Death Valley in \'49 by William Lewis Manly

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Walking began to get pretty tiresome. Great blisters would come on our
feet, and, tender as they were, it was a great relief to take off our
boots and go barefoot for a while when the ground was favorable. We
crossed a wide prairie and came down to the Rock river where there were
a few houses on the east side but no signs of habitation on the west
bank. We crossed the river in a canoe and then walked seven miles before
we came to a house where we staid all night and inquired for work. None
was to be had and so we tramped on again. The next day we met a real
live Yankee with a one-horse wagon, peddling tin ware in regular Eastern
style, We inquired of him about the road and prospects, and he gave us
an encouraging idea--said all was good. He told us where to stop the
next night at a small town called Sugar Creek. It had but a few houses
and was being built up as a mining town, for some lead ore had been
found there. There were as many Irish as English miners here, a rough
class of people. We put up at the house where we had been directed, a
low log cabin, rough and dirty, kept by Bridget & Co. Supper was had
after dark and the light on the table was just the right one for the
place, a saucer of grease, with a rag in it lighted and burning at the
edge of the saucer. It at least served to made the darkness apparent and
to prevent the dirt being visible. We had potatoes, beans and tea, and
probably dirt too, if we could have seen it. When the meal was nearly
done Bridget brought in and deposited on each plate a good thick pancake
as a dessert. It smelled pretty good, but when I drew my knife across it
to cut it in two, all the center was uncooked batter, which ran out upon
my plate, and spoiled my supper.

We went to bed and soon found it had other occupants beside ourselves,
which, if they were small were lively and spoiled our sleeping. We left
before breakfast, and a few miles out on the prairie we came to a house
occupied by a woman and one child, and we were told we could have
breakfast if we could wait to have it cooked. Everything looked cheap
but cheery, and after waiting a little while outside we were called in
to eat. The meal consisted of corn bread, bacon, potatoes and coffee. It
was well cooked and looked better than things did at Bridget's. I
enjoyed all but the coffee, which had a rich brown color, but when I
sipped it there was such a bitter taste I surely thought there must be
quinine in it, and it made me shiver. I tried two or three times to
drink but it was too much for me and I left it. We shouldered our loads
and went on again. I asked Henry what kind of a drink it was. "Coffee,"
said he, but I had never seen any that tasted like that and never knew
my father to buy any such coffee as that.

We labored along and in time came to another small place called
Hamilton's Diggings where some lead mines were being worked. We stopped
at a long, low log house with a porch the entire length, and called for
bread and milk, which was soon set before us. The lady was washing and
the man was playing with a child on the porch. The little thing was
trying to walk, the man would swear terribly at it--not in an angry way,
but in a sort of careless, blasphemous style that was terribly shocking.
I thought of the child being reared in the midst of such bad language
and reflected on the kind of people we were meeting in this far away
place. They seemed more wicked and profane the farther west we walked. I
had always lived in a more moral and temperate atmosphere, and I was
learning more of some things in the world than I had ever known before.
I had little to say and much to see and listen to and my early precepts
were not forgotten. No work was to be had here and we set out across the
prairie toward Mineral Point, twenty miles away. When within four miles
of that place we stopped at the house of Daniel Parkinson, a fine
looking two-story building, and after the meal was over Mr. Henry hired
out to him for $16 per month, and went to work that day. I heard of a
job of cutting cordwood six miles away and went after it, for our money
was getting very scarce, but when I reached the place I found a man had
been there half an hour before and secured the job. The proprietor, Mr.
Crow, gave me my dinner which I accepted with many thanks, for it saved
my coin to pay for the next meal. I now went to Mineral Point, and
searched the town over for work. My purse contained thirty-five cents
only and I slept in an unoccupied out house without supper. I bought
crackers and dried beef for ten cents in the morning and made my first
meal since the day before, felt pretty low-spirited. I then went to
Vivian's smelting furnace where they bought lead ore, smelted it, and
run it into pigs of about 70 pounds each. He said he had a job for me if
I could do it. The furnace was propelled by water and they had a small
buzz saw for cutting four-foot wood into blocks about a foot long. These
blocks they wanted split up in pieces about an inch square to mix in
with charcoal in smelting ore. He said he would board me with the other
men, and give me a dollar and a quarter a cord for splitting the wood. I
felt awfully poor, and a stranger, and this was a beginning for me at
any rate, so I went to work with a will and never lost a minute of
daylight till I had split up all the wood and filled his woodhouse
completely up. The board was very coarse--bacon, potatoes, and bread--a
man cook, and bread mixed up with salt and water. The old log house
where we lodged was well infested with troublesome insects which worked
nights at any rate, whether they rested days or not, and the beds had a
mild odor of pole cat. The house was long, low and without windows. In
one end was a fireplace, and there were two tiers of bunks on each side,
supplied with straw only. In the space between the bunks was a
stationary table, with stools for seats. I was the only American who
boarded there and I could not well become very familiar with the
boarders.

The country was rolling, and there were many beautiful brooks and clear
springs of water, with fertile soil. The Cornish miners were in the
majority and governed the locality politically. My health was excellent,
and so long as I had my gun and ammunition I could kill game enough to
live on, for prairie chickens and deer could be easily killed, and meat
alone would sustain life, so I had no special fears of starvation. I was
now paid off, and went back to see my companion, Mr. Henry. I did not
hear of any more work, so I concluded I would start back toward my old
home in Michigan, and shouldered my bundle and gun, turning my face
eastward for a long tramp across the prairie. I knew I had a long tramp
before me, but I thought best to head that way, for my capital was only
ten dollars, and I might be compelled to walk the whole distance. I
walked till about noon and then sat down in the shade of a tree to rest
for this was June and pretty warm. I was now alone in a big territory,
thinly settled, and thought of my father's home, the well set table, all
happy and well fed at any rate, and here was my venture, a sort of
forlorn hope. Prospects were surely very gloomy for me here away out
west in Wisconsin Territory, without a relative, friend or acquaintance
to call upon, and very small means to travel two hundred and fifty miles
of lonely road--perhaps all the way on foot. There were no laborers
required, hardly any money in sight, and no chance for business. I knew
it would be a safe course to proceed toward home, for I had no fear of
starving, the weather was warm and I could easily walk home long before
winter should come again. Still the outlook was not very pleasing to one
in my circumstances.

I chose a route which led me some distance north of the one we travelled
when we came west, but it was about the same. Every house was a new
settler, and hardly one who had yet produced anything to live upon. In
due time I came to the Rock River, and the only house in sight was upon
the east bank. I could see a boat over there and so I called for it, and
a young girl came over with a canoe for me. I took a paddle and helped
her hold the boat against the current, and we made the landing safely. I
paid her ten cents for ferriage and went on again. The country was now
level, with burr-oak openings. Near sundown I came to a small prairie of
about 500 acres surrounded by scattering burr-oak timber, with not a
hill in sight, and it seemed to me to be the most beautiful spot on
earth. This I found to belong to a man named Meachem, who had an octagon
concrete house built on one side of the opening. The house had a hollow
column in the center, and the roof was so constructed that all the rain
water went down this central column into a cistern below for house use.
The stairs wound around this central column, and the whole affair was
quite different from the most of settlers' houses. I staid here all
night, had supper and breakfast, and paid my bill of thirty-five cents.
He had no work for me so I went on again. I crossed Heart Prairie,
passed through a strip of woods, and out at Round Prairie. It was level
as a floor with a slight rise in one corner, and on it were five or six
settlers. Here fortune favored me, for here I found a man whom I knew,
who once lived in Michigan, and was one of our neighbors there for some
time. His name was Nelson Cornish. I rested here a few days, and made a
bargain to work for him two or three days every week for my board as
long as I wished to stay. As I got acquainted I found some work to do
and many of my leisure hours I spent in the woods with my gun, killing
some deer, some of the meat of which I sold. In haying and harvest I got
some work at fifty cents to one dollar per day, and as I had no clothes
to buy, I spent no money, saving up about fifty dollars by fall. I then
got a letter from Henry saying that I could get work with him for the
winter and I thought I would go back there again.

Before thinking of going west again I had to go to Southport on the lake
and get our clothes we had left in our box when we passed in the spring.
So I started one morning at break of day, with a long cane in each hand
to help me along, for I had nothing to carry, not even wearing a coat.
This was a new road, thinly settled, and a few log houses building. I
got a bowl of bread and milk at noon and then hurried on again. The last
twenty miles was clear prairie, and houses were very far apart, but
little more thickly settled as I neared Lake Michigan. I arrived at the
town just after dark, and went to a tavern and inquired about the
things. I was told that the warehouse had been broken into and robbed,
and the proprietor had fled for parts unknown. This robbed me of all my
good clothes, and I could now go back as lightly loaded as when I came.
I found I had walked sixty miles in that one day, and also found myself
very stiff and sore so that I did not start back next day, and I took
three days for the return trip--a very unprofitable journey.

I was now ready to go west, and coming across a pet deer which I had
tamed, I knew if I left it it would wander away with the first wild ones
that came along, and so I killed it and made my friends a present of
some venison. I chose still a new route this time, that I could see all
that was possible of this big territory when I could do it so easily. I
was always a great admirer of Nature and things which remained as they
were created, and to the extent of my observation, I thought this the
most beautiful and perfect country I had seen between Vermont and the
Mississippi River. The country was nearly level, the land rich, the
prairies small with oak openings surrounding them, very little marsh
land and streams of clear water. Rock River was the largest of these,
running south. Next west was Sugar River, then the Picatonica. Through
the mining region the country was rolling and abundantly watered with
babbling brooks and health-giving springs.

In point of health it seemed to me to be far better than Michigan. In
Mr. Henry's letter to me he had said that he had taken a timber claim in
"Kentuck Grove," and had all the four-foot wood engaged to cut at
thirty-seven cents a cord. He said we could board ourselves and save a
little money and that in the spring he would go back to Michigan with
me. This had decided me to go back to Mineral Point. I stopped a week or
two with a man named Webb, hunting with him, and sold game enough to
bring me in some six or seven dollars, and then resumed my journey.

On my way I found a log house ten miles from a neighbor just before I
got to the Picatonica River. It belonged to a Mr. Shook who, with his
wife and three children, lived on the edge of a small prairie, and had a
good crop of corn. He invited me to stay with him a few days, and as I
was tired I accepted his offer and we went out together and brought in a
deer. We had plenty of corn bread, venison and coffee, and lived well.
After a few days he wanted to kill a steer and he led it to a proper
place while I shot it in the head. We had no way to hang it up so he
rolled the intestines out, and I sat down with my side against the steer
and helped him to pull the tallow off.

It was now getting nearly dark and while he was splitting the back bone
with an axe, it slipped in his greasy hands and glancing, cut a gash in
my leg six inches above the knee. I was now laid up for two or three
weeks, but was well cared for at his house. Before I could resume my
journey snow had fallen to the depth of about six inches, which made it
rather unpleasant walking, but in a few days I reached Mr. Henry's camp
in "Kentuck Grove," when after comparing notes, we both began swinging
our axes and piling up cordwood, cooking potatoes, bread, bacon, coffee
and flapjacks ourselves, which we enjoyed with a relish.

I now went to work for Peter Parkinson, who paid me thirteen dollars per
month, and I remained with him till spring. While with him a very sad
affliction came to him in the loss of his wife. He was presented by her
with his first heir, and during her illness she was cared for by her
mother, Mrs. Cullany, who had come to live with them during the winter.
When the little babe was two or three weeks old the mother was feeling
in such good spirits that she was left alone a little while, as Mrs.
Cullany was attending to some duties which called her elsewhere. When
she returned she was surprised to see that both Mrs. Parkinson and the
babe were gone. Everyone turned out to search for her. I ran to the
smokehouse, the barn, the stable in quick order, and not finding her a
search was made for tracks, and we soon discovered that she had passed
over a few steps leading over a fence and down an incline toward the
spring house, and there fallen, face downward, on the floor of the house
which was covered only a few inches deep with water lay the unfortunate
woman and her child, both dead. This was doubly distressing to Mr.
Parkinson and saddened the whole community. Both were buried in one
grave, not far from the house, and a more impressive funeral I never
beheld.

I now worked awhile again with Mr. Henry and we sold our wood to Bill
Park, a collier, who made and sold charcoal to the smelters of lead ore.
When the ice was gone in the streams, Henry and I shouldered our guns
and bundles, and made our way to Milwaukee, where we arrived in the
course of a few days. The town was small and cheaply built, and had no
wharf, so that when the steamboat came we had to go out to it in a small
boat. The stream which came in here was too shallow for the steamer to
enter. When near the lower end of the lake we stopped at an island to
take on food and several cords of white birch wood. The next stopping
place was at Michilamackanac, afterward called Mackinaw. Here was a
short wharf, and a little way back a hill, which seemed to me to be a
thousand feet high, on which a fort had been built. On the wharf was a
mixed lot of people--Americans, Canadians, Irish, Indians, squaws and
papooses. I saw there some of the most beautiful fish I had ever seen.
They would weigh twenty pounds or more, and had bright red and yellow
spots all over them. They called them trout, and they were beauties,
really. At the shore near by the Indians were loading a large white
birch bark canoe, putting their luggage along the middle lengthways, and
the papooses on top. One man took a stern seat to steer, and four or
five more had seats along the gunwale as paddlers and, as they moved
away, their strokes were as even and regular as the motions of an
engine, and their crafts danced as lightly on the water as an egg shell.
They were starting for the Michigan shore some eight or ten miles away.
This was the first birch bark canoe I had ever seen and was a great
curiosity in my eyes.

We crossed Lake Huron during the night, and through its outlet, so
shallow that the wheels stirred up the mud from the bottom; then through
Lake St. Clair and landed safety at Detroit next day. Here we took the
cars on the Michigan Central Railroad, and on our way westward stopped
at the very place where we had worked, helping to build the road, a year
or more before. After getting off the train a walk of two and one half
miles brought me to my father's house, where I had a right royal
welcome, and the questions they asked me about the wild country I had
traveled over, how it looked, and how I got along--were numbered by the
thousand.

I remained at home until fall, getting some work to do by which I saved
some money, but in August was attacked with bilious fever, which held me
down for several weeks, but nursed by a tender and loving mother with
untiring care, I recovered, quite slowly, but surely. I felt that I had
been close to death, and that this country was not to be compared to
Wisconsin with its clear and bubbling springs of health-giving water.
Feeling thus, I determined to go back there again.

CHAPTER VI.

With the idea of returning to Wisconsin I made plans for my movements. I
purchased a good outfit of steel traps of several kinds and sizes,
thirty or forty in all, made me a pine chest, with a false bottom to
separate the traps from my clothing when it was packed in traveling
order, the clothes at the top. My former experience had taught me not to
expect to get work there during winter, but I was pretty sure something
could be earned by trapping and hunting at this season, and in summer I
was pretty sure of something to do. I had about forty dollars to travel
on this time, and quite a stock of experience. The second parting from
home was not so hard as the first one. I went to Huron, took the steamer
to Chicago, then a small, cheaply built town, with rough sidewalks and
terribly muddy streets, and the people seemed pretty rough, for sailors
and lake captains were numerous, and knock downs quite frequent. The
country for a long way west of town seemed a low, wet marsh or prairie.

Finding a man going west with a wagon and two horses without a load, I
hired him to take me and my baggage to my friend Nelson Cornish, at
Round Prairie. They were glad to see me, and as I had not yet got strong
from my fever, they persuaded me to stay a while with them and take some
medicine, for he was a sort of a doctor. I think he must have given me a
dose of calomel, for I had a terribly sore mouth and could not eat any
for two or three weeks. As soon as I was able to travel I had myself and
chest taken to the stage station on the line for the lake to Mineral
Point. I think this place was called Geneva. On the stage I got along
pretty fast, and part of the time on a new road. The first place of note
was Madison the capital of the territory, situated on a block of land
nearly surrounded by four lakes, all plainly seen from the big house.
Further on at the Blue Mounds I left the stage, putting my chest in the
landlord's keeping till I should come or send for it.

I walked about ten miles to the house of a friend named A. Bennett, who
was a hunter and lived on the bank of the Picatonica River with his wife
and two children. I had to take many a rest on the way, for I was very
weak.

Resting the first few days, Mrs. Bennett's father, Mr. J.P. Dilly, took
us out about six miles and left us to hunt and camp for a few days. We
were quite successful, and killed five nice, fat deer, which we dressed
and took to Mineral Point, selling them rapidly to the Cornish miners
for twenty-five cents a quarter for the meat. We followed this business
till about January first, when the game began to get poor, when we hung
up our guns for a while. I had a little money left yet. The only money
in circulation was American silver and British sovereigns. They would
not sell lead ore for paper money nor on credit. During the spring I
used my traps successfully, so that I saved something over board and
expenses.

In summer I worked in the mines with Edwin Buck of Bucksport, Maine, but
only found lead ore enough to pay our expenses in getting it. Next
winter I chopped wood for thirty-five cents per cord and boarded myself.
This was poor business; poorer than hunting. In summer I found work at
various things, but in the fall Mr. Buck and myself concluded that as we
were both hunters and trappers, we would go northward toward Lake
Superior on a hunting expedition, and, perhaps remain all winter. We
replenished our outfit, and engaged Mr. Bennett to take us well up into
the north country. We crossed the Wisconsin River near Muscoda, went
then to Prairie du Chien, where we found a large stone fur trading
house, owned by Mr. Brisbois, a Frenchman, from whom we obtained some
information of the country further on. He assured us there was no danger
from the Indians if we let them alone and treated them fairly.

We bought fifty pounds of flour for each of us, and then started up the
divide between the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers. On one side flowed
the Bad River, and on the other the Kickapoo. We traveled on this divide
about three days, when Mr. Bennett became afraid to go any further, as
he had to return alone and the Indians might capture him before he could
get back to the settlement. We camped early one night and went out
hunting to get some game for him. I killed a large, black bear and Mr.
Bennett took what he wanted of it, including the skin, and started back
next morning.

We now cached our things in various places, scattering them well. Some
went in hollow logs, and some under heaps of brush or other places,
where the Indians could not find them. We then built a small cabin about
six by eight feet in size and four feet high, in shape like a A. We were
not thoroughly pleased with this location and started out to explore the
country to the north of us, for we had an idea that it would be better
hunting there.

The first day we started north we killed a bear, and filled our stomachs
with the fat, sweet meat. The next night we killed another bear after a
little struggling. The dog made him climb a tree and we shot at him; he
would fall to the ground as if dead, but would be on his feet again in
an instant, when, after the dog had fastened to his ham, he would climb
the tree again. In the third trial he lay in the fork and had a good
chance to look square at his tormentor. I shot him in the head, and as
he lay perfectly still, Buck said:--"Now you have done it--we can't get
him." But in a moment he began to struggle, and soon came down,
lifeless.

Here we camped on the edge of the pine forest, ate all the fat bear meat
we could, and in the morning took separate routes, agreeing to meet
again a mile or so farther up a small brook. I soon saw a small bear
walking on a log and shot him dead. His mate got away, but I set my dog
on him and he soon had to climb a tree. When I came up to where the dog
was barking I saw Mr. Bear and fired a ball in him that brought him
down. Just then I heard Mr. Buck shoot close by, and I went to him and
found he had killed another and larger bear. We stayed here another
night, dressed our game and sunk the meat in the brook and fastened it
down, thinking we might want to get some of it another time.

We were so well pleased with this hunting ground that we took the bear
skins and went back to camp. When we got there our clothes were pretty
well saturated with bear's oil, and we jokingly said it must have soaked
through our bodies, we had eaten so much bear meat. I began to feel
quite sick, and had a bad headache. I felt as if something must be done,
but we had no medicine. Mr. Buck went down by the creek and dug some
roots he called Indian Physic, then steeped them until the infusion
seemed as black as molasses, and, when cool told me to take a swallow
every fifteen minutes for an hour, then half as much for another hour as
long as I could keep it down. I followed directions and vomited freely
and for a long time, but felt better afterward, and soon got well. It
reminded me some of the feelings I had when I was seasick on Lake
Michigan.

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