The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1903-09-18
Evansville.

SlIG0l.
At recent meeting of the school
board it was decided that an additional
teacher was needed in the high school,
So Miss Edith Rumsey of Detroit, Mich,
has been engaged and will begin next
Monday.
A @ Gray, w S Austin and son. Than,
and Fl Hamilton left Tuesday for west
ern North Dakota, near the Montana
line, IN view of taking up soldiers claims
The Thos Jones farm was sold last
Saturday afternoon to Mr. Tibbits from
Stoughton, who bid it in for Mrs Mary
Newell of Cooksvilie. The consideration
was 5000 per acre and there was l57
acres.
At the recent meeting of the Thirty
fifth Wisconsin Infantry at Milwaukee,
E ? Stoneburner of Cooksvile was elect
ed president of the association, and l. Il
Lee Of GAINESVILLE, treasurer. Some 200
of the survivors Of chat regiment are
still living.
A girls ''complexion" may be stamp
ed on her lovers heart, but most of the
''complexion" comes off unless put there
oy Rocky Mountain Tea. PROVIDERS d
pad thing" 35 c-nts Perry & Doty.
ROCK.
Editor Coe of Whitewater Writes of Early
Experiences.
No one who sees Rock river now would
imagine that it had ever been something
more than mere idle sluiceway for the
most beautiful valley in the world" as
the first official surveyor reported it,
breeding place for carp and conve-
nience for pleasure seekers and muskrat-
tiers. But in the early days it knew
something of navigation and also Of such
commerce as is fitting for pioneer
streams In 1886 a steamer made it's
way from the Mississippi as far up the
Rock as Jefferson, and might have gone
on to the foot of the rapids two miles be-
low the half Indian settlement at Water
town had it been worth while. There
were high expectations along those years
for the Rock as part Of the great wat
erway between the great river and the
lakes. In 1889 the writer's father in
walking from Milwaukee to Piperville,
passed Bryon Kilbourn with party of
surveyors laying out canal route from
Milwaukee to the foot of the Watertown
rapids. He could then have taken up
government land within the present city
limits of Milwaukee, but Kilbourn agreed
with him that the bow of promise shone
brightest over the valley of the Rock.
But the regular running of boats on the
Wisconsin part of the Rock never
amounted to very much; a small steam
er used to ply around Lake Horizon
along in the Fifties, and there has been
spasmodic scowboating between Jeffer-
son and Lake Koshkonong ports. Then
for several years freight boat made
daily runs on the Crawfish branch of the
Rock, between Milford and Hubbleton,
taking up -four and returning with
wheat ald merchandise Beaver Dam
lake has also known some boating for
other than pleasure purposes.
But the rafting Of logs on the Rock
was Il large industry fifty years ago and
thereabouts. The thickly timbered re-
gions of Dodge and jefferson counties
furnished fine foraging grounds for the
prairie sections below. The famous
Alger- Mayberry tragedy in 1856 at
GAINESVILLE, wherein the latter was lynch
ed fer numbering the former, was
prompted by covetousness Of the full
purse which Alger was bringing back
from St. Louis where he had sold a raft
of jefferson county logs A Rock coun-
ty farmer once told US of an experience
which be had one November when a raft
OF barn timber which be was taking
from Hubbleton to GAINESVILLE got frozen
in during cold night on Lake Koshko-
nong. His hired man nearly died of
fright for the ice was too thin to walk on
but was thick enough to hold the raft
like vice. Before noon, however, the
wind rose and broke the ice up and they
poled out of the lake before another
night.
The Cole brothers laid the foundation
Of their fortunes by bargaining for the
town site and water powers at Water
town, agreeing to deliver 100000 feet
of lumber within three years thereafter
to MIR. Goodhue at Beloit. This
meant putting in dam, building a mill
cutting the logs, numbering the logs, and
rafting the product to Beloit. 1t was
big undertaking for those days but the
three Coles we're big stalwart men, both
physically and mentally, and they carried
out their contract with time to spare.
But the strangest and most pictur-
esuue rafting was when the pine logs
used to come down the Rock. There
are few who remember it now, but it
was no small industry in the fifties. The
writer as school COY at FOrC Atkinson
has vivid remembrance of seeing long
professions of pine RATS going rushing
down the narrow channel which had
been broken through the south end of
the old mill dam; and often in spite Of
the vigorous efforts of the red shirted,
swearing raftsmen they would often
strike against the bank at the opposite
curve and come to more or less grief as
the creaking tie poles would break under
the strain. No pine ever grew on the
Rock. One branch found it's sources
in the prairie region .of Dodge, Green
Lake and Fond du Lac counties, the
other came down from the hard timber
woods of Washington and Sheboygan
counties. The pine timber above referr-
ed to grew on the Wolf river, was hoated
| down to Fond du Lac, loaded on cars
there and brought to the west branch of
| the Rock thrown into the water, RATED
! and tloated through lake Horizon and
down the Rock to GAINESVILLE or to Dixon
where it was converted into lumber. A
| Mr. Norris ,uac tho obiof oft h 10