The act for the organizing Eau Claire County provide that an election for county officers should be held on the last Tuesday in December, 1856, and that the town board of the town of Eau Claire should constitute the county board until the next election. C.M. Seley, Chairman; E.W. Robbins and M.A. Page, Supervisors. Adin Randall was chosen Treasurer, C.F. Babcock, Clerk of the Board; C.H. Howard, Register of Deeds. Political conditions had but little to do with the selection of candidates, although in most instances two candidates were found for most offices. Mr. Olin was elected Clerk of the Court without opposition; but the contest between R.F. Wilson and Charlie Howard, for Register of Deeds, was quite exciting. The most important accession to the settlement of Eau Claire, this year, 1856, was undoubtedly Daniel Shaw; having bought extensive tracts of pineland on the Chippewa River and its effluents, his next move was to make it available, by manufacturing the pine into lumber. The selection of a suitable point at which to erect mills and establish the seat of his business required the most careful consideration and mature judgment. As the choice of any site on the main river involved complications in regard to navigation, boomage, the storage of logs, etc.; strong inducements were held out by the Falls Company, just then erecting a new and expensive dam, and making other costly improvements, to invest at that point, but the evidence of previous losses by devastating freshets, was too apparent at that point to afford any encouragement to the capitalist or manufacturer. He pronounced the lower Dalles then as now the only point on the river where a reservoir of safe and sufficient capacity to store all the logs on the stream could ever be established, but the impediments to overcome were to great. Half Moon Lake afforded a perfectly safe place for a certain amount of logs, if there was any possible way to get them there; to excavate o race or channel from the river to the lake and establish a sheer boom at a suitable point above, to direct the logs through, seemed a practical operation but too great an undertaking for his means, single-handed, but by associating his with the means of other desirous of establishing a like business, he hoped to succeed. Ingram & Kelly, Smith & Ball, Adin Randall, and some other parties to this association; a charter for a boom was obtained from the legislature, and the work of building and opening the canal, and getting logs up the river to stock the mill, were pressed forward with hopeful energy. But if Mr. Shaw or any of his associates could have just had a glimpse of the future that was before them, their hard struggles against fearful floods, destructive fires, the hopeless and crushing effects of the utter prostration of all business interests throughout the West for several succeeding years , and the near approach to bankruptcy to which some perhaps all - of those firms must come before the dawn of the brighter day should inspire hope, it is very probable that they would have shrunk from the undertaking, and that the 'West Side' would to this day have continued to be a region of scrub oaks and wilderness waste. For, good reader, you who own lots and fine homes on that side, and you merchants who, by the labor and industry of others, are getting rich, and you lawyers who, by darkening counsel, involve your neighbors in legal difficulties that you may profit by their silly whims, and you well-to-do mechanics and laboring men, many - most of whom sit under 'your own vine and fig-tree,' what would it all be worth if it were not for those mills and booms that have cost so much energy and struggle? Schools, Religion, Society Corresponding to enterprise and indomitable energy in business affairs displayed by the early settlers of Eau Claire, was their zeal in the cause of education and the advancement of religion, and it is safe to say that a larger percent of cultured minds and well-educated people were found amongst the early settlers of this country than usually falls to the lots of new Western settlements. The first schoolhouse erected in the county was on the Sparta Road three miles from Eau Claire, in what was known as the Olin and Bebee neighborhood, in the fall of 1857, but during the succeeding winter a house was erected and a school opened in the village of Eau Claire, in what is now the Second Ward; the building is now known as the Universalist Church. The M.E. Church, ever mindful of the education and religious interests in remote districts, assisted by local enterprise and some eastern educational fund, commenced, in 1857, the erection in West Eau Claire of a school building known as the Methodist Institute, which was for several years conducted with much ability, and in the feeble condition of the early district schools, was of great benefit to many young persons desirous of advancing themselves in studies not taught in the then existing district schools, but since the establishment of graded schools on both sides of the river, being free to all and conducted with such marked ability, the Institute has languished and bids fair to become entirely useless. During the summer of 1856, Mr. J.F. Stone erected a sawmill and grist mill on Bridge Creek, at a point where the village of Augusta now stands, and the year following Sanford Bills and others laid out the village of that name. The valley of Bridge Creek exhibits some remarkable topographical features. The course of the steream is southeast to northwest, and from its source to its confluence with the Eau Claire River describes the boundary between two sections of country differing in a marked degree from each other in soil and character. Along its southwest bank for almost its entire length, extends a fine, rich prairie, broken here and ther by gentle elevations, but uniformly fertile, the soil being everywhere a rich clay loam, comng clear down to, and even into, the bends of the creek; but just across the rippling stream, and lo, how changed the soil and its productions; very little timber grew naturally on the former side - only luxuriant grass - while on the latter, a towering pine forest stood proudly out to view, stretching along for miles in bold contrast to the flowering plain on the opposite side. Here was marked in bold relief the line between that vast prairie and nearly timberless region extending a thousand miles to the Black Hills of Colorado, and the great timbered region stretching unbroken away to the Great Lakes, and here today in the trade and traffic of the town of Augusta, we see the meeting of two great industries, equally dependent on the building up of each other - the forest and the field kissing each other across this gentle stream, and crowning with plenty and comfort the labors of the farmer, the lumberman and the merchant. And here, in this romantic spot, has grown up the beautiful village of Augusta; it proud temple of learning presided over by the talented young educator, Thomas Williams; the numerous churches, its comfortable dwellings, its sumptuous hotels, and lying in the peaceful plenty, where, many years less back than this narration dates, the wild deer and wolf had their covert, and the red man of the forest had undisrupted sway. But like all other Western towns and villages, they way to wealth and comfort has been through intense hardships, toil, and the most untiring perseverance, as a perusal of the following terse and expressive extract from the Augusta number of Mrs. French's American Sketch Book pages 63-67, under the head "Nationality of the Valley," will inform us "The first settlers were New York and New England people, with and occasional foreigner, who at that early date had to migrate over new and almost unsettled country, on long journeys in covered wagons, stopping, when night overtook them, by some spring by the mountain side, or some babbling brook that would afford water for themselves and their cattle and horses, being weeks, and even months, on the journey. They were, with few exceptions, very poor, bringing with them barely enough to feed and clothe themselves until the first cabin could be built and the first crop gathered in. Industry and economy have repaid most of those old pioneers with beautiful homes, and surrounded them with nearly all the luxuries and comforts of the East. They were possessed with the determination that others had thus procured homes before them, and what others could do, they could and would do also; and they did do, as this narrative will show before completed." "One example might illustrate the many hardships that were endured by the first to open up this beautiful country. One whose name I will not mention came from Maine to seek a home in the then far west, and upon striking this country, made himself a claim in the shape of a pre-emption, and commenced improvements with nothing but his hands with which to labor. Every furrow broken had to be worked for, he giving hand labor to some neighbor that would exchange with him. After the land was broken it became necessary to build a fence, and nails had to be gotten without team or wagon. Well, what did he do but start on foot to what is now the commercial center of Eau Claire County, purchased a keg of nails, and carried them home a distance of eighteen miles 00 making the thirty-six miles of travel in the same day. Who is there coming now a days that is able to do this? Very few. I desire to follow this circumstance a little farther, to show what has to be done; another trail came. A hundred and sixty acres of land had to be paid for at a certain time, could this be done? Only one way there was, and that was this; "My old father," thought he, "is in the East, and he can, by scraping together the earnings of a lifetime, help me out, and I will take care that he has a home in his old age." The message was sent back to his early home, and shortly after the much needed money was received the land was paid for, taking, perhaps, all the old State of Mainer had accumulated through his entire life, thereby securing a home for both father and son. We will pass a few years and take another look at his western farm and family today. By calling at a splendid white house, surrounded by fruit trees, not nine miles from Augusta, you will find the same father and son, and the son's wife and family, enjoying the health, wealth, and all the luxuries to be found in the West. He has all the wealth necessary to make him happy, and is carrying out the pledge to the gray-headed father, to the perfect satisfaction of all concerned." "This above is only an illustration of the trials and achievements of those who came in early times. All had their trials and hardships: none escaped." "In later years, Norway, Sweden, Germany, France, Scotland, and nearly all nationalities have contributed to help increase the population and improvements of our valley and country, these people being in the county a majority, and through our valley about half the population at the present time."

to table of contents

Copyright Notice: All files on this site are copyrighted by their creator and/or contributor. They may be linked to but may not be reproduced on another site without specific permission from Tina Vickery [tsvickery@adelphia.net] and/or their contributor. Although public information is not in and of itself copyrightable, the format in which they are presented, the notes and comments, etc., are. It is however, quite permissable to print or save the files to a personal computer for personal use ONLY. My very special thanks to Holly Timm for the creation of the graphics used on this page.

last edited [an error occurred while processing this directive]