Spider Lake North...on Murphy Blvd & Census of Sawyer County - 1885 by Eldon Marple.
The recording of history is a newspaperman’s job at the time of the events chronicled. Writing historical articles or books is essentially a rearrangement of the facts as they were reported at the time according to the importance assigned to them by later judgement. The historian is actually a plagiarist since he has culled his facts from other sources. His excuse for existance is that he sorts out what he thinks might interest a new reader, puts it in his own words and, too often, claims credit for furnishing the original information. The chaff he leaves for future times & historians.
Spider Lake North...on Murphy BLVD
The two-mile section of country road northward from Hwy. 77 at the Spider Lake Church is known as Murphy Boulevard and has always been a difficult road to travel in bad weather, particularly before it was paved. This is due to the fact that it runs arbitrarily on the section line, totally disregarding the terrain which it traverses. Town Boards, when laying out new roads, appear to be concerned only with making them straight and on a property line between contiguous owners, not with their practicality as highways.
There has always been a sly bit of humor attached to the name for this road. It was built on contract by Mike Murphy, a famous logging-camp foreman, in 1912 or shortly before that, probably in partnership with Art White, whose place was at its north end (the present site of the Spiderlake Country Club). Although it may have been built to the specifications required by the town board, many of the steep hills were almost pure sand and devoid of the binding clay or silt necessary to make a solid road bed; often it was a morass of sand or mud and unfit for vehicular traffic.
George Brandt, who grew up in that community and knew Mike well, tells why the snide comments were made in regard to the name, “Murphy's Boulevard.” Mike started construc-tion at the south end and worked northward. When his job was completed, the road bed was so bad that he had to bring his equipment back to his place near Lost Land Lake by way of another road! Needless to say, whether this story was true or not, it was repeated by every traveler who found the hills and sand washes of Murphy Boulevard too difficult for their convenience.
Mike Murphy was typical of some of the strong characters who followed the logging trade. In 1902 he was a camp foreman for Moses & Gaynor and was running their Hay Creek camp. In 1903 he was foreman of their “log drive” and was called their “old reliable.” In 1904 The Hayward Republican noted that “Mike, James and Edward Murphy were in from their camps.”
About this time Mike also lived at Leonard's Spur in the Namekagon Valley where he was probably a “camp-watcher” for F.C. Leonard, one of the larger loggers of the day. He also apparently acted as postmaster there. In 1923 the paper reported that Murphy was living in the log buildings of an old abandoned camp on the east side of Ole Lake near Lost Land Lake. He was already an old man and a hermit.
Recently George Brandt found a “land looker” plat book in the Round Lake dump. It had M.C. Murphy's name in it and there were many topographical features of this area drawn in. Some years ago Art Thompson of Seeley found a packet of papers in the Seeley dump which concerned many transactions that Murphy had made as a camp foreman. George and Art, who are both interested in the local history, donated these finds to the historical society.
Michael C. Murphy was born in Pennsylvania of Irish parents. He died in Hayward on November 12, 1945, aged 90 years, 9 months and 15 days. His only lasting monument is his name given to a piece of country road.
Census of Sawyer County - 1885
he State Census of the inhabitants of Sawyer County taken as of June 20, 1885, was of particular interest for several reasons. It listed the aggregate population total, divided into white and non-white, by sex and the “nativity” - the country of origin - of each. It gave the name of the “head-of-family” and also listed all Indians (the regular Federal Census usually did not), spelling out their names phonetically when they had not adopted European surnames.
The census “Clerk” was S. R. Murray and his work is well done and readable. He seems to have had a flair for journalise- also since he wrote a gossipy article for the North Wisconsin News telling of the settlers he found and how their crops were doing. He also included some observations on the way of life of the Indians at Reserve which drew a prompt rebuttal from a white resident of Hayward, chiding him for his uncalled-for comments and implying that he had fabricated this part of his story. A study of this census, broken down the way it is, can provide a demographer with much useful information about the social structure of the. community during the settlement of the County, then two years old.
The census-taker first polled all of the residents of the “unincorporated” Village of Hayward. He found 1,069 persons, 712 males and 357 females, and he listed them under 183 headed his home as a “stepping-stone” to relatives or friends from the old country. The homes of Christ Anderson, Andrew Carlson, Nels A. Anderson, John Joseph, Louis Hogan, T. Monson, Nils A. Johnson and John Larson belonged to this group. Christ Hanson's “family” listed 25 men and 4 women - all Scandinavian.
The population of the County outside of Hayward was not at all similar or comparable in its makeup, the greatest differentiation being the predominance of Indian families. Of the 409 listings for head-of-family, 252 were classified as Indian and 25 white males were also listed with Indian families, including Charles Patrick, Ira Isham, and Thad Thayer.
The most obvious of other variants was the presence of 94 single white males, apparently living alone in separate abodes. Some of these hermits were dam watchers and caretakers for empty lumbercamps; others may have been trappers and settlers. Thirty years later when I came here, there were still an unusual number of “Batches” living out in the woods - I can remember about twenty of them. Nine of these singles were Scandinavian, a few were Canadian, and the rest were of American source. Two females were also found in this category - they operated a mission school at Little Round Lake for Indian children.
The 36 white entries listed with a female were all Canadian or American - mostly the latter. We find Alex McGilvray, Charles Perry, William Hogue and William Wettenhall at Round Lake; Michael Jordan and sons William and John north of Sand Lake; H. B. Shue at Crane Creek; Henry Tyner at Chief Lake, and Thad Thayer at The Post. Near the junction of the East and West Forks of the Chippewa were Thomas Runnels and Thomas Manwaring. Below this were James Bishop, W. S. Ackley, Samuel Segiun and AI Raynor, Jno and Joe Herman were on the point between the Chippewa and the Couderay Rivers and there were a dozen other families near the home of old-settler Charles Belille. Among the Indian names listed were Mo no moc, John King, Prince of Wales, Sophia Dandy, Crazy Joe Rooster, Billy Boy and Yankee Joe.
The principal conclusion to be drawn from a resume of the 1885 census of Sawyer County is that the Big Mill at Hayward had brought in most of the new residents and that practically all of the Scandinavian immigrants who had come to the county lived in Hayward, presumably working at the mill. The 1880 Federal Census of the area yielded no familiar names in the Hayward area, testifying to its “Boomtown” settlement between the two dates. The early settlers on the Chippewa and in the Jordan community were about the same in both. Indians were not listed except for families headed with a part-white male. †
