It seems I missed last Friday's mailing! With the holidays and my husband's funny work schedule, I kept thinking it was Saturday. I'll try to do better this week :~) Picking up where we left off, here's some background on some of the early settlers and the giant flood that hit the Chippewa Valley. An article in the Daily Wisconsin for July 11, 1867 says, "The honor of the first settlement is claimed by Steve McCann, a big, stout, good natured, Kentucky Irishman. His cabin was put up in 1846. His wife was the first white woman to remain in the Chippewa Valley and his son Stephen Jr., was the first one to be sacredly immersed in the Chippewa River. McCann has seven sons and two sons-in-law all of whom fought with him in the Union army. He has been justice of the peace for twenty one years, holding his summer court at Chippewa Falls arrayed in hickory shirt and overalls with bare brown feet. McCann says he raised the first wheat in the valley in 1843. He helped put up the Blue Mills in '42." Marshall Cousins calls him a man of superior intellect although lacking in education. He enlisted in the 1st Wisconsin INfantry when an old man. Three sons also enlisted and all were wounded. He had been in the Black Hawk War. At the time of his death from dropsy, at the home of his son-in-law, W. R. McDonald, it was stated that he settled at Blue Mills in 1837. We are indebted to William J. Young, in his day a prominent citizen of Chippewa Falls, and the Galena Advertiser, for an account of a flood on the 15th and 16th of July, 1855, that did much damage to Chippewa Falls. At this time there were no mills on the Chippewa River at Eau Claire and no mention is found of damage or loss to the mills on the Eau Claire River. Independent Republican, La Cross, August 22, 1855 -- William J. Young of Chippewa Falls writes the following particulars of the damage done by the late sudden rise of the Chippewa River; the letter is dated the 24th of July. Four years ago, H. S. Allen & Co. having then but limited means, were obliged in order to use their boom the following season to build temporary piers. They thought to use the boom carefully until something more substantial could be constructed. The following winter they commenced building piers that ice, water and logs combined can never endanger. They are forty feet square, logged with heavy timbers, and filled with stone to above the high water mark. Last winter, six such piers were added and one winter more would have completed the number to make everything secure. In the meantime they had increased the size of their mill sufficiently to render it capable of sawing 70,000 feet of lumber per day. This, of course, required an increased supply of logs. On the 13th and 14th of July there were indications of heavy rains at the north. On the 15th and 16th, the river rose so rapidly that by the evening of the latter day it had risen 16 feet, bringing into the boom one hundred thousand logs. On the 17th the water was nearly at stand, rising perhaps three inches during the day, at the close of which the boom still held. But, about midnight, the old piers gave away, and about thirty million feet of logs rolled over the Falls. In the morning the river was falling. Twenty-eight miles below the Falls, the river, which there runs with a current of six or eight miles an hour, was filled for one hour with logs borne down by the flood. Sometimes they were three or four in depth, and at all times during the hour, there were enough to cross the river on them. None of the new piers were moved, and it is thought that they are immovable by any force that can be brought against them. The old piers, which are only one fourth their strength, withstood the pressure of one hundred thousand logs until the very highest of the flood and twice that pressure can never be brought upon them. Account of the same flood by Thomas Randall in his "History of the Chippewa Valley." The mills on the Eau Galle and Red Cedar, during this period, were steadily advancing in wealth and improvements, being secure and able to defy the highest freshets. They had nothing to do but grow rich by silent profits, and persevering industry. Otherwise was it with the mill company at the Falls, who every winter spent large sums in erecting piers, renewing booms, and strengthening their work to secure logs, a charter granting ample privileges having been obtained from the legislature for that purpose, and so determined was the company to make secure, that piers costing more than a thousand dollars each were placed in t he river; booms with heavy iron fastenings were attached and every part of those vast structures seemed perfect, and impregnable against all freshets. The capacity of the mills was every year enlarged, and in the winter of 1854-55, a very large amount of logs were put in to supply the season's cutting; the spring drive was good, lumber sold readily and at a good price and all the affairs of the company seemed flourishing, but by a strange and sudden freak of nature all these hopes were cut short in a day. But little rain had fallen from early in April until the sixth day of July (Mr. Young says the 13th and 14th) when a dark cloud formed directly over the territory drained by the Chippewa, clearly visible from this place and the Falls. No rain fell here and only a little hail at the Falls, but dark masses of clouds could be seen, rolling and gathering from every direction into that one spot in the heavens, accompanied with fearful peals of thunder that made the earth tremble, and this continued for about thirty hours, appearing every moment as though it were coming right down upon us, but actually spending all its force in the single locality. The consequence was a sudden and terribly destructive rise in t he river, bringing down vast quantities of logs and drift wood, which drove all obstructions, and more than seventy thousand logs, (twenty-five million feet), together with their piers and booms were carried away and scattered all over the bottoms and amongst the sloughs of the lower Chippewa. The mill race, too, was badly damaged, and no more lumber could be made that year, which, when we consider that 100,000 feet was being manufactured every day before this unfortunate flood, and that every thousand feet was worth twenty dollars in gold, makes the loss very heavy. "The last straw," it is said "breaks the camel's back", and this was a very large straw which contributed very much to the final downfall of the company. Mr. Randall makes no reference to the mills below Chippewa Falls, or how they were affected by this flood, if there were any mills in 1855. In 1846 he was operating the Blue Mill, and lost his logs in the severe flood of the year. At a later period the site of the Blue Mills was called Badger Mills. ++++++++++ There's more to this background of the men and the mills in the Chippewa Valley. A reminder, this history is from the book "Sawdust City" and is used on this mail list and the accompanying website with permission of the Barland family. Please do not copy this information for any purpose without permission. -- Nance mailto:nsampson@spacestar.net