THE ICE BOAT & MR. WIARD
THE YEAR WAS 1856, AND A TRANSPORTATION REVOLUTION WAS coming to the upper Midwest: not the rapid expansion of railroads branching west, nor the passenger steamer that, since mid-century, had ferried travelers across the Great Lakes. Neither solved the problems of travel during the great North’s winter months. But now, a revolutionary invention promised to free Wisconsin and surrounding lands from the dark isolation of winter. The Midwest’s 26,000 miles of rivers and lakes—long regarded as useless for travel in the frozen months—would provide new avenues to bring people together and enable them to access markets. Not only would the towns of the Midwest be connected, or so the promoters claimed, but people would soon be able to travel via frozen river to the Rocky Mountains and beyond in just over a fortnight. Norman Wiard—the “Wizard of the North” and “Fulton of the West”—had invented an ice boat.1
Norman Wiard arrived in the Badger State by a circuitous route. He was born in Ontario, Canada, in 1826, to a family of metalworkers and blacksmiths.2 He took to the family line of work and by the age of twenty-five was an owner of N. Wiard & Company in Buffalo, New York, a fabricator of machinery.3 Driven by ambition and lured by Chicago’s promise of becoming the next great American city, he left Buffalo for the Windy City, where he became the foreman of Moses Steam Engine Works.4 In 1856, he went north and—together with Alan W. Cook—purchased the Western Novelty Works of Janesville, Wisconsin.5 Norman Wiard’s fame as an industrialist preceded him to Wisconsin, and the Wisconsin State Journal trumpeted:
The North-west has long needed something of this kind through which their wants could be supplied without having to go the whole way to Chicago or the East. The Novelty Works in Janesville is now one of the largest Iron Works in the entire West, having constantly employed over two hundred first rate mechanics. … Mr. Wiard is one of the best practical men in the country, as will be proven by the many excellent engines, boilers, etc. built by him while in the employ of H. P. Moses, of Chicago.6
Prospective customers were assured, “For strength and beauty, economy of fuel, and complete adoption for the purpose for which they are intended, the Engines from the designs of NORMAN WIARD, excel all others; they are sold at Chicago prices, and are warranted to give good satisfaction in every particular.”7
Norman Wiard was described as a “nervous, energetic man, a thorough master mechanic, an inventor and a genius.” It is not surprising, then, that he became interested in solving the winter transportation problem. Wiard came of age as an industrialist at the terminus of the Erie Canal. He likely experienced firsthand the lost access to markets as winter closed the canals and waterways and even made travel by railroad and wagon difficult, inconvenient, and dangerous. Wisconsin and the upper Midwest were blessed with thousands of miles of navigable waters, but these avenues of commerce were useless during five months of the year. Winter snows and freezing temperatures cut off towns and trapped settlers in their homes for months at a time. Loneliness, hunger, and, in extreme cases, starvation and “prairie madness” were the result. Although limited train travel was possible in the winter, in the 1850s From his new vantage point in Janesville, Norman Wiard saw a need and an opportunity.
