About 7 A. M. of the 4th August, we left Copper Harbor on our course, and soon reached Eagle River. This is another copper-mining settlement, straggling along its poor harbor, somewhat larger than Copper Harbor, and more picturesque. Landing a few of our company, we sailed to Ontonagon, the largest of these copper-mine towns (perhaps two thousand in population), and situated upon a sand reach at the mouth of its river, which leads to the Great Minnesota Mine, eighteen miles distant.
Early in the clear morning of the 5th of August, we were moving up Allouez Bay. Sounding slowly over its bar, and passing Minnesota Point and Island, between the mouths of the Rivers St. Louis and Nemadji, we arrived at Superior City, our destined haven.
Superior City, by its pretentious name, great distance, and our expectations, had risen to much importance in our imagination, but the actual scene presented a wide contrast. A large town—or metropolis—on a poor harbor, without interior resources or communications, had been hastily projected. It is called the head of ocean navigation, and the terminus of many proposed but as yet imaginary railroads. While the titles to all the land are still in litigation, the wilderness shades its streets, and, saving the rare arrival of the Indian mail carrier on snow shoes, during six months of intense cold, they are isolated from all humanity. Its grand prospectus, some five years before, had drawn there about three thousand people; and soon afterward, starved and disappointed, nearly all, save perhaps five hundred, had deserted. About two miles of streets, planked from the mud, with frame dwellings, had been constructed, and they had already attained the first municipal blessing—taxes--to the total of $45,000, payable by this feeble remnant of a settlement, mainly of abandoned dwellings. Should the railroads so frequently surveyed and designed to terminate here be really built, Superior City may see, to some extent, in future years, somewhat of that prosperity which its projectors, blinded by their hopes, had thought already realized.
Few positions are more picturesque. In front, the shores of Portland and Minnesota rise in beautiful grandeur, and the bay and harbor, although imperfect, are richly wooded and very graceful; while, all the way thither, from La Pointe, the lake's waters, lying among the mountains, shadowed by their heavy foliage, remind one much of the scenery of the Lower Danube. This ghost of a city had not much left of interest, and we passed our day in arranging for the journey across the country southward to St. Paul.
And here we found ourselves really pioneers. No road or transport was alleged to exist. We persevered. Indians and trappers beset us with their projects of tracking and portage by the St. Croix and other rivers, requiring a camp life with strange companions of nearly a month to accomplish the distance of only one hundred and sixty-three miles, equivalent to that of Albany from New York. A military road direct through the wilderness had been often surveyed, and once cut through, of about eighty feet width, to near Sunrise City, fifty miles from St. Paul; at which point the dense forest spreads into oak openings and beautiful prairies. This single cutting, long overgrown in lofty pines, with the frequent surveys and contracts, from the year 1852 to 1857, had cost the United States Government, for this distance of about one hundred and twelve miles, $150,000; and no actual road had ever yet been made. Fortunately for our enterprise, we met a gentleman who had just groped through safely on horseback. We were reassured, and engaged the only available wagon and team—a small, frail affair, devoid of cover, seats, or springs; and, with ample provisions, perched upon our luggage, we rolled out of Superior City that evening, and, passing its significantly large cemetery, we at once entered the forest. These woods are chiefly of pine, cedar, tamarack, or hemlock, gigantic in size, a dreary solitude, unvisited by any bird or game, save an occasional hawk or owl. They are but the southern outposts of that forest army which begirds Hudson's Bay, and spreads its gloomy barrier of the same trees around the dominions of the Ice King, while it is the only forest to be met with in all the Mississippi Valley.
The width of about eighty feet—that theoretical road for which the United States had paid so often and so well—was seen between the mightiest sentinel trees; but in the midst had sprung up a fresh growth, often nearly one hundred feet high, surrounded by huge stumps, and heavy undergrowth of the renewing forest, varied with hopeless mudholes and swamps, and only at intervals of about twenty miles was there any habitation.
Such was the great military road. Perhaps its progress equalled the actual wants of this region; for population had not yet crowded any of the forest borders. It was then by the adjoining townships, under State laws, feebly commencing to be really made as a road; and frequently we halted at the camps of these hardy sons of toil. Our first twenty-one miles to Twin Lakes, at the best speed, with good horses, occupied eight hours, three of which, in the middle of the night, were passed under deluging rain accompanied by thunder and lightning of the most appalling grandeur, thumping in the shelterless wagon over stumps and bogholes through the dreary woods.
Twin Lakes—or the isthmus between two small lakes, in the depths of the forest—is a solitary log house and stable. Its proprietor and our landlord for the night's shelter was, I believe, named John Smith. With his family he had lived there, keeping this hotel for some years, owning several lots in the paper City of Twin Lakes, rich in the anticipated tide of gain to flow from the crowded thoroughfare of the great military road.
Happy man! we were the first party on wheels that had yet essayed the road. Perhaps his posterity, by patience, may win their reward.
Our rain deluge, with sheeted lightning and pealing thunder, was ceaseless throughout the night. Its echoes amid the forest solitudes were awful; and our fitful sleep was varied by the rain dripping between the logs of our shelter.