REUBEN F. LITTLE.
In the spring of 1861, at Detroit, Michigan, he enlisted in the United States infantry, regular army, and was promoted successively to first sergeant, to sergeant major, to second lieutenant, to first lieutenant. He resigned in September, 1865. During the war he served continuously in Gen. George H. Thomas' division, and took part in all the engagements under him, from Miles Springs, Kentucky, to Nashville, Tennessee. On the twenty-second of September, 1863, Mr. Little had the honor of being the last man to leave the Rossville Gap in front of Chattanooga after the disastrous fight of Chickamauga. He was wounded in the battle of Hoover's Gap and Smyrna, and at the siege of Corinth.
Mr. Little was married in 1865, and divorced in 1869, and re-married in St. Paul in 1878. He lost his Canada homestead, and took another homestead in Lincoln, Polk county, Wisconsin, in 1866. Afterward he went to St. Paul and became one of the firm of Little & Berrisford in the wholesale confectionery business. In 1879 he returned to Clayton, formerly part of Lincoln, and reclaimed a swamp of over six hundred acres, making it a productive meadow and tillage farm. Mr. Little has served several years as Clayton's town supervisor.
CLEAR LAKE.
Clear Lake embraces township 32, range 15. It derives its name from a beautiful clear lake on the western boundary near Clear Lake village. The west part of the town is timbered principally with hardwood, and is good farming land. The eastern part is more diversified, and there are some large groves of pine. Willow river runs through the town. The North Wisconsin railroad traverses the town diagonally from northeast to southwest: The town was organized June 20, 1877; S. D. Mann, J. C. Gates, and W. R. Ingalls, supervisors. The first settlers were John Hale, L. P. Nash, S. D. Starkweather, and Perry Clark. Lawrence O'Connor was first postmaster; Mr. Starkweather carried the mail on foot. Israel Graves, in 1875, built the first saw mill in Clear Lake village and the first house. There is now at the village a stave mill owned by Symme & Co. Jewett Bros. own a saw mill on Willow river, three miles from the village, which has a capacity of 8,000,000 feet. The lumber is delivered to the railway at the village by a wooden tramway. The lots for the village were purchased from the government by A. Boody and A. Coventry, in 1856. The plat was made by Symme, Glover & Co. The survey was made by G. W. Cooley. Thomas T. McGee was the first settler (1875), and Stephen H. Whitcomb the second. The first school house was built in 1875, and the first school was taught by Clara Davis in the same year. The village has now a good graded school with three departments, Charles Irle, principal. Its two church buildings, Congregational and Methodist, were destroyed by the cyclone of 1884, but are being rebuilt. The Swedish Lutherans have a church a mile from the village. Chas. Decker was the first postmaster; A. Symme & Co. were the first merchants; P. Gates, M.D., the first practicing physician; F. M. Nye the first lawyer. The first marriage was that of John C. Gates and Ella Scovill. The first birth was Chas. W. Whitcomb, and the first death that of a child of Hans Johnson.
PINEVILLE.
The town of Pineville, a railroad station and village in section 9, is a lumbering centre. The Pineville Lumbering Company have here a saw mill with a capacity of 7,000,000 feet. The logs are brought on wooden railways three to ten miles. P. B. Lacy & Co., of Hudson, are the proprietors.
Frank M. Nye was born in Shirley, Piscataquis county, Maine, in 1852. His parents removed to Wisconsin in 1854. He was educated at the common schools and at River Falls Academy. He came to Clear Lake in 1879, and was elected district attorney for Polk county in 1880, and representative in the Wisconsin assembly in 1885. He removed to Minneapolis in 1887.
EUREKA.
Eureka embraces township 35, range 18 and a fractional part of range 19. The west part is somewhat broken by the St. Croix bluffs; the remainder is undulating and capable of agricultural improvement. There are many good farms in this town. There are a few small lakes in the eastern part. Eureka was set off from St. Croix Falls, and organized Dec. 16, 1877. The first supervisors were Lucius A. Harper, Jens Welling and William Booth. The first settlers were L. A. Harper, John C. Beede, Henry Cole and others. There are three post offices in the town,—Harper, Cushing and North Valley. At the mouth of Wolf creek, in the extreme northwestern section of this town, J. R. Brown had a trading house in the '30s, and Louis Roberts in the '40s. At this place Alex. Livingston, another trader, was killed by Indians in 1849. Livingston had built him a comfortable home, which he made a stopping place for the weary traveler, whom he fed on wild rice, maple sugar, venison, bear meat, muskrats, wild fowl and flour bread, all decently prepared by his Indian wife. Mr. Livingston was killed by an Indian in 1849.