Born on August 4, 1797 as the sixth child and fifth son of Revolutionary War hero and former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, William Stephen Hamilton entered the U. S. Military Academy at West Point, New York on June 15, 1814. He resigned in 1817 for reasons unknown. Family tradition holds that he was well educated and read law sufficiently to be admitted to the bar, but rarely formally practiced as a lawyer.
William, or "Billy" as he preferred to be called, travelled to St. Louis, where by age 23 he accepted appointment as "Deputy Surveyor General" under William Rector, himself Surveyor General for the states of Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas. Billy eventually emigrated to Illinois, where in 1822, he accpted an appointment as U. S. Surveyor of public lands in Illinois, with headquarters at Springfield. In 1823, he drove seven hundred head of cattle from the Sangamon country to Fort Dearborn, then on to For Howard, Green Bay, in order to fulfill a government contract. Also in that year, he surveyed old French claims at Au Pied (Peoria). Local settlers elected Billy to the fourth General Assembly of Illinois Legislature in 1824; he held a seat that would later be occupied by Abraham Lincoln.
In 1825-6, Billy surveyed and platted the original town of Peoria, and took two lots as pay. He named several streets for Revolutionary War heroes, including "Hamilton Street," in memory of his father. In November 1826, he defended Nomque, a Pottawatomie Indian, in Peoria’s first murder trial. Nomque had been accused of fatally stabbed Pierre Laundri, a local Frenchman, in a drunken brawl.
Billy emigrated to the U. S. Mineral District on July 4, 1827 for many of the reasons plenty of young single men flocked to the region: quick riches, a self-directed lifestyle, and the comfort and company of friends in the wild, untamed West. In the spring of 1828, he and companions Elias Shook and Willaim Haws moved inland and staked out a claim of 1,000 acres some fifty miles from Galena-- today's Sections 13, 18, 19, and 24 in present day Lafayette County. Here, Billy erected a double log home on a ridge near a spring and a small flowage known as Furnace Branch Creek. Before long he and his associates "struck it big." By 1830, Billy and his lead miners at "Hamilton's Diggings" had exhumed enough mineral to process over 25,000 pounds of lead pigs.
Despite his elevated social status and distinguished family name, Billy had long ago cast off the trappings of Eastern culture and comfort. One writer traveleing in the Mineral District noted that Billy
was a gentleman of much natural ability, but of eccentric habits. He never married, and, though naturally of a social and genial disposition, shunned all society. He adopted great plainness of garb, and while working in his mines lived and dressed more coarsely than any of his workmen. With his coarse clothes, slouched hat, bare feet, and his pantaloons rolled up to his knees and covered with mud and dirt, he would hardly have been recognized as the son of the greatest American statesman, and one of the most polished gentlemen of any period or country.
Historian O. D. Brandenburg (quoting 1834 emigrant Theodore Rodolf) wrote:
Hamilton, rough and ready miner, was yet the cultured gentleman, speaking French, and having his cabin shelves filled with books, among them a Paris edition of Voltaire; but he lived humbly-- his furniture a rude bedstead with some blankets and buffalo robes for bedding, and oak table, wood stools. He never married.
Some of his diggers even ate with him at table, although at "lower" spots-- as witnessed by Juliette Kinzie and her husband, who accepted Hamilton's hospitality during the Kinzie's snow-laden travels in March, 1831.
While Hamilton's Diggings grew, the processed lead had to be hauled overland some fifty miles to Galena over a rough trail. Without a water transportation outlet, hauling lead pigs by ox-cart was an expensive operation. Hamilton had aspirations of planning a model city five miles from his mines at the head of navigation (according to the "meanders of public survey") on the East Pecatonica River known to the local Indians as "Wiota." Billy hoped that one day his city-- with riverboat access, warves, commerce, and growing population-- would rival that of Galena!
In 1835, the sale of agricultural lands by the United States began at Mineral Point. Billy approached Matthew Newkirk, of Philadelphia, Arthur Branson or New York, and Adam Stewart of St. Louis as potential investors in the proposed city. The partners purchased a thousand acres of land and in May, 1836 "platted 250 acres into town lots dedicating a block each for county and city buildings and naming the town Wiota." Soon, lots were sold and construction began on about eight buildings.
Unfortunately, the river flooded that year and the area became infested with mosquitoes and vermin. With the distance from Hamilton's Diggings, the general lack of employment opportunities, the un-navagability of the Pecatonica River, the settlement never took hold. Without reasonable means to secure a tolerable living, the settlers moved away; their buildings torn down or removed to Hamilton's Diggings. Billy Hamilton's dream of founding his own model community waivered, then faded into obscurity.
In contrast, Hamilton's Diggings prospered as more single men and families emigrated to the location in search of their own opportunity to "strike it rich." As women entered the locality, the new residents constructed more and better homes, a post office-- where Billy served as postmaster-- and other trappings of a more settled, civilized lifestyle. In 1843, Billy sensibly renamed the growing settlement after his dream-- "Wiota." The name, and the community, stuck.
After the Black Hawk War ended, Hamilton pulled down the fort pickets that protected and encompassed his double-log home. He stayed on in Wiota for several more years, got involved in local politics, and even a stint as Colonel of the militia. In 1834, Theodore Rodolf visited Hamilton's Diggings. Regarding Billy, he wrote:
Hamilton was a man of culture, active, and enterprising. Although he had lived for many years among the roughest and hardest class of men, the miners and adventurers of early days, he retained and exhibited, when he so desired, the polish of his early training. In stature he was of medium height, stout, well built, and of robust health, able to bear the hardships of frontier life. During the Black Hawk War he had exhibited great courage and rendered valuable services. He was the youngest son of Alexander Hamilton, the father of Federalism, and had imbibed his father's political principles. Socially he was pleasant, but not communicative, and left the impression of a rather cold and distant man.
Billy also served as a member of Wisconsin's Territorial Legislature. In 1847 his sold his mining concerns and several tracts of farmland; the next year, an opponant narrowly defeated him for a seat on the Wisconsin Constitutional Convention. Not surprisingly, in 1849 the gold discoveries in California re-ignited Billy'a wanderlust. He closed his remaining business concerns in Wiota, packed up two wagons, and along with his ever-faithful black body-servant Barney Norris, headed further West.... never to return.
Hamilton persisted in California for more than a year, exhuming gold and involving himself in lumber and other pursuits. He died on August 7, 1850 in Sacramento during a cholera epidemic that swept that city. He had just turned 53.
Positioned inside a hastily-built wood box, Billy was laid to rest in a long trench with other cholera victims under a post marked with the number "50." Twenty-seven years later, Cyrus Woodman ventured to Sacramento in an attempt to locate and mark Hamilton’s grave. First, he located Hamilton’s faithful servant Barney in Galena and obtained a detailed location and description of the grave site. Woodman successfully located Hamilton's remains and accomplished a re-internment complete with a headstone, upon which Woodman had engraved:
Ten years later, the city of Sacramento established a larger lot in a new section of the cemetery and named it “Hamilton’s Square.” Hamilton's relatives then erected the present monument, which included the correct date of Billy's death and a bronze relief of his father, Alexander Hamilton. The monument exists today in Sacramento's City Cemetery on Tenth and Broadway.Col. W. S. Hamilton
Born in New York 1797
Came to California in ’49
Died October 8, 1850
In size and features, in talent and character,
he much resembled his illustious father.
A friend erects this stone.
Wiota of Today.
Not surprisingly, today's Wiota retains some of the charm of Hamilton's original settlement. Here, for the discernment of the visitor with a keen eye, are original buildings dating from territorial days. Many are constructed of hand-hewn logs; built or later modified to the so-called "New England saltbox" style of architecture. All appear to have re-sided or otherwise remodeled to accomodate the needs of their modern owners.
Persons interested in capturing a slice of the "feel" of those early days in the Mineral District might avail themselves with a drive to Wiota. The village sits astride State Highway 78 in Lafayette County. Located in the center of town is the Zimmerman Cheese Company; attached to the Zimmerman building is a large modern color painting of Fort Hamilton. In June, 2000, this artwork replaced Frank M. Engebretson original 1923 rendition of the fort (see illustration below.) On the grounds in front of the painting are several small stone markers commemorating the site of Fort Hamilton-- which actually stood about a half-mile further south.
Unfortunately, you cannot just drive through the village and expect to get a flavor for Billy Hamilton's former diggings. You need to park... get out of your automobile... and walk around this fascinating community!
Selected sources: Madison Democrat, August 24, 1919; Darlington Journal, July 12, 1923; Wisconsin State Journal, July 22, 1928; Argyle Atlas, December 17, 1931; Peoria Journal Transcript April 2, 1933; History of La Fayette County; The Lafayette County Bicentennial Book; Report of the Proceedings of the Meetings of the State Bar Association of Wisconsin, 1905; electronic correspondence with Ms. Jenifer Cloutier.
My parents moved to Wiota in 1853, when I was ten years old. Bob Paxton lived in the old fort. I have played with the Paxton boys and ate in the old house more than once. Oh, what a shame to tear down that old chimney. It was built of heavy stone and if I had owned the land that chimney would be there today. The painting in Wiota don’t look nothing like it. [Referring to the Frank M. Engebretson's 1923 painting of Fort Hamilton and specifically Hamilton's house, seen at right.] It was a double log house, one and a half stories high. I see it as plainly before my eyes today as I did at the time....---Johnathan Robertson, letter reprinted in the Darlington Democrat, no date, but published after June 16, 1932. The writer was nearly 90 years old at the time of publication.
Lafayette County Historical Society.
