HISTORY OF THE CHIPPEWA VALLEY - Chapter 46


*****

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

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

*****

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 46

Pioneer life exhibits peculiar habits and phases of
character and amongst others the disposition to rove; to
move from place to place becomes a ruling passion with a
certain class, and a retrospect of the coming and going
shows that many of the early settlers in every locality in
this valley have found homes and are still roaming, else
where.

From Chippewa Falls, William J. Young, afterwards a member
of the Nebraska Legislature and now editor of a prominent
paper in California; John Judge, for two years one of the
most prominent men at tha place and secretary of the
Chippewa Falls Lumbering Company, now in the South; Judge
Whipple and Andrew Gregg, lawyers and bankers; D. Skinner,
at one time County Treasurer and successful merchant; the
Masons; father and sons, and the Gilbert brothers, from the
Yellow River; from Eau Galle, Henry Eaton, of the old firm
of Carson & Eaton; from North Pepin, the Honorable Benjamin
Allen, State Senator and Colonel of the Sixteenth Regiment;
from Eau Claire, Drs. Ketcham and Day and Colonel Charles
Whipple are now on the Pacific coast; the Honorable N.B.
Boyden, counselor at law and first Receiver in the United
States Land Office, and now a Municipal Judge in Chicago;
John Wilson, in Montana; Reverent W.W. McNair, in New
Jersey; C. Howard, a worthy citizen, the first and for a
long time the Register of Deeds in Eau Claire, and now
Postmaster at Osage Mission, Neosho County, Kansas; Peter
Wyckoff, a very successful merchant, now of New York; and
the Honorable Horace W. Barnes, for many years a prominent
member of the bar in this judicial district, and many others
who made their homes here at an early day, are now scattered
over the country from Maine to Oregon.

Deaths, also, has claimed two of our prominent and esteem
pioneers. The Honorable A.K. Gregg, an eminent member of the
Bar at Chippewa Falls, died in 1867, and the Honorable
Rodman Palmer, formerly of the same place, land agent and
dealer in real estate, an upright man and much honored
citizen, died in 1871, having previously moved to Eau
Claire.

Of those mentioned above, one claims more than a passing
notice, as a self-made man who, in spite of early privations
and discouraging circumstances, made for himself an
honorable name and acquired a competence and distinction.

HORACE W. BARNES

Was born in the town of Colesville, Broome County, New York,
in 1818. His boyhood was spent in the family of an Uncle who
settled in a dense beech and maple forest, in Medina County,
Ohio, where he lived a life of constant toil, without one
day's schooling until his majority and Shakespeare's line
would then forcibly to the youthful Buckeye: "This boy is
forest-born, tutored in The rudiments of many desperate
studies"

How many men famous in American history, have laid the
superstructure of their education and built up an honorable
name from such rough materials as poverty and the adverse
circumstances of pioneer life always impose! There seems to
have been something inspiring in the grand old woods where
the early days of many of our most distinguished men first
saw the light; and in overcoming the many natural obstacles
always encountered in new districts, high aspirations and a
determination to achieve grander results take possession of
the hardy backwoodsman and frequently leads to victory,
honor and fortune.

These feelings inspired Mr. Barnes, and with indomitable
energy he set himself to earn the means to educate himself.
By the most rigid economy and assiduous attention to his
studies, he acquired a good English and mathematical
education and a considerable proficiency in the classics at
Oberlin Institute, Ohio. Acquisitions that he utilized in
teaching and surveying until 1852, when he commenced the
study and practice of law, in which he soon won distinction
as a sound legal adviser and laborious faithful advocate.

As a pleader, Mr. Barnes displayed qualities, which, if not
always insuring his own success, were well calculated to
quench the ardor and paralyze the force of his adversary.

Carefully noting, as the cause proceeded, the points, which
his antagonist intended to make, he would anticipate him and
tell the court and jury precisely what his opponent would
say, frequently using the exact language in which it would
be clothed, and emasculating the argument of all point or
power before it was uttered. He felt defeat intensely and
seemed to suffer even more than his client the loss incurred
by any want of skill or foresight in managing a suit, and
hence in all civil suits was wary and cautious, always
exacting a full, impartial statement of the case from hic
client before taking it, and not then unless the evidence,
justice, and a reasonable prospect of success justified it.

In serving the public, no matter in what capacity, his
industry and perseverance were untiring, and he shares with
Mr. Thorp the honor of exposing frauds in accounts of the
Eau Claire County Treasurer and of restoring the credit of
the county.

Mr. Barnes came to Eau Claire in 1858, and was elected
District Attorney the next year, 1859, and County Judge in
1865; was a member of the Legislature in 1861 and 1867. In
politics, was a steadfast Republican, and during the war
zealous and active in carrying forward any and every measure
for its prosecution.

In his friendship, he utterly ignored position or caste, and
wherever he found what he considered a true man, he was his
friend; but scorned obsequious or patronizing airs, and was
sometimes so impolitic as to prefer blunt honest to assumed
gentility. In 1872 he removed to Oswego, Kansas, with his
family, where he now resides in the practice of his
profession.

ALEXANDER MEGGETT

Is probably so well and so widely known that only for
posterity can I say aught that will interest my readers. But
all may not know he is a son of toil; that his boyhood and
youth he worked in a cotton factory in Uxbridge,
Massachusetts, to which place his father emigrated in 1827,
from Glasgow, Scotland, where he was born in 1824. By his
own exertions he acquired the means to defray his expenses
for a year at Wilbraham Academy, and by close application to
study, fitted himself to enter Middleton University,
Connecticut, where he managed to support himself one year;
was a teacher in the public schools for ten years, and then
studied law in the office of the Honorable C.B. Farnsworth,
of Pawtucket, Massachusetts, and the Honorable Thomas A.
Jencks, Rhode Island; was admitted to practice in the State
courts in 1853 and in the Untied States Circuit Court in
1856. His first settlement in Wisconsin was in Milwaukee
County, where his half-brother, the Honorable Arthur
McArthur, presided, but Eau Claire, then just growing into
importance, attracted his attention and he made his home
here in 1857.

Says Jay Neal; Language is power The only omnipresent,
Whereby man holds communion with his God; *** The outlet to
a mine of wealth And of power ten thousand times more
precious than the earth Glittering with diamonds and charged
with ore That man, shortsighted man, would perish for.

This power Mr. Meggett certainly wields and uses as few men
in this part of the State can. Not alone as a lawyer in the
line of his profession where as a pleader he perhaps has no
rival in the circuit, but in the arena of politics,
religion, social and moral improvement, reform, science, and
the arts. With attainments so diversified and a felicitous
adaptability of speech to every department of though and
knowledge, he is perfectly at home in any assemblage and
almost invariably the chosen exponent of its views and
behests.

A large legal practice and strict attention to the duties of
his profession has enabled Mr. Meggett to accumulate a
handsome competence and to devote considerable time to
social and intellectual enjoyment. Brief extracts have been
made from the remarks of Mr. Meggett on two occasions - at a
war meeting and a religious festival - to which, as
indicating the versatility of his genius, I will add a few
passages selected from his addresses on occasions. Smith
Whittier, now of Chicago, Illinois, built the second hotel,
which was erected in Eau Claire, which he called the
'Metropolitan,' and which was opened with a fine dance,
superb supper, speeches, and congratulations, one evening in
September 1857. Mr. Meggett was one of the latest accessions
to the place but was selected as spokesman on the occasion.

After a few preliminaries, he said: "Ladies and gentlemen,
your experiences in western life have already taught you how
quickly our sympathies spring into vigorous life in a new
country and unite man with man and heart with heart that
under the circumstances would each have known only self."

"It is these common experiences that have brought us
together tonight, and in the absence of some things
incidental to a more mature development grown aristocratic
with age and boasting of its refinements, where envy, pride,
selfishness, all luxuriate, no fair one here tonight will
have her peace of mind destroyed by the bitter reflection
that her crinoline is less beautiful than that of some
fancied rival. (Uproarious applause)  No, ladies, everything
here is to fresh from Nature - from the hand of God - to
permit the growth of these pernicious weeds, so thrifty in
the soil of a more mature civilization. *** I rejoice as a
citizen of Eau Claire I the freedom and equality, which
characterized the festivities of this occasion, with so
aristocracy of wealth, position, or dress, to mar its joys."

Elsewhere in this work it is stated that Mr. Meggett was
chosen to welcome the visitors to Eau Claire when the Advent
of the Western Wisconsin Railway was celebrated in August
1870, a brief outline of his address being given. It was un
able and comprehensive statement of the growth, ,
prosperity, and resources of Eau Claire and the Chippewa
Valley; a few paragraphs from which without the risk of
repetition may find a place here.

"While so much may be justly said of ourselves as the
metropolis the Chippewa Valley, we must not forget the
claims and virtues of the sister counties and cities within
its limits. They are most excellent neighbors of which
equally good, but perhaps, not quite as many great things
can be said. In some respects much our superiors, and having
citizens equally enterprising and public-spirited, were it
not for our advantageous geographical position we might have
to compete with some of them for the palm of being the
commercial center of this valley. As it is, however, we
altogether form a great people in a great valley, with power
and resources sufficient to make our influences felt in all
matters of public concern."

In his intercourse with men, Mr. Meggett is more than
genial, he is jovial; and one would not suspect that
bereavement had repeatedly invaded his household; twice he
has been called upon to follow the wife of his bosom to the
grave, and on August 22, 1864, a promising son, then his
only one, the child of his early love, met with a fatal
accident, being accidentally shot while taking a loaded
rifle from a wagon at Bridge Creek. He had recently come
from Rhode Island at the age of later boyhood, very
intelligent, and justly his father's pride. It was a
grievous affliction, but borne with Christian patience and
fortitude.

And now, no longer a disconsolate widower, but a happy
husband and father, Mr. Meggett's declining years bid fair
to be peaceful and full of honor.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The foregoing brief sketches, though undoubtedly very
imperfect, embrace the principle points in the lives of such
of our distinguished citizens as have not been set forth in
the preceding chapters of this work, quite a number of whom,
including the members of the firm of Knapp, Stout & Company
of Menomonie, and T.C. Pound of Chippewa Falls, it was
thought required no further personal illustration.

And it will be seen that almost every one of our most active
successful business or professional men have been reared in
comparative obscurity and trained in the school of toil and
hardship, and by their own exertions raising themselves to
positions of trust, honor, and affluence.

In the medical profession, there only of the early comers
remain, all of the allopathic school.

The fist was Doctor McBean, formerly from the Island of
Jamaica, West Indies; came to Chippewa Falls in 1856,
entered the Union Army as physician and surgeon in 1862, and
served till the close of the war. The other two, Drs. W.T.
Galloway and F.R. Skinner, hail from the same alma mater,
though as different in every trait and characteristic as two
men can be, came to Eau Claire in 1857; the former a
demonstrative politician, a Democrat, appointed by Buchanan
as Register in the newly created Land Office; speculated in
village lots, mill property, and lumber, and then returned
to his profession, where an extensive practice awaited him,
and wherein he has been very successful. Judiciously
investing its avails in manufacturing and other village
property, he has accumulated an estate that yields handsome
dividends. He is still distinguished for his skills as a
physician and surgeon, and as a leader in the Democratic
Party, though now less demonstrative than before the war.
The latter is the son of the late Reverend Doctor Dolphus
Skinner, a highly distinguished Universalist clergyman of
Utica, New York; a quiet, unobtrusive man; came to Eau
Claire the same year, 1857, and started the first drug store
in this valley. He, too, has acquired a reasonable share of
his world's goods, and is a much-respected citizen.

Continual changing in the local whereabouts of the clergymen
who have labored here, has taken most of the early
incumbents beyond the writer's observation.

Reverends McNair and Phillips, frequently referred to, were
co-laborers and students from the same theological school,
and their churches here were established, and for some years
partly sustained, as Presbyterian missions of the Home
Missionary Society. The diversified religious vies of the
first settlers, and the feeble, struggling condition of many
or most, precluded the possibility of any denomination being
able to organize a self-sustaining church at the early
period when the subject of the following sketch came to Eau
Claire and organized the first church in the Chippewa
Valley.

Reverend Alberoni Kidder was born in Wardsboro, Vermont or
February 14, 1814, the youngest, but one of a family of
eight sons and six daughters.

Having been educated for and chosen the profession of the
ministry, he received license to preach in 1847, and
commenced his ministerial labors at Alexander, Genesee
County, New York, the year following, and was ordained as
pastor of the Congregational Church and society. During the
ensuing winter, these services were continued in barrooms
and private dwellings, Chippewa and Dunn counties visited,
and religious instruction given where the Gospel had never
before been heard. His church in Eau Claire consisted at
first of seven members; the nucleus of what is now one of
the most flourishing religious organizations in the West.
Much credit is due Mr. Kidder for the zeal with which he
urged forward the completion of the church edifice, which
was dedicated in 1859.

Having resigned his pastorate, he was elected in 1863,
County Superintendent of Schools, a position, which he ably
and satisfactorily filled for seven years and three months -
one term to fill a vacancy occasioned by the resignation of
Professor S.A. Hall. An account of his subsequent and
contemporary pastoral labors in Augusta, Bloomer, Mondovi
and Durand is given elsewhere.

It is hoped that no one will be offended at the freedom with
which the character and conduct of the parties are
discussed, whose personal history is here in placed before
the public.

And now, though unconscious of intentional error in any
statement made, should the reader discover discrepancies,
let the mantle of charity cover any mistakes as due to the
head, not the heart. 
~~~~~~~~~~

THE END