In May, 1837, about a month before my arrival, Chicago had elected its
first mayor, William B. Ogden. Its population was about 3,000 and was
mostly north of the river. There was a Presbyterian church where the
Board of Trade stands, in which Rev. Jeremiah Porter preached. The
Russell House on the North Side was the grand hotel, built of brick.
The Couch brothers had a small hotel on the present site of the
Tremont House of the same name, and the City Hotel was built on the
corner of State and Lake Streets. There were few buildings south of
Lake Street. There was a cornfield running south from Washington
Street and east of State Street. Lots were worth from $100 to $500
then, but had been worth as many thousands before the panic of 1837.
John Wentworth had just started his paper, the Chicago _Democrat_, in
a little 7 × 9 wooden building on La Salle Street north of
Randolph.[98] I had a letter of introduction to him and there made his
acquaintance. The first settler, Gurdon S. Hubbard,[99] was here,
William H. Brown, and many other persons with whom I became
acquainted, but most of whom have passed away. Some are here yet, and
among them G. S. Hubbard & Son, S. B. Cobb, Jerome Beecher, and Mr.
Carpenter. Chicago has now a population of 600,000.
I landed in Milwaukee the sixth of July, 1837. The boat could not land
and we were sent ashore in the small boat, at the mouth of the river,
then at Chase’s Point,[100] one mile below the present mouth. My
friend, Ed Whitcombe, was yet with me and on the boat I made the
acquaintance of John H. Tweedy[101] and formed a friendship which has
endured the changes of the last forty-five years. He afterwards
married a Fisher from Boston, who descended from the same ancestor
that I did. I found Milwaukee with a population of about 1,000, the
west side of the river mostly under water, many of the houses built on
stilts, abandoned, and doors open, most of the population of 1836
having left the place by reason of the panic. I remember the Frenchman
and first settler with a squaw wife was there.[102] I stopped at first
at the Milwaukee Hotel, but soon crossed the river to the Leland House
where I found my cousin, Dr. L. J. Barber, and remained with him at
that house. We had not met since we were lads. We soon became warm
friends. I had but little money and several young men boarding at the
Leland House had often to borrow of me to pay for their week’s
washing. All had been speculating in lots and were broke. None of us
knew what to do or where to go.
I remained about a week and decided to cross the country to Galena and
go to mining for lead. I started in company with two men, one by the
name of Frink and the other Blood. We traveled the first day to
Waukesha where was the first house, occupied by a Mr. Pratt.[103] It
was small, built of logs, and two berths on one side. The under one
was occupied by Pratt and wife, the upper one by Frink and me, and
Blood slept on the floor. The next day we lunched at the second house
from Milwaukee, at Pewaukee Lake, kept by Harrison Reed,[104]
afterwards governor of Florida. We reached Oconomowoc that night,
where we found two bachelors in a log shanty with a floor of bark and
nothing to eat but dry beans, which they stewed for us and which we
ate with a relish from a bark plate with a chip for a knife. The
mosquitoes were very large and hungry and feasted upon us that night.
We slept but little and left early in the morning on our Indian trail
for Rock River, having learned that there was a camp there where we
could get food. My feet had become very sore, and the morning’s walk
of twelve miles in the rain without food, and almost gored to death by
the mosquitoes, had so exhausted me that I was sick and could go no
farther. Fortunately, at the river I found Charles Goodhue, Esq., and
two of his sons from Sherbrooke, Lower Canada, an old acquaintance in
the East, who had a fine camp and ten or twelve men and three women in
camp. They bade me welcome and gave me to eat and to drink--the best
they had and I was never happier than that day. I was soon refreshed
and ready to travel again. Mr. Goodhue and sons had commenced building
a dam across Rock River, and afterwards a saw mill was built to cut
basswood lumber to raft down the river where new settlements were
being made.
I remained with Mr. Goodhue and sons a few days and was persuaded by
them to visit what was then called New Albany (now Beloit) before
going to Galena, they representing it as a very desirable point for a
town and offering me an interest in claims which they had recently
purchased there. I accepted the proposition to visit Beloit. There was
a large encampment of Indians on the opposite side of Rock River from
our camp, of whom we purchased a large canoe, giving them $5 and a
gallon of whisky. In it Mr. Goodhue and son George, Mr. Blood, Mr.
Frink, and myself embarked for Beloit. Goodhue and I owned the canoe
and Frink and Blood worked their passage. The river was very high and
we went to Fort Atkinson the first half day and lodged that night with
Alvin Foster in a log house, the only house there.[105] It had but one
room of moderate size in which were domiciled that night Foster and
his wife, mother, and niece, and seven travelers. The next day we
reached Koshkonong Lake before 10 A. M., and the wind being high we
divided, Messrs. Goodhue, Frink, and Blood going by land around the
lake, while George Goodhue and I kept the boat, preferring our chances
to drown to the tramp by land of six miles on a hot day over a marsh
of some miles. We were to meet at the outlet of the lake. We in the
boat had a rough voyage, bailing water part of the way to prevent
foundering, and on our arrival at the outlet found none of our party
and after waiting some hours we went on and just after dark we met
them on the river bank about ten miles below the lake, muddy and
tired. We took them [in] and soon reached Janesville, a village of
three families, viz., Messrs. Bailey, Stevens, and Janes.[106] We
remained there over night and next morning by 10 A. M. reached Beloit,
where there was one family.
It was Sunday morning, the fifteenth of July, 1837. I found Caleb
Blodgett[107] and family there in a log house and we slept upon the
floor two nights while there, in the only house except a log hut which
had just been vacated by an Indian trader, by name Thibault, whose
wife was a squaw. The first day, Sunday, I took a walk up where the
College now stands and on to the banks of Turtle Creek where I saw
many Indian mounds, some of them still preserved and where I had an
uninterrupted view of prairie such as I had never had before. I said
to my friend with me that it was the most beautiful landscape view
that I had ever seen. Quite a number of Indian wigwams were standing
upon the prairie near the creek and hurdles for drying their corn,
which had been raised for years upon the Turtle bottoms.
Beloit had been named by Blodgett “New Albany.” He with a large family
of sons had located there in 1836 and built their house that fall and
had claimed some three miles square by ploughing a furrow around and
putting up several shanties. The Government was surveying the land;
and as it was not in the market, no title could be obtained except a
so-called squatter’s title, which was obtained by a settlement upon
the land and which gave the settler the right to preëmpt 160 acres
when it came into market. In February, 1837, Dr. Horace White visited
Beloit as the agent of a New England company from Colebrook, New
Hampshire, that had sent him out to select a home for them in the new
West. He left Colebrook in January in company with R. P. Crane and O.
P. Bicknell, who stopped in Michigan while White continued west
exploring the Rock River valley and the valley of the Des Moines
River, all then in the territory of Wisconsin. At Beloit he found
Blodgett and sons (six of them) and John Hackett, a son-in-law, and
being pleased with the place, he purchased one-third of all the
interest or claims of Blodgett and sons, the interests being
undivided. Blodgett had before bought Thibault’s interest for $500,
who with his squaw removed to Koshkonong Lake, where I saw them both
on my first voyage down the river and on a subsequent one in
September. The following winter he was murdered by his squaw and her
family.
The following are the names of the colony for whom White acted: Horace
White, Otis Bicknell, George W. and Charles Bicknell, their father,
Captain Bicknell, R. P. Crane, Messrs. Beach, Eames, and Alfred Field,
and Israel Cheney, and one other whose name I forget, but who never
came west.[108] In March, White returned east and O. P. Bicknell and
Crane came to Beloit and built a shanty and occupied it. That spring a
Major Johnson from Newburg, Vermont, and John Doolittle from Holley,
Lower Canada, had reached Beloit and purchased 2/12ths of Blodgett’s
claims and lived in the Thibault shanty. Charles Goodhue from
Sherbrooke, Lower Canada, and his brother-in-law, Tyler H. Moore, had
purchased 3/12ths before and had begun the race and a saw mill on
Turtle Creek when I reached the place. The interests were as follows
then: Blodgett and sons 3/12ths, New England Company (so-called)
4/12ths, Goodhue and Moore 3/12ths, Johnson & Doolittle 2/12ths. I
found there Blodgett and sons, Johnson & Doolittle, Cyrus Eames,
Bicknell & Crane. The lower bench of Beloit or between the bluff and
river was still covered by heavy timber and underbrush, but little
having been removed. The owners had broken some acres on the bottoms
and were breaking 160 acres where Slaymaker now resides and 100 acres
on the high ground south of him. On Monday after my arrival I
purchased of Goodhue and Moore one-fourth of their interest for $400
and I paid for my share of the ploughing which was to be cultivated in
common until a division of claims was made. I did not expect to locate
there but bought on speculation.
On Tuesday, the seventeenth, I embarked in our canoe with Mr. Goodhue
and son George, Mr. Frink, and Mr. Eames for Rockford, leaving Mr.
Blood there. We remained at Rockford over night at the log hotel of
Mr. Miller. There were several families there. Mr. Goodhue’s son
Charles met us there with his team and took us to Belvedere where he
had a little store and where half a dozen families had settled. It was
called Squaw Prairie and a Mr. Doty kept a hotel or tavern. We left
our canoe to the citizens of Rockford. After a night’s rest at
Belvidere, Frink, Eames, and I started on foot for Chicago, stopping
the first night at Spencer’s Grove. The next day I was quite sick and
reached Tyler & Raustead’s house, four miles west of Elgin, about six
P. M., and was so sick that I felt that I could go no farther and
proposed to stay over night, but they would not keep me, fearing that
I should be too sick to leave in the morning. They reluctantly gave me
a cup of tea and I moved on, being virtually dragged by the arms the
four miles by Messrs. Frink and Doolittle.
Here let me correct a mistake in dates and facts. Cyrus Eames was not
at Beloit at this time, and it was not Eames who left Beloit in the
boat with us, but John Doolittle, who returned to Canada with Mr.
Goodhue at this time. We reached Elgin after dark, where I learned
that I had an aunt and her husband and three children living four
miles above Elgin on Fox River, and in the morning I parted with
Frink, who started for Ottawa, and I hired Mr. Kimball, the landlord,
to take me in a wagon to my Aunt Tyler’s, I being yet a sick man.
Elgin had about ten families. I found my aunt and husband with three
sons on a farm of 400 acres which George Tyler had squatted upon in
1835 and before the government survey. Aunt Tyler was the youngest
sister of my mother, and married Noah Tyler of Claremont, New
Hampshire, about 1803 and by him had eight children, four sons and
four daughters. The family became Catholics and the four daughters
became abbesses or superiors. The oldest son, George, went in early
life to Georgia and emigrated from the South to this state and sent
for his father, mother, and two brothers, who came to him. He married
here at the age of fifty and is now a resident of Texas. The second
son, William, died Catholic bishop of Rhode Island and Connecticut, in
1854, I think. The third son died at Dundee and the youngest is living
at Elgin and has a large family of nine children. His name is Calvin.
He was educated for the Catholic priesthood. One daughter, Sallie, is
living in Detroit at the head of a Catholic nunnery.
[Illustration: LUCIUS GEORGE FISHER
From a daguerreotype in the possession of the Fisher family]
My good aunt nursed me well and in three days I was quite well and was
sent for by Mr. Goodhue to meet him at Elgin, which I did and he took
me to Chicago with his team. For miles before we reached Chicago the
prairie was on an average one foot under water. I remained but a day
or two in Chicago, stopping at the Tremont House. I took an old
steamer back to Milwaukee. I boarded at the Leland House on the west
side until September, when I started again for Beloit by way of
Watertown and was accompanied by a young man by the name of Sanborn,
who was or had been a medical student but had come west to seek his
fortune. (He afterwards returned to New England and finished his
studies and became very eminent in his profession in Keene, New
Hampshire.) We borrowed a horse or pony of Colonel Parks, receiver of
the land office, and rode and tied to Watertown, and there we
spanseled the pony and turned him out to grass. The next day the
Indians had stolen him and he was found some weeks after at Green Bay.
We stopped with a Mr. Johnson, the first settler there and then the
only family there except one in Goodhue’s camp.[109] They gave us a
bed separated from the bed of Mrs. Johnson and her daughter by a
blanket hung between us. Mr. Johnson slept on the floor. The house was
about 12 × 12 feet, in one room. We had for food salt pork, potatoes,
and blackberries, and good appetites.
We remained one week and labored diligently with adz and axe in
cutting down a basswood tree and fashioning a canoe from it, and at
the end of a week we hired Mr. Johnson’s yoke of oxen and drew the
canoe about a mile to the river. Neither of us were acquainted with
the use of tools, and the canoe was not artistic. We launched it, and
on entering it the first time it shot from under me and left me in the
river. But we soon got the hang of it and we set sail. On entering
Lake Koshkonong we found the wild rice so high and thick that we could
not find a way out of it, and we returned to an Indian encampment on
the river and hired two Indian boys to go before us and pilot us
through the rice (about half a mile) to clear water. We reached the
outlet about dark and it was then by the river about twenty miles to
Janesville, and we knew there was a log hut with a man and wife in it
somewhere before reaching Janesville.
We pulled on in a bright moonlight and reached the shanty about
midnight, very tired and hungry. On landing we went to the house and
found an opening with a quilt for a door, which I pushed aside and
spoke to a woman whom I discovered in a bed with her head within a
foot of the door. She answered with a scream and the husband enquired,
“Who is there?” I replied, “A friend,” and made known our wants. He
arose and struck a light and I found we were in a log room about 12 ×
8 feet with no windows, door, or fireplace, the fire for cooking being
made against the logs at one end and a hole in the roof for the escape
of the smoke. The bedstead was made of two upright sticks with sticks,
one end entering holes bored in the logs, the other entering holes in
the standing pieces and slats on these supports. There were two berths
of this kind, one over the other. We were given the upper one and
slept until the party under us had breakfast ready. The man had been
to the river and caught a fine catfish for breakfast and we had
appetites that gave our food a fine relish. From there we went to
Beloit in one day without accident. This was in September. Mr. Sanborn
remained with me several days. He boarded with Mr. Blodgett in his log
house, sleeping on the floor. Mr. Johnson, Alfred Field, and some
others lived in the Thibault hut and the Bicknell family in a log hut
near the paper mill or present dam, on the east side of the river. I
remained about four weeks.
While there, a meeting of the settlers was called at the Beloit House,
which was at that time enclosed and partly finished, to give a better
name to the place. Major Johnson, Deacon Hobart, and myself were
appointed a committee to report one and we proposed several and
finally agreed to place the alphabet in a hat and see if we could not
get a combination of letters that would give us a name that would be a
new one. While proposing this, Mr. Johnson undertook to sound a French
word for handsome ground and in trying he spoke “Bollotte,” and I said
after him “Beloit,” like Detroit in sound and pretty and original I
think. All sounded it and liked it and we reported it to the twenty or
thirty who had sent us out and it was unanimously adopted; and it has
ever since been Beloit and not New Albany.
While at Beloit Major Johnson and Cyrus Eames took the canoe that
Sanborn and I made and floated down to Burlington where the first
territorial legislature for the Wisconsin Territory was in session.
The present states of Iowa and Wisconsin were called Wisconsin
Territory then. At that session they obtained a charter for a female
seminary in Beloit, it being the first charter for an institution of
learning that was granted in the Territory.[110] While at Beloit in
September, a Professor Whitney of Belvidere preached the first sermon
in the Beloit House that was preached in the county of Rock. I
remained into October and then returned to Milwaukee by the way of
Watertown on horseback, riding one of George Goodhue’s horses in
company with him and remaining over night in his shanty at Watertown.
I remained in Milwaukee until February, 1838, having sprained my ankle
in January, which confined me to crutches for three months.
My father and sisters, Jane and Amanda, reached Fox River in December,
where my sisters remained with my Aunt Tyler until March. They left
Vermont in October and came by land with a three-horse team. My father
came on to Beloit, and learning there that I was confined in Milwaukee
by lameness, he started for me with his team, expecting to find his
goods shipped by water from Burlington, Vermont, but found that the
vessel and goods had been sent near Mackinaw and that a friend of mine
had started with me in a jumper for Beloit, where we met after three
days. We rented one-half of the log house which Blodgett had just left
to occupy a new frame house. We went to Dundee for my sisters in March
and settled in our home with but little furniture. My father had
brought with him two beds and bedding and clothing. Dr. White, father
of Horace White of New York, occupied the other half of the house with
his family. I met him in April and we soon became fast friends. He was
a good physician and a man of great business capacity, one who had
great command of language and would say more in the fewest words than
any man that I have ever known. He was a man of sound judgment. He was
a very [word illegible] and reserved man, making but few confidants.
We were more intimate than brothers usually are. We had no secrets
that were withheld by either from the other. He died in December,
1843, and I was left very sad.
In the summer of 1838 I bought four yoke of oxen and broke prairie for
the crop of 1839 after seeding the 20 acres which was my share of the
320 acres, which was ploughed in two fields and paid for and owned in
common by the colonists. My father and I harrowed in wheat and oats in
March. Bread and meat were very scarce and dear, and some days we had
nothing but suckers caught out of Turtle Creek. But most of the time
we had meat and as soon as the vegetables grew we lived very well
having plenty of hog product and bread. Our fall crop of wheat was
good.
In the fall of 1838 I went to Milwaukee and arranged with a merchant
for stoves, boots, and shoes to sell on commission, and with one team
I drove them to Beloit and sold them at a good profit to the settlers
who were coming in almost every day. In the winter of 1838-9 we lived
in a part of Mr. Blodgett’s new frame house. In the summer of 1838 I
made a claim of 160 acres on Rock River, two miles above Fort
Atkinson, which was covered with timber, much of it basswood. In the
winter of 1838-9 I hired four men to cut logs and rafted them in the
spring to Beloit and had them cut on shares by Messrs. Goodhue and
Moore. From the sales of this lumber I paid my men and from a part of
it I built a comfortable house for my family. My sisters, Emeline and
Rosetta, had been left behind, one in Montreal and Rosetta with an
uncle in Burke, Vermont, under the care of a physician, having a
sprained foot that she did not step upon for three years and which is
not well yet. They came west in the fall of 1838, so in the new house
we all gathered and were very happy.
In March, 1839, the first land sale took place in Milwaukee, and I was
chosen bidder for all claimants in the south half of Rock County east
of Rock River, the lands on the west side having been brought into
market before at a land sale in Milwaukee. The claimants all secured
their lands, they standing by me and permitting no one to bid but me
on their lands, and I got all for them at the upset price of $1.25 per
acre. Here I met the cousin and agent of Gen. Philip Kearney, and
arranged with him to buy lands for the general and take the agency of
the lands purchased. I made entries for him at Milwaukee and
afterwards at Dixon land sale and subsequently entered some thousands
of acres with Mexican soldiers’ land warrants on shares and managed
his estate in the west for some years, and in 1856 I bought his
remaining lands at $60,000 and closed my account with him. He visited
me once in Beloit.
The first session of the territorial legislature was held at Belmont,
Lafayette County, the second at Burlington, Iowa, and the third in
Madison in November, 1838, after Iowa was organized as a separate
territory. I attended that and succeeding sessions for several years
as a lobby member. In 1839 I was appointed sheriff of Rock County by
Governor Dodge and held the office six years, in one of which I took
the census of the county and as sheriff collected the taxes of the
county. I had my appointment from Governor Dodge two years, from
Governor Doty three years, and the last year from the people, the
office having been made elective. The statutes would not permit me to
hold it again until after two years. My business was such that I could
not afford to hold it longer, and I accepted the last election because
the county was democratic and I was the only Whig that could defeat
the nominee of that party. On the night of the election I went to
Janesville to get the returns and found all but four towns reported
and a tie. The next town came in a tie, also the next, and one more to
be heard from and that a democratic one I knew. When I got the returns
from that I had seven majority, and a great shout went up from my
friends.
At the legislative session of 1840 I was appointed a commissioner to
lay out three territorial roads--one from Beloit to Southport (now
Kenosha), one from Beloit to Madison, the other to Milwaukee. Two
others were appointed with me on each road. I spent much time on them
and they are the roads of today with some slight changes. At the next
session I was commissioned to lay a road from Beloit to Watertown.
In 1839 I met for the first time Miss Caroline Field, the daughter of
Deacon Peter Field, who was at Beloit to visit her parents. We soon
became engaged to marry and after a courtship of three years we
married in June, 1842. I had built a house, into which we moved on the
day of our marriage, where I lived until 1866 and where all my
children were born.
In 1842 Horace White, Harvey Bundy, and myself formed a partnership in
a general goods business and commenced building the stone flour mill
on the Turtle Creek. We bought a stock of goods for another store,
called the Mill Store. In December, 1843, Doctor White died and I was
left with all the business and also his family to care for and his
estate to settle, and my partner, Harvey Bundy, a worthless business
man. All the wise ones prophesied that we should fail and White’s
estate was or would be used up. We owed a large amount and the mill
was about half finished. I felt that I might lose all--for I had not
much to lose really beyond the land that I first purchased and a few
hundred dollars earned. I settled the estate and saved it without
loss, and kept the family together until Mrs. White married Deacon
Samuel Hinman. Horace White of the _Tribune_ once, and now the
treasurer of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, was the son of
Doctor White.[111]
In 1852 a railroad charter had been obtained for building a road from
Racine to Beloit. Also, one from Southport to Beloit. The
incorporators of each road came to me to assist them to build, and I
chose the road to Racine and made enemies of the incorporators of the
Southport road for the time being. It was through my influence that it
was built. Fisher, Keep & Tolcott contracted to build it from Fox
River to Freeport, and built it from Fox River or Burlington to
Durand, when the financial crisis of 1867 failed the company and the
work was suspended one year. I was appointed a receiver by the court
and ran it a short time when it was restored to the directors and I
became a director and the company built it to the Mississippi and sold
it out to the bondholders.
Before this, in 1848 the Chicago and Galena Railroad had been built to
Elgin and the funds of the company were exhausted, and William B.
Ogden and other directors came to Beloit and offered to build a branch
of their road from Rockford to Beloit, when their road reached
Rockford, if the people of Beloit would subscribe $75,000 to the main
line. I was selected by our citizens to take the subscription and in
one week I got it--part of it without conditions, and part with my
guarantee that if they would subscribe and pay five per cent, that I
would guarantee the stock to be par when the second installment was
called for. The installments were to be five per cent each month. Mr.
Keep, Mr. Cheney, and myself took $30,000 and I took $15,000 for
General Kearney. When the second installment was called for I had to
take several thousand more that was given me on my agreement to take
it if not at par. Before the third installment was due the stock was
at five per cent premium and I sold most of it. The company built the
road from Belvidere instead of Rockford, which gave us a shorter line.
The next year the Beloit and Madison Railroad was begun, and I was
elected a director in that and remained on the board until it was sold
to the Chicago & Galena Company, which company soon after sold out to
the Northwestern Railroad Company. I was a contractor on the Chicago &
Northwestern Air Line between the Rock and Mississippi rivers. In 1856
I was one of the contractors for building the railroad from Clinton,
Iowa, to Council Bluffs. The contract was for grading, ironing, and
ballasting the road and amounted to about $13,000,000. The pay was a
land grant of every other section ten miles in width, some cash, and
some bonds and some stock. When we had expended about $400,000 in
grading, the company failed in 1857. We got the first 100 sections of
land and the franchise of the road, which we sold to Mr. Blair of New
Jersey and got even with the company. We took the land grant and built
the road some years after; Morris K. Jessup, Dean Richmond, Charles
Reed of Erie, and Messrs. Morris & Courtright of New York were
partners, also H. S. Durand and Wm. Allen of Racine. I also had a
partnership with the last two and Judge Green of Providence, Rhode
Island, by which the latter gentleman was to furnish $100,000 cash to
be used by Durand, Allan, and myself in the purchase of lands and town
sites in Iowa on the line of the road, the profits to be divided
equally between Durand, Allan, and myself, party of the first part,
and Greene and his associates, party of the second part. The crisis of
1857 ended that project. In 1852 I prevailed upon a party in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to open a bank in Beloit. In 1854 John M.
Keep, A. L. Field, and myself bought the bank stock and elected Keep
president and Field cashier. In 1856 I was elected president and Mr.
Keep sold his stock. In the crisis of 1857 the bank failed and was
closed and its charter sold to Davis & Martin. In 1856 I was elected
to the legislature and served in 1856-7 and declined a reëlection, as
at the time of election the next year, I had more business irons in
the fire than I could attend to.
When the charter of the city of Beloit was obtained, I was elected an
alderman from the second ward and served six years, and was two years
county supervisor. I was a director in a gas company, also in a car
company that went no further than organizing.
I was a partner of W. T. Goodhue in the purchase and ownership of
considerable real estate. With Goodhue and R. H. Mills in the purchase
and sale of real estate; also, with R. H. Mills in the purchase and
sale of a large amount of real estate. In the settlement with Mr.
Mills, he owed me over $15,000 which he could not pay, so I gave it to
him. Mr. H. Cheney owed me as much more when he left for Colorado,
where he died. Messrs. Mills, Brooks, and I purchased and sold much
real estate. I was elected a trustee of Beloit College at its
organization and have been to date, also one of the Executive
Committee while I lived in Beloit, and gave much of the site or
grounds. I have been a deacon in the Congregational church about
thirty years. In 1861 I was appointed by President Lincoln postmaster
at Beloit. He had been my attorney in defending the title to Beloit,
which I did at my own expense mostly and won the suit, and saved the
citizens from a heavy blackmail.
The president offered me any office that I thought myself competent to
fill, through my friend, David Davis. I took the Beloit post office,
as I could not leave my business interests in Beloit. At the end of
four years I was commissioned again by Lincoln and was afterwards
removed by Johnson for refusing to support his measures. In 1862 I was
appointed by Secretary Chase to take subscriptions to the first or
gold bonds issued to carry on the war, and was one of two appointed
for Wisconsin and received subscriptions.
[97] Lucius G. Fisher, a native of Vermont, was born at
Derby, August 17, 1808. His father was a substantial farmer
of Derby, but due to business reverses the son failed to
obtain the anticipated college education, a fact which he
never ceased to lament. While still a youth he formed the
design of migrating to the West, but the execution of this
project was delayed for several years, first by reason of
his disinclination to separate from his mother, and after
her death by the necessity of assisting in the support of
his father and sisters. After several years of school
teaching and two years of service as sheriff’s deputy,
Fisher in 1834 entered the employ of the Messrs. Fairbanks,
of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, to travel for them and introduce
their “recently invented” platform scales. The immediate
inducement to this employment was the proffered salary of
$500 yearly and all expenses; but the work was accepted by
Fisher, as he reports in later life, in order to find, in
his travels, “that better country” he had determined, when
but sixteen years of age, to seek.
The employment with the Fairbanks company continued
profitably for Fisher for three years. Then the panic of
1837 brought it to a disastrous termination, under the
circumstances set forth in the narrative which follows. The
manuscript from which these facts are drawn, and the greater
portion of which we print, tells the story of the writer’s
life from birth until the time of writing, at Chicago, in
the spring of 1883. To summarize its concluding portion,
Fisher left Beloit for Chicago in 1866, where with Ralph
Emerson he built a block at the southeast corner of State
and Washington streets on the site of the present Columbus
Memorial Building. Although burned out in the great fire of
October 9, 1871, Fisher prospered in Chicago and became
comparatively wealthy.
The manuscript narrative of his career was presented to the
State Historical Society of Wisconsin in January, 1917 by a
grandson, William Scott Bond, of Chicago. Because of the
valuable picture it presents of pioneer days in Wisconsin,
and particularly of the early development of Beloit, in
which Mr. Fisher played a prominent and creditable part, the
narrative seems eminently worthy of the wider publicity and
service which its publication in the Wisconsin Magazine of
History involves. In preparing the manuscript for
publication a uniform typographical style has been imposed,
and certain minor lapses in composition have been
eliminated; but these editorial changes affect in no degree
the character of the narrative as it left Mr. Fisher’s hand.
[98] The _Democrat_, the first newspaper published in
Chicago, was founded by John Calhoun in November, 1833. In
1836 Calhoun sold the paper to John Wentworth, who continued
as its proprietor and editor until the _Democrat_ was merged
with the _Tribune_ in 1861.
[99] Gurdon S. Hubbard, a native of Vermont, came west in
1818 as a youth in the employ of the American Fur Company,
and was assigned to the Illinois Brigade. A number of years
later he made Chicago his permanent residence and became one
of the most prominent of the first generation of Chicago
business men. He does not, however, deserve in any sense the
title of “first settler” of Chicago.
[100] Chase’s Point was named after Horace Chase, a
prominent citizen of early Milwaukee. Like the Chicago
River, the Milwaukee has been subjected to a civilizing
process which has resulted in the acquisition of a new mouth
some distance to the north of the natural one.
[101] John H. Tweedy, a native of Connecticut and graduate
of Yale, came to Milwaukee in 1836 as a youthful lawyer of
twenty-two. He soon became prominent both in legal and in
political circles, and throughout the territorial period was
one of the leaders of the Whig faction in Wisconsin. In 1847
he was elected as territorial delegate to Congress. Upon the
admission of Wisconsin to statehood Tweedy was put forward
by the Whigs as their candidate for the governorship, but
was defeated by Nelson Dewey. During the fifties Tweedy was
active in the development of the railroad system of
Wisconsin.
[102] Apparently the reference is to Solomon Juneau, one of
the founders of Milwaukee, who settled there as an Indian
trader in 1818.
[103] Alexander Pratt had removed from Milwaukee to Waukesha
earlier in the year 1837. Although one of the very early
settlers of Waukesha, he was not the first one, nor was his
house the only one at the place at the time of Fisher’s
visit. Pratt was unmarried at this time. He was a man of
some means, however, and had in his employ a man and wife.
Probably this couple is the one alluded to by Fisher.
[104] Harrison Reed had come west to Milwaukee in 1836, and
in 1837 became virtually the first editor of the _Sentinel_.
By an unfortunate quarrel a few years later he lost control
of the paper and was ruined financially. After residences at
Madison and Menasha, Reed in 1862 was appointed tax
commissioner of Florida. He later (1868-72) served as
governor of the state.
[105] The settlement of Fort Atkinson was begun in the
autumn of 1836 under the auspices of the Rock River Claim
Company. This company, organized earlier in the same year,
had sent out an exploring party and made claims at several
points, including Fort Atkinson. In order to make good the
latter claim it was decided to locate a family on it, and
accordingly a house was built and occupied by Dwight Foster
and family, late in 1836. During the ensuing winter, Edward
and Alvin Foster also came to Fort Atkinson, their houses
being built about a mile up the river from Dwight Foster’s
cabin. Instead of being the first house at this point,
therefore, Alvin Foster’s was the second or third one built.
[106] The settlement of Janesville was begun by the erection
of a log house by John Inman and others near the close of
the year 1835. Two or three months later Henry Janes, for
whom the town is named, staked out a claim here, and in the
spring of 1836 brought his family to a cabin which workmen
had already built for him. Several other families came
during the following months, and Fisher is probably
incorrect in saying there were but three at the time of his
first visit in the autumn of 1837. The Bailey family,
mentioned by Fisher, arrived in the autumn of 1836, and the
Stevens family in the spring of 1837.
[107] Blodgett, a native of Vermont, had come west in search
of a fortune, and in the spring of 1836 had bought
Thibault’s squatter-right claim to all the land within
“three looks” of his cabin for $200. Blodgett thereupon set
up a claim to some ten sections of land, and fortified it,
according to local histories, by building a log house and
ploughing a furrow around it. Before becoming possessed of
any legal title whatever, Blodgett began disposing of his
extensive domain by selling to Goodhue his claim to
one-third of it (one-fourth, according to Fisher) for the
sum of $2,000. Goodhue in turn disposed of one-fourth of his
interest to Fisher for $400. Meanwhile, in March, 1837, Dr.
Horace White of Colebrook, N. H., had visited the place, and
on behalf of the New England Emigrating Company had
purchased one-third of Blodgett’s claim for $2,500. This
coming of the New England Emigrating Company to Beloit may
be regarded as the most important event in connection with
its early development. At the same time Doctor White was
instrumental in giving to Beloit her most famous citizen in
the person of his three-year old son, Horace.
[108] The list of members according to Horace White included
the following persons: Cyrus Eames, O. P. Bicknell, John W.
Bicknell, Asahel B. Howe, Leonard Hatch, David J. Bundy, Ira
Young, L. C. Beech, S. G. Colley, G. W. Bicknell, R. P.
Crane, Horace Hobart, Horace White, and Alfred Field.
William F. Brown, _History of Rock County_ (Chicago, 1908),
I, 133.
[109] This was Timothy Johnson, a native of Middletown,
Conn., who came to Wisconsin in 1835. He stopped at Racine
for a few months, going from there to Wisconsin City (now
Janesville) at the beginning of 1836. Not satisfied here,
however, he soon went up Rock River to a point about two
miles below the site of Jefferson, where he built a log
house and cleared a garden plot. Further prospecting soon
led to the discovery of “Johnson’s Rapids” (modern
Watertown), where he staked out a claim of 1,000 acres in
the spring of 1836, bringing his family to the place in
December following. He had thus been settled here about a
year at the time of Fisher’s first visit.
[110] The charter was granted in 1837 for the establishment
of a seminary “for young persons of either sex.” The school
was not started, according to Horace White, until 1843 or
1844, when classes were held in the basement of the new
Congregational church. Classes for girls were maintained
separately in the “Female Seminary.”
[111] Horace White, widely known as a publicist, and writer
on financial themes, was brought to Beloit by his parents as
a child of three years in 1837. He was graduated at Beloit
College in 1853, and in 1854 became city editor of the
Chicago _Evening Journal_. From 1864 to 1874 he was editor
and part owner of the Chicago _Tribune_. In 1883 he bought a
part interest in the New York _Evening Post_ and thereafter
for twenty years was one of its managers, and for the last
few years of the period its editor-in-chief.