Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-12-25

In the court house yard. and Gov. Hoard
was immediately apprised of the situation
OF affairs by telegraph. Ats o'clock three
shrlll whistles called the Wausau Light
Guard to the armory, where Capt. Bells
ordered them to rest on their muskets in
readiness for sudden CALL During the
evening the crowd in the court
yard grew boisterous and an
attempt to clear the square was met
with successful opposition by
the sixty special policeman appointed for
the occasion. In the melee that ensued
forty or fifty of the men in line lost their
places and went off swearing that thew
would have their rights.
The mayor decided at | o'clock this
morning that something had to be done.
or bloody night would be the inevitable
consequence; and at that time the forty
two available soldiers were mustered into
line by Captain BELLS and marshalled to
the square. The arrival of the militia
put an effective damper on the ardor of
the homesteaders who couldn't
get in line, and when Register
Saunders slid back the wicket and dis
closed the face of the first beneficiary of
the McCord law at g CLOCK. evc--th;-c
was peace and quiet, and the machinery of
the land office began to work on its we'll
creased wheels,
Louis Getsch was the lucky home
steader to get the first choice of 100 out
of 10000 acres of valuable timber and
farm land embraced in the reservoir
tract. Getsch Was the first to get in the
box at 6 o'clock Thursday night, but
yesterday Peterson, a Norwegian,
slipped under the bars and displaced
him. Some time between dark and
midnight, however. Peterson was missing.
How he was gotten cut of the way will
always remain mystery of the memora-
bic days. The ejectment of the Swede was
accomplished very cleverly, at all events.
and Gntsch got his rights. The latter
Tied upon lots and Z. sections 10, 81 and
9, in the Sugar Camp Creek district, in the
northern portion of Oneida county, which
is rated by land-lookers as a very deslra-
bic piece of property.
But the second man in line, Mark Bells.
is generally conceded to have fled upon
the pick of the entire reserve tract. He
took the west half of section 70, 80 and Q.
not far from Getch's filing. Woodmen
who have gone over the property say there
is betS cen 2,000,0 900 and 2,2500OO feet of
the very best pine upon it and he is being
congratulated by his many friends as hav.
ing drawn the capital prize. Angus Nc
Donald was No. 3 in the line and he fled
ON a quarter section almost adjoining
Bells claim. Until the thirteenth
not an outsider filed claim, The choice
going to Wausau people,
During the first half hour after the office
1KyaS nrpnoH nIaUpr, 1Icnoocl Of
by the receivers staff of clerks. A win
dow was provided for setting up after the
fling of the homestead entries, and work
facilitated In this manner. After the first
twenty men had gone throug,., however,
the work was rendered tedious, from the
fact that applications were made for the
Identical lands filed by the men first in
line. To obviate this in measure. the
register at neon issued printed list of
lands fled upon up to that time.
Up to noon none of the property in the
vicinity of Bineander had been filed upon,
and no application had been made for the
section upon which is situated the Inter
latchen club house, the headquarters of
the Wausaw sportsmen' s club, upon which
Neal Brown squated at midnight.
At II O clock today the line of waiting
homesteaders numbered us, and was con-
stantly increasing as fast as the crowd
fled past the wicket. The scene in the
court yard is one that, in the words of the
noted poet, ''baffles description" About
the court house, in the yard and on the
four streets around the square were gath
cred between 5000 and 5000 people.
Some were perched up in various
vantage points looking at the multitude.
The guards, patroling the square and
maintaining an open space near the line,
gave peculiar aspect 20 this most unu-
sual scene. The crowd grew good natured
as the day grew longer, and once in a
while, as some familiar figure passed out
of the coop after fling his claim, a hearty
cheer that could be heard all over the
town would 90 LIN from the crowd