SKETCH OF THE HON. JAMES O’NEILL

 

 

The subject of our sketch, a cut of whom appears in this work, was born in the town of Lisbon, St. Lawrence county, New York, May 4th, 1810.  His father Andrew O’Neill was a native of Ireland, and was distantly related to the family of the same name, who have been possessed for many centuries of a vast estate around Lake Neagh, and whose members have been so famous in the political history of that country.  His family had always been Protestant and in the Irish wars took side of the English Kings.  In his youth, he had received a University education.  After the American revolution, and about the year 1785, he came to this country, going first to Washington, thence to New York, and finally to Canada.  In Western New York, he was engaged for some time in surveying.  At Edwardsburg, Canada, he taught school, and about the year 1796 married a young lady who had been one of his pupils, and with her made the first settlement of the town of Lisbon, immediately opposite, on the banks of the St. Lawrence.

 

James was the third of nine children.  He resided at home until he was seventeen, assisting his father in agricultural pursuits in summer, as soon as old enough, and attending the district school in the winter.  He never received anything more than a district school education, his younger brothers faring better in this respect.  At the age of seventeen, he went to live with his eldest brother, Thomas, who had engaged in trade across the river, at Edwardsburg.  Here he remained as his brother’s clerk two years.  When about twenty years old he, in company with his younger brother, Alexander, lumbered on the American side of the river.  In the spring of 1831, they ran their timber down the river to Montreal.  Upon James’ return on the second day of August of the same year, he was taken down with fever, from which he did not recover until winter.  Having regained his health, he attended school during the winter, which was the last opportunity of the kind he ever enjoyed.  His brother John, now a wealthy merchant of Cleveland, Ohio, then kept store at Ogdensburg, New York.  James assisted him as a clerk during most of the year of 1832. At the close of the same year, he went to Canada and engaged in lumbering on his own account for nearly four years.  He would get out square timber in winter and run it down the Nation and St. Lawrence rivers in the summer to Quebec.  For two years, this business proved profitable, but during the last he lost twelve hundred dollars, which was then his all.

 

In the winter of 1835-6, he and his brothers, Henry and Alexander, both of whom have resided at Neillsville, and will be remembered by the early settlers, lumbered in Lisbon, N. Y., buying stumpage of Stephen Van Rennsalaer, and putting the timber into the St. Lawrence. In the spring of 2836, they rafted this and ran it to Quebec.  Upon their return in June, 1836, James took steamer at Ogdensburg for the West, bidding his father and mother good bye for the last time.  He did not see his old home again for twenty-nine years.  From Ogdensburg, he went to Lewiston, Niagara Falls and Buffalo, thence by steamer to Cleveland, Ohio, going from the latter place to Knox county, Ohio, where he worked during the harvesting.  In October of the same year, he went by wagon to Cincinnati by way of Columbus, Akron and Xenia.  There were no railroads in those days.  Thence by steamer down the Ohio and Mississippi, he proceeded to Grand Gulf, where he hired out to chop cord wood in Concordia parish, La., at one dollar per cord and his board.  Between the second day of November, 1836, and the last week in February, 1837, he chopped 313 cords.  Having first made a trip by flat boat to New Orleans, we next find our adventurer running a keel boat up Black river, Mississippi, at ninety dollars per month.  The water in the river would become warm in summer and so filled with decayed vegetable matter and dead alligators that the boatmen would first swallow a mouthful of water and then a little whisky to counteract its effect.  The boats going up the river carried corn, bacon, etc; coming back their cargo was cotton, which they unloaded at Grand Gulf.  The banks failed generally during that year, and O’Neill was paid off in depreciated currency.  In June, 1837, he took steamer and came to St. Louis, where he was taken down with bilious fever, from which he did not recover for over two months.  His brother, Alexander, joined him here, and together they went to St. Clair county, Ill., and took a job getting out railroad ties. Soon after James was taken with ague and Alexander with typhoid fever.  The former was sick for nearly a year.  In April, 1838, they both went to Galena. There, James hired out as a steersman at forty dollars a month on a steamer called the “Science.”  In this capacity, he spent the whole summer running up the Wisconsin River to Fort Winnebago, now Portage City, and down the Mississippi as far as Keokuk.  About the first of November, the boat was sunk on the upper rapids, about eight miles below Port Byron, Ill.  The ensuing winter, O’Neill chopped cord wood again in Louisiana.  But the repeated attacks of fever, from which he had suffered, had so broken down his constitution that he could not chop more than half as much as he did before.

 

In April, 1839, he returned to St. Louis, where he hired out as a deck hand on a steamboat to run up the Illinois river.  Having made a single trip, he came to Prairie du Chien where he became a pilot on the steamer “Ariel”, a boat plying between the latter place and the lower rapids.  During the last few years and since his arrival upon the Mississippi, his health had been very Poor.  In the fall of 1839, he became convinced that it would not be safe for him longer to remain on the river.  Accordingly in September of the same year, he and Alexander, the brother before mentioned, procured a large canoe, filled it with provisions at Prairie du Chien and in it came up the Mississippi and Black rivers to a place three miles below Black River Falls, Wis.  Here they built a saw mill.  In 1844, James removed to what is now Neillsville, where he has ever since resided.  It will be unnecessary to repeat in this connection much of what has already been written in the sketch of Neillsville, which appears herewith, and to which the reader is referred.  Mr. O’Neill has been the moving spirit of the place from its first settlement.  No one has taken so much pride or interest in its prosperity.

 

He built the first log cabin, and has lived to see the forests give way to one of the most beautiful places in Wisconsin.  On the sixth day of March, 1846, he was married to Jane Douglas, a very estimable lady.  So it will be seen that Mr. O’Neill had passed considerably into the realm of bachelorhood, having reached the age of thirty-six.  Mrs. O’Neill died in 1973. The citizens of Neillsville universally bear testimony to her good qualities.  She was a woman of a decided religious turn of mind, and is said to have done much for the churches of the place.  The issue of this marriage was three children, Isabella,  Maria and Thomas.  The daughters still live in Neillsville.  Thomas died in 1872, when about twenty years of age.

 

 

Mr. O’Neill was elected to the Aseembly of Wisconsin in 1848, and was accordingly a member of the first legislature of the state,  (242--picture of Mr. O’Neill)

which met in January, 1849.  What are now Clark and Jackson counties were than a part of Crawford county.  Mr. O’Neill set out in December for Madison, going overland by team, by way of Prairie du Chien, Lancaster, Mineral Point, Dodgeville and Blue Mound.  There was only one settler between Black River Falls until within ten miles of Prairie du Chien, and this was a Dutchman named Metzger, who lived on Coon Prairie.  O’Neill’s team had to walk all the way and break the road through the snow.  One his return, he came afoot by the way of Sauk City, Baraboo, New Lisbon and Black River Falls.  The man Findley, who is now a pauper in Levis, Clark county, was then a prominent business man at New Lisbon, and with him O’Neill stopped over night.  From his place to Black River Falls, O’Neill was out two days and two nights, alone, having no blankets, but carrying a small ax with which to cut fire-wood.

 

In 1868, he was again elected to the legislature, his opponent being Chauncy Blakeslee, over whom he received a large majority. In 1848, he was elected as a democrat over W. T. Price, who ran as a whig.  Since 1856, he has been a zealous republican.  In political matters he has always adhered to the motto: “Principles not men.”  No promise of preferment or pecuniary advantage could swerve him from the path which seemed to him right.

 

The esteem with which he has been held by his fellow citizens may be seen from the numerous positions of trust in which they have placed him.  From the year 1861 to 1865, he was County Treasurer; for about fifteen years he was Chairman of the County Board of Supervisors; at different times he has held the position of Justice of the Peace, Town Treasurer and like offices.

           

Several years ago, he built a large and elegant hotel, which he kept for some time. It still bears his name and does credit to the place.  He has given lands for school purposes, a site for the Methodist church, besides a large gift of money, and several large lots in the heart of Neillsville, for county buildings.  The poor and destitute have always been objects of his benefactions.  If Mr. O’Neill had had the niggardly and acquisitive faculty of some men, he might today be a millionaire; as it is, he has acquired a handsome competence, owning much valuable pine land in Clark county, and a great many village lots in Neillsville.  No one was ever heard to charge him with dishonesty obtaining a dollar.  In this respect his life is a shining example to the young men who may chance to know him.

 

Mr. O’Neill is not a man of words, but of action.  Occasionally he is very entertaining in conversation, but usually he is very quiet.  Physically he has been a very powerful man, weighing nearly two hundred pounds.  His height is about six feet, and he measures around the chest, forty-two inches.  In his younger days his muscular ability was something remarkable.  His hair and whiskers are slightly mixed with gray.  At sixty-five there  are no signs of baldness.

 

For the last two years, Mr. O’Neill has not been actively engaged in business, but simply attending to the management of his pine land and village property.

           

His life has been one of hard and unremitting labor.  Most of us would shudder at the thought of being obliged to endure the hardships which he has undergone.  His record, as it has come to the writer, is creditable, having in it few things one could wish blotted out.  Human nature is always imperfect.  In judging men, it is not well to look entirely at either faults or virtues, but to weigh both together.  If the latter are great in comparison with the former, it is all we ought to expect.  In the life which we have been tracing, the bad is as infinitesimal in comparison with the good, as the artificial fountain in our parlors are smaller than the cataract of Niagara.

 

Source: The American Sketch Book by Bella French.

 

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