the condition of our State, less than forty years ago.
Upon the west part of Spring Prairie, I secured claims for myself and brothers to 640 acres of well watered prairie and timbered lands.
The nearest family on the East was two and a half miles away. In all other directions they were six, ten, twelve, thirty and fifty miles distant. About ten rods east of my claim, however, was a hall -- it was not a Congress Hall or any other fashionable hotel -- but a hall known usually as a "bachelors hall" but receiving at that time, the more appropriate designation of a "bachelors misery".
It consisted of one room, 18 by 20 feet in size, made of unhewed logs, with no chamber. It was covered with "shakes", a kind of clapboard about four feet long, rived from the bodies of large thrifty oaks and laid two or three thicknesses in depth, upon logs which were prepared for their reception, the ends of which rested upon the logs composing the gable-ends of the building. Each course of these shakes lapped upon the one below and were kept in place by small logs placed upon their ends. Such a roof afforded a good protection from rain as also from snow, after it once well covered. The first storms of winter, however, drifted through quite freely.
The floor was of puncheons, a kind of plank, six feet in length by two in width, and four inches in thickness, split from the bodies of white ash trees, hewed upon the upper side and laid upon sleepers resting upon the earth. The chimney was made of flat sticks two inches in width, rived also from the trees, and laid upon each other cob-house fashion and daubed with mud. Its foundation rested upon two small timbers, six feet apart, running from the logs in the north end, three feet from the ground to a joint across the building, four feet south and seven feet from the floor. This chimney, 4 feet by 6, was made smaller as it passed upwards. A fire back was made by sawing out the logs and inserting in their place a wall of stones and mud. The door was composed of shaved shakes pinned to upright timbers at the sides, hung with wooden hinges, and fastened with a wooden latch, which was raised by means of a buckskin string passed from it through the door to the outside. The string hung out in token of hospitality, and was drawn in the shut out intruders. A few weeks after my arrival, the owner of the hall sent to Chicago, eighty miles distant, for a pine board of which, without planing, he made a new door. He hung it, however, in the same manner as the old one had been, and regarded it as quite "aristocratic". A window of six panes of glass afforded us light.
I have thus particularly described this cabin, because it was as commodious and convenient as many others which were occupied for months and some times for years, by the families of graduates of Eastern Colleges and others who afterwards took prominent positions among us in business and professional life. As a result of their toils and sufferings many of their children, scattered over this western country as tillers of its soil and in its various trades and professions, are permitted to reside in well furnished mansions.
WISCONSIN AS IT WAS IN 1836.
The year 1836 was a time of wild speculation over the nation, especially in the west. Many were engaged in speculating in claims where the land was not in market. For this reason, single men were looked upon with suspicion by the settlers unless they remained upon and improved their land. As I had a large and valuable claim, which might be jumped, if I left it, I remained and worked upon it, obtaining board at the hall before named.
Mine host was a man about sixty years of age -- a life long frontiersman -- who had, from his own confession, fallen into nearly all the vices indulged in by the more depraved class of pioneers. Between us was little moral or religious sympathy, but we wintered together from necessity.
Our six months sojourn under the same roof was not altogether a lost opportunity to me, however. Reared in one of the most moral and religious communities in New England, my previous opportunities had been few, of learning of the deep depravity exhibited in the vicious lives of multitudes who had been less favored with virtuous society and religious influences, than myself.
From his voluntary statements I obtained an insight to the reckless wickedness of a large class of persons, which was, to me, perfectly astounding, and a knowledge of which has been of value to me through all subsequent years.
Our food consisted of bread and milk, pork and potatoes. Tea was offered me, but refused and water substituted. The flour from which our bread was made, had evidently been shipwrecked. Much of it was hard as chalk and was crushed with a roller, before kneading into dough. Our bed was of Prairie hay, laid upon the floor before a log fire, which burned through the entire night. Our covering was a few coarse blankets. For such fare, I paid $3.00 per week.
Before commencing work on my claim, I was obliged to send to Chicago, 80 miles distant, to purchase an axe, the one which I had in Indiana, was left in my trunk, at South Bend, and not obtained until the following Spring.
I improved these weeks of leisure in exploring the surrounding country, taking the surveyor's blazes upon the trees through the openings, or the Indian trails for my guide.
Across the west portion of Spring Prairie, ran a well worn trail, leading from Big Foot's village, at the head of Geneva Lake, to Milwaukee. It was known as the "Army trail" because a detachment of United States troops, on the way from Chicago to Green Bay, had, the summer previous, passed over it. I took this trail one day, to search out a settlement, which I was informed, had been made some six miles north of us. About two miles on my way, I crossed sugar creek - a fine mill stream, lined with a nice body of heavy timber - upon an Indian bridge made of a single pole, thrown across.
At the crossing of Honey Creek, upon the north bank, were two small cabins, occupied by Asa Blood and Austin McCracken and their families. There was a good mill site at that point, with a beautiful plat for a village. East Troy has been since built upon it.
Two miles west of this, at Meacham's Prairie, now Troy, I found the families of A. Spoor, Maj. Jesse Meacham and Othni Beardsley. The latter was the first settler there, arriving a few days previous to the other two, who had made claims the previous autumn. They were all from the Territory of Michigan and reached the spot about the middle of May, 1836. They were each possessed of considerable property and having the advantage of rich prairie lands, upon which to locate, surrounded with timber in abundance, with a fine stream of durable water at hand, they were able to make their families comfortable at once, and the wilderness to blossom as the rose.
Their log houses were neatly constructed, having floors of boards, which had been sawed by hand, with whip-saws. The men who enter a new country with a few hundred dollars in cash, possess great advantages over those who settle in poverty. At. Maj. Meacham's, I found a North and South section line through the openings, which I followed to Spring Prairie and reached home in safety.
INCIDENTS OF THE FIRST WINTER.
As pioneers in a wilderness, we wished to induce families to settle near us, and to secure this object, we sought to obtain a leading highway past our place. As we were on a direct line from Racine to Wisconsin City, a prospective town upon Rock river, near the present city of Janesville, we had hope of obtaining one. Accordingly on the 3rd of December, we took the section line running two miles north of the present village of Elkhorn and explored the country west some fifteen miles, until we came to Turtle creek, upon which was a marsh half a mile wide. This formed an insurmountable barrier to our projected road and we gave up further explorations. Night was now upon us. We had heard of two families which had settled upon Turtle creek and we supposed they must be some four miles south of us, and thither we bent our steps. After wandering in the darkness for an hour, we heard a cow bell, and were guided by it to the cabin of Allen Perkins, who lived a few rods north of the present village of Delavan. He had a cabin twelve feet square, with a wife and five children, but in this limited space, found room to entertain travelers. It was a characteristic of the pioneers that however small their cabin or numerous their family and guests, they always found room for one more - their latch string was always out.
The next morning we called at the log cabin of William Phoenix, which stood near the bank at what is now the west end of the main street of Delavan, which was afterwards occupied as a store. This was one of the four cabins then built in the west half of Walworth county. It had been put up by Col. S. F. Phoenix, in commencing a settlement for a colony soon to come on from Perry, N. Y.. Col. P. was absent in attendance upon the first session of the Territorial Legislature, at Belmont, as a lobby member, where he obtained the laying off of the county, to which he gave the name of Walworth, in honor of Chancellor Walworth, of New York, a noted temperance man of that time. Upon our return home, we passed the site of the present village of Elkhorn, upon which no claim had been made. Indeed there was no house for the whole distance of twelve miles.
As we were passing out on this trip, we saw, at a distance of two or three miles to the north of us, a beautiful prairie, apparently without an inhabitant. This excited our curiosity to know more of it and a few days thereafter we searched it out. It was situated on the north side of Sugar creek, from which it and the town have since been named. It was four miles in length from East to West, having several beautiful lakes and fine groves of timber upon its borders. Near the eastern verge was a lake of some 160 acres, surrounded by high prairie, since known as Crystal lake, near the east bank of which was a cabin, with the door locked and a yoke of oxen near. We afterwards learned that one Davis spent the winter there, six-miles from any other human being. His was the only cabin in the north-west quarter of the county, now consisting of the towns of La Grange, Whitewater, Richmond and Sugar Creek.
Soon after leaving Davis' cabin, night and a severe North-East snowstorm, set in upon us, and we had to make our way to our lone cabin, six miles, guided by the wind, a feat attended with a good deal of peril to those who had no means of starting a fire in case we should become bewildered and lost. The snow which fell that night remained with us until the following April.
THE WILD AND RECKLESS SPECULATION OF THE TIME.
About mid winter two men with two yokes of oxen, sled, blankets, provender and provisions, passed our cabin one morning, who reported that they were on their way, by compass line, through the wilderness, from Chicago to Superior city, upon the Wisconsin river, to erect a boarding house, preparatory to building a large town there. That was a paper town, on the south bank of the river, opposite to where Sauk City now is built, and not a house was ever erected in it. These men were probably started out as an act of deception, for speculative purposes only to raise the price of lots. It was said that Clinton Walworth - a nephew of the New York Chancellor - afterwards for many years a lawyer and police justice, in Milwaukee, arrived in Chicago about that time, with $1,000 in his pocket, given him by his father, to start him in legal practice in the West, all of which he invested in lots in that bogus city, and of course was minus the whole.
Upon all the larger rivers and lakes, where the land was in market, small tracks were entered and numerous paper towns were platted, sometimes, as it was said, without setting a compass or driving a stake. To these towns were usually given some high sounding name, often with a city prefix. Wisconsin City was opposite the present village of Prairie du Sac, the city of the Four Lakes and city of the Fourth Lake, were upon Fourth Lake, north of Madison. In one of the later cities a log house was built, which was afterwards burned, when some wag factitiously reported that "a city had been laid in ashes".
Fine display plats of these "cities", were made, preparatory to offering lots for sale. All forms of deception usual with gamblers, was resorted to, in order to stimulate sales. Sometimes a line of stages was started to the place which would make a few trips and stop, as was the case between Racine and Wisconsin City, a paper town near Janesville. At other times a mail route would be obtained to the proposed town. It was reported to me that at one time when the mail bag arrived at one of these "cities", finding no house or postmaster there, he dismounted, opened the bag, took out the letters destined for the place, and fastening them to a stake, rode on.
The mode of disposing of lots in the "wild-cat towns" at that time, was as follows: The owners had numerous plats made, which were taken to Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, and other large villages, and the lots put up at auction sale. One fourth the purchase money was paid down and a bond for a deed was given, when the remainder was paid. These bonds became the stock in trade of large numbers of persons, for gambling purposes, who were accustomed to meet each evening, during the winter of 1836-37, drawing in all others to be found, and by the means of the stimulus of liquor, the price of lots was stimulated.
I think this rage for speculation -- the most wild and reckless that ever spread over this country -- must have commenced in the fall of 1834 or early in 1835. It was set on foot by a large expansion of the currency from the over-issues of certain banks in the various States, whose vaults were made places of deposit of the government funds, when they were withdrawn from the United States Bank, at Philadelphia. These banks were known as "pit banks" of the administration and certificates of deposit, in them were received in payment for land in all the government land office. The temptation to an enormous issue of their bills, was too great for their integrity, and the result was that many of them failed, to the great loss of the government.
This spirit of speculation was mainly devoted to lands. In New England, a large area of worthless pine lands, in the State of Maine, far from all access to a market by navigable streams, were put upon the market, and many staid farmers, who never before thought of risking a dollar in speculation, invested thousands in the, losing all, and eventually dying in poverty and some of them in pauperism.
Farms and city lots in the Middle States and wild lands and bogus villages in the West formed the staple upon which this spirit of greed fed to its ruin. So eager were men to make haste to get rich in this way, that honest labor was much neglected and provisions rose to an unusual value. Early in the spring of 1837, the bubble burst and the crash involved thousands in bankruptcy. For two or three of the succeeding years, sheriffs and lawyers were the best fed classes of the people."
Beautifully colored and detailed historic map of Reedsburg, Wisconsin, published by J. J. Stoner in 1874, reprint.
During the same year that this map was published, "The Reedsburg Free Press" ran a series of articles in serial form throughout the summer of 1874 that detailed the experiences of early settler S. A. Dwinnell, who arrived in the region in 1836. Below is an excerpt from his "Enter Wisconsin Territory".
Features numbered references to the following locations:
1. Rail Road Depot.
2. Mansion House. W. H. Finch, Proprietor.
3. Public School.
4. Public Square.
5. Mackey's Flour Mill.
6. Mackey's Saw Mill.
7. Wagon & Carriage Factory.
8. Stafford's Stave Factory.
9. Presbyterian Church.
10. Baptist Church.
11. Lutheran & German School.
12. Methodist Episcopal Church.
13. Congregational Church.
Enter Wisconsin Territory.
FUGITIVE PIECES - NOW AND THEN
BY S. A. DWINNELL.
On the morning of the 15th day of November 1836, I set my face towards the north, from Belvidere Illinois, with a view on exploring Wisconsin. As timber was scarce and land sharks had seized the most valuable claims in the vicinity of settlements, for the purpose of speculation, I resolved not to locate in Illinois. Crossing the Piscasaw at its confluence with the Kishwaukee, where four years before, Blackhawk had sunk his huge canoes, in which he had brought his army from Iowa, through Rock river and its tributary, and took the land, I followed his trail. I was on foot and alone. The remains of his encampments and camp fires, were visible every six or eight miles, as I proceeded north. Much of his army, I was told, was composed of women and children, which indicated that he did not set out with a hostile purpose and may account for the slow stages of his march.
The country was as wild as when the Indians left it. The day was cloudy, cold and cheerless. The streams were swollen by recent rains. Several times I was obliged to wade from four to six rods, with the temperature near freezing. At noon I lunched upon a log. At 4 P.M. I entered Wisconsin at Big Foot Prairie, of 16,000 acres, where not a furrow had been turned; soon after which I left the Indian trail for the white man's dim track through the grass, and proceeded east on the south side of Big Foot Lake, which was from time to time in view. As night set in snow fell plentifully. At length a welcome light from a distant window appeared and I soon crossed a stream and a newly made mill race, upon the north bank of which was a human dwelling.
I had reached the "Outlet of Big Foot" as Geneva Lake, in what is now Walworth county, was then called -- having traveled, in solitude, thirty five miles without seeing a human dwelling. I knocked at the rude door of an equally rude log cabin and heard the back-woods-man's welcome "come in." As I entered, there seemed to be a poor chance for my entertainment. -- About a dozen men sat upon a backless bench before a hot fire of huge logs, piled in the north end of the cabin. There was no chimney and the smoke and sparks made their way through an opening left in the roof for that purpose. The floor of the cabin was the natural earth and there was no chamber. The roof was made of shakes held in place by small logs laid upon the ends of them. Not a nail was in any part of the structure I think. There were two chairs near the north-east corner of the room, in which two females were plying their needles.-- After an apology for the rude fare I should get, which I supposed was intended as a kind of bar against grumbling, I was permitted to remain. The meals were plain but bountiful and good.
During the evening, I wondered where they would lodge all their family and guests, as there was but one bed in the cabin and no other room apparent. My fears were removed at bed-time, however, by finding that there was a small room adjoining, over the door to which was hung a blanket, which I had not distinguished from the clothing which hung in profusion around the room. In each corner of this sleeping room, was a bedstead which illustrated the truth of the proverb that necessity is the mother of invention; for it had by one leg -- the rails at the other ends being inserted in the logs which composed the walls of the building. The bed was made of dried grass called "prairie feathers" and laid upon shakes instead of cords. A bed0stead thus constructed was known by the name of "catamount". A slight covering for it, to which the clothes of the sleepers were added, furnished a more desirable resting place than the wet ground on a cold stormy night, of which I then had a recent experience. A comforter was spread upon us before morning in the shape of a mantle of snow sifted through the shakes of the roof over our heads.
I have been thus particular in describing this cabin because it was really a hotel, not much inferior to the best at that time in the Territory, between the little villages on the shore of Lake Michigan and those of the mineral region, of which Didgeville and Mineral Point were the nearest -- a distance of more than 100 miles. It was kept by Greenlief S. Warren, afterwards the proprietor of a much more commodious hotel, in what is now an important village and rapidly becoming a noted watering place.
I found four other families in that little hamlet which had all come in a few months before and were living in similar circumstances to the one just described. All were waiting for a sawmill, which they were building, to commence operations before they finished their cabins. Some of the other pioneers, scattered over the Territory, I found in dwellings equally rude and primitive -- a specimen of frontier life at that time in the far west.
INCIDENTS IN PIONEERING.
As I arose, at what is now Geneva Lake, in Walworth County, on the morning of Nov. 16th, 1836, to take a look at the Territory of Wisconsin, the ground was covered with snow. Winter seemed to be upon us. I had been told, while in Illinois, that Wisconsin was a stony, hilly, heavy timbered region, hardly fit for settlement. My informants, however, had seen but a small portion of it, and I chose to take a look at it for myself. If found the country better than it had been represented, as I anticipated that I should.
The settlers at the "Outlet", now Geneva Lake, were indulging the hope of building at that place, one of the most populous interior villages or cities of the Territory and not without good reason. It possessed a level, lovely site, upon the banks of a lake unsurpassed for size and beauty by any other inland sheet of water, in Illinois or Wisconsin, within a radius of a score or two miles. It has also two good water powers within its limits, both of which could be easily improved. The water was abundant and durable. Adjacent to the village, was the largest body of heavy timber in all the region. Building material was abundant and easily accessible. The country all around was fertile, well timbered and watered. It was also suitably divided between prairies, openings and timbered lands and therefore attractive to the most valuable class of emigrants. The impression was very general far and near, that an important town was to be built up there. Several gentleman in Chicago purchased an interest in the prospective village, paying large sums for their investment, although the land was not yet in market. Among these were Col. James Maxwell and his brother, Dr. Philip H. Maxwell, then a practicing physician at that place, both of whom afterwards removed to Wisconsin and settled -- the latter, at the village of Geneva and the former on a farm a few miles distant, from which he removed some years afterwards to Baraboo.
The anticipations of the founders of the place were not, however, fully realized; for by the last census it is seen that Delavan, Whitewater and Janesville in the same vicinity 00 and then un-thought of as sites of villages -- have far exceeded it in population. Geneva did not become a railroad centre. No important one passed through it. None reached it until recently. It was impossible for the pioneer settlers to foresee how indispensable to the building up of a town, those thoroughfares were soon to become. Hence arose the mistakes so frequently made in regard to sites of future villages. The wisest of men were often deluded as well as others.
While I was at Belvidere, Illinois, a few days previous to my coming to Wisconsin, I saw Col. S. F. Phoenix, afterwards one of the proprietors of Delavan, in this state, who was out upon an exploring tour. He told me that he had just settled on Turtle Creek in Wisconsin Territory and that it was a fine portion of country.
After spending a few hours on the morning of the 16th, at the "Outlet", and finding some of the people whom I met more anxious to sell me a claim, for one or two hundred dollars, than they were to point out a location for a farm, of which there were plenty in the vicinity to be had without price, I resolved to look elsewhere. I enquired for the Phoenix settlement, and was told that it was twelve miles away. An Indian trail was pointed out as leading to it. I took it and had proceeded a mile or two through the heavy timber which lay between Duck and Big Foot Lakes, when I met two men, hailing from Spring Prairie, one of whom had been connected with the party of United States surveyors, which had subdivided that portion of the Territory into Sections, the previous winter and spring. He told me that at the Bay of Big Foot Lake, some three miles further on, I should find the remains of an Indian village, where their trails diverged in various directions -- that I could not tell which one to take and should probably lose my way. I knew that this would be attended with great danger to life or limb, to one without a tent, blanket, or means of starting a fire at that season in the year in that sparsely settled portion of the country. So I returned to Geneva "Outlet".
My thoughts have often reverted to this incident, and others in my pilgrimage, as evidence that the hand of God has directed me as to where I should live and labour. The men whom I met, instead of taking a trail leading directly to Geneva, which they usually traveled, had pursued a round about way, that morning, for reasons they could hardly give. The Infinite Mind probably directed them for the purpose of guiding me. How often our whole future history and that of our prosperity turns upon a circumstance which at the time seemed most trifling. Let us then regard no event as trivial, under the Divine Government, which relates to beings like ourselves destined to an eternal existence and who are constantly exerting an influence upon others who are also immortal. How much evidence we can each of us find in our own history, to illustrate that passage in the bible which says "Man deviseth his way but the Lord directeth his steps." How important that we should seek his direction from day to day, that we be not left, for guidance, to the short sighted and often foolish devisings of our own minds and hearts.
SOME MATTERS IN REGARD TO THE POTOWATTOMIE INDIANS.
Before proceeding further with a description of pioneer days in Wisconsin Territory, I may as well give a brief account of the aboriginal occupants of the soil in the portion where I settled. The Pottawattomies possessed much of the southern part of the Territory, as well of Northern Illinois and lands further east. In the year 1832, John Kinsie of Chicago, as agent of the United States, bought of them their title to all their lands west of Lake Michigan, agreeing to make annual payments, as was usual in such cases, in coin, guns, blankets and other articles needed by them. The government agreed also to protect them in the occupancy of the soil for four years more, or until 1836, then provide another possession for them, west of the Mississippi and remove them to it.
The lands which they sold were much better adapted to the wants of the Red man, in his uncivilized state, than the vast prairie regions west of the Mississippi, although less so, by far, than the heavy timbered lands of Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana with a mild climate and abundance of game of almost every variety.
Although our climate was rigorous, and in consequence of abounding prairies and openings, and the absence of hills and mountains, was often swept in winter by cold northern blasts, they obtained a comfortable living, for savages, from the animals of the forest, the fish of the lakes and streams, wild honey from the trees and sugar from the rock maple. Their game was taken with guns -- their fish with hooks and traps and their honey by climbing trees by means of rude ladders and cutting into them with their hatchets, taking out the comb, often obtaining fifty or sixty pounds in each tree. Their sugar was made by boiling down the sap in brass kettles. The sap was caught in trays made of white birch bark. Most of the Indians also cultivated patches of corn and beans, eating them not only in their green state but drying them for winter use.
Their largest villages in the region where I settled, soon after the Indians left, were at Mukwanago, also at the Bay of Big Foot Lake and at the head of that lake. At the last named place, lived Big Foot, a prominent chief of the tribe. His village was situated upon an elevated plateau overlooking the upper portion of the lake. It had a council house made of posts set in the ground and covered with mats near which was planted a signal pole some twenty-five feet in height. Their permanent wigwams were usually about ten feet in diameter. Some of them were square, make of posts and poles, fastened together with bark, and covered with slabs made from hollow trees, both on the sides and the roof. Upon each side of the wigwam awas a platform some four feet wide elevated two feet from the earth, which served for a bedstead while the fronts were used in place of chairs. They could by this means, enjoy the warmth of the fire which was made in the middle of the cabin -- a hole being left in the centre of the roof for the egress of the smoke. Other and more temporary wigwams were circular and oval, the framework being made of saplings and covered with mats woven from rushes and flags.
When the time arrived in 1836, for their removal, the Indian agent collected the various bands at Chicago, preparatory to their removal to their lands on the north banks of the Kansas river, opposite to where the city of Lawrence has since been built.
Big Foot's band was all gathered into his village at the head of the Lake, so as to be taken to Chicago. This was in the month of September. James Van Slyke had removed to that point a few weeks before and his family were living in a partially finished log cabin in full view of their encampment. Noticing one morning a great commotion in the Indian camp, and not knowing the cause of it, he imagined that an outbreak upon the white settlers who had trespassed upon their lands, was contemplated. For some reason, not now known, whether from cowardice or not, he at once fled for his life, leaving his family in the cabin. Mrs. Van Slyke watched every movement of her savage neighbors, through the un-chinked walls of her dwelling. After a time she was relieved of anxiety by seeing them pack their movable property upon their ponies and squaws, and taking a trail towards the south, disappear one after another through a wooded ravine.
After all were gone, as she supposed, Big Foot appeared and proceeding to the council house and placing one arm around the signal pole, stood for some time in silence, thoughtfully viewing the scenes which had been familiar to him from childhood and which he was never to behold again.
He had refused to sign the treaty of 1832, but was overruled by a majority of the other chiefs who, through some influence brought to bear upon them, either just or unjust, were induced to cede their lands. The time had now come for his unwilling removal. He was evidently sad. His soul was burdened. He wished to be alone with the great spirit and the graves of his fathers and kindred. A year or two previously he had lost a youthful son, whose body he caused to be encased in a rude coffin and fastened to the limbs of an oak some forty feet from the ground and overlooking the lake. He gave as a reason for this novel mode of sepulture that his son was unusually fond of lake scenery and he wished him to enjoy a fine view of it from that country to which he had gone. The usual mode of disposing of the dead among the tribe was by a slight burial in the earth, protecting the graves from the inroads of wild beasts by a small covered pen made of small trees. They usually deposited with the dead, food, tobacco, trinkets and other articles of which the deceased was fond or which they imagined they would need in the state to which he had gone. This gives us only additional evidence of the vague and materialistic notions entertained in respect to a future state by those upon whose minds the gospel has not cast its light, and one motive among many others, even more important, to encourage efforts and sacrifices to furnish it to them.
After this silent leave-taking the chief walked over to see Mrs. Van Slyke. Leaning his tall form against the door-less doorway of her cabin, he talked kindly to the woman who was ever a friend to his race and then bidding her a final farewell, turned away to join his band and was seen no more.
The Pottawattomies were not pleased with their location on the Kansas river and many of them afterwards returned to Wisconsin, and are found roving over the wild and partially settled portions of the state. In June 1867, I met at Necedah, Juneau County, an Indian who was formerly connected with Big Foot's band and removed with them in 1836 to the west. He seemed to be intelligent. His answers to my enquiries as to the Indian names of several lakes and streams in Walworth county, convinced me that he was truthful, as they corresponded precisely with those given by the Indians to the whites before they left. He told me that Big Foot was alive when he left Kansas in 1865, although a very old man, and that the reason of their dissatisfaction with their new home was a sickly climate and the scarcity of wild game in that locality.
The United States, by recent treaties or legislative enactments, have admitted to citizenship 1,604 of this tribe, and we have information, official and semi-official, to the effect that a majority of them, after selling their lands in Kansas which each family received when made citizens, have gone to the Indian Territory and associated themselves as a tribe.
INCIDENTS OF THE FIRST WEEKS UPON THE SOIL.
On the morning of the seventeenth of November, 1836, I was at the "Outlet" of Geneva Lake. Determining to proceed to Spring Prairie, eight miles north, I took the Indian trail leading through it to "upper Forks", a name by which Rochester, upon Fox River, in Racine County, was then known. I found the place to be unsurpassed for beauty and fertility. It was one mile in width by four in length, with a gently undulating surface, surrounded on all sides by beautiful groves of timber. Upon one side were several hundred acres of heavy timber, consisting of oak, ash, basswood, butternut and maple, in which was a large sugar-bush, which had been the annual resort of the Indians for making sugar. Their wigwams, sap-troughs and boiling kettles had been left -- evidently for future use -- a pleasure which they were never again to enjoy. In the groves, surrounding the prairie, were springs of the purest water, from which flowed streams in all directions -- one of which was sufficiently large to turn the machinery of a flouring mill, afterwards erected, a short distance from its source. I decided at once to remain there. The settlement was composed of six families, the first three of whom had arrived there on the first day of June previous. Others had come only a few days before. Their wives, children and stock, being poorly sheltered, suffered much from the severity of the cold during the ensuing winter. Two fields one of ten and the other of twelve acres, had been broken and fenced that season. Two other fields, one of ten and the other of forty acres, constituted the entire area under cultivation, in what is now Walworth County.
A short time after my settlement, I wrote to friends in Massachusetts. Several of them, well versed in the geography of the country, did not know where, upon the American continent to locate me. Our principal river was known, on the atlases then extant, as the Ouisconsin which bore little resemblance to Wisconsin, as the name of the new Territory was spelled. Some of these friends, however, remembered that the country west of lake Michigan, known as "The North West Territory" had, during the preceding session of Congress, been organized by the name of Wisconsin and they were able to point the others to the locality of my new home. Some of them thought that I had got so far "out of the world" as to render it inexpedient to take a helpmeet, from the refined society of New England, to these far off, wild and barbarous regions. For a short time I almost thought so myself. It seems hardly credible that such was the condition of our State, less than forty years ago.
Upon the west part of Spring Prairie, I secured claims for myself and brothers to 640 acres of well watered prairie and timbered lands.
The nearest family on the East was two and a half miles away. In all other directions they were six, ten, twelve, thirty and fifty miles distant. About ten rods east of my claim, however, was a hall -- it was not a Congress Hall or any other fashionable hotel -- but a hall known usually as a "bachelors hall" but receiving at that time, the more appropriate designation of a "bachelors misery".
It consisted of one room, 18 by 20 feet in size, made of unhewed logs, with no chamber. It was covered with "shakes", a kind of clapboard about four feet long, rived from the bodies of large thrifty oaks and laid two or three thicknesses in depth, upon logs which were prepared for their reception, the ends of which rested upon the logs composing the gable-ends of the building. Each course of these shakes lapped upon the one below and were kept in place by small logs placed upon their ends. Such a roof afforded a good protection from rain as also from snow, after it once well covered. The first storms of winter, however, drifted through quite freely.
The floor was of puncheons, a kind of plank, six feet in length by two in width, and four inches in thickness, split from the bodies of white ash trees, hewed upon the upper side and laid upon sleepers resting upon the earth. The chimney was made of flat sticks two inches in width, rived also from the trees, and laid upon each other cob-house fashion and daubed with mud. Its foundation rested upon two small timbers, six feet apart, running from the logs in the north end, three feet from the ground to a joint across the building, four feet south and seven feet from the floor. This chimney, 4 feet by 6, was made smaller as it passed upwards. A fire back was made by sawing out the logs and inserting in their place a wall of stones and mud. The door was composed of shaved shakes pinned to upright timbers at the sides, hung with wooden hinges, and fastened with a wooden latch, which was raised by means of a buckskin string passed from it through the door to the outside. The string hung out in token of hospitality, and was drawn in the shut out intruders. A few weeks after my arrival, the owner of the hall sent to Chicago, eighty miles distant, for a pine board of which, without planing, he made a new door. He hung it, however, in the same manner as the old one had been, and regarded it as quite "aristocratic". A window of six panes of glass afforded us light.
I have thus particularly described this cabin, because it was as commodious and convenient as many others which were occupied for months and some times for years, by the families of graduates of Eastern Colleges and others who afterwards took prominent positions among us in business and professional life. As a result of their toils and sufferings many of their children, scattered over this western country as tillers of its soil and in its various trades and professions, are permitted to reside in well furnished mansions.
WISCONSIN AS IT WAS IN 1836.
The year 1836 was a time of wild speculation over the nation, especially in the west. Many were engaged in speculating in claims where the land was not in market. For this reason, single men were looked upon with suspicion by the settlers unless they remained upon and improved their land. As I had a large and valuable claim, which might be jumped, if I left it, I remained and worked upon it, obtaining board at the hall before named.
Mine host was a man about sixty years of age -- a life long frontiersman -- who had, from his own confession, fallen into nearly all the vices indulged in by the more depraved class of pioneers. Between us was little moral or religious sympathy, but we wintered together from necessity.
Our six months sojourn under the same roof was not altogether a lost opportunity to me, however. Reared in one of the most moral and religious communities in New England, my previous opportunities had been few, of learning of the deep depravity exhibited in the vicious lives of multitudes who had been less favored with virtuous society and religious influences, than myself.
From his voluntary statements I obtained an insight to the reckless wickedness of a large class of persons, which was, to me, perfectly astounding, and a knowledge of which has been of value to me through all subsequent years.
Our food consisted of bread and milk, pork and potatoes. Tea was offered me, but refused and water substituted. The flour from which our bread was made, had evidently been shipwrecked. Much of it was hard as chalk and was crushed with a roller, before kneading into dough. Our bed was of Prairie hay, laid upon the floor before a log fire, which burned through the entire night. Our covering was a few coarse blankets. For such fare, I paid $3.00 per week.
Before commencing work on my claim, I was obliged to send to Chicago, 80 miles distant, to purchase an axe, the one which I had in Indiana, was left in my trunk, at South Bend, and not obtained until the following Spring.
I improved these weeks of leisure in exploring the surrounding country, taking the surveyor's blazes upon the trees through the openings, or the Indian trails for my guide.
Across the west portion of Spring Prairie, ran a well worn trail, leading from Big Foot's village, at the head of Geneva Lake, to Milwaukee. It was known as the "Army trail" because a detachment of United States troops, on the way from Chicago to Green Bay, had, the summer previous, passed over it. I took this trail one day, to search out a settlement, which I was informed, had been made some six miles north of us. About two miles on my way, I crossed sugar creek - a fine mill stream, lined with a nice body of heavy timber - upon an Indian bridge made of a single pole, thrown across.
At the crossing of Honey Creek, upon the north bank, were two small cabins, occupied by Asa Blood and Austin McCracken and their families. There was a good mill site at that point, with a beautiful plat for a village. East Troy has been since built upon it.
Two miles west of this, at Meacham's Prairie, now Troy, I found the families of A. Spoor, Maj. Jesse Meacham and Othni Beardsley. The latter was the first settler there, arriving a few days previous to the other two, who had made claims the previous autumn. They were all from the Territory of Michigan and reached the spot about the middle of May, 1836. They were each possessed of considerable property and having the advantage of rich prairie lands, upon which to locate, surrounded with timber in abundance, with a fine stream of durable water at hand, they were able to make their families comfortable at once, and the wilderness to blossom as the rose.
Their log houses were neatly constructed, having floors of boards, which had been sawed by hand, with whip-saws. The men who enter a new country with a few hundred dollars in cash, possess great advantages over those who settle in poverty. At. Maj. Meacham's, I found a North and South section line through the openings, which I followed to Spring Prairie and reached home in safety.
INCIDENTS OF THE FIRST WINTER.
As pioneers in a wilderness, we wished to induce families to settle near us, and to secure this object, we sought to obtain a leading highway past our place. As we were on a direct line from Racine to Wisconsin City, a prospective town upon Rock river, near the present city of Janesville, we had hope of obtaining one. Accordingly on the 3rd of December, we took the section line running two miles north of the present village of Elkhorn and explored the country west some fifteen miles, until we came to Turtle creek, upon which was a marsh half a mile wide. This formed an insurmountable barrier to our projected road and we gave up further explorations. Night was now upon us. We had heard of two families which had settled upon Turtle creek and we supposed they must be some four miles south of us, and thither we bent our steps. After wandering in the darkness for an hour, we heard a cow bell, and were guided by it to the cabin of Allen Perkins, who lived a few rods north of the present village of Delavan. He had a cabin twelve feet square, with a wife and five children, but in this limited space, found room to entertain travelers. It was a characteristic of the pioneers that however small their cabin or numerous their family and guests, they always found room for one more - their latch string was always out.
The next morning we called at the log cabin of William Phoenix, which stood near the bank at what is now the west end of the main street of Delavan, which was afterwards occupied as a store. This was one of the four cabins then built in the west half of Walworth county. It had been put up by Col. S. F. Phoenix, in commencing a settlement for a colony soon to come on from Perry, N. Y.. Col. P. was absent in attendance upon the first session of the Territorial Legislature, at Belmont, as a lobby member, where he obtained the laying off of the county, to which he gave the name of Walworth, in honor of Chancellor Walworth, of New York, a noted temperance man of that time. Upon our return home, we passed the site of the present village of Elkhorn, upon which no claim had been made. Indeed there was no house for the whole distance of twelve miles.
As we were passing out on this trip, we saw, at a distance of two or three miles to the north of us, a beautiful prairie, apparently without an inhabitant. This excited our curiosity to know more of it and a few days thereafter we searched it out. It was situated on the north side of Sugar creek, from which it and the town have since been named. It was four miles in length from East to West, having several beautiful lakes and fine groves of timber upon its borders. Near the eastern verge was a lake of some 160 acres, surrounded by high prairie, since known as Crystal lake, near the east bank of which was a cabin, with the door locked and a yoke of oxen near. We afterwards learned that one Davis spent the winter there, six-miles from any other human being. His was the only cabin in the north-west quarter of the county, now consisting of the towns of La Grange, Whitewater, Richmond and Sugar Creek.
Soon after leaving Davis' cabin, night and a severe North-East snowstorm, set in upon us, and we had to make our way to our lone cabin, six miles, guided by the wind, a feat attended with a good deal of peril to those who had no means of starting a fire in case we should become bewildered and lost. The snow which fell that night remained with us until the following April.
THE WILD AND RECKLESS SPECULATION OF THE TIME.
About mid winter two men with two yokes of oxen, sled, blankets, provender and provisions, passed our cabin one morning, who reported that they were on their way, by compass line, through the wilderness, from Chicago to Superior city, upon the Wisconsin river, to erect a boarding house, preparatory to building a large town there. That was a paper town, on the south bank of the river, opposite to where Sauk City now is built, and not a house was ever erected in it. These men were probably started out as an act of deception, for speculative purposes only to raise the price of lots. It was said that Clinton Walworth - a nephew of the New York Chancellor - afterwards for many years a lawyer and police justice, in Milwaukee, arrived in Chicago about that time, with $1,000 in his pocket, given him by his father, to start him in legal practice in the West, all of which he invested in lots in that bogus city, and of course was minus the whole.
Upon all the larger rivers and lakes, where the land was in market, small tracks were entered and numerous paper towns were platted, sometimes, as it was said, without setting a compass or driving a stake. To these towns were usually given some high sounding name, often with a city prefix. Wisconsin City was opposite the present village of Prairie du Sac, the city of the Four Lakes and city of the Fourth Lake, were upon Fourth Lake, north of Madison. In one of the later cities a log house was built, which was afterwards burned, when some wag factitiously reported that "a city had been laid in ashes".
Fine display plats of these "cities", were made, preparatory to offering lots for sale. All forms of deception usual with gamblers, was resorted to, in order to stimulate sales. Sometimes a line of stages was started to the place which would make a few trips and stop, as was the case between Racine and Wisconsin City, a paper town near Janesville. At other times a mail route would be obtained to the proposed town. It was reported to me that at one time when the mail bag arrived at one of these "cities", finding no house or postmaster there, he dismounted, opened the bag, took out the letters destined for the place, and fastening them to a stake, rode on.
The mode of disposing of lots in the "wild-cat towns" at that time, was as follows: The owners had numerous plats made, which were taken to Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, and other large villages, and the lots put up at auction sale. One fourth the purchase money was paid down and a bond for a deed was given, when the remainder was paid. These bonds became the stock in trade of large numbers of persons, for gambling purposes, who were accustomed to meet each evening, during the winter of 1836-37, drawing in all others to be found, and by the means of the stimulus of liquor, the price of lots was stimulated.
I think this rage for speculation -- the most wild and reckless that ever spread over this country -- must have commenced in the fall of 1834 or early in 1835. It was set on foot by a large expansion of the currency from the over-issues of certain banks in the various States, whose vaults were made places of deposit of the government funds, when they were withdrawn from the United States Bank, at Philadelphia. These banks were known as "pit banks" of the administration and certificates of deposit, in them were received in payment for land in all the government land office. The temptation to an enormous issue of their bills, was too great for their integrity, and the result was that many of them failed, to the great loss of the government.
This spirit of speculation was mainly devoted to lands. In New England, a large area of worthless pine lands, in the State of Maine, far from all access to a market by navigable streams, were put upon the market, and many staid farmers, who never before thought of risking a dollar in speculation, invested thousands in the, losing all, and eventually dying in poverty and some of them in pauperism.
Farms and city lots in the Middle States and wild lands and bogus villages in the West formed the staple upon which this spirit of greed fed to its ruin. So eager were men to make haste to get rich in this way, that honest labor was much neglected and provisions rose to an unusual value. Early in the spring of 1837, the bubble burst and the crash involved thousands in bankruptcy. For two or three of the succeeding years, sheriffs and lawyers were the best fed classes of the people."
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