. Written by Al Raynor, 1922
Writes of Early Days on Chippewa

  The following story from the Southern Sawyer County Courier, published at Ojibwa, Sawyer County, as told by Al Raynor, a frequent visitor to Chippewa Falls and well known to the old time river men, will be of interest.  The Raynor Stopping Place was headquarters for early trappers, loggers and river men and the farm has an interesting history.  Here is the story:

  "I came to Southern Sawyer County," said Mr. Raynor, "In the spring of 1867 from the east, with many other old soldiers of the Civil War who were leaving the east to take up homesteads or to do logging in Wisconsin and other western states. The place was then owned by Judge Hayward and McCord who had a logging camp across the river directly opposite the house here (Ojibwa is located on the site of the old logging camp.) They had bought the house from the Hull Brothers."

  "Thomas and Ray Gaynor of Chippewa Falls were logging on sections 14 and 15 for the Mississippi River Logging Company, and logs were landed in front of my house. James McLeod ran the camp for the Gaynor's. Charles Spencer ran the camp across the river for Judge Hayward and McCord, the land then across the river belonged to Laird and Norton of Winona, I think."

  "Joe Herman, a brother of John Herman, who was later a member of the Assembly for the district, lived at the foot of Beslille Falls, were the pine grove is."

  "Charles Beslille (French), William Waite (English), and Milton Herman (French) better known as Little Cook, also Joe Herman, all had come here about the same time, Beslille being here a year or two before I was. These three came to Bridge Settlement below Beslille Falls, and the last two married daughters of Beslille, who had previously marries a Chippewa squaw."

  "The next neighbor south was James Murray, who had a stopping place at the mouth of the Big Wiergor River, later known as Brainerd's or Serley's. Cy Pinkum came a few years later and operated a stopping place and a ferry at the Grand Rapids, a place that became quite a headquarters for logging on the Thornapple River, Couderay River, Wiergor River, Brunet River and Nail Creek. This place was located about one mile south of the present so called Murray Wagon Bridge. James Walker had a stopping place a couple of miles below this and Sam Johnson at the mouth of Devil's Creek. All of these men came from the east in the sixties and early seventies."

  "North of me lived Adolph Lessard, who was brother of Louis Lessard, now living above the mouth of the east and west fork. He was the oldest of the family and he and Beslille were the first settlers here and must have come about 1850 or 51.

  "Old man Bishop lived at Bishop's Bridge when I came here. Old man Ackley, father of Lou Ackley, now at Winter, bought the farm later. Adolph Palkey and Joe Buckwheat came on a farm about midway between Bishop's Bridge and Winter in the early eighties. Joe LeBoeff came on a farm adjoining the village of Winter in 1886. Archie Moore bought land across from Laird and Norton in 1874 and Henry Crawford bought the farm north of me in 1880."

  "I don't remember when the church at Beslille Falls was built.  Joe and Fred Willard came here about 1880. When I came up the river Perry Hopkins ran Nine Mile House, near Eagle Point. Ed Campbell's was the next stopping place at Long Lake, then Soho Miles at Big Bend. The Kelligan Brothers, Strickney & McPherson and Allen Cameron, in the order named, logged near my place and cut a considerable amount of the pine timber with in a radius of six or seven miles and had big crews who spent money here over the bar at the Raynor Farm. Tom Russell had a crew of men in the woods near the junction of the east and west forks for William Carson of Eau Claire, later Valley Lumber Company."

  "Old Fred Weyerhauser, stopped with me in the early days, many times, also William Carson. Edward Rutledge of Chippewa Falls was nearly always with Weyerhauser. We often fed 150 men and kept them over night in this place. You had to step high at night after stoppers retired as 100 often slept on the floor. Nick Abrahamson came on the farm near the range line west of Crooked Rapids and cleared off about 100 acres there. That was on the old road to Hayward. The land is all grown up with timber now."

  "Bill Price (M.C) of Black River Falls came in and built a dam on the Brunet in the early seventies. This is still known as Price's dam. Hugh McPhee and Big John McDonald also logged on the Brunet the same time and built two dams of the Brunet lower down. All the south portions of Sawyer County were then a portion of the towns of Big Bend and Bloomer of Chippewa County. The legislature of 1883 set up Sawyer County. Hundreds of Indians us to travel up and down the river, going back and forth every day, thirty, forty, and fifty canoes at a time. The squaw always did the paddling."

-- Transcribed from The Chippewa Falls Gazette - August 5, 1922