Fifty Years In The Northwest
day laborer and by industry, perseverance and tact, rose to a position
of wealth and influence. He died in Stillwater, Feb. 26, 1885, much
esteemed by his associates for his sterling qualities of character.
THOMAS DUNN was born in 1823, in Queens county, Ireland. He emigrated
to America in 1826, locating at Miramachi, on the northeast coast of
New Brunswick. He came thence to Maine, where he spent two years. He
came to the St. Croix valley in 1846, located in Stillwater, where he
has since lived and been engaged in lumbering. He is the owner of a
valuable land property at Yellow Lake, Burnett county, Wisconsin. He
has been a member of the Catholic church since infancy.
CHARLES J. GARDINER was born at Charlotte, Maine, in 1826, and came to
Stillwater in 1849, where he followed lumbering and farming. He served
as surveyor of the First Minnesota district five years. He was married
in 1853 to Pamela Jackman. They have five children.
SAMUEL STAPLES was born in Topsham, Maine, September, 1805. He came
west from Brunswick, Maine, in 1854, and located in Stillwater, where
he died, Dec. 26, 1887. He is the elder brother of Isaac, Silas and
Winslow Staples. He leaves a widow (his second wife), two daughters,
Mrs. E. A. Folsom and Mrs. G. M. Stickney, and two sons, Josiah and
Winslow, besides a step-son, William Langly.
JOSIAH STAPLES, son of Samuel, was born in Brunswick, Maine, June 20,
1826. He received a good common school education. At the age of
thirteen his family removed to Penobscot county, and later to the
province of New Brunswick, but returned to Maine in 1840. In 1848 he
came to Stillwater, and has since been continuously engaged in milling
and lumbering operations, and, latterly, in steamboating. He was
married to Lydia McGlaughlin in 1853. His children are six sons and
one daughter.
JOEL M. DARLING was born in Madison county, New York, in 1842. He came
to Galena, Illinois, in 1840, and to Stillwater in 1848, where he
engaged in farming. He served three years during the Civil War in
Company F, Seventh Minnesota, and has since been pensioned for
disabilities incurred in the service. He is unmarried. He lives in
South Stillwater.
EARLY RIVER PILOTS.
JOE PERRO.--"Big Joe" as he was familiarly called, was large of frame
and big-hearted as well, honest, manly, of good report for courage and
honesty. He was fearless and prompt in taking the part of the weak and
oppressed. We were once passing together up Broadway, St. Louis, when
we passed a peanut stand. A small negro boy was crying piteously and
begging the peanut vender to give him back his money, to which appeal
the peanut vender was obdurate. We halted. Joe Perro organized a
court, heard the testimony of man and boy, and satisfied himself that
in making change the man had wrongfully withheld a dime due the boy.
Joe decided in favor of the boy and ordered the vender of peanuts to
pay him the ten cents. He replied insolently: "It is none of your
d----d business." That was enough to kindle the magazine of Joe's
wrath. A sudden blow of his fist, and the man was prostrate on the
sidewalk and his peanuts and apples scattered. The last seen of the
discomfited street merchant he was on his hands and knees scrambling
with the boys for the possession of his scattered fruits, and casting
an occasional vengeful glance at the towering form of "Big Joe"
departing slowly from the scene of conflict. Mr. Perro is of French
parentage, and a native of Kaskaskia, Illinois. He has been a resident
of Stillwater since 1844.
JAMES MCPHAIL.--Mr. McPhail, as his name indicates, is of Scotch
parentage. He was born in Inverness, Scotland, in 1824, and came to
America in early life. He was one of the first log pilots on the
waters of the Mississippi and St. Croix. He settled in Stillwater in
1848, was married to Eliza Purinton in 1849, and died in St. Louis in
1857. Mrs. McPhail died in Stillwater in 1885. They left no children.
JOHN CORMACK.--Mr. Cormack commenced piloting on the St. Croix in
1845. He was married in 1860 to Miss Jackins. He made his home in
Stillwater continuously for thirty years, during which time he served
as pilot. He died at Princeton, Mille Lacs county, in 1885.
JOHN HANFORD.--Mr. Hanford was a St. Croix river pilot in the '40s. He
married an adopted daughter of Socrates Nelson, of Stillwater. He died
at Stillwater. Mrs. Hanford subsequently married Barron Proctor.
JOHN LEACH.--Mr. Leach made his home at Marine many years, during
which time he engaged in piloting on the St. Croix; subsequently he
removed to Stillwater. In the later years of his life he has been
blind.
STEPHEN B. HANKS.--Mr. Stephen B. Hanks, formerly of Albany, Illinois,
piloted the first raft from St. Croix Falls to St. Louis in 1842. He
followed piloting rafts and steamboats until 1885.
SAMUEL S. HANKS.--Samuel, a brother of Stephen B., commenced piloting
in the '40s, and is still active.
Among the early pilots on the St. Croix and Mississippi
rivers were Antoine Lapoint, Augustus Barlow, Richard
Whiting, James Hickman, George M. Penny, and Daniel McLean.
CHAPTER IV.
POLK COUNTY--DESCRIPTION AND HISTORY.
Polk county contains 700,000 acres of land, well diversified with
timber and prairie, uplands and valleys, rivers and lakes, and fertile
enough to sustain a large population. The county was established by
the Wisconsin legislature in 1853, and originally included much more
territory than it now contains, new counties having been formed north
and east of its present domain. Indian traders had visited it at an
earlier period, but the first permanent white settlement was made in
1837, and the first pioneer who came with the serious intention of
making permanent improvements was Franklin Steele. As Mr. Steele's
history is in a great part the history of the early settlement, we
insert it here, and very nearly in the language of Mr. Steele himself,
as he communicated it to the writer some years since:
"I came to the Northwest in 1837, a young man, healthy and ambitious,
to dare the perils of an almost unexplored region, inhabited by
savages. I sought Fort Snelling (which was at that time an active
United States fort) as a point from which to start. In September,
1837, immediately after the treaty was made ceding the St. Croix
valley to the government, accompanied by Dr. Fitch, of Bloomington,
Iowa, we started from Fort Snelling in a bark canoe, also a scow
loaded with tools, supplies and laborers, descended the Mississippi
river and ascended the St. Croix to the Dalles. We clambered over the
rocks to the Falls, where we made two land claims, covering the Falls
on the east side and the approach to it in the Dalles. We built a log
cabin at the Falls, where the Upper Copper trap range crosses the
river and where the old mill was afterward erected. A second log house
we built in the ravine at the head of navigation. Whilst building,
four other parties arrived to make claim to this power. I found the
veritable Joe Brown on the west side of the St. Croix, trading with
the Indians, a few rods from where Baker & Taylor built their mill
(near the end of the present toll bridge). Brown had also cut pine
logs, part of which, in 1838, were used by Baker & Taylor, but most of
them were burned by forest fires on the ground where they were felled.
In February, 1838, I made a trip to the Falls with a dog team for the
relief of one Boyce, who was cutting logs at the mouth of Snake river,
and had had some trouble with the Indians. I helped him until he left
the country. Peshick, a chief of the Chippewas, said, 'We have no
money for logs; we have no money for land. Logs can not go.' He said
he could not control his young men and would not be responsible for
their acts.
"In the spring of 1838, from Fort Snelling we descended the
Mississippi river to Prairie du Chien in bark canoes, thence by
steamer to St. Louis, Missouri, where a co-partnership was formed by
Messrs. Fitch, of Muscatine, Iowa, Libbey, of Alton, Illinois,
Hungerford and Livingston, of St. Louis, Hill and Holcombe, of Quincy,
Illinois, and myself. We chartered the steamer Palmyra, loaded her
with all the materials with which to build a saw mill, including
mechanics to do the work, and started for the scene of operations.
Plans for procedure, rules and by-laws were discussed and adopted
during the journey on the steamer, and the new organization was
christened the St. Croix Falls Lumbering Company. Calvin A. Tuttle was
the millwright."
The trip was made in safety, our immediate plans executed, and the
Palmyra was the first steamboat that ever sailed the St. Croix river
and lake. Mr. Steele made an estimate for the construction of the mill
and dam at $20,000, which he submitted to the company. It was
accepted, and Calvin A. Tuttle, a millwright, was placed in charge of
the work, but Mr. Steele sold his interest to the company before the
mill was completed. On examination of the records we find that W.
Libbey was the first agent of the company. We find also from the same
record that Libbey knew little or nothing of the business he had
undertaken. With a few barrels of whisky and one of beads he busied
himself trading with the Indians. This was the first whisky sold in
the valley, and it was sold in defiance of government law.
Much could be written about this old pioneer company of the Northwest,
and its history, could it be truly written, would contain many
thrilling incidents and scenes worthy of remembrance; but much is
already forgotten and many of the most prominent actors have passed
away, leaving no record of their lives. The company, as a corporation,
passed through many changes of name and ownership. Its history would
be a history of litigations, of wranglings and feuds, of losses and
gains, of mistakes, of blunders and of wrongs. In the first place, the
mill was planned by men practically unfitted for such work,
inexperienced in lumbering and unacquainted with the vast expenditures
requisite for the opening up of a new country, hundreds of miles from
labor and the supplies needed for manufacturing. There were three
requisites present, a splendid water power, abundance of timber at
convenient distances and a healthful climate; but these alone did not
and could not make the enterprise a success. Had practical,
experienced lumbermen been employed the result might have been
different, but impractical methods, enormous expenses, with no profits
or dividends, caused most of the company to withdraw, forfeiting their
stock in preference to continuing with the prospect of total
bankruptcy. Goods were brought annually, at great expense, from St.
Louis by the large steamers which then controlled the trade of the
Mississippi and the St. Croix. The navigation of the St. Croix grew
annually more difficult, the immense number of logs floated down since
1838 wearing away the banks and increasing the number and area of sand
bars and not infrequently obstructing the channel with jams.
It is not known exactly how or when the name of St. Croix came to be
applied to the beautiful river bearing it, but La Harpe, in his
"Louisiana," gives the most plausible account of its origin: "This
name is not ecclesiastical in its associations, but named after
Monsieur St. Croix, who was drowned at its mouth." Le Sueur, who
explored the Upper Mississippi in 1683, says he left a large river on
the east side, named St. Croix, because a Frenchman of that name was
drowned at its mouth. As Duluth was the first white man to embark in
the waters of the St. Croix, descending it in canoes, from near Lake
Superior, which he did in 1680; and as Hennepin and La Salle ascended
the Mississippi the same year, the name could not have had an earlier