The president offered me any office that I thought myself competent to fill, through my friend, David Davis. I took the Beloit post office, as I could not leave my business interests in Beloit. At the end of four years I was commissioned again by Lincoln and was afterwards removed by Johnson for refusing to support his measures. In 1862 I was appointed by Secretary Chase to take subscriptions to the first or gold bonds issued to carry on the war, and was one of two appointed for Wisconsin and received subscriptions.
[97] Lucius G. Fisher, a native of Vermont, was born at Derby, August 17, 1808. His father was a substantial farmer of Derby, but due to business reverses the son failed to obtain the anticipated college education, a fact which he never ceased to lament. While still a youth he formed the design of migrating to the West, but the execution of this project was delayed for several years, first by reason of his disinclination to separate from his mother, and after her death by the necessity of assisting in the support of his father and sisters. After several years of school teaching and two years of service as sheriff’s deputy, Fisher in 1834 entered the employ of the Messrs. Fairbanks, of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, to travel for them and introduce their “recently invented” platform scales. The immediate inducement to this employment was the proffered salary of $500 yearly and all expenses; but the work was accepted by Fisher, as he reports in later life, in order to find, in his travels, “that better country” he had determined, when but sixteen years of age, to seek.
The employment with the Fairbanks company continued profitably for Fisher for three years. Then the panic of 1837 brought it to a disastrous termination, under the circumstances set forth in the narrative which follows. The manuscript from which these facts are drawn, and the greater portion of which we print, tells the story of the writer’s life from birth until the time of writing, at Chicago, in the spring of 1883. To summarize its concluding portion, Fisher left Beloit for Chicago in 1866, where with Ralph Emerson he built a block at the southeast corner of State and Washington streets on the site of the present Columbus Memorial Building. Although burned out in the great fire of October 9, 1871, Fisher prospered in Chicago and became comparatively wealthy.
The manuscript narrative of his career was presented to the State Historical Society of Wisconsin in January, 1917 by a grandson, William Scott Bond, of Chicago. Because of the valuable picture it presents of pioneer days in Wisconsin, and particularly of the early development of Beloit, in which Mr. Fisher played a prominent and creditable part, the narrative seems eminently worthy of the wider publicity and service which its publication in the Wisconsin Magazine of History involves. In preparing the manuscript for publication a uniform typographical style has been imposed, and certain minor lapses in composition have been eliminated; but these editorial changes affect in no degree the character of the narrative as it left Mr. Fisher’s hand.
[98] The Democrat, the first newspaper published in Chicago, was founded by John Calhoun in November, 1833. In 1836 Calhoun sold the paper to John Wentworth, who continued as its proprietor and editor until the Democrat was merged with the Tribune in 1861.
[99] Gurdon S. Hubbard, a native of Vermont, came west in 1818 as a youth in the employ of the American Fur Company, and was assigned to the Illinois Brigade. A number of years later he made Chicago his permanent residence and became one of the most prominent of the first generation of Chicago business men. He does not, however, deserve in any sense the title of “first settler” of Chicago.
[100] Chase’s Point was named after Horace Chase, a prominent citizen of early Milwaukee. Like the Chicago River, the Milwaukee has been subjected to a civilizing process which has resulted in the acquisition of a new mouth some distance to the north of the natural one.
[101] John H. Tweedy, a native of Connecticut and graduate of Yale, came to Milwaukee in 1836 as a youthful lawyer of twenty-two. He soon became prominent both in legal and in political circles, and throughout the territorial period was one of the leaders of the Whig faction in Wisconsin. In 1847 he was elected as territorial delegate to Congress. Upon the admission of Wisconsin to statehood Tweedy was put forward by the Whigs as their candidate for the governorship, but was defeated by Nelson Dewey. During the fifties Tweedy was active in the development of the railroad system of Wisconsin.
[102] Apparently the reference is to Solomon Juneau, one of the founders of Milwaukee, who settled there as an Indian trader in 1818.
[103] Alexander Pratt had removed from Milwaukee to Waukesha earlier in the year 1837. Although one of the very early settlers of Waukesha, he was not the first one, nor was his house the only one at the place at the time of Fisher’s visit. Pratt was unmarried at this time. He was a man of some means, however, and had in his employ a man and wife. Probably this couple is the one alluded to by Fisher.