Previous to the year 1847, no person had located in this Valley with a view to farming. Each mill, and most of the families, had their potato patch and garden; while the booming business and principal dependence of everyone was directly connect with lumbering, or hunting. But in the spring of that year, George Meyers from "Father Land," in view of the great cost of boating up flour, feed and other heavy articles of farm produce, and high price occasioned by transportation determined to avail himself of these advantages, and grow those articles up here. Mr. Allen and Mr. Bass, at the Falls, seconded his undertaking, boated up his farming implements, and otherwise assisted him to open the first farm in this Valley. With the whole country to choose from, he selected a most beautiful and fertile spot, about six miles northwest from the Falls, with both prairie and timber, watered by a lovely spring creek, and evincing both taste and judgment in his selection. George was a bachelor, but soon found himself able to marry, had finally sold his farm to William Henneman, who still resides on it, and who informed me this winter, when marketing his wheat at this depot, that, although twenty-seven consecutive crops have been taken from it, a good yield is still obtained, even where no manure has been applied. German immigrants seem to know instinctively where good locations and rich soils are, and Henneman was soon followed by a large number of these frugal, industrious agriculturists, who settled in what is now the town of Eagle Point, and are among the wealthiest and best citizens of Chippewa County. One of the difficulties experienced at this early day in selecting locations, was the absence of surveyors or government lines, not even township lines having been run in any part of the valley, and excepting the correction line between towns 30 and 31 north, nothing had been done towards surveying the land in this part of the State. This line commences on the shore of Green Bay in latitude 45degrees, 20 minutes and strikes the St. Croix Lake a little north of the village of Harriman. It was probably run the same year that the line of the fourth meridian was completed. This last line begins at the south line of the State, on the meridian of 90 degrees, 26 minutes, 42 seconds, and is supposed to run due north; was surveyed in 1847 by Mr. Henry A. Wiltse, who was considered a very competent officer, using the Burts Solar Compass, and who made the survey with unusual care, for a standard meridian, from which the ranges of townships both east and west across the whole State are numbered. It strikes the shore of Lake Superior, fifteen chains west of the mouth of the Montreal River; was double chained and very distinctly marked, but notwithstanding all this care, the northern terminus of this line is actually seven miles west of the starting point, as laid down by the best charts of Lake Superior by Henry W. Bayfield, R.N. and I.N. Nicollet, of the U.S. Topographical Engineers. Which position is correct is hard to determine, as all the astronomical calculations disagree, varying from fourteen seconds, to 14 miles. The United States Government adopted the best method of surveying its land, ever pursued by any government, perhaps; the 'section,' or mile square, with all its subdivisions, being undoubtedly the most convenient from in which public domain could be divided, and had the system first inaugurated for its sale and settlement, been equally wise and beneficent, the hardships experienced by pioneer settlers would have been greatly mitigated. But, on the contrary, the policy adhered to until within the past fifteen years, was fraught with the grossest injustice and oppression. In nearly all its provisions, most iniquitous discriminations were made in favor of the wealthy speculator, and against the poor and hard-working settler. Let me point out a few of its unjust provisions, which for more than fifty years were on the statute books of the free and enlightenment government. Only once in a lifetime could a man enter a single forty, and then he must make an affidavit that he had never before availed himself of that privilege! Gracious boon! If he only had the money and wished to buy up whole counties, or a whole State, there were no restrictions, oh no! No limits or restrictions could be imposed upon the greed of Land Sharks and speculators, but the toiling plebian who could raise but fifty dollars to secure an adjoining forty must look on and see it - with all the improvements he had put on it - gobbled up by some grasping shylock, because the law said that no poor man could twice be the recipient of such supreme condescension. Then, too, the preemptive law was utterly void of any benefit to the poor settler; no income could be derived from his labor on the land, the first year, and many a hard working pre-emptor having money do him, that he though should command when it should require to save his home, has been frustrated by some sudden revulsion in the financial world that locked up all the money, and saw all his hopes and toil disappear under the relentless grasp of some land shark. And only once in a lifetime could a man claim the benefit of this franchise. Such, and many other equally unjust provisions remained on our statutes for half a century, the out growth of a system of oppression more terrible than any every before existing among men. For more than twenty years the people of the Free States battled against these wicked enactments without avail. Twice was a bill gotten through Congress, extending the right of pre-emption from one to five years, and as often vetoed, and even the right to enter more than one forty was contested for years, and the restriction blackened the statute until 1842. And twice was the present beneficent Homestead Law passed only to be vetoed by a pro-slavery President. The history of these things belongs to the history of this valley as a part of the great Northwest settlement retarded by laws, which should have been so formed, as to afford every possible encouragement to the honest toiler, seeking a home in these outskirts of civilization. From the time these lands were ceded to the government, as related in chapter two the Surveyor General for this District, composed of the States of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, had been letting contracts, and advancing surveying parties in the direction of this valley in August 1851, Congress having created a new land district with headquarters at Hudson, and the President having appointed John O. Henning register, and Dr. Hoyt receiver, some twenty townships lying along the river and extending up into the most exposed of the pine region, were brought into market. In the outside world this sale create but little interest, and very little land was sold, except that on which improvements had been made. The truth is that throughout the entire Northwest, the prices of all the farm produce had been so low ever since the panic and crash of 1837, that there was really no money to pay for lumber, land or anything else. Until the year, 1850, this whole valley was without roads, mail or any regular communication with the rest of mankind. Bu the Territory of Wisconsin having become a State in 1848, the Legislature had authorized, and made appropriation to lay out and open a road from Prairie du Chien, via Viroqua, Black River Falls, and Eau Claire to Hudson, and during the fall of 1849, and winter of 1849-50, Judge Knowlton, who had the contract for performing the work, had so far succeeded in making the road passable, that Congress had established a mail route over it with post offices at Eau Claire and Gilbert's Mill on the Red Cedar. George W. Randall was appointed the Postmaster of the former and Samuel Gilbert, for the latter place. The road aforesaid soon became quite a thoroughfare for emigrants going west to the more inviting and fertile prairies of St. Croix and Minnesota, hundreds of whom passed over this intricate and forbidding route, never dreaming of the splendid fortunes soon to be realized in such sterile regions as these sandy plains seemed to be. The mills throughout the valley had now several years, immunity from destructive floods, and were slowly recovering form previous misfortunes, every year strengthening their piers, booms and introducing new machinery and other improvements into their works, but the country still continued without any administration of law except when very grave questions arose, when parties went to Prairie du Chien for justice, the whole intervening country still comprising a part of Crawford County. Disputes and personal assaults were however speedily settled by reference to mutual friends and social conditions of the settlements, not withstanding the heterogeneous complexion of the people, was daily improving, and many began to think that law was an unnecessary evil.

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