HISTORY OF THE CHIPPEWA VALLEY - CHAPTER 6


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Transcribed and contributed to the USGenWeb Archives by Timm
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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 6

Satisfactory arrangements having been made between the
partners in the late firm of Allen, Branham and Randall, for
their separation, the two juniors' S. and G. Randall, took a
half interest in the claim of McCann and Thomas, at the
mouth of the Eau Claire River, and preparations were made to
erect the dam and mill on the site of the Eau Claire Lumber
Company's watermill, and in October 1846, the dam was
completed, and the work progressing finely, under the firm
name of McCann, Randall and Thomas. Mr. Allen and Mr. Bass
had also commenced expensive improvements at the Falls.

During the summer the writer had brought his family, which,
until now, had remained in Iowa, to the Blue Mill, which he
had bought from J.C. Thomas. Mrs. Randall had been raised in
the bosom of the Methodist Church, and regarded the loss of
privileges as a very serious drawback to here enjoyment on
coming here. Since our marriage, some two or three years
previous, I, too, had identified with that church and its
services. It was now proposed to do what we could for the
interests of religion in this remote corner. Appointments to
hold divine services on alternate Sabbath's at the company's
boarding house, in Chippewa Falls, and at the house of S.S.
McCann, in Eau Claire, were accordingly made in September,
of the year before mentioned, 1846, and continued until the
setting in of winter, when a severe illness prostrated the
writer, and the meetings discontinued 00 the first public
religious services ever held in this valley. Another little
event of a social nature also occurred about this time,
which must not be passed over. George W. Randall, of the
aforesaid firm, having become satisfied that it is 'not good
for a man to dwell alone,' concluded to 'take himself a
wife.' Miss Mary La Pointe, formerly of Prairie du Chien,
and brought up in the family of Mr. Brisbois, came to Eau
Claire during the summer and made up her mind to relieve him
of his disconsolate condition. Mr. and Mrs. McCann made a
big wedding. Mr. Bass, at the Falls, had received a
commission as Justice of the Peace, from our Territorial
Governor, and was invited down to solemnize the nuptials;
the throne of Grace was addressed, and the blessing of
Heaven invoked on their union by the writer, and this was
the first wedding that took place in Eau Claire.

Some time in the following winter another event not without
interest, came to pass, Simon Randall, the other junior
partner in the same firm, having suffered several years of
isolation, had like many other young men among the early
comers taken one of the maidens of the forest with hum he
lived quite happily. She was a good cook, and kept his house
in good order. Simon really seemed attached to her, but
though of a hardy race she was not exempt from the
conditions of her sex, and ere she became a mother, the
'destroyer had done its work.' Funeral services were held
over her remains, and the bereaved invited to the
consolation of the Gospel, by the writer, from First
Corinthians, XV, 21, 22, and this was the first funeral
service ever performed here.

The winter of 1846-7, was in some respects very remarkable;
scarcely any snow fell, and so intensely cold was the
weather that the water in the Chippewa at the Falls, froze
to the bottom, forcing it to overflow, in the same manner we
frequently see small rivulets rise to the surface and cause
a fresh layer of ice every night, and this was continued
until every rock, island and tree on the Falls, were
submerged with ice, lying solid in many places twenty feet
in thickness from the bottom. I have never known this to
occur since. This scarcity of snow extended the whole length
of the river to its source, and would have proved ruinous to
'long hauling' contracts, had there been any at the time,
but Mr. Colton and Mr. Moses, on the Yellow River, for the
Falls Company, and Hoosier Logging Company on the Eau
Claire, had bank hauling, and managed even without snow to
get large stocks of logs for their respective companies. But
if the winter was remarkable for the want of snow, the
spring was still more remarkable for absence of rain, there
being scarcely enough to lay the dust through the entire
months of April and May, and not a log floated in either the
Yellow or Eau Claire rivers during the whole time. But on
the evening of the 5th of June, after a foggy morning and a
hot windy day, rain commenced falling, accompanied with most
fearful thunder and lightning, unlike anything I have ever
before heard, or witnessed, and continued to pour down in
torrents until eight o'clock the next morning, at which time
the Chippewa twelve feet, and was covered with logs,
driftwood and the debris of piers and booms from the Falls,
where a total wreck of all the costly structures placed in
the river during the previous winter, to stop and hold logs,
and been made; nothing was left but the mill, and its race
and guard locks were completely demolished or filled with
gravel.

More than ten thousand logs-the entire stock out of the
Yellow River was carried away, and the total avails of a
winter's operations perished in this flood.

The supply of logs for the Blue Mill shared the same fate,
and in my endeavors to save a part of my boom, I was taken
out into the wild and surging current, on it as it floated
away. I have been on many log drives and often placed in
positions of extreme peril, but never has death stared me
more directly in the face than while afloat on the frail
boom - bent, crushed, and broken, between masses of logs and
driftwood. I could do nothing with it, and on, and on; it
went with the rapidity of a railway train, passing
repeatedly under the branches of reclining trees. I lay flat
on my face and clung to those strained timbers, well knowing
that once in that boiling flood no skill in the art of
swimming from a watery grave, but as the fates would have
it, my rickety craft shot like an arrow out of the current
and went ashore at the eddy where Sherman's mill was since
built, so being only a short distance from my brother's on
the Eau Claire, I walked over and witnessed a more terrible
devastation still. It was now nearly noon, but every log
pier, and boom on this stream had, hours before been swept
away by the still fast swelling flood, and in one our more
the new double saw just ready to commence operations, was
borne almost away by the resistless current. It was a
sickening sight and I hurried back to relieve the fears of
my family for my safety.

A party of Geologists under the Superintendence of the
Honorable David Dale Owen, had just reached my place at the
Blue Mill as I returned; had camped just below, the night
before and could go no further until the water had subsided.
The party had fitted out at Prairie du Chien, under the
directions of the Secretary of the Interior, by authority of
an act of Congress providing for a Geological and
Mineralogical survey of the northern part of Wisconsin
Territory, and had chosen this route to reach Lake Superior
in bark canoes. I regret that I cannot remember the names of
all the party, but one name, besides Owen's I shall not soon
forget, Dr. Gwyn, the physician, on account of his kindness
to us under affliction. Six week before a sweet babe had
been born to us, the alarm and exposure of its mother on
this day together with the drenching rain, had brought on an
attack of the croup. On being acquainted with the case the
Doctor immediately prescribed for it, and was unremitting in
his attendance upon it during his stay, and when he left we
supposed the danger had passed, but on the evening of the
second after, a relapse came one the little sufferer's
struggles for breath were soon over and we were for a second
time childless.

Not often does it fall to the lot of enterprising men to
sustain so heavy a calamity as fell upon those two, young
lumbering establishments at Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls.
The saving, of years, of toil, and struggle, had been
invested in these undertakings and now scarcely a vestige of
all remained, and worse than all, heavy liabilities had been
incurred for which there was no possible adequate provision
to meet. Misfortunes almost always lead to dissolution in
partnerships. It was so in this case. In fact nothing else
could be done, as in the case with the company here in Eau
Claire, capital to start again, could only be reached by
taking into the concern some one with means, and as the
crisis and panic of 1847, had made everyone wary it was no
easy matter to accomplish.

Mr. Bass withdrew from the firm Allen and Bass at the Falls
leaving Mr. Allen to bear the brunt. The logs that had been
carried away were sold to the Hoosier Logging Company,
before named, who contracted to gather them all up from the
sloughs and river bottoms, and there being no money in the
west at that time, the payments were made due in articles of
farm produce, and amongst others one hundred barrels of mess
pork were delivered at Lake Pepin, at seven dollars per
barrel, transported all the way from Rock Island. Flour was
another item at $2.75 per barrels delivered at the same
place.

Farmers of the Chippewa Valley, how you would you like to
grow wheat and pork now at those figures!

Mr. and Mrs. Bass removed to St. Paul then just starting
into being, got hold of some land near the city, speculated
in lots, lumber and other property, and he is now one of the
solid men of St. Paul. Allen had credit and used it to start
again. J.C. Thomas came back to the Blue Mill, McCann took
to farming on Eagle Prairie above the Falls. Philo Stone and
H. Cady took their places with S. & G. Randall, who rebuilt
the mill on the Eau Claire the following winter, 1847-8.
J.J. Gage, James Reed, and Captain Dix bought the lower mill
site and erected a dam and mill on the site of the Eau
Claire Lumber Company's Flouring mill.