Chapter 10 closed with the commencement of Judge Fuller's first court in this the Eighth Judicial District, at Chippewa Falls in January 1854. The County Board appointed Samuel Allison, a competent young man from Louisville, Kentucky, Clerk, and Blois Hurd, a millwright then residing at the Falls, Sheriff. Much time was consumed in organizing and adopting rules for the court and bar. Grand and petit juries had been drawn which included nearly all the eligible citizens in the county. Very few civil cases were on the calendar, and those unimportant. But the criminal list presented several indictments for grave offences, two for assault with intent to kill, others for selling liquor without license and for the selling the same to Indians. H.S. Allen and Company, root house was taken possession of by the sheriff for a jail. To the aforesaid indictments, all the accused plead "not guilty," and demanded time to procure counsel, which being out of the question at this term, the court advised the offenders to withdraw their plea of "not guilty," and plead "guilty," which most of them did, when suitable fines were imposed so some, and fatherly admonition given to all, and the prisoners were discharged. Some other ludicrous things transpired at this first term over which it is better to draw "oblivious veil," than to burden history with mistakes about which "the less said the sooner mended." Before the close of the term the clerk complained of illness, which proved to be a malignant form of typhoid fever, which in less than a week finished his moral career. He was a young man of genial disposition, agreeable deportment and highly esteemed by all who made his acquaintance. In several respects the summer of 1855, was very remarkable. The spring opened very early, and the trees put on their summer green several weeks before their usual time, but during the month of June, three heavy frost occurred killing the grass on the prairie perfectly dead, so that it dried sere and crisp, the leaves on the bushes and young trees were also killed, and the whole country took on the appearance of autumn or early winter, and the fires raged on the prairies and meadows as though the season had actually come for such conflagrations. These frost extended over the entire northern portion of the State. It would be reasonable to suppose that these blighted frosts, and the forbidding aspects of the country occasioned thereby would have a depressing effect on emigration, but other powerful causes were operating to overcome these natural, but seldom occurring objections, and from early spring till winter, immigrants continued to pour into this valley by the hundreds and thousands, and speculation in real estate began, for the first time since its settlement, to get possession of the people. Perhaps no people in the world have suffered so much in the desire to grow suddenly rich, as the early settlers of Wisconsin. Of the causes which led to the sudden mania to get rich by entering government lands in 1855-6. I will advert to a few. The sub-treasury doctrines of "old bullion" and the insane prejudice banks engendered by the terrible revolution of 1837, and the hardships imposed upon enterprise and industry, by the almost total absence of circulating medium, had reacted in the public mind and given place to some sort of 'free banking system,' in every State. The drain of capital and labor, which for several years had constantly depleted the means and working energies of the people to fit out adventurous spirits and enterprises for California, had now fairly begun to return the loan with interest, and to furnish what was supposed to be a reliable specie basis for the aforesaid banks. The Crimean War, which for thirty months cut off Western Europe from its hitherto never-failing supply of grain from the steeps of Russia, suddenly advanced the price of wheat, and set all the grain dealers, and some of the bankers to speculating in American flour, and cereals, and thus in the space of a few months, forcing up the price of wheat to quadruple its former value. This, of course, advanced the value of the land it grew upon, and every farmer in the west wanted more land, and instead of paying his debts, rushed into speculation in wild lands. There was one other cause, which powerfully stimulated the mad spirit of speculation. Corrupt, gambling politicians had a year or two previous under the plea of patriotism, and a pretence of rewarding the soldiers, who had fought in the nations battles, got a bill through Congress granting land warrants of various denominations to all officers and soldiers who had entered the army, during any of the preceding wars of the republic - mostly of those who went to Mexico. The land warrants passed immediately, and usually for a merely nominal consideration into the hands of a broker and land sharks, and went swell the absorption of the public lands by a class whose object was not to settle upon and improve them, but to hold them until the improvement of adjoining lands, the opening of highways and other public enterprises should quadruple their value. Vast quantities of these warrants were sent to agents in this valley to be located on the choicest spots; some with instruction to secure pine lands, other wanted 'timber and prairie well watered,' and large tracts of the best land in the valley were thus absorbed, which greatly retarded actual settlement, and increased the hardships of that other class, whose object was to acquire a home and competence by honest toil. Another class of agents were also here during the summer in question (1855), locating State and school lands, university lands, and others still selecting 'Fox River Improvement lands.' Such agents, while faithfully discharging their duties to the State usually have an eye out for some fat sinecure or private speculation of their own. The party in power at the State Capital at this time contrived to find places for a very large number of these delegates in different parts of the country and among them W.H. Gleason and R.F. Wilson, who with compass, tripod and chain as the insignia of their especial position, carefully examined every local on the Chippewa, with a view to lay off a village or found a city as future developments might determine. The rapid influx of settlers and successful operation of the lumber business, certainly warranted the undertaking, and these gentlemen not only evinced discrimination and sound judgment, in selecting, the site, which included the lower point at the confluence of the Chippewa and Eau Claire, but were very fortunate in negotiating with the owners, J.J. Gauge and James Reed, for a half interest in the town plot which by agreement was immediately surveyed by the first named parties, and which was recorded at Chippewa Falls, the county seat, as the Village of Eau Claire - the first in the valley, with the names of W.H. Gleason, R.F. Wilson, J.J. Gage, and James Reed as proprietors. Early in the summer of this year the mill owned and operated by Stone, Swim, George Randall and Hope, on the site of the Eau Claire Lumber Company's water mill, was sold to Carson, Eaton and Downs of Eau Galle, who immediately repaired and remodeled the mill, substituting reaction, spiral or center vent water wheels, for the old fashioned flutter wheels, the new inventions and improvements in saw mill machinery, and a large amount was also invested in the purchase of the pine lands on the tributaries of the Eau Claire. The season being late, very little was one to improve the new village, until the following spring, two or three adventurous spirits were sanguine enough to invest in lots and commence business. Adin Randall came from Madison here, and commenced the Eau Claire House, E.E. Shaw and Henry Huntington, opened a store on a small scale, and Mr. Chapin M. Seely commenced the erection of his dwelling house which, early in the following spring was finished - the first plastered house in Eau Claire. At the extra session of this year, 1856, the Legislature divided up Chippewa County, creating the counties of Eau Claire and Dunn, with county seats at Eau Claire and Dunnville respectively; attached however, to Chippewa County, for judicial purposes for one year. One event occurred in the Falls, or rather at the Blue Mill, early in the spring of 1855, worthy of mention. A man named Frank Donaldson, a fire eater, from Missouri, went from French Town on Sunday morning in company with Batisette Demarie to the Blue Mill, where after drinking all day the two quarreled, and the former shot the latter dead. Deceased was a young brother of Mrs. Allen. The murder was arrested, but there being no secure prison escaped, and had not been heard from since.

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