Fifty Years In The Northwest Part 27

The first board of county officers was as follows: Treasurer, Leander E. Thomas; clerk, Frank B. Nelson; sheriff, James Wynne; attorney, Frank Gudette; register of deeds, Albert L. Bugbee; judge, L. H. Mead; clerk of court, A. Gibson; superintendent of schools, Clara Stratton; surveyor, Patrick Kelly. The first circuit court was held in June, 1883, Hon. S. S. Clough, presiding. The county has two court terms for the year, in June and December.

The Sh.e.l.l Lake Lumber Company was organized in 1880, under Iowa laws.

It is composed of C. Lamb and David Joice and sons, of Clinton, Iowa; Laird, Norton & Co., of Winona; Weyerhauser & d.i.n.keman, of Rock Island, Illinois; S. T. McKnight, of Hannibal, Missouri; D. R. Moore, Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Their mills are located on the northwest side of Summit lake. They have a capacity of 50,000,000 feet per year. The capital stock amounts to $500,000. Employment is furnished to 250 men.

In 1880 the hour system of labor was adopted. A narrow gauge railroad, twelve miles long, supplied with two locomotives and fifty cars, is used for bringing logs to mill. This road has a steel track and 3,000 feet of piling. The refuse burner of the mill is 20 feet in diameter and 102 in height. There are 63 tenement houses to accommodate the laborers. A. H. Earle superintends this vast concern.

Sawyer creek obtained its name from Seth M. Sawyer, of Stillwater.

This stream flows into Yellow river, five miles from Summit lake. It rises from springs three hundred feet from the lake, and one hundred feet lower down, and may be considered its subterranean outlet, as visible outlet there is none. The lake, literally a summit lake, the receding and descending slopes, the springs uniting to form a larger stream, form a peculiar landscape, quite park-like in some of its features, and worthy of being converted into a park.

SPOONER,

In the towns.h.i.+p of Veazie, on the north branch of the Yellow river, towns.h.i.+p 39, range 12, is a dinner station on the North Wisconsin railroad. The railroad company have fitted up an elegant eating house, and a few neat buildings, the nucleus of a much larger village, cl.u.s.ter around it.

VEAZIE VILLAGE

Is in towns.h.i.+p 41, range 10, and has a post office. The town of Veazie, occupying the northern part of the county, was organized in 1877. Millions of feet of pine timber have been gathered and marketed from this town, and it is estimated that 150,000,600 feet still remain. Ames and Sinnot station are in the towns.h.i.+p of Veazie.

SAWYER COUNTY.

Sawyer county was organized March 9, 1883. It is comprised of towns.h.i.+ps 37 to 42, and ranges 5 to 9, inclusive. Of these towns.h.i.+ps twenty-five are drained by Chippewa waters and five by Namakagon river. The county is heavily timbered with pine, though vast quant.i.ties have been taken and marketed. The county seat was located at Hayward in the bill organizing the county. The county officers, appointed by Gov. Rusk, were: Sheriff, A. Blaisdell; clerk, C. H.

Clapperton; register of deeds, H. E. Ticknor; treasurer, R. L.

McCormack; county judge, H. W. Hart; attorney, N. E. Ticknor; superintendent of schools, Miss M. Mears; surveyor, W. J. Moulton; coroner, E. G. Gregg.

The court house was built in 1885, at a cost of $18,000. The county at its organization a.s.sumed the following indebtedness:

To Ashland county $25,000 To town of Ashland, Ashland county 1,870 To town of b.u.t.ternut, Ashland county 2,050 To Chippewa county 1,900 To town of Flambeau, Chippewa county (disputed claim) 5,000 To town of Big Bend, Chippewa county 3,000 To town of Sigel, Chippewa county 2,000

Outside indebtedness, total $40,820

All this indebtedness, with the exception of the unsettled claim of Flambeau, Chippewa county, has been paid. Since its organization the county has expended $30,000 on roads to Chippewa waters. This, added to the cost of the court house, $18,000, a school house for the town of Hayward, $6,500, town hall for Hayward $5,000, makes a total of expenditures for the county within the past three years of $106,420, a remarkable sum for a new county with so spa.r.s.e a population to pay, but not so remarkable when we take into account the immense value of its lumber products and standing timber.

Hayward is the only town in the county. Its first board of supervisors were: A. J. Hayward, chairman; Thos. Manwarin and Michael Jordan. A.

L. McCormack was first treasurer, and C. C. Claghorn, clerk. The village is situated in sections 21 and 22, towns.h.i.+p 41, range 9, upon a level pine plateau on the north side of Namakagon river, a tributary of the St. Croix. The village was platted in 1883, but a post office had been established the year before, C. H. Clapperton being the first postmaster. The first marriage in the town of Hayward and county of Sawyer was that of Fred Emmons and Mary Lindmark, in 1883. The first birth was that of a daughter to Al. Blaisdell. The first death was that of Nels J. Eggin. Rev. A. Safford preached the first sermon. Anna Shafer taught the first school. E. G. Gregg opened the first store.

H. E. Ticknor was the first lawyer and J. B. Trowbridge the first physician.

The first school house, built at a cost of $5,000, was burned. There was an insurance of $4,500. A new building was erected at a cost of $6,000, with three departments, and with steam heating apparatus.

Prof. F. A. Nichols was the princ.i.p.al.

The Congregational church at Hayward is one of the finest church buildings in the Northwest. It is built in the Queen Anne style, with circular seats, the whole finished in exquisite taste. Senator Sawyer, after whom the county was named, contributed a town clock and bell worth $1,000. The Catholics have a church here, and the Lutherans an organization. The Odd Fellows and Knights of Labor have organizations.

The Sawyer County Bank was organized March 9, 1884, with a capital stock of $200,000, divided equally between three stockholders, R. L.

McCormack, A. J. Hayward and E. H. Halbert, the latter being general manager and cas.h.i.+er. The bank deals in real estate, abstracts, insurance and general monetary business. The business transacted for the year ending June 6, 1886, amounted to $3,000,000. The bank building is a substantial brick. The Hayward Lumber Company has a mill on the Namakagon river. The water power has a fall of eighteen feet and a flowage of about three miles. A sixty foot channel has been left through the flowage for slucing logs. The saw mill has a capacity of 35,000,000 feet per annum. It has a planing mill attached. The company is composed of T. F. Robinson, Weyerhauser & d.i.n.keman and R. L.

McCormack. Mr. Weyerhauser is president of the company. Mr.

Weyerhauser is also president of the Rock Island Lumber Company and of Weyerhauser, d.i.n.keman & Co., of Rock Island, and is a stockholder in Renwick, Crosset & Co., Cloquet, Minnesota, Sh.e.l.l Lake, Barronett, Masons, White River, and Chippewa Falls Lumber companies, and is president of the Beef Slough Boom and Chippewa and Mississippi Logging companies. Mr. Weyerhauser is the most extensive holder and owner of unoperated pine lands in the West, or probably on the continent. The stockholders of the Hayward Lumber Company are all men of wealth acc.u.mulated by their own industry. Mr. R. L. McCormack, the resident stockholder and manager, is admirably adapted for the position he holds. Mr. McCormack was a citizen of Minnesota for fourteen years, and a member of the Minnesota legislature in 1881. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1847.

Dobie & Stratton, contractors for pine stumpage on the Lac Oreilles Indian reservation, reside in Hayward. They cut 28,000,000 feet of logs in the winter of 1885-86.

MALCOMB DOBIE, of this firm, is a native of Canada. He came to the St.

Croix valley in 1864, and was married to Harriet Stratton, at St.

Croix Falls, in 1874.

MILTON V. STRATTON, brother of Mrs. Dobie, was raised at St. Croix Falls, and engaged in business with Mr. Dobie. In 1886, his health failing, he removed to California.

BARRON COUNTY.

Barron county was formerly a heavily timbered tract of country, but is now being rapidly cleared and settled. It is well watered by the Red Cedar and its tributaries, and has many beautiful lakes, among them Turtle, Beaver, Chetek, Red Cedar, Rice, Bear, and Long lakes. The county was first established as Dallas county, in 1859, and attached to Polk for judicial purposes. In 1868 it was organized for county and judicial purposes, and the county seat was changed from Manhattan to Barron, section 26, towns.h.i.+p 34, range 12. By act of legislature in 1869, the name of the county was changed to Barron, and the county seat was called by the same name, in honor of Hon. Henry D. Barron, then judge of the Eleventh circuit. It comprises towns.h.i.+ps 32 to 36, inclusive, and ranges 10 to 14, in all 25 towns.h.i.+ps. Barron county has three railroads, on the lines of which thriving settlements have sprung up. The railroads are three, the North Wisconsin, a branch line of the Omaha, and the Minneapolis, Soo Ste. Marie & Atlantic. The North Wisconsin railroad pa.s.ses through the northwestern part of the county. The Chippewa Falls & Superior City branch of the Omaha enters the southeast corner, and traverses the county in a direction west of north. The Minneapolis, Soo Ste. Marie & Atlantic pa.s.ses through the middle of the county in a direction from east to west.

TURTLE LAKE TOWN

Was organized in 1879. The village of Turtle Lake is situated in sections 30 and 31, towns.h.i.+p 34, range 14. It contains a large saw mill with a capacity of 40,000,000 feet per annum; a union depot, used by the North Wisconsin, and Minneapolis, Soo Ste. Marie & Atlantic railroads, and stores, shops and dwellings, all new. The Minneapolis, Soo Ste. Marie & Atlantic railroad was built through the county in 1885, and completed in 1887.

BARRON,

The county seat, is a growing lumber town, with farming lands to the south. It has a population of over 1,000. The "Soo Line" railway has a station here.

PERLEY VILLAGE

Is located also in Turtle Lake town, in section 8, towns.h.i.+p 34, range 14, and on the line of the North Wisconsin railroad. It has a large saw mill with a capacity of 16,000,000 feet per annum. The village is beautifully located on Horse Shoe lake.

c.u.mBERLAND VILLAGE

Is situated in the town of c.u.mberland, section 7, towns.h.i.+p 35, range 15, on Beaver Dam lake. It is pleasantly situated, and is the largest village on the line of the Northwestern railroad. Its appearance gives evidence of enterprise and thrift on the part of its citizens. The Beaver Dam Lumber Company have here a saw mill with a capacity of 24,000,000 feet per annum. Cook & Co. have a saw mill (burned and rebuilt) with a capacity of 6,000,000 feet. The village has a bank and one newspaper, the c.u.mberland _Advocate_, first issued in 1880 as the _Herald_.

c.u.mberland was organized as a village in 1881, and organized under a city charter in 1885. The population is now about 1,700. The mercantile business will aggregate about $500,000 annually. The aggregate output of lumber is 30,000,000 feet, while other industries aggregate $200,000 per annum. There are four churches, one graded school of five departments in which students are prepared to enter college. There is here one banking house.

SPRAGUE

Is a village in c.u.mberland, on the Northwestern railroad. It has a saw mill with a capacity of about 15,000,000 feet per annum.

COMSTOCK,

In c.u.mberland, on the Northwestern railroad, has a s.h.i.+ngle mill and saw mill, the latter having a capacity of about 5,000,000 feet.

BARRONETT,

In c.u.mberland, is located in towns.h.i.+p 36, range 13, in the midst of a well timbered region. Its saw mill, directly on the county line, has a capacity of 25,000,000 feet. M. Bowron has a farm adjoining the village of 250 acres, improved and yielding tame gra.s.s.

De Graw and Granite Lake Mills are also located on the Northwestern railroad.