The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1900-06-29

have spent about $4,000 for prospect
ing. The farmers have been willing
to option their property to the parties
making this examination, and have
agreed that in case iron should be
found in paying quantity and quality
to sell their lands to the parties in
terested at a stipulated price. and
| nothing has been asked as considera-
| ton for giving such options.
Specialized on Big Trees.
The leader in the movement is Rob-
| ert Whiteside of Duluth. who lately
! bought the famous Calaveras and
Tuelmene groves of giant trees in Cal
ifornia. The consideration paid for
these groves was 100000 dollars. He
intended to cut down these giants and
saw them into lumber This, however,
the Californians would not tolerate,
and they are working on congress to
buy these groves for national park.
Famous Wreck on Mississippi.
The most serious disaster that ever
occurred on the upper Mississippi, in
the old days when steamboating was
more important than it is now, oc-
Cured off Prairie du Chen on June
q, 1872. Steamboats, run past that
piled railroads have made the steam
boat journey uninteresting except to
/ a few turists and for purposes of cheap
freight, but the d. \. Mcdonald was
cOnsiderab BILE of a boat. She was blown
up at 4:15, but few moments after
she had left the Prairie du CHEN dock
twenty-five people of the thirty-eight
on board were killed ard some of them
blown 200 yards.
In the office of the Prairie du CHEN
Union (Which revived the anniversary
recently is an old chair with a tag
certifying that it was picked up in the
river and was part Of the wreckage.
This was during the editorship of
mick Smith, later of Fond du Lac,
and the authority on national songs.
A gentleman who saw the disaster
says of the steamboat, she seemed to
jump out of the water and fly all to
pieces" He could distinctly discern
| the forms of several persons hurled
| hundreds of feet through the air to-
| gether with fragments of the dismem-
bered boat. One man, Daniel Muir
! ply, who, strange as it may appear,
| lived ten hours acknowledgement
! clear over the smoke stack of the
! landing on the east side The decks
| and guards of this boat were literally
covered with falling timber, bricks and
other material from the wreck. The
wounded were taken to the rooms Of
| the hook and ladder company in the
| city and the steamer NatOOna arrived
from La Crosse at o'clock, many Of
| the unfortunates living in that city.
! The trouble, according to the engineer,
! lay with the boilers. The plate was
3-16th of an inch thick. The govern
; ment inspectors had at one time re-
! fused license but were over-persuaded.
There were many distressing incl
! dents. One poor fellow was drawn
out of the water in an almost insensi-
! BILE condition with his hands clasped
i tightly around the body of a dead COM
rade whom he had been endeavOring
to save for several minutes. Captain
! Price, was thrown, as he thinks, $50
; feet in the air and escaped with the
/ simple fracture of rib.
There were worse accidents on the
! lower Mississippi in the early days, es-
| pecially was the racing between rival
! boats dangerous. But this disaster
| was and is the talk about the fire
! places of Prairie du Chen on cold win
! ter nights.
H. Romance of Desolate Ships.
{ What a romance there is about wat
: ercraft! What so appeals to the imag-
nation as derelict floating about in
the ocean in the MONDAY glare and in
| the tempestuous night. A wanderer
/ year in and year out, drifting idly In
t the beaten track and in the hidden
! lanes of the sea!
/ In Kenosha harbor the other day
dredge hit upon the hulk of the schoon-
| er c.. I. Hutchinson. She went down in
gale on the night of Nov. %, 1870.
! The government was forced to aban-
| don the effort to find the sunken hulk,
! and when finally she was found recent
ly, six feet of sand covered her. The
boat was the property of G. |. Hutch
! insOn, and in it Hutchinson made his
escape from KenOsha during the great
wheat riots in that city in 1913.
Another well-known lake craft has
lately been sunk to get rid Of her.
1t is the old Goodrich side-wheeler,
Muskegon. She was built in 1871 and
was 1914 feet long. She is best re-
membered on the west shore route,
though for a time she did Chicago
Grand Haven business. She received
her death blow in 1897. While in
dry dock at Milwaukee, to receive re-
pairs, the vessel was not properly
blocked and fell, breaking the arches
and twisting the boat out of shape.
The company paid for her. The Muske-
gon has lately been dismantled and the
easiest way to dispose of what is not
wanted is to sink the hulk in deep
water.
What Farmers Raised I'm Other Days.
A farmer of Outagamie said some
interesting things the other day about
the constant shift in the character Of
crops in Wisconsin. 1t almost seems
as if the soil had less to do with what
shall be raised than the demand.
Take hops, for example, he said, as
reported in the Appleton Post. There
was time back in the '7Os when near
" every other farmer had a hop yard
and made money out of it. The hop
picking season was the event of the
year for the young people. They gath
cred from far and near, working hard
during the day, and spending the great