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Show 540 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT Wisconsin. Clark's logs were sold at auction for $2,000. The owner of 20,000 logs was said to have agreed to purchase the lands trespassed upon as soon as they were offered at the Stevens Point Land Office. Cady doubted that he would enter the land and said that if the trespasser did not, he would sell his logs at auction. Two years earlier 5,000 logs had been cut on public land which had since come into the market. The trespasser assured Cady that he had entered the land but the latter refused to release the logs until he had checked the purchase.26 Another complaint reached Cady of a tannery in Manitowoc which had taken several thousand cords of bark from public lands but the charge had not yet been investigated.27 Cady made the mistake of deputizing an assistant timber agent to act for him in connection with a raft of logs said to have been cut on public lands. When the raft came out of the Chippewa the deputy tried to capture it with a gang of river toughs, giving ground for opponents to charge arbitrary action. When reporting his extensive investigations for 1853 and 1854, Estes estimated that on the Black River alone over 200 million feet of pine had been cut on public lands, leaving many thousands of acres valueless. Until 1854 all 16 of the mills on this river had drawn their supplies from public lands. On the Chippewa and Menomonie, or Red Cedar, Rivers eight mills sawing an average of 2 million feet annually had drawn their logs from public land. In addition, a much larger amount of timber was being cut and driven to Beef Slough and on down the Mississippi to the mills in Iowa and Illinois towns. Nineteen mills on the St. Croix, the Rum, and the Mississippi, which together sawed between 40 million and 50 million feet annually, had taken their logs from public lands until 1853. Most loggers who had been cutting on public land, he reported, showed a disposition to buy the land as soon as it was made available for sale. Estes recommended that the lands be offered speedily, since the government did not favor selling stumpage. In some instances, when he tried to seize logs clearly cut on government land, he was told the owner had paid the previous timber agent-one Fillmore. Estes instituted 21 indictments against trespassers in Wisconsin, including another timber agent who had sold stumpage. He recommended the hiring of a steamboat capable of hauling large rafts to watch for and capture the rafts which were floated out of the Wisconsin and down the Mississippi.28 Apparently Estes had no time to give to the "speculators" who were reported trespassing continually on the Chippewa Reservation in Minnesota, creating marked resentment among the Indians. The local Indian agent was of the opinion in 1854 that little could be done to halt the depredations.29 In reporting on the accomplishments of his agency in 1855, Estes said that the instructions of the Commissioner, stating that the logs cut by trespassers on public land would be released if these persons entered the land, had had an excellent effect, as was shown by the greatly increased purchases at the La Crosse, Willow River, and Stillwater offices.30 Best known of the 1853-54 timber agents was Isaac Willard who fell into political difficulties because of his vigorous prosecution of the law. He reported that innumerable trespasses, much more extensive than previously reported, were seriously depleting the rich pineries. Willard 28 McClelland, May 9, 1853, to Isaac W. Willard, copy, Secretary's Files, GLO. " H. M. Cady, Green Bay, Aug. 23, Sept. 18, 1854, to John Wilson, File C, GLO. 28 H. Ex. Doc, 33d Cong., 1st sess., Vol. 14, No. 115 (Serial No. 727), pp. 8-10. 28 S. Ex. Doc, 33d Cong., 2d sess., Vol. 1, Part 1 (Serial No. 766) , No. 1, p. 261. 30 Cady, Dubuque, July 10, 1855, to GLO, File C. |