Bio: Dessert, Joseph (1819 - 1910)

Contact: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

E-mail: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Dessert, Dessere, Whitney, Dupree, Moore, Du Bay, Pentecost, Etheridge, Cate, Thompson, Sanford

---Source: History of Marathon County Wisconsin and Representative Citizens, by Louis Marchetti, 1913.

Dessert, Joseph (8 January 1819 - 31 December 1910)

Among the men who opened up Marathon county, reduced the wilderness and brought it to its high state of industry, and one who led in the cultivation of the soil, proving its excellent agricultural character years before it was settled upon by fanners, one who succeeded by sheer force of character, integrity, industry, and perseverance in spite of the drawbacks which discouraged so many others was Joseph Dessert, whose name has been frequently mentioned in connection with the early history of the county.  

He was born at St. Joseph, Maskenonge Township near Quebec. Canada, on January 8, 1819, and traces his genealogy back to Antoine Dessere, who was married in Quebec in 1674. His father was Pierre Dessert, who was the fifth of that name to reside on the farm where Joseph Dessert was born. His mother was Josephte Beaulieu Dessert. His father died in 1830; and by his last will divided his farm among the two oldest sons with the obligation upon them to pay the expenses for an education of their younger brother Joseph. The others were otherwise provided for. Joseph continued to attend the Catholic parish school, and later to learn English, he was sent to a school in New Brandon, sixty miles distant from his home, which he attended until the fall of 1838.  

Having completed his education, he went to work for his brother, who was engaged in getting out ship timber for the English market. That timber was run down in rafts into the St. Lawrence and delivered at Quebec. On his return from his rafting trip he became a clerk in a store in Maskenonge until the spring of 1840. His steady habits attracted the attention of the American Fur Company, and relying on his sobriety and honesty, that company sent him as their agent to the Lake Superior region in 1840 to carry on the trade with the Indians. When the Chippewa tribe made their treaty with the government in 1843 and the whole tribe was assembled at La Point, he had learned sufficiently of that idiom to be able to act as interpreter between the Indians and the government to their mutual satisfaction. While in the employ of the company he had to visit their several posts on the upper Mississippi besides the Lake Superior posts.  

In the spring of 1844 he was informed that one of his aunts was very ill and desired to see him, in consequence of which he returned to Canada to visit her, arriving at her home on July 4th and remaining with her until September. Intending to return to work for the company he went to Detroit expecting to catch the last boat for Lake Superior, but the boat had gone when he arrived there. He then concluded to reach Chequamagon by the Indian trail up the Wisconsin River.  

He took a boat to Milwaukee, went from there to Portage, where he met Daniel Whitney, who took him to his mill at Whitney Rapids, and from there he started up north, knowing that there was an Indian trader by the name of Dupree,* located somewhere near where Little Bull was. No doubt he had heard of this route from Indians while he was north, or possibly also from one of his uncles, one of which was stationed at one time at Green Bay and another at the mouth of the Eau Pleine River.

Having heard of a place called "Little Bull," no doubt from Whitney. He started for that place, and struck first the Indian trader who was about ten miles below. He stayed with him for two weeks, probably waiting for his trunk which he had left at Whitney's, then started for Little Bull, arriving there on the 20th day of October, 1844, and then went to work for John L. Moore, who had built his mill two years before. That was his beginning as a lumber man in Marathon County. His trunk was left at Fort Winnebago; 

*This name in all probability should be "Dubay," the John Du Bay mentioned before he had it brought up to Grand Rapids in the fall and to Mosinee after snowfall on a sled with a provision team.

It has been stated how he worked as a jobber logging, and after five years of hard work associated himself with William Pentecost, James Etheridge and Henry Cate, and they rented the mill from John L. Moore and commenced to make lumber on their own account. They operated the little mill together until 1852, then bought it and ran it until 1854. At the time Etheridge sold out to his partners and the business was carried on by Dessert and Gate until 1859 when Dessert became sole owner, he, Dessert, agreeing to pay all the debts of the firm, and Cate for his share taking out a team of horses, with which he carried on a stage line from Stevens Point.*  

The next five years were years of anxiety and incessant labor for Joseph Dessert; it required all his business acumen, thrift and economy to conduct the business over the shoals of adversity and depression of that time. The lumber business was carried on under the disadvantages of early times which had driven many of the pioneer lumbermen out of business, which is evidenced by the frequent changes in the ownership of the mills in the period from 1849 to 1870.  

From the time that Joseph Dessert rented the mill in 1849 until it shut down for good in 1903, he retained the controlling interest therein, and under his management it became one of the largest, if not the largest, saw mill on the Wisconsin river and remained uninterrupted in operation for over half a century, which fact speaks volumes for the business energy, economy, integrity, and enterprise with which he conducted his ever growing business. Dessert was essentially a man of affairs; economic in his private expenditures, he was generous with his employees, sympathetic and warm hearted; his word was at all times as good as his bond, his hand always extended to honest newcomers. "Little Bull Falls" became the thriving little village of Mosinee, and the farming lands west were largely taken up by men who had earned the means to purchase them in his mill, and many after starting their farms returned to work there to earn the ready money with which to carry on their improvements, which Farms are today among the finest in Marathon County.  

Indeed there are but few of the early settlers in the present towns of Mosinee, Cassel, Marathon, and Wien who did not at one time or another work in Dessert's mill or camps, and there earned the means for laying the foundation for their competency: by investing in farm lands. With his employees he was deservedly popular; he was just and generous to them, (* this agreement is fully referred to in Chapter 10 of this book) extending a helping hand when help was needed and beneficial. Until his business had grown too large to be supervised by him alone, he was his own boss; he knew every man by his first name. One of the pioneers himself, knowing his own worth and having a just pride in his own personality, he respected the honest toilers and dealt with them on a footing of equality rather than with the insulting condescension of the parvenu, and they looked upon him as their best friend.  

Joseph Dessert was one of the first to see the productiveness of the lands in Marathon County and engaged in farming at an early date. When the first settlers came to Marathon City, they found there his farm, cleared over thirty acres and in good cultivation. This farm became one of the largest in the county, having 150 acres cleared and in the best state of cultivation when he sold it for $12,000 about fourteen years ago, and today it would easily bring $25,000.

When farming was sufficiently advanced to warrant the venture, he built a grist mill in Mosinee, which was swept away by the flood in 1881 and was not rebuilt. He also owned a tannery which was ruined by the same flood. His work in the county board has been referred to in these pages, which was always for the good.

In 1880 he took his nephew, Louis Dessert, in partnership and later with Henry M. Thompson, his son-in-law, organized the Joseph Dessert Lumber Company, which operated until 1903, when the timber owned by the company was all manufactured, and age and other circumstances made retirement from business congenial. Joseph Dessert married Miss Mary E. Sanford at Waukesha in 1862. Two children were born of that marriage, one dying in infancy, and the other, Stella, became the wife of Henry M. Thompson of Milwaukee. The greatest sorrow came to him when his wife died at Mosinee on the first day of July, 1881, and her loss was greatly mourned by the people of Mosinee, with whom she lived, like her husband, as the best of neighbor and friend, always helpful.

When the flood in 1881 had swept away the grist mill, tannery, office building and ruined the saw mill, he was thoughtful of the men in his employ and gave orders that they should be given work as soon as the flood subsided, in clearing away the debris, all around it, even before he had time to plan for the future. He knew his losses, but at the same time his mind was also concerned about his men, knowing that a long delay or non-employment would work a great loss for them, and so he set them at work just to have them employed.  

As an instance of his carrying out his agreement to pay the debts of the firm of Dessert & Cate, we cite: A Canadian who had worked for them took a note for the amount due and departed for home. More than twenty years afterwards he came into Mr. Dessert's office with the note and asked for payment. Dessert told him he would pay it, and did so, with interest up to 1870 as that was the time when he paid all those debts and would have paid this note had it been presented. Of course the man was glad to get his money and interest besides, which he never expected.

In 1898 he built a good substantial brick building for a library building and for eight years paid every item of expenses of the institution including the salary of the librarian, and in 1906 donated it to the village by deed, at the same time donating a thousand dollars for keeping it up. It is an imposing structure, with reading room, store room and librarian room and spacious hall on the second floor as an entertaining hall, rostrum and footlights, opera chairs and drop curtains and fine sceneries. There is a cloak room in connection with the box office and the building itself is 72x36 feet.  

Foreseeing the end of the lumbering, Henry M. Thompson removed to Milwaukee in 1902, and Joseph Dessert soon followed, remaining with his daughter to the end though visiting annually the scene of his former activities. Within a short time of his death he was in the possession of his mental faculties, and noticing the gradual decline of his physical powers he met the end with the fortitude which characterized his whole life.  

The love of the pioneer was with the land where he had spent his youth, manhood and ripe old age. And it was his desire to be buried in the cemetery at Mosinee. His body was borne to the grave by former employees, every one of whom had been in his employ for a quarter of a century.  

The pioneers were a noble race, Joseph Dessert the peer of the best of them. His was a long life, full of labor and usefulness, and standing at his bier, it could truthfully be said of him that the world was better for his having lived in it. He died in Milwaukee on the 31st day of December, 1910.