HISTORY OF WOOD COUNTY



sub-divisions were made in 1851. The Government Lots 2 3, 4, 5 and 6 of Sec-
tion 10, Town 21, Range 5 of 233 85-100 acres were entered by Levi Sterling
and
Chas. F. Legade on Nov. 30, 1852, and Government Lot 7, Section 10 was entered
by Hugh McFarland and Caleb Croswell, Nov. 24, 1852. Government Lot 1,
Section 10, where the old Whitney mill was, was entered by Caleb Croswell
on
Nov. 28, 1852. The Nekoosa Paper Mill is on Government Lot 5, Section 10,
and' Market Street is on Government Lot 6 and in the southeast of the north-
west quarter of Section 10.
   'Mr. and Mrs. Robert Wakeley came to Pointe Basse in June, 1837, from
the
state of New York. They came down the Susquehanna River on a raft of lumber.
Wakeley sold his lumber at Cincinnati, Ohio, from which place they went by
steam to Prairie du Chien and then to Portage, Wis., by boat. They poled
up the
Wisconsin from Portage to Pointe Basse in a keel boat owned by Daniel Whitney.
Mr. Wakeley told me that the Whitney mill at Pointe Basse was built four
or five
years before he arrived. In the winter of 1839 he went to Wausau with George
Kline and a Mr. Draper and he moved back to Pointe Basse in 1840 or '41 and
had
lived there ever since. Robert Wakeley was born April 15, 1808 and died Feb.
18, 1893. His wife Mary was born April 4, 1812, and died Dec. 24, 1887.
   "The Government plat by Hathaway, the surveyor, shows the Wakeley
Tav-
ern near the center of Section 15, just above where the lower ferry lands
on the
left bank or east side. The plat also shows the town marked Pointe Basse.
The
only means of crossing the river at Pointe Basse by team was on the ice or
by
fording the river at low water.
   "I presume that many residents of Nekoosa are not aware that Pointe
Basse
was at a very early date the rendezvous of many Indians. In those early days
deer were very plentiful. There were many fur bearing animals such as mink,
martin, beaver, skunk, racoon and wolves. Fish were very plentiful, especially
on the rapids. Bass, pike, pickerel, sturgeon and 'muskies' were in abundance.
Along the banks grew large quantities of blueberries, wintergreen and cranberries.
   "In 1870 during my stay at Whitney Rapids picking cranberries in
what is
now the village of Nekoosa, I first inspected the Indian line of earth breastworks,
extending from the Wood road as far as the Mans farm. At that time the works
were from two to three feet high of earth and were about a mile in length
and back
from the river from 70 to 80 rods.
   "Moses M. Strong, now deceased, was a well known lawyer of Mineral
Point,
Wis., and in an early day was interested in numerous water powers along the
Wis-
consn River. Mr. Strong became interested in the Whitney Rapids water power
in Section 10, just above Pointe Basse, about 1853. In December, 1854, he
pur-
chased a one-half interest in the Whitney Rapids power from Daniel Whitney,
and in August, 1857, he bought the other half from Whitney. On Jan. 25, 1858,
Strong sold the power for $40,000 to the Nekoosa Lumbering Company, a corpora-
tion created by an act of the legislature of Wisconsin and approved March
28,
1858. This lumber company was capitalized at $500,000. The company built
a
dam across the river a short distance above where the present dam is located.
Shortly after the dam was built and before the mill was erected high water
took
out a part of the dam. This was about 1860 or '61 and soon thereafter the
com-
pany became bankrupt and nothing more was done with this valuable water power



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