James O’Neill, the founder of the city of Neillsville, Clark Co, Wis. came to Wis. In June 1845 with his brother Henry O’Neill (who died in 1858), E. L. Brockway, and brothers Samuel F and William Ferguson and they became the first permanent settlers in what became Clark Co, WI. The party came overland in a wagon drawn by oxen, cutting their way through the brush and the trip took two days. That was the first road ever made in Clark County.

Shortly upon arrival the O’Neill family felled trees and built a rough log cabin about 18 feet by 24 feet on the banks of O’Neill Creek. Next a mill was built and by the end of the year it was ready for work.

Constructed of logs and located in the bed of the creek it was supplied with one upright saw with a capacity of 4000 feet of lumber every twelve hours and it worked continuously.

The pine logs were easily obtained along O’Neill Creek and they were floated down to the mill. The lumber was rafted at the foot of the mill, run to the mouth of the creek and combined in rafts, which usually contained 10,000 feet. Having reached the falls these rafts were again combined into still larger ones containing 40,000 to 50,000 feet and ran to the Mississippi, then to Burlington, Iowa, consigned to Alexander O’Neill and sold for an average of $10 per thousand.

In 1846 James O’Neill erected a larger home to live in and the abandoned log cabin, undermined by the water, fell into the creek. In the summer, John Kennedy and his wife arrived and Mrs. Kennedy became the first white woman in the county. She became the housekeeper at the O’Neill place, where the entire colony boarded.

One of the recreational activities in Clark and Jackson Counties in those years was to have parties at the various homes with people traveling to a particular home via sleighs over the frozen Black River One winter persons from Clark County would go to the homes of persons in Jackson County and then the next winter persons from Jackson County would come to homes of persons from Clark County.

On Christmas Eve, 1846 James O’Neill gave such a party at his house. Among those that attended were the Douglas family from Melrose, Jackson Co, WI including one of their daughters, Isabella.

Here began the courtship of James O’Neill, which when completed ended in his marriage to Jane Douglas on 7 March 1847 officiated by John Valentine, Justice of the Peace.

The following March their first daughter, Isabella Jane would be born, as the first child born in Clark Co. WI She would later marry Wilson S Covill. Following next another daughter Maria would be born in 1854. She would marry Frank Darling. A son Thomas would die as a young man and another son, John would die in the Civil War

James O’Neill had the first farm in the county and by 1850 he had about 50 acres cleared on his lands. A Mr. Hamilton McCullom opened a small farm in connection with his mill near the mouth of Cunningham Creek, and a little later, Moses Clark opened a farm near his mill on the creek.

James O’Neill would have a son, John, who would serve as a Private in the Civil War in Co I of the 14th Wis. Infantry. He would serve from 10 Feb 1862 till 15 April 1862 where he would die at Paducah, KY. He too is buried at Neillsville City Cemetery.

----Source: Republican Press March 30, 1882

O'Neill, Hon. James O'Neill (1810 - 1882)

The death of Hon. James O'Neill, Sr., who was one of the first, if not the first permanent settler in the territory now embraced in Clark county, and the founder of Neillsville, occurred at his residence in this village at 4 o'clock P.M. on Tuesday last, March 28, 1882, after an illness of but a few days duration. Though his death had been momentarily expected during the entire day upon which his eventful life dates its close, not until the whispered announcement, made in sadness and confirmed by tolling bells, that he had passed the portals of Time to the great hereafter, did we fully realize how deeply his loss could be felt by a community of which he was the founder and which owes its existence and prosperity to the privations he endured.

The deceased was born in the town of Lisbon, St. Lawrence County, New York, May 4, 1810, and was the third of a family of nine children, but one of whom is still living. At the age of seventeen he left the paternal roof and commenced to hew for himself the pathway of life, going into the employ of an elder brother then doing business at Edwardsburg, Canada, as a clerk. A few years later, in partnership with another brother, he engaged in lumbering on the American side of the St. Lawrence River, in which business he was engaged about a year, after which he was engaged in various business enterprises in connection with his brothers in that locality, until in June 1836, when bidding his father and mother what proved to be a last farewell, he started for the then unexplored and boundless west. During the three years following his departure from home he visited many places in the west and south. In September, 1839, in company with his brother Alexander, he procured a canoe at Prairie du Chien, which they stocked with provisions, and with which they made their first settlement on Black River, stopping at a point about three miles below what is now known as Black River Falls, where they built a saw mill. He remained at that point until 1844 when he settled on the present site of Neillsville and built the first building erected in the territory now covered by our village, a rough log cabin that stood on or near the ground now occupied by the Neillsville flouring mills. On the sixth of March, 1846, after a bachlerhood that had carried him to his thirty-sixth year, he espoused Jane Douglas, a sister of the Hon. Mark Douglas, of Melrose, Jackson County, and of Mrs. Isabella Mason, of Black River Falls, and with this event in his life ended his disposition to roam from place to place, and made him the founder of our present prosperous village, in whose honor it was named.

He was elected to the assembly of Wisconsin in the fall of 1848 from the district composed of the counties of Chippewa and Crawford, and was a member of the legislature of 1879. From 1861 - 1865 he held the office of treasure of Clark County, and in 1868 was again elected to the assembly from the district then composed of the counties of Clark and Jackson. Aside from the offices of honor and trust mentioned above, he served this county in the important position of chairman of the county board of supervisors for fifteen years, and held many important town offices. In official position in which he was tried repeatedly and well, as in other walks of life, he was ever found worthy of confidence. He was a man of broad and generous sympathies, whose hand was ever open to the needy. Generous to his friends, he was equally just to his enemies, and today, though summoned to his rest at a ripe old age, his loss is the occasion of universal regret, and his memory will be cherished through life by all who knew him.

Among the immediate friends who mourn his death are his widow and their son, now in his seventh year, and the two daughters by his first marriage- Mrs. W. S. Covill and Mrs. F. E. Darling, of this place, and a brother residing on the old homestead where the life now ended first began.

The funeral, which takes place from the Court House today at 2 pm, will be conducted by the Rev. H. W. Bushnell, formerly the minister in charge of the Methodist Church of this place.