Mc Cann Brothers - Stephen Smith McCann

Stephen Smith McCann

(October 4, 1811 - November 1, 1880) On January 16, 1831, after making his way down the Ohio River and up the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers to Tazewell County, Illinois, Stephen McCann married his first wife, Sarah Hughs, with whom he had four children. Shortly thereafter, he served, from June 1831 to May 27, 1832, in the Black Hawk War. He was a member of the "mounted volunteers" from Pekin, under Capitan John Giles Adams. Abraham Lincoln was a famous participant in this conflict, which marked the end of native armed resistance to U.S. expansion in the Northwest Territory.

After the war, he lived with Sarah in Dubuque, before it became Incorporated into the Iowa Territory. Because of its location on the Mississippi River, near forests in Minnesota and Wisconsin, Dubuque had become a center for the lumber industry. Consequently, after the 1837 Treaty of St. Peters opened northern Wisconsin to settlement, Stephen went to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, to work in this industry. Because this town is located at the confluence of the Mississippi and Wisconsin Rivers, it had developed as a major center of the North American fur trade, where French Canadian voyageurs coming from Lake Michigan along the Fox–Wisconsin Waterway met Americans coming up the Mississippi, and Métis coming down the river from the Red River Colony in Canada.

In Prairie du Chien, on November 22,1842, Stephen McCann married his second wife, Wilhelmina Rachel Johnston, with whom he had seven children. By this time, his brothers, Arthur and Daniel, had joined him near Menomonie, Wisconsin. Here, in 1841, he had bought a sawmill from Hiram S. Allen, on the west side of the Red Cedar River. Two years later, the mill burned down. While continuing to live near Menomonie, the three brothers soon joined with Jeremiah C. Thomas to build the Blue Mill, near Lake Hallie, between Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls. Later, after several changes of ownership and many improvements, this mill was acquired by the Badger State Lumber Company and became known as Badger Mills. Its operations were discontinued in the 1890s due to a shortage of logs.

During the summer of 1845, Stephan McCann, in partnership with J. C. Thomas, put up three buildings within the present day city of Eau Claire. These structures were erected to establish a claim to the land they stood on, but Stephen moved his family into one of them. Consequently, his family, whose home was located near the corner of Eau Claire and Farwell streets, became the first permanent settlers in Eau Claire.

In 1846, at Stephen's home, the first religious services were conducted in Eau Claire by Thomas Randall, and that fall, the first wedding took place, when George Randall married Mary LaPointe. She was the sister of Daniel McCann's wife, Margaret.

In the following year, George Randall and his brother, Simon, secured a half interest in the claim of McCann and Thomas at the mouth of the Eau Claire River and became part of a firm McCann, Randall & Thomas, which immediately began to construct a dam and sawmill. The dam was completed in October 1846.

On June 5, 1847, a terrible flood caused the Chippewa River to rise twelve feet:

( By noon,) every log, pier and boom on the Eau Claire was swept away by the fast swelling flood. In another hour the new double sawmill that had just been erected and was ready to be operated was borne almost bodily away by the resistless current.

After this destruction, the firm went bankrupt, the partnership dissolved, and J. C. Thomas went back to the Blue Mill.

On September 21, 1847, Stephan McCann moved to Chippewa Falls and became a farmer. When Chippewa County was organized on December 29, 1854, George P. Warren was Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, Stephen S. McCann was the other Supervisor, and Samuel H. Allison was the Clerk. In 1856, Stephen became the first justice of the peace in the new county and held court in his home, which had been built in 1849. In the spring of 1857, he moved to his upper farm near Eagle Point.

In September 1861, at the age of 45, Stephen enlisted in the Wisconsin Infantry, along with three of his sons and two of his sons in law. He was assigned to be Brigade Wagoner, but in March 1862, he became ill and was discharged the following month.

In 1876, Stephen Smith McCann moved to the Eau Claire home of his daughter Wilmetta McDonald, where he lived until his death of dropsy in 1880. Funeral services were held in the First Congregational Church, and he was buried at Lakeview Cemetery in Eau Claire.