A New Contract--Obstacles.
"To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware."
My life, up to the time of my contract with Mr. Patrick to go with him
into the wilds of Wisconsin as an apprenticed land hunter and timber
examiner, had been spent on the farm, in my father's shop, at school and
college, and in teaching. The change of occupation and manner of living
will therefore be seen to have been radical. In six months of contact
with nature, I had been born into a new life, a life of initiative, of
daring, and of hardships, insuring health and inspiring hope of
financial success in a way honorable and helpful. I loved the forms of
nature all about me, untouched by the hand of man. I therefore sought
for and found an associate with capital sufficient to permit me to
continue in the same line of work. The late Robert B. Langdon then
became my partner, and this relationship was most pleasantly continued
to the end of Mr. Langdon's life.
[Illustration: "In the Vermilion country, dog trains could sometimes be
advantageously used." (Page 130.)]
Late in December, 1871, my first trip under the new contract for
securing pine timber, was undertaken. The ice in the rivers and lakes
had now become firm and safe for travel thereon. Considerable snow had
already fallen, and the roads were heavy in consequence.
Our work, as planned, lay many miles up the Chippewa River. In order to
reach the desired locality with sufficient supplies to enable us to be
gone a month or six weeks, it was necessary to take them on a toboggan
made expressly for the uses of this proposed trip. Four men were needed
to push and pull the load. After a week of hard labor, our party arrived
at the point where the work of surveying the lands was to begin. A place
to camp was chosen in the thick woods not far from the river bank, where
water would be near by and convenient for the use of the camp. A small,
but strong warehouse of logs was first constructed, in which to store
the supplies not necessary for immediate use.
Having thus secured the supplies for future use from the reach of any
wild beasts roaming in the forests, we put enough of them into our pack
sacks to last for a ten days' absence from our storehouse camp. We were
about to start, when Abbot, one of our axmen, in chopping a stick of
wood, had the misfortune to send the sharp blade of the ax into his
foot, deep to the bone. The gash was an ugly one and at once disabled
him for further usefulness on this trip. The man must be taken out of
the woods where his foot could receive proper care. How was this to be
accomplished? Two men alone could possibly have hauled him on the
toboggan. The distance to the nearest habitation where a team of horses
could be obtained was seventy-five miles. There was but one tent in the
outfit and not sufficient blankets to permit of dividing our party of
four men. It seemed, therefore, that there was nothing possible to do
but for the whole party to retrace its steps to the point where it had
been obliged to leave the team behind. The wound in Abbot's foot was
cleansed and some balsam having been gathered from the fir trees, the
same was laid on a clean piece of white cotton cloth, which, used as a
bandage, was placed over the wound and made secure. The wound having
been thus protected, Abbot was placed on the toboggan and hauled to the
ranch seventy-five miles down the river.
Cruising in the woods is always expensive, even when everything moves on
smoothly and without accident. The men's wages are the highest paid for
common labor, while the wages of compassmen are much more. The wages of
the man of experience and knowledge sufficient to conduct a survey, as
well as to judge correctly of the quality and quantity of timber on each
subdivision of land selected for purchase, are from seven dollars to ten
dollars a day. He must determine the feasibility of bringing the pine
logs to water sufficient to float them when cut, and the best and
shortest routes for the logging roads to reach the banks of the rivers,
or possibly the lakes where the logs are unloaded; and, in these modern
days of building logging railroads, he must also locate the lines of the
railroads and determine their grades. At the time above alluded to, no
logging railroads were in existence, and that part of the expense did
not have to be borne. The trip proved to be a very expensive one, and
there had not been time before the accident to choose one forty-acre
tract of land for entry.
After arriving at Eau Claire where the land office was located, and
being delayed some days by other business, we found on going to the
land office, that many entries had just been made of lands within the
townships in which we had planned to do our work, when the accident to
Abbot occurred. This fact necessitated the choosing of other townships
in which to go to search for vacant lands on our next trip.
Having acquired from the land office the necessary plats, and having
secured a new stock of provisions, we started again to penetrate another
part of the pine woods. This trip occupied several weeks in which we
were more than ordinarily successful in finding desirable lands, and we
hastened to Eau Claire in order that we might secure these by purchase
at the land office.
Rumors had been afloat for some time previous, that there were
irregularities in the conduct of the office at Eau Claire. These rumors
had grown until action was taken by the general land office at
Washington, resulting in the temporary closing of the Eau Claire land
office for the purpose, as reported, of examining the books of that
office.
[Illustration: S. D. Patrick]
Many crews of men came out of the woods in the days that followed, with
minutes or descriptions of lands which they desired to enter, each in
turn to find the land office closed against them. In this dilemma,
advice was taken as to what course to pursue. After having taken
counsel, I, as well as several others, sent my minutes, together with
the necessary cash, to the general land office at Washington, with
application to have the same entered for patents. Our minutes and our
money, however, were returned to us from Washington with the information
that the entry could not be thus made, and that public notice would be
given of the future day when the land office at Eau Claire would reopen
for the transaction of the government's business. All land hunters of
the Eau Claire district were therefore obliged to suspend operations
until the time of the reopening of the land office. This occurred on the
first of May following.
I was there early and in line to enter the office when its doors should
be open at nine o'clock in the morning, and reached the desk
simultaneously with the first few to arrive. All were told that in due
time, possibly later in that day, they could call for their duplicate
receipts of such lands as they were able to secure. There was present
that morning, a man by the name of Gilmore, from Washington, who, so far
as my knowledge goes, had never before been seen at the Eau Claire land
office. My descriptions which I had applied for at the land office on
that morning had all been entered by the man from Washington, resulting
in the loss of all of my work from January until May. I was not alone in
this unlooked for experience, as I was informed by others that they had
shared the same fate.
Thus baffled, and believing that there was no prospect of fair treatment
in that land office district, I determined to change my seat of
operations and to go into some other district. I did so, going next onto
the waters of the Wisconsin River, the United States land office for
which district, was then located at Stevens Point. Here I remained for
many months, operating with a good degree of success, and found the land
office most honorably and fairly conducted for all.
The registrar of the land office was Horace Alban, and the receiver was
David Quaw. It was always a pleasure to do business with these two
gentlemen.