LUMBERING ON THE ST. CROIX IN 1886
The St. Croix lumberman, after the lapse of nearly fifty years, is still a picturesque figure, clad, as he is, in coarse, strong woolen garments, these of brilliant red, yellow, blue and green, or in some cases as variegated as Joseph's coat of many colors. He is usually a man of stalwart frame, which is set off to advantage by his close fitting garments. His circumstances are, however, widely different from his old time predecessor.
The rough, hard work of the wilderness, including the building of dams, the construction of reservoirs and roads, and the improvement of the streams, has been accomplished chiefly by his predecessors. He is abundantly supplied with food, produced almost in the neighborhood of the scenes of his winter's work. He travels by rail almost to his destination or drives blooded teams over comparatively good roads, where his predecessors tediously blazed the way and cleared it of underbrush. His camp accommodations are far superior. He is housed in comfortable cabins, warmed with large stoves and heaters, whereas the cabin of the lumberman of 1845 had a fire built on the ground in the centre of the room. The modern camp is well furnished with tables and other conveniences. The cook has a separate room furnished with a cooking stove and modern appliances for cooking. He has his assistant, known as the "cookee" or second cook. The table is spread with a variety of food, and delicacies that would have astounded the lumberman of 1845. Each operator is limited to his own special work. His bounds are set and he can go no further, except at the risk of the loss of his labor.
The work goes on with clock-like precision and is comparatively easy. Everything is done on a larger scale and more economically. The crews are larger and the life is not near so solitary. The various crews employed for the spring drive combine and thereby greatly increase their efficiency. They are supplied with better and covered boats. The cook in the drive has in addition to his "cookee" a wangan man to assist in managing the boat. The drives are larger and yet more easily handled, the conveniences are greater and the expenses less. The men are more independent, and owing to the number employed, and the nearness of settlements and villages, more sociable, and possibly more hilarious and less thoughtful. We shall nevertheless find among them men of character, thoughtful, industrious and earnest men, who would have shone in the associations of the earlier camps and who will doubtless in the future be ranked among the successful and capable men, worthy successors of the veterans now leaving the stage of action.
Conjecture as to the future of the lumbering industry, and consequently as to the character of the men engaged in it, would be idle. Who can tell what a day or another fifty years may bring forth? The pine woods will not last always; already the camps are being pushed further and further to the north and west, and whereever the denuded pine lands are arable the farmer is making his home. The lumbering industry is also passing into the hands of corporations, and with their extensive means and the armies of men employed by them the forests are disappearing more rapidly than ever. It is possible that the present generation of lumbermen may be the last in the valley of the St. Croix, and that before another fifty years have passed the last of the number may have shouldered his axe or peavy and passed "over the divide."
THE LOG JAMS OF THE ST. CROIX
The St. Croix river in its passage through the Dalles is compressed into a comparatively narrow channel, by which means the logs driven down the stream are crowded closely together, so closely as to sometimes become firmly wedged or jammed together. The jam generally occurs at a point known as Angle Rock, a huge promontory of massive trap rock extending into the middle of the channel from the Minnesota side, and opposite to the St. Croix landing. The river makes a bend around this rock nearly at a right angle with the channel above. At this point jams are, under certain conditions, almost inevitable. Sometimes they are of small dimensions and are easily broken. Sometimes the logs gather in such quantity and become so tightly wedged that it is a labor of weeks to break them.
The first jam worthy of note occurred in 1865, during the prevalence of high water. It is, in fact, only during high water that jams can occur, the current being at such time swift and strong, and the logs apt to accumulate in greater number than in the regular drives, from the fact that logs that have been stranded in former seasons or at low water are floated off, and the river is thus filled with logs from bank to bank. These are crowded into the narrow channel of the Dalles faster than they can be discharged, and a jam results. An obstruction once formed, the logs continuing to come in from above fill the channel. The tide of logs arrested, crowd downward until they rest upon the bottom of the river, and are heaped upward sometimes to a height of twenty or thirty feet above the surface. The river thus checked in its course rises, wedging the logs more closely and heaping them higher.
In the jam of 1865 the river channel was filled nearly to the St. Croix dam, a distance of a mile and a quarter above Angle Rock. This being the first of the great jams excited unusual attention. Excursionists came up daily in the boats to look upon it. It was indeed a wonderful sight. The logs were heaped together in the wildest confusion, and wedged in at all angles. Men and horses were employed to break the jam, which at that time, owing to the inexperience of the workers, was no light task. The modus operandi of jam breaking is to remove logs from the lower part of the jam till some log which serves as a key to the jam is reached. This being removed the logs above commence moving, and, if the haul be a long one, in a short time the movement is extended to the head of the jam. Perhaps the logs are so heaped above that no water is visible. It matters not; the tremendous current beneath sweeps downward, carrying the logs along, and the spectator beholds a wonderful scene, a river of logs, the current swiftest in the centre of the stream, the logs rolling, tumbling, crashing, grinding, sometimes snapped in sunder like pipestems. The jam breakers are in the wildest excitement, cheering and hurrahing, and some may be seen out in the current of logs, jumping from one to another, or making their escape to the shore. Others on the lower part of the jam at the moment of breaking are carried down the river. Though apparently a scene of great danger, comparatively few accidents occur. The workers are cool, experienced men with steady nerves and stalwart arms, a race of men not surpassed for muscular development.
In 1877 another jam took place nearly as large as that of 1865. This jam came near destroying the beautiful bridge that spanned the river at the head of the Dalles. Many of the logs carried high in air by the pressure of the logs below struck the bridge, and at times its destruction seemed inevitable. This bridge has since been replaced by an iron structure, much higher than the first, but even this occasionally received a blow from some log carried along by the current at a "present arms."
In 1883 another jam of considerable dimensions occurred, but it was removed with less labor and expense than its predecessors, and steamboats anchored below were used to aid in breaking it. It cost from $5,000 to $10,000 to break these jams.
By far the greatest of the jams occurred in June, 1886. The water was high, the current strong and the river above so full of logs that a log driver might have crossed upon them. This abundance was owing to other causes than those mentioned in the account of the jam of 1865. The dams at Snake, Kettle and other rivers had been simultaneously opened, and the logs in these streams all set free at once in the current of the St. Croix. On they came in long procession with but little obstruction till they reached Angle Rock, where they were suddenly arrested, and, owing to the force of the current, wedged more tightly and heaped higher than on any previous occasion, and the river channel was filled with logs to a point two miles above the St. Croix falls formerly known as the dam. To break this jam, two steamers, two engines, several teams of horses and over two hundred men were employed, and during the six weeks that occurred before it was broken, thousands of visitors came by rail and steamboat to look upon it. This jam was estimated to hold during its continuance 150,000,000 feet of logs.
POPULATION OF WISCONSIN
The first census of the Northwest Territory, taken in 1790, does not show the population of the region now known as Wisconsin. The census of 1800 gave the following figures: Ohio, 45,363; Indiana Territory, 5,641; Green Bay, 50; Prairie du Chien, 65. According to the census of 1880, the original Northwest Territory contained a population of 12,989,571, or more than one-quarter of the population of the United States. The population of Crawford county in 1820 was 492; in 1830, 692; in 1834, 810; in 1836, 1,220; in 1838, 850; in 1841, 1,503; in 1847, 1,409.
In 1836, when Wisconsin Territory was organized, the population of the Territory was, 11,883. The whole number of votes cast at the election in 1836 was 2,462. The population, according to the census taken at the close of every five years, was as follows: In 1840, 30,945; in 1845, 155,275; in 1850, 305,301; in 1855, 552,109; in 1860, 775,881; in 1865, 868,325; in 1870, 1,054,670; in 1875, 1,236,729; in 1880, 1,315,480; in 1885, 1,563,423.
The official compilation of the census of Wisconsin gives the following details: Total population, 1,563,423; white, males, 806,342; females, 748,810; negroes, in full, 5,576; Indians, 2,695. The nativities are divided as follows: United States, 1,064,943; Germany, 265,756; Scandinavia, 90,057; Ireland, 36,371; Great Britain, 32,731; British America, 21,887; Bohemia, 15,838; Holland, 7,357; France, 3,963; all other countries, 20,030; subject to military duty, 286,289; soldiers of the late war, 29,686.
POPULATION OF ST. CROIX, PIERCE, POLK, BURNETT, AND SAWYER COUNTIES
POPULATION OF MINNESOTA
In 1849 the Territory had a population of 4,680. The census taken at periods of every five years shows the following population: In 1850, 6,077; in 1855, – ; in 1860, 172,073; in 1865, 250,099; in 1870, 439,706; in 1875, 597,403; in 1880, 780,773; in 1885, 1,117,798.
The following table gives the population of the counties on the St. Croix waters.
MINNESOTA STATE CAPITOL
By the organic act of Minnesota Territory, $20,000 were appropriated for a capitol building. At the time the Territory was organized, however (June 1, 1849), the permanent seat of government had not been determined on, and the money was therefore not available. The Central House in St. Paul, a log tavern weather-boarded, situated at the corner of Bench and Minnesota streets, where the rear of the Mannheimer block now is, was rented for the public offices and legislative assembly. It was for some months known as "The Capitol." On the lower floor was the secretary of state's office, and the house of representatives chamber. On the second floor was the council chamber and the territorial library. Neither of these legislative halls was over sixteen or eighteen feet square. The rest of the building was used as an inn. The Union colors, floating from a flag staff on the bank in front of the building, was the only mark of its rank. During his entire term of office, Gov. Ramsey kept the executive office in his private residence, and the supreme court met in rented chambers here and there.
On Sept. 3, 1849, the first session of the legislature assembled at the above temporary capitol. Gov. Ramsey delivered his message to the two houses in joint convention assembled, in the hotel dining room. The whole fitting of the assembly rooms was of the plainest description.
Considerable discussion ensued during the session on this subject, as to whether the Territory had a right to expend the $20,000 appropriated in the organic act, for a capitol building. The question having been submitted to Hon. Wm. Meredith, secretary of the treasury, he replied that the "Department can not doubt that the public buildings in question can only be erected at the permanent seat of government, located as described."
The second session assembled Jan. 2, 1851, in a brick building, since burned, which occupied the site of the Third street front of the Metropolitan Hotel. At this session the seat of government was fixed at St. Paul, as above noted. D. F. Brawley, Jonathan McKusick, Louis Robert and E. A. C. Hatch were elected building commissioners. Charles Bazille, a pioneer resident and large property owner of St. Paul, donated to the government the block of ground since known as "Capitol Square," and plans drawn by N. C. Prentiss were adopted. The contract was let to Joseph Daniels for $33,000, but the building finally cost over $40,000. It was commenced at once, but not completed until the summer of 1853. The third and fourth sessions of the legislature were compelled, therefore, to meet in rented buildings. That of 1852 assembled in Goodrich's block on Third street below Jackson, and that of 1853 in a two story brick row on Third street, where the front of the Mannheimer block now is.
BURNING OF THE CAPITOL
At nine o'clock on the evening of March 1, 1881, while both houses of the legislature were in session, and all the halls and departments were crowded with visitors, the dome of the building was found to be on fire. The flames spread with too great rapidity to be checked, and all that could be done was to save the contents of the building. The most valuable records and papers of the various offices, and of the legislature, with some of the furniture, were carried out, but the greater part of the contents of the building, including the valuable law library, the supply of state laws, documents and reports, and all the stationery in the secretary of state's store rooms, etc., were a total loss. The Historical Society's library was mostly saved. The entire loss to the State was fully $200,000.
Fortunately the city of St. Paul had just completed a fine and spacious market house, which was still unoccupied, and its use was at once tendered the State by the city authorities, and while the flames were still burning the furniture and effects saved from the old capitol were removed thither. At nine o'clock next morning the state departments and both houses of the legislature were again at work in their new quarters. But two days of the session yet remained. Gov. Pillsbury immediately secured estimates for rebuilding the burned edifice, using the old walls, and an act appropriating $75,000 for that purpose was passed. Work was commenced at once. It was then found that the old walls were too unsafe to use, and at the extra session in September, 1881, the further sum of $100,000 was appropriated for the completion of the building. Its total cost was about $275,000. The dome of the building is two hundred feet above the ground, giving a noble view to the visitor who ascends it. The exterior of the edifice is neat and tasty, and it is altogether creditable to the State, considering its comparatively small cost.
SELKIRK VISITORS
In the early days a somewhat primitive people inhabited the Northwest, making their homes on the banks of the Red River of the North and on the shores of Winnipeg, in what was known as the Selkirk settlement, now included in the province of Manitoba. They were a mixed race of Scotch, French and Indian stock, born and raised under the government of the Northwest British Fur Company. They were a peaceable, partly pastoral and partly nomadic, trading people. They cultivated the ground quite successfully considering the high latitude of their home and the absence of machinery for farm work, raising wheat, vegetables, cattle and horses. They engaged in hunting and trapping and yearly visited St. Paul with the surplus products of their labor to be disposed of for money or goods. They came usually in caravans consisting of files of carts drawn by cows, oxen and ponies, and commanded by a captain elected to the position who exercised over them a rigid military rule. Their carts were rude, creaking affairs, made entirely without iron, all the fastenings being sinews and leathern thongs. This harness was made of raw hides, Indian tanned, and sewed with animal sinews. Their costume was a happy cross between the civilized and savage. Their caravans included from 100 to 600 carts, which were laden with furs, buffalo robes, buffalo tongues, dried pemmican, etc. As they came a distance of 450 miles, the journey required many days, but was made in good military order. The raising of a flag was the signal for starting, the lowering, for stopping. At night the carts were ranged in a circle about the encampment, and sentinels posted. Their encampment within the suburbs of St. Paul attracted great crowds of the curious. In 1857 their train consisted of 500 carts, and in 1858 of 600, but later, as railroads were built northward and steamers were placed upon the Red River of the North, their number gradually diminished and finally their visits ceased altogether.
CYCLONES
Recorded and unrecorded, Minnesota and Wisconsin have had their full share of those atmospheric disturbances that have wrought so much destruction in the Western States. In the early days, when the country was sparsely settled and villages and towns were few and far between, they came and went unnoted, or attracting but little attention. They left no traces on the plain, and in the forests only a belt of fallen timber, known as a "windfall." These belts are sufficiently numerous to establish the fact that these storms were probably as frequent in early, even in prehistoric, times as at the present. Their movements are more destructive in later times because of the improvements of civilization, the increased number of human habitations and the growth of towns and cities. The tornado has more to destroy, and as a destroying agent, its movements are better known and more widely published.
Scientists are not agreed as to the cause of these destructive phenomena, but enough is known to overthrow the theory so persistently advanced that it is in consequence of the cutting away of the forests and the substitution of farms. In fact much of the country was already prairie land and abundant evidences of tornadoes are found in the midst of old forests in which have since grown up trees of considerable size, and this at a period long before the lumberman commenced his destructive work.
We append a few sketches of cyclones that have occurred in comparatively recent times.
THE ISANTI COUNTY CYCLONE
This storm occurred in September, 1865, and spent its fury chiefly in Isanti county, but extended beyond and was felt even in Wisconsin. The tornado gathered its wrath in the southwestern region of Isanti county, in what is called the "Lake Typo settlement," some forty miles north of St. Paul. It was first discovered in the shape of "two clouds," as the people there residing expressed it, "approaching each other from different directions." Suddenly the mingling of these counter currents of strong winds appeared to form the blackened heavens into a funnel-shaped mass. The direction of the whirlwind was from southwest to northeast, and after crossing the St. Croix river passed through an unsettled portion of timber lands known as "pine barrens," a growth of scattering pines interspersed with black oaks of medium size.
On Wood river, Burnett county, Wisconsin, the trunks of pine trees, three feet in diameter and eighty feet high, were twisted into "broom splints" and carried high in air. The intervening oaks were also served the same way; and the whole track of the tornado, from thirty rods to three-fourths of a mile in width, had left no tree standing. Pines and oaks were all prostrate, and promiscuously heaped up in winrows over the ground, their branches and trunks interlocked, and in some places piled to the height of thirty feet.
The author of this work lost about 10,000,000 feet of pine logs in Wood river in this cyclone. On Clam river, Wisconsin, for four miles in length and about half a mile in width, the forest was laid in winrows, and parties who came through soon after the tempest had to cut their way.
The tornado, traveling with the velocity of lightning to the northeast, overtook Dr. Comfort, of Wyoming, as he was crossing Sunrise prairie with a mule team, accompanied by a hired man. The doctor and man saved themselves by clinging to some shrubs near by, but when the fury of the whirlwind had passed, all they could find of their outfit was the poor mules, half frightened to death, and the fore wheels and tongue of the wagon. The hind wheels, box, and the rest of the outfit, together with the doctor's medicine kit, which he had along, when last seen, were bound zenithward.
Wm. A. Hobbs, late quartermaster sergeant of the Third Minnesota Battery, Light Artillery, and Orville Grant and brother – sons of R. Grant, Esq., a farmer living in Isanti county – were out hunting, and happened to be caught where the storm passed through the heaviest timber. They saw it approaching, and at first attempted to take shelter in an old school house near by, but soon saw that was no place for them and made for an old pine log which they got behind; soon that commenced to move. Hobbs seized hold of an oak, some ten inches in diameter, which immediately commenced to be loosened at the roots and to spin around like a top. The tree was prostrated and he with it – he receiving very severe injuries. The Grant boys, were also injured, but none near so badly as Hobbs. The log school house shared the fate of the surrounding forest. A resident near by states that he saw one-half the roof sailing upward at least four hundred feet above the tops of the tallest trees.