Fifty Years In The Northwest

The village of Glenmont, section 25, township 28, range 20, lies on the shore of Lake St. Croix. It contains a large saw mill, built by the Lord brothers. It has since changed hands.

The village of East Troy, in section 36, has recently been annexed by legislative enactment to the city of River Falls.

James Chinnock, the first settler in Troy, was born in Somersetshire, England, in 1810. He officiated twelve years at Bristol Harbor, England, as superintendent of docks and vessels. He was married in England to Harriet Owens; came to America in 1841, lived in Ohio until 1850, when he came to Hudson and immediately located a claim within the present limits of Troy. He raised the first crop in the town, and built the first house, of stone, for greater protection from the Indians. Mr. Chinnock made his home upon this farm until his death in 1870. He left a widow and four sons, three of them farmers in Troy. One son, James T., has been register of deeds for St. Croix county from 1885 to 1888.

William Lewis Perrin was born in 1825, and with his brother came to Troy in 1851, where he has since lived. He has been a successful farmer and public spirited citizen, and has filled offices in the town organization. He was married in 1855 to Julia F. Loring. They have three sons and one daughter.

WARREN,

Township 29, range 18, is a rich prairie town, drained by the tributaries of Kinnikinic and Willow river. George Longworth and family, of Waukegan, Illinois, settled here in October, 1855. In the year following, Lyman and David Sanford, brothers, came from Ohio, and made their home here. Mr. Longworth, in 1856, broke the first ground on land now within the limits of Hudson. Henry M. Sanford came in the spring of 1857.

Warren was organized as a town in 1860, with the following supervisors: Beach Sanford, George Frissell and Seth Colbeth; L. J. Sanford, clerk. A post office was established in 1860, and Mrs. Beach Sanford was appointed postmistress, at Warren village, now Roberts. The village of Roberts is located on the West Wisconsin railroad, which traverses sections 19 to 24, inclusive, of this town. It contains one elevator, one storage house, one feed mill, one cheese factory, one machine shop, one syrup mill, several stores and shops, one hotel, one school house, one public hall, and one church building belonging to the Congregationalists.

No intoxicants are sold in the village. The first school was taught in 1859, by Jane Sanford.

James Hill was born in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, Feb. 15, 1825, and settled in Warren, St. Croix county, in 1863, where he engaged in farming and dealing in grain. He represented St. Croix county in the Wisconsin assembly of 1878-79-80.

TOWN PLATS LOCATED IN ST. CROIX COUNTY

CHAPTER VII.

PIERCE COUNTY

This county, named in honor of President Pierce, was separated from St. Croix county in 1853, and organized by the same act that created Polk county, and gave to St. Croix its present limits. It contains about six hundred square miles of territory, lying east of the Mississippi river and Lake St. Croix. It is somewhat triangular in shape, the river and lake forming the hypotenuse, and St. Croix, Dunn and Pepin bounding it by right lines on the north and east, Pepin also forming a small part of its southern boundary.

The scenery is picturesque and varied. Along the river and lake is a series of limestone bluffs, broken at intervals by ravines and valleys, and leaving the impression upon the mind of the traveler on the Mississippi of a rough, broken and inhospitable country, than which nothing could be further from the truth. Beyond these rugged escarpments of limestone and out of sight of the traveler, the country stretches away toward the interior as an undulating prairie, with meadows and rich pasturelands, with occasional forests, the whole watered and drained by an intricate network of streams tributary to the lake and river, and the three larger streams, the Kinnikinic, which empties into the St. Croix and Big rivers, Trimbelle and Rush, that empty into the Mississippi. Some branches of the Chippewa also take their rise in this county. These streams uniformly have their source in springs and their waters are consequently pure, cold and invigorating, flowing over beds of white sand or pebbles, and in their downward course forming many ripples, rapids, cascades and some beautiful waterfalls. Their total descent to the bed of the Mississippi is about four hundred feet. Pierce county has no inland lakes within its limits, nor any indications of their previous existence. The soil is formed chiefly from decomposed rocks or ledges worn down by the abrading forces of water and wind, of frost and heat. The rivers in their downward course have excavated broad valleys, having originally precipitous bluffs on either side, and even bluffs once islands in the midst of the streams. These, by later agencies, have been smoothed to gentle slopes and rounded into graceful mounds, towering sometimes as much as eighty feet above the valley or plains. In some places mere outlines of sandstone or limestone rock are left, turret-like, on the summit of a mound, as monuments on which the geologist may read the record of ages gone. As the character of the soil of a country depends upon the composition of the rocks underlying it, and those removed from the surface, reduced to soil and widely distributed, we give what may be considered as the section of any one of the mounds near Prescott in the order of the superposition of strata:

Over a great part of the county the Trenton and limestone are worn almost entirely away, and their former existence is attested only by a few mounds, bluffs and outlines. Drift is not often met with. The soil may be considered as formed out of drift, now removed from its original position, and out of the sandstone and limestone. It is, therefore, soil of the richest quality.

By the same act that created the county of Pierce, passed March 14, 1853, Prescott was declared the county seat. The town board of Prescott was constituted the county board. The commissioners were Osborn Strahl, chairman; Silas Wright and Sylvester Moore. At the first county election, Nov. 15, 1853, one hundred and ten votes were cast. The following were the officers elected: County judge, W. J. Copp; sheriff, N. S. Dunbar; treasurer, J. R. Freeman; clerk of court, S. R. Gunn; clerk of board, Henry Teachout; coroner, J. Olive; district attorney, P. V. Wise; surveyor, J. True; register of deeds, J. M. Whipple. Mr. Whipple was authorized to transcribe the records of St. Croix county up to date of the organization of Pierce.

The first assessment in the county, in 1853, amounted to $24,452. At the meeting of the supervisors, Jan. 18, 1854, the district attorney was allowed forty dollars per annum as salary. Courts were held wherever suitable buildings could be obtained. During this year Judge Wyram Knowlton, of Prairie du Chien, held the first district court at Prescott. The first records of the court were kept on sheets of foolscap paper, and fastened together with wafers. The first case before the court was that of "The State of Wisconsin, Pierce County, Wm. Woodruff vs. Chas. D. Stevens, August Lochmen, and Chas. Peschke, in Court of said County. In Equity." On reading and filing the bill in complaint, in this case, on motion of S. J. R. McMillan and H. M. Lewis, solicitors for counsel, J. S. Foster, it was ordered that a writ of injunction be issued in the case, pursuant to the prayer of said bill, upon said complainant. Some one, in his behalf, filed with the clerk of said court, a bond for damages and costs in the sum of $1,700, with surety to be approved by the clerk or judge of said court. The first document recorded in the county is an agreement between Philander Prescott and Philip Aldrich, wherein Aldrich agrees to occupy lands adjoining Prescott's, at the mouth of St. Croix lake on the west, and David Hone on the east. The second document is a deed, conveying a tract of three hundred and twenty acres of land from Francis Chevalier to Joseph R. Brown, the land lying near the mouth of Lake St. Croix, and marked by stakes planted in the ground, and adjoining Francis Gamelle's claim, dated July 20, 1840.

In 1857 County Treasurer Ayers became a defaulter to the county in the sum of $2,287.76, and to the Prescott Bank, $4,000. In 1861, by act of the legislature, the question of changing the county seat from Prescott to Ellsworth was submitted to the people. The vote as declared was six hundred for removal and three hundred and seventy-three against it. Technical objections having been raised as to the legality of the vote, the subject was submitted to the people a second time in 1862. The vote for removal was confirmed. In 1863 the district system was adopted and three districts were established by legislative enactment, but in 1870 the county returned to the original system by which the board of supervisors was made to consist of a chairman from each one of the town boards. A poor farm was established near Ellsworth in 1869, at a cost of $3,600. The county board also appropriated $31,000 for county buildings at Ellsworth.

The finances of the county have been admirably managed. In 1885 there was no indebtedness, and a surplus in the treasury of $5,000. The educational interests are well cared for. There are over one hundred school districts in the county, with well conducted schools, and generally with good substantial buildings. The school lands of St. Croix, then including Pierce county, were appraised in 1852 by Dr. Otis Hoyt, – Denniston and James Bailey, and the lands at once offered for sale. Settlers' rights were respected. The county issued $5,000 in bonds to aid in establishing the normal school at River Falls.

RAILROADS

River Falls has direct communication with Hudson by a branch of the Chicago & St. Paul railroad. In 1885 the Burlington & Northern railroad route was surveyed and established, entering the county on the shore of Lake Pepin, and running nearly parallel with lake and river to Prescott, where it crosses Lake St. Croix near its mouth, on a bridge, the total length of which is 520.5 feet, with one draw span 367.5 feet in length, and one piled span of 153 feet. This bridge was completed, and the first train entered Prescott, May 31, 1886. The grade of this road does not exceed fifteen feet to the mile.

MISCELLANEOUS STATISTICS

The Grand Army of the Republic have posts at the following places:

The following are the village plats of Pierce county, with date of survey and location:

ORGANIZATION OF TOWNS

The following is the chronological order in which the towns of Pierce county were organized:

1In 1849 the town of Elisabeth was organized by St. Croix county, and included what is now Pierce county. The first board of supervisors were William Thing, chairman; Aaron Cornelius, and L. M. Harnsberger; clerk, Hilton Doe; treasurer, Geo. W. McMurphy. In 1851, by legislative enactment, the name Elisabeth was changed to Prescott.

CLIFTON,

Situated in the northwestern part of the county, contains a little over thirty full sections of land, those on the St. Croix having a somewhat irregular boundary. The surface is somewhat broken where traversed by the Kinnikinic and its tributaries. It includes twenty-four sections on the west side of township 27, range 19, and fractional township 27, range 20. It was established in 1855. Its first board of officers were: Supervisors – Geo. W. McMurphy, chairman; Osborne Strahl and G. W. Teachout. C. B. Cox was the first postmaster, in 1852, at a place called Clifton Mills, from which the town afterward derived its name. This post town is situated on the Kinnikinic, in section 18, township 27, range 18 west. It has one grist mill and two saw mills, belonging to Cox, King & Goodsall. No intoxicants are sold here. The Glenwood saw mills, having a capacity of 3,000,000 feet, are located on the lake shore. In 1868 a limestone quarry was opened on the lake shore, by Oakley & Nichols. In 1881 the firm became Oakley & Hall. They have a patent kiln and good machinery, and some seasons have manufactured as much as 5,000 barrels of lime.

George W. McMurphy was born at Newcastle, Delaware, in 1821. In 1845 he came to St. Croix Falls, and in 1848 to Clifton, where he pre-empted the beautiful homestead which he still holds, and where he has successfully followed the business of farming. He has been repeatedly elected to town and county offices. In 1848 he was married to Maria A. Rice. Their children are Augustus (resident of St. Paul), George (a physician living in Ortonville, Minnesota), James A., Robert, Albert and Edward, and two married daughters. Mr. McMurphy is a member of the Congregational church.

Osborne Strahl was born in Belmont county, Ohio, in 1818; came to Galena, Illinois, in 1838, in 1845 to Mauston and Stevens Point, Wisconsin, and to Chippewa Falls in 1847. During these years he followed lumbering. In 1850 he came to the town of Elisabeth, St. Croix county, which on subsequent division of towns and counties left Mr. Strahl in Clifton, where he has been engaged in farming. He was married in 1860 to Rebecca McDonald. They have two sons, Wm. Day, living in Dakota, Howard P., in River Falls; three daughters, Mabel, wife of Joseph M. Smith, banker at River Falls, and two daughters unmarried. Mr. Strahl filled various town and county offices.

Charles B. Cox was born June 25, 1810, in Chenango county, New York. He learned the trade of a miller, lived in Ohio seventeen years and came to Clifton in 1849. He built at Clifton the first saw and grist mill in the Kinnikinic valley, in 1850. He changed his residence to River Falls in 1854, where he lived till 1874, when he removed to California. During the year 1851 he ground three hundred bushels of wheat, the sole product of the valley.

Ephraim Harnsberger was born in Kentucky, Nov. 21, 1824, moved with his parents to Illinois in 1832, and to Prescott in 1847, where he pre-empted a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres. He was married at Alton, Illinois, in 1858, to Lizzie Johnson. Their children are Charles, Sarah Etta, and Jennie.

DIAMOND BLUFF

Is a triangular shaped town, the hypotenuse being formed by the Mississippi river. It contains ten sections and three fractional sections in town 25, range 18, and five sections and five fractional sections in town 25, range 19. It is traversed in the eastern part by Trimbelle river. The town was established in 1857, and the first town meeting was held that year at the home of David Comstock. The town board consisted of: Supervisors – James Akers, chairman; Wilson Thing and C. F. Hoyt; justice, S. Hunter. Susan Rogers taught the first school. This town has the honor of claiming the first white settler, aside from traders, in the Upper Mississippi valley. He came to the site of the present village of Diamond Bluff in 1800, and named it Monte Diamond. We give elsewhere a somewhat extended account of this ancient pioneer, with some speculations concerning him and his descendants that are plausible enough to warrant their insertion. In historic times a post office was established here in 1854, called at the time, Hoytstown, from C.F. Hoyt, the first postmaster.

On the organization of the town the name was changed to Diamond Bluff. Quite a village has since grown up around it. The first frame house was built in 1855, by Enoch Quinby. The first sermon was preached by Rev. J. W. Hancock, a Presbyterian minister, for some years a missionary among the Indians. The first birth was that of Mary Day, in 1851, and the first death that of Daniel Crappers, in 1854.

Capt. John Paine. – Jack Paine, as he is familiarly called, was born in England, and for the greater part of his life has been a seafaring man. For the past thirty years he has been a steamboat man on the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri rivers. He has been married three times: first in Rhode Island, second to Mrs. La Blond, of St. Louis, and last to Miss Ressue, of Diamond Bluff. He came to Diamond Bluff in 1848, with four children of his first wife, his second wife having died childless. He is now living with his third wife in La Crosse. They have three children.

John Day was born in Martinsburg, Virginia. In 1850 he and his wife and three children, with Allen B. Wilson and his wife, came to Diamond Bluff. Mr. Day is well known as a fearless and enthusiastic hunter. In 1852 he had a close encounter with a large black bear, which, after a desperate struggle, he killed with an axe. The Indians considered Mr. Day as "waukon," supernatural, averring that their bravest warriors would not have attacked singly so large an animal.

Sarah A. Vance, the wife of Mr. Day, was born in Kentucky. The Vance family were famous pioneers, and some of them were noted Methodist preachers. Miss Vance's first marriage was to John R. Shores, by whom she had two children, one of whom, Isabella, became the wife of A. R. Wilson.

Allen R. Wilson. – Mr. Wilson was born in Kentucky; spent his early boyhood in Shawneetown, Illinois; was married to Miss Shores at Potosi, Wisconsin, April 16, 1848, and in 1850 came to Diamond Bluff. Mr. Wilson took great interest in politics, was an ardent Republican, and was among the first to volunteer his services for the suppression of the Rebellion in 1861. He enlisted in Company B, Sixth Regiment, Wisconsin Volunteers, and fell in battle, Sept. 14, 1862, at South Mountain. Mr. Wilson was well informed, a close observer of political events at home and abroad, and was a brave and efficient soldier. He left five children.

E. S. Coulter. – Mr. Coulter is a Virginian by birth. In early manhood he traveled extensively as a book agent, and finally settled at Diamond Bluff, where he successfully engaged in farming and dealing in wheat and merchandise.

James Bamber, ex-musician in the British and United States armies.

Jacob Mead, ex-shoemaker, ex-soldier and miner, a man of superior natural and acquired talent.

Charles Walbridge came to Diamond Bluff in 1852.

Jacob Mead died in 1884, leaving a large property.

Charles F. Hoyt, with his wife and one child, came to Diamond Bluff from Illinois, in 1853.

Enoch Quinby was born at Sandwich, New Hampshire; was married to Matilda Leighton, originally from Athens, Maine. Mr. Quinby and his wife came from Pittsfield, Illinois, to Diamond Bluff in 1854.

THE FIRST SETTLER

There is a pretty well grounded tradition that the first white man who found his way to Diamond Bluff was a French Vendean loyalist of the army of Jacques Cathelineau; that he fled from France in 1793 or 1794, landed at Quebec, and was traced by his enemies to Mackinaw and Chicago, where they lost his trail. He came to Diamond Bluff in 1800, and named it "Monte Diamond." He had for his housekeeper the daughter of an Indian chief. He died here about 1824. After his death the Indians always called the place the "Old White Man's Prairie." E. Quinby, of Diamond Bluff, to whom we are indebted for this account, adds: "All the additional evidence I can give in regard to this pioneer is that prior to 1793 his wife died, leaving him one daughter, who was deformed. A former friend of his had a beautiful daughter of about the same age of his own. After the uprising and defeat of the Vendeans, they became enemies, and he, to save his life, took his former friend's daughter, instead of his own, and fled to this country. The father pursued them as far as Chicago, where he saw his daughter in company with some Indian girls, and having on her person some ornaments once worn by her mother. He at once seized her and carried her back with him to France, and the old Frenchman found his way to Diamond Bluff." Faribault's son,2 now living somewhere in Minnesota, wrote me a few years since, inquiring about the old Frenchman, saying that his grandmother claimed that her husband was a French nobleman, and that he lived near Lake Pepin. He believed the old Frenchman was his grandfather. The above statements were communicated to the late Capt. Orin Smith, of Galena, Illinois, Allen B. Wilson and myself, in 1854, or in 1855, by an old Frenchman then residing at Potosi, Wisconsin, who claimed to have seen and gathered these facts from the old man himself. Capt. Smith was well acquainted with the Frenchman at Potosi, and gave the fullest credence to his account.

EL PASO

Occupies township 26, range 16. It is drained chiefly by Rush river and its tributary, Lost creek, on the west. The two post villages in this town are, El Paso, located in section 5, and Lost Creek, in section 3. George P. Walker was the first settler. He built the first house and raised the first crop; Thomas T. Magee came in 1855. In 1860 the town was organized, Thomas Hurley and Geo. P. Walker being supervisors. In 1862 Mr. Magee built a saw and flour mill in section 5, and platted the village of El Paso. In 1875 he removed to Clear Lake, Polk county, of which town he was the first settler. Clara Green taught the first school in El Paso, in 1861. There is one Catholic and one Lutheran church in the village. The name El Paso signifying a crossing, is of somewhat obscure derivation.

ELLSWORTH

Was organized under the name of Perry, March 3, 1857, but in 1862 it received its present name. It occupies a central position in the county and includes township 26, range 17. This is a rich farming town, originally timbered with hardwood. The surface is elevated and gently undulating. It is drained on the east by the tributaries of Rush river, but has no large or important streams. The first supervisors were: P. M. Simons, chairman; Caleb Bruce and Wilson Kinnie. The first settler was Anthony Huddleston, who came April 23, 1856, and pre-empted the southeast quarter of section 20. On November 26th, of the same year, came Caleb, Elihu W. and Eli T. Bruce, who pre-empted farms on sections 18 and 19. During the same year Wilson and Norris Kinnie and David Klingensmith pre-empted farms in sections 18 and 19. Lilly, Miscen, Russ, and Campbell came also in 1855. The first log house in the town was built by Anthony Huddleston in 1855. Norris Kinnie built the first in what was afterward the village of Ellsworth. The first school house, a log building, built was in 1857, and Mary Filkins, now Mrs. G. H. Sargeant, of Minnesota, taught the first school. The first marriage was that of Charles Stannard and Mary Leonard, in 1855. The first birth, that of the twin children of Wilson. Both died. The first death of an adult was that of Mrs. Jacob Youngman in the winter of 1855. The post office was opened in 1860, with Seely Strickland as postmaster.

ELLSWORTH VILLAGE

The original owners of the southern half of section 18, and the northern half of 19, Norris Kinnie, Eli T. Bruce, Henry P. Ames, and Wm. Crippin laid out and platted the village of Ellsworth in 1862. Wm. Crippin, built a frame hotel there in 1860. C. S. Dunbar opened a store in 1861. The prospect of Ellsworth becoming the county seat gave a great impetus to business enterprises. This was decided by a popular vote in 1861, but owing to some technical defects was resubmitted to the people of the county in 1862, and then definitely decided. In the year 1862 the citizens of Ellsworth built a log house in which the first terms of court were held; meanwhile the county officers had their offices in the basement of Crippin's hotel. The permanent county buildings were not erected until 1869. They are built of stone and cost $60,000. In 1863 a frame schoolhouse took the place of the old log structure, and in 1874 a commodious brick building was erected, at a cost of $5,000.