Clark County Press, Neillsville, WI

October 8, 1997, Page 16

Transcribed by Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon.

Index of "Oldies" Articles 

 

Good Old Days

 

Compiled by Dee Zimmerman

 

First Land Owners

 

George Miller, a Mormon elder, wrote a detailed account of the logging operations of the Mormons on Black River in what is now Clark County.  The Mormons traded a saw mill south of Black River Falls to Jacob Spaulding for one he owned at the city of Black River Falls.  Spaulding had settled there in 1833 and began logging in 1844.

 

In 1838, the entire area of what is now Clark County was held by four various Indian tribes.  The Winnebago’s were west of the Black River and south to the southern boundary of townships 26 (2 miles South of the now 26 Road).  The Menomonie’s were west of the Wisconsin River to Black River, overlapping Winnebago land.  The Chippewa’s were west of the Black River and south of the southern boundary of Township 26.  The Sioux had all the land from the mouth of the Black River on its western border to half a day’s march south of the falls of the Chippewa River.  That left a portion of western Clark County as neutral land, which was used by all to hunt and fish.

 

In 1837, treaties were made with the United States by the Winnebago, Chippewa and Sioux Indians when all their lands in Wisconsin were ceded to the United States.  The Menomonie were left unsettled and their lands were along the Wisconsin River.  They traveled to the Black River Falls area to hunt and fish.

 

The Menomonie’s released their claim to the land in 1847 and a government survey was started.

 

Pine Valley was the first township which originally embraced the entire county.  Starting in 1856, the boundaries of the township were reduced as it began to contain other townships which would eventually make up 32 towns in the area.

 

One of the first government entries in Clark County was made by Isaac Mason, Sec. 35, Town of Weston, on Sept. 1, 1848.

 

During the next 50 years, some of the prominent names in the lumber industry were: W. T. Price, Samuel Weston, Cyrus Woodman, C. C. Washburn, Wm. Foster, Wm. Crosby, Moses Clark, Lincoln Clark, Andrew Shepherd, Robert Ross, N. B. Halway, Abner Gile, Amos Elliot, James Hathway, Levi Withee, Geo. Lloyd, Abner Coburn, Jacob Spaulding, James Hewett, and Roat & Thompson.

 

The largest land-owners in the 1850s were Cyrus Woodman and Samuel Weston.  Woodman had the most land in Clark County.  He owned 12 sections in the Town of Seif, 5 sections in Hendren, 4 sections in Loyal, 7 sections in Weston, 15 sections in Eaton and 10 sections in Washburn, for a total of 53 sections, as well as smaller holdings in 34 of the Clark County townships.  (One section measures one mile square).

 

The lumber industry cut the white pine between 1850 and 1900, and hardwood between 1850 and 1915.  The townships of Sherwood, Washburn, Levis, Dewhurst, Hewett, Mentor, Foster and Butler were covered with heavy growth of medium-sized pine.  The other 26 townships had pine one-quarter to one-half mile on each side of the streams.  Most of the hardwood areas had large pines of high quality.  Pine logs floated, but hardwood logs sank.  There was a great demand for the area lumber in the prairie states and cities, and the Chicago area after the fire of 1876.

 

The government sold land for $1.25 an acre if it was more than ten miles from the railroads, or $50 for forty acres.  Land sold for $1.25 an acre before the arrival of the first railroad in 1869.  The first lumbermen came from Maine and New York and were experienced with the logging business.

 

Some of the leaders in the lumber industry were prominent in other fields as well.  C. C. Washburn of La Crosse was a Civil War veteran who served in Congress and was Wisconsin’s governor from 1872 to 1874.  William T. Price of Black River Falls was a Congressional Representative from 1848 to 1850.  William Upham of Marshfield was governor of Wisconsin from 1895 to 1897.

 

As land was bought, estimates had to be made as to the amount and quality of lumber, its nearness to water and the cost of coffer dams.  Coffer dams were box-like in shape, capable of retaining the river water to hold the logs.  Also to be considered was its nearness to supplies at La Crosse, trading by way of Onalaska and Melrose to Black River Falls, following the rivers to Hatfield, through timber north, up the Black River. 

 

Corduroy roads were constructed through the low places on the trails through the woods.  (Logs were cut and laid side-by-side over the roadway providing a negotiable trail above the swampy base).  Settlers settled along the trail and the trail developed into a road.  The Clark County Board appropriated $1,000 in 1868 to improve the Black River Road in the county, which is now Highway 73.  For years the old settlers referred to the highway as “the old tote road.”  The greater part of it wasn’t surveyed out, just grew out of the loggers’ trail.

 

As the railroad came to Humbird in 1869, the Clark County Board approved $3,000 in 1870 for building a road from Neillsville to Humbird.

 

Only choice pine was harvested until 1880.  It was cut with an axe.  The chopper was followed by the swamper who trimmed limbs, measured and marked for the sawyers to cut into logs.  Kerosene was carried on mild days to keep pitch from gumming up the saw.  Next came the skidding crew, a driver with oxen and a crotch tender (a forked support for a swinging boom used to bank logs).

 

In 1844, Geo. Miller and Nathan Myruck had a mill at a point on the river that was known as the Town of Levis and was later owned by James French.  It was not a success.

 

Jacob Spaulding was one of the earliest loggers after the Mormons in 1845.  He logged above Neillsville on the Black River, Wedges Creek and the East Fork until 1860, when he deeded it to his son, Dudley.

 

William Price logged above the mouth of Cawley Creek north of Neillsville.  Nathan Myruck had Amos Elliot logging for him on the east bank of Black River and above Price’s camp on the west bank of the Black River in 1845.  Elliot logged for Grover just north of the mouth of Cunningham Creek in 1846-1847.  Price and Elliot were partners from 1848 to 1853, logging the west bank of Black River four miles north of the mouth of Cawley Creek.  They logged for Shepper and Bank two or three miles below Greenwood in 1850.  Price and Elliot dissolved their partnership with Price quitting the logging business in 1860, and he died in 1887.  Price was considered the most extensive logging operator in the United States and employed 750 men in Wisconsin.  He operated mostly on the O’Neill Creek and East Fork.  The average output was 60,000,000 feet annually.

 

James and Henry O’Neill had a mill on the creek that bears their name.  William Dibble worked near the mouth of Cunningham Creek.  John Nichols worked north of Neillsville near Cawley Creek in 1844.  Van Dusen and Wanterman were located 18 miles north of Neillsville at the rip-back (a rapids in the Black River) in 1848, which is the present site of the Greenwood Cemetery.  It was later sold to Elijah Eaton and an area grew there known as Eaton town in 1865.  It was later renamed Greenwood at the suggestion of Mary Honeywell, an early Clark County resident.

 

Samuel Weston and Dave Robinson, of Maine, came to the rapids two miles north of Neillsville in 1853.  The area was named Weston Rapids after Samuel Weston and a small town existed along the rapids for some years.  Weston and Robinson cut and floated the harvested Clark County pine logs down Black River to La Crosse to be sawed into lumber.

 

Many of the logging employees were German immigrants.  Spaulding of Black River Falls hired a steamship company’s services, sending a ship to Norway for workers.  He liked to have the same employees return winter after winter, so he provided transportation to and from Norway for the seasonal workers.

 

The logging camp tasks varied.  Each camp had its own blacksmith.  Special carts were made to shoe oxen.  The black-smith made eight shoes, caulked heel and toe, to fit each of the oxen. 

 

Wood butchers had to be able to use a broad axe for hewing timbers, and an adze or “shin hoe” to smooth up the work.  Logging sleighs were built and repaired, as well as ox yokes, can’t (cant) hook stocks, axe helves (axe handles), wagon whiffle-trees (whipple-trees) and eveners.  It was also necessary to build roads through the woods.  The average wage was $16 a month.  Teamsters received $30 to $35, while the taffler and cookee got $16 to $20 per month. 

 

The first landowners, the lumbermen, usually sold the land after the trees were cut down and logged out.  The settlers who wanted to farm the land had the task of removing stumps before tilling began.  Both stages represented hard work.

 

A large load of freshly cut logs, such as above, was commonly seen throughout Clark County in the late 1800s.  The Pietenpohl’s logging operation worked in the Jack Creek and Cunningham Creek area southeast of Neillsville.  (Photo courtesy of Richard and Jean Tibbett)

 

 

 


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