Clark County Press, Neillsville, WI

November 19, 2008, Page 20

Transcribed by Dolores Mohr Kenyon

 

 

First Settlement In Clark County

 

Compiled by Dee Zimmerman

 

The first occupancy of Clark County was brought about by the wealth of animal life in the forests, by its geographical advantages tributary to the Wisconsin, Chippewa and Black Rivers, and by its position as the common hunting-ground of the Chippewa, Dakota, Winnebago and, possibly, the Menominee Indians.

 

It was in the autumn of 1836, when the falling leaves had spread a soft carpet in the forest glades; when few of the wild flowers were left; when the feathered songsters had taken their departure, and the wild geese and ducks in great flocks were wending their south-bound flight with raucous cries, and when the fur-clad denizens of forest and stream had assumed their winter coats, or were making ready for the period of hibernation, that a party of French and Canadian trappers and fur traders came to this area.  They were in the employ of the American Fur Company, when they appeared on the East Fork of the Black River and established a temporary post.  Living in close touch with Nature in all her moods, and themselves almost an integral part of the savage landscape, the long and dreary winter had for them few terrors, and to its inconveniences they were accustomed and hardened by long experience.  Constructing a comfortable shack in the thick forests overlooking the winding stream, they made it their headquarters until the following spring.  From there, they set forth on their winter expeditions, penetrating into the surrounding wilderness to Indian villages in all directions, and returning from time to time with their hard-earned booty.  Many a blustering night passed when the members of the party, assembled around the roaring hearth and narrating by turns their wild and adventurous experiences, passed about the social glass, or broke forth into some wild and stirring song of the frontier, or, it may be, some gentler ditty reminiscent of more civilized scenes and arousing for the moment more tender emotions.

 

Visiting Indians from time to time camped nearby, adding to the picturesque scene and variety to the lives of the traders, the smudge from their camp-fires mingling with the smoke from the cabin, and the sound of their tom-toms and native singing and dancing vying with the roistering hilarity of the whites.

 

With the traders, as a packer, was a lad, Norbert St. Germaine, then but 16 years of age.  The imagination is stirred in contemplating the experiences of this courageous boy, far from home and youthful companions, accompanying these hardened adventurers on their excursions through the bitter cold of the snowbound forests.  He witnessed the haggling with natives over the exchange of furs and trinkets, and then returning over the dreary route to the isolated cabin, his slender shoulders bowed with the weight of a heavy pack of valuable fur.

 

After the departure of the traders, the cabin crumbled in disuse.  The wilderness crept into the little clearing, the visiting Indians pitched their tepees elsewhere, and, undisturbed, the beaver worked and played in the streams, and the deer and bear roamed the woods.

 

Next came the Mormons, seeking timber for the building of their tabernacle at Nauvoo, Ill.  These sturdy religionists established a settlement at Black River (Falls) in 1841.  They came up the Black River into Clark County in 1844, cut logs from the vast forests along the river, floated them down to Black River Falls, where they sawed them into lumber, then to be run down the Black and Mississippi Rivers to their destination.

 

Evidence of the Mormon occupancy of Clark County long remained in four places along the Black River, one at the Mormon Riffle below the mouth of Wedge’s Creek, one on the west bank of the river, about a mile below Neillsville, at a spot long known as the Herrian Farm, one near Weston’s Rapids, and one south of Greenwood.  In 1864 these four camping places were grown up with wild plum trees.  Remains of the log cabins, built of unhewn logs and chinked with mud, were still in evidence and holes still told of where the root cellars had been excavated.

 

Near Black River Falls, James and Alexander O’Neill, the pioneer lumbermen were conducting a saw mill. Previous to this they had been residents of Prairie du Chien.  From there, in the summer of 1839, a colony had set out for the Black River country, and had located at the present site of Black River Falls.  In the autumn, the O’Neill brothers likewise determined to try their fortunes in that region. Before spring they moved to the mouth of Perry Creek in the same locality and built a frame mill.  In a few years, however, they became convinced that there were better opportunities further up the river.  With purpose in view they made a visit to what is now Clark County in the fall of 1844, selecting a promising site on the stream which now bears their O’Neill name, O’Neill.

 

In June, 1845, James O’Neill, Henry O’Neill, with E. L. Brockway and Samuel F. and William Ferguson, accompanied by a number of laborers, removed to their new site.  They became the first permanent settlers in what has since been organized as Clark County.  The party came overland in a wagon, drawn by an ox team, cutting their way through the brush and other obstructions, which took two days of traveling.  This was the first road ever made in the county.

 

At that time the whole county was still an uninhabited wilderness.  Game of all kinds was abundant; deer, wolves, otter, mink, beaver and marten were very plentiful.  Deer could be shot from the door of O’Neill’s log cabin, which had been built along the creek’s bank with their saw mill nearby.  Wolves would frequently chase deer around into the clearing near the cabin, the deer escaping by taking refuge in the dam, which had been built behind the saw mill.  The Indians then inhabiting the county were principally Chippewa.  They received the newcomers in a friendly spirit and as settlers began to come in, brought fur peltries to sell or exchange for pork and flour.

 

The early pioneers of the country lived off what crops they could raise on their plots of cleared land and hunted the wildlife that inhabited the nearby wood.

 

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