Fifty Years In The Northwest Part 26

BURNETT, WASHBURN, SAWYER AND BARRON COUNTIES.

BURNETT COUNTY.

Burnett county was named in honor of a genial, kind hearted and eccentric lawyer, Thomas Pendleton Burnett, of Prairie du Chien. It is somewhat irregular in outline, and is bounded on the north by Douglas, on the east by Barron, on the south by Polk and Barron counties, and on the west by the St. Croix river. It includes towns.h.i.+ps 37 to 42, range 14; from 38 to 42, range 15; from 38 to 41, ranges 16 and 17; from 37 to 40, ranges 18 and 19; from 37 to 38, range 20. Seven of these towns.h.i.+ps bordering on the St. Croix are fractional. Much of the soil of the county is a sandy loam admirably suited to cereals and vegetables. Some towns.h.i.+ps in the southeast are first cla.s.s wheat lands. The timber is mostly a thicket-like growth of small pines, const.i.tuting what is called pine barrens. The southeast portion of the county is timbered with hardwoods. It is drained by the St. Croix, Trade, Wood, Clam, Yellow, and Namakagon rivers, with their tributaries, and with the Wood lakes (Big and Little), Mud Hen, Trade, Yellow, Spirit, and numerous other lakes. There are besides many thousand acres of marsh land. These marsh lands are by no means valueless, as they have given rise to a very important industry--the growing of cranberries. There are fine deposits of iron. Large tracts of bog ore are found in towns.h.i.+ps 38 to 41, ranges 16 to 19. There is an abundance of wild meadow land, easily drained and profitable to stock growers.

The settlers of this county are, for the greater part, Swedish and Norwegian emigrants, an intelligent, moral and religious cla.s.s of people who, while they cherish the traditions, manners, customs and language of their native country, still readily adapt themselves to American inst.i.tutions, taking kindly to our common school system and to other distinctive features of their adopted country. A liberal spirit has characterized these people in building roads, bridges, school houses, churches, and making other public improvements. They have succeeded well also in their private enterprises, the cultivation of farms and the building of homes.

ORGANIZATION.

The county, originally a part of Polk, was set off March 1, 1856, and included also at that time, and till the year 1877, the present county of Washburn. It was organized in 1865. The first county officers, appointed by the governor, were: Judge, Nimrod H. Hickerson; clerk of court, Canute Anderson; register of deeds, Peter Anderson; treasurer, S. Thompson; sheriff, Martin B. Johnson; district attorney, Jacob Larson. Grantsburg was selected as the county seat. The first county supervisors, consisting of Michael Jenson, chairman, Th.o.r.e Ingebritson and Peter Anderson, met Jan. 24, 1865. The first election was held at the house of Nimrod H. Hickerson, Nov. 7, 1865. The first frame house in the county was built at Grantsburg in 1865, by W. H. Peck. The first crops were raised in towns.h.i.+p 39, range 18, by Charles Ayer. The finances of the county have been managed discreetly. The state drainage fund was judiciously expended. The first deed recorded in Burnett county was a tax deed from Polk county to Simon Estonson, of the southeast quarter of the southwest quarter of section 35, towns.h.i.+p 38, range 19. It bears date Jan. 20, 1866.

THE PINE BARRENS.

So prominent a feature in Burnett and other counties in Northwest Wisconsin, consist of sandy stretches of undulating, though sometimes of level lands, spa.r.s.ely covered with a growth of young pines, generally of the Black Prince variety. In some places, where the trees are crowded thickly together, they are not unlike immense cane-brakes.

The trees, from their proximity, have grown very tall and slender. The lateral branches, crowded together and deprived of suns.h.i.+ne, have perished early and the growth of the young trees is chiefly vertical.

The lower dead limbs remaining attached to the trunks give the young forest a peculiarly ragged and tangled appearance. There is abundant evidence to prove the existence of ancient pine forests where these pine barrens are now the only growth. In fact some of the larger trees are still standing, and the charred trunks and decaying remnants of others. The gradations from the younger to the older growth may be very plainly seen. Fire is undoubtedly the efficient cause of the stunted and irregular growth of the pine barrens. The matured forests are destroyed by fire, and are succeeded by the young pines which are further reduced and injured by annual fires. It is a mistake to suppose that the soil of these barrens is necessarily poor. Many of them have a black, sandy soil, capable of producing fine crops. In most of them there is a dense undergrowth of blueberry bushes, producing annually millions and millions of bushels of their small but luscious fruit.

MURDERS.

Burnett county is not without the traditions of lawlessness and murder that tarnish so many frontier settlements, and here, as elsewhere, the primal cause of most of such crimes is whisky. Whisky maddens the brain and nerves the arm of the a.s.sa.s.sin. Whisky hardens the heart and blinds the eyes to what is right, and the sale of whisky on the frontier, authorized or unauthorized, in nearly all cases the latter, is the bartering of the human life for gold. The money received for it is the price of blood, although in some instances the seller himself may be the victim. It is whisky that does the work.

Jack Drake, a whisky seller at Wood Lake, whose outfit was supplied by Samuels & Partridge, naturally of a quarrelsome disposition, was especially so when under the influence of liquor. On one of these occasions he was killed by a half-breed known as Robideau, and his body was buried on the sh.o.r.es of Little Wood lake. Robideau was imprisoned a short time at St. Croix Falls, but being carelessly guarded, easily made his escape and was not heard of afterward. What did it matter? It was only the result of a drunken row.

The body of a murdered stranger was found by a crew of men working on Little Wood river, in the spring of 1843. He had left Superior City with an Indian guide for St. Paul, and was not afterward seen alive.

His land warrants and watch, which had been taken from him, were afterward recovered, and the Indian who had been his guide was himself mysteriously a.s.sa.s.sinated the following spring.

GEEZHIC.--At Wood Lake, Burnett county, Wisconsin, lived in 1874 an aged and blind Indian woman who calculated her pilgrimage on earth by moons. All traces of her traditional beauty as an Indian maiden had long since departed. Shriveled, decrepit, bent, she was the impersonation of all that is unlovely and repulsive in age. Taciturn and sullen, her mind lethargic and dull, she seemed but little more than half alive, and could not easily be aroused to the comprehension of pa.s.sing events, or to the recognition of those around her. She must have been very old. When aroused to consciousness, which was but seldom, she would talk of things long past. A light would come into her sightless eyes as she recounted the traditions, or described the manners and customs of her people, and spoke with evident pride of their ancient power and prowess when her people planted their tepees on the sh.o.r.es of the "s.h.i.+ning Big Sea Water" (Lake Superior) and drove their enemies, the Dakotahs, before them. Her people wore blankets made from the skins of the moose; elk and buffalo, with caps from the skins of the otter and beaver. There was then an abundance of "kego"

(fish) and "wash-kish" (deer). There were no pale faces then in all the land to drive them from their tepees and take their hunting grounds. Of course there had been occasional whites, hunters, trappers and missionaries, but the formidable movements of the now dominant race had not fairly commenced. Counting the years of her life on her fingers, so many moons representing a year, she must have numbered a score beyond a century, and she had consequently witnessed, before her eyes were dimmed, the complete spoliation of her people's ancestral domain.

The physical features of the country have undergone a change. The towering pines have decayed or been leveled by the woodman's axe. Some of the small lakes have receded, and tall gra.s.ses wave and willows grow where once the "kego" sported in the clear blue waters. "The sun drew the waters up into the heavens," but the old sh.o.r.es may still be traced, by the fresh water sh.e.l.ls that are crushed by the foot of the explorer, and by the ineffaceable mark of the water breaking upon the beach and undermining the rocky ledges.

A few Indians still linger on the old hunting grounds and about the graves of their fathers, but as a race they are doomed, and the time is not far distant when their only memorials will be the printed or striped rocks that are found along the streams and lakes, and here and there the sunken graves of the vanquished race.

THE FIRST MISSION.

In the autumn of the year 1833 the first mission was established in the St. Croix valley, at the outlet of Yellow lake, in Burnett county.

This may be considered the first actual movement in opening the way for white settlements in the St. Croix valley. The good and indefatigable laborers, who came away into these western wilds, spent many years in this valley endeavoring to improve the benighted aborigines. Their labors were successful, until the bane of the human family--alcoholic drinks--was introduced by the corrupt border traders. Rev. Fred Ayer (since a resident of Belle Prairie, Minnesota, and a member of the convention that framed our const.i.tution), Mrs.

Ayer, with Miss Crooks (afterward Mrs. Boutwell) as teacher, arrived at Yellow Lake Sept. 16, 1833. Miss Crooks opened her school on the twenty-fourth, with eight scholars. This was evidently the first school in the St. Croix valley. This mission was under the patronage of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Thirty or forty Indians came to the trading house, a mile from the mission, for the purpose of obtaining ammunition and moccasins for making what is called the fall hunt. During their visit at the traders', Mr. Ayer had the opportunity of explaining the object of his mission--schooling their children, and aiding them in agriculture, planting their gardens, and furnis.h.i.+ng them with seeds. To the objects of the mission all listened with interest, but, as the chiefs were not present, no reply was made to Mr. Ayer. After obtaining their supplies from the traders, they dispersed for their fall hunt. The school in the meantime progressed, and frequent opportunities occurred for giving religious instructions to adults during the winter. In April some twenty-five families encamped near the mission; many were interested in the objects which the mission proposed. In the spring of 1834 four families made gardens by the mission and schooled their children; three of the families belonged to the influential in the band. One of these, the chief who visited Was.h.i.+ngton during the administration of Adams, was Gis-kil-a-way, or "Cat Ear."

The Indian mind is suspicious of the white man. Waiingas, "The Wolf,"

another chief of considerable note, was prejudicing the minds of his friends against the whites. He openly declared that if the Indians would join him, he would burn the mission house and drive the teachers from his country. On one occasion a party of Indians, including this hostile chief, pa.s.sed the evening at Mr. Ayer's. The chief closed his speech at midnight with these words: "The Indians are troubled in mind about your staying here, and you must go--you shall go; not only I say so, but all here present say so!" The next morning all the Indians a.s.sembled. The trader, the late Dr. Borup, and his wife were present.

The Wolf and his party were determined to expel all the whites. The friend of the white man, Cat Ear, took the floor and shaking hands with Dr. Borup and Mr. Ayer, began a speech of half an hour's length.

Pointing to The Wolf and to two other chiefs sitting side by side, he says: "I speak for them. Look at them. To them belong this land. Since last evening we have considered this subject. We have changed our minds. The Great Spirit made us all--made us red--you white. He gave you your religion, manners and customs--he gave us ours. Before we saw white man we dressed in skins and cooked with stones. You found our land on the map and come--since then you have clothed and provided for us. Why should we send you away? We only should be the sufferers--all of us tell you to stay--again we say, stay. We do not wish you to go; no, no--we say to you all, stay; you may plant and build, but the land is ours. Our Great Father has sent you here--we are glad--we will tell you why we fear the whites--we fear you will get our land away. If this room were full of goods we would not exchange our lands for them.

This land is ours and our children's; it is all we have."

The mission at Yellow Lake had been in progress two years. Several families had listened with glowing interest to religious instruction, schooled their children, and cultivated gardens near the mission, when Mr. Ayer visited the band of Indians at Pokegama. Here were some thirty-five or forty families in the year 1835. The chief and two or three families expressed to him a desire to settle down and school their children. They requested him to come and bring all with him who wished to come from Yellow Lake. The reasons that induced him to Pokegama were, first, the means of subsistence were more abundant, both for the Indians and the mission family--wild rice and fish in particular; this being the case the Indians could be more stationary and send their children to school. Second, the soil for agricultural purposes was superior to that of Yellow Lake. As one of the leading objects of the mission was to induce the Indians to settle down and adopt habits of civilization, this object could be better attained at this place than at Yellow Lake, where it was comparatively sterile and sandy. A third object gained would be to locate in the midst of a larger number of Indians, with whom we could come in more frequent contact, and last, but not least, put the mission in a nearer point of communication with St. Peter, from whence all the family necessaries were obtained at that day. These reasons, together with the solicitation of one of the chiefs, and his permission to build on his land, and use his wood, water and fish, led Mr. Ayer, in the fall of 1835, to remove to Pokegama.

For the continued history of this mission the reader is referred to the history of Pine county.

CHIPPEWAS OF WOOD LAKE.--A small band of Chippewas, as late as 1870, lingered about Big Wood lake, unwilling to leave their old hunting grounds. Though brought directly in contact with civilization, they adopted its vices, otherwise remaining savages, taking no part in cultivating the soil or educating their children, contented to live and die in the old fas.h.i.+on of their race. They subsist, as far as possible, by hunting and fis.h.i.+ng, and are by no means above begging when occasion may offer. They retain their annual dances and festivals, at the occurrence of which other bands join them from a distance. A dance with its accompanying feasts occupies generally about ten days, and is conducted according to rigid formulas. These dances are intended as representations of hunting, fis.h.i.+ng or fighting, and are honored accordingly. They are accompanied with music upon rude instruments, and a weird chant in guttural and nasal tones, which may be understood as a poetic recital of their deeds or expression of their feelings. Their dead are buried in conspicuous places. The graves are decorated with splints of timber. A pole with rags and trinkets is planted near the graves. There is nothing that can long mark their resting places or keep them from being desecrated by the share of the plowman.

GRANTSBURG

Was founded by Canute Anderson, in 1865, in section 14, town 38, range 19. He built a flour and saw mill, the first in the county, a good hotel, and opened a store. It became the centre of trade for the county, prospered continuously, and now (in 1886) contains a good court house, built at a cost of $7,000 (burned December, 1887), a school house, four churches, two hotels, five stores and numerous shops and dwellings. There are two resident lawyers and one physician.

Grantsburg is the terminus of the St. Paul & Duluth (branch) railroad, completed in 1884. The scheme of building a branch road to connect with the St. Paul & Duluth railroad at Rush City was long cherished by Canute Anderson, and through his efforts the road was finally built.

The county voted $20,000 bonds, at seven per cent interest, which bonds the state of Wisconsin cashed. The road was graded from Grantsburg to the St. Croix river in 1878, from Rush City to St. Croix in 1882. The St. Paul & Duluth Railroad Company built the railroad and a.s.sumed the bonded indebtedness, payable in fifteen annual installments. Cars ran to the St. Croix river in 1883. The bridge over the St. Croix, completed in 1883, cost $20,000. The road was opened to Grantsburg Jan. 22, 1884. At this opening over a thousand persons were present, five hundred of whom came in on the train. Canute Anderson made an address of welcome, followed by James Smith, president of the road. Congratulatory letters were read from Hons. S. S. Fifield, Henry M. Rice, and W. H. C. Folsom, the tenor of which was highly complimentary to Mr. Anderson, and full of hope for the future of the railroad and its terminus.

CANUTE ANDERSON was born in Norway, 1830. He came to America in 1851, and three years later settled in the northeast quarter of section 2, towns.h.i.+p 37, range 19, making a large stock farm, part of it being a fine natural meadow, with running stream. In 1858 the first post office in the county (called Anderson) was established at his house, and he was appointed postmaster. In 1878 he represented Ashland, Barron, Bayfield, Burnett, Douglas, and Polk counties in the legislature. He is and ever has been a master spirit in his county, using all his influence to further the interests of his adopted home.

Many of the early settlers were poor,--strangers in a strange land,--and for them Mr. Anderson's house was ever a resort. It was also an intelligence office, where the inquiring immigrant could obtain reliable information as to the country and its resources, and facilities to the settler. In 1860 Mr. Anderson was married to Catharine Nelson, daughter of Magnus Nelson, one of Burnett county's first settlers.

THE HICKERSON FAMILY came from Ohio to Wisconsin. Nimrod H., the oldest brother, settled on Wood river in 1859, built a saw mill, kept a hotel and established a post office on the St. Paul and Bayfield stage route in 1860. Mr. Hickerson went to California in 1875, and died there. Joel, the second brother, is a merchant at Grantsburg. He served during the later years of the Civil War as a soldier, Company C, Seventh Minnesota Volunteers, and was pensioned for disabilities.

He was married in 1868 to Mary Anderson. Perry D., the third brother, keeps a hotel in Grantsburg. He was also a member of Company C, Seventh Minnesota Volunteers, and with his brother was mustered out at the close of the war, and has received a pension for disabilities. He was married to Ellen M. Anderson, daughter of Peter Anderson. They have eleven children. Newton, the fourth son, lives in Grantsburg. He was a soldier in Company D, Twenty-first Ohio, during the war. Was wounded and totally disabled. He has no pension. He is unmarried.

THE ANDERSON FAMILY.--The four brothers, Peter, George, Hans and Martin, with their aged parents, came from Norway and settled in Grantsburg in 1883. The father but recently died. The mother is still living, having reached the extreme age of ninety-seven years. During the last six years she has been blind. Peter Anderson was married in Norway in 1846. His wife died in 1877, leaving three sons and four daughters. He was married to his second wife in 1878. Peter has served as county supervisor, and filled other offices. The brothers have been active in promoting the interests of their town and county.

ROBERT A. DOTY was born in Niagara county, New York; lived some years in Genesee county, Michigan, and settled in Sterling, Polk county, in 1865. He subsequently became the first settler in the town of Marshfield, Burnett county. He was accidentally killed in 1879 by being thrown from his wagon. His widow and two sons live in Grantsburg. John H., the oldest son, resides on the old homestead in Sterling.

THE CRANBERRY MARSHES.

The cultivation of the cranberry is an important industry in Burnett county. The berry is raised chiefly in towns.h.i.+ps 38 and 39, ranges 17 and 18. The writer of these sketches visited the localities named in 1873, and although there have been many changes and improvements since then, the description quoted from an essay read before the Horticultural Society will still be generally applicable:

"The scene on approaching these marshes, where the native cranberry was found, before the white man had commenced to improve them, was picturesque in the extreme to those who have a taste for Nature's handiwork. There are extensive tracts of land covering thousands of acres, dotted here and there with islands of young pine and points of highland projecting in various shapes into the marshes. It reminded me of an ocean bay, in a calm, only changing the ocean water color to endless green. There are in these marshes somewhere from one to two towns.h.i.+ps of land, on which cranberries were then growing, or susceptible of being improved so that cranberries can be raised thereon. One towns.h.i.+p contains 23,040 acres. The parties operating on the marshes I visited already have some 30 or 40 miles of ditch made, averaging 5 feet at the top, 3 feet at the bottom, with an average depth of 4 feet, at a cost of about 75 cents per rod. These ditches are to drain the water from the marshes when desired. They have dams across these ditches, to flood the marshes when desired. The flooding of the marshes aids in subduing the wild gra.s.ses and other inc.u.mbrances, also is essential to the growth of the berries. On these marshes, wherever the flowage is killing the gra.s.s, the vine is rapidly spreading, without transplanting. Undoubtedly they would yield a quicker return by transplanting. Large tracts of these lands, which, at this time have no vines, are bought by companies, mostly from the cranberry lands in Eastern Wisconsin, who are experienced in this business, and know what they are doing. They openly declare that vines can be grown on these marshes, where sufficient water can be obtained and controlled to flow the lands. Mr. Irvine informed me that this flooding process, and the manner in which it was controlled, was the key to success. I examined the effect which one year alone had accomplished, as these companies commenced operations in 1872. It surprised me when I saw the mode, and heard it explained, that so little was generally known of this business. After the marshes are subdued, dams and ditches built, there is comparatively small cost in raising the fruit until the harvest, when men, women and children flock in from the farming countries to pick, to pack, to store, to dry, to box, and convey to market. An expert will pick from five to ten bushels per day by hand, no rakes being allowed. In 1873 these marshes had an abundant yield. These companies paid to outsiders one dollar and fifty cents per bushel. There are several companies operating in Burnett county. They have made and are making substantial improvements, in building roads, dry houses, dwelling houses, etc. The past year a saw mill was erected for sawing staves for barrels, lumber for boxes, etc. These marshes are about twenty miles east of the Superior railroad."

WASHBURN COUNTY.

Washburn county was organized in 1883, and embraces towns.h.i.+ps 37 to 42, inclusive, and ranges 10 to 13, inclusive, a total of 24 towns.h.i.+ps. It is drained by St. Croix waters with the exception of the southeast corner, which is drained by a branch of the Chippewa river.

It has been a rich timbered region and large forests of pine still remain. The greater part of the county is adapted to agriculture, and is settling rapidly. Two lines of railway traverse the county, one from south to north, and the other from southwest to northeast, giving the county excellent facilities for transportation and marketing of products. The county is divided into two towns, Bashaw in the south and Veasie in the north. These towns were organized in 1877, while Washburn was a part of Burnett county. The first supervisors of Bashaw were: L. E. Thomas, chairman; John Arbuckle and John McMullen. The town of Bashaw was the first settled. John McMullen settled in towns.h.i.+p 38, range 13, in 1872, in Bashaw valley. He married a member of the Hart family, old settlers of the town. He died in 1878. L. E.

Thomas was the second settler in Bashaw and in Washburn county, and has been officially connected with the town and county organization.

He is a native of Michigan, and has followed lumbering and farming. L.

E. Thomas built the first house. Nellie Raberge taught the first school in Bashaw, in 1881. Miss Raberge has since become the wife of Milton Stratton. The first post office was established in 1880, Mrs.

Malcolm Dobie, postmistress. The first sermon was preached by Rev.

Ellingwood. G. P. Pearly was the first physician; A. L. Bugbee, the first lawyer. Messrs. Hart, Baker, Gardner and others have large farms in Bashaw valley. By the act organizing the county,

Sh.e.l.l LAKE

was made the county seat. It is beautifully located on the sh.o.r.es of Summit lake. It has a court house, built at a cost of $11,000, in 1885, one of the most tasteful buildings of the kind in the St. Croix valley. The town is built on railroad lands, purchased by the Sh.e.l.l Lake Lumber Company, and by them surveyed into lots. The streets are from sixty-six to eighty feet wide. A restriction in the deeds to the lots and lands against the sale of alcoholic drinks has been continuously violated. In 1883 the town board fixed license at five hundred dollars, a plain violation of the original agreement.

A fine school building with four apartments was built in 1885, at a cost of $5,000. Prof. Halphyde is princ.i.p.al of the schools. The Episcopalians and Catholics have church buildings. The Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans and Presbyterians have church organizations. The Masons, Good Templars and Knights of Labor have organizations.

Summit lake, on the west bank of which the town is situated, is about two and a half miles broad by three and a half long. It has bold, gravelly sh.o.r.es. The water is deep, clear and pure. The slopes surrounding it are covered with evergreen, and hardwood timber. One small steamer floats upon its waters.