[This description is adapted from the description of the Cyrus Woodman and Moses Strong collections in the Wisconsin Historical Society Bulletin of Information, No. 78.]
The Cyrus Woodman collection of manuscripts extends unbroken from 1833 to 1889, a period of fifty-six years. For twenty years of this time, from 1844 to 1864, covering the most active period of his business career, Woodman resided in Wisconsin, and during most of the remainder of his life his chief business interests continued to be in the Badger State. His papers admirably supplement those contained in the Moses Strong collection. The two men lived in the same town, Mineral Point; were engaged in the same kind of business; dealt often with the same men; were of the same political faith; and though apparently not personal friends, were well acquainted with each other.
Woodman, like Strong, was a careful and methodical correspondent. In 1833, at the age of nineteen, he began the practice of saving, arranging, and binding all the letters he received, business as well as personal. Until 1845 he made no effort, apparently, to retain copies of the letters he sent out, but in that year he began using a letter press, and thereafter until his death, preserved letter-press copies of all his personal and business letters. Unfortunately many of these copies are so faint as to be nearly illegible, the result evidently of improper operation of the letter-press equipment. With great care Woodman indexed each volume of his correspondence, classifying letters received according to the name of the sender, and letter-press copies according to the name of the person addressed.
Unlike the Strong collection, the Woodman collection contains no large mass of material of secondary interest to the student. The Woodman volumes are uniformly excellent in quality. On the other hand they contain few papers of such peculiar interest as are occasionally found in the political and railroad groups of the Strong collection. Nor was Woodman so typical a Westerner as Strong. He came to Wisconsin with considerable capital, which he was content to invest safely in land. His was the conservative spirit of the East, Strong's was the bold and adventurous spirit of the West.
Of the many volumes which largely comprise the collection, eighty-six are devoted to letters received, covering the period from 1833 to 1889. Seventy-seven are letter-press copies of correspondence sent out; twelve contain the business letters of the law and land firm of Washburn and Woodman; and three the business letters of the Boston & Western Land Company. One contains the land accounts of the Boston & Western Land Company as well as Woodman's own land accounts for later years, and one is a scrapbook containing newspaper clippings, mementoes of European trips, business advertisements, and other miscellaneous material.
Woodman's letters may be conveniently discussed under four general heads, social, business, political, and historical. His social letters are exceedingly delightful. He was a cultured man of refined tastes, a lover of fine arts and literature. His style was easy yet crisp, and his letters are worth reading for the sake of the pleasure their literary excellence affords. He wrote long and frequently to his friends and his family, hitting off in some happy phrase or paragraph the social conditions that surrounded him. Intimate glimpses are afforded of pioneer days not only in Wisconsin, but also in Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Nebraska. The letters which he received from his friends in New England and those that he himself later wrote from Cambridge are charged with similar interest.
From his correspondence with friends and with a governess whom he wished to engage for the training of his children, we learn of the unsatisfactory facilities for education in early Wisconsin. One of his chief reasons for leaving the West was his anxiety to afford his children the advantages--to be secured at this time only in the East--of a good education. Inconveniences of travel, the condition of the roads, household problems, social life in the East as well as in the West, are set forth.
The business letters pertain to land, lumbering, mining, railroading, law, and banking. Like Strong, Woodman was ready to venture into a wide range of business activities, a psychological phenomenon that appears to have been characteristic of early western business life. Unlike Strong, however, Woodman was not placed in a position which made it necessary for him constantly to seek to influence Eastern capitalists to invest their money in the enterprises. Indeed he once wrote to a friend that even had he wished to engage in such work, he would have failed, since men of means were usually more content to invest their capital in brick and mortar in New York City at six per cent than in the West at twenty-five per cent, even though the West could offer securities covering an entire township.
The land papers of Woodman constitute the largest, and in some respects, the most valuable portion of his business correspondence. He originally came West in the employ of the Boston & Western Land Company, an association of New England capitalists which had extensive holdings in the Northwest. The three volumes of business letters of this company, as well as the single volume devoted to its accounts, are of great value to the student for the light they shed upon the methods by which western lands were opened to settlement in the period to which they pertain.
After spending a few years in the service of the Boston & Western Land Company, Woodman embarked upon land operations on his own account. The firm of Washburn and Woodman, with which he became associated in 1844, devoted itself chiefly to entering public lands for settlers, locating military warrants, purchasing and selling lands for nonresidents, paying taxes, proving titles, and in general acting as intermediary between eastern landholders and western settlers desirous of purchasing homes. This brought its members into contact with many prominent eastern speculators whose activities are fully reflected in the papers of the firm.
Woodman was himself possessed of considerable capital, and in the course of their business Washburn and he became extensive holders of agricultural, mineral, and lumber lands. For a time their activities were confined to Wisconsin, but soon they turned their attention, in common with other speculators, to the fertile lands of Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and other trans-Mississippi states. Both from the twelve volumes of the firm's records and from Woodman's personal papers may be gleaned much useful information concerning the land policy of the government, the methods of entering lands, their prices, the terms and commissions of land agents, the taxation and valuation of land, the rents paid by tenants, the interest rates on loans, the agricultural methods of the West, the significance of the wheat crop--in short concerning every phase of the land business in the West. We see also how the sale of Western land was retarded or stimulated according to the measure of prosperity or depression in the country. After the panic of 1857, Woodman, though a man of means, was for six years in continual financial embarrassment. Until 1863 he was, as he himself described it, “land poor,” a common ailment of land agents during periods of hard times.
Woodman's land papers do not terminate upon his removal to the East. Until late in life he continued to have holdings in the West, the oversight of which he entrusted to the care of agents. His correspondence in this field thus covers almost the entire history of the settlement of western Wisconsin as well as much of that of other sections of the West.
Land agents in western Wisconsin were almost invariably interested at this time in pinelands, which were in many respects the most attractive of all land investments. Nor was Woodman an exception to the rule. He drifted rapidly into pineland speculations; and from mere speculations in the land he passed to actual lumbering of the pine upon it. This was the same course pursued by Strong, and by Woodman's partner, Washburn. Washburn, indeed, became during the sixties and seventies, one of the greatest lumbermen in the West.
Woodman was interested in lumbering only incidentally. His enterprises were large enough, however, to enable the student to follow in his correspondence the entire course of the industry, from the pine forest to the retail lumberyard. We see him selling “stumpage” to logging contractors, arranging with sawmill owners to manufacture the logs into lumber, employing raft pilots to float the finished product down the river, selling his “cribs” to the lumber wholesaler, and even occasionally piling, sorting, and retailing the lumber himself. His papers do not give so intimate a picture of actual working methods in the lumber mill as do those of Strong, for he entrusted his interests to a greater extent to subordinates, but on the other hand his operations cover a wider field. At different times he had lumber holdings on the Wisconsin, Yellow, Black, Pere Marquette, Saginaw, and many other notable lumber streams in Wisconsin and Michigan.
In 1862 Woodman was given charge of all the pinelands in the land grant of the St. Mary's Ship Canal Company in the lower peninsula of Michigan. For two years he superintended the selling, protecting from trespass, and logging, on some 500,000 acres of pinelands of this Company and its subsidiary, the Michigan Pine Lands Association. A comparison of the letters which relate to these Michigan lumbering interests with those which pertain to the western Wisconsin interests, brings out the great difference in the manufacturing and marketing of lumber on pinery streams tributary to Lake Michigan, and those tributary to the Mississippi River.
Woodman was a man of ideas who early suggested the possibility of rafting logs across Lake Michigan, and conducting the sawmill operations in Chicago instead of in the forest region, where so large a part of the log was wasted. His lumbering letters set forth the prices of timberlands, the rates paid for stumpage, the customary division of proceeds between loggers and pineland owners doing business operating on shares, or saw-mill owners and pineland owners doing business in that way; they show the costs and the profits of lumber production, the constant danger of timber trespass and the means to protect pine-lands, the growing tendency toward large scale production, the character of the lumberjacks; in short, these intelligent letters reveal the entire economics of the lumber industry. In addition they afford a remarkable inside account, not only from Woodman but from those who wrote to Woodman, of the trials and difficulties of that interesting organization, the St. Mary's Ship Canal Company.
The land speculations which carried Woodman into lumbering, carried him at the same time into mining. His Mineral Point home, as well as much of his land, was located in the midst of the great lead-mine district of southwestern Wisconsin. Like Strong, Woodman limited his mining interests to this region. His mining papers do not afford as intimate a view of actual problems of mining as the Strong papers, for his lands were entrusted more largely to subordinates than those of Strong, but they present a more comprehensive outlook upon the activities of the lead region than do the papers of the latter. Woodman contemplated at different times entering extensively into the purchasing of lead, and his letters of inquiry to various New York lead dealers are highly instructive concerning the methods employed in marketing the mineral. The correspondence shows, among other things, the dominating position of the Corwith Brothers of Galena in the buying and selling of the product of the smelters; the customary rates of rent or “tribute” paid by miners working on mineral land that belonged to others; the problem of mineral trespass; the extent of the lead-mine industry; and the influence of the California gold rush upon it.
In 1847 Woodman and his partner purchased the famous Wisconsin Shot Tower at Helena. Until Woodman severed his partnership with Washburn the two continued to own this interesting manufactory, and the correspondence of the firm, as well as Woodman's personal correspondence between 1845 and 1865, throws much new light upon its history.
The lead-mine region contains some traces of copper, of which a considerable body was discovered upon one of Woodman's holdings. Over a million pounds of copper ore were raised from a single one of his mines, giving rise in the lead section to the hope that the entire section might be underlined with the mineral. From Woodman's letters may be learned his plans for roasting, refining, and marketing copper ore in case it should prove profitable to do so. It soon became evident, however, that there was not sufficient mineral of this character in southern Wisconsin to pay for the expense of raising it, and further experiments were abandoned.
Among the most interesting letters in the collection are those which relate to banking and currency. These fall almost entirely within the period of Woodman's residence in Wisconsin, most of them between 1850 and 1865. Woodman brought with him from the East strong, conservative convictions on the subject of banking. He was known in Wisconsin as an “anti-bank” man, which meant, not that he was opposed to all banks, but to banks whose sole business was issuing and distributing paper currency. This was the day of wildcat money in the Northwest, an evil that Woodman fought with all his power. In 1852, he and his partner established the Mineral Point Bank, one of the soundest financial institutions in the entire state. This they maintained until 1855, when the business was liquidated, every dollar of its liabilities being paid in gold. The short but eventful career of the bank is fully described in the correspondence of the firm of Washburn and Woodman as well as in Woodman's personal papers.
In 1855 the Mineral Point Bank and the Galena Bank of the Corwith Brothers launched a vigorous campaign against the “Georgia Wildcats,” with which the lead region was at that time flooded. The “Georgia Wildcats” were an especially unstable variety of paper money issued by the well-known Milwaukee and Chicago banker, George Smith. The Mineral Point and Galena banks adopted the familiar expedient of gathering large quantities of this currency, and presenting it all at one time for redemption in gold. Eventually they succeeded in driving out the Georgia paper. The entire episode is recorded in the correspondence of Washburn and Woodman, and in the personal papers of Woodman. Woodman's scrapbook likewise contains a number of contemporary newspaper clippings relating to the same subject.
The financial crisis precipitated by the secession of the Southern states forced into bankruptcy many of the wildcat banks in Wisconsin and Illinois. Paper money of even the best Wisconsin and Illinois banks was worth only eighty-five or ninety cents on the dollar, while most of the Wisconsin currency fell to half its nominal value. In the lead region, the miners and farmers agreed to accept nothing but gold, and for a time gold was the only medium of exchange in this section. Woodman seized the opportunity to preach sound money to all within reach, and his correspondence for the years from 1860 to 1862 is filled with observations on the state of the currency and the financial crisis of those years. In 1864 he made an effort to secure the nomination of bank comptroller of Wisconsin on the Union ticket, but his well-known conservative views made him unacceptable to the banking interests of the State, and he failed.
There is comparatively little of a legal nature in Woodman's correspondence. A limited number of legal papers occur in the early volumes of the Washburn and Woodman series, but these are concerned chiefly with land questions. During the early years of the Civil War, when Woodman was temporarily embarrassed for ready money and was casting about for employment, he considered entering into partnership with his brothers in New York and Boston, in the growing field of pension claims and bounty cases, but he finally decided not to do so. He was administrator of the estates of a number of deceased friends, concerning which his papers contain some legal data.
Woodman was never so actively interested in railroad projects as Strong, and his railroad papers are, therefore, of less consequence. However, he held stock in several Wisconsin and Illinois roads, and being a keen observer, his correspondence throws much light upon the activities of early western railroad builders. His successful efforts to secure a railroad station from the Milwaukee & Prairie du Chien Railway Company, near a large tract of his lands, throw interesting light upon the influence of railroads on land values. He was a constant traveler, and his letters reveal the unsatisfactory conditions of railroad communications in the West during his day.
In 1869 he accepted the task of superintending the building of the Burlington & Missouri Railroad, a land-grant railway in which he was a heavy stockholder, to Lincoln, Nebraska. His letters for the following year, during which he was on the scene of operation in Nebraska, are packed with information concerning the problems accompanying such an enterprise in the far West.
Not the least interesting of Woodman's letters are those dealing with political subjects. He was on intimate terms with party managers, and had unusual opportunities for observing what was going on. He was a Democrat, though he opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. At a time when independence in politics was regarded as reprehensible, he was an Independent. His public standards were half a century in advance of his time. He condemned and exposed with all his strength the corruption in the Democratic administrations of Wisconsin prior to 1860. At almost any time, if he had wished, he might have been elected to the State legislature, and his name was at different times prominently considered for the governorship and for Congress, but his sensitiveness and retiring nature forbade his active entrance into the arena of politics. In 1861 he was elected, without his consent, to the Assembly, and was prominently mentioned for the speakership. Governor Harvey in 1862 offered him any public position at the disposal of the State executive, but he decided to accept none.
In his youth he was a state rights man but when the Southern states forced this doctrine to its secessionist conclusion, Woodman swung away from it, and became an ardent supporter of Lincoln and the war. His letters show with what anxious interest he followed the fortunes of the Union cause. He was an intimate friend and former college roommate of Governor Andrews, the great war executive of Massachusetts, with whom he frequently exchanged letters during his lifetime. His business and personal connections brought him into touch with many prominent figures in American politics, both in the West and in the East, and his correspondence with them is an important source of information concerning public events of his day.
Woodman was an unusually public-spirited man, although he carefully concealed his services from the public eye. He was an early and active regent of the University of Wisconsin, to which he left a fund for an astronomical library. He was a helpful friend and counsellor of Lyman C. Draper, first secretary of the Wisconsin Historical Society, and he supported financially, as well as with his counsel, various historical and literary associations in his New England home. During the Civil War, he provided equipment for an entire company of Mineral Point volunteers; secretly promised Capt. (later General) Thomas Allen of Mineral Point to provide for his daughter in case he should be killed; started a movement to purchase Governor Andrews an annuity of $3,000 in order that the latter might be politically as well as financially independent; and in a score of other ways performed public services which his correspondence reveals.
Woodman was always interested in history. During his stay in Wisconsin he collected early territorial newspapers, pamphlets, historical relics, and manuscripts, many of which he turned over to the State Historical Society. He was long an honorary vice-president of the Society, and his letters show that he was frequently consulted in its interests. He spent much of his later life in genealogical studies in New England, a field in which his papers are particularly rich and valuable. His scrapbook contains many interesting relics, among them a short note from Rufus Choate, several envelopes addressed to Washburn and Woodman by Daniel Webster, and some manuscript notes for a speech, written by Charles Sumner.
In a preliminary survey, such as this, it is impossible to indicate other than in a general way the contents and character of the Woodman papers. The student will find, however, that for the time and the field covered, the collection is one of prime importance and interest.
