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To renew call Telephone Center, 333-8400 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN •APR -JF 88 ' ILLINOIS HISTORICAL SURVEY L161— O-1096 PUBLICATIONS OF THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN EDITED BY JOSEPH SCHAFER SUPERINTENDENT OF THE SOCIETY THE WISCONSIN LEAD REGION Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://archive.org/details/wisconsinleadregOOscha WISCONSIN DOMESDAY BOOK GENERAL STUDIES VOLUME III The Wisconsin Lead Region BY JOSEPH SCHAFER PUBLISHED BY THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN MADISON, 1932 COPYRIGHT, 1932, BY THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN THE ANTES PRESS EVANSVILLE, WISCONSIN FOREWORD The present volume is the third in the General series of the Wisconsin Domesday Book, the first being the author's Agriculture in Wisconsin, the second his Four Wisconsin Counties, Prairie and Forest, The publica- tion, in atlas format, of the so-called Town Studies was experimental and has had no successor in the Domesday series. The lead region study differs from the Four Wis- consin Counties in combining the history of an impor- tant extractive industry, lead mining, with the history of the development of agriculture. Unlike the previous study, also, which did not deal with the industrial cities of the lake shore located within the boundaries of the counties surveyed, this book takes account of the lead- ing towns, none of them large, which have served the several communities. Special attention is directed to the article which ap- pears as Appendix IV, prepared by Professor Vernor C. Finch of the Geography Department, University of Wisconsin. Professor Finch, desiring to work out such a careful detailed study of a typical farming district, devoted a large part of his summer vacation in 1928, with an assistant, to the Montfort area. His results are decidedly interesting and throw much light on the utili- zation of the land in the two contrasted types of terrain about which so much is said in the book proper — the rough lands of the north slope, and the prairies. Appendix II, "Origin of the Wisconsin Lead and Zinc Deposits/' the work of a young Wisconsin and 958876 FOREWORD Harvard University geologist, Paul A. Schafer, sup- plements and checks, in a thoroughgoing scientific survey of the region, what is written for laymen by a layman mainly in chapters II and VIII. The illustrations, it is believed, will constitute a wel- come new feature of the Domesday publications. The index has been prepared by the assistant editor, Lil- lian Krueger. The publication was paid for out of the income from the Burrows Fund, devoted to the Domes- day Studies by action of the Executive Committee of the Society. Joseph Schafer MADISON, DECEMBER, 1930. VI CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I The Story of Lead ll790-186l] 1 II A Mining and Farming Area 12 III Beginnings of Lead Mining 21 IV The Rush to the Lead Mines 33 V The Lead Miners 44 VI The Lead Miners in Politics 57 VII Political Eclipse 74 VIII Conditions of Lead Mining 92 IX Land Selection 110 X Agriculture in the Three Counties 131 XI Type Landholders 148 XII The Agricultural Transition 162 XIII Towns and Villages 184 XIV Population Changes 207 XV Americanizing the Foreigners 232 Appendix 253 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE General Map of the Lead Region 12 Frontispiece of Schoolcraft's View of the Lead Mines of Missouri 26 Section of Chandler's Map of 1829 Showing Majority of Mines Then Operating 42 A Cornish Miner's House at Mineral Point 54 House Built at Platteville about 1837 by Rev. Samuel Mitchell 72 Cross Section of a Lead Mine 96 Log Hearth Furnace 100 Ash Furnace 100 Roasting Furnace and Acid Plant, Cuba City, 1928 .... 104 Map of the History of Land Selection, Wisconsin's Lead Region 114 A Prairie Farm, Town of Mifflin, Iowa County, 1886 ... 144 Cassville on the Mississippi, 1928 194 Broad, Fertile Valley, Bordered with Heavily Wooded Bluffs, Town of Castle Rock, Grant County 230 THE WISCONSIN LEAD BEGION CHAPTER I THE STORY OF LEAD [1790-1861] LEAD, which ranks as one of the heaviest, softest, most pliable but least ductile of the metals, is de- nied the ennobling adjective "precious" ; yet it is so "use- ful" that a lead famine in any civilized country would doubtless prove more disastrous than would a failure of that portion of the gold supply used in the arts and in decoration. A multitude of human interests pay tribute to the gray metal. The mariner, distressed by storms on dangerous coasts, makes out of it a plummet to gauge the depth of water through which his vessel labors; the fisherman uses it to sink his bait to the levels where the fish habitually live; the pioneer moulds it into bullets for his rifle; the builder uses it to plumb his walls, to shape conduits, to frame light-panes, to water-tighten roof joints, or to cover entire structures; the type founder employs it in mixing his alloy, as does the pew- terer for fashioning plates, mugs, and candlesticks. In addition to these and scores of other uses of raw lead, preparations in which lead forms the base are nu- merous and significant. Early civilized man, in Egypt and elsewhere, had made the discovery that the flakes of oxidized lead were useful for various purposes, and also that oxidation could be hastened by the use of acids and heat. Here, probably, is the origin of white lead and of red lead, universally used, in connection with lin- seed oil, for paints. Other lead products are litharge, 2 THE WISCONSIN LEAD REGION chrome yellow, and sugar of lead, all valuable in the arts, the latter also used in medicine. The art of lead working has descended to us from antiquity and has served as one means of man's develop- ment. The lead pipes found so abundantly by archeolo- gists in Roman palaces and baths illustrate one princi- pal use made of lead by these great builders who also, according to Pliny, used an alloy of lead and tin for soldering. Romans, Carthaginians, and Moors, for many generations, worked the mines of Andalusia to an enormous extent, as the mountains of slag, later re- smelted by the Spaniards, attest. Lead mining is an ancient industry in Britain. The leading mines of that metalliferous island, those of Derbyshire and of Alston Moor, near the junction of Cumberland, Durham, and Northumberland, have been among the richest in the world. Other centers of lead production in Great Brit- ain are Cornwall and Devon, the Isle of Man, and the southeastern counties of Wales. In Germany lead was produced in the Rhineland, but principally in the Harz Mountains, while Austria controlled the famous old mines of Carinthia whose product found its vent through the port of Trieste. Some lead was made in Italy, in Belgium, in Holland, and in the Scandinavian countries, but England, during the period covered by our inquiry, was by far the largest European producer of that metal. The statistical table (Appendix I) compiled from the United States treasury records, shows the move- ment of lead and lead products to and from America to the beginning of the Civil War. That stretch of years subdivides naturally at 1816, the close of an era of light importations, and again at the year 1841, the beginning of a great movement in exporting American lead. This continued till 1848 after which, down to 1861, imports THE STORY OF LEAD [1790-1861] 3 once more gain the ascendency. Ordinarily, all but a few thousand pounds of the lead imported into the United States originated in England, and most of the balance in Scotland and Ireland. 1 Yet, this was not necessarily true as a permanent matter, for in 1801 the Hanse ports (Hamburg, Bremen, etc.) provided nearly 200,000 pounds of the 2,000,000 pound total, while the "Floridas and Louisiana" contributed 243,000 pounds, the two sources together furnishing over one-fifth of the aggregate. In 1803 Louisiana furnished 154,000 pounds after which, having become an American territory, her product no longer figures in the record of foreign imports. By the year 1806 somewhat more than one-fifth of the then large aggregate of nearly 5,000,000 pounds of imported lead originated elsewhere than in British territory. The principal subsidiary contributors were Denmark and Norway (91,000 pounds), Holland (110,000), Spanish Mediterranean ports (521,000), Italy (95,000), and Austrian Adriatic ports (138,000). The white and red lead for painting, however, came al- most exclusively from England, save for an increment of 110,000 pounds supplied by Holland. Shipments from England, as would be expected under the dis- turbed conditions of the time, fell off in 1807 nearly 2,000,000 pounds, though the quantity of white and red lead remained substantially the same that year, declin- ing by nearly 1,000,000 pounds, however, in 1808. 1 For example, the aggregate, 2,967,760 pounds of 1799 was made up as follows: England, Man, and Berwick, 2,844,522; Scotland, 19,785; Ire- land, 35,780; British West Indies, 1,907; British American Colonies, 9,445. This left 56,312 pounds to be accounted for of which Prussia supplies 114; Denmark and Norway, 21,701; Netherlands, 13,000; Hamburg, Bremen, etc., 14,764; France, 4,493; and Portugal, 2,240. The business of supplying the United States with lead was therefore primarily a British concern, just as was the supplying of iron and steel. 4 THE WISCONSIN LEAD REGION The period 1809 to 1814 inclusive was so abnormal in consequence of the embargo and the subsequent war, that accuracy in the treasury figures of importations in American bottoms, cannot be expected. The lead im- ports from British ports show a catastrophic decline in 1809 to 667,000 pounds, and in fact the six-year in- terval brought into the United States — according to these figures — only 5,628,753 pounds of lead, or less than a million a year on the average. In one year only, 1812, the bulk of the lead came in from Spain and her dependencies. This Was a prophecy of what could hap- pen when the thousands of Spanish mines, so long nearly inert, should be galvanized into new life as they Were in the twenties, thirties, and forties of the last century. The white and red lead imports kept up rather bet- ter, the average for the six years being nearly 1,250,000 pounds, the bulk of which was still derived, directly or indirectly, from England though credited in part to 'Vessels captured," to "all other countries," etc. With the resumption of free intercourse with Great Britain in 1815, normal figures return. The amount of lead imported that year was 3,240,670 pounds of which Great Britain furnished 3,049,670 pounds; she also supplied 2,358,171 pounds of the white and red lead imports totaling 2,602,200 pounds. Evidently, however, either the country during the time of war and embargo had suffered a kind of lead famine, or else the expansion of all kinds of industries at once increased its powers of absorption. For in 1816 there entered a veritable flood of lead, aggregating 13,840,970 pounds, together with painter's white and red lead amounting to 7,714,715 pounds. If these quan- tities could have been spread over the lean years, they THE STORY OF LEAD [1790-1861] 5 would have made the supply for the whole country dur- ing that period almost normal. In treating of the comjmerce in lead, we as yet can have reference only to the country's home needs, for the exports of that article are negligible in comparison with the imports, and that continued to be the case down to the year 1825. Then for the first time since 1796, when America was doing the world's carrying trade, the exports of "pig, bar and sheet lead" attain the re- spectable proportion of more than 22 per cent of the imports. The country, in fact, about that time entered upon a new phase, characterized by heavy production of native lead, so that the emphasis begins to shift from imports to exports. It was claimed that the change was due to the doubling of the duty in the tariff of 1824 from one cent per pound to two cents per pound. 2 By 1837 America exported nearly 3,000,000 pounds of native lead. The imports, on the other hand, steadily declined from 1834, until ten years later they had reached the vanishing point, 3,430 pounds, the low stage continuing till 1849. Our period of enormous exports was from 1842 to 1847. The round numbers are, 1842, 14,000,000 pounds; 1843, 15,000,000; 1844, 18,000,000; 1845, 10,000,000; 1846, 16,000,000; and 1847, 3,000,000. The first appearance in the United States govern- ment import tables of the white and red lead item occurs in 1804, but the amount recorded in that year is so con- siderable, 364,648 pounds, and the known popularity of those preparations for painting had long been so great, as to insure that they came in earlier under another category. Since paints were not listed, the only designa- tion which might conceal them was "bar and other lead," a 19 Congress, 1 Session, Senate Documents, no. 45 (serial no. 126), p. 18. See report of Lieutenant Martin Thomas. 6 THE WISCONSIN LEAD REGION the totals of which are given in the table. The drastic decrease in the quantity of this item imported after 1804, together with the generous figures for white and red lead, indicates the proportion these preparations formerly held to total lead imports. The earliest New England houses were, of course, innocent of color decoration, save for the patina pro- duced by weathering, though many of them are said to have had a coating of clay stucco over the clapboards {clay boards) . This was in harmony with English usage as hundreds of survivals of seventeenth century "timber and plaster" houses proclaim. The custom of painting houses is believed to have begun in New England about the year 1734. 3 The improvement in homes, however, was so rapid and continuous during the eighteenth cen- tury, that a single generation changed to the eye the face of the country. The tradition of the white painted towns and villages dates from the middle of that cen- tury. By 1767 the use of the lead paints had become so popular that the British government hoped to derive a considerable revenue from the colonies by levying a duty upon them, for the Townshend Act, one of the commonly assigned causes of the Revolution, listed as dutiable at colonial ports, "glass, red and white lead, painter's colors, paper, and tea." What happened when the duties were withdrawn on the first four articles and retained on the tea is joyously relearned by every new generation of American school children. At the Revolution such houses in the towns as were built of wood were painted either white or light yellow, farm houses as yet often being painted red. But Tim- 3 William B. Weeden, Economic and Social History of New England 1620-1789 (Boston, 1890), ii, 531. Also Fiske Kimball, Domestic Architec- ture of the American Colonies and of the Early Republic (New York, 1922), 136. THE STORY OF LEAD [1790-1861] 7 othy D wight, writing about 1810, quotes with high ap- proval a general statement about architecture contained in John Lambert's Travels* published in 1810. Lam- bert's description is so definite and so detailed as to con- stitute an admirable summary. He says: "Throughout the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York, a remarkably neat, and indeed elegant style of architecture and decoration seems to pervade all the buildings in the towns and villages; and I understand is more or less prevalent in the Northern and Middle States. The houses in the small towns and villages are mostly built of wood, generally one or two stories above the ground floor ; the sides are neatly clapboarded and painted white; the sloping roofs are covered with shin- gles and painted a slate colour ; and with sash windows, green Venetian shades outside, neat white railings and steps, have a pretty effect. Sometimes the entrance is ornamented with a portico. The churches . . . are con- structed of the same materials, painted white, and fre- quently decorated like the houses with sash windows and green Venetian shades." Such "neatly painted" churches in 1796 were seen "everywhere" in the vicinity of Boston by Rochefoucault de Liancourt, also by D wight himself, and many other reputable witnesses. Not one village in a hundred, D wight declared, had in it a single log house. All were tidy frame structures, standing usually in a generous lawn, with shrubs and trees, a garden and small orchard, all enclosed by the fashionable white picket fence. Boston, and the other cities, with an eye to protec- tion against fires, enforced regulations requiring brick or stone construction ; and that continued to be the prac- 4 Dwight, Travels in New England and New York (New Haven, 1822), iv, 268. 8 THE WISCONSIN LEAD REGION tice as America spread westward. At the frontier, or in backward neighborhoods, log houses supplied the basic requirements of warmth and shelter. These, of course, were unpainted though often whitewashed both within and without. Brick and stone structures pos- sessed natural colors, so far as the outer walls were con- cerned. The decorative schemes of the Adamite build- ers, however, called for the painting of all woodwork, which of course levied drafts upon lead colors, though Venetian green, Spanish brown, the ochers, and a va- riety of other materials came into popular use for in- terior and exterior finishing. Eastern Pennsylvania built mainly of native stone, but as population spread through northern New York, the white houses of Yankeeland, frequently more im- posing than their prototypes in New England, appeared in the towns, villages, and upon the large, prosperous farms as well. Captain Basil Hall, an English traveler of 1827, pictures Rochester on the Genesee River, sketched with camera lucida. In the small group of houses focused upon are two, standing prominently in the foreground, which are decorated with Greek por- ticos. 5 Very appropriately, the industrial census which this writer appends to his account of Rochester, shows the presence there at that time of twenty-six painters. 6 In the "backwoods" of America a few years' de- velopment was apt to witness the change from the shelter of logs to the neat framed and weatherboarded houses, painted without, both for appearance sake and for the protection of the wood. When Henry M. Brack- enridge passed down the Ohio in 1810, he stopped at Gallipolis where ten years earlier he had been domiciled B Forty Etchings (London, 1829), plate x. 6 Travels in North America (Edinburgh, 1829), i, 155. THE STORY OF LEAD [1790-1861] 9 with the family of Dr. Saugrain in a rude log house, the only type then found in the village. He found the place a smart American river town, painted white. 1 Hall found such villages in the coast region of Georgia; Isaac Weld, thirty years earlier, had observed that the plant- ers of the Northern Neck, in Virginia, were building almost exclusively of wood, and of course, painting their houses white. Kentucky and Tennessee planters did the sarnie particularly throughout the blue-grass region. If the Greek style really became as popular after the revival fathered by Jefferson as architectural historians believe, 8 then it follows that thousands of pillared and porticoed houses were erected, North and South, be- tween 1830 and 1860. A Greek front in other than a white or cream-colored dress would have been grotesque. For painting these houses many hundred tons of white lead and linseed oil were required every year. Bridges were often painted also, and ships, boats, and steam- boats almost without exception. Save in periods of w|ar or financial depression the process of building new structures and of renovating old, harmonized with the rate of advance into new settle- ments. From one point of view, the story of American expansion is the history of building new houses and barns, fences, bridges, boats, churches, schoolhouses, stores; repairing, painting, and repainting. The move- ment of white lead imports reflects this situation with considerable accuracy. For example, the year 1816, is noted as one of the great years in the history of Ameri- can expansion, both agriculturally and industrially. 7 Recollections of Persons and Places in the West (Philadelphia, copy- right 1834), 217, 221. 8 Cf. Fiske Kimball, American Architecture (New York, 1928), chap. viii. 10 THE WISCONSIN LEAD REGION That year we imported nearly 8,000,000 pounds, or 4,000 tons, of white lead to supplement our domestic production of that article. The manufacture of white lead in America seems to have been begun, on a commercial scale, by Samuel Wetherill of Philadelphia soon after the adoption of the national constitution. 9 For some years Philadelphia en- joyed a monopoly in that line as she did also in the manufacture of printer's type. By 1825, however, the white lead factories of New York, Brooklyn, New Jersey, supplemented by smaller establishments at Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, competed for the trade. In the early 1840's extensive plants were erected at Buffalo where lead from the northern Mississippi mines was un- loaded from the lake schooners and steamers prepara- tory to being shipped east through the Erie Canal. By intercepting the shipment at that transfer point, the Buffalo manufacturers effected a distinct economy over eastern plants, a second advantage being the presence in the city of extensive flax mills where the linseed oil with which the lead was mixed could be procured at the cheapest rates. The aggregate value of the produc- tion of 36 American factories in 1860 amounted to $5,380,347. In that year our country imported 1,508,769 pounds of white lead, exporting a mere 7,000 pounds. The imports were valued at nearly $100,000 and since an ad valorem duty was collected in those years, the estimate can confidently be regarded as too low rather than too high. Adding the duty, 15 per cent, it would, however, amount to almost 9 cents per pound. Assum- ing that the American product was worth in market 10 cents per pound, the total value given would represent 9 J. Leander Bishop, A History of American Manufactures (Phila- delphia, 1868), i, 407. THE STORY OF LEAD [1790-1861] 11 the stupendous aggregate of nearly 54,000,000 pounds, or 27,000 tons. This shows that our people were spread- ing a lot of paint. The metal out of which was manufactured not only this worthy product, but also the requisite shot, pipes, sheeting, types, and the hundred other articles in com- mon use which were made from lead, was produced in most generous measure precisely from the district in Wisconsin which we call the "Lead Region," together with the adjacent portions of Iowa and Illinois. Al- ready in 1840, when the aggregate production of lead in the United States was given as 31,240,000 pounds, the territory of Wisconsin was credited in the census with 15,130,000 pounds. At the same time Illinois pro- duced 8,755,000 and Missouri 5,295,000 pounds, which give a total for the three of 29,180,000, or 93 per cent of the nation's output. CHAPTER II A MINING AND FARMING AREA THE typical mining region is an otherwise waste or desert land, mountainous, infertile, ill-watered, or so gashed and rumpled as to afford no temptations to the husbandman. The lead region of Wisconsin contra- dicts world experience in combining almost ideal farm- ing conditions with a fruitful mining opportunity. It is for this reason that the three counties comprised in it have been able to play so important a role in the history of the state. The lead counties occupy the southwestern corner of the state. They are bounded north by Wisconsin River, west by the Mississippi, south by Illinois, and east by the counties of Green and Dane, into both of which the mineral deposits extend, giving them a re- lationship to the lead region which is more intimate than mere contiguity implies. The three counties embrace the equivalent of about seventy townships, in 2,200 square miles of which the rocks are said to be lead-bear- ing. The deposits extend beyond the state boundary south and west. Such a district is a triangle of land in Illinois centering on Galena, and bounded east and south by the escarpment of Niagara limestone, while a narrow strip in Iowa, including the Dubuque mines, is similarly terminated by the range of Niagara limestone hills paralleling the river. However, about 90 per cent of the area of the Upper Mississippi lead deposits is in the Wisconsin field. 12 wisroxsix okolo* (UCNKKAL MAI* LKAI) n e<; ION SHOWING TliK I) I S'I'H 1 I! ITKlX OKTIIK I.ODKS. ijOdM t x syro \ l Y M 't* s -X *v«f : > 2,857 " 1829 5,957 > > 1,867 " 1830 5,331 > j 1,832 " 1831 5,369 " 1,277 " 1832 5,401 " 3,487 " 1833 6,068 >> 3,699 " 1834 7,699 " 2,853 " 1835 8,469 >> 3,227 " 1836 11,390 >> 2,826 " This, however, makes it clear that the Upper Mis- sissippi mines had forged ahead of those in Missouri; • Figures are from Josiah D. Whitney, The Metallic Wealth of the United States, Described and Compared with that of Other Countries, 421. •21 Cong., 1 Sess., Senate Documents, no. 1 (serial no. 192). 38 THE WISCONSIN LEAD REGION that the area in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa was par excellence the "Lead Region" of the United States, as Jefferson half a century earlier seems to have thought, though Missouri was destined to come back nobly in our own period. The special advantages supposed to be enjoyed by the Upper mines in the competition with Missouri, were two — facilities for transportation, and a superior op- portunity for producing food. The Missouri mines, as already stated, were separated from the river by a stretch of from thirty to fifty miles of very bad road. The means of conveyance had always been carts. So serious was the problem of transportation that Martin Thomas, in 1826, strongly recommended the building of a government road from the Mississippi to the Potosi mines. Thomas also urged, for the benefit of the up river mines, the improvement of navigation by the blast- ing out of a channel over the Keokuk and Rock Island rapids which would make river transportation more eco- nomical in the season of low water, but the rapids could always be run during the higher stages of the river. The immense possibilities of the development in the Upper Mississippi country, he thought, justified the expendi- ture of the estimated $20,000 to $30,000 for the pur- pose. But, even without that desirable improvement, all lead mined in the Fever River district, in Dubuque's mines, and along the lower courses of streams flowing into both the Mississippi and Rock rivers, as well as the Wisconsin, could be sent to market by water transport. And ordinarily there was only a short land haul through an open country, over good natural roads, passable by large wagons drawn by any desired number of oxen. Schoolcraft, who passed over the lead region in go- ing from Galena to Fort Winnebago in 1831, gives us THE RUSH TO THE LEAD MINES 89 a glowing description of the country. He thinks that its reputation as a lead-bearing country aided in sup- pressing the facts about its agricultural character. "I know not," he says, "how else to account for the light which has suddenly burst upon us from this bank of the Mississippi, and Which has at once proved it to be as valuable for the purposes of agriculture as for those of mining, and as sylvan in its appearance as if it were not fringed, as it were, with rocks, and lying at a great elevation above the water. This elevation is so consider- able as to permit a lively descent in the streams, form- ing numerous mill-seats. The surface of the country is not, however, broken but may be compared to the heavy and lazy-rolling waves of the sea after a tempest. These wave-like plains are often destitute of trees, except a few scattering ones, but present to the eye an almost boundless field of native herbage. Groves of oak some- times diversify those native meadows, or cover the ridges which bound them. Very rarely does any rock appear above the surface. The highest elevations, the Platte Mounds and the Blue Mound, are covered with soil and with trees. Numerous brooks of limpid water traverse the plains, and find their way either into the Wisconsin, Rock River, or the Mississippi. The common deer is still in possession of its favorite haunts ; and the travel- ler is very often startled by flocks of the prairie-hen ris- ing up in his path. The surface soil is a rich black al- luvion; it yields abundant crops of corn and, so far as they have been tried, all the cereal gramina. I have never, either in the West or out of the West, seen a richer soil, or more stately fields of corn and oats, than upon one of the plateaux of the Blue Mound. "Such is the country which appears to be richer in ores of lead than any other mineral district in the world 40 THE WISCONSIN LEAD REGION — which yielded forty millions of pounds in seven years — produced a single lump of ore of two thousand cubic feet — and appears adequate to supply almost any amount of this article that the demands of commerce require." 7 One has but to compare the above with the same writ- er's description of the Missouri lead-mine country to realize the vast difference agriculturally in favor of our own lead region, notwithstanding his use of certain identical phrases. 8 He had written of the Missouri area: "The general aspect of the country is sterile, though not mountainous .... The soil is a reddish coloured clay, stiff and hard, and full of fragments of flinty stone, quartz, and gravel: this extends to the depth of from 10 to 20 feet, and is bottomed on limestone rock. It is so compact in some places as almost to resist the pick- axe ; in others it seems to partake of marl, is less gravel- ly, and readily penetrated. The country is particularly characterized by quartz, which is strewed in detached pieces over the surface of the ground, and is also found embedded in the soil at all depths." 9 The principal wood was scrub oak. There were detached small areas of good farm land, but as a whole it was not attractive to the cultivator. From early times men dreamed of linking the lead region to the Great Lakes by means of a canal at the portage. Schoolcraft suggested a corollary to this plan in a canal from the portage, along the Wisconsin bottom 7 Henry R. Schoolcraft, Summary Narrative of an Exploratory Ex- pedition to the Sources of the Mississippi River in 1820: Resumed and Completed by the Discovery of Its Origin in Itasca Lake, in 1882 (Phila- delphia, 1855), Appendix 561-562. The big nugget was, of course, the one taken out of the Buck Lead in 1819. 8 Such as the "lazy-rolling waves of the sea after a tempest" employed in both cases, the writer evidently being fond of that figure. • View of the Lead Mines of Missouri, 26-27. THE RUSH TO THE LEAD MINES 41 to the bend at Arena, thence to the uplands of Iowa County and through the heart of the lead region to Galena, taking in as feeders both the Pecatonica and Fever rivers. This would afford a northern and Great Lakes market instead of the tedious route by Way of the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi, and would save this country from the evil effects of the occasional low water in the great river. His imagination even coursed so far afield as to picture a railway traversing essentially the same route. 10 At that very time the work of locating the military road, from Fort Howard at Green Bay to Fort Winnebago (Portage), and from Portage to Prairie du Chien (Fort Crawford), for which Congress had appropriated money in 1830, was going forward under Judge Doty's eager leadership. 11 The final sec- tion of that road, Fort Winnebago to Fort Crawford, was made to pass mainly along the ridge dividing the streams flowing into the Wisconsin from those debouch- ing into the Mississippi and Rock rivers ; in other words, through the northern margin of the Wisconsin lead area. It connected with roads converging on Galena which had already been opened by lead teamsters from various points along the ridge. 12 The sudden up-leap in population, from 200 in 1825 to 1,000 in 1826, then to 4,000 and then to 10,000 13 10 Expedition to the Sources of the Mississippi, 562-563. "Arena" was evidently the shipping point on the Wisconsin later called "Helena." Cf. R. W. Chandler's map of 1829, post, op. p. 42. 11 H. E. Cole, "The Old Military Road," Wisconsin Magazine of His- tory, ix, 47-62. 12 Ibid., map op. p. 48. See also map of the Wisconsin lead region,, following Owen's chart, 1839, in Wis. Mag. of Hist, iv, op. p. 32; and R. W. Chandler's map of the United States lead mines on the Upper Mis- sissippi River, 1829, Wis. Hist. Colls., xi, op. p. 400. "Dr. John Marsh wrote, July 29, 1828, that about 10,000 white in- truders were then on the lead lands which rightly belonged to the Win- nebago. See George D. Lyman, John Marsh, Pioneer: The Life Story of a Trail-blazer on Six Frontiers (New York, 1930), 143. 42 THE WISCONSIN LEAD REGION (round numbers being used by the estimators who may not have been accurate in all respects) was greatly en- couraged by the admirable local facilities for raising food supplies. From the first there were farms as well as mines and soon there were mills as well as farms. Chandler's map of 1829 locates mills as follows: be- ginning at the south, Craig and Janney's mill was on Plum Creek south of Galena, near the Mississippi, Craig's mills on Apple River, Shannon's on Small Pox, Parker's on Fever, and Hough's on Platte River. The last two were within the Wisconsin boundary. The Har- ris, Connelly, and Meeker farms are designated in the peninsula between the lower Fever River and the Mis- sissippi, while in the Wisconsin area are shown farms near Gratiot's, Hamilton's, Platte Mounds, and Min- eral Point. Probably these were noted particularly be- cause they were relatively extensive, for there is no doubt that many other cultivated tracts were distributed among the mining settlements, which constituted an ex- cellent market. The region, indeed, on account of the combination of mining and farming, had already ac- quired a potentially permanent population. They were mining farmers or farming miners, the two occupations supplementing one another. Because they were making homes in the lead districts and growing their own sup- plies, these people could afford to raise mineral on a nar- rower price margin than miners elsewhere. The catas- trophic drop in the value of lead, from $4.50 per hun- dred in 1827 to $2.00 per hundred in 1829 ought to be reflected in the production figures ; yet during the latter year our lead region made more than ever before, while in Missouri the higher cost of production due to costly digging, costly transportation, costly food, and other handicaps caused a marked falling off. Normal prices ^<4b. u^fe~Y\ , •• -I Vv fMorrisoM.-- vrlhyh o^ ■S '/■'aim TcaLP^y^ ■•■ ?* .-:. «£S% v^ ■ ** * s »»< k /. % 6 *^W 0F*% - '^(hade^arm Tk 3/f£L?->. ,* 'Ik C ;♦*' ^ Hanhc ♦ Thompidn A $/Mathe& Farm u£ S '„*/<. Brt/