HISTORY OF LUMBERING IN THE ST. CROIX VALLEY, WITH BIOGRAPHIC SKETCHES.* BY WILLIAM H. C. FOLSOM. Mr. President, Members of the Historical Society, and Citizens of Minnesota: It is with great pleasure that I appear before the Minnesota Historical Society in response to an invitation extended from your Committee on Lectures. From the time of the formation of this society in 1849, I have known of its progress, success, and noble aims. The wisdom and foresight of its founders have been happily illustrated year by year in the interest manifested by our people, in the valuable library accumulated, free to all, and in the published reminiscences of the history of Minnesota, from the days of traditions among the Indians to the present time. May the Minnesota Historical Society continue in its usefulness and prosperity. The invitation of your committee expressed the desire for an article on the History of Lumbering in the St. Croix Valley. It appeared quite an undertaking, involving considerable research and covering sixty years of the rise and progress of an important industry. In entering upon this history, I found many of the records obliterated and most of the early mill operators and owners dead; but with the kind assistance of interested friends I have been able to collect and compile the statistics, approximately correct, of the annual cut and manufacture of pine timber in the St. Croix valley from the beginning to the present year. In gathering these statistics I have followed the courses of the rivers and railway lines where the mills are situated, *An Address at the Annual Meeting of the Minnesota Historical Society, Jan. 16, 1899. instead of referring to the various mills in the chronologic order of their being built; yet their dates are given as far as they could be ascertained with the help of friends and from my own memoranda. In arranging the data, I have interspersed incidents of the early settlement, with numerous short biographic sketches. I have also had occasion to make reference to the fifteen different tribes, nationalities, and territorial and state governments, as far as they can be traced back, which have had control or jurisdiction over the St. Croix valley, to-wit: 1. Sioux Indians. 2. Ojibway Indians. 3. Government of France. 6. United States. 7. Ohio Territory. 8. Indiana Territory. 9. Illinois Territory. In 1680, Duluth, who discovered and floated down the St. Croix river, was the first man to see this Valley, of whom we have any account. He was a native of Lyons, France, and was an adventurer for wealth and fame. After more than two centuries have passed away, his name is honored, at the southwest end of lake Superior, by a great and growing city. The St. Croix river derived its name from a man by the name of St. Croix, who was buried at the mouth of St. Croix lake in the seventeenth century. In 1833, the American Board of Foreign Missions established a mission on Yellow river, an eastern tributary of the St. Croix, under the supervision of Rev. Frederick Ayer, who in 1857 was a member of the Minnesota Constitutional Convention from Morrison county. It was in this mission that the first school was opened in the valley by Miss Hester Crooks, later Mrs. W. T. Boutwell, now deceased. Her father was Ramsay Crooks, president of the American Fur Company. This mission was removed to Pokegama, Pine county, in 1836. In 1837, treaties were made by our government with the Ojibway (Chippewa) and Sioux Indians, which opened the St. Croix valley to white immigration, an opportunity that was soon improved. Gov. Henry Dodge of Wisconsin and Gen. W. R. Smith negotiated with the Ojibways at Fort Snelling, while the Sioux treaty was made at Washington. These treaties were ratified by Congress in 1838. BEGINNING OF SETTLEMENTS, STEAMBOATING, AND LUMBERING. For the following account of the earliest settlement and the first cutting of lumber on the St. Croix I am indebted to Mr. Franklin Steele, who was the first pioneer to come to the Valley with the intention of making permanent improvements. He wrote: I came to the Northwest in 1837, a young man, healthy and ambitious, to dare the perils of an almost unexplored region, inhabited by savages. I sought Fort Snelling (which was at that time an active United States fort) as a point from which to start. In September, 1837, immediately after the treaty was made ceding the St. Croix valley to the government, accompanied by Dr. Fitch, of Bloomington, Iowa, I started from Fort Snelling in a bark canoe, accompanied by a scow loaded with tools, supplies, and laborers. We descended the Mississippi river to the mouth of the St. Croix, and thence ascended the St. Croix to the Dalles. We clambered over the rocks to the falls, where we made two land claims, covering the falls on the east side and the approach in the Dalles. We built a log cabin at the falls, where the upper copper-bearing trap range crosses the river, and where the old mill was afterward erected. A second log house we built in the Dalles at the head of navigation. While we were building, four other parties arrived to make claims to the water power. I found the veritable.Joe Brown on the west side cutting timber and trading with the Indians, where now stands the town of Taylor's Falls. These were the first pine logs cut in the Valley, and they were used mostly in building a mill. In February, 1838, I made a trip from Fort Snelling to Snake river via St. Croix Falls, where I had a crew of men cutting logs. While I was there, Peshick, an Indian chief, said: "We have no money for our land, logs cannot go." He further said that he could not control his young men, and would not be responsible for their acts. The treaty was ratified, however, in time for the logs to be moved. The following spring we descended the Mississippi river in bark canoes to Prairie du Chien, and went thence by steamer to St. Louis. There a copartnership was formed, composed of Fitch of Muscatine, Iowa, Libby of Alton, Illinois, Hungerford and Livingstone of St. Louis, Missouri, Hill and Holcombe of Quincy, Illinois, and myself. We chartered the steamer Palmyra, loaded her with materials for building a saw mill, and took with us thirty-six laborers. Plans for procedure, rules, and by-laws, were adopted during the journey on the steamer; our company was named the St. Croix Falls Lumbering Company. |