In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

3 “The New Land” Settlement andAgriculture The unregulated free market of the logging era left the Lower St. Croix River choked with logs and silt and partially stripped of forests. The Upper St. Croix was a moonscape of a land denuded of much of its flora and fauna. Guilt over this environmental disaster, however, was not in the psychology of nineteenth-century lumbermen or state and local officials. Many predicted that the farmer would follow the lumbermen as the forests receded, and the entire North County would be turned into an agricultural paradise. New England Yankee farmers readily responded to this opportunity for cheap land, as did a variety of European immigrants. Many of these new settlers came with no greater expectation than to acquire a piece of land to farm for their families. The St. Croix Valley’s excellent water routes, however, connected the region to national and international markets. With access to markets came the lure of prosperity. Railroads came to complement the region’s water highways, and technological innovations in agriculture led to increased efficiency. Its agricultural bounty, like its timber resources, made the St. Croix an integral part of the Midwest economy that supported growing industrial cities like St. Paul, Chicago , and St. Louis. Although eastern or European metropolitans might regard the Upper Midwest as an isolated frontier, St. Croix Valley farmers felt very much connected to the fluctuating markets of the city. Pride in their importance to a growing nation and optimism in their region inspired the farmers who followed in the loggers’ wake.1 Dividing theValley Agriculture changed the St. Croix’s natural landscape by creating the first permanent settlements in the valley. Since the Erie Canal had opened in 1825, the Great Lakes and Mississippi valley region became accessible to East Coast entrepreneurs and pioneers. Settlers by the tens of 139 thousands began migrating westward.2 Federal surveying teams began penetrating the Wisconsin frontier in the late 1830s. They first began in the populous mining region of southwestern Wisconsin. From there land of- fices opened in the southeastern portion of the state and moved north and west. As land was made available, the Wisconsin frontier gave way to farms with amazing speed. By 1845 federal land sale offices sold nearly three million acres in the territory. The problems in settling the St. Croix Valley, however, were its remoteness and lack of governmental presence and authority. Until 1838 the land belonged to the Ojibwe. Legal jurisdiction for matters concerning soldiers, fur traders, and the like fell under territorial government authority. The St. Croix Valley first came under the jurisdiction of the Indiana Territory and then the Illinois Territory. After 1819, legal jurisdiction over the valley was granted to Crawford County, Michigan, which in 1836 became Crawford County in the Wisconsin Territory. The land under the jurisdiction of Crawford County, Wisconsin, included the entire western portion of the Wisconsin Territory east of the Mississippi River and north to Canada. Its county seat was in Prairie du Chien. Anyone living east of the Mississippi in the Wisconsin Territory had to travel there for any legal transactions. In 1840 only 351 non-Indian people were found by U.S. census takers to live in the “Lake St. Croix District,” which ran from St. Croix Falls to the Ojibwe Mission at Pokegama.3 The early settlement of the St. Croix Valley was inextricably tied to the founding of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. The colorful Joseph Renshaw Brown, the former soldier, fur trader, and lumberman and the future farmer, storekeeper, and government official, played an influential role in how the valley would be settled. In his quest for prime real estate , Brown hedged his bets by laying claim to land along both the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers, which created a bitter rivalry with Fort Snelling occupants. The eventual consequence of the Brown–Fort Snelling rivalry for the St. Croix River Valley was the dispersal of commercial and government activities along the river rather than the creation of a major urban center at the more logical junction of the St. Croix and Mississippi Rivers near Prescott and Point Douglas. Brown was initially interested in sites for ferry landings with the potential for future towns. He knew once the Upper Mississippi was opened for settlement, prospective homesteaders would flock to the area and would need places to disembark, temporary accommodations, provisions, and access to interior lands. Brown made a claim near...

Share