1) EARLY WISCONSIN BEFORE JAMES BRUCE ARRIVED

James Bruce Cartter, a native New Yorker, more recently from Michigan, arrived on the Wisconsin scene in 1843 at a time of rapid change. Peoples’ attention was again being turned westward and the migration was on – migration which had repeated itself in successive stages ever since the first settlers had come to New England’s shores.

Was James Bruce typical of these migrating Americans? Yes in many ways he was, for he represented the seventh generation of a family who, like so many, had pioneered its way westward from New England. Thomas Carter, of English and Scotch ancestry had arrived at Boston in 1635. Since that date his descendants had through the years settled at Dedham, Watertown, Woburn, Lancaster, Leominster and Westfield in Massachusetts; and at Lowville and Rochester in New York state. From Rochester James Bruce himself was to move on to Utica in Michigan, and to Racine County in the Wisconsin Territory. The journey for James was not to end here; it would take him deeper into Wisconsin Country to the Black River region, later to be known as Jackson County.

But what of the Wisconsin which James entered from the southeast? It had been organized as a territory in 1836 comprising in addition to its present area the lands now known as Iowa, Minnesota, and part of the Dakotas. Tenney and Atwood in their book Fathers of Wisconsin painted the following word picture of early migration to the territory.

“Except about military posts and with slight other exceptions, permanent settlement first began in Wisconsin about 1826, in the lead region, or present southwest counties, and for many years population pressed in by way of the Mississippi river before the route by the Great Lakes was opened. For a long period Galena was more of a commercial mart for supplies to the interior of Wisconsin than Milwaukee of other lake ports, while Chicago was scarcely known in that connection. Lead mining had developed into a leading industry on one side of the territory, while agriculture was commencing on the other. The two streams of settlers finally met about midway, but several years elapsed before the eastern current largely dominated. As a result, the diversity of interests, ideas, and modes of thought between the two sections were much more striking in early times than at present.”

The tremendous lumber harvest for which Wisconsin became famous was building toward its peak at this time. It would soon overtake mining as a major source of income only to be later surpassed by agricultural productivity. The output of pine lumber from Wisconsin’s saw mills in 1853 alone, was estimated at 200,000,000 board feet. The varied nature of occupations available explains in part the rapid growth of population and the wide diversity of nationality attracted to its borders. The 1840 U.S. census shows a population of 30,945 which increased seven times in the next ten years to 305,391, reaching 775,000 by 1860. H. Russell Austin in his book The Wisconsin Story says, “More than one-third of Wisconsin’s people were foreign born in both the 1850 and 1860 census. German born were more than one-third of the foreigners in 1850 and nearly one-half in 1860. – – – Wisconsin was in this period (1850-60), the most polyglot of states having also significant groups of Scandinavians, Irish, British, Canadians, Poles, Dutch, Belgians and Swiss. – – – New Yorkers and New Englanders were among the earliest Wisconsin farmers. – – – Nearly two-thirds of Wisconsin’s 305,000 people in 1850 were American born and more than one-third of these, nearly 69,000, were New Yorkers; 10,000 were Vermonters and roughly the same number were from the rest of New England.”

Another factor attracting large numbers into agriculture during the 1830’s and ‘40’s was the development of the U.S. Government Survey which made it possible to sub-divide land and establish positive ownership. It was in 1831, when Wisconsin was still a part of the Michigan territory, that Lucius Lyons, U.S. Commissioner, while surveying the northern boundary line of the State of Illinois set a post and erected a mound of earth six feet square at the base and six feet high at a point where this boundary line intersected the 4th Principle Meridian. It was from this point that the Wisconsin public land survey was begun in 1832. It was completed “up north” in 1867. Lyons surveyed sixteen townships in S.W. Wisconsin in 1832-33, which opened this Territory for settlement.

The intersection mentioned above is referred to on a Wisconsin Historical Highway marker, placed one-half mile east from a nearby highway, as “The Point of Beginning.” It was from this point that all survey lines East, West, and North were established. Government land sales were opened in 1834 at Green Bay and Mineral Point and in 1839 at Milwaukee. By 1840 all Wisconsin south of the Fox-Wisconsin waterway was divided into surveyed townships and was being settled rapidly.

This then was the situation into which James Bruce Cartter, age 28, projected his energies and experiences. Would he find his future home here or be inclined to move even further west? What of his background? His family back in New York state? His brothers widely scattered? His training and experience? How about his more distant ancestors? Who were they? What of his own descendants who were fortunate enough to have known him? And what did he add to Wisconsin’s past and future?

It is our hope that the following chapters may be of interest to our readers as they attempt to fit time place and person together into a proper perspective; we do this not that we may pass judgment on past generations but in order that we may more fully understand the contributions made by those generations. In the process it is hoped that we may become better informed concerning those relatives of ours who through the years have been separated due to the constant migration occurring in the history of all American families.

This narrative does not pretend to be all-complete concerning the life of James Bruce and his family. There are many gaps in information that the author would like to have filled and many personal experiences that it would be desirable to relate. Perhaps someone else may bring these added facts and bits of information together.