Note: This address by M. Sargeant Wheeler is typed as it appeared in the Winona Weekly Republican, February 24, 1858. Topics have been identified and topical identifies are inserted [Topic Heading] to assist the reader who is looking for a specific section of the address.
The history of Winona county, one hundred years hence, when the present and its succeeding generation shall have passed away; when "Time's effacing fingers" shall have swept the names of her pioneers from human memory, and their footprints from the earth; when the site of the claimant's shanty shall be forgotten, and the squatters claim shall find registry only in the unremembered past; when the appliances of civilization shall have wrought their work of innovation upon her hills, and plains, and valleys;--at that date the subject itself will awaken interest;--and could be possessed of our present facilities for such an undertaking, the future historian will find sufficient of the comical for amusement--of the serious for instruction.
But the portrait of individual proclivities, mollified by birthplace associations, asnd finally blended in that aggregated something which we call society, how artistically soever it might be drawn, would furnish from the past such a solution of the present as would prove by no means amusing or acceptable to the present generation. Our subject is too recent to admit of such a discussion--incidents, and not individuals, must be our theme--never presenting the individual save when it is to an understanding of the incident.
"De mortuis nil nisi bonum" was an ancient maximum--of the living, "nil nisi bonum" shall be ours.
But we have a greater difficulty--something of romance ever attaches itself to antiquity--the imagination plays freely over the distant past--and in the absence of acknowledged data one may draw upon his fancy for his facts;--but who deals with the recent , to escape the pictured rocks of fiction, must founder on the sands of bald statistical narration.
The first settlers of this region were decidedly "humans," (This term originated in Hoosierdom, but admiring its precision to avoid circumlocution I have adopted it.) These humans were singular, neither in their natures, traits nor habits; --but tho' few, they early represented every clime and race.
Their congregation was fortuitous--their association almost compulsory;--each with his local, educational prejudices, often preferring no way to the accomplishment of the best object to any other than his own. From such heterogeneous ingredients who could suddenly expect the constitution of a homogeneous mass!
Upon such foundation it takes more time, more patience, more labor, to build a healthy public opinion than to rear the loftiest church or proudest university.
But in this charitable history, we concede the fact that they might have done worse to balance their delinquency in doing no better.
At an early date, in Wisconsin, it had become a maxim that religion could not bear transportation across the Lakes--and after the substitution of land for water carriage, its transfer was supposed to be made with no less liability to deterioration. But careful observation has convinced us that the maxim is founded in mistake--that religion can abide the incidents of travel, by land or water--and that the notorious depreciation of the commodity in the west finds a readier and more rational solution in the solitary fact of its transportation to a land of claims and claimants.
Let us seek an illustration of this phase of bipedal development, drawn from the exhibition of quadripedal instincts;--take a herd of swine;--(these animals the eating of whose flesh was forbidden to the Jews by the inspiration of a being not feebly skilled in human psychology whose living carcasses by a nor inferior personage was deemed not a unfitting abode for Satan, and the feeding upon whose diseased necumulations of grease, when dead, is the peculiar curse of Christendom.)--take a herd of swine--how gently and peacefully they will bask in the sunshine, while their morbid organs are depositing pus by the pound to fill the filthiest sepulcher of animated nature, the carnivorous human stomach!--but stir them up; pour among them cartloads of the ripened grain, sufficient, it may be to satisfy a hundred times their number , and the strife commences--each seized with a swinish fear that his neighbor's ear is better than his own; desire follows the fear; a scramble follows the desire; and a general fight follows the scramble--each wanting and fighting for everything except that which is in possession.
A claim country is the social and moral, and political hog-yard of Uncle
Sam's domestic establishment.
Thither, driven by want, or avarice, or restlessness,
flocked the "humans;"--good citizens they were undoubtedly in the several
localities from whence they came; but they had lived where titles to land
were fortified by solemn covenants and long continued possession; where
the acquisition of a very considerable freehold would have been to them
the lucky labor of a lifetime, beyond the hopes or aspirations of a majority;--where,
whatever may have been the sacredness of personal property, theft and robbery
of the realty was a thing unknown. At once they found themselves where
the very land they trod upon was prey to stealth, or fraud, or force--in
a claim country--in Uncle Sam's hog-yard.
The novelty of the crime was sufficient incentive to its perpetration; and not unfrequently, he who would not unlawfully have taken one penny from his neighbors purse, would chuckle over the dexterous feat of stealing a farm. It is curious to mark the rapidity of transformation of which the "human" conscience is so susceptible; the new comer generally brought the article graduated to the ordinary standard of civilization, looking with abhorrence on the doings of those whose settlement by some months ante-dated his own;--very soon he views the matter with indifference, next with toleration, then with complacency--and ere long, he emulates the most greedy in the most revolting particulars; he has caught the infection--generated, not by the inhabitants but the place--the miasm from claims.
The idea of claims sprang from the Young American necessity of appropriating the public domain before sufficient legal provision had been made by Congress for the determination of individual rights and the disposition of the foe. A "claim" was a fighting interest in the land--ostensibly based upon a priority of possession, and sustained by force.
"Claim laws," or "club laws," as they were sometimes and more appropriately called, were the expedients of semi-barbarism to escape the domination of single physical force which characterizes the purely savage state.
These were ordinarily written articles, signed by those who, for the time being, happened to be claiming, rightfully or wrongfully, certain portions of land whereby they agreed to sustain each other in every emergency against the intrusion of outsiders, and to submit their own disputes to the arbitration of the society.
Without these laws, the strongest and boldest would take--with them, tho crafty and intriguing would get--this was the principal difference.
Nominally, each was limited to a certain number of acres; on this prairie and near most of the projected towns. 160 acres was the maximum; for farming purposes, at first they claimed 320, including prairie and timber.
In aid of these claim laws, in 1851 our Territorial Legislature authorized the occupant to maintain an action for injuries done to, or to recover possession of, his claim; he might prove his boundaries without reference to a "natural" (query, actual?) enclosure, provided he did not claim over 160 acres, and this might be in two different parcels., to suit the convenience of the holder.
This last provision was designed to meet the wants of a prairie country, enabling the claimant to take prairie for cultivation and timber for fuel and fencing, no matter how distantly situated
It worked well enough until the lands were offered for pre-emption. The U. S. laws permitted this only on contiguous lands--securing them therefore the prairie and timber could only be accomplished by bargainings such as the pre-emptor, on his oath, was forced to deny, or render his homestead comparatively worthless.
The temptation was too great for many--but if Uncle Sam has any soul, I think his the first that should properly scorch for it; to have met the wants of the Territory, to have saved the temptation to and wholesale perpetration of, perjury, we should have had a pre-emption law based on that of our Territorial claim.
In our Territorial claim law it was further provided, that each claim should be so marked out that its boundaries might be "easily traced" and its extent "easily known," that it should be constantly occupied, and improvements made upon it to the value of fifty dollars, and that six months abandonment should preclude a right of action.
The more honest claimant would mark out his claims prescribed by statute. But another temptation incident to a prairie-claim country here presented itself;--it seems to have early occurred to some of them that stones and stakes and other primitive insignia of boundary, were portable; hence an India rubber quality became visible in some claims, contracting or expanding to the emergency; diminishing to the limits of claim prescription, or increasing for the exclusion of an interloper.
Many are the stakes that must have returned to dust with the mistaken impression their mission upon earth was for the purpose of holemaking rather than to stand the visible corners of a contested claim--so frequently were they placed and replaced.
At other times furrows were plowed to designate the bounds of rival properties they were not as readily pulled up, but the possibility of their duplication was demonstrated to the obtusest perception.
Recourse was then had to the Claim Association. Or the judiciary, based on the the recollection of the "oldest inhabitant." But "humans' are fallible, alike in their recollections and in their judgments; and suitors frequently departed, beaten indifferently, whether they lost or won.
True, it was then, as now, known that in a certain ancient book, it is written, "Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor's landmark;" but at that date men practically seemed to suppose themselves not under the Mosaic, or Christian but a kind of claim dispensation.
Where, then, was religion? (I do not say religionists, but purposely deal in abstractions.) Making claims--not of souls--not of minds, or bodies even, but of genuine clay and loam and gravel.
Doubtless "the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church," but that blood on this prairie was shed in claim fights!--bad seed! Here, their several claims were intended to be made at right angles with the Mississippi River, extending a half a mile along it bank, and then some distance back; but no government surveys had then been made from which to take initial or starting points; when great accuracy was sought, these lines were run by pocket compass. And measured with a rod pole or tape line. In ordinary cases, a man's nose was his compass, and his legs the measure of distance.
That discrepency and occasional conflict should not have followed, was morally impossible; and reviewing the matter at this day, the wonder is not that there were less, but rather that there were no more conflicts among the early settlers. Their temptations were such as the residents of an older country cannot feel--their excuses such as the members of an established society cannot appreciate.
"Then at the balance let's be mute
we never can adjust it;
What's done we partly may compute
But know not what's resisted."
In the month of January, A.D. 1851 by an act of the Territorial Legislature, "all that portion of the said Territory lying east of a line running due south from a point on the Mississippi river, known as Medicine Bottle's Village, at Pine Bend, to the Iowa line," was erected into a separate county to be known by the name of Wabasha." It was "declared to be organized only for the purpose of of the appointment of Justices of the Peace, Constables, and such, other judicial and ministerial officers as "might be specially provided for."
It was attached to the county of Washington for judicial purposes, and was declared to be entitled to any number of justices not exceeding six, and to the same number of constables, who were to receive their appointment from the Governor and to hold their office for two years unless sooner reserved.
This was the first attempt to extend the semblance of law over that portion of the Territory within whose limits was embraced what now constitutes the county of Winona.
Whether the full number of justices and constables were approved under that act, I have not ascertained. It is certain that none were appointed in the southern portion of the then Wabasha county, or in any part of what is now Houston, Fillmore, Olmsted and Winona counties; all these the present Wabasha, and most of Goodhue were then included in, and known as Wabasha.
At that time the only white settlers below what is now called Wabasha Village, were Louis Krutzly and Michael Agnee, at the mouth of the Whitewater; Willard B. Bunnell and family at Minneowah, then called Bunnell's Landing; Nathan Brown where Dakota now is and two brothers also named Brown at Wild-cat Bluffs since called Brownsville. Nathan Brown and W. B. Bunnell and family were the only whites within the limits of what is now Winona county. Brown went to Dakota without a family, as an Indian trader, sometime in the year 1847, and is therefore the "oldest inhabitant." Bunnell, also licensed to trade with the Indians, went to Minneowah with his family, then consisting of a wife and three children, on the 20th day of August, 1849
Frances Matilda Bunnell, born on the 22d day of February, A. D. 1850, now nearly eight years old, is the first and oldest white native of Winona county. At her birth she was the seventh inhabitant; she has already seen the seven-thousand-- may she yet see the seventieth!
Not having come here for farming purposes, neither Brown nor Bunnell made any improvement beyond a mere garden to their cabins.
On the 5th of August, A. D. 1851 was ratified a treaty with the Sioux Indians whereby they ceded to the United States all their lands "east of a line running from Otter Tail Lake through Lake Traverse to the junction of the Big Sioux river with the Missouri;" from this time dates the settlement of that region for agricultural purposes.
A Mr. James Reed had, in the capacity of Indian Farmer for government, cultivated for three years, lands near the mouth of Gilmore valley on this Prairie; he came here in 1842. All traces of his improvements have long since been obliterated.--These improvements were made for the benefit of the Wabasha band of the Meta-wa kantawn or Spirit Lake Sioux.
Of this band, about 300 in number, Wabasha was chief; "Wapa-ba-sa, was the hereditary name of the Dakota chief at the lowest village on the Mississippi, commonly pronounced by the Dakotas, Wa'-pa-sa'; and as a county in Minnesota, written with some want of judgment and taste, Wabashaw--vide Dakota Dictionary
Wa-pa-sa was also nominal chief of the whole Spirit Lake division of the Sioux, then comprising six other bands, numbering in all about 2200 souls, and occupying the whole Territory south of the Minnesota, then called St. Peter's river.
Wabasha is a white corruption of the Indian Wa-pa-sa; it was at first given to this prairie, as well as to the county, and far better had it been retained, both for our prairie and city.
Wa-pa-sa is sonorous and suggestive, filling at once the mouth and the mind; but Winona is decididly a diminutive vocally, mentally, and etymologically; it was not a proper name but, but the common designation of the first born child, if a female, among the Dakota tribes--this is one derivation of it.
Another runs thus: In the spring of a former year, a chief who had gained a few of the simpler English words for intercourse with the traders , having noticed the preparation of Uncle Sam's government farmer for a crop of corn on this prairie, departed with his braves on a summer's hunt. Returning in the early fall, his curiosity led him to the pale face's experimental cornfield--Finding its diminutive growth, he turns to the farmer, and with characteristic Indian brevity exclaims. "Wee." Upon further and fruitless search for the golden ears, he muttered, "none!" and turning on his heel gives utterance to a single contemptuous, gutteral "ah."--"We-none-ah." This derivation is a little too suggestive of a poor soil.
Yet even this is better than to suppose with others who pronounce it Wynony, that it is the legitimate off spring of some nasal Yankee who had rummaged his vernacular vocabulary in vain for something to rhyme with pony. This derivation is decidedly suggestive of a diminutive horse.
I shall not undertake to decide on their relative merits; it is not very material whether our name is suggestive of small babies, small crops, or small horses, so long as in either case it presents a diminutive to the ear and mind.
The next settler and the first who came without a view to the Indian traffic, was Erwin H. Johnson, who was with a man named Nash, and another, was landed from off the Nominee about 10 o'clock at night, on the 15th day of October, A. D. 1851. A few boards were put off with them; these they turned up by the side of an Indian grave, a few rods below Johnson's present residence on the bank of the river.
Johnson had been that season engaged on board the steamboat Nominee, then commanded by Capt. Orrin Smith. Capt. Smith had early perceived the local advantages of this place, and having obtained the consent of the Indian Agent for the ostensible purpose of cutting steamboat wood, he made arrangements with Johnson for claiming it.
Smith furnished the means for his subsistence and was besides to pay Johnson $25 per month. Johnson was to make and did make two claims of 160 acres each; of which each was to have one-half.
[Original Plat of Winona, 1852]
One of these claims embraced the original town plot of Winona, extending from near Washington street above, to about midway between Walnut and Market streets below, and one-half mile back from the river. The other embraced part of what is now called Hamilton's Addition to Winona, below Zumbro street, extending from thence one-half mile down the river and the same distance back from it on the prairie, Upon each of these claims Johnson subsequently built a shanty, but not without opposition.
Bunnell had about this time begun to feel that he had selected the wrong point, and to turn his attention towards this prairie. Accordingly, with a man named Harrington, who had come to Minneowah soon after Johnson came here he prepared to battle with Johnson for the upper claim.--One evening they laid siege to Johnson in his shanty--a fight ensued in which Johnson got badly mauled. But Johnson happening to have that temper which is conquered only by killing, and not choosing to kill him, Bunnell abandoned the enterprise, leaving Johnson the scars, the field, and other trophies of victory. The same fall some dozen of the citizens of LaCrosse made claims here, of whom quite a number became residents the ensuing spring. Among them were Silas Stevens, Wm B. and Geo. M. Gere, Andrew Cole, Wm H. Stevens, and John C. Laird.
Upon the 1st of January, 1852, there were upon this prairie, E. H. Johnson, Edwin Hamilton, Geo. Clark, Allen Gilmore, Wm Nash and George Wallace. Nash, Clark, and Gilmore, were in a shanty about half way between the present residence of John I. Hubbard and and of the Rev. H. S. Hamilton. The others were with Johnson in a shanty, near where now stands the Transit House. In these they spent the winter of 1851-2. I cannot find that any other accessions had been made at this period to the population of this county, except Peter Gorr and family, Jabez McDermot, and a man named Keen, at Minneowah; and that consequently the population of our present county limits on the 1st of January 1852 was 20.
In the spring of 1852, Wm H. Stevens came here and built a shanty nearly on the line between the original town and Steven's Addition. It was on an Indian mound, a little above Downer's Warehouse on the river. Disputes arising as to which claim it was on, it was subsequently moved a little distance back of what is now the Wabashaw House This shanty was was afterwards occupied by a Mr. Goddard and family--latterly as a stable , and was finally burned by a prairie fire in 1853. It was the first house in which religious services were holden regularly; these were under the administration of H. S. Hamilton.
In the spring of this year arose another claim struggle. It seems that Silas Stevens (father of Wm H.,) had in the preceding winter made for himself a claim embracing very nearly Steven's and Laird's Additions. Having made arrangements with Geo. Clark for holding it, he went back to LaCrosse. For some reason Clark neglected it. Wm H. Stevens and H. C. Gere getting on here about the same time in the spring, both laid claim to it, and Stevens built a shanty as before stated.--The dispute was submitted to J, S. Denman and Rublee of LaCrosse, for arbitration. They decided that the claim should be equally divided between Stevens and Gere; Stevens taking the upper or west and Gere the lower or east 80. After this division, Gere neglected to occupy or mark the 80 which had been assigned him, living on a claim made by his nephew, Wm B. Gere. Meanwhile John C. Laird arrived from LaCrosse, and took possession of it. Another dissension ensued. Each had his allies; finally one Sunday in the fall of 1852, while Laird was attending the dispensation of the Gospel by the Rev. H. S. Hamilton in the shanty built by Stevens and occupied by Mrs. Goddard, Gere moved into the shanty which Laird had built on the disputed claim. The one service over another commenced, resulting in the ouster of Gere, and the reinstating of Laird.
I attach no credit to a tradition which saith that the preacher was the only one of the assembled worshippers who could see what Gere was about; and that the services were unusually long that Gere might get effectually installed before Laird should become aware of the intrusion; nor to another which saith that Laird had taken Gere's claim at the instigation of Stevens, and under an agreement that he should be sustained therin in consideration of a portion of the spoils. These are not the first instances of the inventive fertility of excited imaginations. Unable to regain possession by force, Gere resorted to the law. Suit was instituted before Justice John Burns of Burn's Valley who had come to the country this season, and with George M. Gere had been appointed under the hand and seal of Gov. Ramsey, to administer law and justice to this region. They had a Rollingstone (Minnesota City) jury; all others were supposed to be prejudiced, Laird was beaten, and restitution ordered to Gere; but the course of law, like true love "never ran smooth." An appeal was taken and the restitution never enforced.
This was the first suit of importance tried in this county; and it grieves
me to say that for want of an organized system of reporting , its interlocutory
adjudications upon questions of practice rest wholly upon tradition. Andrew
Cole was the principal attorney in the case, and as is usual in a new country,
was as much
responsible for the law, as were the witnesses for the facts.
The first house with any pretensions to having a frame was built by J. S. Denman, near the corner of Second and Lafayette streets. It was the fifth building of any description. Denman occupied it until September, 1852, when he removed to his claim, near Minnesota City. Geo. M. Gere lived in it during the winter of 1852-3.--In the spring of 1853 it was moved to the junction of Center and Front streets, whence it became the commercial emporium under the financial direction of Messers. Sanborn & Colburn. It was vacated in the fall and subsequently moved by J. H. Jacoby farther up on the west of Center, between Second and Third streets,--the oldest existing specimen of Winona architecture.
[The Western Farm and Village Association]
The year 1852 is distinguished in our annals for the bursting of that bubble of fanaticism, the Western Farm and Village Association. Previously inflated in New York city, it was mainly discharged at the mouth of the Rollingstone River.
The socialistic notions vaguely shadowed forth in the Tribune of those days had taken deep root in the morbid imagination of some city mechanics--in the country and associated was their ideal of "Paradise regained." They were mostly honest and industrious; but pioneering was a branch of industry of which they had no conception.
Some, mere visionary idlers, pictured to themselves competence without care equality without exertion, in this confederated brotherhood. Others, of more practical sense thought that their aggregated courage could better face the untried hardships of the wilderness..
A semi-monthly paper was published in New York city, presenting in exaggerated colors the advantages of membership; noise, novelty, and puffing produced their wanted effects.
For many, a modern Elysium was in expectancy; unrequited toil and unassisted individual struggle for knowledge, competence, and social comfort, were to be forever barred. A kind of moral, educational, social and economical insurance company was to be formed on a scale as gigantic in imagination as it was silly in conception.
The first meeting of the "Western Farm and Village Association" took place in the latter part of July, A. D. 1851, when "a committee was appointed to draw up a code of laws." It was not until September of that year that the Association was fairly organized. By the kindness of the editors of the Tribune, the plan and laws were laid before the numerous friends in the country. That plan was stated as follows.:
"It is intended by this Association to organize a company of from 300 to 500 members consisting entirely of persons desirous of settling on the public lands. The company, when full, is to embrace a proportional number from each of the principal departments of industry; such for example, as Agriculturists, Blacksmiths, Boot and Shoemakers, Carpenters and Joiners, Brick makers, Cotton-cloth manufacturers, Cabinet makers, Dry goods dealers, Flouring millers, Grocers, Hardware, tin and cutlery dealers, Hatters, Lime-burners, Lumber Dealers, Masons, Machinists, Mill-wrights, Painters, Saddle and Harness makers, Tailors, Tanners, Wheelwrights, Woolen cloth manufacturers, etc. !!!
By this arrangement most if not all who go will find employment, and none will be without the comforts and luxuries of advanced civilization.
"It is intended to concentrate the Association as much as possible, say on a plot of 8 or 10 miles square.
"Near the center of this proposed Township, a village is to be laid off, covering one to two square miles, which, after making a liberal deduction for streets and squares, is to allow each member to have a handsome village lot of about four acres.
Each member of this Association is allowed to subscribe for what will amount to 160 acres of land and a village lot, and no more."
This is their plan, as set forth in their address "to the people of the United States"
They drew up a memorial to Congress asking a grant of 160 acres of land to each member of the proposed settlement--this was signed by the members only; another was drawn to signed by the citizens of the United States in behalf of the "Western Farm and Village Association;" both abounding in puerilities, bombast and bad English.
The address goes on to say--"the person deputed to choose township locations is eminently qualified for that business, being a good practical farmer and mechanic, as well as a man of excellent judgment. In performing his duty, he will pay particular regard to those natural elements of prosperity which cannot fail to render it a place of importance. Such a position will be selected , if possible, as will combine in the highest degree, healthfulness of climate, agricultural productiveness, extensive and never-failing water power, and either present or prospective facilities for reaching market." That person was a certain Ransome Smith, who carried with him a letter of recommendation from Horace Greeley to Gov. Ramsey, of Minnesota. He had also a "letter of instruction' from the Board of directors of the Association.
As this letter furnishes an expose of their plans and hopes, and folly, I shall present it at length It was divided into thirteen paragraphs, and ran verbatim, thus--
"I. The States and Territories in which you are directed to prosecute your searches for township and village sites, are confined to Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
"II. In point of latitude, you are not to search higher than the 45th, nor lower than the 40th, degree of north latitude.
"III. No locations are to be selected, except such as are healthy, the evidence of which you are to obtain from the most reliable sources.
"IV. The qualities of soil must be good, and well adapted to the profitable growth of staple productions, such as wheat, corn, oats, potatoes, fruit, etc.
"V. Each townsite must embrace a favorable position for a city or large village, and should be supplied with an extensive and never-failing water-power, for the driving of machinery.
"VI. In selecting sites, you are to pay particular regard to the present and future facilities for reaching markets, the means and cost of transporting goods thither, and its market price when delivered. (These facilities, it is thought, may be found at the head of a navigable river, or on the line of some present or prospective railroad or canal..)
"VII. The proportion of woodland in each selection should not be less than one nor more than three-fourths, and should embrace a sufficiency of timber suitable for fencing and building purposes.
"VIII. No selection is to be made on lands to which the Indian title is not extinguished. But should a valuable site be discovered on which not more than twelve 'squatters' have made improvements, you are instructed to ascertain upon which terms their claims can be purchased.
"IX. The area of each township site should embrace from ten to twelve miles square. You will therefore in each location extend your observations accordingly.
"X. The general surface of the land should be somewhat "rolling," clear from swamps or marshes, and well supplied with springs of good water.
"XI. While pursuing your journey, you are to ascertain, at different points, and in the neighborhood of each location, the cost of wagons, horses, cattle, agricultural implements, provisions, seeds fruit trees, etc., the cost of transporting goods and families from New York to each site selected, as well as any other incidental information which may be deemed of importance to the Association.
"XII. In receiving members on your journey, you are to exercise prudence and accept none but such are honest, temperate and of industrious habits; nor are you to receive any members in the immediate vicinity of any selected site, or disclose to any one where any site may have been selected.
"XIII. In carrying out these instructions you are to set off immediately; observe great caution and secrecy in all your movements; be as economical as consistent with dignity; kep accurate accounts of your daily expenses; proceed with the business of your mission as rapidly as possible; note accurate minutes of the position, topography and boundaries of each site selected; communicate with the Association once a week; and when the object of your mission is accomplished, return to the city of New York, make a full report, and have your accounts audited.
This document was signed by "A. A. Gilbert, E. B. Tanner, J. T. Caldwell, Chas. Bannan, John Hughes, James Wright, F. Henchcliffe, D. Robertson, and Wm. Hadcock." President of the Board.
Without comment, it daguerreotypes the Board and Association, expectants of everything from nothing!--unwearied aspirants for the climax of folly, which they attained.
The said Ransom Smith executed to the Association an agreement under seal whereby he bound himself, "in consideration of the payment to him of one dollar per day for his services, together with the payment of his necessary traveling expenses during such service," to obey his letters of instruction, to make "no charge for any service rendered on Sunday," or for any "greater number of days than forty-two."
And the Board for the Association, under the proper bands and seals, agreed to pay his expenses and one dollar per day, in consideration of his selecting several township and village sites, pursuant to the letter of instruction, and with the same provisos as in his own agreement.
Thus equipped, Ransome started--and his mission resulted in four lugubrious letters--"only this and nothing more."
The first is dated, Ripon, Wis, Nov. 25, 1851 and states that he has examined the Indian lands between the Wolf and the Fox, and the Fox and the Wisconsin rivers, finds plenty of places, had he only been in season, has more confidence than ever in the success of their plan, says that the speculators look upon it with emotion, (he don't say what kind,) and that he shall soon start for the Mississippi and Minnesota. The second is dated, Plover Portage, Wis., Dec. 4, 1851. He says he finds plenty of government lands, but there are squatters upon them, who ask 100 per cent above first cost; that he finds bad roads, and sometimes none; but that the more the plan is examined, then the more it commends itself; and that after an examination of Wisconsin, he feels "much better prepared for Iowa and Minnesota."
His third letter is dated Madison, Wis., Dec. 13, 1851; states that he is "going up one side and down the other" of the Mississippi, and that the Association has "hold of a great and good enterprise."
His fourth letter is dated, Ripon, Wis., Dec. 31, 1851; states that he has "traveled over thousands and thousands of acres;" that it is more difficult to find a location than he expected; that he has traveled miles without seeing a shanty or "stick of fence;" and yet the lands all were entered; that the inhabitants live in the most ordinary huts or shanties; that "the Mississippi was frozen hard;" that he "walked up and across it on the ice;" that he examined its banks on both sides, and found but five landings, and that at but two of these was anything done in the way of settlement;" that Prairie LaCrosse was the first place "on the other side," and there lots were selling for from$300 to $500 each; that it was "more expensive getting information than he expected," and very unpleasant pursuing business alone; that he needed rest, and would hold on a little while at his own expense; that the "practical part of the plan was difficult," and "needed the best heads"--in short, he had pioneered himself to his own senses, if not to a site for the Association.
He was superseded by the Committee of Location, Haddock, Bovay, and Murphy; and this is the last that we know of Ransom. Whether he got his dollar a day and expenses does not appear, but as he failed finding, "several townships and village sites," the presumption is that he failed to that likewise.
