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MR. SINCLAIR, in 1841,
had made a trip to Wisconsin, the possibilities of which were then
just beginning to dawn upon the people of the eastern portion of the
United States, and purchased a quantity of land four miles from
Racine at a place now called Mt. Pleasant. In 1845 he sold his
interest in the firm of Sinclair, March and Jewett to his partners
and prepared to go west.
One morning in
October he called me into his room and told me of his intention,
offering me one hundred and sixty acres of land, with a house, teams
and other farm equipment if I would go with him and live with him
until I was twenty-one years old. To a boy of sixteen this was a
matter of the gravest importance. The proposal appealed to me. It
offered opportunities for my own advancement and had a sufficient
cast of adventure to stimulate my imagination and I was disposed to
accept it. Before making a decision, however, I drove to Aroostook
county to see my father and talk over the venture with him. With
some reluctance he consented to my departure thinking at the time
that he would follow me the next year. As it happened he did not go
to Wisconsin until seventeen years later, in 1863. What this parting
meant to him may be gathered from a letter I received from him under
date of April 2, 1846.
"Dear Isaac," he
wrote, "I have done very well this winter. You can tell Mr. Sinclair
that I made and hauled 11 hundred sticks of timber on 13 in the
range and camped in George Lincoln's on old camp. With six horses we
commenced hauling the 20th of December and quit the 12th of March.—
It commenced to rain about that time. The snow was very light here
this winter, about two feet and a half all winter. I expect to start
to you as soon as the last of June.— Samuel worked in the woods for
its all winter and he has Mr. Bradley's note for thirty dollars
besides what he got when he settled. I am in hopes we will have
something handsome to take with us when we go. You may depend upon
me going if God spares my health for I want once more to see my
children together. If you do not think the place will suit me I want
you to tell me, for this place is very good at present. Now Isaac,
be a good boy and I hope the Lord will prosper you. No more at
present. I remain your affectionate father until death."
Long before his wish
could be gratified my brothers and many of the men I had known in
our camps in Maine and New Brunswick had come after me to seek their
fortunes in the Wisconsin and Michigan forests.
The journey from
Bangor was an extraordinary one, judging from latter-day standards.
After packing all of the furniture except the stoves,— including
even the zinc bathtub, the first of its kind in Milwaukee,— we
embarked on the steamer "Penobscot" for Boston about the middle of
October, 1845. Among our chattels were two Concord buggies and two
or three sets of logging harness. The latter were afterwards
duplicated in Milwaukee by the harness maker, George Dyer, and were
the type of harness in use in the West to-day.
One of our fellow
passengers on the steamer "Penobscot" was our neighbor, Captain
Eustis, who was also on his way to Boston to take charge of his
ship, on which he contemplated making two trips to Nova Scotia for
coal. His proposal that I accompany him with his eldest son as cabin
boy opened new vistas of adventure which even the trip to Wisconsin
and the assurances of moderate success did not obscure. After much
wavering and doubt I succumbed to the lure of the sea.
When the Sinclair
family was safely lodged in the hotel in Boston, where we remained
for twenty-four hours at the conclusion of the first stage of our
journey, I slipped down to the docks; but neither Captain Eustis nor
his vessel was to be found although I made an earnest search.
Concealing my disappointment I went back to the hotel and when the
family resumed their travels I went along with them. Then, as in
many instances since, some benignant fate rescued me as I was about
to turn into the wrong path, all of which has sometimes led me to
believe that, after all, a special providence may be watching over
our destinies. I do not know. One can only wonder.
From Boston we
continued our journey on the Boston and Albany railroad, one of the
important transportation lines of the country. To those who know
nothing of railroad travel except the luxurious trains of the
present day, the conditions of passenger traffic on these early
lines are almost inconceivable, so rapid has been the improvement of
railroads and equipment. The passenger coaches were very much like
the freight cars of to-day, though much smaller, and in some
respects, I have no doubt, much less comfortable. There were only
two windows, about sixteen by twenty inches in size, on each side of
the cars to afford light and air and such glimpses of the passing
landscape as we were able to take. The floors were carpeted and in
place of modern upholstered seats were three-legged stools which
would be moved about at will. In the middle of each side of the cars
was a sliding door similar to those now in use on box cars.
The train ran on
strap rails, the modern form of rail not having been invented until
some years later, and the conductors and trainmen passed from car to
car by means of foot and hand rails attached to the sides. Although
the speed was far from excessive the jolting and swaying made one's
seat on the stools more or less precarious and the conditions were
such that we were relieved when we arrived at Albany where we were
to take a canal boat for Buffalo.
After another brief
respite we boarded the "Northern Light," of the Clinton Line, owned
and operated by Captain Spencer, who was about sixty years of age.
This was a passenger boat with berths arranged along the sides for
the full length of the hull, with the exception of the cabin, and
the management of it was largely a family affair. Captain Spencer
supervised matters and did the cooking and the other members of the
family performed various functions. Express passenger boats, which
were more elaborately equipped and towed by horses at a trotting
pace for the entire length of the canal, were just coming into vogue
at this time.
This stage of our
voyage consumed five days. At the outset it was so disagreeable that
we threatened to disembark and take the train. There were between
thirty and forty passengers crowded together in the narrow quarters
with no privacy whatever day or night; and Mr. Sinclair found them
so uncomfortable, having been accustomed to less rigorous
conditions, that Captain Spencer, particularly responsive to the
threat that we would leave and make the rest of the journey on the
railroad, proposed that we share his quarters in the after cabin,
which we did and for which we paid more than the usual fare.
After my experiences
in the woods I was probably less inconvenienced than the other
members of our party, including the Sinclair children, and adjusted
myself to the unavoidable conditions with philosophic interest. I
was especially sympathetic with the boys who drove the tow horses,
whose lot struck me as being very hard. They worked practically day
and night with only short intervals of rest taken on deck or
wherever they could find a place to lie, seldom, if ever, took off
their clothes and bore the brunt of the hardship of this mode of
travel. They were always ready to yield their responsibilities to me
and clamber aboard the boat to rest, and I found it diverting to
ride the horses which controlled the progress of the "Northern
Light." Whenever the stern of the vessel was veered to the bank of
the canal to permit passengers to alight I was usually among those
who took advantage of the opportunity, and out of a total journey of
three hundred and sixty miles rode the horses, I think, for at least
a hundred. During the last leg of the journey some of the impatient
passengers bribed one of the boys to urge his mount to greater
speed, a cardinal offense, and the lad was discharged upon our
arrival at Buffalo.
The railroad, the New
York Central, followed the line of the canal, so that my interest
was stimulated not only by the nautical aspect of the trip but by
the sight of steam transportation as well. On this occasion I saw,
for the first time, a telegraph line, a very crude affair compared
with the perfected systems of the present day. Not being initiated
into the mysteries of electricity I was much puzzled when told that
the telegraph was used to convey news. News I construed to be
newspapers and, from a mechanical point of view, I could not
understand how the conveyance for the papers cleared the projecting
ends of the telegraph poles.
At Buffalo, then the
western terminus of the railroads, we took passage on the steamer
"Empire," one of the largest boats on the lakes, and set out on the
final stage of our long and tedious journey. The vessel, an infinite
improvement upon the congested quarters of the canal boat, had as
officers Captain Howe, Robert Wagstaff, first mate, and August
Bartholomew, second mate. Seven years later returning from a trip to
the East with several young men whom I was taking out to work for me
in the Michigan forests, I again stopped at Buffalo to take the
steamer to Monroe, Michigan, to which point the railroad had been
extended eastward from Chicago. The "Northern Indiana," upon which
we were to sail, had sunk in a collision and the "Empire" was
substituted for her. By this time Bartholomew had been promoted to
command.
On both trips on this
vessel we encountered bad weather. On the first we roughed a
terrific gale on Lake Erie and were obliged to make harbor at
Cleveland. Here two vessels also seeking refuge in the harbor went
ashore and another, the "Ben Franklin," stove a hole in her side
above the water line. We were much relieved when the storm abated
and started on our way again but only to run into another gale on
Lake Huron. This time we had to take refuge at Presque Isle, where
we remained for two or three days. Thence we proceeded to Maniton
Islands for a supply Of wood for fuel.
While we were there
the steamer "Oregon" put in and Captain Cotton, commanding the
vessel, brought the information that there was a very high sea on
Lake Michigan. Our captain paid no heed to this warning and decided
to go on without delay. If the fate which ruled over the Middle West
reflected its mood in bad weather certainly our coming was most
unpropitious. We got under way in a gale which blew from the
northeast, and the vessel rolled and pitched to such all that I was
more or less bewildered and many of the passengers, keeping close to
the heaving staterooms, were awaiting in fear and trembling the end
of what appeared to be their disastrous journey. On the following
day, however, the captain, having convinced himself of the danger,
put into Grand Haven where we remained for two days, until the storm
had abated and the lake calmed down. From there we vent to Milwaukee
without further mishap and landed at the north pier, at the foot of
Huron Street, on Wednesday morning, November 15, 1845.
We disembarked with
no small measure of satisfaction, glad that our perils were behind
us and took breakfast at the City Hotel, now known as the Kirby
house, on the corner of Mason and East Water streets, which was
owned and conducted by Daniel Wells, Jr., who had come to Milwaukee
several years before. I must confess that the feeling with which I
first contemplated the village,— it was hardly more than that,— was
one of disappointment. The population was only a few thousands and
there was nothing about it to give promise that it would, within
little more than a half-century, become a city of more than four
hundred thousand people. After Bangor, an old and busy center, the
straggling houses and the people, many of them immigrants but lately
arrived from Europe, seemed odd and far from attractive. At Bangor,
too, English was spoken; in Milwaukee German seemed to be the common
tongue.
At this time
Wisconsin was still a territory and, if Milwaukee appeared to
measure inadequately up to the standards set by New England,
certainly there was no other settlement within the jurisdiction that
offered any greater promise. The entire region was largely a
wilderness in which Green Bay and possibly Prairie du Chien were the
outposts. But the tide of immigration had set in. On some days
during this period I saw as many as seven or eight hundred people
land at Milwaukee on steamers from Buffalo, packing their belongings
with them; and I have seen them by the hundreds in a vacant lot
bargaining for cattle and wagons with which to begin life and
establish a farm on the unbroken prairie.
These were the
pioneers to whom the state owes very largely whatever it has
achieved in the way of commerce, agriculture, and the industries;
builders of the foundation upon which the structure of success has
been reared. The task which confronted them was not an easy one.
Land, it is true, was cheap. It could be purchased from the
government for a dollar and a quarter an acre but it required a
vigorous spirit to confront without quailing the hardships and
privations necessary to bring it, under cultivation. Sometimes their
crops were killed by the excessive cold of the winters; sometimes
they were burned by the drouth of the Summers. When they did obtain
a harvest, not infrequently the prices they received for their grain
were so low as to afford them a bare existence, enough to struggle
on in the hope that conditions would be better the following year.
The same was true of
lumbering. The idea that the government was lavish in its bounty in
selling farming and timber lands for little more than the cost of
surveying them is of recent origin. At that time there seemed to be
no limit to the area of arable soil and the resources of the forests
were so vast that they had never even been estimated. No one counted
himself wealthy because of the land he possessed. What made the
value of the crops and the lumber was the labor expended upon them,
hard, gruelling labor under adverse conditions and oftentimes with
no return but a living.
To add to the
complications capital was scarce, money was uncertain as a medium of
exchange and wages were low. When we left Maine, Mr. Sinclair, who
was accounted from the point of view of the time a wealthy man,
brought with him a large amount of currency issued by the Veazy Bank
of Bangor, one of the most important in New England. Ordinarily only
gold was acceptable outside the radius of certain well-known banking
institutions. I still possess the belt in which I carried a stock of
the metal on my early trips to the East.
Milwaukee, in these
days of wildcat banking, was also fortunate in having an institution
which weathered the storm that wrecked many of the badly conducted
private and state banks. This was really not a. bank at all, but the
Marine and Fire Insurance Company which, however, issued its notes
and conducted a general banking business. It was owned and
established by George Smith, a Chicago financier, who brought
Alexander Mitchell over from Scotland to manage it. When the flood
of wildcat currency was circulating throughout the West generally,
the notes of the Marine and Fire Insurance Company were always
redeemable in specie. Smith's operations laid the foundation of the
great fortune now held by his heirs in New York.
For the person who
had no capital the difficulty of attaining an independent footing
was almost insurmountable. Men worked on the farms for eight dollars
a month and board. Girls and women did general housework for
seventy-five cents a week, the wage rate for the most proficient,
and the measure of luxuries they enjoyed would put to shame many
women of the present day who consider themselves unfortunate. In
1846 and 1847 men could be obtained to cut wood off North Point for
twenty-five cents a cord and wages for this service were traded in
at the genera! store. From twenty-five to fifty cents a cord was the
rate for cutting, splitting, and piling hardwood. The splitting, not
infrequently, was done by women.
The problem,
therefore, of establishing a home in the new country with nothing to
start on was a very serious one, and the fact that lands were cheap
offered little encouragement in the face of the trials and
privations and the uncertainty of ultimate success. Now that the
land has been occupied and brought under cultivation and the forests
for the most part cut, it is a habit of mind to exaggerate the
advantages afforded by the government's bounty and to minimize the
hardships of pioneering. Having gone through most phases of this
period I am more inclined to the belief that the government obtained
the best of the bargain and that the returns to the country at large
were of incalculable value. |
