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.

The steamer Palmyra was the first boat to ply the waters of the St. Croix lake and river. On her first trip into the Dalles she had an interesting encounter with the Ojibway Indians. As she steamed up between the high rocks, her shrill whistle and puffing engine attracted the Indians, who flocked in great numbers to the river to see the "scota chenung" (fireboat). Some of the more daring ones ventured to the high rocks overtowering the boat, as she lay in the eddy opposite Angle Rock. Their curiosity knew no bounds. They whooped and danced until their frenzied spirits became excited to such a degree that they began to roll rocks from the high pinnacle down upon the boat. At once the captain ordered the engineer to let the steam escape, while the whistle screamed with broken notes, the bell keeping time. The shrill belching forth of the steam was terrific. The Indians sprang away with a bound, with fearful yelling, tumbling over the cragged rocks, leaving blankets and utensils behind in their fright, and fled into the woods in such terror that not an Indian reappeared. This was the beginning of steamboating and settlement by the whites in the St. Croix valley.

The St. Croix Falls Lumbering Company, with its boat load of men and materials, built a mill and dam, at a cost of about $20,000, above the Dalles at the rapids. The company passed through many changes. The inexperience of the managers in the lumbering business with its necessary expenditures, the long distance from labor and supplies, which had to be freighted from St. Louis, and the heavy early outlays with no profits or dividends, caused several of the partners to withdraw, notwithstanding the local advantages for lumbering, a splendid water power, abundance of timber, and a healthy climate. However, the company continued operations for years, with William Holcombe as agent.

Captain Holcombe was the first lieutenant governor of Minnesota. He took a deep interest in the settlement of the St. Croix valley. In 1846 he was a member of the first constitutional convention in Wisconsin, in which he worked hard for the change of the boundary from the St. Croix river to a line farther east; he succeeded in making the change, and was elected on the boundary issue, which was a political question; but the constitution was defeated by the people. St. Paul

favored the St. Croix boundary, for she was fearful that, if the line was established farther east, Hudson would be her rival to become the future capital of the new territory destined to be formed northwest of Wisconsin. Lieut. Gov. Holcombe was also a member of the Democratic wing of the Minnesota constitutional convention, and was United States receiver of the land office for four years. His name will long be remembered in the Valley. He died in 1870.

The other members of the old company did not become residents of the St. Croix valley, with the exception of William S. Hungerford. Every member of this old company has passed away from all that is mortal.

Mr. Hungerford became a permanent resident of the Valley when the government offered for sale the land embracing the water power. He preempted the subdivision on which the old mill stood, and obtained the title from the government in 1851. He was arrested for perjury in obtaining the title, and was carried to Madison in bonds. This act created litigation which continued for over twenty years. Mr. Hungerford was acquitted.

Hon. John McKusick, of Stillwater, was also connected with the St. Croix Lumbering Company as an agent in 1840, during the first operations. The entire output of this mill was about 50,000,000 feet.

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE INTERSTATE BOUNDARY.

Hon. James Fisher, of Prairie du Chien, a member of the Wisconsin territorial council in 1845, representing Crawford county, which covered the area between the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers, introduced a memorial to Congress, to create another territory from the northwest part of Wisconsin, to be called Superior. The memorial was referred to the Committee on Territories, where it still sleeps.

Hon. Caleb Cushing, of Massachusetts, in 1846, purchased an interest in the St. Croix Falls property and formed a stock company. He firmly believed in the future formation of this new territory with boundaries similar to those proposed in the Fisher memorial; he thought that, with his almost unlimited sway in Congress, this result could be accomplished and St. Croix Falls be designated as the capital. But about this time.

Mr. Cushing was commissioned by the government and entered the Mexican war. He was subsequently sent as minister to China. These and other important duties called away his personal attention from the St. Croix property, so that the new territory and capital as designed sleep with the Fisher memorial. The water power of this property has remained unimproved to the present time. It belongs to the estate of the late Isaac Staples. The falls are created by the water falling over imperishable adamantine rock.

George W. Brownell, of St. Croix Falls, was delegate from this district, in 1847, to the second Wisconsin constitutional convention. He had been elected on the issue of establishing the boundary from Mt. Trempealeau to Lake Superior, which would place the St. Croix valley and the two great cities since built at the west end of Lake Superior under one state government. But the edict had gone forth that Wisconsin must be admitted into the Union, in order that her Whig vote (which was sure) might be cast for Gen. Zachary Taylor for president, and that therefore her Morgan L. Martin boundary must not be tampered with. Thus was sacrificed, in a considerable degree, the future welfare of a district capable of sustaining half a million or more of people, by placing them under a government not their first choice. The Wisconsin part of this tract of country is adjacent to Minnesota, and its financial interests are blended with those of our state; thus time exposes some of our indiscreet national and state-building schemes.

PIONEER LUMBERING ON GOVERNMENT LANDS.

The first operators in the pine districts of Wisconsin and Minnesota were pioneers, who ventured into this new and unexplored country for the purpose of cutting timber for a livelihood, not with the spirit of speculation. They opened the country for settlement and cultivation, as the vanguard of civilization, creating a value for the government domain.

The government subsequently sent timber agents to investigate and report, regarding the cutting of timber on these uncared-for lands. It was generally conceded to be a benefit to the government; it being occupancy under an endowed

right, as citizens inheriting an interest in the government. In many instances where the government demanded payment, the demand was promptly met by purchasing the denuded lands, or by paying a fair compensation for the timber cut.

FOREST FIRES AND DECREASE OF RAINFALL.

There is abundant evidence that extensive pine forests once existed where now there are large pine barrens. The gradations from the thrifty pine to barren plains is clearly seen. Fires were the main cause, which annually swept over large tracts of land, stripping them of the timber by millions of feet, a destruction vast and incalculable.

The physical features of the country have also undergone a change due to decrease of the rainfall. While the towering pines have fallen by the forest fires or by decay or the woodman's ax, many of the lakes have receded, and tall grasses wave and willows grow where once the "kego" sported in the clear blue waters. "The sun drew the waters up into the heavens," said the Indians; but the old shores may still be traced, by the freshwater shells that are crushed by the foot of the explorer, and by the ineffaceable mark of water breaking upon the beach and undermining the rocky ledges.

THE VILLAGE OF MARINE.

Next to St. Croix Falls, Marine contains the earliest settlement. Lewis Judd and David Hone were deputized by a company of men residing in Marine, Illinois, to visit the Northwest and examine the region recently secured by treaty from the Ojibways, and to return the same year and report upon its advantages of climate, soil, and other resources. They were authorized also to locate a claim for future settlement, if they found one entirely suitable. They embarked on the steamer Ariel at St. Louis, September 10th, 1838, and in twenty-five days reached the head of lake St. Croix, whence they proceeded in a flatboat propelled by poles up the St. Croix as far as the falls, and thence to the mouth of Kettle river. Returning by birch canoes, they stopped at the present site of the village of Marine; and thence went onward to Marine, Illinois, where they arrived November 10th, and reported favorably on the location chosen.