HISTORY OF THE CHIPPEWA VALLEY - CHAPTER 4


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Transcribed and contributed to the USGenWeb Archives by Timm
Severud Ondamitag@aol.com

Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm

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Faithful Record of all Important Events, Incidents, and
Circumstances that have Transpired in the Valley of the
Chippewa from its Earliest Settlement by White People,
Indian Treaties, Organization of the Territory and State;
Also of the Counties Embracing the Valley, Senatorial,
Assembly and Congressional Districts, and a Brief
Biographical Sketch of the Most Prominent Persons in the
Settlement of the Valley. BY Thomas E. Randall 1875.  Free
Press Print.  Eau Claire, Wisconsin

CHAPTER 4

We left Captain Wales in 1838-9, building a mill on the Eau
Galle River; he was in partnership n the undertaking with
Thomas Savage, and a mill-wright called Captain Dix, most
likely the same that had been employed in the erection of
the two mills before named, on the Red Cedar River by Street
and Lockwood. Soon after this mill commenced operation in
1839, there came on to that stream two young men named
William Carson and Henry Easton, the former of Canada, the
latter a Yankee, and as the mill company had no prescriptive
or exclusive right to the pine, commenced getting out square
timber and shingles, a business which their enterprise and
economy made quite lucrative, but was very annoying to the
company, not only because it took away the most convenient
and valuable timber, but obstructed the navigation of the
little river for their cribs of lumber.  These operations
continued for several years, and in the meant time, several
others found their way on to that stream and the Red Cedar
River; amongst them a man named Lamb, who stuck his stakes
and built the first house in Dunnville, which very soon
became a noted "stopping place" for all the lumbermen and
hunters that came to the country. It was then considered one
of the best locations of the kind in the valley, and its
owner soon found it necessary to procure 'a help mate,"
which he found in the person of Margaret Demarie, adopted
daughter of Louis Demarie, at the Falls (Frenchtown). Lamb
was an old soldier, very dissipated, with no business habits
or industry, and having been able to keep the place up to
the wants of the public, in 1841 sold out to his more
energetic brother-in-law, Arthur McCann, who had just
married Rosalie Demarie, sister of Mrs. Allen.

Three of these brothers, Stephan, Arthur, and Dan McCann,
had come on to the river a years previous; they were
originally from Marietta, Ohio, had followed the river round
and like many other river men of that day, belonged to the
more reckless strata of society.

The Eau Galle Company finding all efforts to induce the
energetic young operators Carson and Eaton, to leave the
stream, unavailable, concluded to sell them an interest in
the mill, which soon resulted in the withdrawal of Savage
and Dix from the concern, leaving Carson, Eaton and Wales as
the firm, the later being considered a financial partner,
who necessarily spent a lot of his time in St. Louis, and
other points on the Mississippi, selling lumber, leaving his
family at the mill.

When young Tom Sheridan was requested by his father to take
a wife, he replied, "that he had no objection if he only
know whose wife to take." There is wit and humor in such a
remark, where plenty of other material to make a wife are at
hand, ready and waiting for a person to propose. But it
becomes a serious matter, and 'no joke into it,' when on
looking 'the landscape o'er,' and a young man in want finds
if he takes a wife at all it must be somebody else's wife.
A bashful young man, whose heart comes right up into his
throat the moment he finds himself in the presences of, and
attempts to speak to a young lady who has taken his fancy,
is frequently astonished at the ease and fluency with which
he can address himself to a married on, and encouraged by
the freedom and familiarity experienced in revealing his
inmost thoughts to, and eliciting the sympathy of a married
female acquaintance many a virtuous young man has found
himself contravening the tenth commandment in coveting his
neighbor's wife. Which of these causes influenced or took
possession of one of these junior partners, (Eaton) there is
no record extent by which to determine, but one thing is
certain: during the long protracted absence of the senior
down the river, the junior's visits to the residence of his
partner's mistress became alarmingly frequent. Free love as
taught and exemplified by Mrs. Woodhull, of our times, may
or many not have been a favorite theory with this exemplary
lady at this time, but she encouraged the visits, and did
her best to render them agreeable is freely admitted.
Perhaps she derived some secret satisfaction from so doing,
in the fact that her lord, like John Quinn, 'carried his
wife in his pocket,' and when absent from her, squandered
large sums for his gratification, but expected his wife to
be a paragon of virtue. Such was the course of events until
the fall of 1844, when matters culminated in open rupture
between this historic couple, and finally separation; and as
his extravagances had involved the firm in financial
embarrassment, the other members compelled him to abdicate,
when he left the valley forever, the oldest settler, and, as
some say, the most wronged of any that ever came into it.

Some two miles below Gilbert's Creek on the west side of the
Red Cedar River, a small spring creek makes into the river,
on which in 1839 H.S. Allen built a sawmill, making three
mills owned and run by him at the same time, which gave to
the one on Gilbert Creek, the name of the 'Middle Mill,' by
which it was known for many years. It was rebuilt in 1841.
The same year Allen sold the lower or Spring Creek mill to
Stephen S. McCann; and it was to this mill that Simon and
George Randall first came and took employment with McCann.
It was burned in 1843, the loss falling on the original
owner, Allen. In the fall of the year 1841, the mill on
Wilson's Creek was sold to one Green, and by him soon
transferred to Mr. Pearson, by whom the first dam across the
Red Cedar River was erected, with a view to the
establishment of a big mill, but for want of means was
unable to go on, finally sold out to an old man named Black,
who in 1844 transferred a half interest to Knapp and Wilson,
to of the present wealthy owners, and in the fall of the
same year, Black went down on a raft to Keokuk, Iowa,
sickened and died, leaving the property to the other members
of the firm, who, the following year associated themselves
with Mr. Stout, under the firm name Knapp, Stout and
Company. While Mr. Black was in possession of this point in
1844, a most unprovoked murder was committed by a man whose
name my informant cannot recall, the victim had retired for
the night to garret of an old log house, where he was
stealthily shot. A warrant was issued by Mr. Branham, the
offender arrested, taken to Prairie du Chien and tried
before Judge Dunn and acquitted. This is supposed to be the
first murder of a white man in the valley, but was soon
followed by another, under the following circumstances:
Arthur McCann and J.C. Thomas, in partnership had in 1843
commenced and nearly completed the Blue Mill, now so called,
the former residing at Dunnville; they had employed on the
work for some time, a man by the name of Sawyer, who when
his time was up, went down to McCann's for a settlement,
after which McCann proposed cards, at the same time treating
freely.

The game went on until evening, when some dispute arose the
latter threw a scale weight at the former, where upon he
repaired to the cabin of Philo Stone, nearby, carefully
loaded his rifle, went back to the door of McCann's house
and called him; on his appearance at the door Sawyer took
deliberate aim, and McCann fell dead on his own doorstep,
the victim of a drunken brawl. Sawyer made his way up the
river to Eau Claire, and thence to the Falls of the
Chippewa, where his pursuers lost track of him, since when
he has never been heard of, although a large reward was
offered for his apprehension by McCann's friends. His wife
returned to her parents, and Philo Stone took possession of
the tavern.

This man and his brother Rosewell Stone, came to the river
in 1838, from Vermont, and engaged in hunting on the neutral
territory between the Sioux and Chippewas, which being
seldom visited by either party of Indians, was the most
excellent hunting grounds for the whites who came early.
Philo was a turbulent fellow, never avoided a quarrel, was
brave, wiry, small in stature but quick as lightening, never
was whipped, was frequently arrested and placed under bonds
to keep the peace, and like many others had a full-blooded
squaw, whom he trained to be a good housekeeper; the fact
is, this class of women are all tractable, easy to acquire
all the arts and many of the graces of civilized life, and
if the males were as readily molded into the ways of
industry and progress as the females, they would be easily
civilized.