St. Croix Riverway Time and the River: A History of the Saint Croix

CHAPTER 3:
"The New Land": Settlement and the Development of Agriculture in the St. Croix Valley (continued)

Dividing the Valley

More than logging or the fur trade, the extension of agricultural settlement along the St. Croix necessitated a complete restructuring of the valley's natural landscape. When the Chippewa and Dakota Indians signed the Treaties of 1837, the valley was opened to a new system of land exploitation. The blueprint followed by the agriculturalists who came to the St. Croix flowed from the fertile brain of Thomas Jefferson. Although he never saw the landscape of the Upper Mississippi, Jefferson had played a hand in the creation of the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. The Northwest Ordinance provided the principles and guidelines for the establishment of democracy and government in the territories that were north of the Ohio River and extended west of Pennsylvania to the Mississippi River. It was an extraordinary piece of legislation with far-reaching consequences for the future development of this country. New states formed out of this territory were to be admitted as equals to the original thirteen and slavery was banned. This ensured a free labor system in the North and that all the rights of U.S. citizens in eastern states would be enjoyed in the West. This was no trivial consideration for westward migration.

While the Northwest Ordinance provided the means for the expansion of the Union, it was the Land Ordinance of 1785 that laid the basis for federal land sales and patterns of distribution. Because it claimed so much uncharted and unsettled territory, the federal government had to establish an orderly method to transfer remote lands to private ownership. The Ordinance stipulated that all government lands be surveyed and divided into townships of thirty-six square miles along meridian lines. Each township was to be cut into thirty-six sections of one square mile each. This land then could be divided into half-sections of 320 acres catering to the interest of speculators and quarter sections beginning at 160 acres and sub-divided down to 40 acre plots for the average homesteader. Townships and sections that bordered on major rivers or lakes simply had a square shape with a fractured edge rather than extending the boundary across the waterway.

The Land Ordinance profoundly shaped the physical landscape of America. French lands in North America traditionally were claimed and laid out with respect to drainage basins. The grid system established by the Ordinance and the Anglo-American tradition of using rivers as boundaries had enormous consequences for the St. Croix Valley. Dozens of townships used the river as their boundary. Their respective governments began the division of the river community long before statehood created the biggest divide. The Land Ordinance also altered cultural patterns of settlers in the valley. In many European farming communities, homes of agricultural workers were clustered in villages, and peasants hiked out to tend the fields. The French also had brought to North America, as can be seen in Prairie Du Chien the practice of using rectangular-shaped long lots with the narrow ends bordering a road or river respecting the natural shape of the land. Houses built along these thoroughfares formed small hamlets with all settlers having access to the road or river. However, the American rural landscape, marked out in square miles indifferent to the natural contours or quality of the land, placed settlers onto single farmsteads with solitary homes. Old Indian trails or paths that followed the natural lay of the land were abruptly severed by fenced-in private property. Immigrants had to adapt to the more individualistic and self-reliant American land system as well as the responsibilities of self-government. [2]

Federal surveying teams began penetrating into the Wisconsin frontier in the late1830s. They first began in the populous mining region of southwestern Wisconsin. From there land offices opened in the southeastern portion of the state and moved north and west. This in part reflected the Ordinance's logic to move east to west and south to north in order to the maintain regularity of the thirty-six-square mile township. It also reflected the general pattern of population migration westward. As this 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. However, the natural transportation afforded by the Mississippi River and other water systems such as the Wisconsin and the St. Croix Rivers into the northwestern portion of the Wisconsin territory brought lumber barons and lumberjacks, provisioners, and farmers who supplied the lumber camps into the north woods ahead of the federal surveying teams. [3]

The St. Croix Valley was among the most remote regions of the Old Northwest Territory. Although mostly Indian Territory, legal jurisdiction for matters concerning soldiers, fur traders and the like fell under territorial governments' authority. Early on the St. Croix Valley came under the jurisdiction of the Indiana and then the Illinois territory. And between1819 to 1836, legal jurisdiction over the valley was across Lake Michigan in Crawford County, Michigan when it then became Crawford County of the Wisconsin Territory. However, only Indians, fur traders, and soldiers from Fort Snelling knew anything about the land's beauty and abundance. Outsiders considered this area too far north and the soil too poor for successful cultivation of marketable crops. Only loggers who hoped to exploit its vast timber resources ventured here and there with little thought of permanent settlement. Once in the St. Croix Valley logging entrepreneurs discovered to their surprise its relatively healthful climate free from the malarial fevers of the lower Mississippi and its rich black loamy soil, not to mention its physical charms. These loggers and their families joined former traders and soldiers and formed the first permanent settlements along the St. Croix River. [4]

It was not until 1848 that the first federal land office opened along the St. Croix in St. Croix Falls -- a good ten years after Chippewa and Dakota lands were ceded. By then many squatters had laid claim to some of the land in the valley. Squatters often had a disreputable reputation back East as unscrupulous individuals who settled on land whose title was in dispute with the aim of wresting control of it. However, in the Old Northwest Territory they were simply settlers who arrived before the land surveyors and began farming virgin land. By making their own marks on trees and planting a small plot of land these men and their families hoped to begin a new life. While Congress raged indignantly over the actions of these usurpers of federal lands, western politicians who were more familiar with frontier conditions defended the rights and actions of their constituents. Some accommodation had to be made between the Land Ordinance system and the realities of the frontier. In 1841, therefore, Congress passed the Pre-Emption Act. It granted squatters the first opportunity to purchase lands they had already settled for the minimum amount of $1.25 an acre. This Act was later replace by the 1862 Homestead Act that granted a free quarter section to any settler who farmed it for five years. [5]

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, the old French fur-trading town. Anyone living east of the Mississippi in the Wisconsin Territory was required to travel to the town for any legal transactions. In the few years between 1838 when land was opened for settlement and 1840 when the U.S. Census was taken, 351 non-Indian people had settled in the "Lake St. Croix District" which ran from St. Croix Falls to the Chippewa Mission at Pokegama. [6]

The early history of the St. Croix Valley was inexorably tied to the founding of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. One of the more colorful and influential characters to shape this history was Joseph R. Brown, the former soldier, fur trader, lumberman, farmer, storekeeper, and government official. In pursuit of his own interests, Brown played a key role in establishing St. Croix County. Unlike some of the early lumbermen, Brown's main interest in land claims along the rivers was in their potential to serve as ferry landings and town sites rather than their waterpower or timber resources. He knew once the Upper Mississippi River Valley was opened for settlement prospective homesteaders would flock to the area and they would need places to disembark, temporary accommodations, provisions, and access to interior lands. One available site was at present day Taylors Falls, but Brown felt it had no adequate landings for steamboats and the area was too hilly to build a large and profitable town. Instead, Brown banked on a claim near Fort Snelling. It seemed like a perfect location to build a northern Davenport, Galena, Dubuque, Peoria, or even a Chicago. It was at the northern reaches of navigation on the Upper Mississippi since narrow channels and sandbars limited access to the Falls of St. Anthony. It was also the only site available for settlement in that vicinity since Fort Snelling was on the northeastern shore of the Minnesota River at its mouth and the western shore of the Mississippi. The southern shore of the rivers was still in Indian hands. Since settlement was also heading up the St.Croix River, Brown hedged his bets by making three claims. One was at the mouth of the river near present day Prescott, another was at the head of Lake St. Croix where he had a warehouse to supply his upper river trading posts, and the third was on the lake at St. Mary's Point by the small voyageur and half breed settlement. [7]

In 1839, Brown made his first foray into politics when he sent a petition to the Wisconsin Territorial legislature for a permit to run a ferry from his claim across the Mississippi to the Fort Snelling reserve. The legislature's select committee proposed it as a bill, but for unknown reasons opposition to the bill arose and resulted in its indefinite postponement. Brown learned that the only way to promote his interests would be to immerse himself in the politics of the area. Thus, he began a venture into government work by winning a position as Justice of the Peace. Previous to his appointment all legal transaction in the region required a trip to Prairie Du Chien. Brown helped make legal matters more convenient for settlers in the St. Croix Valley as well as to make himself a key figure.

Brown also set up a whiskey depot on his claim across from Fort Snelling that quickly became a popular recreation site for lonesome soldiers short on entertainment. After a drunken spree that put nearly two-thirds of the men in the guardhouse, army commanders were determined to put an end to Brown's house of libation. It seems, however, that Brown's whiskey shop was only a pretext for claiming the best ferry landing between the Fort and the Falls at St. Anthony. St. Anthony Falls was obviously a choice spot for waterpower. Several officers from Fort Snelling, including the commanding officer, dabbled on the side in land speculation there when not occupied with military matters. If the Falls area was to flourish, these would-be entrepreneurs needed to eliminate competing commercial and settlement sites such as Brown's. They also laid claim to a prime landing spot at the mouth of the St. Croix River at present day Prescott. For military reasons the Fort commanders decided to extend its boundaries to oust the collection of old fur traders, refugees from the Red River colony in Winnipeg, and various French Canadian vagabonds. Besides their penchant for liquor at Brown's whiskey shop, Major Joseph Plympton felt they were using up more than their fair share of fuel wood near the Fort and their horses and cattle overgrazed public lands. He ordered Lieutenant James L. Thompson to mark out new boundaries for the fort that included what is now the Twin Cities. They reached from St. Anthony Falls east to Lake Calhoun to a line south of the Minnesota and Mississippi River and east nearly to St. Paul's Seven Corners. About 150 squatters not connected to the military installation were told to leave the area. In October 1839, in a show of support for Fort Snelling's actions, the Secretary of War sent an order to the U.S. Marshal for the Wisconsin Territory to remove the settlers immediately and use force if necessary. The order, however, was misdelivered and delayed for months. [8]

In the meantime, outraged settlers formed a citizens' group and selected Brown to present a petition against the military reserve extension to the Wisconsin Territorial Legislature in Madison. They hoped the civil government would stop the extension of the military holdings into land for civilian settlement. In November 1839, Brown accompanied Ira Brunson, the Representative for Crawford County as well as its deputy marshal, to Madison where Brunson submitted to the territorial government the citizens' petition against the military reserve's extension of its boundaries to the east side of the Mississippi. By December the Territorial government passed a resolution against the military reserve extension to the east bank of the Mississippi and notified the Secretary of War that the military was preempting land that was under the civilian control of the Wisconsin Territory without its consent. By March 1840 the dispute reached Congress. The War Department's influence in Washington led to the petition's death in committee. Fort Snelling lost no time and by May forced squatters from the newly extended military reserve. [9]

Fort Snelling's land grab had important consequences for settlement in the Upper Mississippi River Valley. Many of the evicted squatters moved up river to St. Anthony Falls to join a small group of settlers already there. They would make this site the region's center of immigration and business rather than the land occupied by the Fort at the confluence of the Mississippi and the St. Croix Rivers. St. Paul and Minneapolis, which emerged out of this settlement, would create a major metropolitan area further removed up river from the mouth of the St. Croix River. [10]

Still determined to advance his interests Brown pressed other business on the Wisconsin Territorial Legislature in the winter of 1839-40. Out of his "Black Betty," a type of satchel common on the frontier, he produced another citizens' petition requesting that a new county be formed out of northwestern Crawford County with a county seat at Chanwakan, which was south of the military reserve on the Mississippi not far from Prescott and the St. Croix River. The Wisconsin Territorial Legislature was aware of the growth of immigration to its northwest region and was ready to entertain the idea of a new county up there. However, loggers from the Marine and St. Croix lumbering companies had also recognized the need for more accessible local government along the St. Croix River and had submitted their petition to the legislature to create St. Croix County with the county seat at Prescott. Brown quickly recognized the greater viability of a proposed county centered along the St. Croix River rather than the Mississippi, especially when the military reserve issue had not yet been entirely settled. However, he was determined to prevent Prescott from becoming the seat of government since he knew that a syndicate of Fort Snelling officers controlled it as well. Instead of submitting his own petition, Brown focused on finding a compromise with the lumbering interests along the St. Croix. [11]

The lumbermen's goal was to have all the timberland on the St. Croix and Chippewa Rivers fall within the new county's boundaries. Brown, on the other hand, was more interested establishing the location of future ferry landings, town sites, and farmsteads for arriving immigrants. By January 1840, a compromise bill passed the legislature establishing St. Croix County. It excluded the Chippewa River drainage basin because inhabitants there still identified with Prairie Du Chien. St. Croix County's southern boundary, then, was fixed at the Porcupine River -- which is now Rush River -- on Lake Pepin. From its first fork its boundary went in a straight northeasterly direction to the Hay Fork of the Red Cedar River and then directly north along the Bois Brule River to Lake Superior, and westward along the lakeshore to the Canadian border. Its western boundary was the Mississippi River. Since the location of the county seat was disputed, the Wisconsin legislature wisely allowed the inhabitants to vote on where to place it. Since the land in the St. Croix Valley was not yet surveyed, county commissioners had to have the consent of the occupant of any land it wished to claim and that the occupant had to pay at least eight hundred dollars to the county treasury. If the occupant agreed to these terms, his claim as a squatter to 160 acres was secured as well as the value of his land increased. The fledgling county then would have cash to begin governmental responsibilities. Since the population base was so small, two representatives and one councilman were to be elected at large from St. Croix and Crawford Counties. [12]

On August 3, 1840 the first county elections were held to determine the county seat. Brown, in a concession to the upriver loggers, put forth as a potential government center his unsurveyed claim on the north end of Lake St. Croix where he had built a warehouse, or storage shed. While not an ideal location for a great commercial city, it had a steamboat landing and waterpower. "Joe Brown's Claim," as it was called, received forty-five votes to Prescott's thirteen. Brown had finally outmaneuvered his Fort Snelling rivals. He also managed to be elected treasurer, surveyor, and register of deeds. Brown paid the eight hundred dollars to the county thus securing his claim as well as future profits. However, the consequences of the Brown–Fort Snelling rivalry for the St. Croix River Valley was to disperse commercial and government activities along the river thus preventing the more logical development of a major urban center at the junction of the St. Croix and Mississippi Rivers near Prescott and Point Douglas. [13]

Territorial elections were held on September 28. Through deft political maneuvering Brown also managed to get himself elected as territorial representative by putting his name on the ballot in the St. Croix district as well as in Prairie Du Chien, thereby ensuring a plurality of votes in the bi-county election. Ever vigilant in his quest to attract farmers to the valley, Brown proposed a bill by December in the territorial legislature to build three roads in the new county. The routes were to extend from Marine Mills down along the river passing by Dacotah -- the new name for "Joe Brown's Claim" -- and veering westward through Prospect Grove (now Cottage Grove) to Grey Cloud Island on the Mississippi; one from Marine Mills up to St. Croix Falls; and another from Prescott's ferry to Grey Cloud Island. The bill was approved by February 1841.

A year later Brown proposed sending Congress a memorial for an appropriation for a survey of a new military road from Fort Howard on Green Bay to Fort Snelling via Plover Portage on the Wisconsin River and Dacotah on the St. Croix. This would cut the travel distance from five hundred to two hundred miles by avoiding the water route along the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers. Brown also put forth a resolution to have the public lands north of the Wisconsin River surveyed. Both measures passed without a hitch. Brown thereby enhanced the prospect of settlement for the north territory as well as increased the value of "Joe Brown's claim." [14]

The county seat at Dacotah began inauspiciously. The initial settlers were all Brown's relatives. While many people passed through the settlement on their way to the pineries, few chose Dacotah as a permanent settlement. With no finished lumber available the first "court house" was made from tamarack logs with mud plastered in the chinks to keep the wind and cold at bay. While the county commissioners met here, David Irwin, a judge from the Green Bay district court, was appalled on his first visit in June 1840 by its primitive conditions and lack of formalized proceedings. He was quoted as saying that he would never again go to that "God-forsaken spot." Even when he was accused of neglecting his duties, Irwin refused to go back to Dacotah. The Wisconsin Territorial Legislature was then forced to amend the St. Croix County bill and give Crawford County legal jurisdiction there. Commissioners were allowed for convenience sake to set up their offices at Red Stone Prairie on the Mississippi River, now Newport, Minnesota. Joseph Brown even abandoned Dacotah in 1843 for Grey Cloud on the Mississippi. By 1846 Dacotah was all but a ghost town. [15]

However, the beauty and resources of the St. Croix did not depend upon the likes of Joe Brown to attract settlers and prosper. By the 1840s the St. Croix River Valley as well as the Upper Mississippi River Valley had emerged from a mysterious country of wilderness and Indians to a well-known area mapped out and described by explorers. Eastern developers and potential settlers had already begun migrating here. [16] The first towns in the Old St. Croix County were, of course, lumber centers with suitable mill sites, such as Stillwater, Marine, St. Croix Falls, Osceola, Hudson, Arcola, and St. Anthony Falls. According to an 1842 census twenty-seven men and two women lived in Marine Mills. Seventy-one men and five women had taken up residence at St. Croix Falls. Other settlements appeared near fords in the St. Croix that were most conducive to shipping, such as Afton; or places that had been Indian trading centers, such as the Dakota mission which became the nucleus for Newport. The old trading post Crow Wing gained importance when the Winnebago/Chippewa agency was located across the Mississippi River from it. St. Paul had begun to take the lead as a commercial settlement thanks to the failure of the Fort Snelling land syndicate. [17]

These rudimentary settlements attracted tradesmen and entrepreneurs eager to make their mark or fortune on the frontier. The range of economic activities of early settlers, however, was limited to serving a local economy with traders often resorting to barter. Logs rather than agricultural products monopolized river transportation. The first farmers were initially loggers or mill workers who saved enough of their wages to claim land for a homestead. Wives and children then joined their men folk in the north woods. Raising livestock was the quickest entrée into farming since there was a ready local market among timber men for meat and dairy products. Once a flourmill was built in Afton, farmers turned to grain to supplement lumberjack diets with pancakes and biscuits. Seasoned wood from cleared land could also fetch a profit from the steamboats that plied the St. Croix. However, agricultural expansion was hindered by the lack of roads and the collapse of the county government. [18]

By 1841, St. Croix county business was back in Prairie du Chien. The county had no taxing system and owed Joe Brown back rent on the unfinished county "building" he had erected. By 1843 county commissioners stopped meeting entirely. County Clerk William Holcombe, however, sought to resurrect the moribund county government. In 1843, he petitioned the Wisconsin legislature for a variance to permit the clerk to act as sheriff so legal elections could be held under his supervision. The office of Judge Probate was also revived. Yet, even with these changes most legal matters still had to be presented in Prairie du Chien. In 1845, Holcombe and other St. Croix citizens asked the legislature to relocate their county seat. They argued that since St. Croix County now had more people than Crawford County, it should not be subordinated to a government with a smaller population. The legislature agreed and granted St. Croix citizens the right to vote on a new county seat. The people of St. Croix County, however, never held an election. [19]

Apparently, the three former commissioners, Joseph Furber, William R. Brown, and Philip Aldrich, feared that St. Paul would dominate the selection process while their interests lay along the St. Croix River. However, the Wisconsin legislature, with its sights on statehood, was frustrated by the lack of governmental organization in the county. In 1846, it seized the initiative and selected Stillwater, the most important logging center on the Upper Mississippi, as the seat of county government. In that year Stillwater rivaled St. Paul with approximately the same number of permanent families, ten and twelve respectively, and three to five stores. It was not until the following year, 1847, when Franklin Steele built a dam and sawmill at St. Anthony Falls, that the embryo for St. Paul's twin city of Minneapolis was conceived putting these settlements on the trajectory for metropolitan dominance in the North Country. The territorial legislature also wasted no time in building the first road from Stillwater to St. Paul that year. [20]

With its northwestern county back on track, the Wisconsin legislature began its quest for statehood and applied to Congress in 1846. Since the Erie Canal had opened in 1825 connecting Lake Erie to Albany, New York and the Hudson River down to the Port of New York on the Atlantic Ocean, the Great Lakes and Mississippi Valley region became accessible to east coast entrepreneurs and pioneers. Settlers by the tens of thousands began migrating here with Wisconsin being a major beneficiary. Immigration into the territory was so swift that by 1845 Wisconsin counted 155,000 residents in a mid-decade census exceeding requirements for statehood. Wisconsinites proceeded to elect delegates for their December convention. Statehood seemed quickly assured. [21]

Wisconsin's northwestern boundary, however, became a hotly disputed issue that had profound consequences for the St. Croix Valley and its residents. The original border for the Wisconsin Territory designated by the Northwest Ordinance extended to the Mississippi River. Between the St. Croix River and the Mississippi was the growing city of St. Paul and approximately one-third of what is now the state of Minnesota. The Wisconsin territorial legislature intended to keep possession of its rich timberlands, prairies, rivers, and lakes. The settlers on the St. Croix, however, had other ideas. They saw their interests and identity as different from the farmers and miners in the south and eastern portions of the territory. St. Croix men were lumberjacks who came from Maine or other New England forested states. They by-passed most of Wisconsin and its typical path of settlement by heading directly up the Mississippi from Illinois to the St. Croix River Valley. Their acquaintances were old fur traders or soldiers who had transformed themselves into town-site speculators and lumber entrepreneurs. When St. Croix County was created, it encompassed the entire St. Croix Valley and encouraged its residents to think of the watershed much like the old French traders before them. The St. Croix's geographic remoteness and economic uniqueness created a culture apart from other settlers in the Wisconsin Territory. Settlers here realized that this far northern country had no chance to secure any major public institutions, such as a capitol city, a major university, or a penitentiary — Madison had a lock on these. St. Croix residents felt their best interests politically and economically would best be served by separating themselves from Wisconsin and forming a new territory and proposed a boundary near the Chippewa River. [22]

When the issue of Wisconsin statehood was brought before Congress, expansionists such as Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois proposed a third view of where the territory's western boundary should be placed. They argued that a state with its boundary to the Mississippi would be too large to manage. In addition, by creating another state out of the Old Northwest Territory the North would gain an advantage in the growing sectional crisis with the South over expansion and slavery. They proposed setting Wisconsin's western boundary at the St. Croix River. When the enabling legislation passed Congress, the politically powerful expansionists won. Wisconsin's boundary was designated at the St. Croix River. [23]

Statehood enabling acts, however, were generally considered recommendations, not binding acts. Wisconsin's constitutional convention had the right to consider Congress's actions regarding their boundary proposal. Many Wisconsinites were appalled at the prospect that they would lose so much territory in the northwest. Nor were all St. Croix County residents happy that their river valley community might be divided; yet they were encouraged by Congress's willingness to create a new territory. Therefore, much was at stake on what would happen at the state constitutional convention. The citizens of St. Croix County faced the daunting task of convincing both Congress and most of Wisconsin that the boundary should run further south than either of them wanted. They had to choose their delegate to the convention carefully. That they did by electing William Holcombe, one of the original founders of St. Croix Falls Lumbering Company who also had interests in steam boating and land speculation. [24]

Holcombe skillfully made the case that Congressional expansionists were right that a state with its boundary to the Mississippi was too large, and that another state would work to the North's advantage in national politics. He also argued that Madison, nearly three hundred miles away, was too far and remote a location of government. Echoing the democratic philosophy of Thomas Jefferson, Holcombe added that St. Croix County residents were self-reliant frontiersmen who needed and wanted a government that was close by and accessible in order to exercise their democratic rights effectively. The St. Croix River Valley with a boundary from present-day Winona to the western edge of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, he proposed, would form the nucleus of a new territory made up of people with common interests in lumbering and business. Stillwater, "the hotbed of St. Croix separatism," planned to be the capitol. A divided valley, he argued would "alienate the interests of society, perplex the trade and business of the river, and retard the growth of the settlement."

If Holcombe had made his case to Congress, he might have made some converts. By arguing before the Wisconsin constitutional convention that the state should give up more land than even Congress proposed as well as access to Lake Superior, his amendment was received coolly. However, Holcomb did win a compromise. The convention did agree that the valley should not be divided even at the cost of some territory for Wisconsin. It proposed a new boundary from Lake Superior south to the Mississippi, which ran approximately fifteen miles east of the St. Croix. Holcombe and his supporters seemed to have victory close at hand. If Wisconsin voters accepted the proposed constitution, the St. Croix Valley would not be part of the state. The only opposition in the state to the loss of territory came from Crawford County. Residents in Prairie du Chien feared they would be left on the fringe of Wisconsin and politically marginalized in a state dominated by eastern interests. The proposed constitution, however, foundered on other issues. There were provisions in it to ban bank chartering which reflected the typical western settlers' suspicions of outside moneyed interests controlling their destiny. The convention also had written a constitution that was fairly liberal for the time. Married women were to enjoy property rights, and Negroes were to be granted suffrage. Conservative Badgers, even some in St. Croix County, roundly rejected the document in an April 1847 election. [25]

Wisconsin's second constitutional convention in the spring of 1847 was smaller and more politically balanced and representative of the sentiments of the territory than the first had been. In the interim, political influence along the St. Croix shifted to the "Bostonians" — a group of eastern capitalists that included Caleb Cushing, Rufus Choate, and Robert Rantoul, Jr.. In 1845, these men formed the St. Croix and Lake Superior Mining Company. They planned to mine copper on the upper St. Croix and to develop timber resources and waterpower at St. Croix Falls as well as at the Falls of St. Anthony. This syndicate felt their economic interests were not compatible with the farmers, merchants, and lead miners in the southern half of the state. The inclusion of a ban on bank chartering in the first constitution convinced them that pioneers were in general suspicious of eastern investors. Controlling their own territory would give them the tax breaks they felt were needed to promote their economic goals. They had to get a boundary favorable to their interests. Some confidently predicted Cushing would be the first territorial governor with Stillwater the new capitol. The Bostonians and others in St. Croix County hoped the new body's more pragmatic members might be influenced to turn over more land to the valley than the compromise worked out in the previous convention. They selected a new delegate, George W. Brownell, to represent them. Brownell was a geologist and mineralogist who came to the St. Croix Valley in 1846 where he discovered lead and earned a living as a newspaper editor. He was also an agent of Cushing's. The Bostonians felt they found a representative who could advance their interests in a new constitutional convention.

The new delegate made a dramatic entrance into Madison by arriving on snowshoes after a three-week trek to demonstrate the remoteness of the St. Croix River Valley from Madison. Brownell reintroduced Holcombe's original proposal for the border and made the same Jeffersonian claims of the need for democracy to be close to the people. These Wisconsin convention delegates, however, were savvier than their predecessors. Perhaps because of the close ties between Brownell and Cushing, they did not buy the argument advanced that the St. Croix Valley was "worthless" to Wisconsin. They realized that the St. Croix Valley had singular natural resources in timber and waterpower. By simply accepting the boundary of the enabling act -- the St. Croix River -- they could claim at least some of these resources and shore up its statehood quest by assenting to Congress' original act. Other bolder delegates wanted to claim as much of the Old Northwest Territory as possible. They set a boundary from the first rapids of the St. Louis River near Lake Superior to the mouth of the Rum River down to the Mississippi thereby seizing the entire St. Croix Valley as well as the St. Paul area. Their proposal swept the convention by a vote of fifty-three to three. [26]

As long as the valley was not divided many St. Croix residents were resigned to their inclusion in Wisconsin. Others on the west side of the St. Croix River, however, wanted no part of the new state and schemed to create a new territory. Individuals such as Morgan Martin, Wisconsin's territorial delegate to Congress, envisioned a Minnesota Territory and future state that included not only land stretching from Holcombe's original border to the Mississippi, but also land further west into the Louisiana Purchase Territory. The Dakota Indians, however, would have to be approached to sell their land. Martin's fur-trading associates stood to benefit from the opening of land not yet depleted of fur-bearing animals. They also thought the St. Paul area would attract more settlers if the Indians were pushed further west. This faction took their case directly to Congress.

By the spring of 1848 the St. Croix River Valley found itself at the center of a heated national debate that threatened to jeopardize Wisconsin's admittance into the Union. The Minnesota faction found a supporter for their scheme in Robert Smith of Illinois. Smith argued Brownell's position that the St. Croix Valley was too remote from Madison and that it would be economically unfeasible to divide settlers on the river under two governments. If left intact and outside Wisconsin, the St. Croix settlers could form the nucleus of another state. Expansionist in Congress did not miss the implications of this proposal for creating another northern state. Other Congressmen, however, did not think Minnesota a viable territory because of its small population. Congress also had more pressing issues in the aftermath of the Mexican War and the acquisition of new territory in the Southwest that re-ignited sectional issues of the expansion of slavery west of Texas to spend much time reflecting on the remote northern country and potential Indians problems. For the most part, Congress was anxious to remove the Wisconsin-Minnesota issue from the national stage and create another northern state, so it sought a simple solution. It voted to admit Wisconsin to the Union on May 29, 1848 with its northwestern border as specified in the enabling act — the St. Croix River. The valley was separated because of political expediency, the Anglo-American tradition of using rivers for borders, and perhaps self-interested politicians in the St. Croix area scheming for another state prematurely. [27]

While the rest of Wisconsin celebrated its new status in the Union, St. Croix River Valley residents lamented their separation from each other. The river that had initially united them, now divided them. They found themselves under different governments and legal jurisdictions that would forever complicate life along the St. Croix. The most immediate problem was that St. Croix County, Wisconsin did not have a county seat since Stillwater was across the river. St. Croix County on the Minnesota side had a county seat but no legal authority under it. Wisconsin's elevation to statehood marked the end of the Old Northwest Territory leaving the area between the St. Croix and the Mississippi a rump territory with its legal status in limbo. Wisconsin quickly rectified this situation by choosing a new county seat for its portion of St. Croix County at the mouth of the Willow River initially called Buena Vista. In 1852, it changed its name to Hudson. While Congress declared that Wisconsin territorial laws were in force across the river, residents there found themselves with no courts, no law officers, no legislature, or representation in Congress. They had to politically mobilize themselves once again. [28]

Since it had been the county seat, Stillwater's residents took the lead in convincing Congress to grant territorial status to Minnesota. Word went out to settlers of the region to meet in Stillwater for a convention on August 26, 1848. They were encouraged by the likes of Joe Brown, who still schemed to make his land claim on the St. Croix the center of settlement. Among their concerns was that in their current state of political limbo, Congress might not appropriate money for internal improvements. The convention resolved to petition Congress and President James K. Polk for a more clearly defined territorial status. They unanimously elected Henry Sibley of Mendota, Iowa Territory (who volunteered to travel to Washington at his own expense) to present their case. At first Congress was reluctant to seat Sibley but relented when they decided he was a delegate of the remnant Wisconsin Territory. The expansionist Senator Stephen Douglas helped him steer through Congress a bill to create a new territory. Douglas's assistance, however, tinged the Minnesota cause with a Democratic Party hue that southerners quickly turned into a sectional issue. Although independent frontiersmen and believers in popular sovereignty, Stillwater politicians were decidedly uninterested in the national implications of Minnesota statehood. But the spirit of Manifest Destiny was on their side and on March 3, 1849 the Minnesota Territory was formed even though its population was not sufficient. Its boundaries matched those of today's state. St. Croix County was renamed Washington County after the first president October 27, 1849. [29]

Despite Minnesota's arrival as a territory, residents on both sides of the St. Croix River regretted their separation for years to come. Wisconsinites, whose north woods identity remained in tact, longed to be part of the new territory. Minnesotans, in turn, pitied their poor Wisconsin cousins for being so close to them but captive of another state. [30] In his visit to the region in the late 1840s, travel writer E.S. Seymour noticed the depressing effect of using the St. Croix as a boundary between the two territories. "Another circumstance detrimental to the prosperity of this place, at least temporarily, is the location of the boundary line," he wrote. "Several of the citizens [of Wisconsin], preferring to unite their fortunes with the new Territory of Minnesota, have removed from St. Croix to some of the thriving towns now springing up in that flourishing territory. The only business now prosecuted at the Falls is that of the sawmills, and incidental business connected with it." [31]

If the conflict of ambitions that marked the end of the Wisconsin Territory resulted in a divided valley, the Northwest Ordinance and the Land Ordinance at least established a common method of creating political order and organizing economic exploitation in the St. Croix Valley. Land, of course, would be the major attraction for prospective settlers. Still, it came with the considerable added attraction and guarantees of the American political system — freedom, individual rights, and the pursuit of happiness — as well as the political mechanisms to make these possible. [32] By the mid-1840s the federal land office was inundated with pleas that the land along the St. Croix be surveyed. Squatters logged trees they had no legitimate claim to. Speculators petitioned Congress and President John Tyler to do something about the theft of timber along the river for fear that any legitimate business enterprise would never take root in the region. Therefore, the General Land Office authorized the opening of a land office in St. Croix Falls in 1848 (It was moved to Stillwater in 1849), and Willow River (Hudson) in 1849. This signaled the opening of legal settlement. [33]