PIONE S A PINERY

MalcolmRosholt

ROSHOLT HOUSE . One River Drive Rosholt, Wis. 54473 Phone: 677-4722 Copyright ® 1979 by Malcolm Rosholt Library of Congress No.: 79-49277

Printed by Palmer Publications, Inc. Amherst, WI 54406 ~') "'~"'''. lif O~l ,',. f.~<

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Malcolm Rosholt lives in Rosholt, Wisconsin, a village named for his grandfather. He received his bachelor of arts degree from St. Olaf College in 1931 and sailed for China where he spent the next six years as a reporter and editor of an English·language newspaper published in Shanghai. He covered the Japanese bombing of the city in 1932 and again in 1937. In 1938 he returned to the United States where he lectured on his war experiences to schools and service clubs. In 1933 he returned briefly to the United States to marry Margaret Njaa of Northwood, NO. They have one daughter, Mei·fei (Mrs. David Elrick), who was born in Shanghai. Rosholt studied the Chinese language and as a result of his background, he received a commission in World War II from the Army Air Corps. After training, he returned to China in 1943 and spent the next two years as a liaison officer under Claire L. Chennault, commander of the Flying Tigers. Since' leaving the armed service, he has become deeply involved in state and local history.

FOREWORD

Not many counties are fortunate enough to have someone who combines the interest and the ability to record their history in readable, accurate fashion. Portage County is one of the lucky ones. It has Malcolm Rosholt, who wrote Our County, Our Story, an invaluable reference which relates the history of this county from the days of the Indians to the time of its publication, 1959. No flash in the pan, he has continued to produce books and articles on state and local history. The Stevens Point Daily Journal, of which I am city editor, has carried many of these articles. In fact this entire book is a reprint of Malcolm Rosholt stories that have appeared in the Journal. While they center around Portage County, they cannot help but be of interest to people in neighboring counties. You cannot, for example, write about George Stevens, for whom Stevens Point is named, without bringing in Wausau and Marathon County. Nor can Cutting Marsh's story be told without crossing into other counties, especially Waupaca County. Pioneers of the Pinery does not pretend to be a comprehensive history, but rather a series of stories about· real people, their triumphs, their tragedies, their foibles and their perseverance. As a warts-and-all historian, Malcolm Rosholt does not attempt to pretty up times past, but instead seeks to portray events as they happened and people as they were. And that's history. George Rogers 5 AUTHOR-PUBLISHER'S PREFACE

Since I wrote Our County, Our Story, a modern history of Portage County published in 1959 under the sponsorship of the Portage County Board of Supervisors, new facts and legends about the county have come to light. The present volume, Pioneers of the Pinery, is, in a sense, a continuation of the first book, but it also covers a wider area of interest and dips into Marathon, Wood, Adams, Waupaca, Waushara, Green Lake and Winnebago counties. Some of the incidents touched on in the first book have provided the basis for a deeper study in the second, such as the Courtwright lynching, the Hathaway survey of the Wisconsin River valley, and the story of George Stevens' bold venture into the Pinery north to "Big Bull Falls." In ·addition to the several story chapters, I have added a portion of a diary kept by· the pioneer pastor and circuit rider, Cutting Moody Marsh, which also appeared in the Stevens Point Daily Journal. This diary may be one of the most remarkable documents held by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. It is a source of pleasure.for me to bring this portion of the diary to the attention of Wisconsin readers, and it is also a source of pleasure for me to honor this intrepid man of God who rode so tall through the towering timber. A number of people contributed documents, pictures or informati~n to the present volume, namely,· Ge<>rge Crowell, Menasha, Dr. Arthur Fish, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Joe Formella, Stevens Point, Ray Isherwood, Plover, Anthony Kiedrowski, Wisconsin Rapids, Clayton McLarky, Whiting, Malcolm McLean, Ashland, Jim Pierson, .Stevens Point, Philip Poullette, Wautoma, Edith Rothman, Stevens Point, Paul Schultz, Waupaca, Ray Specht, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Bayard Wenworth, Stevens Point, the late Ben Redfield of Whiting and the late Welton Johnson of Amherst. Finally, I want to pay tribute to Pat Manske, staff artist at Palmer Publications, Inc., Amherst, for the cover which she designed for this book. Malcolm Rosholt 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter Foreword by George Rogers...... 5 Author-Publisher's Preface ...... 6 IA Point of Beginning...... 9 II The Hathaway Survey...... 23 III The Saga of George Stevens...... 40 IV The Pinery Road 75 V The Battle of Smoky Hill ...... 84 VI DuBay's Wives 92 VII A Double Lynching 100 VIII The Diarist 138 IX A Pioneer's Daughter 148 XA Country Store at Polonia 160 XI "Obituary Poetry" 167 XII The Country School Teacher 176 XIII The Peregrinations of Cutting Marsh 191

Chapter I

A POINT OF BEGINNING

In Wisconsin the point of beginning for the white man lies in Green Bay. There were early missionaries like Father Menard on the upper Wisconsin River, and traders like Michael Cadotte on Madeline Island, but these men did not found new settlements or cities. It was at '''La Baye" that the white man came to stay and build his home. French explorers to Green Bay were followed by missionaries, fur traders and immigrants from lower Canada. They in turn were followed by Americans ·from the Atlantic coast states, and from .New York state which became involved with Wisconsin over the problem of what to do with the so-called "New York Indians"-the Brothertowns, the Oneidas, the Stockbridges-who were removed to Green Bay in the 1820s to avoid being annihilated. by the white man in the Hudson River Valley. There is much information in our history books about the origin of Green Bay, Milwaukee, Prairie du Chien and Portage, once _called Fort Winnebago. But there the progression -stops. What about central Wisconsin, more specifically the upper Wisconsin River Valley which is referred to in old French texts as "Haut du Wisconsin"? Within the past year or so, new documents have been found which direct our attention to the upper Wisconsin, documents that help to establish points of beginning hitherto 9 unknown, and from which new insights may be gaine~ into the settlement of Wisconsin. The man who appears to have started the movement of settlement into central Wisconsin on the upper Wisconsin River was Amable Grignon II (pronounced Greanow), born in Green Bay in 1796, the youngest son of Pierre Grignon Sr. and grandson of Charles de Langlade, often called the "father of Wisconsin." Amable II had seven brothers and a sister in addition to several half brothers and sisters. The Grignon clan, about this time, rose to become the most prominent French family in the Fox River valley. Since most of the men married Menominee women, their· influence among the Menominees became great, and they took advantage of their marital status to promote their own interests. But Amable II was not one to stay home and live off the Indians. He probably attended French school in Montreal, but could converse in English as well as French. After school, he found employment with the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada and traveled widely. to various company fur trading posts, even as far north as Great Slave Lake. In 1823, Amable left the Hudson's Bay Company to go into business for himself as a fur trader. He later joined a fur trading firm in Green Bay and, as early as 1827, at least, he had established a trading post on the Wisconsin River below the mouth of the Yellow River, or about 15 kilometers southeast of the modern city of Necedah in Juneau County. It would be difficult to find' any artifacts of the trading post today because the site is probably covered by the backwater of the Petenwell Flowage. Daniel Whitney followed in the footsteps of Amable Grignon and more than any other American helped pave the way to settlement of the upper Wisconsin River Valley. A young man when he came to Green Bay in 1819, he began his rise to riches by opening a store at Green Bay. . The word "store" is used in some historical accounts, but it probably was a trading post, for no one could keep a store without trading with the Indians at this time, .and the Indian trade was almost entirely by barter, that is, a mink pelt for a red silk handkerchief, etc. 10 But Whitney was a restless man, ever on the lookout for the main chance. Leaving his "store" to others to run, he explored the western part of Wisconsin in what was then Michigan Territory, and on one of these trips he learned, either through Amable Grignon or the Indians, about a fine stand of white pine growing along the banks of the Yellow River. He left no account of his travels, but one who remembered him was Ebenezer Childs, who in 1857 wrote an account of his own experiences on the Wisconsin frontier, and later had it published in the Wisconsin Historical Collections (hereafter as Collections), Volume 4, page 153.

DANIEL WHITNEY (Courtesy Wisconsin Historical Society)

In his account, Childs says that in the winter of 1827-28, Whitney obtained permission from the Winnebago Indians to make shake shingles on the upper Wisconsin. When he got 11 ready to hire a crew, however, he did not en1ploy local Indians, who were mostly Winnebagoes, but turned to the Stockbridges near Green Bay and hired twenty-two men and a (white) foreman. (The Stockbridges were later removed to Calumet County.) The shingle makers went up the Fox River probably as far as Packwaukee, and fro,m there went on foot and by ox cart to the camp Whitney had selected for them on the Yellow River. In all probability it was located not far from the present city of Necedah. In 1828 Fort Winnebago was built overlooking the Fox River on the portage between the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, for this was a strategic crossing, known as the "Winnebago Portage," where the Indians carried their canoes between the two river systems. The fort was garrisoned usually by a battalion, often less one company, but the table of organization apparently called for a major in command whether at full strength or not. There was constant movement of troops these days between Fort Winnebago, Fort Howard at Green Bay and Fort Crawford at Prairie du Chien. Major David H. Twiggs, later an officer with the Confederate Army, commanded Fort Winnebago. Since the crew working for Whitney could not buy food locally, nor could it live off the land, provisions had to be hauled into camp from Fort Winnebago, provisions which had already been shipped up from Galena or Prairie du Chien on river boats. Whitney had hired Ebenezer Childs to haul· the provisions from the fort to the camp. There were two or three wagons in the supply train, but 'no clue is given to the size of the wagons or type of animals, whether horses or oxen. The teamsters drove north, according to Childs, as far as the mouth of the Yellow River, left their provisions there and turned back. He fails to say whom he left the provisions with, but he definitely did not leave then1 in the woods without mounting a guard. There is every reason to believe he left them at the trading post of Amable Grignon. Childs then went back with the teamsters, and from Fort Winnebago he continued down the Fox River to Green Bay. 12 Later that year he returned to Fort Winnebago, intending to move more provisions to the crew working for Whitney, although Whitney himself was not there. When Major Twiggs saw Childs he told him he wanted the Stockbridges out of the woods. There was considerable unrest at the time among the Winnebagoes, and Twiggs probably did not want to give them any excuse to complain about the presence of some "New York Indians" who were cutting timber on land considered at this time to ·be in Winnebago territory. But Childs disregarded the major and arranged to haul more provisions, this time all tIle way to the Stockbridge camp. He probably crossed the Wisconsin River by ferry near Fort Winnebago, and drove north along the right bank of the river. When he reached the Stockbridge camp, he found that the crew had manufactured 200,000 shingles that summer. When Major Twiggs heard that Childs had gone off on his own, against orders, he sent an officer _and 12 men, accompanied by the U.S. Indian agent from Prairie du Chien, to escort the Stockbridges out of the territory. Childs, who was at the camp, says that he was just about to leave when a "Frenchman came on a clean jump" andtold him that there were soldiers at Grignon's trading post "who were after me." Grignon obviously had done him the favor of sending a "Frenchman"-no doubt a Menominee mixed blood-to warn him of the danger he was in. But Childs refused to be intimidated. It is not within the scope of this narrative to explain the details of this confrontation, but the fact is that the soldiers found Whitney's shingles, burned most of them and took the rest back to Fort Winnebago where legend has it they were used to roof one of the new barracks. When Whitney learned what had happened to his shingles, he threatened to sue Major Twiggs for damages, but before he eould bring his suit to court, the army had Twiggs transferred out. Childs says Whitney lost "not less than one thousand dollars (and) all through Twiggs' malice," a charge which probably never would have held up in court. It is more than possible, despite what Childs says, that 13 Whitney had no permISSIon to cut timber on the Yellow River other than what some local band of Winnebagoes had agreed to in exchange for a pony of whiskey. But Whitney was not a man to be discouraged easily. Two years later, in association with several other business men, he built a shot tower to manufacture lead for bullets. This tower, one of the oldest relics in Wisconsin, still stands in a state park overlooking the south bank of the Wisconsin River east of Spring Green. Leaving the shot tower business to his foreman, Whitney was looking again to the upper Wisconsin where he wanted to build a·sawmill and begin manufacturing· lumber that could be rafted down the Wisconsin River into the Mississippi to markets at Dubuque and St. Louis. There can be little doubt that Whitney and Amable Grignon were friends, or why would Grignon have sent one of his "Frenchmen" to warn Childs about the approach of the soldiers? It is also possible that Grignon tipped off Whitney to the white pine standing farther up the Yellow River from his trading post. . And while he was in the area, Whitney could have heard froin the Indians lounging about the trading post that there was more pine timber farther north than anyone could possibly imagine, standing tall along the banks of the Wisconsin River as far north as, well, who knows, maybe all the way to Lake Superior! Perhaps it was at this time, in the summer of 1831, that Whitney, borrowing one of Grignon's Indian assistants, took off for the upper Wisconsin to explore, or as people at that time said, to do some "land looking." He got at least as far as the first rapids on the river where there was an island lying off the east bank (opposite the modern city of Nekoosa) and there he found a good site for a mill. He may have gone farther north and noted the groves of white pine which he knew he could skid directly into the Wisconsin and float down to his future mill. Just when he returned to Green Bay is uncertain, but on Aug. 16, 1831, he got a permit from the Menominee Indians to build a sawmill "near the rapids of the upper Wisconsin 14 River" (Collections 15, p. 9). He apparently wanted to clear this with the War Department too and a letter came back from Washington, dated Sept. 8, 1831, in which the "aforesaid grant or permission by the Menominie chiefs to Daniel Whitney has been approved by the Secretary of War." (Collectio-ns 15, p. 9). Although the War Department had no authority to issue this "permit" to Whitney, the Indians were obviously unaware of it, and in exchange for the privilege of erecting a sawmill on the "rapids of the upper Wisconsin River," Whitney agreed with the Indians to saw "all the lumber required for the proper use of the Menominie nation, or the Government ·of the United States, by any person duly authorized, at a reasonable expense," and he or his heirs would provide the Indians, annually, in September, "for a space of ten years," the following items: 50 pounds of powder worth $20; 100 pounds ofshot worth $20; 200 flints worth $1; 50 pounds of tobacco worth $12.50; 100 pipes worth $2; and 12 bushels of, corn worth $13, for a total valuation of $68.50. (The document says $67.50). Since Whitney did not set his hand and. seal to this document until April 4, 1832, he probably did. not begin building his mill on the Wisconsin before the spring of 1832. The document was signed by Charles Grignon, a witness, in the presence of San1uel Stambaugh, acting ,agent for Indian affairs. Although the language relating to the location of the mill is hazy, viz: "near the rapids," the fact is that Whitney built a mill at the first rapids on an island in the Wisconsin River opposite modern Nekoosa because here is where Surveyor Joshua Hathaway found it in 183~, although abandoned. Meanwhile, having learned, nb doubt,. how easy it was for 'Whitney to get permission from the Indians and the War Department to build a mill,o;n the upper Wisconsin, Amable Grignon II left his trading post at the mouth of the Yellow River on the Wisconsin and returned to Green Bay to ask the Indians for the same privileges that Whitney had been granted, except that he proposed to build both a sawmill and a grist mill. This did not represent two mills, but a combined mill in 15 which the water wheel could be geared to turn either a set of meal stones or an "up-and-down" saw. The sawmill section was usually located in a lean-to built off the grist mill. On October 24, 1831, two months after Whitney got permission to build, Amable Grignon signed a similar document, called a "grant or privilege" in later texts, which permitted him, by the grace of the Menominee Indians, to build a saw and-or grist mill on the upper Wisconsin. This important document was discovered by George Crowell in the Hathaway Papers held at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Crowell, formerly of Almond, now of Menasha, is a collector of early historical papers especially related to the postal system. In addition to giving Grignon certain rights in Menominee territory along the upper Wisconsin, the grant also placed him under obligation to provide .certain services and goods to the Menominees. The document is signed by Oshkosh (his X mark) the Brave, and by Kaush-kaw-nawe-nia (his X mark), also known as Grizzly Bear, chief orator of the Menominee nation. (James M'Call's Journal in Vol. 12 of Collections refers to him as "Bear Grease.") The document is addressed to the president of the United States. Since it does not appear to have been published before it will be quoted here in full: "The undersigned chiefs and head nlen of the Menominie Nation of Indians residing in the neighborhood of Green Bay, respectfully represent that our friend and brother, Amable Grignon, is desirous of erecting mills on a stream called the Wisconsin River above the Portage so-called provided our Great 'Father (the President) and we the chiefs & head men aforesaid will assent to the same. That as we believe a grist and sawmill on said river at the rapids about one hundred and eighty miles above Fort Winnebago would be useful to us and our white breathern as well as beneficial to the government of the United States, we have given our full and free consent to. the erection of the same on the Wisconsin River at the place aforesaid and to the cutting and use of all timber in the vicinity necessary to the erection thereof and the lumbering at said mill. Stipulating for' ourselves and the United States that the said Grignon shall do all grinding when required to 16 do so by the Menominie chiefs for the proper use of the people of said nation, not exceeding two hundred bushels per annum when brought by them to said mill gratis, and that he shall also when required by any officer of the United States g'overnment, acting under proper authority, saw the lumber required for the public service and Menominie nation at a reasonable expense and without unnecessary waste of timber in the neighborhood of said mill within the boundaries he may be directed to occupy, either for the purpose of lumbering or agriculture, and that said Grignon, his heirs or assigns, shall give immediate and quit (claim) possession of the same to the government of the United States whenever required so to do. In additioll to the above stipulations for the benefit of the Menominie Nation the said Grignon promises to pay the chiefs of said nation, under direction of the United States Agent at. Green Bay, the following articles in the month of September annually for five years from the time said mill or mills is or are in operation, to wit: Fifty lbs. of powder One hu'ndred lbs. of shot One hundred flints We the chiefs and head men aforesaid most respectfully submit this application to the President of the United States and ask for its sanction." The names of Oshkosh the Brave and Grizzly Bear, designated by their marks, are incorporated in the next paragraph together with several corrections to the text. Underneath this paragraph appears the name of S. (for Samuel) C. Stambaugh, acting agent for Indian affairs. The next and final paragraph follows, signed by Grignon, in which he pledges himself and his heirs to abide by the provisions of the grant and respectfully asks "the Secretary of War to grant the privileges prayed for." The signature of Grignon was witnessed by M. (for Morgan) L. Martin, an attorney in Green Bay .. Thus, while the chiefs were directing their appeal to the President, Grignon was directing his remarks to the secretary of war, obviously a misunderstanding on the part of someone. It seems reasonable to assume that Stambaugh, being 17 the senior U.S. official present, composed the document. But no matter who composed it, the fact is that a major error was made in the location of the proposed mill for Amable Grignon II, to wit: "one hundred and eighty miles above Fort Winnebago." This would have placed it in Chippewa Indian country around the present city of Rhinelander. Nothing is said in this document about the size of the "grant or privilege" to Grignon, or how far from the river he could cut timber, or how many miles up the river from the mill, or down from the mill he could go. . But that there was a definite limit to the size of the grant is confirmed by the fact that a Green Bay surveyor, John Voorhees Suydam, was hired by someone, presumably Grignon, to survey it, or at least run the township lines. Since the document awarding the grant to Grignon was not signed until the latter part of October, 1831, it seems reasonable that Suydam did not get around to surveying it until the spring of 1832. There are interesting differences between the grants made to Grignon and to Whitney. For one thing, nothing is said about timber rights in the Whitney grant, or where he could cut timber, whereas Grignon was confined to a specific parcel of land along the Wisconsin River which, more important, had to be surveyed before he could begin cutting. But Grignon, who obviously had friends among the Menominee chiefs, too, did not have to pay as much to the Indians every year as Whitney, and what he did agree to pay, was only for five years instead of ten. The Indians also referred to Grignon as their "friend and brother," no doubt a reference to his Indian ancestry. But until further documentation can be found, there is no way of knowing how Suydam knew where to commence his survey for the Grignon grant. The fact is, when completed, the north line of the survey fell two miles below the south lille of present Wood County in range five. From later evidence to be introduced, it seems that the Grignon grant ran five or six miles along the river, and at least one mile wide on either bank. This would place the point of beginning for the survey, that is, the south line of the grant, 18 probably on Town 20 either in present Adams or Juneau Counties. Did Grignon build a mill of any kind on his grant? It does not seem so. In a map done a few years later by Deputy Surveyor Joshua Hathaway, a place name, "Grignon & Co.," appears. It was located on the west bank of the Wisconsin River in present Juneau County a little more than two miles south of the Wood County line. The map shows three buildings here. This also suggests that Grignon had moved his old trading post from the mouth of the Yellow River to the new site noted on Hathaway's map. However, farther north, that is, several miles up the river, Hathaway's map identifes "Grignon & Co. Mills," meaning either a sawmill or grist mill, lying roughly halfway between the modern cities of Nekoosa and Port Edwards. But there is no evidence, other than this map, that Grignon ever built a mill on this site, or one that went into operation in 1839. Perhaps it was his intention to build here. Perhaps he had the footings in; or a wing dam, but there the assumptions stop. In the fall of 1843, a lumberman at Grand Rapids (Wisconsin Rapids), John T. Kingston (Collections 8, p. 346), and a business partner, went down the Wisconsin River for the purpose of exploring the river better. Up to this time most of the information available had come from river men driving rafts down to the Mississippi, etc. Kingston said he got a skiff, loaded it with supplies, and the two men started out. They went ashore at night to make camp and eat. He says that they reached the mouth of the Yellow River (below Necedah) in six or eight days, and that they passed the Grignon trading post "six miles below Point Bausee, the only house or sign of civilized improvement then existing on the river between this point (the trading post) and the foot of the Dells (Wisconsin Dells)." He probably' erred in saying the trading post was six miles below Pointe Basse. It was--between two and three miles. .Kingston makes no mention of a sawmill run by either Grignon or by Whitney because Whitney had abandoned his mill and Grignon either never started one, or· if he did, he never finished it. Oddly enough, Kingston fails to mention 19 Robert Wakeley's tavern at Point Basse, but there appears to have been a hiatus in the 1840s when Wakeley was doing some logging to the north and probably it was at this time that the tavern was closed temporarily. From the Kingston account, there can be no doubt that Grignon was in the area, but operating a trading post, nota mill. An account written by another lumberman and chronicler of the past, John T. De La Ronde, (Collections 7, p. 358), also makes no reference to a Grignon mill on the upper Wisconsin. Within the last year Mr. Crowell has discovered a personal letter written by Grignon in French, under date of January 4, 1836. The letter head reads "Haut du Wisconsin," meaning the Upper Wisconsin (River). There is no clue in the letter to the actual location, but circumstantial evidence suggests that it was written from the camp where the three shanties are indicated on Hathaway's map, or two miles or so south of Point Basse. The envelope on the letter is addressed to "Messrs. Lawe, Pollier and Grignon," who were John Lawe, Jacque Pollier, and Louis Grignon, partners in the fur trade and associates of the American Fur Co. of New York. Mr. Crowell found this letter in the John Jacob Astor papers and the reason why it was included there was that mention is made in it to a "Mr. Crooks of New York," who is, undoubtedly, Ramsey Crooks, general manager and major stockholder in the American Fur Co. after Astor sold out in 1834. It is not practical to give a literal translation of this letter because the writing is hard to read and in several places illegible. Moreover, the verbs don't agree with the nouns in every case. Roughly, this is what the writer is trying to say: Grignon took advantage of the moment to inform his partners in Green Bay of the action taken by certain representatives of John DuBay who were stopping at the Grignon trading post after a trip up north where they had "gone to see all our savages." (In French, the word "Indian" is equated with savage, although the meaning is not entirely what it appears to be in English.) The representatives of DuBay were now heading south to Fort Winnebago. From 20 Fort Winnebago a letter was being forwarded by Lurant Rolette and Du Bay to New. York which, as anyone might judge from its source, would be nothing but a pack of lies. Both of these men had taken advantage of a favor they had received from Mr. Crooks in New York, and he, Grignon, was opposed to a certain order that had been issued. Also, someone had gone to see "all the crazy people" at (name illegible) where much business had been done. It appears that Grignon was being opposed by six n1en, who were all the more important to the matter at hand because the Winnebago Indians were involved. There is mention of percentage figures and of 10 head of horses, and Grignon wants to know how he can get back to a certain place, probably Green Bay, in order to see what measures could be taken to solve the problems facing him. In the last paragraph, Grignon thanks his partners for a quarter of bacon (or salt pork), presumably a hind quarter. He mentions Strong, who is probably Nelson Strong, a future lumberman in Grand Rapids, and he mentions something about illness and medicine. He thinks that all credits extending to DuBay had been taken up, and he intends to "go down," meaning down the river to Fort Winnebago on the 19th of January. Amable Grignon's trading posts, thus far, have been traced from 1831 to 1843. How long he continued after that time and where he died and is buried is presently unknown. His descendants are mentioned from time to time in connection with river rafting and other endeavors along the Wisconsin River and some still live in Wood County. Meanwhile, there is ample reason to suspect that there was a connection between the Grignon grant and Whitney's bold thrust into the "upper Wisconsin." In a document to be introduced in the next chapter, Joshua Hathaway refers to the "survey of Suydam for Whitney and for Grignon." This gives the impression that Whitney also had to have the land surveyed before he could build a sawmill at the first rapids, but there is no evidence to substantiate this. Interestingly, Whitney got permission to build a mill on the Wisconsin River a day after James Duane Doty got permission to build a n1ill on Doty's Island (Neenah- 21 Menasha). The grant to Doty mentions that he was not to "commit any unnecessary waste of timber" in the neighborhood of his mill (Collections 15, p. 15). The same thought .is included in the grant to Grignon in the very same wording, both warnings, no doubt, constituting the first environmental impact statement made in the history of Wisconsin Territory. At present it is not possible to determine when Grignon closed his trading post. As to Whitney, he definitely ceased operations before 1839. When Hathaway came through here in the spring of 1839, he found the "tail race of Whitney's old mill," and also the "old clearing at Whitney's mill." Thomas Cammack, a Stockbridge, writing in Collections (Vol. 1, p. 104) said that Whitney was in Calumet County in the mid-1830s building sawmills for the government, that is, mills that were turned over to the Stockbridge and Brothertown Indians east of Lake Winnebago. It was, no doubt, through men like Whitney and Grignon that word got back to lumbermen in the eastern states about the great reserves of white pine scattered throughout the forests of northern Wisconsin, and, since the white pine in Maine and New York was already becoming scarce, it was to Michigan and Wisconsin that these lumbermen were now looking to supply their future needs.

22 Chapter II

THE HATHAWAY SURVEY

After the conclusion of the Black Hawk War in 1832, farmers from New York, Ohio, and Indiana began moving into the Fox River valley of M,ichigan Territory, and the way things looked, it would not be long before there would be more white men than red men in the valley. In 1836, the federal 'government initiated action to purchase several million acres of land from the Menominee nation, most of it lying between the Fox and Wolf Rivers in present Winnebago and Outagamie counties. In addition, a special clause was inserted in the treaty in which the Menominees agreed to ceed a strip of land lying along both sides of the Wisconsin River from the south line of present Wood County (Town 21) 48 miles in a straightline to Big Bull Falls (Wausau). It was to be 3 miles wide on either bank of the river, and the whole to contain 184,320 acres of land. This clause in the treaty was inserted, no doubt, at the urging of lumbermen from St. Louis, Maine, New York and Pennsylvania, and at the private urging of Daniel Whitney. The treaty with the Menominees for the sale of these lands was signed at Cedar Point on Fox River September 3, . 1836. A wayside plaque, located off Highway 96 near Little Chute, erected by the State Historical Society, calls attention to this historic event. One of the first eastern lumbermen to take advantage of this clause in the treaty was George Stevens of Almond, New 23 JOSHUA HATHAWAY (Courtesy Wisconsin Historical Society)

York, who built the first sawmill at Big Bull Falls in 1839-40. When the contract came up to survey the "six-mile" strip, as it was often called, it was awarded to Joshua Hathaway, whose portrait painting today hangs among the honored men and women of Wisconsin in the galleries of the State Historical Society. It took all spring, summer and the autumn of 1839 for Hathaway to complete the survey. Since this is one of the earliest land surveys in Wisconsin Territory, it helps to explain why some of the earliest history in the state is 24 written around the cities of Nekoosa, Port Edwards, Wisconsin Rapids, Plover, Stevens Point, Mosinee and Wausau. . Two years ago, Anthony Kiedrowski, surveyor for Portage County, who has made a study of the early surveys in Wisconsin, visited the National Archives in Washington. Here he found some of the original documents and maps associated with the Hathaway survey, one of which reveals that on February 18, 1839, Hathaway entered into a contract with A.G. Ellis, then the surveyor-general for Wisconsin-Iowa Territory, to survey the township lines along the Wisconsin River in the area already described. He was to be paid three dollars a mile for running the township lines. No mention is made of the crew that accompanied him. Out of the $9,000 or.so that he was eventually paid, he probably paid the wages of two chain men, an ax man, probably a flag man, a cook and perhaps a packer who led the horse that carried the provisions and tent, although chances are that the cook filled in as packer. The agreement also provided that Hathaway was to complete the survey by September 1, 1839 ("acts of God excepted") on penalty of· forfeiting his bond which was set at $4,500. His bondsmen were Benjainen Edgerton and Jonathan Arnold. But these two bondsmen knew they had little to worry about in Hathaway, a young man who had come from Rome, New York, to Chicago in 1832, and to Green Bay in 1833, where he became associated with A.G. Ellis in the surveying business. In 1835, he moved to Milwaukee and that year won a contract to survey townships 1, 2 and 3 in the very southeast corner of the future state of Wisconsin. When the contract came up to survey the Wisconsin River Valley, Ellis turned to his former associate to undertake the assignment. The treaty signed at Cedar Point in 1836 states that the survey of the Wisconsin River cession was to begin two miles above the Suydam survey made for Amable Grignon several years earlier. But the "grant or privilege" made to Grignon in 1831 said that he was to build a mill on the Wisconsin 180 miles above Fort Win.nebago! 25 Hathaway's own map, executed after he finished the survey, shows that he followed the 4th principal meridian north and then east on the li~e of town 21 to range five for his point of beginning, two miles north of the north line of the Suydam survey. Yet, .on June 3, 1839, several weeks after he had been in the field, Hathaway got a letter from Elisha Duwell, chief, surv:eyor at Dubuque, who signed A.G. Ellis' name above his own, giving "additional instructions" about the survey. It seems fairly certain that Ellis never saw, this letter, or he would have had the presenc,e of mind to correct it before it was sent, because it too repeats the same error about the location of Grignon's future mill 180 miles above Fort Winnebago. It is easy to imagine what Hathaway was thinking, now several weeks in the field and long past his point of beginning. The heavy hand of bureaucracy was already at work; someone either in Dubuque or Washington had not been keeping up with his mail. The last paragraph in the Duwell letter of instruction is interesting, however, not for its errors, but for the advice it gives on the technique of surveying, to wit: If you find that by extending the fourth principal meridian to the second correction line, that [then?] you are not in the latitude of the cession called in for your contract. You will, with the utmo~t ,care and practicable accuracy continue the said 4th Meridian due north, establishing the corners and you [will then] proceed until an east and west line will intersect the southern part of your survey. In regard to the length of the south boundaries of townships which may fall upon your work, you will make the proper allowance for the convergence of the meridians, the ratio of which you already have. Somehow or other, the real location of the mill and its "northernmost angle" had already been decided upon by Ellis. It was located on the Wisconsin River where the Hathaway map identifies the three Grignon shanties referred to earlier, that is, 2 miles south of the present Wood County line. Meanwhile, when Grignon noted that Hathaway was taking his measurements from the northernmost angle of one of his shanties, he became very upset and returned to Green 26 1839 HATHAWAY SURVEY UPPER WISCONSIN RIVER

N

I,I 036 SCALE IN MILES

MAP BASED ON ORIGINAL HATHAWAY SURVEY OF' 1839 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

DRAWN BY W. R. VACHON

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••••• u •••••••U;A

This is a reproduction of Joshua Hathaway's 1939-40 survey map of the upper Wisconsin River. Anthony Kiedrowski, Portage County surveyor, found the original in Washington, D.C., in the National Archives. The reproduction was made by William R. Vachon, a student of Ray Specht in the Geography and Geology Department at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Bay to engage Morgan L. Martin to ·protest this alleged violation of his rights. According to another letter found by Mr. Kiedrowski in the National Archives, Martin wrote to Ellis and said the point of beginning taken by Hathaway would "materially interfere with his [Grignon's] grant previously made by the Indians [and] one not in accordance with the terms of the treaty with the Menominees..." Now it would depend, which treaty or grant was Martin looking at? If he had read through the treaty of 1836, he would have known at once that the survey by Hathaway was to begin two miles above the Suydam survey. But Grignon wanted Hathaway to begin his survey at least two and a half miles above the north line of the Suydam survey because if he did not, he said it would deprive him of considerable timber. It seems a little hard to believe, but yet it is quite possible that there was not much pine growing in the immediate vicinity of the trading post, and what there was of it, Grignon wanted to reserve for himself. On the other hand, there is no evidence that he ever built a mill here or anywhere else on the Wisconsin River. Was he planning to begin logging and floating the logs down eto a mill, probably at" Portage? There is no answer to this either, but there is also no doubt that Grignon was quite upset or why would he engage an attorney to lodge a formal protest with the government? In the letter Martin worte to Ellis, he ends by suggesting that he, Le. Ellis, should instruct Hathaway to alter his survey, for if he did not it would "materially infringe on the grant of Mr. Grignon." Incredibly, this letter to Ellis was written at Green Bay on Novenlber 15, 1839, just about the time that Hathaway was completing his survey. Did Martin seriously believe that Ellis was going to tell Hathaway to come back and start over again? But Martin was writing what his client wanted him to write, not what he may have believed. Surveyor-General Ellis, however, was aware of the complaint by Grignon long before Grignon went to see Martin about it. On April 3, 1839, according to another letter 28 found in the National Archives, Ellis wrote to his superior at Washington, James Whitcomb, commissioner of the General Land Office, to tell him that he had searched the records and could not find any trace of the Grignon grant. In other words, Ellis had not seen the document signed in Green Bay on October 24, 1831, allowing Grignon to build a mill on the upper Wisconsin River. Whitcomb replied to Ellis and said that he would "perceive that the grant or privilege of Amable Grignon.. .is situated at the foot of the Rapids· of the Wisconsin River one hundred and eighty miles above Fort Winnebago..." This proves that Whitcomb had a copy or had seen a copy of the original document signed by Grignon and Oshkosh the Brave, but he had no idea that it contained a major error. He concludes his letter to Ellis by instructing him to have Hathaway commence his survey from the northernmost angle of Grignon's mill, which did not exist. Ellis must have realized by now that something was indeed amiss. He probably felt that Whitcomb was at fault, but he was not, of course. In any event, Ellis asked for no more instructions from Washington. He told Hathaway to stick to the terms of the treaty of 1836 and begin his survey two miles above the Suydam survey, namely on Town 21. This suggests that he had either talked to Suydam or seen a copy of his survey. In addition to the Kiedrowski materials, another.important letter relating to Hathaway has been found by Mr. ·George Crowell. It was written by Hathaway to A.. G. Ellis and the place of origin is given as "Conants Mill T.23 N.R. 8 E. W.T." (town 23 north,.range 8 east, Wisconsin Territory). Conants Mill was a partnership between Gilbert Conant and Daniel Campbell. Their up-and-down or "sash" sawmill stood on the west bank of the Wisconsin River opposite the modern village of Whiting. Mr. Crowell first learned of the Hathaway letter from a catalog published in Los Angeles. He got in touch with the owner and acquired a copy of it. The letter may be the earliest available in the English language written from within the present limits of Portage County. It will be quoted in full and later an attempt will be made 29 to clarifY a confusing and yet remarkable letter. It is dated June 17, 1839, and, as already mentioned, it is addressed to A.G. Ellis, surveyor-general for Wisconsin-Iowa. "Sirs: I have to apologize for not having before reported my progress to you. My field books (blanks) are stationary, not having yet reached me, over and above what I carried out on the meridian line, will account for the neglect and for my not having sent herewith copies of field notes or surveys to this date. I have now to report the following facts, in order that further instructions may be sent if necessary. My survey of T. (town) & R. (range) lines reach now 'about 3 townships above what I consider to be the commencement or lower extremity of the Menominee cessions, judging from all the data I have at hand and assuming that the survey of Suydam for Whitney and for Grignon is correct. A copy of that survey I have seen & probably one can be procurred at Green Bay. Unless further instructed I shall extend section lines as near this upper line of Suydam as I can and be 2 miles by river course above it. As to privileges they are generally conceded to reach 6 miles upstream from the foot of certain rapids; if in a straight line, then the survey of Suydam is probably right; but it is contended that the grant was only for 6 miles in length & 1 mile in breadth, the length to be by course of the river (italics his) which would reduce the present length and permit me to extend sectionizing down the river 1 or 2 miles farther. Reference to the original treaties which are on file (said to be) in the War Department, also at the Indian Agency at Green Bay, would settle this question distinctly. This, I hope may be done before I finish out the lower end of my district, t.hat my instructions may be explicit and relieve me from the responsibility of deciding when adverse interests conflict. There are 2 mills (Bloomers & Co.) on the 2 mile reserve as the survey of Suydam would indicate. The Plover Portage trail is on this township (Le. town 23) and not much more than 3 townships (by "straight line") above the lower end of the cessions. The mouth of the Plover River is also on this township (8 E. in 23 N.) I am told that certain of the Indian Chippeway chiefs claim to hold this country above the Menominee cessions by reason of not have been present of the cessions treaty. I have found the tract exceedingly hard to survey, as nlY notes will hereafter show. Should a delay of the survey be deemed expedient by the Surveyor-General on account of any question arising from the foregoing statements, the same will not be inconvenient or unacceptable to me. I have the honor to be, etc. 30 At least one thing is clear: Hathaway seems worried about his point of beginning. It is doubtful whether he had received the letter from the chief surveyor, Duwell, since he makes no mention of it. But what he has to say to Ellis, among other things, is also confusing. For example, he said he was going to extend his section lines as "near as possible to the upper line of Suydam as I can and be 2 miles by river course above it." And then he adds: "as to privileges, they are generally conceded to reach 6 miles up stream from the foot of certain rapids; if in a straight line then the survey of Suydam is probably nearly right; but it is contended that the grant to Grignon was only for 6 miles in length & 1 mile in breadth..." This is gobbledegook, 19th century style. Why did he .not name the "certain rapids" or at least give Ellis a clue to its location? Further on he says "it is contended," etc., but why was it necessary to bring in the contensions of others? If he had seen a copy of the Suydam survey, what others "contended" was immaterial. Finally, to further confuse Mr. Ellis-and later-day historians-Hathaway says "there are 2 mills (Bloomers & Co.) on the 2 mile reserve as the survey of Suydam would indicate." But the words "Bloomers & Co." are superimposed, in parenthesis, above the sentence in the letter, seemingly ~s an afterthought. Was Hathaway clear in his own mind where the Bloomer mills were actually located? He was not on the spot when he wrote this; he was near the present city of Stevens Point, and it seems very possible that he had already forgotten just exactly where the Bloomer mills stood. His own map, executed later, shows that the Bloomer "property"-he does not use the word mill-was located on the east bank of the river just below the present Consolidated dam in Wisconsin Rapids. He indicates on his map a wing dam extending north from an island-now submerged-which funneled the water between the island. and the east bank of the river into a flume that turned the waterwheel on the shaft that powered the carriage and saw in the mill. It seems quite possible that the insertion "Bloomers & 31 Co." is out of place. Hathaway was talking about the Suydam survey and that had to lie in present Adams-Juneau counties, not in Wood County. It is difficult to understand why Hathaway did not have a copy of the Suydam survey with him instead of carrying it around in his head. In his field notes, kept in small notebooks and preserved in the Hathaway Papers at Madison, Hathaway refers to "Pt. Bausse," a misspelling for "basse," French for a shallow, shoal or reef. This shallow was located opposite Robert Wakeley's tavern within the south line of present Wood County. In fact there can be little doubt that Wakeley located on the left bank of the river at this fording place because this is where the Indians crossed the river, not in spring flood, but under normal conditions. Hathaway also explains in his field notes that the slack water below the rapids near here was the final place for refitting lumber rafts that had been disassembled for the run through the Grand Rapids. This appears to be the earliest reference made to rafting lunlber on the Wisconsin River. The rafts of lumber were, presumably', coming down from Bloomer's mill, or Conant & Campbell below Stevens Point, or Abraham Brawley's mill on Mill Creek, but not from George Stevens who did not send any rafts down from Big Bull Falls (Wausau) until the spring of 1841. In his summation of this township Hathaway says that there was a '~succession of rapids & chutes called the Grand Rapids" where ~ there were two "extensive lumbering establishments thereon owned by Bloomer, CharrLberlain, Adams~ Strong~ Hill & others, now in operation." There were two Bloomers in the area, Robert and Edward, but Robert seenlS to have been the leader. There does not appear to be any trace of Chamberlain in the records of Wood County, but there is of Aaron Adams, Nelson Strong and David B. Hill. . In section 22 of town 21 (the town of Port Edwards), Hathaway passed "2 old shingle shanties," and a log house of Peter Dennes, and in the next line of his notes he says he passed "the house of L. Sevallia and Geo. Houle." A bit farther on he passed the house of T. Houle and Joseph 32 Sevallia "who claims the fiction as being the first settler." Whether first or not, here, no doubt, are some of the first people to settle, at least temporarily, in Wood County. The community was located east and north of Wakeley's tavern and there are old graves in a cemetery probably related to these pioneers. . One of the extraordinary sights that greeted Hathaway's eyes was a so-called railroad that ran southeast from the river a little more than a. kilometer to a depot. The railroad took off from a point on the Wisconsin River near the present village of Biron where the map of Hathaway identifies "Iron Ore, Two mills." The railroad may have been a narrow gauge, with no locomotive, but which was used to haul ore cars from a mine presumably located near the depot. It can only be assumed that the ore was smelted at the "two mills" and then loaded into keel boats and shipped down the river. But who was the river pilot who dared to run the Grand Rapids in a keel boat or any other kind of boat loaded with iron ingots? Perhaps he portaged around the rapids, but whatever he did, he did not do it long. Hathaway leaves no clue to the identity of the·miners, who probably canle up from Mineral Point after listening to some Indians tell about the ore they had found near the river. In his own field notes, Hathaway refers to the railroad this way: "Railroad! to Draper WNW." The exclamation mark seems to suggest his astonishment. But the Draper he refers to was no doubt Sayetee Draper who was probably about to begin building a sawmill on the river. A few years later, in 1846, the mill was purchased by Francis Biron and there has been a sawmill or papermill on or near the original Draper site ever since. In his summation of town 21 (Port Edwards township,) Hathaway has this to say: "The timber nearly all burned off by the yearly Indians fires. The large pines, valuable for lumber, are all gone... On the who,le it may be said of this town that for soil or timber it is nearly worthless..." Hathaway's reference to the "yearly Indian fires" brings up a bit of history which has gone largely unnoticed. One of the first to point out this practice of burning was 33 the Rev. J.C.W. Dietrichson, who organized the first Norwegian-Lutheran churches in Dane County in 1844. In the spring of 1845, he made a trip by horse and buggy to a Norwegian settlement on Fox River in northern Illinois. On his return, he described the countryside he passed through in these words: "Ahead of me lay the fresh green grass carpet which has been laid newly over vast stretches of land-a beautiful sight, one especially delightful after the prairie fires that each year are started, partly by the Indians to make their hunting easier and partly by the settlers, to speed the growth of the new grass." In Wisconsin, not -many settlers dared to burn offthe dead grass in a clearing for fear of setting fire to the timber. But the Indians took their chances and burned off small clearings. When Knut Erickson Tveitan emigrated from Norway in 1852, he bought two forties of land west of Iola,and the reason he took this parcel was that one forty had been largely burned off by the Indinas. The brush had not grown up and the stumps left behind in the burned timber were easily removed. The Indians .. burned off their clearings, and prairie, as Dietrichson says, to improve hunting. In the forest the green grass in a clearing would attract wild game and birds. But after settlement of the white man began in earnest, this practice was discontinued, even on the prairie. A prairie fire, out of control, could destroy farms and farmers alike in a matter of hours. As he made his way up the Wisconsin River, Hathaway came across Abraham Brawley's first saw mill on "Tooth River" (Mill Creek), and later he crossed the "Plover Portage trail," a portage used by the Indians between the Yellow Banks and the Tomorrow River-Wolf ~ystem. In what is now Whiting village, he found A. (for Azon) Richardson's mill, and across the river, the mill of Conant & Campbell where he paused long enough to write the letter quoted earlier. A short distance north of the mill he found the old and new farms of Pete and Francis Shaurette. Back on the east bank of the river again, he found a trail leading to the American Fur Co. trading post of John DuBay. He does not mention DuBay but either DuBay or members of his 34 family were tending the post at the time. While in the vicinity, Hathaway had his men pitch their tent near the trading post, no doubt overlooking the river. Near the top of his map Hath~way identifies "Little Bull Falls" (Mosinee) and at the very top "Big Bull Falls" where he found the "dam of Geo. Stevens." In his field notes, however, he mentions not only "Bull Falls," but also "Bull Falls Rock." On another meander line he refers to "Willow Island" where the river [was] full of rocky rapids." Farther on he mentions "Maple Island" and finally "Meadow Stack Island," all in the Wausau area. Two of these islands, no doubt,- were later renamed Clark and Plumer after D.L. Plumer and John C. Clarke, early mill owners wholocated on these islands. Hathaway identifies the "Rib River" and "Bull Island" but the lack of legibility on the section numbers referring to Bull Island leaves ~his entry unresolved. Unfortunately, Hathaway's field notes covering his survey of three townships in present Marathon County, 26, 27 and 28, in range. seven along the river, are not in the Hathaway Papers, nor are they included in the microfilm on the same subject. Hathaway makes no mention of George Stevens in his field notes, which seems strange. He identifies his dam on the map, as noted above. Perhaps when Hathaway passed through here in November, 1839, Stevens had returned to Belvidere, Illinois, or gone back to his family in Almond, New York, for the winter. In his survey of the "six-mile" strip, Hathaway did not follow one bank of the river up and return down on the opposite bank. It is fairly evident that he was using a canoe or skiff or whatever was available from the Indians or the mill owners and traders to cross the river. From his map it would appear that he crossed it at least six times.. While he was resting at the DuBay trading post, Hathaway took the occasion to write a letter to Charles H. Larrabee, "collector of Brown County." Larrabee, a young lawyer when he migrated from the East to Wisconsin Territory, later became a circuit judge and congressman. He was also a nephew. of Hathaway, and one of the founders of the State 35 Historical Society of Wisconsin. In his brief letter to Larrabee, Hathaway gives his position in the letterhead as "Wisconsin River 100 miles above Fort Winnebago & above Plover Portage near A. (American) Fur Co. House." The date: October 23,1839. George Crowell, who found this letter in the archives at Madison,. believes it is the first letter ever to mention in writing the words "Plover Portage," a place name later shortened to Plover. The map referred to in the above, which identifies "Plover Portage trail," was made after Hathaway finished the survey, not before this letter was written from DuBay's. In his letter to Larrabee, Hathaway seems worried about back taxes he is owing on some property and this is what he says: Dear Sir: Your favor covering tax schedule did not reach Milwaukee until I had left and has been forwarded to me in the woods. I shall have to remain here until I complete my survey and cannot now make the necessary remittances, but if you will have lands of the inclosed schedule reserved from tl}e advertizing & sale I will pay you soon as I get out of the woods where I can [pay you] say from the first to the 15th ,of January next. I have retained a copy of this letter with the amt. [amount] of the schedule ($33.85) and if consistent I shall be much obliged by your compliance with my request. Yours very respectfully, J.R. y. He draws a long line between the last initial and the 'y'. The letter may be the first and last ever written from the. DuBay trading post. DuBay himself was illiterate. . The fact that Hathaway was still at DuBay's on October 23, and that he completed his survey a month or so later, suggests that his crew did some fast work in the next four weeks, probably because the weather favored them, and no doubt because they were anxious to finish before the first snow. Hathaway completed his survey and sent his field notes and maps to Surveyor-General Ellis who, it appears, was in Galena at the moment. On December 29, 1839, Ellis wrote to Hathaway from there to inform him that he had sent a draft in favor of "Messrs. Bloomer for $77.60." 36 This suggests that Hathaway was owing Bloomer & Company, probably for billeting and feeding his crew while working in the district around the Grand Rapids. In his brief note also, Ellis hoped that Hathaway would come by way of Green Bay on his way to Milwaukee because he wanted to see him. Ellis expected to be in Green Bay "all the winter." The envelope from Ellis is addressed to "Mr. Joshua Hathaway, Dep. [deputy] Sr. [surveyor], Pineries, Upper Wisconsin, W.T. [Wiscontin Territory]." Since no post office is designated, it seems clear that the letter was being carried safe hand by someone going into the north country. Probably it was John DuBay. Mr. Crowell also found one envelope addressed to Hathaway in "Milwaukie, Ouisconsin Ty." and one to A.G. Ellis in "Ouisconsin Ty." The letter to Hathaway was sent by Henry Stringham, a bank cashier in Green Bay, on March 21, but the year is obliterated. Both of these letters are introduced here to show that the spelling of "Wisconsin" was still a bit confused and that some people were using the old French spelling "Ouisconsin." But neither Ellis nor Hathaway used this spelling in the letters quoted above. After he completed his survey, Hathaway returned to the fast-growing village of Milwaukee. He did more surveying and then at least as early as May 12, 1842, he was conducting a "General Land Agency for Wisconsin." According to his letter head, he was prepared to act as "land agent for resident or non-resident proprietors, to buy or sell lands, to pay taxes," etc. etc. Joshua Hathaway was only 53 years old when he died in Milwaukee in 1863. He died in a brick house he had built on a lot where he had pitched a tent 28 years earlier. He left a widow, Ann Jeanette Hathaway, a second cousin, and five children, Andrew, John, Mary, Jeanette and Sarah. In 1926, Andrew and John presented several boxes of correspondence and papers left by their father to the State Historical Society of which Hathaway was a life-long me"mber. One letter not included in his correspondence, written by Hathaway to his wife while she was still living in Buffalo, New York, has been acquired through public auction by Mr. Crowell. 37 When the letter was written, Hathaway had already entered upon a career as land agent and broker. The letter to his wife, dated Saturday, June 15, 1844, reveals a slightly frustrated and lonesome man, waiting patiently for his young wife to make up her mind about coming to Milwaukee to join him. This is what he says: My dear wife: I wrote you a few days since & enclosed $10 (No.2) but not finding a trusty opportunity did not send it off until Thursday night which I did by Mr. Helfinstein in the Western [name of a . lake boat] with a request to mail it at Detroit. I have' a budget of news for you. We have just struck the balance of profits & loss accounting which is a little over 1300 dol. [dollars] with a net profit if all are collected without loss. This being the end of the first year. Thursday night I received a letter fronl E. saying that she should start the 10th of June for Milwaukee, so I expect her about the 20th. Thot. [thought] Joy had written that Geo. had started, hoped he would not come as her mind was fixed. Geo. met a'letter at St. Louis which has turned him back & he is now here, arrived last night, but I have hardly seen him yet. I intended to finish off plainly the front basement with a floor, whitewash & stove, so that it will do for the girls" bedroom & thus we can get along for the summer. Some mischieviousboys have visited my garden occasionally & broken of bearing branches of apple trees, others have experimented on the barn windows with stones. I shall be ghid to have someone there to guard the premises. I am getting tired of boarding so that if you are willing I should be inclined to come down interim to return before the 1st of July, but expecting Elizabeth & having engagements on the 1st & 8th of July I shall not start before the 8th or 9th of the month. I want to see you very very much & hope you will be willing to return by that time. I have received but two letters from you yet, but have written you a dozen & sent you several newspapers, one of which was refused & came back here to be forwarded, but as I had sent it by private conveyance, nothing was done about it & I send it to you again by mail after rubbing out the writing. The tables at the Milwaukee house are full every day. The ladies are all well, some of them come down rather "late to breakfast. My affectation can be heard allover the room occasionally & expressive glances are exchanged [next two words illegible] of the ladies voice is far below the reality; wouldn't I be mortified if another lady should do the likes? We have had a very wet cold spring, favorable to, nothing but the worms in the garden who eat all before them.' I fight them every night & shall be able to save one row of peas and several tomato plants., winter squashes & com. The rest is all gone. 3 days 38 hot weather would kill them but there is no immediate prospect of it now. Mr. Joseph Bowman is now in Walworth County on a visit, has not brought out his family & I hardly think he ever will. My budget is empty. You have all the news to this date & some of the gossip. Write more often, tell me particularly of your health & of the baby. Kiss him a hundred times for me. Love to all the family, Mrs. Cam Ann & all the enquiring friends~ Tell Mr. Doctor Low that "the road to Boston" lies through Wisconsin & he had better remove hither. I have not seen Mr. Cam for several days but was told he is well, yesterday. Don't neglect to reply about coming home, th~t I may be prepared. Mr. Crocker and Miss Blanchard wrote that you were homesick, so that I shall not be surprised to see you back with Crocker & wife. He goes forth in about two weeks. My last charge is, be careful of your health. Most unchangeably Your "Old Beloved." The envelope was addressed to Mrs. Joshua Hathaway, care . of E. Hathaway Esq., 190 Main street, Buffalo, New York. The Crocker mentioned here is no doubt Colonel Hans Crocker, an early lawyer in Milwaukee. He is listed as one of the "references" on Hathaway's letter head. Charles Larrabee; mentioned earlier, probably lived for a time at Plover. On September 4, 1850, according to a letter found by Mr. Crowell, written from' "Plover, Portage Co.," Hathaway is addressed as "Dear Uncle." This is what it says: When I last wrote you I expected to go soon to Dodge Co. for money. I could not go, being detained by visitors, hence did not get the money. I expected it-last week on my way through, but didn't get it. I now do all I can, and will.pay the balance as soon as possible. "With my best regards to Aunt Jeanette, and my sympathy to you both for the loss ofyour little (name illegible)." The Hathaways had lost a child. This letter was addressed to "Joshua Hathaway Esq. Milwaukee, Wis." Wisconsin was no longer a territory. It was written on September 4, postmarked "Plover, Wi." but the post mark is dated August 5, meaning that the postmaster had failed to move his stamper ahead. There probably was little mail going out and he hadn't even noticed the march of time! .

39 Chapter III

THE SAGA OF GEORGE STEVENS

A granite marker overlooking the Wisconsin River at the foot of Main Street in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, calls attention to the historic journey of George Stevens, a lumberman on his way north to build a sawmill at Big Bull Falls (Wausau). The marker says he passed through here in 1838. This is possible; he may have made an exploratory trip to locate a mill site on the Big ·Eau Pleine river that year, but it was not until the early summer of 1839 that he actually moved north with a crew and supplies destined for Big Bull Falls, not the Big Eau Pleine. There was a spit of land running into the river at the foot of Main Street which probably had been cleared by the Indians, most likely Chippewas, as a temporary camp ground when crossing the river by canoe in one direction or the other. The river was not'so wide that an Indian could not shoot an arrow across it, and by standing at the end of the point, he could probably draw a bead on a big buck bending down for a sip of water on the opposite shore. But there were no Indians on the clearing when Stevens arrived in 1839, And he at once rented or purchased a shanty that one of the workmen at the Conant· & Campbell sawmill had built, but abandoned. He used this shanty as a storage and staging area for supplies going north, either by wagon or canoe. It was first called "Stevens Landing," a name shortly changed in the possessive to "Stevens' Point," which also quickly changed to "Stevens Point." For several years the name was also spelled "Stephens Point." When Cutting 40 This sketch, purporting to be of George Stevens, first appeared in the Gazette, a Stevens Point weekly newspaper, in 1893.

Marsh, the missionary on horse back, came through here in November 1849, he called the village that had grown up here "Stephens Point." After 1852 or so, that spelling was seldom used. Within the past several years, new documentation has been unearthed which sheds further light on the "Saga of George Stevens" and his role in the economic development of the Wisconsin River valley. These documents were preserved by 41 the Single and Thayer families of Wausau, but the man who preserved this precious collection in the first place was Charles Boswell, a member of the lumber firm at St. Louis, Missouri, that backed Stevens in his lumber venture into the Wisconsin pinery. Charles Boswell's daughter, Jane, came to the pinery for her health and "stayed to become the bride of Benjamin Single. They were married at the home of Walter McIndoe at Wausau on August 23, 1849. Their daughter, Rosetta Single, inh"erited the Stevens papers from her mother. Rosetta married Lyman Thayer, another pioneer of Wausau, and before he died the papers­ passed to his brother, Eugene Thayer, a pioneer newspaper editor in Wausau. And before he died, Eugene turned the collection (hereafter referred to as the Thayer Collection) over to the then Wausau Historical Society. Actually, what Thayer turned over to the society was a set of photographic copies.. He had them framed under glass and displayed for the first time, apparently, at the Courthouse in Wausau in 1926. The original papers have since been .lost. After these copies were displayed in 1926, the Wausau Pilot ran a series of articles about the pioneers who built Wausau, and one of the series deals with George Stevens (he always abbreviated his name to Geo.) based on information found in the Thayer Collection. But the writer of the series either did not have all the documents available at the time or he (or she) overlooked a key document in the collection, not to mention considerable information found in expense accounts kept by the St. Louis lumber firm in its dealings with Stevens. Another document, unrelated to the Thayer Collection, was made public only recently. This is a letter which was included in a large batch of correspondence relating to the business affairs of Joshua Hathaway. These papers and letter covers were offered for sale in 1977 by a collector in Los Angeles. One who bid on them was George Crowell, who acquired, among other memorabilia, a letter written by Geo. Stevens from Big' Bull Falls to Joshua Hathaway on June 12, 1840. Joshua Hathaway, it may be recalled, was the government 42 surveyor who in 1839 ran the town and section lines along the Wisconsin River from below present Nekoosa to Wausau. The earliest document in the Thayer Collection is a personal letter written .by Stevens on December 7, 1838, from his home in Almond, New York, which lies about 75 kilonleters southeast of Buffalo in Allegany county. (The name Allegany becomes Allegheny in Pennsylvania.) The letter is addressed to George Morton, an associate of William Morrison and Charles Boswell in the lumber business at St. Louis. Stevens .had been doing business with the firm, shipping lumber and byproducts down to the Allegany (Allegheny) River into the Ohio and Mississippi to St. Louis. He was not rafting lumber. He was shipping planks, shingles, fence posts, etc. which were piled on top lumber rafts as "deckload." From the letter he wrote to Morton, we learn that Stevens had been in Wisconsin Territory in 1838 and he had just returned home after a rather harrowing experience. He had taken a lake boat, probably out of Milwaukee or Racine, and the vessel had run into one of the worst gales "that was ever experienced on Lake Huron & Lake Erie." Stevens had also suffered some kind of a setback to his health on the trip, according to this letter, but he had improved on the journey home. Despite this, he promises Morton that "I shall come on in the spring as early as possible (sic) can get down the Allegany River." In closing he sends his best wishes to lVlrs. Morton, to Boswell, and to Lady and Mr. Morrison~ Apparently Boswell was still a bachelor, while Mrs. Morton was a "Mrs." and Mrs. Morrison a "Lady." This letter of December 7, 1838 introduced two important facts: 1) Stevens had been in Wisconsin Territory in 1838, and 2), he was coming back as soon as he could get down the Ohio River in the spring of 1839. On this trip to Wisconsin Territory in 1838; he had definitely gotten as far north as Fort Winnebago (Portage), and circumstantial evidence s.uggests that he may have gone by canoe and on foot as far as the Big Eau Pleine River and probably as far as Big Bull Falls.

43 The question arises: what brought George Stevens to Wisconsin in 1838? He had first gone to St. Louis, no doubt, with lumber products and sold them to the firm of Morton, Morrison & Boswell. At St. Louis he appears to have met Robert Wakeley, a fellow "Yark stater," who, in the latter part of 1837 had come to Wisconsin to open a tavern-inn and trading post at an Indian crossing on the Wisconsin River a short distance. south of the Highway 73 bridge in present Wood County. Daniel Whitney, who built the first sawmill on the upper Wisconsin River on an island opposite present Nekoosa, almost surely Was the man who encouraged Wakeley to open this trading post. Whitney knew that the lumberjacks and traders moving back and forth between his mill and Fort Winnebago needed a place to stay and he probably told Wakeley of this need when he first met him, no doubt in Green Bay. From all that is known about Wakeley, he was not a man to let any grass grow under his feet, and there is every reason to believe that he had been cruising the timber to the north of his trading post as far as the Big Eau Pleine River, because he too was interested in lumbering. (He later built a sawmill on a creek that ran through his property.) Thus, when Wakeley met Stevens in 1838, he was able to tell him about the great white pines nudging each other right up to the river banks, trees that could be rolled directly into the river without a team, trees unlike anything either he or Stevens probably had ever seen in their native New York state. Wakeley's report probably inspired Stevens to see for himself what the possibilities were for a lumberman. He probably traveled as far north as Wakeley's tavern with his friend, and from thEtre he could have been accompanied by workmen who w~re helping Conant & Campbell build a sawmill on the west bank of the Wisconsin River opposite the present village of Whiting. If he did seek out Conant & Campbell, where he could spend the night, he probably crossed the Wisconsin River at a ferry point north of modern Meehan. From Conant & Campbell's mill-in-construction, Stevens 44 may have been guided farther north either by Pete or Francis Charette, mixed bloods whom Whitney had brought with him from Green Bay several years earlier. One of the brothers perhaps knew the trail to the DuBay trading post, and from there Stevens could have been guided by one of the DuBay family or a Chippewa Indian known to the DuBays. One account of this first trip north by Stevens, written probably by Eugene Thayer, has Stevens setting off into the wilderness accompanied only by a dog. I seriously doubt that he would travel alone through an unexplored wilderness. He was 48 years old, and, while he may have been something of a plunger in business, he was far too experienced in life to travel alone. He had to have human contacts along the way, for to travel alone was dangerous, not because of any threat from the Indians, but because of the danger of getting lost, breaking a leg or running out of food. In any event, after he had looked over possible mill sites, Stevens returned to the tavern and rejoined Wakely and the two of them then went on to St. Louis. Here, on September 18, 1838, according to one of the documents in the Thayer Collection, the two men drew up an agreement "to purchase a mill site and 640 acres of pine timber on the first principal rapids on the Big River Oplain..." Stevens was to hold a three-fourths interest in the mill and a three-fourths interest in the 640 acres of "first rate timber." .The agreement also provided that Morrison & Boswell would share a third interest in the three-fourths o interest held by Stevens. But most important, the agreement provided that Wakeley and Stevens would "build a sawmill on one of these two sites this season," which meant in 1838, even though .it was late in seascn. The signature of Stevens appears first on the agreement, followed by Morrison and Boswell. It is witnessed by George Morton. But Wakeley's signature is missing. Moreover, the names of the other signatories are scarcely visible because they have all been scratched with 'a heavy pen. In short, Wakeley either did not have the necessary capital to join the other capitalists, or he changed his mind and refused to sign. Although no new agreement is included in the Thayer Collection, it is plain from later evidence that Stevens then 45 made a deal with the three partners, Morton, Morrison & Boswell, to build a sawmill somewhere in the pinery, they to hold a three-fourths interest in the venture and he a fourth interest. They were to share in the cost of construction, purchase of timber tracts, etc. Stevens got a $1,000 advance from the partners to begin operations. He wasted no time. On the very day that this first agreement with Wakeley was made and scratched and a new agreement substituted for it, Stevens went out on the town in St. Louis and purchased $1,477.26 worth of "merchandise" which he immediately shipped on board a Mississippi River boat to Galena, Illinois. This information appears in an expense account kept by the three partners in their dealing with Stevens and found in the Thayer Collection. On October 5, 1838, a Captain Harris was paid $164.75 at Galena, almost surely for carrying the "merchandise" in his boat up from St. Louis. A second entry' in the expense account shows that on the same day as the captain got paid, someone else got $4.38 for "drayage at Galena," no doubt for moving the merchandise from the Galena River front into a warehouse. The next entry in the expense account is dated October 8, to cash for $140 which was '·'left with McLean & Co. to pay pf [freight] to Fort Winnebago." In other words, someone had been hired to haul Stevens' goods from Galena to Fort Winnebago which, as the crow flies, lies about 125 kilometers to the northeast. Galena, incidentally, was at this time the main supply point and jumping-off place for miners moving into the Wisconsin lead mines between Platteville and Mineral Point. The last item Stevens was debited for in 1838 is dated December 6 "for McLean & Co. for mill irons." The amount: $31.50. The term "mill irons" appears in other documents associated with the sawmill industry of this early period. A sawmill in 1838, however, bore little resemblance to a sawmill of today or even one built in 1875. It was, in fact, little more than a mechanized whipsaw which used a rather long, narrow saw blade, suspended or positioned vertically, powered by a waterwheel. The saw moved up and down 46 through the log much as a man in a pit and a man above the pit pushed and pulled on the hand-powered whipsaw.

This type of sawmill was used in eastern Pennsylvania in the 18th and 19th centuries and also in Wisconsin in the period between 1840 and 1870. It made 100 to 130 strokes per minute. The log moved forward on a carriage at the rate of one inch or more per stroke, or two feet or more per minute. The name "sash saw" is applied to this type of mill and is derived from the frame or "sash" which held the saw blade as it moved up and down, vertically, like a mechanized whipsaw, through the log. The mill in this picture is not complete. It was moved to the Smithsonian Institution in 1961 from Chester, Pennsylvania. (Photo courtesy Smithsonian Institution.)

According to the American Mechanical Dictionary (V.3), published in 1884, sawmills driven by water power were developed in Europe as early as the 13th century. There was an up-and-down saw of some kind built at Augsburg in 1322, in Breslau in 1427, in Norway in 1520 and in Rome in 1556. But these mills were isolated and it appears that the main 47 reason for their lack of popularity came from workmen, accustomed to sawing with a whipsaw, who saw the water­ powered up-and-down saw as a threat to their livelihood and they often destroyed them by mob violence. New Englanders and Virginians, no doubt, made improvements to the up-and-down sawmill brought over from Europe, and by the time George Stevens was erecting his first mill at Big Bull Falls, .he probably installed the most advanced type available. A reconstructed and authentic up-and-down sawmill is today on ex·hibit at the National Museun1 of History and Technology in Washington, D.C. This mill once stood in eastern Pennsylvania and it was fairly intact when it was purchased from the owner in 1961 by the Smithsonian Institution. Pictures were taken of the mill before it was dismantled and moved to Washington. However, they do not show. how the carriage, on which the log rested, moved backward. The carriage moved forward on a guided gear track and the gears under the carriage meshed with a shaft and wheel which in turn was geared to a crankshaft turned by the waterwheel. The reconstruction also fails to show how the waterwheel provided the power that lifted the sawblade up and down. The saw log on the carriage was secured by "dogs" at either end. These "dogs" were made by a blacksmith. Nelson Week, a son of John Week, founder of the John

Week Lumber Co. in Stevens Point t remembered the first up­ and-down sawmill his father operated on the Big Eau Pleine River in the early 1850s. He said the mill could saw around 5,000 board feet of lumber per day. This changed, of course, when Week installed the first circular saw in Marathon County in the late 1850s. One former lumberjack told me (many years ago) about an up-and-down sawmill that stood on Flume Creek, below Rosholt village, in the late 1860s. According to my informant, the sawyers rolled a log onto the carriage in the morning, secured the "dogs," started the mill in action, and then went to breakfast. By the time breakfast was finished, one board had been sawed!

48 Either the members of the crew swallowed a cup of coffee on the run or this man was exaggerating, because the saw blade operated much faster than that, and if the sawyers had gone to breakfast, the blade would have been sawing air long before they got back, at which time the whole mill would have been shaking. Meanwhile, George Stevens had reached Fort Winnebago (Portage) ahead of his "merchandise," for he tells George Morton, in a letter ·written from Almond, New York, that "the goods had not arrived at Fort Winebago [sic] when I left." He then goes on to say that the Wisconsin River at the. time he was at Portage was "so low that it was thought the boat could not get up the river until there came a rise and as the weather come on so cold freesing [sic] & dry, it is uncertain whether the goods are at the Pinery, Fort Winebago [sic] or Galena." He had written to agents in Galena and Fort Winnebago to learn whether or not his goods had arrived at either place. He was especially worried about the flour he had purchased because he was not sure it would keep over the winter. [There were no additives in flour in those days.] He said he would probably sell the flour as soon as he found out where' it was. The question arises: when Stevens drove ahead (or walked) from Galena to Fort Winnebago, expecting his goods to catch up with him, was he enroute to the Big Eau Pleine or to Big Bull Falls? Certainly he must have known where he was going or he would not have gone to all this trouble and expense. Therefore, he must have gotten as far as Big Bull Falls earlier that year (1838) because when he returned to the pinery in 1839, he went straight north to Big Bull Falls, not to the Big Eau Pleine. It makes no difference now but it is interesting to speculate how things might have been if Stevens had stopped on "the first principal rapids" of the Big Eau Pleine instead of going farther north. He probably would never have encountered the difficulties on the Big Eau Pleine that he ran into around the rock islands of Big Bull. 49 "The first principal rapids" on the Big Eau Pleine was no doubt the site of a mill erected in 1849 by Andrew Week and Olaf Dreutzer and shortly after taken over by others, and in 1851, by a younger brother, John Week, founder of the John Week Lumber Co. of Stevens Point. But it took longer for the goods to reach Fort Winnebago than Stevens had anticipated and it became "so cold freesing & dry" that he saw no chance of moving the goods upstream that season. Thus the fates conspired to prevent him from building a mill that year, somewhere, in the great Wisconsin pinery. In his letter to Morton, Stevens is wondering whether his goods had reached "the Pinery, Fort Winnebago or Galena," in that order. For some people the pinery began at Robert Wakeley's tavern in south Wood County. A Catholic missionary, Florimond J. Bonduel, in 1846 traveled north from Fort Winnebago as far as "the Pinery," according to a letter he wrote to a friend. He computed the distance as 70 miles. He did not say where ·he stopped when he got to "the pinery" but 70 miles northwest of Fort Winnebago would have put him just about at the front door of Wakeley's tavern. But historians today associate the pinery in north-central Wisconsin with points farther north than Wood County because there was not much white pine-the main source of wealth-south of a line running east and west along present Highway 54. Therefore, Stevens Point has claimed the distinction of being "the Gateway to the Pinery." Meanwhile, Stevens returned to St. Louis at least as early as May 1, 1839.. His account with hIS partners on that day was debited $35.87 for "freight from St. Louis to Galena." Again by Mississippi River boat. On June 17, he was debited $402.75 for "sundries at Galena, oxen, etc." From this, it seems clear, Stevens was traveling with one or more wagons drawn by oxen, but he was not depending entirely on his own means of transportation by any means because he was also debited $413.03 for "freight from Galena to Fort Winnebago etc." which someone else had hauled for him. 50 The nl0st interesting of these entries is dated August (1839) when Robert Wakeley was paid $20 "to boat goods from Potage [sic]." Fort Winnebago was also known as "Winnebago Portage" or simply as the "Portage." It was here that the Indians portaged between the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers. Wakeley was willing to "boat" goods up the river for Stevens. What was he using, an Indian canoe of birch bark, a dugout made from a hollowed tree, or a raft? FInally, there is another item debited $80.75 in September for "sundries for boating," and in October "sundries for labor" amounting to $15.52. All these expenses appear to be connected with the movement of mill equipment and groceries into the pinery in 1839. Stevens had decided to go it alone and build his own mill, not on the Big Eau Pleine, but at Big Bull Falls. Since there is no further charge for drayage, but only for "boating" in August and probably September, there is every reason to believe that these supplies were "boated" to Wakeley's tavern and from there hauled by oxen to "Stevens Landing," and from there by boat or raft up the Wisconsin River to Little Bull Falls, and after portaging around Little Bull, on to Big Bull by boat and by wagon. . Stevens purchased $1,477.26 worth of "merchandise" in September 1838 which had been shipped and hauled to Fort Winnebago. How much of this he was able t6 keep over the year is not known, but when he came back to Galena from St. Louis in the spring of 1839, he purchased "sundries and oxen" costing $402.75. Most of this was probably for the purchase of a yoke of oxen and for a wagon, or cart. And just what, besides salt pork and beans and groceries was he bringing with him to build a sawmill? For one thing he did not have to bring a peavey because it wasn't invented yet. He probably brought some sort of a Franklin stove for cooking and heating. (Fireplaces were practically useless, and wasteful of fuel.) He also needed kettles, coffee cans, dishes, tableware, lamps, lamp oil, axes, adzes, broadaxes, pickaxes, grub hoes, buck saws, shovels, augers, drills, planes, flints, hand saws, 51 Excerpts from a letter sent by George Stevens from Big Bull Falls (Wausau) in 1839.

52 mauls, hammers, chisels, rope, chain, level, plumb line, square, saw files, saw blades, blacksmith tools, a portable forge probably, and finally "mill irons." Everyone, presumably, carried his own jackknife. There is no suggestion that Stevens carried a hunting gun. Perhaps one of the crew did, although they did not depend on wild game for food by any means. There was a dearth of wild game at this time. The Indians had pushed deeper and deeper into the forest in search of wild game and were hungry most of the time. Aside fron1 the practical needs, there were also blankets to buy for the crew, sewing materials, tobacco, etc. So what with the personal baggage of each man, it is easy to understand why Stevens was not hauling all his goods and mill supplies in one or even two wagons (or carts). He probably carried only cooking utensils and food in the wagon box plus the personal baggage of the men, blankets, etc. He had to use the Wisconsin River to transport his goods and mill supplies as much as possible, while the oxen were used mainly to portage these supplies around the three rapids, first at Wisconsin Rapids, then at Stevens Point, and the last at Mosinee. Moving supplies through the wilderness in 1839 was something like Edmund Hillary's ascent to Mt. Everest in 1953. I-lillary was going where no one else had been. He built base camps and moved his supplies in stages from one camp to the other, higher and higher, before making the final plunge to the top. George Stevens was also going where no one else had been. There was no one to rescue him if he failed. He took his time and established a base camp half way between Wakeley's tavern and Little Bull Falls. This halfway point in 1840 was being referred to as "Stevens Landing." The most common version of Stevens' arrival in Stevens Point is provided by Simon A. Sherman. In the very first diary kept by Sherman he makes this entry: In 1839, bidding his family and friends"goodbye, he with John Fox, a millWl':ight, started for the Pineries. In Illinois he purchased two yoke of oxen and a wagon, hired Daniel D. Dillie as a teamster to drive.' After a long and tedious journey, they arrived at the end of the road, at a point at the head of Shaurette Rapids...now at the foot of Main Street in this city JStevens 53 Point]. After a short rest he sent the team and teamster back for more supplies while he remained to make further preparations of ascending the river to Big Bull Falls... But Sherman errs in his reference to John Fox. In a letter to be quoted shortly, written from Big Bull Falls, Stevens complains bitterly about a millwright who had promised to come with him an.d then failed to show up. Sherman was also unaware that the goods Stevens was bringing with him had already been hauled by dray from Galena to Fort Winnebago. and then "boated" up the Wisconsin River to Wakeley's tavern. Since a yoke of oxen could scarcely average more than 15 miles a day, the trip between Wakeley's and "Stevens Landing" must have taken three days or so. And if Stevens sent Dillie back for a second load, and, I suspect a third, it is easy to see how much time was consumed in these operations. Finally, when Sherman says that Stevens arrived at the head of "Shaurette Rapids," which is to say near the ·present Clark Street bridge, he apparently was unaware that "Shaurette Rapids" originally referred to a rapids situated on the Wisconsin River below the present DuBay Dam. A map done by cartographers of the upper Wisconsin River valley in 1847 shows that "C.harette" Rapids were located below the present DuBay Dam. The rapids was named after the brothers, Francis and Pete Charette, who lived on a small ·clearing on the west. bank of the river opposite present BukoltPark. The rapids took its name after the Charette brothers for the same reason that country schools were usually named after the farmer living nearest to the schoolhouse. ·Not long after Sherman first arrived in Plover in 1848, the name "Charette Rapids," now spelled "Shaurette," replaced Conant Rapids, named after pioneer lumberman Gilbert Conant, a partner of Daniel Campbell in a sawmill built in 1838-39 across the river from Whiting village. When Conant moved. away-his mill failed-the name Conant was forgotten. People became confused and began to refer to Conant Rapids as "Shaurette Rapids," a misspelling of course for Charette, which some historians have corrupted to "Shaw Rapids." 54 In any event, Stevens needed a staging area or halfway house to protect the mill gear and supplies he was bringing with him while someone went back to Wakeley's for a second and perhaps a third load. He also needed a shelter for the men who accompanied him while these painfully slow operations were under way. Sherman says that James Allen, a mixed blood and an employee of Conant & Campbell, built a log cabin on a point of land near the end of Main Street. He was assisted in this work, says Sherman, by Leander Trudell. Stevens purchased this cabin and built an addition to it, he says. Sherman was the mainspring behind the Portage County Old Settlers Club and every year the members held a picnic at Sherman's Grove, where the Plover River meets the Wisconsin. Some time before 1900 they had a picture taken and both Sherman and Leander Trudell are on it. Thus, the stories Sherman heard about Stevens almost surely came from Trudell. ' Leander Trudell is remembered by Edith Rothman of Stevens Point. She described him as a rather short person, with a long beard that covered his chest. He lived for some years at Wisconsin Rapids but in the last years of his life, he lived on the south side in Stevens Point. Mrs. Rothman remembers that on the 4th of July every year he appeared in the annu.a! parade, walking by himself because he was someone very special: he was the oldest pioneer in the city. He worked three Jrears for Conant & Campbell from 1839.-1842. He died in 1900 at the age of 97. One may wonder why Stevens wanted to purchase the Allen 'cabin instead of renting it, but circumstantial evidence suggests that he needed and used this log house as a storage place and as a shelter for his workmen who traveled through here throughout the entire four years that he was at Big Bull Falls, and that is why the "point" it stood on, a small peninsula extending into the Wisconsin River (it was later inundated by the dam below the Clark Street bridge), became identified with him. It was not an overnight stopping place in the manner suggested by Sherman. Moreover, people, that is the lumberjacks~ traveling to Big Bull Falls, or coming from there, had to have a place. to sleep, 55 or a place in which to take refuge in the event of a storm. They did not carry tents or pup tents on their backs. People with Conestoga wagons slept in the wagon .box under canvas, but it is fairly certain that Stevens did not bring a Conestoga wagon into the pinery. It is difficult for people today to understand all the problems faced by Stevens. He could not run ahead of his own supply train, for one thing. He had to keep everything with him, because when he got to his destination, there was no store, not even a trading post. He had to travel on his own stomach. He had to ford rivers and streams, and avoid swamps if possible. In many places he had to hack his way through the underbrush, and in many places he had to remove a dead windfall before he could squeeze his wagon (or cart) through. He had to send men up ahead to rendezvous with the supplies that were being brought ashore below the rapids at Little Bull Falls. Here they were again put into the boat and boated upstream, while the ox team made its own painful way through the forest, carrying what it could. After Little Bull, someone must have been sent ahead to pick out a beachhead where these supplies could be brought asllore again, probably around the mouth of the Eau Claire River, and this had to be forded too before the final leg of the journey could be made to a site where the mill was to be built at the west end of presetlt Forest Street in Wausau. It is fairly certain that several trips with the ox team had to be made between thE:) mill site and the beachhead before everything was safe. \ This slow, painful method of hauling supplies was followed, almost surely, throughout the four years that Stevens was at Big Bull Falls, and it becomes more clear than ever that the log house on "the point" at Stevens Landing was a key factor in helping to solve the logistical problems faced by Stevens. In another entry of his diary, Sherman says that Stevens, on arriving at the "point," went to the foot of Conant Rapids "and made a large canoe which was hauled by teams to the head of the rapids. Here the goods was shipped and taken up the river to Little Bull Falls," etc. 56 But why go below the rapids and drag the boat, presumably a dugout, ar~und the rapids, that is, Conant Rapids, later called Shaurette Rapids? There is no sure answer. Perhaps the men found a dead pine tree below the rapids which was easier to burn and hollow out than a green one above tIle rapids. Nor should it be forgotten how much trouble the oxen were. Whether he had one yoke, or two yoke, as Sherman insists, the fact is that they could not be hobbled and set loose to feed themselves because there was no prairie grass in the timber north of Wakeley's, only marsh hay in the sloughs and along the rivers, and this had to be cut with a sickle or scythe and carried to the hungry animals. Stevens and his outfit appear to have reached Big Bull Falls some time in August. On September 28, 1839, he sat down and wrote a letter fronl a place he calls "Big Bull Falls, Wisconsin Pinery." He was writing to George Morton again, one of the partners in the lumber firm at St. Louis. There was no place' to nlail the letter and it was sent safe-hand to Galena, Illinois, where it is postmarked October 21. It took the courier more than three weeks to reach Galena, traveling probably by canoe down the river, into the Mississippi and up the Galena River to Galena. Since this letter may be the earliest, or one of the earliest written in the English language from a place which in 1850 came to be called Wausau, it will be quoted in full, but punctuated somewhat to make it easier to follow. Commas and periods were practically unknown to laymen like Stevens. The letter follows: Mr. George Morton Dear Sir In my last I requested you to buy a draft of $100 and send to Joseph Corey of Whitesville, Allegany county, N.Y. & if possible you have opportunity to send me $300 & also a mill wright. The draft you have undoubtedly sent & perhaps a mill wright is on his . way with $300 for me or perhaps Mr. Morison is on the way to see the situation & how we are getting along, etc., etc. My health is much the same as when I"wrote last. I am able to be with the hands and oversee & work some. Hands are very scarce & wages high, $25 per month, & impossible to get half as many as we need at.that. We are now at work at the gard [sic] lock (No.3) which is the key to the whole works for fortifying 57 that place against the highest freshets. 5 double sawmills ,& 100 thousand saw logg [sic] is entirely safe, the shole being rock sides and rock bottom & shuting [sic] the gates at the gard [sic] lock can shut off the whole of the water at the highest freshets, leting [sic] through only enough for the use of the mill. We shall set our mills so high as never to have any back water & then have from 13112 to 14 112 feet fall. I am making a tremendous strong gard [sic] lock, perhaps stronger than need be, but as on that depends the safety of a large amount of property I think best to make it proof against any thing that may come. I shall soon have it completed. I have but few hands & it took a great while to get the provisions up, having no roads, canoes to make, houses to build, hay to cut for the oxen, etc., etc., but my mill wright's disappointing me is worse than all the rest. I hope you have sent one & a carpenter to work under him. Kline might have worked for me at $3 per day but I could not get him. In haste, Remain yours, Geo. Stevens.

To his letter to Morton, George Stevens appended a sketch of the islands and the channels to be found at Big Bull Falls. Without being able to see these islands or channels from a perch higher than a tree, and with only a canoe to cross the wild river, it seems remarkable how accurate he was. in giving a topgraphical description of the falls as compared with an official platbook published inore than 40 years later. , He identifies the numbers on the sketch. No.1, he says, is where "I am building 131h feet fall," that is, he was building a dam to raise a head of water 131h feet. (His mill was built at the west end of Forest Street, but straddling a channel, the west end of the mill resting on Clark Island and the east end on the river bank.) No.2 in the sketch he c.alls the guard lock. No.3, he says "is where 4 double mills may stand 14112 fall," and No.4 is on the west side of the river where he sees the possibility of cutting a race, or flume, through the rocks, or making an abutment where two, four or even five saw blades could be operating with power from an eight-foot fall of water. At the moment his crew was working on guard lock No.2 which he considered "the key to the whole works." In a second addendum to his letter he says that the site he has chosen is "easily the best mill site I ever saw or heard of 58 ~~~-

This map was drawn by George Stevens and sent to his backers in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1839. It shows the guard locks which Stevens is building and the probable sites for future sawmills. His own mill was located at the foot of present Forest Street in Wausau at the lower right where two buildings are indicated over th~ slough and where he was building a dam to raise a head of water 131/2 feet. The "4 feet" at the left of the buildings is not explained. 59 in the Union, and being the head of navigation & the timber much better above than below [the falls] and 30 miles of handsome river to float logs down & the timber in many places standing on the bank can be fell and rolled in without a team." He then adds this: "A lumberman who went some 16 miles above exploring the pines about 2 weeks since . declared he could stock a double mill 3 years without any team- at all." This is a pithy yet amazing description of the timber wealth lying north of Wausau. One man could keep a double mill, meaning, probably, two "up-and-down" saw blades, busy for three years without leaving the banks of the Wisconsin River farther than a man could roll a log. Yet, despite these advantage there were disadvantages, and in Stevens' case, the disadvantages seemed to outweigh the advantages. It is clear from his letter that nothing has upset him more than the failure of his millwright to show up, and it is not certain that he even got a good carpenter to help him. For, besides building the mill and guard locks, he also had to build at least one log cabin for himself·and perhaps another for his crew. He had to have a cabin for the oxen. They could not be left outside in winter time as anyone living in Wisconsin can well understand. He had to clear a site for his sawmill, a road from the cabins to the river, all the time, no dOJlbt, fighting the heat and deer flies. The mosquitoes and woodticks were probably not bothering this late in season. It is a marvel to wonder just how he managed to build a guard lock and dam with whipsawed planks, green at that, across the channel shown at point No. 2 on the sketch. Did he build a coffer dam to divert the water away from work on the guard lock? If he did, how did he manage? No wonder he complains about his health. At 49, he was killing himself with work and worry. There is another document in the Thayer Collection which contains two ledger accounts: "Morton to GeQ. Stevens Dr." and "Stevens to Morton Dr." The accounts are not dated, but a clue to the dating appears in a statement made by Stevens who tells Morton 60 that he, that is, Morton, "has had the use of $1000 of my money for one year..." Since Stevens seems to have left St. Louis in early June of 1839, one year later would be June 1840 and this seems to agree with other evidence found in the accounts. The biggest expense Stevens had is debited to James Moore. Since Stevens held only a fourth interest in the com­ pany, he paid Moore a quarter of what he had coming, leaving the balance to be paid by Morton, Morrison & Boswell. Stevens had collected $1,000 as an advance in 1839, and for this reason it is difficult to understand what he means when he says that Morton has had the use of $1,000 of his money for one year. The figure given in this account, however, is $1,011, which apparently represents an interest charge. Whatever, Stevens spent the money, at least part of it, this way, always careful to explain that he was paying only his quarter share of the expenses: $75 (lA of $300) to Janles Moore "for stocking and running mills." $26.25 (1,4 of $105) to pay for some land "immediately." $54 (lA of $216) "paid for manufacturing lunlber." $15 (lA of 60) paid "for freight of goods for Moore into the pinery" (last three words mutilated). "lA of my time and expenses, purchased goods, going to the land sale & purchasing provisions provisions on Rock River etc." (Here he repeats the word 'provisions' and also fails to enter the figure for his time and expenses.) Finally, with a hand-forefinger drawn in ink. pointing to the entry, appears this: "$400 must be sent to Racine to Elias Smith for James Moore. I owe Moore $100 for labor." (This entry is not entirely clear). In a follow-up expense account on the same page and directly below the first one is the account of "Geo. Stevens to Morton Dr." It follows: To, cash paid for freight on mill irons, smith and tools. (?) + cash paid for Jefferson Holea for boarding [us]... $12.50. + cash paid Sisters of Hospital. ..$18.00. + cash paid for attendants etc. etc....blank. + cash to 'be sent Elias Smith of Racine for James Moore...$400.00. 61 Stevens had been in a hospital, probably at Racine, and he had paid the sisters of the hospital $18, but forgot to include what 'he paid the attendants. Then he follows with this: "Cash for etc. or foot up both accounts, strike the balance & that is what I want to take with me. The goods I have got on Mr. Morton's credit I expect to get lumber down this fall more than sufficient to pay my three-fourths of those bills and also to pay some hands that will come on the raft which lowe for labor. Should there not be water to run the lumber (which I think will not be the case), Mr. Morton will not think it unreasonable to advance me & pay three-fourths of those bills till I get lumber down in the spring inasmuch as he had had the use of $1,000 of my money for one year and also pay some more that I am owing for labor. "There is another thing to be taken into consideration. I must furnish $700 worth of provisions delivered in the Pinery this fall which I shall try to get on account till spring. But as $300 of it is Pork it is more probably I shall have to pay cash part or all for the pork at this season of the year & then there is the transportation." Then, with another sketch of a hand and forefinger, pointing to the opening line of the last paragraph, this: "The provisions must be bought & delivered or the mills Stop. You will see at once that I need all that is coming & ought to have more. I will give you a deed to your share as soon as we can ascertain how large a share you should have." Stevens fails to give any clue to the last sentence in the above. Does he mean the deed to the mill property and land that he has purchased? Probably so, nevertheless, he wants to make clear to his partners that if the provisions he needs are not forthcoming, he'll shut down the mill! His method of bookkeeping seems confused and probably it was difficult for his partners to follow it. Still, he seems confident that he is going to get sufficient lumber sawed to begin rafting down the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers by fall, with more to come in the spring of 1841. Thus, after nearly a near at Big Bull Falls, instead of getting some lumber down the river in the spring of 1840, as he no doubt had hoped to do, he was being forced to revise his expectations and wait until fall. Henry Merrell, who 62 visited Stevens in the spring of 1840 on a census taking mission, confirms the fact that Stevens did not have his mill in operation when he saw him~ The delays and frustrations of building a dam, guard locks and a shanty to cover the saw apparatus apparently had been overwhelming .. It is easy to imagine what Morton, Morrison & Boswell were thinking,completely unaware, of course, of the tremendous odds faced by this pioneer lunlberman. Realizing how handicapped he was, whether because of ill health or lack of a millwright, Stevens, on May 24, 1840, entered into an agreement with James Moore and Norman A. Upson of Racine, who agreed "to stock and run said Stevens' double sawmill on Wisconsin River at Bull Falls, Wisconsin Territory, for the term of two years commencing first of July next [ 1840]." Reference to this transaction appears in the expense account quoted above. It was agreed not only that Moore & Upson would stock the mill with white pine, but that the pine would be C'ut from Stevens' claims "or any other place where they may choose, not interfering with other person's claims or timber." This last sentence is an interesting commentary on how some early lumbermen got their timber. Unless someone else had made some sort of a squatters claim, orlegal claim to a tract of timber, there was no good reason why the timber should not be cut if it was easy to get at and was not "interfering with other person's claims or timber." The timber did not belong to anyone except the govern­ ment, or the Indians perhaps, and since the Indians did not consider land or timber as a personal possession to be held for profit, lumbermen saw no valid reason to be squeamish about_where they were cutting. The agreenlent with Moore & Upson further provided that they were to keep the mills running day and night, sawing suitable thicknesses of lumber for the market according to directions to be given to them by Stevens, with five-quarter­ inch stuff to be measured as one-inch stuff. They were to square all the lumber, stub and pile it in good order, then build a roof over it. To "stub" means to clear a piece of ground large enough 63 for a lumber yard. Moore & Upson were to provide "all necessaries" for the personal comfort of Stevens, presumably room and board, and they were to keep the mill saws in good repair. Stevens would stand the expense of repairing the dam if it broke, but Moore & Upson were to pay "particular attention to the boom. across the river that loggs [sic] do not remain against it, and in time of high water to swing the boom to the east side, and to take every precaution to save the boom." If this failed, Stevens agreed to pay the partners for repairing the boom. To get them started, Stevens was to turn over three spare mill saws he had on hand, put in head gates on the log boom, clear the logs and brush out of the mill pond, make sufficient bottom for piling boards, and clear the channel below the mill "so that slab will float out by cutting the sixteens in two..." The last sentence is not clear. It may refer to 16-foot logs which were cut to make eight-foot lumber and that the slabs from these were to be dumped into the Wisconsin River for disposal. There was no need for slab wood in the mill because it operated on waterpower, not steam, and there was no market for slab wood either because there was no one living here who might need it for the kitchen stove. Moore & Upson were to have the use of a house and shop, rent free. Any repairs they made to the house would be done with lunlber sawed at the mill, free of charge. Apparently Stevens had managed to saw enough lumber himself to replace the original log cabin with a frame house. Beginning in July or August, 1840, Stevens ~as to furnish the partners, Moore & Upson, with a small set of blacksmith tools and a blacksmith shop. He was also to pay Moore & Upson $5.50 per thousand for "all good merchantable common stuff and nine dollars per thousand for all the clear stuff sawed and piled in the manner described." Moore & Upson were to be paid $300 in cash on or before the first day of September, 1840, in addition to 30 barrels of flour, 15 barrels of pork, six bushels of beans, 25 pounds of tea, 50 pounds of coffee, 200 pounds of sugar, one sack of 64 salt, 14 pairs of Macinaw [sic] blankets, 16 gallons of lamp oil, and two dozen saw files, all to be delivered by Stevens at Point Basse (Wakeley's tavern) on or before the first day of November 1840. In addition, Stevens was to pay the freight on these provisions from "Point Basse to Stevens Landing near Charette's." And, finally, he was to furnish bar iron for the use of the mill if repairs were needed. These provisions and bar iron were to constitute the second payment to Moore & Upson for running the mill and cutting the logs to keep it going. The balance of the payment for stocking and sawing was to be paid in cash at the end of the first year, The second year Moore & Upson were to be paid in cash at the end of their contract on May 24, 1842. The names of Moore & Upson and of George Stevens appear at the end of the agreement "signed" by them' but the same hand signed all three signatures, although it was not Stevens. This is the document, nevertheless, that refers to "Stevens Landing near Charette's." As mentioned earlier, the Charette brothers, Pete and Francis, lived on a farm west of the Wisconsin River opposite Bukolt Park. Thus, the wording "near Charette's" puts "Stevens Landing" on the east bank between present Bukolt Park and the Clark Street bridge. For emphasis, the document referring to "Stevens Landing" is dated May 24, 1840, less than a year after Stevens paused here en route to Big Bill Falls in the spring of 1839. A "landing" was a term imported from the New England states, a place on a river where flatboats, keelboats, etc., set sail from or anchored at. In 1853, for example, John Gill built a wharf and "stopping place" on the Wolf River east of Weyauwega for the convenience of lake steamers. This came to be called "Gills Landing," and is still known by this name to walleye fishermen. And then there was "Crocker's Landing" on the Wisconsin River to the north of Stevens Point, named for Blacksmith Sylvester Crocker. It was located on the east bank of the river just below the mouth of a small creek that today runs unnoticed under Highway 51. In 1847, the name "Stevens Point" appears on an instrument whereby Mathias Mitchell conveyed two 65 government lots to the "town of Stevens Point." These two lots took in the present Public Square. Did Moore & Upson carry out the terms of the agreement with Stevens? It is hard to say, but the fact is George Stevens failed, and whether it was his fault or the partners he rented the mill to, is impossible to determine at this point in time. From a ledger to be quoted below, it is known, however, that Stevens was delivering lumber to merchants and private parties in Illinois, including Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons). One of the items in the ledger account refers to $216 paid out "for manufacturing lumber." The nearest mill to Big Bull Falls in .1839-40 was Conant & Campbell located below the present Clark Street bridge in Stevens Point. It seems very possible that Stevens was having planks sawed there for the bulkheads in his dam, and for the guard locks, and boated them up the river in the usual manner to Little Bull Falls and from there to Big Bull both by boat and by wagon. This involved considerable hauling and boating, but if true, the planking was no doubt superior to green logs whipsawed on the spot. Meanwhile, the firm of Morton, Morrison & Boswell was keeping its own accounts on its partner, Stevens. Several entries from 1838 and 1839 have already been alluded to. In April 1840 it is learned from the company ledger that two men by the name of Huffman and Fulton had worked for Stevens; in July, Williams and Justus Andrews, and in September Amos Ames (?), a millwright. In June 1841, Joseph Kerr was paid for services of some kind, and in July that year the names of Hiranl and Horace Stow appear in the ledger. This may be the earliest evidence available on .these two pioneers. Hiram Stow, according to oral tradition, piloted the first raft of lumber down the Wisconsin River from Big Bull Falls in the spring of 1841. The entry in the ledger tends to confirm this. Oddly enough, while the names of the Stow brothers appear in the ledger, the sums that were to' be paid to them are scratched. Apparently sonle other arrangement had been, or was about to be made. In the same month, July, 1841, Stevens rafted 21,329 feet 66 of lumber valued at $420.01 to Haydan & Co. at Alton, Illinois. In August 1841 he rafted 21,108 feet of lumber valued at $447.68 to buyers in Koekuk, Iowa, and Nauvoo, Illinois, both towns on the Mississippi River. Nauvoo was the site of a city, first known as "Commerce," which was taken over by the Mormons who migrated from Ohio and western Pennsylvania under the leadership of Joseph Smith. In SepterrLber, 1841, Stevens sent 52,598 feet of lumber down the river, valued at $1,014.41, to the firm of Dickool & Benison at Quincy, another Mississippi River town. In April, 1842, he sent "7,000 feet of lumber lA clear" to Robert Wakeley valued at $56, and in the fall he sold lumber to a party in Potosi, Wisconsin Territory, for $39.41. Later, the same year, Joseph Smith paid him $737, obviously for lumber products. The only lumber apparently sold in 1843 was 66,200 feet, valued at $728, that went to Nauvoo, no doubt for Joseph Smith. (A year later Smith was murdered by an anti­ Mormon m'ob.) From a page in another ledger kept by the company, that is, Morrison, Morton & Boswell, the last entry appears on June 14, 1843, and this is the way it reads: "Balance due Morton, Morrison & Boswell $2547.75." In short, George Stevens was bankrupt. Expenses had outrun income. On November 18, 1843, according to an indenture in the Thayer Collection, he deeded everything he owned at Big Bull Falls over to the company for $5,000. It probably included the mill and the land consisting of lot 6 in section 26, containing 43 acres, and lot 5 in section 35 containing 26 acres, both lots lying along the river in the heart of modern Wausau. He had also sold mill sites to other nlen after he came to Big Bull Falls, one to Steph'an Woodward and another to Grosby & Loop, both on the south end of an island in Section 35, no doubt the same island later known as Clark. James Loop, a son-in-law of Stevens, married Pamelia Stevens, born May 16, 1817. A third party, [Hanibal] Grossman & [William ] Dunlap also had a mill site that Stevens had sold them, but the 67 location of it is not clear. All these mills were excluded from the deed. But none of these mills remained long under their original owners, probably for the same reason that Stevens failed: not enough capital to tide them over the initial period of development. Building a sawmill in the middle of the pinery was too far from market but not far enough away from creditors. In 1-847 Walter McIndoe acquired a part interest in the fornler mill of George Stevens and in 1849 he became sole owner. He also tore the mill down and moved it to a new site about half a block south, closer to the west end of Forest ~treet, but still on S. Main Street. McIndoe ran the mill until his death in 1872. A separate deed transferring the property held by Stevens to his St. Louis partners also had to be made out for Lucy Stevens who, for one dollar, assigned "over my right of dower and quit claim all my right and title, etc...." Lucy signed this on February 12, 1844. Since this, too, was executed in Allegany County, NY, it seems clear that Stevens, after he left the pinery, had returned to the place of his beginning. However, that same year the family moved to Belvidere in Boone County, Illinois. Perhaps they wanted to get away from in-laws. In his letter to Morton, one of his partners, written on September 28, 1839, from Big Bull Falls, Stevens asks him to buy a draft of $100 and send it to Joseph Corey of Whitesville, NY. This was undoubtedly a brother-in-law, since Stevens had married Lucy Cory (the name seems to have been spelled both Cory and Corey) who, no doubt, was a sister of Joseph. Other than this, no letter or document in the Thayer Collection suggests why the move to Belvidere from Almond was made. It seems that when Stevens returned to his home in New York in the summer of 1840, as he said he was going to do, that he did not take the "Pinery Road" from Wakeley's to Fort Winnebago, but went on foot southeast from Plover Portage, through present Almond township, to the Fox River, crossing the river at an old Indian ford (later Berlin) 68 and from there either to Milwaukee or Racine to catch a lake boat for Buffalo. From Buffalo he probably rode a barge on the Erie Canal for some distance before catching a stage or walking to his home in Allegany County. The first election in Almond township in Portage County was held in 1852 "at the public house of James F. Moore." There is little reason to doubt that this is the same Moore who helped Stevens build his mill and later, in partnership with Norman Upson, ran it for two years. Moore probably suggested the name for the township to the County Board to honor the home town of an old pioneer and friend. That's the way things went in those days. Meanwhile, when Joshua Hathaway surveyed the "six mile" strip in 1839, he became acquainted with Stevens, and his surveying crew no doubt stayed at the newly built log house of Stevens. Less than a year later) Stevens wrote a letter to his friend Hathaway because he had heard a rumor from someone that a "military road" was going to be built from Green Bay to St. Peter (Minnesota). He probably was thinking of Fort Snelling, on the Mississippi River, not St. Peter, which lies many miles up the Minnesota River. This letter to HathawaYtt and many others written by people to Hathaway, was uncovered in 1977 in Los Angeles, as mentioned earlier. The wording in the upper right hand corner of the envelope it came in reads: "FREE Geo. Stevens, P.M., Almond, N. Y. ". This means that Stevens was a postmaster at Almond, and even though he had gone off to the Wisconsin pinery to build a sawmill, he had not given up his post in Almond which, no doubt, was being handled by his wife. But because Stevens was the postmaster, which paid little, he received free franking as one of the fringe benefits. According to George Crowell, this meant a saving to Stevens of 121,4 cents. Under postal rates effective May 1, 1825, letters going a distance of 80 to 150 n1iles paid 121h cents, and for 150 to 400 miles the rate was 183,4 cents. The envelope is postmarked "Fort Winnebago, July 15," although Stevens wrote it on June 12, 1840, a date which appears on both the envelope and on the letterhead. Like 69 the letter of September 28, 1839, which Stevens sent Morton from Big Bull Falls, the letter to Hathaway also had to be carried safe-hand, down the river, to be mailed, not at Galena this time, but at Fort Winnebago. In his opening to Hathaway, Stevens says he has received a map Hathaway had sent him, no doubt a copy of the field survey from Point Bosse [sic] to Big Bull Falls. He then goes on to say:

"We are all well and getting along quite fair. One saw, a-running, another will be in operation in two weeks, a third and fourth in Oct. next. I saw a gentleman who said he read in a Green Bay paper that the General Government had authorized a military road to be made from Green Bay to St. Peter's. If that is the case I hope you will have a [here he draws a picture of a hand] in laying it out. I have made some enquiry of the halfbreeds and traders respecting the fitness of the ground from this to Green Bay and also to St. Peter's. They all say the road ought to cross the Wisconsin [River] certainly as far up as this place to avoid extensive swamps & marshes. They all agree that on the east side of the river the roting [sic] sand begins at the crossing of the Eau Claire River, that north of [the] Eau Claire & north of Wolf River & its branches, the land is roling [sic] & dry but quite to the reverse on the south side of those rivers & the same is said of the westside of the Wisconsin, that Rib River is in a great meassure [sic] dividing the roting [sic] land from the swamps & marshes. If you should have any voice in laying it out I shall expect at least you will examine this rout [sic] previous to establishing the road. It is true I am interested in geting [sic] the road to cross at Bull Falls & any assistance from you to favor this rout [sic] will be thankfully rec'd. I have two objects in view in wishing it to come here, one is it would be much handyir [sic] for me & the other is I am confident it would make the best road & I expect to use it winter & summer, perhaps more than any other individual. There is a prospect of two more double mills being built on my dam & one on the west side this summer. I remain your obedient Humble Servant, Geo. Stevens

P.S. Mr. Barker went from here with a view of trading his demand against Campbell & Co. with you for a saw mill & lot. When he got to Drapers you had left the day before. I do not know whether he still wishes to make the trade or not. He has got some 2 or $300 on the demand & is about geting [sic] as much more. I shall leave here for Almond Allegany Co. N.Y. in about three 70 weeks & may call at Millwaukey. [sic] Yours, Geo. Stevens. There were several Barkers in Portage County (which included present Wood County) in the early period. The Draper place mentioned in the letter refers to present Biron. - Whatever, this letter shows that Stevens was not spending all his time in the pinery and that he was getting ready to leave for" Almond, New York, some time in July, passing through "Millwaukey" where he expected to find Hathaway, now a resident of the new village. On May 24, 1893, The Gazette, a weekly newspaper published in Stevens Point, ran a long article on Stevens written by Simon A. Sherman. It seems clear that it is taken almost word for word from one of his own diaries. The article is also accompanied by an engraving of Stevens, and since the name of "The Gazette" is imprinted on the engraving, it would appear that it was done by· a local engraver, but whether from a picture or not is impossible to tell. Photography had reached a high state of perfection by 1893, but the technology of transferring pictures to newsprint had not been perfected. At no point in his article or in his extensive diaries does Sherman ever suggest that he knew Stevens personally. But Sherman may have talked to members of the family after Stevens died in 1866. He describes him as a man of about six feet tall, weighing "fully 180 pounds," large in frame and well proportioned, "not fleshy, dark in complexion, with blue eyes and a commanding presence." " Sherman further states that he was "moderate in speech, candid in conversation, with strong moral convictions and a religioustone of mind." Finally, he tells us that Stevens was a member of the Baptist church in Almond, New York, that he actually founded the village of Almond on a piece of land adjoining his farm, but lost money in the venture and for this reason came to the Wisconsin pinery to build a mill. But Sherman apparently did not know that Stevens had been in the lumber business before he came west. And from someone, Sherman learned that Stevens was 71 born in Madison County, (east of Syracuse), and moved to Allegany County where, presumably, he met Lucy Cory and married her on July 8, 1813. From this union were born Elizabeth, Pamelia, Serena, Chester, Sophronia, Lucy Jane and George C. Another child died in infancy. Four were still living in 1893. In his article in The Gazette, Sherman says that Stevens . died at Rockford, Illinois, in 1866. There is no death certificate at the Courthouse in Rockford because death certificates were not required by law before 1875. Throughout the several weeks of research and writing the Stevens story, I kept wondering where he was buried, in Rockford or Belvidere? I went through the Belvidere Standard for 1866, but found no obituary. On April 12, (1978), Mrs. Rosholt and I left Rosholt at 1 p.m., bound for Rockford or Belvidere. The farther south we drove, the more convinced I was that we should go to Belvidere first, even if Stevens had died in Rockford. In Belvidere 1 might find the pastor of a Baptist church, or someone associated with a local cemetery association. By the time we reached Belvidere, it was 5 o'clock, too late to see anyone. We decided to spend the last hour of daylight searching the Protestant cemetery, officially the "Bellvidere Cemetery." By the time we reached the gate, the people in the caretaker's cottage had left. But there were no bars across the road and we drove directly into the cemetery, surrounded by headstones as far as one could see. My heart sank. "Let's look for the older part of the cemetery," I said, and drove towards some stones which, it was plain to see, from their flat, rectangular shape, were put there before the Civil War. But there were modern stones here, too, so it was still uncertain where the "old" section of the cemetery lay. We got out and I said to Marge, "You follow that path and I'll take this one, just so we don't duplicate each other." She started off to the. east, studying the stones as she passed them, and I went in the opposite direction.·1 had not gone more than a few steps when 1 heard a call from her, "Malcolm, here it is!" It w~s like a finding a needle in the proverbial haystack. 72 Geo. Stevens Born Jan. 17, 1790 Died Mar. 6, 1866

On the opposite side of the obelisk-type stone was this: Lucy Wife of Geo. Stevens Born Jan. 15,1795 Died June 28, 1857\ True to life, the name of "Geo. Stevens" appears abbreviated on the stone, just as he signed all his letters and legal papers. The date on the stone also agrees with the Sherman account ex.cept that Sherman did not know the month and day he died, nor did he mention that Lucy preceded her husband in death by several years. Some distance to the north, in fact one wonders why so far, stands the headstone of the Hurlbut family. Sophronia Stevens, bom in 1824, married Stephen A. Hurlbut at Belvidere on May 13, 1847, according to Sherman. It can only be assumed that she came with her parents to Belvidere when they removed from New York state to Illinois in 1844. Stephen Hurlbut became a major general in the Union Army. He was a division commander in the Army of the Tennessee and took part in several major engagements of the Civil War, including Pittsburg Landing (Shiloh). Some years after the war, General Hurlbut was appointed U.S. Minister to Lima, Peru. This is what the inscription on his headstone in Belvidere Cemetery reads: "Major General Stephen A. Hurlbut, born at Charleston, South Carolina, November, 29, 1815, died March 27, 1882 at his post of duty in Lima as Minister of the U.S. to the Republic of Peru. Faithful to every duty he has left behind him the record of a well spent life. 'He being dead. yet speaketh.' " Sophronia, wife of Stephen I-Iurlbut, died in Belvidere, 73 February 11, 1887, and she is buried next to her husband. One son, George, no doubt named for his grandfather, survived. There are five small markers in the same lot, apparently for George and his wife Elizabeth, and three children. There does not appear to be any descendants of the Stevens family in Belvidere today. One of the last chapters in the Saga of George Stevens was written in 1952 when a new bridge across the Wisconsin River at Wausau was named the "George Stevens Bridge."

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Belvidere Cemetery in Belvidere, illinois, is the last resting place of George Stevens, who gave his name to Stevens Point. 74 Chapter IV

THE PINERY ROAD

Years in their passing Bring memories to mind But time won't return us To years left behind. -Alex Wallace

No, Alex, time won't return us, but time has a way of moving forward and backward in endless motion, and, we will stop and listen, it has something to say to us. Right now I am listening to what an old road has to say­ the Pinery Road-the first line of communication between the southern part of the state, where there were no pines, and the northern part of the state, where there were millions. The army at Fort Winnebago (Portage) needed lumber. Daniel Whitney of Green Bay, who had already built a shot vower at Galena, and having friends in the War Department, got special permission to build a sawmill on the first rapids of the Wisconsin River, in Indian country, opposite the present city of Nekoosa. The mill was probably built in 1832, and there is every reason to believe that Whitney and his ox-teamsters blazed the "Pinery I:toad" which came up fro;m Fort Winnebago to the sawmill located on an island north of the present Highway 7,3 bridge. In general, the route followed the shortest distance between two points and it was probably not too difficult to blaze except through the hills northwest of Portage and 75 across the swamp ground and creeks at the northern end around Pointe Basse. More than half of the route ran through Adams County which is flat and sandy and, at that time, was thinly wooded with scrub oak and small jack pines. Picture if you will then, the men-some with their Indian consorts-who yelled and scolded their oxen as they made their way north over the Pinery Road in the next two decades, some intent on finding power sites, and others looking for jobs in the logging woods and sawmills along the Wisconsin River and its tributaries in the Great Land of the White Pine. Among the bold business men who probably followed this road north were Samuel Merrill and Amable Grignon II who, in 1836, established a trading post a few miles south of the present city of Nekoosa. Two years later Nelson Strong and Robert Bloomer were building at "Grand Rapids" (Wisconsin Rapids), Abraham Brawley was building on Mill Creek and Conant & Campbell were building opposite the present village of Whiting on the Wisconsin. Hugh McGreer, contrary to the testimony of George Cate, did not build any mill on the Plover at Jordan in 1837 or 1838 because he did not enter the United States until 1839 as his own naturalization papers confirm. With the assistance of Clayton McLarky of Whiting, aided by Lapham's map of Wisconsin published in 1850, and a diary kept by the Rev. Cutting Marsh in 1849, I have been able to retrace the general route of the Pinery Road. In addition to the testimony of Marsh, who followed most of the road from north to south, there is also the hearsay testimony of Katherine Rood who described the route in a lecture she gave to a state convention of the Daughters of the American Revolution at Madison, in 1936. Miss Rood was the daughter of Dr. Galen Rood, an early-day physician in Stevens Point, and her mother was Nancy Jane Sylvester Rood. One of the places Missionary March stopped at a couple of nights on his journey on horseback in 1849 was at an inn kept by William Sylvester who was Katherine Rood's grandfather on her mother's side. This inn, or "public house" 76 as Marsh refers to it, was located in what later came to be the village of Grand Marsh, a few miles southeast of Adams­ Friendship in Adams County. Katherine Rood based her information, no doubt, on stories she heard from her parents and probably grandparents, although she was born in Stevens Point when the Pinery Road was already falling into disuse. For two decades in 1830s and 1840s, however, this was the main route of travel between Portage and the new communities developing at Grand Rapids, Plover and Stevens Point. In her lecture to the D.A.R., Miss Rood says that the road ran north from Portage a distance of 16 miles to the Walsworth Inn. She fails to give the owner's first name but in an account written by George Cate (about 1895) there is mention of a Jared Walsworth whose house was 16 miles north of Portage. My feeling is that the Walsworth Inn lay northwest of Portage on the east bank of Lake Mason, the present village of Briggsville. The Walsworth Inn, according to Miss Rood, was a double log house with a span between which was roofed over to make one large room on the second floor. This room was referred to, she says, as the "school section." It was filled with beds "as closely placed as possible where, when night come on, lord and teamster laid [sic] down side by side, glad of a place to rest." Reference to this room as a "school section" was apparently a take-off of Section 16 which lies in every town of every county in the state. The money derived from the sale of all government lands in this section was used for, school purposes. These lands have long since passed into the public domain but there are still reminders of section 16, for example, in School Section Lakes in Waupaca and Waukesha Counties, and in other counties ·as well. Assuming that Walsworth Inn was situated in or near Briggsville, the Pinery Road turned north from here to the inn operated by Sylvester at Grand Marsh and known to Katherine Rood as "Grand Marsh House." The route between these two points skirted the present village of Oxford to the west and it is here, on a ridge 77 Mr. and Mrs. Robert Wakeley, pioneers to the Wisconsin River Valley in the mid-1830s. in a photo probably lifted from a tin-type taken at "Grand Rapids" (Wisconsin Rapids) in the 1870s. Mrs. Harold E. Roberton Jr., (Spokane, W A), who furnished the picture, believes that her great-grandfather added the second 'e' to his name after he came to Wisconsin Territory from New York state.

78 overlooking "Second Avenue," just inside the Adams County east line, that the ruts of an old road may be found. The direction of the road is plainly northwest and it lies within sight of the farm where Clayton McLarky was born. There is little reason to doubt that this represents a segment of the old Pinery Road which has survived the bulldozer into the 20th century. Since the road WetS never graded, there are no shoulders and as a result it forms a continuous rut at least 6 feet wide and more than a foot deep where the wagon and buggy wheels wore the sod and sand deeper and deeper into the ground. From this ridge the road probably continued northwest to Grand Marsh, running between Wolf Lake and Emerick Lake and following, roughly speaking, the present right-of-way of the Chicago.& North Western Railway to Adams-Friendship. In her account, Miss Rood says that the Pinery Road, after it left Grand Marsh, "bore off westward, toward a point on the Wisconsin River, four miles below Pointe Basse." This is not very clear. Actually the road appears to have followed a northwesterly course from Grand Marsh to Adams-Friendship and then turned due north, following, roughly, present I-lighway 13 to about the Wood County line and then turning northwest to Wakeley's Tavern on the Wisconsin River: About a hundred yards southeast of the Wakeley Tavern, the remains of an old bridge abutment may be seen on Wakeley Creek. The direction of the road on both sides of the creek is suggested by the angle of the bridge to the creek. The road came up from the southeast, Le. present Highway 13, and then ran northwest to Wakeley's Tavern where it turned north and followed a winding course within sight of the river to Whitney's mill. There is every reason to believe that Wakeley chose this spot because _this was the first place below the rapids that the Indians could ferry across the river. After 1839 or '40, when Merrill built at Port Edwards, a regular ferry service was probably maintained here. This was later replaced by a cable ferry which continued in service until 1917. Whitney's mill on the left bank of the Wisconsin was the terminus of the Pinery Road for several years. Later, a road developed along the river to Grand Rapids where Nelson 79 Strong and Robert Bloomer built a mill in 1838-39. The road between Grand Rapids and Plover probably followed present Highway 54, although as it approached Plover it ran closer to the Wisc.onsin River than 54 does today. The late Ale~ Wallace, whose poem "The Old Pinery Trail" is quoted above, seemed to equate the Pinery Road also with the road that ran north from Stevens Point to John DuBay's Trading Post and on to Wausau. While this was a stage coach route, following somewhat along the Old Wausau Road, there is no evidence that any part of the road north of the Whitney mill was ever called the Pinery Road. Joshua Hathaway, who surveyed the six-mile strip along the river in 1839, twice crossed roads to the north and east of Whitney's n1ill and in each case mentions that a certain section line "runs into road to Point Du Bois" (Pointe Basse). The Rev. Cutting Marsh rode a saddle horse on the Pinery Road from north to south in November 1849. He actually started his journey at 2 p.m. one day from Plover and reached Grand Rapids where he intended to see E. (for Elphalet) S. Miner who, incidentally, became the first postmaster on January 14, 1845. Marsh does not say whether he found Miner at home, but after a worship service conducted somewhere in the sawmill. town, he passed the night at the house of "Mr. Klyne," no doubt William Kline, who made an entry on land in the county the year before. En route south on the following day, it seems doubtful whether Marsh went by way of Wakeley's Tavern. A new road had developed from Grand Rapids to the Adams County line where, give a mile or two on either side of the town line, it joined with the old Pinery Road. Lapham's map appears to confirm this. When Marsh left the Rapids he was anxious to reach a "Mr. Strong's" that night whose tavern, he says, lay 24 miles to the south. If one were to set the speedometer at the intersection of Highways 13 and 54 at the Rapids today, 24 miles south would terminate near the present intersection of Highways 13 and 21. Interestingly enough, the Lapham map places Strong's Tavern actually at the present wayside 80 011 the southwest corner of the intersection. The only person in the first title index at the courthouse in Adams County under the name of Strong is Myron Strong who purchased a piece of land across the Wisconsin River in 1856. The township of Strong's Prairie in Adams County is no doubt named for him. Further confirmation that Highway 13 lay along the general route of the Pinery Road is provided by Marsh when he tells us that "on the way from Grand Rapids to Mr. Strong's I passed a rock rising suddenly...to a height of a hundred feet." This, there can be little doubt, is what an official highway marker today refers to as "Rabbit Rock," where there is also a pleasant wayside for tourists. Although no wayside was here in 1849, the missionary tied up his horse and made an attempt to scale the rock, but failed within a few feet of the top. He said he would have required a 10-foot ladder. And why did he wish to scale "Rabbit Rock?" No doubt because it was there! In the above, it may be noted that Marsh used the figure of 24 miles from Grand Rapids to Strong's. How did a man, without a speedometer under his buggy, compute nli1eage? The fact is that men like Marsh, who were constantly in the saddle or driving a buggy, came to judge distances fairly accurately by the gait of their horse or team. A fast-walking team with a small load could average four miles an hour over several hours-but not a span of mules. In her description of her .grandfather's place at Grand Marsh, Miss Rood said that "small as the inn was, records show that at times it cared for as many as 120 for the night." This is patently an exaggeration for it is doubtful whether a hotel or "public house" north of Madison could accommodate that many people, not unless they were sleeping in the barn or under their wagons. Continuing, Miss Rood said that there was a "halo of hospitality about this place too, that old time people love to talk about. There was never liquor of any kind obtainable at this point, but there was delicious coffee and cream, and famous hot biscuits and honey." Coffee and cream, maybe, but old Sylvester did not live on hot biscuits alone if we are to believe the word of a man who 81 actually spent two nights there. On the first morning there, Marsh found Sylvester "so much under the influence of liquor as to appear silly this morning and there was no opportunity to converse with him." But Marsh cornered him later in the day and charged him with refusing to come to the point and acknowledge "that he had strayed except in general terms," which suggests that Sylvester was a Presbyterian who, in Marsh's eyes, had badly backslidden. Miss Rood refers to her grandparent's place as "Grand Marsh House." Clayton McLarky heard from his parents as a youth that the village of Grand Marsh was named "for some old preacher." Since there is no marsh ground nearby, it may be that it was named for Cutting Marsh, a man who must have impressed everyone with his straight shoulders and dignified bearing. If this fanciful assumption may be made, it is obvious that "Grand Marsh House" got its name after the preacher left, not before. I have not made any effort to establish when Grand Marsh House was closed or fell into disuse, but it must have continued into the 1850s because in 1852, when John DuBay began advertising in the Fort Winnebago Times regarding his new stage line running between Portage and Stevens Point, he said the stages went "straight through, via Grand Marsh and Buena Vista." . Since the advertisement does not mention Grand Rapids, it seems possible that the road north now followed part of the old Pinery Road northwest from Portage as far as Grand Marsh and from there swung north-northeast roughly along "old 51" to Buena Vista creek where there was a "public house" and place to ch~nge horses. The trip was advertised as a two-day ride. When Cutting Marsh came through here in 1849, traveling south to Portage, he was having trouble with his saddle and when he reached Portage, he spent some time having it repaired. While here he also encountered Robert Wakeley. It was perhaps just as well that he had not stopped at Wakeley's earlier, because when he met him in Portage his face was "red and bloated." 82 He also heard him use profane language and suspected that he had taken one too many for the road when he appeared for worship services conducted in the evening by the visiting pastor. Reflecting on his meeting with Wakeley, Marsh writes in his diary, sadly perhaps: "Oh! What a life to live to have no reference to that what is to come." The pastor apparently had no idea what a· famous character he had been talking to in Mr. Wakeley. This was the same young nlan who drove horseback to Plover in 1854 to attend the first term of court held in Portage County (which then took in Wood County). Judge Cate writes that Wakeley, with one too many under his belt, rode his horse into the court room, and, doffing his hat to the j"udge, began to sing, "Hush nlY baby, lie still and slumber." This may be a bit exaggerated, too, but the reason it was so easy for horse and 'rider to enter the court room was that court was being held in an unfinished warehouse with doors probably wide enough for a team of horses to pass through. But Judge David Irvin, presiding, was not amused and ordered the offender thrown out forthwith. Judge Cate refers to Wakeley as "a man of high social qualities, whose good nature never forsook him even when drunk." Marsh obviously didn't think he had more quality than a mudcat, but, whether saint or sinner, he was one of the first to travel the old Pinery Road!

83 Chapter V

THE BATTLE OF SMOKEY HILL

Several years ago I advanced the theory that the Chaurette (or as Charette) brothers, Peter and Francis, were the first settlers, that is, farmers, within the present city limits of Stevens Point. According to Joshua Hathaway, who surveyed the "six mile" strip al~ng the Wisconsin River in 1839, the Chaurettes were living on a small farm located on the west bank of the river opposite present Bukolt Park. The Chaurettes, of French-Indian descent from Green Bay,­ probably. came to the Wisconsin River valley to work in the woods or in the sawmill of Daniel Whitney in the early 1830s. But Whitney did not stay long. He abandoned his mill to the elements and returned to Green Bay before 1836. Meanwhile, the Chaurette brothers probably started to farm on a clearing they found opposite the present Bukolt Park. In 1838-39 they could have helped Conant & Campbell build their mill on the west bank of the Wisconsin River opposite modern Whiting Village. In 1840, when Samuel Merrell came north on a census taking mission, he returned downriver in a canoe paddled by Peter Chaurette. After that no more is heard about the two brothers for several years. There is no qu~stion in my mind that they gave their name to "Charette Rap'ids" which early maps of Wisconsin identify with a stretch of the Wisconsin River. today lying below the present DuBay Dam. Later map makers mysteriously moved these rapids downstreanl, below the Clark Street Bridge in Stevens Point, and the rapids heretofore known as "Conant" 84 became known as "Shaurette," a change of spelling added for good measure. Recently, new information has been found on Peter Chaurette. Through the courtesy of John Shippy, Jr., of Stevens Point, I was shown a booklet published by John G. Pinion of Marshfield in 1949. In it appears a photograph of a cemetery at Rozellville (northeast of Marshfield) where one of the headstones bears this epitaph: Peter Chaurette died June 29, 1884 aged 74 Years Below, on this simple headstone, are the familiar clasped hands which symbolize, no doubt, the meeting of the departed with his God. The Chaurette brothers undoubtedly considered themselves more white than Indian and therefore were given, at least in Peter's case, the right to be buried in a white man's cemetery at St. Andrew's Catholic Church in Rozellville. Both the Chaurette brothers had Indian wives of mixed blood and both had children to be baptized. This was apparently so important to Peter, at least, that he took his wife and children down to Portage to be baptized by Father Theodore Van den Broek, one of the first Catholic missionaries in Wisconsin Territory. Van den Broek had a mission church at Little Chute and made periodic visits to "Fort Winnebago" or Portage, and to Prairie Du Chien, Butte des Morts, Green Lake and Green Bay. The baptisnlal records of Van den Broek are preserved at St. John Nepomuc Church in Little Chute. On one of his trips to Portage in October 1839, he baptized Urusla, infant daughter of Peter Chaurette and Ingonilia (?) Temoseth. The sponsors were Paul Grignon and Margarita Chaurette, no doubt a sister of Peter. Three years later in 1842 Van den Broek baptized Maria, another daughter of Peter Chaurette, but this time the mother's name was Margarita, which may have been an alternate name for Temoseth adopted after a Christian 85 Peter Chaurette's grave at RozellviUe. 86 baptism. Maria was born August 5, 1841 and the sponsors were Toussant St. Onge and Elizabeth Chaurette, still another sister of Peter, no doubt. A few months later, on November 14, Sophie, a daughter of Peter Chaurette and Josette Covion (?) was baptized. The spelling of "Covion" ,is not clear, but she was probably a second wife or consort of Peter Chaurette. In 1848, Peter Chaurette was again in Portage, this·time as a sponsor at the baptism of Paula Maria, a daugher of Paul Grignon and Elizabeth Chaurette. This is the last time he is mentioned in the baptismal records of Van den Broek. His 'brother, Francis, is mentioned twice. In 1844 Francis was a sponsor, with his Indian wife, at the baptism of Margarita, still another daughter of Paul and Elizabeth Grignon. What became of Francis Chaurette is at present unknown, but there can be little doubt about the last resting place of Peter at Rozellville. His presence in the one-time hunting grounds of the Indians lying between the Big Eau Pleine and the Little Eau Pleine might suggest that he was living among or near a band of the Potawatonli Indians who had moved into this area after their forced removal from Michigan a~d Indiana in the 1830s. Later, stray bands of the Potawatomi moved into Wisconsin and took refuge in remote areas of the state where they might not be detected or at least disturbed. Central and northeast Wisconsin was Menominee country and before'the Menonlinee it was Winnebago. Whether Peter Chaurette's wife was a mixed-blood of Potwatomi or Menominee descent is uncertain. It does not matter because the two tribes were closely related· and intermarriage was not uncommon. Thus, when the first settlers, mostly Germans from around Manitowoc, came into the Little Eau Pleine country in the late 1870s, they were met by the Potawatomi, particularly around Rice Lake. This lake, or rather twin lake at the time, was formed by a natural reservoir created by the Little Eau Pleine which courses through it, bringing fresh water down" from the north. It was, by all accounts, one of the best hunting and fishing areas in the state before the white man, hungry for more land 87 he did not need, decided to make a drainage district here in still another effort to change what nature had already made good. Peter Chaurette probably moved into this area to work for John Week, either at the sawmill that stood on the south bank of the Big Eau Pleine, or as a swamper in the woods, teamster, or cook. The Week mill stood less than four miles east of Rice Lake. In fact, the mill stood at the narrowest point between the Big and Little Eau Pleine Rivers, not more than a mile and a half apart at this point. Nelson Week, a son of John Week, grew up in this country in the 1850s, played with the Indian children, and remembered hearing through the forest the distant drum beat of the Indians around Rice Lake when they were observing some festival or religious ceremony. As he grew too old to work, Peter Chaurette may have retired to a log cabin. somewhere on the banks of the Little Eau Plaine. Around 1880 John Brinkmann opened a trading post at Rozellville (named for M.D. Rozell) which stood on the southeast corner of what is today the intersection of County Trunks M and C. County Trunk M comes up from Highway 10, and C runs east, probably along an old Indian trail that meandered back and forth between the two rivers all the way to the Wisconsin. The Brinkmann trading post catered both to the Indians and to the first settlers, and it was probably around the stove at Brinkmann's store that the early settlers heard Peter Chaurette tell the story about the big Indian fight called "The Battle of Smoky Hill." He did not take part in it himself, by any means, but apparently had heard the story repeated in old legends passed down by the Indians. The story was remembered by Jacob Frieders who passed it on to John Pinion of Marshfield, himself a descendent of one of the first settlers to Day Township in Marathon County. Frieders owned no land here in 1880, but he was here, probably working for others, and he was 29 years old at the time of Chaurette's death in 1884. According to Pinion's account, based on interviews with 88 Frieders, Smoky Hill was located on the Little Eau Pleine in the northwest corner of Section 28, Town of Bergen (today Green Valley). It was not much of a hill, he says, but actually an island in Rice Lake, and since everything around it was flat, even an elevation- of a few feet would have given it a commanding view. The plat of 1880, however, shows there was no island in the lake, although since that time some kind of an island called "Honey" appears to. have developed, either as a result of the drainage project or some other phenomenon. My feeling is that "Smoky Hill" lay to the south of the new bridge on Smoky I-lill Road, perhaps on the ridge that rises to the south of the bridge. The Indians were on high ground here and yet within easy walking distance of the river where they drew their water. Before the Revolutionary War, that is, in the early 1700s, this area was probably held by different bands of the Chippewa nation. After the French defeated the Sauk and Fox Indians at Butte des Morts in 1738, French traders were at the peak of their influence among the Chippewas. This was a connection that began more than a century earlier around Chequamegon Bay on Lake Superior. According to Rhoda R. Gilman, writing in the Wisconsin Magazine of History (Autumn 1974), the two decades between 1738 and 1758 marked the apogee of French influence in Wisconsin, and Green Bay became the administrative headquarters of the fur trade to the West. It is almost certain that the Chippewa bands on the Little Eau Plaine were bringing their furs and maple sugar to Green Bay at this time, traveling down the Wisconsin River and portaging over to the Fox. The Big Eau Pleine and the Little Eau Pleine were called by the Chippewas in their own language the "Big Sugar Maple" and "Little Sugar Maple," probably because of the abundance of maple trees and the rich sap that flowed from trees growing so near to the two river systems. Some time, allegedly between 1755 and 1758, a Chippewa band at Rice Lake had gone down the Little Eau Plaine a few miles to tap maple trees in spring and in their absence a band of Winnebagoes moved into and occupied 89 their village on Smoky Hill. The question arises at once: could these have been Winnebagoes? The answer is 'yes,' although strictly speaking this was not Winnebago country. The Winnebagoes had been pus~ed to the west by the Menominees and were scattered throughout the southwestern part of the state where the missionaries first met them around Portage and Prairie du Chien in the 1830s. Apparently the Chippewas were at a disadvantage in their efforts to dislodge the Winnebagoes from Smokey Hill, either because they were outnumbered or because the Winnebagoes were holding their women and children hostage. Instead of launching an attack, the Chippewa chief of the band sent a herald to Green Bay requesting support from the French garrison. Just how the French reached the area is uncertain. They could have canoed up the Fox and portaged to the Wisconsin, but this was in spring and an unlikely time to be canoeing or poling upstream. They probably came overland. Mr. Pinion quotes Frieder as saying that the French force brought along two small cannon in addit~on to their muskets. It can be assumed that the Chippewas met the French at the Wisconsin River, probably at the crossing where DuBay's trading post was estabished many years later, and escorted their friends to the zone of combat. Frieders quotes Chaurette as saying that the French divided their force and together with the help of the Chippewas, drove the Winnebagoes east into an ambush. The final stage of the attack was a "massacre" of the Winnebagoes. If Peter Chaurette ever mentioned the number of casualties in this engagement, the figure has been lost somewhere along memory lane, but it is 'always safe for writers among the Long Knives to say that it was a "massacre." "Smoky Hill" got its name, according to Pinion, because it was regarded with superstitious awe. The old battle ground was frequently shrouded in mist and fog and this, according to Pinion, was bad medicine, or a manifestation of the "evil spirit." In this manner, the white man also puts words into the mouths of Indians. 90 There are legends of Indian villages in this area and one old timer will tell you that a village was located here, and another will tell you differently, whereas both are probably correct because the Indian villages were not permanent fixtures on the landscape. But there is no certain way of knowing where the "battle of Smoky Hill" actually took place. But if you wish to drive that way some evening, take County Trunk C west from Dancy to Smoky Hill Road and turn south two miles when you will come to the new bridge built across the Little Eau Pleine. Stop the car in the parking area to the east of the bridge and hold your breath. You might just hear the ghosts of forgotten men moaning in the willow trees, for somewhere around here marks the spot where the only major battle was probably waged in central Wisconsin between the Chippewa and Winnebago Indians.

91 Chapter VI

DUBAY'S WIVES

About 12 miles north of Stevens Point on Old 51 stands an historical marker erected in 1962 by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. The marker calls attention to the one­ time trading post kept by John DuBay on the east bank of the Wisconsin River, today covered by the waters of Lake DuBay. The marker also states that DuBay was married to "Princess Madeline," a daughter of Oshkosh, chief of the Menominee Indians in the 1840s and '50s. In the light of more recent research, this information appears to be wrong. In composing the wording for the marker, the directors of the Portage County Historical Society (of which I was one) leaned heavily on a book written by Merton E. Krug called DuBay: Son-in-Law of Oshkosh, published in 1946. As the title of the book implies, DuBay was allegedly a son-in-law of Oshkosh through marriage with his daughter, "Princess Madeline." In the 1830s and 1840s DuBay conducted a far-reaching trade with the Indians of northern Wisconsin and upper Michigan, working both as an agent for the American Fur Co. and for himself. Through his knowledge of the Indians he had known around Green Bay, where he grew to manhood, and his knowledge of their language, he grew rich even though unable to write his own name. In 1857 his luck changed when he shot and killed William Reynolds at Fort Winnebago (Portage) in a property dispute. 92 He was arrested and, since his lawyers did not think he could get a fair trial in Columbia County, a change of venue to Dane County was ordered by the court.

John Baptiste DuBay was half Indian by descent from a Menominee Indian princess. half French through his Canadian-born father, Louis Dube. He was a hunter, fur trader, interpreter, linguist, stage line operator, sawmill own e r • and tow n site promoter. Lake DuBay, lying partly in Portage County and mostly in Marathon County, is named after him. DuBay was charged with murder in the first degree, and in two trials held in 1857 and 1858, two different juries failed to agree on a verdict and he was released on a technicality. In the course of the first trial, as recorded by Krug in his book, six references are made by witnesses either to a "princess" or to DuBay as the son-in-law of Oshkosh. But nowhere in the entire testimony is there any given name associated with the "princess." Krug apparently used the name "Princess Madeline" on the strength of the 1850 census which indicates clearly that a female by the name of "Madelane" was DuBay's wife at the time and presumably the mother of the children, or at least some of the children listed in the 1850 census. At the time I helped compose the wording for the marker, the late Marie Swallow, one of our society members, took 93 exception to the "Princess Madeline" interpretation and said there was no evidence that Oshkosh ever had a daughter by that name. Since that time further research on the subject forces me to concede that Miss Swallow was at least half right and I was half wrong. John DuBay was married to or living with someone named Madeline or Madelane. There can be no doubt about that, but it seems that she was not the daughter of Oshkosh. In his book, Krug cites the United States census for 1850 which lists the DuBay family in this order, with age and place of birth at the right of the column: John DuBay 50 Wisconsin Madelane 30 Michigan Louis 19 Wisconsin Louisa 14 Wisconsin Charles 12 Wisconsin Rose 9 Wisconsin Moses 3 Wisconsin I have checked this information against the original microfilm and find it to be correct. The enumerator used the spelling Rose for the fourth child although I am confident it should have been Rosa, an abbreviation for Rosalie, a common name among mixed-blood families at the time. However, if Louis, the oldest son, was 19 years old i.n 1850, then he must have been conceived in 1830 when his mother was 10 years old! Patently, there is something wrong here. She must have been 40 years old, at least, which would strongly suggest that she was not a daughter of Oshkosh who was born in 1795. But, was Madeline the only wife of John Baptiste DuBay? Her name follows her husband's, which is usual in a census enumeration, and even if the enumerator sensed there was more than one wife in the household, he would not have recorded it because this would have been bigamy. Now consider this, on January 6, 1846, two DuBay children were brought to Father Theodore Van den Broek, a pioneer Catholic missionary to Wisconsin, for baptism. The ceremony was most probably held in Green Bay or Little Chute. According to his own baptismal records, still 94 preserved at St. John Nepomuc church in Little Chute, a daughter, Rosa, and a son, Moses, were baptized that day, both the children of John Baptiste DuBay and "Maria LeClaire." There can be little doubt about who this particular John Baptiste DuBay was because the sponsors at the baptism for Moses were Bosil DuBay and Agatha DuBay, probably Bosil's wife. Bosil was a half-brother of John DuBay. Van den Broek also records that Rosa was born in 1841, which corresponds to the 1850 census, but he fails to give the age of Moses. The census says he was three years old in 1850 and on this basis he could not have been baptized in 1846, but census enumerators were often confused in giving the age of a member and it is easy to imagine that the interpreter for the enumerator could have made an error as well. It is my belie~ that the last three children listed in the 1850 census cited by Krug are all the children of "Maria LeClaire" DuBay, and the first three, Louis, Louisa and Charles, are the children of Madeline. It is also my' belief that Madeline was a Chippewa woman, someone DuBay met in the Lake Superior country or at Sault Ste. Marie where he was once stationed. The fact that the census shows that she was born in Michigan, no doubt the Upper Peninsula, lends credence to the assumption that she was of Chippewa origin. Meanwhile, I recently became aware of an account book kept at a trading post in Green Bay by Francis Desnoyers in the 1840s. From the names of the customers, it seems clear that most of them were either of French-Indian descent or full-blood Indians, several of them chiefs of bands. To help keep track of his customers, Desnoyers made comments after each name: fo:r example, where the customer lived, or to whom he or she was related, etc. On page 66 appears the account of "Lisette" and after her name a comment by Destoyers: "Oshkosh daughter." The account, not a long one, begins May 23, 1846, and runs to November 2, 1847. The purchases were for worsted materials, beads, tea, silk, soap and silk hankies. (The hankies were worn by the Indian women as. head covers.) Nearly two years after the last entry in the account book 95 was made, Lisette was in Green Bay to claim her share of a special "payment" which the Menominee tribe of Indians was making in favor of their "cousins," that is, the mixed~bloods. Several of the DuBays were there, including Louis DuBay, Bosil DuBay, and Angelique DuBay, a half-sister of John DuBay. (She later married Richard Downey.) The names of Louis, Bosil and Angelique DuBay appear in the Green Bay Advocate for June 28, 1849, on three separate lines in the list of recipients entitled to the special "payment." In the next, or fourth line under the three names above, appears this entry: "Lisette DuBay and children." Further down the list, out of alphabetical order, appears "Jean Baptiste DuBay and children." The marital status of each recipient is usually given in the list which appeared in the Green Bay newspaper, whether he or she had any children, etc. Madeline's name is not included with her husband and children because she was probably of Chippewa origin and therefore not entitled to the "payment" which had been earmarked for mixed-bloods of Menominee descent only. Since DuBay was of French-Menominee descent, he and his children were entitled to their share, although he also claimed to be part Chippewa whenever it suited him. The list in the Advocate mentions "Lisette DuBay and children" which means she had more than one child with her. Thus, it would appear that if John DuBay was still married to or living with Madeline in 1850, as the census indicates, then he was also carrying on an extra-marital arrangement with a younger woman whom I believe was the real daughter of Chief Oshkosh. As mentioned earlier, no one at the trial held in Madison in 1857 ever mentioned the first name of Oshkosh's daughter, the so-called "princess." No one ever mentioned where DuBay married her, if, in fact he ever did. The evidence suggests that "Lisette-Maria LeClaire" was wife No. 2 in a menage a trois. If true, the question arises: would this make John DuBay legally a son-in-law of Oshkosh? Another witness at the trial in Madison in 1857, Eliza Lowe, testified that in the early 1850s "the Princess­ daughter...of Chief Oshkosh" had lived in a house near Fort 96 Winnebago, but she did not know when she left. She thought it was around 1853-54. And the reason she probably left was because DuBay had become interested in another woman, a Caucasian and a sister of Peter Jessee, one of the witnesses at the trial in 1857. Jessee told the court that his sister could read and write and that she had had two children by DuBay. He could not state positively that they were' married although he knew "they lived together." Bear in mind that this statement was made in 1857. The 1860 census for the Town of Eau Pleine reveals that John DuBay, now living at the old trading post on the Wisconsin River, indeed had a new wife over the last census and her name was Calista, 29 years old, the sister of Peter Jessee. She gave her birthplace as Vermont although her death certificate in Marathon County Courthouse shows that she was born in Canada, June 10, 1832. The census of 1860 also' shows that one child, Aleda, was living with her parents. The only death certificate on anyone by the name of DuBay in Marathon County is for Calista DuBay who died September 7, 1920. And her death was recorded, I believe, because she was a Caucasian. DuBay's own death at Knowlton in 1887 is not recorded. Calista probably remained with her husband until his death in 1887 and continued to live in Knowlton or at least in Marathon County. If DuBay married her around 1853, she was probably about 22 years old at the time and pretty enough to oust the daughter of Oshkosh who apparently was being retired to a wigwam in the pinery. And where was Madeline all this time? No doubt at the old trading post, keeping the fire warm for the children and probably Lisette as well. There appears to be little information available on the .children of Lisette DuBay, but there is also little information on the children of Madeline as found in the 1850 census. None of their names appears in the 1860 or 1870 census, although one of them, Charles, was still around Knowlton. . On November 1, 1861 he was in Mosinee to enlist in Company G of the 14th Infantry Regiment, Wisconsin Volunteers. He served until May 2, 1862 when he was ··97 mustered out on a disability. John Louis DuBay, the first-born son, died in 1855, aged 24, leaving a will in which he named his father executor. (This document is in Portage County probate records.) To his sisters and brothers he willed an equal and undivided share of his property consisting of four fractional lots situated on both sides of the Wisconsin River, one of the lots actually being the site of the trading post in the present Town of Dewey. The sisters and brothers named in the will appear in this order and spelling: Mary A.L., Charles, Rosalie, Moses, Mary and Julia. The 1850 census lists only one Mary, a child one years old. It is possible, of course, that another Mary was born before John Louis died in 1855, and who could have been a daughter of Lisette DuBay. The 1850 census also mentions a Louisa. The will does not, and instead includes a Julia. Could this have been Louisa Julia, or was Louisa already dead? There are documents in the courthouse in Stevens Point to show that John Lewis DuBay purchased three parcels of land from the government on January 29, 1841. The circumstances suggest that John DuBay, his father, entered these lots in his son's name rather than his wife's because she was an Indian and therefore not a legal partner. It should be borne in mind that an Indian was not a "person" within the meaning of the law until a court order in Arkansas made him so in 1879! John DuBay, once a rich nlan, died a poor man, and what little he had left no doubt went to the support of his Caucasian wife, Calista, and her two children. The members of his Indian families, by all accounts, died in poverty, for it does not seem that the brothers and sisters of Louis, who died in 1855, ever got any inheritance. The land held in his name was all mortgaged, no doubt to help pay bills for DuBay's defense at the two trials in Madison. The late L. (for Louis) C. Zigler of Stevens Point was one of the last connective links with the immediate family of DuBay. He was anxious to tell me about it because he had married Winnie Ray, a daughter of George Hayner and Huron DuBay. (While I was at his home in 1962 he gave me a 98 hatchet which he said had once been used by John DuBay.) Huron DuBay, I believe, was the daughter of John DuBay and Calista. One daughter, Aleda, is listed in the 1860 census. Since Huron was born at Knowlton on August 31, 1860, it seems likely that the census enumerator had already called at the DuBay household, which may explain why Aleda is included and Huron is not. Huron married George Hayner in 1881 and they lived at Knowlton where she died in 1937. She was survived by her daughter, Mrs. Zigler, and a sister, Mrs. H. (?) Swickard of Knowlton, three brothers and six grandchildren. Louis Zigler mentioned a Minnie DuBay to me, and Alex Wallace also mentioned her to me once, but I failed on both instances to clarify her relationship. It also seems that Wallace told me she was buried at Knowlton cemetery. There . is no head stone, however. At the tinle that Lake DuBay was created in 1942, ·an older headstone for DuBay was replaced by a beautiful piece of Wausau granite, paid for by George Mead Sr. of Consolidated Papers, Inc. in Wisconsin Rapids. I am not sure who wrote the wording for it, most likely Wallace. This is what it says: John Baptiste DuBay 1810-1887 Son of a Menominee Indian Princess Son-in-Law of Oshkosh + Treaty Maker + Interpreter Indian Trader + Firm Friend of White Men Thus, the myths of the past continue to haunt the present and when this stone was erected in the early 1940s, someone was still thinking of Indians as either "hostiles" or "friendlies." To recapitulate, I believe that Lisette-Marie LeClaire DuBay was a daughter of Oshkosh and the real "princess" referred to in the historical marker.

99 Chapter VII

A DOUBLE LYNCHING

More than a century ago, some time before daybreak on October 19, 1875, two men, the brothers Amos and Isaiah Courtwright of the Town of Buena Vista, were lynched by a mob on the south side of Stevens Point in retaliation for the fatal shooting a few days earlier of Joseph Baker, sheriff of Portage County. The journey to the lynching tree led from the county jail in the new courthouse at Stevens Point where the two brothers were waiting trial for the murder of Baker. A party of angry men, called "masked demons" by a newspaper in Wausau, had come to take them away and enforce their own brand of justice upon them. After removing the prisoners from county jail they were bound, gagged and dragged behind a wagon or buckboard all the way down to Phillips' Grove, then located north of the present Portage County Home. Here they were pushed into the vehicle, and, with a noose around their necks, the ropes were tossed over a big limb of a jack pine. At a signal from the leader of the lynching party, the teamster drove off leaving the two men writhing in the air. Amos Courtwright, father of four children, was probably unconscious before his feet left the wagon, and since the drop from a wagon box to the ground is not very high, both men probably strangled to death instead of dying instantly of broken necks, 'although the doctor who examined them afterwards thought Isaiah's neck was partially dislocated. 100 Rumor of the atrocity spread through the city of Stevens Point and Plover while people were coming to work that morning and they flocked down to Phillips' Grove to view the gruesome sight. Children on their .way to school saw the bodies hanging from the tree and ran to tell their schoolmates about it. The late Ellida Moen told me that her mother, Emma Haakonson, was a pupil in the Old White School at the time and she ran down to the south side during the noon recess to see what was happening. When- she got there, the two bodies had already been lowered to the ground and were lying on the grass. Taking one look at their lifeless forms, the bloated faces, the open-eyed stare of Isaiah and the blood-soaked clothing was enough for Emma Haakonson, and she ran home, unable to eat her lunch that day. The horror of that scene never left her. After the lynching, a conspiracy of silence developed in the communtiy, a silence so menacing that it has not been penetrated even to this day. There must have been some people who knew or strongly suspected who the lynchers were. The jailer on duty said he had been taken in hand by three men and told to keep his mouth shut, but he could not recall that he had ever seen them before. And the wives of the men involved must have known what their husbands had been up to, but their lips were sealed by a silence was so threatening that not even their children, who must have heard whispers about it, ever dared to breathe a word about it till the d-ay they died. And there must have been others who knew at least some of the lynchers from the tones of their voices, or by the way they walked. How could two men being dragged from a jail, howling like crazed animals and calling for help, not be heard? There were other prisoners in the cells who must have suspected who some of the men were even though masked. And how could a team and wagon and a party of men move all the way from the courthouse to Phillips' Grove without being seen by someone? Somewhere along the route, according to an elderly resident of Plover I talked to in 1956, 101 several women joined their husbands and kept running up to the defenseless men behind the wagon and beating them with sticks across the side of the head and face. And a lady in Linwood, whose memories of the hanging came to her directly from her parents, told me in 1957 that the. entire affair might have been avoided had it not been for one woman in Plover who kept shaming the men into action. This infuriated woman was not necessarily Ellen Baker, the widow of the sheriff. She was pregnant and probably not in any condition to be taking an active part in the affair. But my Linwood informant refused to elaborate. How could hatred so great be aroused in people who had known each other so well for so many years? It began innocently enough. Amos Courtwright and Luther Hanchett were partners in a sawmill built in 1852-53 on the Plover River where the present McDill dam is located. They also held other real estate and pine lands in the county. Hanchett, an attorney, later became interested in politics and wanted to withdraw from the sawmill business. In 1856 he sold his interest in the business to Courtwright on the understanding that the latter would pay all· debts of the partnership and an additional sum of $2,000, to be divided into two $1,000 notes secured against a mortgage on the mill and other properties. Six years later in 1862 the notes, allegedly, were still unpaid. The late Alex Wallace, compiler of "Stevens Point Through the Years" which ran daily in the Stevens Point Daily Journal in the 1940s, told me about an incident in this connection which I have since heard repeated by three other people in the county, including Wayne Owen, who died in 1963. Wallace said that Sophia Courtwright, Amos' wife, met Hanchett on the street in Plover in 1862 and made a payment on or redeemed one of the notes. Hanchett was a busy man now because he had been elected to Congress and had already served part of his first term in Washington. On the day of the encounter he was in a hurry and asked Sophia to wait until a later date at which time he would acknowledge receipt of payment. That same day, or perhaps the next, Luther Hanchett dropped dead on the street in Plover, November 24, 1862. He 102 was only 37 years old. The Courtwrights, according to his hearsay, were then without proof of payment and upon the death of Hanchett, the unpaid notes passed into the hands of the administrators of the Hanchett estate who were James O. Raymond and Stephen 'H. Alban. Raymond was actually a law partner of Hanchett. In 1864 Raymond's wife died and three years later he married Lucinda, the widow of Hanchett and daughter of war-hero Colonel James S. Alban. Where did Wallace and the others hear the story about the payment? Could it have been the letter Wallace received from a J.E. Manchester in 1944? The latter, living in California at the time, had read Wallace's account of the Courtwright story and had written to explain that he was an eye-witness to some of the events on the day Sheriff Baker was shot. He goes on to say that although Courtwright was "an honest, upright man" he did have "spells of drinking," and whenever he was in this condition he turned any cash he had over to his wife. On this particular occasion he had asked his wife to take the money he had and pay Luther Hanchett. Manchester then had this to say: "When she got to town she met Hanchett on his way to the depot to take the train. He did not have time to go back but told her if she gave him the money he could release the mortgage as soon as he got back. If I remember correctly he died on that trip or was taken seriously sick. My folks felt if Mrs. Courtwright had taken a receipt for that money, or if Mr. Hanchett had lived, that terrible thing would never have happened, the blackest piece of history that was ever made in Portage County." Manchester, in the above, forgets there was no train in Portage County in 1862. Probably he was thinking of the stage to Berlin. Simon A. Sherman, operator of a sawmill on the Wisconsin River just above the mouth of the Plover, kept a diary, and some time during this period he had been talking to Mrs. Courtwright. He refers to her as Sophia Ross Courtwright, born in Pennsylvania on January 14,1833. From Note Book No.3 in his collection, Sherman has this to say: "This Buena Vista farm Courtwright could not pay all when he bought it so when it came due he sent the m9ney by a man by

103 the name of Carpenter to pay in the money and get the deed and Carpenter paid Courtwright's money and took the deed in Carpenter's name. So Amos commenced suit against Carpenter and it, was in court 4 years. Then it was decided in Courtwright's, favor, provided he paid $320 to the court and Courtwright could not get the money that particular day." Questioned further by Sherman, Mrs. Courtwright said she "was employed by Amos Courtwright and Luther Hanchett at their sawmill in Plover. Said Amos born 'I think in 1821.' Said Amos born in Sullivan county, New York in small town called Neversink, and when he was in 17th year he took a job peeling hemlock bark for a tanner. In that place he hired men, built a log­ house in the woods 7 miles from the tannery and when he finished his bark and settled up he had cleared 1000. That was his first work. He stayed in that place and worked for the tannery until he came west in 1848 and when he went in business on the Plover [River] Amos Courtwright had $1,000 to commence with, and he took in a partner, one Luther Hanchett, but his partner... did not have one dollar, but Courtwright thought him a smart, honest man. They worked together in business until Septenlber 29, 1856, and in 1859 Hanchett gave Amos Courtwright a receipt in full and everything was settled." Here are some unknown details about the lives of Amos and Sophia Courtwright. However, according to this account, Hanchett had been paid for his share in the mill in 1859, an item Sherman either misunderstood or Mrs. Courtwright had 110 proof of. Whatever Mrs. Courtwright said, the abstract shows that in 1861, the property passed from Sheriff D.C. Clements to Charles Leavitt on a sheriff's certificate sale. Leavitt, probably acting as a go-between, then deeded the property over to the brothers, Thomas and A.S. McDill for $3,500. Amos allegedly agreed to pay one half to the administrators of the Hanchett estate in settlement of .the two $1,000 notes which, according to Raymond, he had failed to do. The Courtwrights had purchased a farm from James Scott in Section 5 in Buena Vista Township. The farm, a quarter­ section, lay on the prairie one mile north of Liberty Corners. or on the southeast corner of County Trunks J and D. (The town line between Buena Vista and Stockton follows D.) Raymond, as the administrator of the Hanchett estate, later sought to take possession of this farm in order to 104 liquidate the Hanchett estate. It will not be necessary to go into all the legal moves made by Raymond to get possession, but in the end he managed to get a tax deed to all four forties (NWIA, Sec. 5) for a consideration of $38.53. The date on the abstract for this auction by the county is May 14, 1870. Actually, Raymond claimed that the taxes had not been paid for five years. It seems rather hard to believe that the Courtwrights would have let their taxes go, forcing the county to foreclose on them.' Were they aware that the taxes were not being paid, or were they being misled? According to Clayton McLarky of Whiting who heard the story on this from Walter Murat, a one-time lawyer in Stevens Point, who heard it from his father, County Judge John A. Murat, Raymond had gone to Amos Courtwright and told him that he did not need to pay the taxes on the farm since his wife had the mortgage on it and she was paying the taxes. This is hearsay, to be sure, but how else can this failure to pay the taxes be explained? The farm in Buena Vista was vital to the Courtwright family now. It was their livelihood, and it seems unbelievable that they would have gone this long without paying taxes unless they had been deceived or misled. ' In this connection, it must be said that there was considerable sympathy for the Courtwrights among their neighbors on the prairie, if not for Isaiah, at least for Amos and his family. Earl Lea, a grandson of Jesse Lea, mentioned this to me years ago and repeated it to me a short time before he died. Mr. Manchester, who says he witnessed some of the events on the day of the shoot-out, also said the neighbors "were on the side of the Courtwrights." Having been dispossessed by what appears to have been a technicality or a ruse, the Courtwrights probably felt they had good reason not to vacate the farm, and when Raymond realized they were not going to leave, he began to put pressure on Sheriff Baker to have them evicted. The Stevens Point Journal interviewed Raymond on this shortly after the Courtwrights were arested and he went into considerable detail about the sequence of events that led up to the shooting, although the Journal editor did not get 105 Courtwright's version of these events. It would have been no difficult matter to interview them since they were all in jail over at the courthouse waiting trial. But Raymond, who had moved from Plover to Stevens Point after Plover lost the fight to keep the county seat, was now a prosperous business man with a law office on Main Street and just no common stick along the river. Raymond told the Journal that he had n1ade repeated efforts to settle the matter with the Courtwrights through go-betweens such as Antoine Precourt, John Bousier and Sheriff Baker, even offering to convey to Courtwright the forty on which the house stood, free and clear of all back taxes, if he would only give up the other three forties without further trouble. He said his efforts at compromise were insultingly rejected. Finally, in March 1875 Raymond got a court order commanding the sheriff to take forcible possession of the house and farm. In May, the Courtwrights complied with the court order and moved out, at which time Raymond rented the farm to a man by the name of L.W. Richardson. But Richardson did not have an easy time of it that season. In the month of June his horses were missing. While the Richardson boy, Fred, and a James Clements were out looking for them, Amos moved his family back into the house. The horses were found tied to a tree some distance away in a woods. Richardson and his wife had apparently gone somewhere for the day. When they learned what had happened, they made a complaint charging the Courtwrights with trespass. While Amos and Sophia were in Stevens Point answering to these charges, the Richardsons took possession of the house again. It should be mentioned here that in these last maneuvers, Isaiah Courtwright, probably a younger brother, became involved in the affair. He appears to have been living with his brother's family, and from the meager evidence at hand it seems that he had a reputation for shiftlessness and a man not much interested in working for a living. In his earlier visits to the Buena Vista farm it is said that Baker had been threatened by the Courtwrights. The Journal 106 said, "We had a conversation with Baker about that time and he told us that Amos Courtwright and his wife had both threatened to shoot him if he ever returned to the farm again." The timing of this threat is uncertain. It could have been made in Mayor later in the summer. In any event, according to the Journal, Baker had told the Courtwrights that he had no discretion in the matter and that as a law officer it was his duty to execute any legal order placed in his hands "and if you kill me it will make no difference in the end. Other officers will take my place, and the command of the court will be obeyed even if it takes every man in Portage County to enforce it." Some time in late September, according to Raymond, Courtwright went out to the Richardsons armed with a double-barrel shotgun to drive them out of the house. Courtwright allegedly fired one shot at the Richardson boy, Fred, and at Clements before they managed to take the gun away from him. Nevertheless, according to Raymond, Amos managed to chase them out of the house and also "capture" several hunting guns and hand guns owned by the Richardson family. Since September, then, the Courtwrights had been in possession of the house and farm, and the. Richardsons, without their weapons, had not dared to attempt anything drastic without conferring with the acting sheriff in Stevens Point and, no doubt, with Raymond. And that is where the matter stood on that fatal day, October 11, 1875. Sheriff Baker was apparently well liked in the county and was now serving his second term in office. He was not only a veteran of the Civil War but one who had been severely wounded in action at Shiloh, the same engagement in which Colonel James Alban was fatally wounded. Baker eventually recovered from his wound and was honorably discharged, or "mustered out" as the expression was used then. Baker had known Amos Courtwright for many years. They were not actually neighbors, but living on a farm south of Plover, Baker was not too far from the prairie where the Courtwrights lived. 107 From different sources it appears quite evident that Baker tried to delay any direct action against the Courtwrights, pleading for more time to talk things over with them. But Raymond was getting impatient, and according to Alex Wallace, he met Baker on Main Street in Stevens Point one day and called him a coward. If true, this cruel remark must have challenged Baker's manhood and placed him in a spot from which he could not retreat. Whether the next day or a few days later, Baker, accompanied by one Austin Sidmore, on October 11, went out to the Buena Vista homestead. The two men arrived at the house in mid-morning, did not attempt to enter the yard but talked with Amos and Isaiah who were at a window. After explaining the purpose of his mission, Baker was told by the Courtwrights, allegedly, that they would never be taken alive and the first man who stepped into the yard would be a dead man. The word "allegedly" is used here because no deposition was taken from Sidmore on this encounter, and Baker died before he could give his version of it. The only source' available on this appeared in the Journal which was based on what Raymond said and Raymond was not there when it happened. Baker then withdrew from the yard and proceeded to round up a number of men to serve as deputies, but when they got up to the yard., nlost of them held back, waiting to see what was going to happen to the sheriff before they ventured farther. But Fred Richardson, Sidmore, Henry Ward and Alfred Bossard are mentioned as the deputies who were willing to go through the yard gate with him. The Richardson youth was naturally more interested in this than the others, and Bossard (not Buzzard) lived on the next farm west of the Courtwright place and may have had some petty grievance against the Courtwrights. I have no information on Sidmore or Ward. There was a Mathew Sidmore who owned a lot in the 1st Ward at Stevens Point at this time. According to the Journal account, Baker approached the yard a second time and said to his deputies as he opened or smashed down the gate, "Come on boys, we must get those 108 fellows out of there," or words to that effect, walked through the gate and before he had taken another step, a rifle barked from the second story window of the house. The ball hit Baker in the lower rib, passed diagonally through the intestines and came out of the lower back. The Journal said Baker caught the slug in his hand as it left his back, which was quite a feat indeed-if true. Baker, who already knew a thing or two about pain, did not fall, but realized he was a dead man and allegedly told the deputies be~ind him, "Boys, I'm shot and it's going to kill nle, but we have got to get these fellows out of here." Whereupon, the deputies nearest to him ran to a lower window and smashed the glass while Baker emptied four rounds from his pistol into the room, but without effect. The Journal said the Courtwrights were "all in the chamber," probably meaning a bedroom upstairs. There is reason to wonder whether or not this part of the story is also confused. Why would the deputies smash the glass of a lower window? Why not shoot through the glass if that was where the sheriff was aiming? Meanwhile, the deputies helped the sheriff to a granary which probably stood to the east of the house, while the house itself faced north towards the road, i.e. present County Trunk D. From the granary the sheriff continued to direct operations and ordered the deputies to set fire to the house. During this time it seems a bit strange that the Courtwrights did not cut down more deputies, but the deputies, knowing where the first shot came from, must have avoided the line of fire by going around the house and in this manner also manag~d to set fire to it on the southwest corner without the Courtwrights knowing about it. The Journal account says that the oldest girl of the Courtwrights came outside of the house to extinguish the flames, but was prevented from doing so by a "warm pistol fire" from the deputies holed up in the granary. According to her headstone in Greenwood Cemetery at Anlherst, Marcella Courtwright was born in 1868 which would have made her about seven years old. In another version of this incident, Mrs. Courtwright and Marcella came out together to fight the fire. 109 Marcella Courtwright.

But Marcella had a pony and some time during the shoot­ out, the barn was set on fire. Seeing this, Marcella allegedly ran out to save the pony and was fired upon by the deputies. She received a ball that grazed her foot which caused her to limp slightly the rest of her life. Mrs. Courtwright was also grazed, it appears, probably when she came out to extinguish the fire. The story about Marcella and ~::e pony comes to me through Earl Lea of Lanark who heard it from his grandfather, Jesse Lea, the constable who was directly involved in the affair. As will be seen later, the pony played still another role in the story. 110 As the flames began to envelope the house, the Courtwrights escaped to the west, or blind side of the house, from the granary where the deputies were congregated, and tried to remove some of their furniture but failed. Carrying their weapons and nothing else apparently but the clothes on their backs, they fled west across the road (County Trunk J) into the field of Alfred Bossard, and then swung south towards the house of Asa Gould. The Gould farm is not identified on the 1876 plat of Portage County and I can only assume that Gould lived south of the Bossard place, which is, in fact, identified on the plat. The only other serious casualty that day was from a shotgun blast fired by the Courtwrights at David Cameron who was standing on the road presumably to the north, of the house. It must have been a long shot for fine shot but nevertheless, Cameron's cheek was "perforated," as the Journal put it, and three of his teeth were knocked out. At least one or two shots passed through his tongue and nose. He fell, bleeding badly, and was removed to a nearby house, most probably to the house of Washington Lombard which stood down the road a short distance to the east on present County Trunk D. Information on the route of the fugitives appears in the Journal account and credence is given to it in the letter from Manchester, who wrote to Alex Wallace to say that as a boy of 12 he was sitting on a straw stack on what was then the William Scribner farm, half a mile south of the Courtwright place, and watched the smoke rise into the air as the Courtwright house burned. He says he heard the shooting and later saw Amos and his brother, Isaiah, and Rodney, the son of Amos "when they came to [Asa] Gould's just after dark and got something to eat and went out into the night." The Manchesters were moving to a nearby farm that day and other members of the family had gone to pick up some household goods and left the boy to watch the cattle. But the Manchester account fails to mention whether Mrs. Courtwright and the other three children were in the ·group that came to Asa Gould's. Apparently they were, and from a 111 later account, circumstantial evidence suggests that Sophia and the four children remained at Gould's temporarily and were arrested there. This was late autumn, and without proper clothing they had no choice but to surrender while Amos and.Isaiah continued their flight. The Courtwright brothers then recrossed the road (County Trunk J) and traveled east on foot across the prairie at least five miles distant to the house of Leonidas Lombard where they surrendered to Lombard, a justice of the peace for the Town of Lanark. Lonlbard's house stood on the north side of the road (south of Lime Lake). After the Courtwrights fled, Baker had managed, with the help of others, to walk down the road to the house of Washington Lombard where he waited for medical aid. The doctors arrived but were unable to help the patient except to alleviate the pain, and he died a little past midnight, October 12. The fury of the deputies rose, apparently, in direct proportion to the dying man's last gasps for life, and when it was learned that the Courtwrights had escaped to the east, instead of to the west, the deputies, now swelled to a mob and no longer a legal posse, rushed eastward to capture their p·rey. The drama that developed around the Lombard house now became almost as ugly as the shooting and burning at the Courtwright place. A .hitherto unpublicized version of the events that took place was written by Lombard to the editor of the Journal less than a week after the events described. His memories were razor sharp because when he wrote, he was still in fear of his own life fronl the violence that had been let loose on the neighborhood by the mob on the night Sheriff Baker died. But Lombard's letter tells us more than the events themselves. He shows us that two decades after these pioneers came to found a new land, they had not found a new heart. When they left the New England stone piles to come west they had not left the Old Adam behind. He had conle along to dismay and disrupt the community with petty jealousies, envy, rivalries and hatreds. However, something else happened to these people, as this 112 WHERE THE CAPTURE TOOK PLACE-This is the home of Leonidas Lombard in the Town of Lanark where the Courtwright brothers surrendered. The photo, taken around 1900, shows Leonidas and daughter Belle on the lawn. Daughter Minnie is standing on the porch and wife Harriet is seated on the step. This photo was given to Malcolm Rosholt by lone Lombard Haertel, a granddaughter of Leonidas Lombard. The house has since been demolished. letter reveals and as Frederick Jackson Turner once expounded. They learned to deepen and to extend the democratic experience on the frontier and they did so, apparently, because not to do so would have torn the fabric of their lives apart. This letter reveals, also, how a single constable with a star, and a humble justice of the peace could stand up to the mob and hold their ground while risking both the displeasure of 113 their neighbors and the hatred of their enemies. They courageously set an example of civic responsibility seldom matched in our nation's history. After all, what is democracy except the willingness of free men to accept responsibility and uphold order? Much more could be written about this letter, but I will delay the story no longer. The letter does not read well in places because it was written in long hand and the printers in the Journal could not read every word and sentence clearly. Here is Lombard's letter which appeared in the Journal October 23, 1875: I will first say that Isaiah Courtwright was a perfect stranger to me; that I never was inside the house of Courtwright; neither had I spoken to him for more than a year before he came here. At about 4 o'clock p.m. on Oct. 11, 1875 a person passing stopped and said that Courtwright's house was burned, and his girl shot and two other persons; did not know what had become of the Courtwrights. C. Scott who was working for me, and who was quite intimate with the Courtwrights, anxious to get the news, borrowed my horse and about sunset started for the Prairie to get the news. In the evening I went to Wm. H. Edminister's to talk about the news. While there Schneider (?) of Buena Vista came along and stopped about an hour, and said the Courtwrights were at large and that some 30 men from Stevens Point and many from other places were in pursuit of them and would lynch them when taken. He requested me to arrest them if I seen them. Told him I WOUld. Returned home with him at about 8 o'clock, and shortly after heard a knock at the door. Opened the door and saw A. [Amos]J·Courtwright. Said he wanted to warm and inquired for Scott; said he wanted to get to Judge Cate's, or some one to go there; said he was hungry. Wife gave him something to eat, and he said there was another one outside and asked if he might come in. I said yes. He went out and returned with a stranger to me. They warmed and then sat down to eat. Told them what I heard about them and that they had better let me arrest them. They said it was just what they wanted, if I would protect them from the mob. I promised to do so if possible. I then formally arrested them in the name of the State of Wisconsin and went for J. [Jesse] Lea, a constable, and to Lewis Lombard for someone to go for Judge Cate, and for him to assist me. His [Lea] team was away so he could not go for Cate. Returned home and was told by wife that she had informed Wm. Baker and two others who were there that the Courtwrights

114 were about and that I had arrested them, but evaded telling them where I was, fearing trouble if they knew I was absent. While at L. [Lewis] Lombard's I saw a man pass westward driving very fast, which I now supposed was Baker going for help. Did not know who would come, and went again for the constable. He came, and went to Edministers for him and sent his boy [Jess Jr] for Lewis Lombard and they all arrived soon after. Made out a complaint against the Courtwrights for shooting of Baker and another person, which was signed by Edminister. I then made out a warrant and gave it to the constable, who formally served it and returned it to me. The constable had commanded all present in the name of the State of Wisconsin to assist him to hold the prisoners. We then waited until about midnight for Baker to return, not expecting any serious trouble. Getting tired we put the prisoners to bed, and disarmed them, putting the arms in another room, but unobserved, one of them had concealed a revolver in bed. All were about to retire when we heard a turmoil outside, and someone shouted 'Open the Door.' I asked them who they were and was answered 'Unless I opened the door the house would be fired in two minutes.' I asked by what authority they came and they said they had a warrant. Wm. Edminister and Jesse Lea opened the door. The former gave a signal to the Odd Fellows and the latter commanded Wm. Baker, John Eckels, Seth McMillin and finally all present in the name of the State of Wisconsin to assist to protect to take the prisoners to jail. This brought the wild mob to a halt and gave them a moment to reflect. Lewis Lombard who had stepped to the door was seized by old Nate Howard and Sidmore and choked and bound and put a strap around his neck and dragged him to the street. Howard remarked, 'God damn you, I now have you just where I want you.' Men were· stationed at each corner of the house ready to fire it and had a fire twice kindled, but did not bum. Mr. Baker and Eckels were invited to come in and see that all was right. I showed them the complaint and warrant. Demands were made for the prisioners, but the constable refused to give them up. Guns were leveled against us for denying that I intended to conceal the prisoners, when Mr. Eckels told the mob that the prisoners were in the hands of an officer and they better be careful or they would get themselves in trouble. Seeing that I had Mr. Eckels on my side I hoped the danger was past. Some now demanded that the prisoners be brought out, and others for a commitment, and said I must commit them as soon as possible or the house would be burned. I wrote out a complaint and gave it to the constable, although contrary to law, to quell the riot and save the buildings, which 115 some of the worst characters were determined to detroy, persons who were bitter personal enemies to me and my brother, who were exceedingly glad of an opportunity to gratify their revenge on us. Among others were Nate Howard, Wm. McMillin, and Peter McMillin and their intimate friends, who were engaged in a mob in my house about a year ago. Peter McMillin, instead of Baker, had gone to the Prairie to report the Courtwrights were here, and with the falsehood that I had secreted the Courtwrights in the cellar and was with them there. This excited the crowd to madness against me as he doubtless intended to burn my buildings and murder me with the Courtwrights and were only prevented as above stated. After the first excitement was over and the room full of men, Sidmore went to the road and was asked why the house was not fired, and replied that it was not too late yet and would attend to it. He started to the house and soon· after a fire was kindled. I went out with the water and gave it to Mr. Eckels who extinguished the flames. Sidmore with many others then left. Dan Bean of Plover and Nate Howard were the worst and seemed determined to have a row. The former was girded about by a halter and although treated like a gentleman, seemed determined to whip someone. The next morning the constable [Lea] accompanied by Lewis Lombard and John Eckels lodged the prisoners in jail, and when they were returning through Plover they were assailed by D. Bean and others because they had obeyed the law and faced probable death to sustain it. When Scott arrived at [Asa] Gould's, where the family of Courtwrights were destitute of clothing, he caught their pony and started for Amherst to get some [clothing] for them, intending to leave my horse as he came along, but was stopped by armed men and threatened with death unless he would tell where the Courtwrights were. J. Walker, being present, his advice was followed and Scott brought here in irons and Scott finally released. Thus it will be seen that instead of the Courtwrights being captured here, an infuriated mob was changed into good and law abiding citizens. It seems rather hard to be accused of secreting murders [sic] after one has risked his life to uphold the law, and I have good reasons to believe that a mob is contemplated to murder me yet for the course I have taken. The John Eckels mentioned here was a pioneer to the county, an old river raftsman, and more significantly in this connection, the father-in-law of Sheriff Baker. The 1876 plat shows that W.R. Edminister lived a quarter of a mile southeast of the Lombard place. Earl Lea thought his

116 grandfather had said that Edminster was a Mason. The McMillins, also pioneers to Lanark, lived south in the township, and Nate Howard was a miller who ground flour and feed at a mill on Spring Creek. Nothing further has been learned about Dan Bean, Walker, Schneider, Scott, et al. Three days after he died, Sheriff Baker was buried in Plover Cemetery with full Masonic rites. He was 40 years old. There were many veterans of the Civil War in Plover and since Baker was also a veteran, a bugler must have blown taps that day, and as the last echoes blended with the leafless trees, these veterans were probably thinking less of a hereafter for their comrade than of avenging his death. Some of these men were not only veterans but also members of the Masonic Lodge in Plover. Among them a conspiracy developed to lynch the Courtwrights. Either on Tuesday, the day after the funeral, or Wednesday, a party of hangmen went to the courthouse (present site of the County-City Building) with the intention of "delivering" the prisoners. The jail section which was in the basement of the courthouse (completed in 187l) stood almost at ground level, and was located on the northwest corner of the building. During the first days a special security guard had been detailed to the jail and when the would-be hangmen learned how well the prisoners were guarded, the leader of the group allegedly lost his nerve and pulled back his forces. In the next days, to save expense to the county, no doubt, the special deputies were gradually withdrawn and on the fatal night, one man, Frank Wheelock, was on duty. This breach of security seems inexplicable in view of the rumors of a "jail delivery" which were being circulated in both Plover and Stevens Point. The editors of the Plover Times and the Journal, as well as one of the Wausau papers, were fully aware of these rumors and all urged their readers to exercise patience and let the law take its course. The pull-back of the security detail seemed almost like a conscious oversight on the part of the acting sheriff, William B. Gilchrist. Some time after midnight on October 19, 1875, the angry men returned, some with masks over their faces but no blind- 117 fold over their eyes. They could see what they came for and knew what they wanted to do. They first had to break down the big door leading into the cell blocks. They did not have a key to this, and they came prepared with tools to smash the hinges off. Once inside the first room, they had a "turn key," that is, a man with a key to the other cells. It is believed that someone had lifted the keys from the dying sheriff, or that Ellen Baker, the sheriff's wife, provided them. Jailer Frank Wheelock, who said he was asleep when the attack on the jail began-an amazing admission if true-was awakened by three men and handcuffed with his own handcuffs. It took only 10 minutes, apparently, to smash the door down, enter the other cells and drag the prisoners outside. During this time the Courtwrights called frantically for help and seemed to realize that they were going to be lynched. There was a knife fight inside the jail, but it is not clear whether one of the attackers used the knife, or whether one of the Courtwrights had a knife which had been smuggled into them. In any event, blood stains were found the next morning on the cell wall and on the steps leading to the basement outside the building. The two prisoners were probably gagged with the ropes that would be used to hang them, and, once outside the jail, they were unable to call for help. A wagon of some kind was waiting, probably on Strongs Avenue, and from there the lynching party no doubt proceeded down Water Street to Phillips' Grove. The bodies of the two men were left to hang until 11 o'clock the n~xt morning. After they were taken down, Dr. John Orrick, according to the Journal, examined them and thought that Amos must have been dead or nearly dead when hanged. His eyes were closed and there was a gash in one of his fingers from a knife wound and also evidence that he had been struck a heavy blow to the head. Isaiah, though his body showed signs of "harder useage," was probably killed by strangulation coupled with a partial dislocation of the neck. His eyes were open and his face was 'badly discolored. He had a cut on his head which bled badly, 118 soaking not only his clothing but the rope that strangled him. On October 19, 1875, Edgar M. Thompson, rector of the Church of the Intercession, Episcopal, in Stevens Point, made this entry in his ministerial record: "Isaiah and Amos Courtwright (accused of murdering Sheriff Baker Oct. 11th) were taken from jail and hung this morning. Buried at sunset in Plover. Gave them Christian burial but did not use the service of the church." In all there were nine arrests growing out of this affair but no arrests were made of the lynchers. Mrs. Courtwright and the two oldest children, Marcella and Rodney, were sent to jail, as well as Asa Gould and a Calvin Jones and an H. Jones. The two children were released shortly and Gould and the two Jones men as well. Gould was probably held for giving aid and comfort to the fugitives. But since there is no mention of the role played by the Jones men, no light can be shed on their arrest or the reasons for their release. The Journal account also says that Oliver Cross and Mrs. Courtwright were both held for trial on the charge of murder. This Cross, by a coincidence, was in the Courtwright house on the day of the shoot-out. Bail for Mrs. Courtwright was fixed by Judge John Stumpf at $5,000 which she could not raise, but a few days later Judge Gilbert Park reduced bail to $1,000 which was furnished by William Fleming and A.H. Bancroft of Amherst. Mrs. Courtwright was released on bail October 28. There was a brief trial later and both Mrs. Courtwright and Cross were discharged. A petition was circulated by friends of Sheriff Baker and sent to the County Board praying for some form of relief for Ellen Baker and her four children. But no petition was circulated for Mrs. Courtwright and her four children. The County Board took no action in direct relief for Mrs. Baker but agreed to allow in full a bill of $414.89 which Baker had coming for boarding prisoners before he died. Mrs. Baker, according to oral tradition, was assisted fronl time to time by the Masonic Lodge in Plover, while people in Lanark and Amherst probably did what they could to help Sophia Courtwright and family. Just where she lived these first years, whether in Stockton or Amherst, is uncertain. 119 Amos and Isaiah Courtwright are buried in a commo"n grave at Plover Cemetery in block 2, lot 68. Two small, unmarked stones stand here, but there is no death certificate on either man in the courthouse. The body of Amos was viewed for a minute in the wooden box by Sophia in the night before it was nailed shut. Mrs. Courtwright, in her last years, lived with her daughter in Amherst. Her son-in-law, John Skoglund, worked for P.N. Peterson for many years. Marcella died in 1913 at the age of 45 and her mother followed her to Greenwood Cemetery in Amherst in 1914 at the age of 79. Rodney married Stella Dorr of Lanark township, and had one son, Walter ("Wallie"). Rodney later left his wife and moved out west. The two younger sisters of Marcella were, I am told, Jennie, who married Peter Malleson, town marshal of Amherst for many years, and Stella, who operated a millinery store in Stevens Point at one time. Marcella's children by John Skoglund were Gladys, Alta, Estelle and Esther. Gladys married Harold A. Skinner and they live in Tyler, Texas. In a letter to Ben Redfield of Whiting, dated May 2, 1975, from Tyler, Mr. Skinner, then in his early 80s, said his mother-in-law [Marcella Skoglund] died when his wife was only 14 years old and that her "mother never told her anything about this event," meaning the lynching. Continuing, he writes: "Grandmother Courtwright ·lived with the Skoglunds until Marcella died, and my wife does remember her, but again, Grandmother never mentioned the dastardly deed. I do remember, however, that my father-in­ law claimed the Masons were to blame for the lynching..." From this it appears that the grandchildren of Amos Courtwright were never told of their grandfather's death at hands of lynchers. There was not only horror associated with the event, but also shanle. "Wallie" Courtwright died September 8, 1971, at Amherst. .' He was first married to Julia Mitcheltree and after her death he married Minnie Wenzel. He had one child, Estelle, by his first wife. Estelle married Clifford Anderson, and their son, Armen, lives near Sheridan. There was mixed reaction to the lynching of the 120 The headstone of Sophia Courtwright. wife of Amos Courtwright. in Greenwood Cemetery at Amherst. The spelling on the stone is not in accord wi th general usage which adds the 'w' to the surname.

The headstone of Sophia Courtwright's daughter, Marcella, in Greenwood Cemetery at Amherst.

121 Courtwright brothers in the newspapers at Wausau and Grand (Wisconsin) Rapids. The Wausau Pilot thought the murder of the sheriff was bad enough but the lynching was "a thousand times more fiendish [and] the blood stains and damning stigma of this most foul, cowardly and brutal murder will be felt by the people of this valley for long years to come. It is needless to wrap ourselves in the mantle of respectability [for] this deed stains through it all, and from Maine to California and from the lakes to the gulf, we of the Wisconsin River pinery will be pointed out as the lawless people where cowardly assassins, masked and blacked, break into jail and prison and drag helpless criminals to torture and death." The Pilot concluded by hoping that the men responsibile would be brought to justice. The Wausau Central Wisconsin reported that the Courtwrights had been taken by a band of disguised men "from the country" and "cooly and deliberately hanged." The newspaper then asks, "would it not have been better to let the law take its course? ... In a peace loving community where law and order rule we can not but criticize these masked demons..." The Grand Rapids Tribune on October 16, five days a(fter Baker was shot, gave a brief account of the shoot-out on the Courtwright farm and of Baker's funeral. On October 23, the Tribune reported the lynching and said that the Courtwrights ~esisted their captors and received "heavy blows to subdue them... The general verdict of the people of Portage County is the assassins received their just desserts." Here the Tribune, almost surely without taking any sort of a poll, knew what the people of Portage County were thinking .which, of course, is pure fiction. Then the Tribune, after asserting that the Courtwrights got what they deserved, makes an about face and says it deplored mob law "which is always to be deprecated. It is subversive to good order and to the law of the land. It would have been less shocking and cold-blooded if they had been strung up when first captured, but the Courtwrights have been sent to eternity without trial and without preparation. May God be merciful to them and their families." 122 The Tribune's contribution to thoughts on law and order, not to mention morality, are incredible. The Stevens Point Journal in the issue following the lynching could not imagine who these people were or "from whence the lynchers came, or whither they went." The editor said it would be unjust to say that they belonged to this city or that they hailed from Plover, or Stockton, or Buena Vista, but he presumed, however, "that the party contained representatives from the city and also from several of the townships, and that they were resolute men, and under ordinary circumstances good law abiding citizens..." Further in the same article, the Journal editor, still attempting to explain, said "other murders have been committed in this country, and too often the perpetrators of them have gone scott free, or received inadequate punishments. This fact, probably, had great weight in influencing the lynching party to take the law in their own hands, or rather to go outside of all law." Just what relation the lynching had to crimes committed "in this country" seems beside the point. Instead of ferreting out who the lynchers were, or calling for a grand jury investigation, the editor of the Journal was closing his eyes to the awful fact that two men had ·been n1urdered in a vendetta not unlike the most heinous crimes "in this country." But the terror inspired by the lynchers affected many people, editors and readers alike. The Plover Times, which carried the story of the "shocking murder" of Sheriff Baker in one issue, simply skipped the next issue of the paper. Its editor had probably been warned to leave the story alone or he too would be hanging from a jack pine. It was as simple as that. This terrorization did not reach Amherst with the same degree of intensity because here a petition was allegedly sent to the county board asking for an investigation of the lynching, and Leonidas Lombard had, according to the .Journal, also sent the names of the people he recognized in the mob that tried to seize the prisoners at his house. But the Amherst people did not press their demand and there remained, for most people, the specter of fear sending shivers .. up their backs each time they thought about the 123 grisly events that had taken place and wondering how an act as unspeakable as this could have happened here. But this is often the case with nl0b violence. It becomes difficult to prosecute not only because of the numbers involved, but because of the threat posed to witnesses. The perpetrators of other lynchings in Wisconsin at Janesville, Oconto and Plainfield all went free, too. There was a feeling on the frontier, it seems, that an act of this great violence could be justified in the sight of man, if not in the sight of God. In this connection, one of the more curious letters sent to Alex Wallace in 1944 came from none other than Joseph H. Baker, a son of Sheriff Baker who was born after his father died. Homer McGown of Stevens Point has the original letter. There can be no doubt about its authenticity. Baker gives his address in Milwaukee. Some time in the 1950s when I w'as in Milwaukee I tried to contact Baker, but after calling all the Joseph Bakers listed, I ran into a cuI de sac. Moreover, I could not find anyone by that name in the phone book whose address was 2857 N. Murray Ave., where the letter canle fronl. In this letter, Baker said he was the last surviving member of his family and that he was born six months after the "happenings described." He said that "my mother always told me that my father felt that in the long court proceedings, the Courtwrights had been wronged. He believed that they had made all payments demanded of them but that they were ignorant men, unacquainted with the legal forms of receipts, deeds, mortgages and mortgage release that would have made their possession of the Buena Vista farm abso~ute." Baker also said that his father at one time thought of resigning his office rather than carrying out a court order that he considered to be in error. "However, he considered that it was his duty to carry out the judgment of the court rather than to set himself up as judge of those orders." Continuing, Baker said one day he would write a chapter of the story because he felt he had more information on it than any other person. He then lists six items he would one day reveal, in this manner and order: 124 1. Mr. P.C. Claflin estimates the number of men in that group as forty. There were just twelve and I can name them all. 2. Your article speaks of a Tuesday night group that failed. I will name the leader. He was a man from Stockton. He got "cold feet" at the last minute. 3. I will name the prominent Stevens Point lawyer who told the Courtwrights that they were in the right and that the only thing for them to do was to "shoot and keep on shooting." 4. I will name the man whose team and wagon hauled them to the tree on what is now the county farm on the paper mill road. 5. In one of your articles you speak of one of the men having a knife. I will name the man of Stevens Point who told my mother that she was not feeding the prisoners enough so he brought a loaf of bread for them. He did not tell her that his wife had baked a hunting knife in the center of the loaf. I will name two of my father's friends who were wounded with that knife before the Courtwrights were overcome. 6. I will name the Stevens Point man who was the leader of the second group. He tied the knots. Baker then goes on to say the Courtwrights "sentenced" his mother to many years of poverty and hard labor to support herself and family, and as one of that family he thought the Courtwrights deserved all they got. He felt that Stevens Point and the county had a bad record for convictions in murder cases and he urged Wallace to do' a little checking in the records for the 1880s and 1890s. He said he saw a man shot and killed in the middle of the day one block off Main Street in 1900 and no one was ever brought to trial or even arrested. He ends his letter by tepeating his promise to write the final chapter to this story but says it would have to wait until 1975 because he did not wish to hurt the sons and daughters of the men involved. There is a personal note in long hand written by Baker at the end of this typewritten letter and it is written in quite legible style which would suggest that the man was not senile by any means. On the other hand, how is it possible to explain a man who promises to reveal the names of the 125 lynchers in one breath and in the next thinks they were justified in what they did? Moreover, in comparing the Courtwright case to the "unpunished" crimes of the 1880s and 1890s in Stevens Point he is putting the cart before the horse, for there is no evidence that Stevens Point was a lawless town in 1875 any more so than any other town in the state. Although the lumberjacks and river drivers could become disorderly in the saloons on the Public Square, not a single homicide was ever perpetrated on the square up to that time, and no one was ever bushwhacked. That would come later, not from the lumberjacks, but from among more prominent citizens. Finally, how is it possible to explain a man who promises to write the final chapter when he will be 100 years old? Will it still turn up in someone's safety deposit box, or in his last will and testament? But during all this time there was a man who kept a diary, as mentioned earlier. He never wrote letters to the editor of the Stevens Point Journal but confided his own memories of passing events to his diary, not every day, but often enough to keep up a running conversation with himself. This man was Simon A. Sherman (1824-1906), who came to Plover from the east in 1848 and first worked as a cabinet maker and carpenter, later branching into lumbering and eventually the owner of a sawmill on the Wisconsin River. And when many other sawmill owners were going bankrupt, Sherman prospered. One of his main interests in his last years, aside from his diary, was the "Old Settlers Club" which held a picnic every summer under the pines in a grove not far from the present River Pines Community Health Center. It is difficult to assess the reasons for Sherman's success as a business man, but one reason, no doubt, was an unflappable nature. Nothing seemed to bother him. There is not an expletive in all his diaries. There is no mention of personal fears or personal disappointments. One has the feeling that he was a man who really never laughed, or cried, but smiled when he greeted a neighbor or nlade a polite but inoffensive remark. 126 How else can one explain a man who discusses business· and the lynching of two men in the same breath? Entries in his diaries were made in small notebooks which are difficult to read because of their size and because he wrote in pencil. These penciled notations have become smudged over the years. There are numerous misspellings and puzzling abbreviations. When I wrote "Our County Our Story" in 1956-58 I was aware of the Sherman diaries. I had seen them, in a shoe box, in possession of "Hallie" (probably for Halcyon) Norton who lived in the Kuhl House on Main Street. I did not make a tape recording of this interview with her and my memory is not clear, but it seems to me that I urged her to donate the diaries to the Portage County Historical Society. Hallie Norton was the daughter of Owen Clark, a one-time sawmill operator on the Wisconsin River below the Clark Street bridge, and it was thorugh her father, no doubt, a personal friend of Sherman, that she inherited the diaries, and she donated the diaries to the State Historical Society. In the first diaries that I was able to skim through I ran across the name of Amos Courtwright many times. Sherman had frequent business dealings with him. Both were in the sawmill business and their mills lay less than a mile apart. The Courtwright mill was located about where the McDill dam lies, on the right bank of the Plover River. The Courtwright dam may have been a flood dam, bllt whatever it was, there appears to have been a slide or sluice gate of some kind across the river because Sherman mentions running logs through the slide. At no time did Sherman ever sayan unkind word about Amos Courtwright although he did mention that when he came to see him one time he was drunk. Under the date of October 14, 1875, Sherman writes that he and someone referred to as "R~' (probably Rachel, his wife) had attended the funeral of Joseph Baker "who was shot by Isa [sic] Courtwright. He was buried by the Masons, the largest funeral ever been in town...." (Sherman, according to an entry in his diary of 1866, said he had joined the Shaurette Lodge of the Freemasons in Stevens Point.) Five days later on October 19, Sherman enters a notation 127 in his diary about some work he was doing on a boat and shoeing of an oxen, followed by this terse announcement: "2 Courtwrights hung at 3 o'clock in morning by mob." This information is followed by some business he had with a man named Ripley and then: "This morning at 2 o'clock Isah [sic] and Amos Courtwright were lynched by a mob. Jack Finch & Ed Metcalf leaders. John Morison & Mort Strope, teamsters, Sid Carpenter, Harry Rice, Bill Welton, Lif Bean, Geo. Wilmot, Jo Petus and Wm. Shepard & 2 others."

JOHN FINCH

Less than two weeks later on October 31, 1875, Sherman makes this entry in his diary: "N.T. Moore gives me the name of the mob who lynched the Courtwrights. Jack Finch, captain, Bill Baker, tum key, Ed Metcalf, John Morison and team, Jo Petis, Sid Carpenter, Geo. Wilmot, Lef Bean, Harty Rice, George Donovan, Wm. Welton, Wm. Shepard, Ed Ward, Whitney & Whelock, M. Strope." Altogether Sherman lists 16 men. In the first list he gives the names of 11 men "and 2 more." In the second list furnished by Moore he includes the names in the first entry plus Ed Ward, Bill Baker, Wheelock, a Whitney, and a Donovan. All efforts to pinpoint the name of Whitney have failed. 128 There were several in the county, but the Wheelock mentioned is Calvin Wheelock, and Donovan was George Donovan who on August 21, 1870, paid Sherman $5 011 a bill he was owing, according to an entry in Note Book No. 17. I heard about William Baker in 1956 from the late Guy Gilman of Plover township. He was not sure of his connection with the Courtwright case, but he had heard from his parents that one night the mob from Plover had come out to Baker "living in Section 30," to enlist his help but Baker hid in the woods while his wife made excuses for his absence. But they apparently caught him at home the second time and it is my belief that he is the same man Sherman refers to as the "turn key." The N.T. Moore, who provided Sherman with the more complete list of the alleged lynchers, was Nathum Thompson Moore, a surveyor from Vermont who came to Portage County in 1856. He apparently lived in or near Plover where he also died on February 2, 1899. Sherman mentions him in his diary several times. Thus Moore was no newcomer. He had lived in the county for many years and as a surveyor obviously had a wide acquaintance both in Plover and the nearby townships. . On November 1, 1875, Sherman writes in his. diary that the railroad track had been laid between the two Plover Rivers that day. And' then he adds: "Eugene and I went to Point. I have a talk with Judge [George W.] Cate, [Gilbert] Park, Sheriff [William L.] Gilchrist, and Eckels, Geo. Hungerford and others about the lynching of Isah [sic] & Amos Courtwright, and visit the jail & spot near the brurey (Lutz Brewery) where they were hung." The Eckels mentioned here was no doubt John Eckels. Hungerford was a heavy investor in real estate in Stevens Point at the time and lived not far from the courthouse. The following day on November 2, Sherman dutifully went to the polls where he says he voted the "reform ticket" for the first time. State Republicans at this time were attempting to reform the party "from within" and Sherman approved. From the polling booth he went out to Stockton to see Mrs. Courtwright. He also went to see one of the Scribners 129 and someone by the name of "Antewine," probably Antoine Precourt, as well as Asa Gould. Scribner was no doubt William Scribner. All three lived on farms close enough to the Courtwrights to be called neighbors. Sherman said he saw these people "and others about the lynching" but he offers no clues as to what was discussed or the results. Three weeks or so later, Shern1an was in Stevens Point to attend a court session. He fails to explain what he was doing in court, but he adds that he had seen Mrs. Courtwright that day. And that was as far as it ever went. As a pragmatist and probably a fatalist, he makes no further mention of the subject. If the men mentioned by Sherman were the real lynchers, perhaps it would be interesting to see what kind of men they were. There is little that can be deduced from their inner lives, but from the evidence at hand, at least half of them died normal deaths either in bed or sitting in a chair, etc. Only one was apparently a suicide and if he took his life as a consequence of any misdeeds, he left no suicide note to prove it. However, several of the men mentioned in the diary appear to have left the county, since there is no death certificates on them at the courthouse. If all these were the guilty men, then, they were, as the Journal suspected, "in ordinary circumstances good law abiding citizens." The leader of the lynching party, according to Sherman, was John, better known as "Jack," Finch. He was one of the pioneers to this county and picked· one of the best farms on the Stockton prairie about a mile north of the Courtwright place where Prairie School was once located. Most of his younger days were spent as a rafting pilot on the Wisconsin River, a job that required both skill and ice in one's veins. Lumber rafting went out in the 1870s and Finch ran for sheriff in 1877 and apparently served two terms. In 1886-87 he served as chief of police in Stevens Point and again in 1889-91, when he quit to take an appointment as postmaster at Stevens Point. His picture and biography appear in the Commemorative Biographical Record, the only one of the group named by Sherman who got his picture and biography in this big book. The editors, of course, provided space on a paid basis. As 130 an ardent Democrat all his life, Finch may have been unwilling to volunteer for service in the Civil War. According to Mrs. Win Rothman of Stevens Point, he died in Milwaukee in 1908. The second name listed by Sherman is that of Ed for Edward Metcalf. He lived on a farm not far from the Finch place. A pioneer to the county, he ran one of the first lumber rafts down .the Wisconsin River in 1841. He too was associated with the rafting business for many years. He was born in New York state in 1820 and died at his home in Stockton on July 11, 1899. In his obituary, the Journal said he was "one of the substantial and most highly respected residents of the' community." He is buried in Plover Cemetery, the Masonic device on his stone. John Morrison, who allegedly drove the team and wagon to the lynching tree, operated a sawmill on the Wisconsin River for Moses Strong in the late 1850s. There is no record of his death, which might suggest that he moved away. The Honorable Minor Strope, born in Pennsylvania in 1806, died at his home in Plover August 31, 1880. After practicing law in New York state for many years, he came to Plover in 1850. In his business relations, according to his obituary in the Journal, "he was honorable and his integrity was never called in question. .. In his family he was the affectionate husband and the indulgent father, and his contribution to charitable and public purposes were liberal." He too is buried in Plover Cemetery. Sidney Carpenter rose from NCO to captain of Company B, 14th Infantry, in the Civil War. The obituary in the Journal says he served "with gallantry throughout his army career and his promotions were the result of devotion to ·duty and deserving courage." He was also "warm hearted, sympathetic and generous." He died at his home on McCulloch Street May 31, 1905, and is buried at St. Stephen's Cemetery. . Harry, (or Harrison) Rice has no death certificate in this county. He went into service from Plover and served with Company B of the 46th Infantry Regiment, which suggests that he joined up in the last year of the war. Bill or William Welton has no death certificate in this 131 " -',~".~_•..!--.',-71.-....-- ~-._. ,'-~"

132 county. He could have been a son of Andrew Welton who is buried in Plover Cemetery. "Lef" or Elephlet Bean was no doubt related to the widely-scattered pioneer family of Beans in this county, but no further information on him. He was almost surely related to the Dan Bean mentioned by Lombard. On July 28, 1876, less than a year after the lynching, Sherman makes this entry in his diary: "George Wilmot shot himself in courthouse. Born at the Point." On June 22, 1910, the Journal reported the death of George Wilmot who died by shooting himself in the temple at his home in Plover. The Journal said he "was upwards of 70 years of age." It is my opinion that there were two George Wilmots. In another entry, Sherman says a George Wilmot came to Plover in 1852, while the one who took his life in 1876 was "born at the Point." After the turn of the century, the Journal seldom wrote any eulogies and the Wilmot who died in 1910 got no special kudos for good character or past services to the community. Joseph Pettis, born in New York state in 1826, died at his home near Meehan, a one-time ferry point on the Wisconsin River west of Plover. The Journal obituary of January 6, 1910, said he was "a large and powerful man and in his younger days was regarded as one of the strongest men in the county." In the 1890s he served as postmaster at Meehan before it closed. William Shepard-the spelling of this name follows the spelling used by Sherman and it also appears this way on a headstone in Plover Cemetery. He was living in the 3rd Ward irl 1860 and later served in Colonel Alban's 18th Regiment. He apparently married either a second time or late in life. According to a headstone in Plover Cemetery, his wife Mary was 19 years and three months old when she died in 1880. Her husband must h~ye left the county, since there is no death certificate on 11im, nor is he buried next to Mary. In the second list given to Shernlan by N.T. Moore, these additional names appear: William Baker. There can be little doubt that this is the same man who came to Leonidas Lombard on the night of October 12 demanding to know where the Courtwright 133 brothers were being kept. Baker, no relation to the dead sheriff, went into service from ·Plover in the Civil War and rose from NCO to 2nd lieutenant in the 1st Calvalry, Company B.. There is no death certificate on him and he too probably moved away. Edward Ward. He went into service from Plover with the 5th Infantry Regiment, Company D. Whitney. Without a first name or initial, no identification is possible. Wheelock. This was Ordway Calvin, usually called "Cal," who died, according to the Portage County Gazette for April 10, 1895, from complications of the stomach. He was born in Vermont in 1833 and came to Stevens Point in 1856. He was a clerk in a hotel, and from 1858 to 1862 he operated a stage line to Wausau. The eulogy in the Gazette says he was a "man of far more than ordinary intelligence; he was a large, fleshy man weighing over three hundred pounds.. .. The casket in which he was buried was one of the largest ever seen here and had to be made to order." The funeral was "very largely attended" and leading citizens of the city served as honorary and active pallbearers. He is buried in Forest Cemetery. Although no relation to the Sherman diary entries as such, James O. Raymond, who took an active part in the Courtwright tragedy, died on April 13 or 14, 1897. He was born in New York state in 1831 and came to Plover in the early 1850s where he became a law partner of Luther Hanchett. He joined the Masonic Lodge in Plover in 1856 and went into service in the Civil War from Plover. Two years before he died he was appointed by the governor to the Board of Regents of·Normal Schools. In its eulogy of him, the Journal said he was a lawyer "in its truest and highest sense...and we do not now recall the name of a single acquaintance who was freer from the petty resentments and animosities of life than the friend whose death we now mourn..." For many years after the lynching, Phillips' Grove was a tourist attraction for people, morbidly curious as usual, who came to view the jack pine where the Courtwrights were hanged. The late Earl Gyrion of Whiting possessed a limb of the tree which he said his father had cut off. He never 134 suggested just when his father cut the limb off, and no one seems to recall who later cut the tree down. Shubel H. Patchen, a former constable near Plainfield who later moved to Shantytown, according to an entry in the Sherman Note Book No. 26, possessed the blood stained ropes that were used in the hanging, but no one in Sh.antytown remembers Shubel Patc.hen or anything about the ropes. Children playing in the vicinity of Phillips' Grove apparently' were afrai,d of the ghosts that might be lurking in the shadows around the tree. In 1883, Julia M. Tascher wrote a novel called Arbutus and Dandelions, a story laid in "St. Stephens," a thin disguise for Stevens Point. She refers to the Courtwrights in her story as the "Courtlands." In one episode three children of the family described in the book go on a ghost hunt. They leave the vicinity of Union Cemetery, and Mary, one of the children, wants to know from Joe "how far is it to the Courtland tree?" And Joe replied, "I don't know exactly, it's just on the other side of the Brewery. It's an awful lonesome place. I expect your courage will give out Mamie (a sister) before we get there." They finally reach the brewery and Joe says "We are getting most down there. I tell you, Mamie, we'll go to the tree and stay around a while, and if we can't see anything we'll take the graveyard on our way home..." On the next page Joe says: "Here's the road that turns to go up to the tree. It ain't but a few rods further." "Can you tell which tree it is, Joe? I don't suppose we shall see anything if we can go to the wrong one." "I guess I can tell which one it is," he answered, looking around. "It's got along limb sticking out on the side next to the road., Let me see...yes, this must be it." "Do you suppose that will allow us to sit down, Joe." "Well, I don't know what the regular program is in this kind of thing, but I guess we will sit down a while. We want to get rested, so we can run if anything dangerous comes." On the following page, the children are seated on the ground listening to the wind murmur in the pines. They can hear the roar of the Wisconsin River, and occasionally the faint shouts of the river men. But they were listening mostly

135 for any noise that might come from the tree above them. The children finally get tired of waiting for a ghost to appear and Joe says, "I've been thinking it all over. Of course the Courtlands, poor old things, won't appear to us. We never did anything to them, and then I tell you, it ain't the right kind of night..." Later in the book, the children are back again and this conversation follows: "There's the Courtland tree, shouted Joe, from the driver's seat, as we drove up from the city streets into a secluded woods road. We all looked out with a shuddering interest upon the dark jack pine with its twisted, broken limbs, which had borne such dreadful burdens upon the lonely night, two years before, when men forgot law and dared to wreck vengeance by lynching two helpless men on this spot. I trembled as I looked at it, and wondered how I had ever dared to come there at the dead of night, as we had a few weeks before, and thought it strange that I had not seen ghosts in every direction; for now in the bright daytime the wind sighed and mournfully whispered in the pines, and even our cheery party became silent and hushed until we were some distance past the gloomy place..." Still later in the Tascher novel, the family goes to visit the courthouse and climbs to the'cupola to view the city. And this dialogue follows: "Procuring the keys af the county judge, we went up .the handsome staircase and wide echoing halls, Joe leading the way, and telling Miss Lisle, as he went along, some of the details of the terrible Courtland tragedy. It was awful, I tell you, I was down here the morning after they took them out, and I saw the mother and daughter standing inside the grating down there, talking with Judge Cobalt. They looked dreadful, poor things: I've thought ever since that we didn't know a thing about trouble." The book is available at the Charles M. White Memorial Library. And that brings the story down to the present. No one wrote anything further until Alex Wallace picked it up in 1944 and elaborated somewhat but not significantly from the version provided by the Journal in 1875. A condensed 136 version was also written by the Journal staff for the city centennial edition on June 28, 1958, which Mrs. Harold Skinner read and learned for the first time about her grandparents. Several years ago, the late Ben Redfield, a member of the village board in Whiting, and one who has pondered the Courtwright story many times, thought that the village should name a new park near McDill dam "Courtwright Park." He made this suggestion at a meeting of the village board, although no action was taken at the time. He was later criticized by several residents of Whiting who disagreed with the proposed name for the new park. Redfield thought that the Courtwrights "never had their day in court" and that they had been wronged. But Clayton McLlarky, also of Whiting, thinks that Sheriff Baker was also wronged and that it would be improper to name the new park after the Courtwrights because they shot an officer of the law in the act of duty. And so today, some people are still wondering how to correct two wrongs that happened more than a century ago.

As a boy of 12, Justin Manchester remembered seeing the smoke rise from the Courtwright buildings set on fire by the mob. He is shown here in a picture taken in 1904.

137 Chapter VIII

THE DIARIST

Simon Augustus Sherman, the man who named the lynchers of the Courtwright Brothers in his diary of 1875, arrived in Portage County from Massachusetts in October 1848. He was 24 years old when he came. Although he is remembered as a lumberman in later years, he apparently did not at first have the capital or the experience to enter upon the sawmill business. Instead, he went into business at Plover Village as a storekeeper and worked as a carpenter on the side. Sherman kept his store accounts in a small leather-bound notebook about the size of a man's hand. And from this first notebook, he later conceived the idea, probably, of keeping a daily diary which begins in the 1850s. In the next 50 years he filled 45 notebooks and continued almost till the day he died in 1906. This represents, no doubt, the most voluminous and important diary ever kept by anyone in Portage County and probably in northern Wisconsin. Lacking higher education, he made the best of the education he had and became, in the end, a successful lumberman, a man esteemed by his peers. The diaries reveal that he was a man totally unconcerned with moral issues. He is concerned with his own affairs-and with the affairs of other men and women as they touch his own life and work. He gives information on the prices of things, on types of tools used, on the operation of a sawmill, 138 Simon and Rachel Shennan.-Photo courtesy Mrs. William Hopkins and on log drives over the Plover dam. He also names the lynchers of the Courtwright Brothers, and a few days later has dinner with Judge Minor Strope, one of the lynchers named. Apparently feeling the end of his days at hand, Sherman, in September 1905, wrote an account of his first journey from Massachusetts to Wisconsin. He should have done so much earlier, no doubt, and probably to keep things in perspective, he writes this account of his journey in some empty pages of the first notebook ledger begun in 1849. I believe the account of this journey is of sufficient interest to quote in full. I have made several emendations in parenthesis and I have corrected the misspellings and punctuated the sentence structure a little. Except for one paragraph which I have deleted because it is a bit confused, this is what he wrote: "About the first of October 1848 I quit work for George & Scribe Harris of Fitchburg, Mass. I was at work on building a Baptist church at the depot in Winchendon, Mass. My cousin Aaron Lathrop Sherman and his wife and son, George, came East on a visit from Wisconsin. I had not seen him since I was six years old. I met him at the county fair in Worcester. He give me such flattering accounts of the west that I concluded to take Greeley's advice and go west. I accordingly made my arrangements and started on the 5th of October. "MyoId home had been in Paxton [Massachusetts], six miles 139 north from Worcester, from the time I was six years old in 1830 until 1848. Bidding my father, mother, brothers and sister ado, I started and took the cars [train] at Worcester where I expected to have met my cousin. I took the cars [and] on looking them over I found he was not on the train. I went to. Troy, New York, and stopped all night. The next morning I took the cars for Schenectady where I took a canal [Erie Canal] boat for Buffalo. "While on the canal, when the weather was pleasant, the passengers rode on top the boat. Some of the passengers would get up an exciting game to draw the crowds together and then pick their pockets. One lady lost all her money and the passengers raised enough to get her through. "At another time a lady was sitting on a trunk on deck when the steerm·an from a passing boat threw a chunk of hard soap at our steerman which came wide of his mark and hit the 'lady in her eye and hurt her very bad. "When we arrived at Lockport [NY], a portion of the passengers left the boat and walked up around the several locks, I with the rest, and when I went to return to the boat, it had passed and I saw it going around the bend about a mile distance. My things were all on the boat. And what to do I did not know. The wind was blowing very hard down the canal and I had my heavy overcoat on and the only show I had was to run and try to catch it. After running about two miles as fast as I could I overhauled it nearly exhausted. "When we arrived at Rochester [NY] it was between sundown and dark and the top of the boat was covered with people and when the boat was going around a sharp bend under full speed, it met another boat and the captain called for all hands to look out. But some were very busy talking and did not heed the warning. Among them was a young lawyer from Maine going to locate at St. Louis. In our journey -we had become quite familiar with each other. When the boats struck each other it broke glass and crockery ware in the cabin and several hats and my friend was precipitated into the canal. The women in the cabin raised a window and pulled him in. Thus unpleasant circumstance caused my friend to leave the boat and layover for the repairs. "Before reaching Buffalo the captain left the boat in charge of the mate with strict orders not to allow any boat racing which the mate promised not to which was a very common practice. Soon after the captain left the boat, some of the passengers tried to have the mate allow a race, but could not allow it as he had promised the captain he would not. But they told him to put the boat in charge of the second mate which he did. So they made up a purse for the boy that rode the horse- [along the bank of the canal pulling the boat] an.d quite an exciting race came off. "We reached Buffalo just before night. The hacks and drays 140 were there to take the passengers and baggage to the hotels free of charge. I took a hack for the Buffalo House. When the drayman came with my baggage he wanted 75 cents. I informed him they advertised to take it free to and from the hotels. He said I had more than the usual amount. After some hestitancy he said [to] give him 50 cents. I said to him I would give him 25 cents if that was satisfactory. If not I would not give him anything. He took the 25 cents. "On retiring to bed I was put in a small room in the second or third story with no windows except a small one over the door and no way to lock or fasten the- door. Everything looked very suspicious, and to secure the door I stuck my jacknife in the casing, then leaned a chair against the door with my valise on it so it could not be opened without their falling down and waking me up. "I had about made up my mind to wait here until my cousin came, as it was the end of the railroad and we would be obliged to take boats to Wisconsin. So after breakfast I looked around and made up my mind as I might as well look for a needle in a haymow as in such a large city as to look for him. And I saw a large and attractive handbill posted that the noted Captain Blake was about to leave for Chicago on the splendid streamer 'Nile' and I thought I would be more apt to meet him [the cousin] as he came from the boat. "So I concluded to take passage with Blake and bought a ticket tQ Milwaukee. On going up Lake St. Clair [at Detroit] I got seasick, but could not vomit as never had in my life. When we arrived at the Manitou Islands [Mackinac], we stopped a couple hours. We reached Sheboygan in the evening and Milwaukee the next morning, Oct. 14, 1848. "Here I went to the Steamboat Hotel, a small two-story wooden building the best I found in the town. I inquired of the landlord where the Wisconsin pinery was. He said there was several Wisconsin pineries. The one on the Wisconsin River was about 150 miles up north. There was a man stopping with him from up there and when he came to dinner he would give me an introduction to him, which he did. His name being Charles P. Rice, I made inquiries of him with regard to the location and if I could get passage with him. He informed me I could. I inquired when he would start. He could not tell as his partner had gone East on a visit and he was expecting him in on every boat. I inquired his name which was A.L. Sherman. I then felt much better, knowing I was all right. "We watched the boats and within a day or two a boat came in which had been delayed in a storm on which my cousin and family arrived [accompanied] by an Irishman he hired at Rochester, N.Y., for a hostler for the new hotel he and Rice had 141 built at Plover in the pinery in Portage County, Wisconsin. "On the 17th of October they purchased supplies and loaded two horse teams for the pinery. The 18th was the day of the treaty with the Menominee Indians and the U.S. for all their lands in the state. We started [and] on the first load was Rice, my cousin [A.L. Sherman], his wife and boy seven or eight years old. "The roads were very bad at this season of the year, through timber and clay soil. In passing through the Watertown woods they were very bad. There were mud holes several rods long, the wagon wheels going [down to] the roots of stumps and then down to the axle in mud and water. "The Irishman drove the team loaded with barrels standing on their ends in the front end of the wagon where he had to sit on top of them to drive. The roads were so bad I had to follow on foot behind. In coming to one of these mud holes, the wheels went over a large root, and then down to the axle in mud and water with such force it threw the driver head foremost down by the horses' forefeet, his hands and arms going in the mud and shoulders.--..The weather being cool, he -had- on a heavy light­ colored overcoat and he was covered with mud from head to foot, so he could not breath and speak, [and] he commenced to swear and I dodged behind the wagon so he cO,uld not see me and covered my mouth to keep from laughing out loud: I kept out of sight until he cleaned the mud from himself the best he could and started on again. "At this time the houses were few and far between along the road and where we stopped when night overtook us, every house in those days was a tavern. On the 23rd day of October 1848 we reached Strongs Landing on the east side of the Fox River [opposite Berlin]. This was the last settlement. Strong & Noyes had started a settlement and had got up the frame for a tavern where we stopped. It was not shingled and when in bed I could look up through the roof and see the stars. "Dr. Shermway [probably Shumway] had a small building he occupied as a store. There were a few more shanties and the town was full of Indians from the treaty [negotiations] at Lake Poygan. "In the forenoon of the 24th of October, we crossed the Fox River onto the Indian lands just purchased from the Menominee Indians. The next nearest settlement was at Plover, sixty miles distant. "After crossing the river, I started o~ ahead of the teams alone, when I met a drove of about.. fifty or sixty Indians. This was the first drove of wild Indians I had ever seen. They wanted 'backie,' meaning tobacco. I made them understand by signs I had none as I could not understand their languagr:- They went and I stopped and waited for the teams, for I knew they could 142 kill me and no one would ever know what became of me. It made [me] rather frightened and I di'dn't leave the teams after that. "That day we traveled about twenty miles until we came to a creek near where Wautoma is now located. Here we stopped and camped, built fire, got supper, made a field bed where we all slept. This was my first camp life. I didn't sleep very sound, knowing the woods were full of Indians and that we all were at their mercy and might be scalped before morning. "The next morning everything was all right. After feeding the . horses and getting breakfast, we started on our journey of forty miles through an unbroken wilderness uninhabited except by Indians and wild beasts. We arrived at Plover at 8 o'clock that evening. That day I saw eight deer crossing the road... "In making a claim no one could tell where a survey line or road would come. This was the condition as I found it in 1848 and I was the first one to build a frame house upon it which was at the forks of the roads leading to Strongs Landing and Fort Winnebago near where Plainfield is located in the town of Almond. I also built the first house in Stockton for John L. Moore who built the first sawmill at Little Bull [Mosinee]. "After arriving at Plover on the evening of the 25th, the next morning was a fine day and I saw the town for the first time by daylight. The' country was level as far as I could see, with a burr oak opening which reminded me very much of an old and ancient orchard with the grass growing up among the trees. "After breakfast, A.L. Sherman, Charles P. Rice and myself started on foot to go to Little Prairie [Stockton Prairie] about five miles distant. After we traveled about four miles in an easterly course [we came] to a range of hills or a bluff covered more densely with timber. About half a mile across to its face- on the east side extended one of the most beautiful prairies I ever beheld. Near the base of the bluff at the edge of the prairie it extended about a mile and a half as level as a lake. Here, at the foot of the bluff we found a fine spring of water. From this spring I stepped off five hundred paces and stuck a stake and made a claim, for there had never been a survey. [A.L.] Sherman and Rice went on farther to near where the Arnott farm is now located and made their claim at a place where they had trespassed upon the Indian lands and had plowed and planted about a quarter of an acre of potatoes, and had built a small log shanty. "We then returned to Plover where Sherman & Rice had built a hotel in 1847 which was supposed to be the best hotel north of the Fox & Wisconsin River§ in the state. It was the only house in the pinery [north] from Fort Winnebago to Lake Superior that was plastered, painted or had a brick chimney. The house was two stories and about 20x40 feet, and [had] a leanto on the back side about 14x40. The brick for the chimney they brought from 143 Milwaukee, 150 miles, the chimney extending down through the roof about two feet below the chamber ceiling. "There were about six or eight houses in the village and the courthouse was built the same season by William Dunton in 1847. They named the hotel the "Empire." I made the sign for it, and a man by the name of Nelson, a painter from Galena, painted and lettered it which was erected on a post at the southeast comer of the house, the first in the pinery." (End of story.) This travel narrative reveals several things about Shern1an. He says the woods was "full of Indians." Actually, there were a few stray bands of Menominee or Potawatomi roaming about Central Wisconsin in 1848, but they were trying their best to avoid the white man, not to encounter him. Further, Sherman says they were "wild Indians" and he was afraid to sleep lest he be scalped. Not true. Missionaries like Bonduel, Baraga and Cutting Marsh had lived among the Indians before Sherman ever got to Wisconsin and none was ever molested. Most of the missionary's problems stemmed from the white man, not the red man. Sherman came from New England with his inherent racism and deeply-rooted fears. It never occurred to him that he was the invader, pushing the Indian back, not the other way around. But it must also be borne in mind that he was writing fifty years after the fact and like most personal chronicles, he could not avoid exaggerating his own relation to it for the benefit ofa later generation. In another passage, Sherman tells us that his cousin A.L. Sherman and Charles Rice had already made claims on land lying east of Plover "where they had trespassed upon the Indian lands." By this he means they had gone beyond the three-mile limit of the Wisconsin River established by the treaty of 1836. The fact that Sherman and Rice had trespassed outside this three-n1ile zone into the Stockton Prairie suggests that there were no "wild" Indians in the vicinity to protest or prohibit this trespass. Sherman says he was the first to build a frame house "which is at .the forks of the road leading to Strongs Landing and Fort Winnebago." He calls this place the "Junction." It lay in Section 31 of Almond township, not "near Plainfield" as Sherman seemed to recall it. 144 But he seems to contradict himself when he says that he built the first frame house in the county at this Junction. In another part of his narrative, he says Charles Rice and his cousin Aaron Sherman built a "hotel" at Plover in 1847, hauling brick for a chimney from Milwaukee. If this hotel had a brick chimney and was plastered and painted it obviously was of frame construction and built at least a year before Sherman built the tavern house at the Junction in the Town of Almond. As mentioned earlier, Sherman began his career in Portage County as a store keeper and carpenter. Instead of using a ledger, he entered his business affairs and customer accounts in a snlallieatherbound notebook. Entries in the notebook are made at random and are difficult to follow because they jump back and forth in their dating. Thus, the notebook quoted above is not a diary but a haphazard collection of business entries. In most cases he seems to be recording sales to customers for household goods, clothing, tools and even for lunlber. The lumber he was probably buying from one of the local sawmills and retailing in his own yard, but he was definitely not yet a lumberman hinlself. This would come later when he built or acquired a sawmill on the Wisconsin River directly north of the mouth of the Plover River. But it was probably from this first account book that he became interested in keeping a diary. In fact, several pages in the notebook include part of a dairy for the year 1854, but circumstantial evidence suggests that these entries were made after the fact, probably a transcription from another notebook which had become damaged or unreadable. One of the first entries made in this first notebook is the account of John Bachelor. It is dated August 28, 1849. Since this is probably the first store account available in northern Wisconsin, it will be quoted in full. Bachelor on that day purchased an account book from Sherman for 55 cents, got cash for $10, and lumber and nails for a chest costing 50 cents. On November 5, Bachelor got 2,580 feet of lumber, but with no price tag. Sherman charged him $2 for "going to Point twice" and he charged him 145 $1.48 for four pairs of suspenders, and $200 for building a store. He also charged him 50 cents for breaking a hatchet, and $1.75 for carpenter work on a counter, no doubt a counter for Bachelor's new store. And he gave him $2.50 in cash. On October 16-17 and 25, Sherman charged Bachelor $6 for putting up a cornice, apparently on the store, and for 2,000 feet of lumber. "Sundries" were purchased for 50 cents, and $1.50 was charged for some tools Bachelor had borrowed from Sherman. This time he didn't break the hatchet. This ends the Bachelor account. There are short accounts of Abraham Brawley, Phillip D. Bangle, Samuel Bristol and William Clark, most of them dealing with the buying or selling of lumber products. Sherman also got 36 feet of joists from Hiram Calkins on April 3, 1850, and on the 17th of April appears this comment: "Alexander Castle commenced work at rafting." Nothing further, but this might suggest that Sherman was becoming interested in the rafting of lumber on the Wisconsin River. In March, 1850, John Huntsman got 19 yards of bed­ ticking for $3.42. This was a strong cotton fabric used for making mattress covers which were usually stuffed with straw. On page 23 appears the account of Lytle, no doubt James Lytle of Stockton. On March 8, 1850, Sherman made a coffin for Maria Lytle which he charged $9 for, including labor and materials. J. Morrison had an account, the same man, no doubt, who in 1875 was named by Sherman as one of the lynchers of the Courtwright Brothers. Morrison, in this account book, is debited for two dozen screws and three pairs of "butts," but no price is given. And Sherman must have had an accident about this time because he credited Morrison $9 for "setting my shoulder" and 95 cents for recording a deed. An entry made on April 3, 1850, is not clear. It would appear that Sherman allowed a customer by the name of Ward $2 in cash, and either purchased from him, or sold to 146 him, the following books: one dictionary for 75 cents, 'Nelson on Infidelity' for 50 cents, a 'History ofPopery' for 25 cents, an arithmetic book for 25 cents, the 'Sabbath Manual' for 12 cents, 'Thoughts on Missions' for 12 cents, and a spilling [sic] book for 15 cents. On September 4, 1849, Sherman sold to Wicks (no doubt one of the Week Brothers) 10lh yards of linsy for $3.75. This refers to linsey-woolsey, a course fabric woven from linen and wool. Other people mentioned in scattered accounts include John Wilson, Peter Beard, Caleb Ogden, Jonathan Wyatt, Jonathan Sampson, E.B. Clark, C. Farren, H. Ames, J.R. Ames, W.W. Perry, B.S. Sanford, Sidney Weston, Jonas S. Sherman, Stillman Parker, Adam Urline, Albert Smith, James Bloomer, William Anderson, Robert Fletcher, John Delaney, John Bedell, Joseph Brown, "Dutch John," P. Powers and Charles Cottrell. Whatever, these were among the first people in Portage County. Some stayed here and others moved on in search of the elusive pot of gold. Sherman stayed here and found his. The Shermans are buried in Plover Cemetery.

147 Chapter IX

A PIONEER'S DAUGHTER

The following village interview was made with Mrs. Frank Liebe, formerly Martha Celia Koziczkowski, at her home on the west. side of Rosholt village on April 24, 1956. Mrs. Liebe's place in our history lies in the fact that she was the youngest daughter of Michael Koziczkowski, first Polish settler to Portage County in 1857. She was born on July 27, 1865 in the Town of Sharon, less than three miles east of Polonia. I had known the Liebes all my life. They lived on a farm on the east shore of Fish Lake, today Collins Lake, and I recall that Mrs. Liebe's daughter was a classmate of mine in grade school one year. There was no way of calling ahead to ask if I could come and see her because she had no telephone, but when I knocked and entered, she did not seem at all surprised. I brought my tape recorder, one of the early models, a big unhandy affair, and set it up on the kitchen table while she continued to sit by a window where she was knitting. She did not seem to be aware of the machine and made no effort to find out why I had brought it along. Instead, she was moaning about what a sad day it had been for her because her 60-year-old son had taken the family cow away that morning and sold it. Here was a woman who had handled oxen and milked cows since she was old enough to carry a milk pail. Her bachelor son who lived next door had taken the cow away after convincing his mother that a woman of 91 years old 148 could buy her milk, for he, obviously, was tired of doing chores for one cow even though he did not do the milking. Two years after I interviewed Mrs. Liebe I heard she was ill and I went to see her. It was around Christmas. She was alone and when I knocked on the back door her deep voice floated out to me, "come in!" The house was cold and the only heat caOme from a kitchen stove which was not burning very well. A small bedroom just off the kitchen where she lay abed was actually chilly. But this is the way she wanted it. Spending money on fuel was not her way of conserving energy. I asked her how she was and she moaned, "Oh-h, ah-h, I am going to die. And children they come and priest come and they say I am going to die and they want me to sign...but I tell priest they can wait. Don't push me. God will tell me when to die and when He says, then I die. Yah-h-h," she moaned, not in pain but as involuntary expression of relief and resignation. Her son attended to her needs, but there was nothing more he could do for her. She wanted to die in her own house, not in a.hospital, and there, a couple of weeks later, she had her wish on January 16, 1959. At the interview earlier, she spoke in broken English, but for the sake of clarity, I have smoothed over some of the expressions and pronunciations of words. She naturally pronounced most words beginning with a "th" sound with th hard sound, that is, "der" for there and "dose" for those, etc. The "th" sound is difficult for most northern Europeans, whether Germans, Scandinavians or Polish, but it is also true, I believe, that an example to the immigrants had already been established in this country by the Irish and Welsh immigrants, not to mention the Virginians who moved west into Illinois and southern Wisconsin in the early period. The Virginians were quite pronounced in their use of "dem" and "der." I have tried to preserve the manner of expressions as far as clarity allows, editing only·slighly, to give the real flavor of second-generation speech among Polish-Americans. It seems Mrs. Liebe put her finger on one ofthe key issues of our time when she observed that "lots of peoples here.and 149 Martha Liebe, nee Celia Koziczkowski. (Leica photo by Malcolm Rosholt.) 150 there can't find a place for themselves." And so they can't and they search for clues to their background and roots in men and women like Martha Koziczkowski Liebe. Here, then, follows the interview in question and answer format: Question: Mrs. Liebe, I know who your father was but who was your mother? Answer: Mother was Frances Zalewski in Poland, but no more I don't know. Q. Where did your parents get married? A. Somewheres in Poland. In Poland anyway, but I don't remember these things. Q. Did you ever hear your father tell anyone why he came to America? A. Well, he heard in the papers that it was such go-o-d country an' it was free land an' everything. He was looking here and there for farm and then 01' man [Joseph] Oesterle, then he went there and he said why can't you buy your land here by me and we'll be neighbors. He bought it and he had it, and he died there and my brother Joe was there on the old place pert near to his death too. So he was the first Polish family what was in state of Wisconsin. Q. Then that makes you the oldest Polish-American in the State of Wisconsin right now? A. First is Polish boy. Some say one old lady be older, sure, but they come from 01' country. I born here. Q. How many brothers and sisters did you have? A. I had six sisters and nine brothers. Q. Were they all born on the old place east of Polonia? A. No, not all. There was three boys and n1e born in Polonia. The others born in 01' country and most of them died there. One what was here, a girl, is buried in Ellis, Theresa her name. Q. Who baptized you? A. I don't know. I think it was Father Vanderkowski.* Because was only comes once in a month. German priest. If you was by Ellis, look at it 01' kind of a wood shanters and wood church. That was first church in Ellis. Then after that Father [Joseph] Dabrowski come. I was small when he come

*Not listed in Catholic records on Wisconsin. 151 and I got it first communion by him. And get married from him, and I got present from him, wedding present. Yes! What he give me two dollars in a bolt and I still got it. (I failed to ask her what kind of a "bolt" she was referring to here, but I presume it was a bolt of cloth.) Q. How old were you when you were married? A. I was 15 in July, and in February I get n1arried, so much was I in 16th year. Q. How many children did you have? A. Thirteen. Q. Who was your husband? A. Frank Liebe. His father name Joseph. And I had eleven boys and two girls, and only one boy is dead. (Here she sighed and laughed quietly to herself). And ten boys is living. (She laughed again). Q. Were they all born over there on the Liebe farm? A. We had a IiI' house, and I never was livin' in other place, county or state, or sometl1ing, three miles from there where my ·parents was and from parents I went there and now I am living not very far from there, and I think I'll die here. (She laughed quietly again as she looked around the kitchen, holding up the knitting to look at it closer.) Lots of peoples here and there can't find a place for themselves. Q. How did you meet Frank? Did you go to school with him? A. How much was school? It was one month in year! That was all the school. Now Sisters come from 01' country. They don't want to teach the children in Polish here now. And they was not all English around here [in the beginning]. There was some German people, some Norwegians and the Polish. So that's why I am so ad-uc-cated! (She sighed.). Q. Do you remember when you met Frank for the first" time? A. I meet him few times because he was going on threshing machine. And he was every year threshing to my folks. I was then little yet. He was 10 years older. Q. SO he came to your father's place to thresh? A. Yah-ah. But it wasn't like now. Walking so far, and roads wasn't like now. They was going here and there in woods like a snake it goes here the road, and you make four 152 or five miles before you come to one forty that's your own. Q. SO then you moved back to Frank's place with the threshing machine? A. Yah-h. Q. How did they pull the threshing machine, engine or horsepower? A. Horsepower. Q. Did you have horses or oxen on your father's farm? A. Horses. One team for me and one for my brother. And two teams oxen I had to take care, and work them when I was to my father's. Q. You drove the oxen? A. Sure, sure. Q. How old were you? A. I wasn't 12 years yet when I started to work with horses and oxen. Q. What was the names of the oxen? A. Oh, there was more than one. Jerry, Jack, all kinds of names, because my brother was the only one that was working. One time when they went into the woods he chopped his foot and there wasn't no doctors like now. I also was walking those oxen to lola after doctor. It takes you few days to get doctor, so he was laying over here with that foot. I take his place on farm and then another brother when I didn't work hard enough he take a good stick to me, and I come home crying. Didn't want to eat. Father say what's the matter? Didn't want to tell because brother said if I tell to parents I'll get a better one when I come back on field. Then, anyway, he get me to tell him, my father. And father said that was last time. And broth,er didn't touch me after that. That was Martin. Q. Was he older than you? A. About eight years. Born in Poland. Q. Where did you get nlarried? A. In Polonia church, in the first church because there was a church in Ellis what was there when Father Dabrowski come. And was some men, and a tavern just close to the doors, and when priest had it sermon, they was always drinking, these men, and he told thenl to stop and they didn't, so they built a church, take it from Ellis, built it to 153 Polonia. That was wood church. And church burned. All buildings. Sisters' house and all. All wooden. Q. How old were you when the first church burned? A. ~Oh, about 10~ Q. How did the fire start? A. Sisters didn't know how to run those fires, no stoves here, and then the wind throws fire on church. Yeah-ah-h. Q. You were married in the first church in Polonia then? A. No, I was married in Sisters' house becuz Father Dabrowski was so-o sick! That time they couldn't go nowheres out. (Probably heavy snows.) Q. What was the trouble? A. He was 12 years here and that was last year he was. He went to Detroit. All buildings in there what he done. I've book about him, how he is living from Ii'l kid. He was in army to what my husband, I mean uncle, together. And they wasn~t fighting like fighting now! Guns or bun1s or something just. Those swords they had. And uncle was cut, all his face, and they was together in Roosha. And then when they comes to Roosha, if they get them they tie them to each foot one horse and tear them to pieces. And uncle was killed that way. And Father Dabrowski was running away from Roosha. And he see that they was so-o close to him that they would get him. So there was a hospital and he jumped in and told them to take him between the sick people, and they says no, we can't do it because if they would find you here, we all be killed. And he begged them and they took him and put him between the sick people and there they turned him around two times and was stabbed, but they didn't found him and then he run away. I've got all his life how he was from little kid, what he was suffering all time, that priest was suffering all time and he was so-o good to people. Yeah-h. (Sighing.) Q. What did you do after you were married? Have a party? A. Nah-ting! And I didn't care about that man. Only he had such a little house. It wasn't bigger then this room. And I always like to stay alone! I was a small kid, and I was doing that, nobody wouldn't see me. I thought if I was going in that school house.. .it was a little school house. There was a little hole, and if I could get in that hole nobody wouldn't find me. I didn't care if I live without eating or something, 154 only what nobody wouldn't see me. So I came to my husband's hQuse there, before we was married. Dht here I'll be alone. On 'count of that I married him! Because it was such a woods! that you couldn't see yourself between woods and quite a ways from other people. So I had a good chance to stay alone there. And always was wishing to stay alone. Q. What made you wish to be alone so much? A. I just like to stay alone, that nobody wouldn't know about me. So I get it on myoid age now. My father...my husband died, it was 11 years ago and from that time I just live alone. And he was going here and there because he could run them big en-chines, I think it was before, to mills and all kinds of machines. So sometimes I didn't see him home about. So I was so glad that I was staying alone! And now they want to take me away from here, too. I can't do no work, always hard work, sometimes can't take me even eating. How my garden look, how my house look now, all over dirty. I can-na do it. Myself. But I like to stay here. I don't like to go nowheres. Just soon I stay here and I die here. Even if I will be alone. All-ways like to stay alone. Q. But there must be some reason, perhaps, when you were small? A. I can't remember nah-ting. I taught myself when I come here. Nobody wouldn't come I can live! I didn't have that in my mind. So I must be awful small yet, and then there was one month in the year was school. Well, my brothers, when they come from 01' country, they was in New York state four years. Because when my father come here he wrote letter to 01' country. Then that letter went all over. Year after that, people was starting to come some more. There was no Polish people in New York. Where they was in Schenectedy, and, ah, my brother, could talk English after that better than me and if I said a word to that, like it shouldn't be, he couldn't stop laughing from me, so I didn't say a word that he heard. That's why I learn myself, English talking, and can't talk good yet. (She laughed to herself). Q. SO you didn't have a wedding' party or dance? You went straight home. A. Sure, becuz only here and there a few families was and there was nah-ting to have. When my father came to this 155 country he was working for 25 cents a day. And my mother was working for a loaf of bread and it wasn't from no flour. It was from middlin'. Q. Did your father-in-law, Joseph Liebe, die on the farm near Fish Lake? A. No, he was so far in debt he couldn't get out, so we took it from him, and he want us to give him his bread and stay with us, and his sister natural didn't like it because his sister was...ah-h...and he went to Barney Kruzicky to Custer and there he died. And we pay him good money. If you be jest listen to your husband you won't have nah-ting! And then when he was in potatoes two years that way, he was hauling them 10 cents a bushel. He shouldn't listen at me and haul them. I'll haul mine to spring, he said, and in spring there was three cents a bushel! And I hauled them potatoes for three cents a bushel and picked them just so nice. It was two years that way. Wheat, rye it was 25 cents a bushel. Oats 15, and corn they didn't want. Q. Where did you get your flour ground? A. Most in Nelsonville. Q.What about lumber? A. They was sawing it thenlselves the wood, and they had the log and such-a-like a celler, such-a-hole, so they could reach the ·log one on top and one below [whipsawing] and they sawed all the lumber they needed. I says that's lots of them don't believe those hard times those first people had it. And flour, you couldn't buy no flour nowheres. You must have your own wheat and rye, then go to mill and get· it grinded there. And you didn't get no stuff in the store. You get stuff you must be sewing yourself. I sewed few suits for a man because you couldn't get it in store. Q. Did you have sheep on your father's place? A. Ah-huh. And I was spinning, many, many. Jus~ as long as I could work my foots. With those spinning wheel I can work, but with those sewing machine, you must...ah...have people who can learn. But on th~ looms I can work. But on sewing machine you must have your feet always, but on looms you just step straight and it was with the spinning wheel just the same. And in the night when it was dark I always be knitting. I was delivering to stores in Amherst over. 156 Q. You mean you n1ade socks or gloves? A. Yah. Socks and mittens and gloves. Q. And you sold that? A. Why sure! Q. How much did you get for a pair of mittens? A. Oh, it was different kinds. There was one with a strap on, and inside was wool, then it was about 50 cents. Q. How much for a pair of socks? A. Just the same, and I was verking first year married for 15 cents a day. Q. Where? A. On farm because you couldn't get no sugar! You couldn't get no soap. If you get it soap, bar of soap, you give up 25 cents and it wasn't better then you n1ake it yourself. I sold myself soap. And after the first sugar come peoples don't know what it was. First we saw in Joe Bishop's [Bischoff's] store in Polonia. So many years, no sugar. Well, I was making sugar from maple water. But that takes lots of water. Lots of carrying and lots of boiling. About 12 boilers give one boiler syrup. Q: Was it because sugar was so expensive? A. No.. They wasn't making no sugar, and the first what come was brown. And then after that comes white. The first store what was in Stevens Point, it was just like a little shell, small windows, old man with gray head. I remember that place and I remerrLber that man. Q. Who had the first store in Polonia? A. Joe Bishop (Bischoff). Q. Was he an Irishman? A. He was German. Then he had...ah, grocery and dry goods and everything and li'l and Ii'l inore and more. He was German and she was Polish. When Polish people coming, she . was talking. Lots of them come from old country was German. Just as well as Germany was-that way and it is now, like it is here. 'Now they don't want to have no schools, nah-ting talking in Polish. All in English. That's was in 01' country. They din't want no Polish talking, only German. My father know five languages. Q. What languages? A. German, in Polish, in French, in Latin and Sweden. 157 Q. How old was your father when he died? A. Sure. He was 70 years. All nlY brothers 'cept one, when they come to 70 years they die. Only one was 88. And mother was 80, so sisters was all 80 when they died. Only I am come to 88 and not die! (End of interview.)

N.B.-Mrs. Liebe was never quite sure where her father came from in Poland. Since the above interview was made, new light has been shed on this matter by Mr. Emil Kitowski, a researcher in Polish-American history. According to a ship's manifest he has found, Mrs. Liebe's father and mother and seven older brothers and sisters came to the United States on the German sailing ship Howard which left Hamburg on July 7, 1857, and arrived in New York on September 4, 1857, a voyage of just under eight weeks-not uncommon for sailing ships of the time. The names of the passengers are written according to the German spelling for the benefit, no doubt, of American immigration authorities, and on line four of the list appears this entry: M. v Kozyskowsky and his place of origin as Carhaus, which is the German spelling for the Polish Kartuzy, both a city and a county lying to the west of Gdansk (Danzig). A short distance northwest of Kartuzy on the map appears the place name Kozyczkowa, probably the birthplace-or near there-of M. (for Michael) v (for von) Kozyskowsky, or, as the name is most commonly spelled in the Stevens Point telephone book-Koziczkowski (pronounced Ko-shitz-ko-ski), and already shortened by one of the descendants to Kosikowski (pronounced Ko-she-kowski). The manifest of the sailing ship is interesting because Michael insisted on having the "von" (abbreviated to "v") in front of his surname. As mentioned in Our County Our Story, he used this honorific a few times in early documents of Portage County, but then dropped it entirely when he probably noticed that no one was paying any attention to it. Listed on the passenger list below his name are his wife Franzissa (Frances), Josephine, Franz (Frank), Juliane, Johan, Theophile (Charles), Clementine, and Therese, who was one year old. 158 As Mrs. Liebe made clear in, the interview, some of her brothers worked for a time in Schenectady before rejoining the family on the new farm which lay about three miles east of the present village of Polonia on present county trunk Z.

159 Chapter X

A COUNTRY STORE AT POLONIA

In the interview with Martha Liebe, described in the previous chapter, mention was made to "Joe Bishop," the first storekeeper in Polonia, Wisconsin, a Polish-American community lying about half way between Stevens Point and the village of Rosholt. Most Polish-Americans called the storekeeper "Bishop" although his name was spelled Bischoff, a corruption of the German Bischof, pronounced bis-kof, meaning "bishop," a functionary in the Christian. church. The wife of "Joe Bishop," as Mrs. Liebe explained it, was Polish. She was the daughter of Zavier Prondzinski who immigrated with his family to the U~ited States from Posen in German-Poland shortly after the Civil War and settled in Berlin, Wisconsin. A daughter, Magdalene, 13 years old, found work here as a waitress. Later on, Magdalene came to Portage County to visit a sister who had married William Glizinski of the town of Sharon. And somewhere along the terminal moraine, she met and fell in love with Joe Bischoff, and the affair ended in marriage, which was rather unusual, that is, for a girl of Polish origin to be nlarrying a German youth of the first generation in this country. Bischoff had a brother, August, and a sister, Mrs. Thomas Radzinski. His children by Magdalene included August, Helen (Mrs. John Kirsling), Clara (Mrs. Felix Woyak), and Frank. August operated a blacksmith shop located on the south side of Highway 66 near the intersection\ of County Trunk J. There are two account books preserved from the Polonia 160 store, one that records cash income and expenditures, and a second, a ledger, which carries the charge accounts of the customers. The cash book begins August 13, 1877. The ledger begins in late 1886, and ends inconclusively in the 1890s. Prior to 1889 the handwriting is that of Joe Bischoff. After his death, others were making entries, and in· 1892, a new handwriting appears, namely that of John Formella who had married Bischoff's widow. And it is through the children of this marriage that the account books have been preserved, mainly in the family of Joseph Formella of Stevens Point. Emil Formella, a brother, and Joseph, served in.. World War I. I remember Emil as a blacksmith in· Rosholt after the war. The blacksmith shop stood directly over Flume Creek and it was customery to sweep the floor clean by opening a trap door into the river. I went to Emil for horseshoe nails which I bent around the anvil point to make finger rings for my girl friend in the seventh grade. John Formella was more interested in farming than in store.business. He moved his family to a house that stood on the northeast corner of Highway 66 and County Trunk J (east of Ellis) where his wife operated a small store in the house for a time. The Sharon tax roll on personal property for 1875 lists "August & Brother, Bischoff" with a combined valuation of $721. Since this figure is much higher than most of the other names in the personal property list t it might be that their personal property included merchandise for a store, wagons, sleighs, etc. It also shows that August and Joseph were in business together in the beginning, but August left two or three years later and moved to Stevens Point where he ran a saloon but continued to· do much of the buying for his brother in Polonia. The ledger preserved in the. Formella family does not indicate what the customers were buying, only the amounts they were paying. But the cash book makes brief mention of some items purchased from wholesalers in Stevens Point, mostly from the R.D. McCulloch Co. and Krembs Hardware. Among the items purchased were herring, flour, nails, starch, shoes, seed, crockery, lanterns, spokes, whitefish, 161 "botter," gun shot and powder, cigars, coffee, beer 'and whisky. In May 1882 first mention is made to "pop" which was being purchased from the Lutz Brewery in Stev.ens Point. Bischoff got most of his beer there as well as from Kuhl's Brewery. But the source of whisky is not given, probably because most of it was manufactured by moonshiners. All in all the range of merchandise suggests a well-stocked store, even to "notions," ready to serve the immediate needs of the farmers in the area. Bischoff was also hiring people to make shingles, it appears, and he bought shingles as well, which he sold. These were "shakes," often called "shave" shingles because they were shaved at one end. ~ The store attracted customers from most of Sharon Township, a few from Pike Lake, and a few from Stockton 'and Alban, such as the Liebe, Windorf and Simonis families. It was centrally located and stood diagonally across the road from the present Polonia Branch of the State Bank of Rosholt in what is today a tavern, although the present building is completely remodeled. Upstairs, over the store, there was once a dance hall where the Formellas and Schliesmanns played for wedding affairs and other occasions in the years before World War I.. Bischoff's customers are listed below, alphabetically, as they appear at the beginning fo the ledger where the page number of each account is given. Bischoff's spelling of Polish names is fairly good and suggests that he had a working knowledge of English by this time and as a whole there is little to quarrel with. I will make no attempt to correct the names because some Polish families to this day do not agree on spelling, even between cousins. This is not uncommon among other ethnic groups either. Several names of customers b~gin with a "W." This takes a "v" sound in Polish although one would have to be born in Warsaw to be able to give this "v" its proper pronounciation. I will not carry the names beyond 1889 because after that date the ledger becomes confused, and accounts are filled in the pages retroactively by a later handwriting. Here, then, are 162 the names of most of Bischoff's customers from 1887 to ,1889 with spellings as used in the ledger: John Akman [Eckman], Peter Brixius, Joseph Burant, Frank Bronk, Aby (Abbe) Boyington, August and Carl Betker, John Blumer, Matis Blashkowski, Frank Baron, Andrew Baker, Steffan Brand, C. Barwig, Anton Bigus, J.A. Brown, Joseph Pilowski, Paul Bilawa, Adam Burant, Frank Bender, John Bigus, John Bushman, John Britzen, Peter Bunger, Agata Bronk, Michael Celmen, Joseph Czech, John . Cherwonka, Joseph Cpelyna, Joseph Cwilkinski, Mathias and Frank Czech, Martin Cychosh, Frank Bombenik, Teofil Bronk, Jacob Cychosh, Joseph Cyse,wski and Frank Baska. Michael Doyle, Peter I)oyle, August Dzwankowski, Albert Dalman, Martin Doyle, Frank Disher, August Dalman, August Dale, Teofil Dalman, Peter Eiden, John Eiden Jr., Albert Feltz, John Flis, Joseph Fridach, August Gershewski, Paul, Teofil and John Garski, Fred Golenbeck, Joseph Gostomski, Bartlema Gliniski, John _Gladowski, Martin Gersewski, Michael Glodowski, Frank Gilbrand, Frank Gagas, John Goytowski, Walentin Gagas, Joseph Grocholski, Math Griwacz (?), Math and Frank Gosh, Adam Gorecki, August Glischinski, John Henca (today probably Hintz), D. Haul, Joseph Helminski, Charles Harris, Martin Henca, Peter Firek and John Kositz. (The last name is no doubt an abbreviation for Koziczkowski). Bernard Konopacki, August Kranski, Nick Kischewski, John Kluk, Joseph Kluk (after this name the words "Pike Lake" have been inserted), Frank Klopatek, John Konopacki, August Kniter, Paul Koklinski, Joseph Kurkowski, Frank Kluk, Albert Kulas, Christ Kniple, Nick Klemen, Michael Kotlowski, Peter Kropidlowski, Xavier Krizan, Peter Kotz, August Kluk, Winzent Kedeowski, Peter Kniple, John Kotlowski, Andrew Kedrowicz, Martin Kisewski, John Knufel, John Konopachki, Paul Kiedrowski, Lucian Kobasuiski, Paul Kasobucki, Michael Kluk, Frank Kolinski, Joseph Kluk (of Custer), and Stefan Kuklinski. Simon Liewandowski, Anton Lepak, Frank Landowski, Joseph Lezeczinski, Lorance Lewinski, John Liebe, Charles Lepinski, Anton Lorbiecki, Frank Lesbinski, Joseph Liebe, Thomas Lepinski, George Ledwerowski, John Landowski, 163 Stefan Lubazki, Adam Lescinski, Thomas Lepinski, Thomas Lehmen, Joseph Lukowicz, Anton and Frank Nowak, Frank No·dolini, Louis Norlach, Casemier, Alex, Frank, Peter, Martin and Andrew Ostrowski, and Stefan Oka (?). John, Anton and Felix Pliska, Joseph Prondjinski, Bernard and Michael Peankowski, Josephina Palberg, Stanislaus Pewelski, Math Pichowski, Frank Polchibski, Joseph Piechowski, Michael Platta, Joseph Paschelka, Walentin Polak, John Pitarski ~nd Martin Pashelka. Stefan Spiza, Thomas Badzinski, Sewester Redin (Sylvester Reading, probably), Thomas Kosik, Michael Studinski, John and Joseph Stroik, Martin Schulist, August Sliwiz (?), Peter Smith, John Selewski, Walentin Shymenski, Frank Soechka, Mrs. John Sikorski, Frank Soikas, John Simonis, Stolz, Pike Lake, (that is, a Stolz who lived near Pike Lake), Frank Stroik, Jacob Sychosh, Frank Schelbrachkowski, John Stena, John Suika, John Stensal, and August Slagoski "old man" (notation). John Turinski, Andrew Treczinski, Lorane Tuskowski, Paul Thomashewski, Tedodora Rozek, Joseph Treder, and Mathias Triba. Jacob Wanta, Albert Wirosmielski, Joseph Wanta Jr., John Werowinski, Joseph Woyak (Pike Lake), John Wanta, Mathias Wysocki, Henry Wendorff (today Windorf), John Wendorff, Vincent Wirshba (todayWierzba)~ Frank Weisberg, Fred Wendorff, Basel Wanta, Anton Woyak, August Wroblewski, Mary Wenserski, Albert Wanta, Nick Weranka, Thomas Yach, August Yenter, John Yagla, Joseph Jelinski, John Zira, Jacob and John Zinda, John, Joseph and Walentin Zelneski, and John and Stefan Zywicki. The name of Albert Feltz is interesting because it shows . that at this early date the family had already changed or shortened the name from Felkowski. The name Klopatek means "little worry," and the name Ostrowski means something fast or speedy. The name Soikas is today Soik, originally Sujecki, meaning "blue jay." Mary Wenserski, who is mentioned above, wa~ a rather well-known figure in the 1880s and 1890s in Sharon. She was the community midwife and any number of senior citizens in their 80's today, who were born in Sharon, can thank Mary 164 for their first slap in life. Most rural communities, whether Polish, German or Scandinavian, had their midwives in the pioneer period of settlement. Doctors could not reach the scattered farms . easily, especially in winter, and it was not until after the turn of the 20th century that doctors began to compete seriously with midwives. Many of these women were trained in Europe before they emigrated and were in demand as soon as they arrived. If they got a dollar for their services they were lucky. John Cherwonka was another customer at Polonia store. In the early 1900s he became noted as one of the best cooks in the logging woods around Galloway and Elderon. After the logging industry moved further north, Cherwonka retired from the woods and opened a saloon on the Sharon-Alban range line. It was not called a saloon, however. It was a "hop house" because it had been converted from a building once used to dry and cure hops. John Cherwonka was known as "Uncle John" to Polish lumberjacks from Polonia to Bevent, to the Irish all the way to Manawa, and to Norwegians all the way to Rosholt and lola, and his place of business was called "Uncle John's." Myoid" friend, Nils QUisla, who lived on a farm east of Rosholt village, remembered him well, and one day he began to tell me about the "hop houses" west of the village and this led to a discussion of "Uncle John." Nils said he had been to Stevens Point on an errand with two men from lola, both of Norwegian descent, and on their return from Stevens Point they had stopped at Uncle John's to water the horses and to slake their own thirst which had grown quite critical by this time. Nils and his friends went into the "hop house" and took a place at the bar and had scarcely been served a bottle of beer when a Polish customer at the other end of the bar, flanked by two of his compatriots, looked at the strangers and said, "Don't you know? We're killing Norwegians here today." Nils, who was built strong as an ox, said he grabbed a beer bottle and challenged the killers to approach. "And they came at me," he said, raising his voice in bragga~ocio," and I gave the first one the bottle right over his head and he went down, and the second one I jammed into the wall, and the 165 third one I threw clean through the screen door. And 01' Uncle John stood there and laughed his head off!" When I asked Nils what happened to his two partners, he said, "Thenl peoples ran the first thing and they must have been half ways to lola before I ketched up to them." At least that's the way Nils told it.

166 Chapter XI

"OBITUARY POETRY"

After Minnie Gasmann of Amherst died some years ago, I always wondered whether she had left any papers or diaries, and in a conversation with Bayard Wentworth of Stevens Point, I learned that she had left some papers and for me to go and see Welton Johnson of Amherst about them. Both johnson and Wentworth are descendants of a rather noted family of Norwegians, the Gasmann brothers, Hans and Johan, who came to this country in the early 1840s, Hans settling in Waukesha County and Johan, the sea-captain, eventually settling in Amherst Township in Portage County. I have photographs lifted from old tintypes of these long­ nosed patricians, and the one of Hans shows him as a member of the Norwegian Storting (parliament) with no less than seven medals pinned to a fapcy jacket or hanging from his neck. In fact, one of the medals on his neck looks a little like the German "Blue Max." In addition to family records and papers which Minnie Gasmann collected during a lifetime of teaching school around Amherst, there are three albums or autograph books in which people a century ago collected expressions of poetic sympathy from their friends, or hints on how to make the best of life, or how to meet the inevitable end when the hand of death beckoned. Some people called it "obituary poetry." These expressions of sympathy and everlasting friendship were, if nothing else, the essence of respectability. The young people, as well as older contributors, seldom made offbeat comments. 167 Charlotte Gasmann Johnson

Virtue was respected and the autographers seemed to know the limits of impropriety and the demands of good taste. They definitely were trying to live up to a value system, probably hypocritical in some ways, nonetheless something they all agreed on that was worthwhile. Many of the poems or comments are, no doubt, lifted from other sources. Some of the poems reflect an acceptance of fate, an ashes-to-ashes outlook which brings to mind a photography essay book called "Wisconsin Death Trip." For example, on the cover of Minnie Gasmann's album-is a picture of a girl with red wool cap and golden curls, She does not smile. She looks sad and her eyes are glazed, almost in a trance. But it wasn't all that bad, or course, because opposite to her on the cover is a basket of colored morning glories. The largest of the Gasmann albums is felt-covered with big gold letters on the frontispiece. This was the album of Charlotte (Lottie) Gasmann and is signed by her on the inside cover November 15, 1884. She was a daughter of Godfred Gasmann and Henrieckke Gasmann, he a cousin and she a daughter of Captain Johan 168 Gasmann who once sailed the Atlantic in his bark the Salvator. In fact he brought my great-grandfather and great­ grandmother, Jacob and Johanna Rosholt, to New York on board the Salvator on July 15, 1845. On the third page of the album appears the outline of a child's hand, drawn from life, which is the hand of Marian Carrie Gasn1ann, a daughter of August C. Gasmann and Minne Lorraine Howard of Stevens Point. They were married in 1887. Marian was two years, two months and five days old when the imprint of her hand was made on October 9, 1892. The fact that the age of the child is given in years, months and days was typical of the 19th century, and many tombstones in our cemeteries are also marked in this manner. It is not necessary to reproduce every page in this album, since many of the contributions are not original and some quite brief, like the one from Blanche E. Bigler who writes, "In weaving your wreath of friendship, please twine in one bud for...your friend, Blanche E. Bigler." Lena Anderson on April 3, 1885 wrote: "Dear Lottie: "May we ever see thy pathway Brilliant as we see it now. Weaving virtues brightest laurels On thy gentle brow." Edward F. Johnson wrote on April 3, 1886: "The best portion of a good man's life is his little nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love." This was a quote from something he had read, and perhaps this autograph was also the first step in a love affair which later led to his marriage with Lottie Gasmann. Ingebor Olson wrote in Norwegian this verse, and I translate: '~Think with joy of your coming and think of it as something sweet Then hold thyself ready for your Savior And hope that you may die as He." Anna H. Thompson in 1888 made her contribution, apparently while Lottie was on a visit to "Hegg," in Racine County: - 169 "Accept my friend these lines from me They show that I remember thee, And hope 'some thoughts they will retain then you and I shall meet again." Lottie was teaching in Stockton Township at one time and one of her pupils in 1885 was David Iveson who merely writes "Compliments of David Iveson," but in the corner of the page he says, "When in this corner you should look, remember the one who spoiled your book." M.S. McKee of Amherst in March 1888 wrote this: "Among the weeds of toil and strife Are many deeds that brighten life Scattered along our path like flowers In passing through this world of ours." Fred E. Webster of Amherst wrote in 1885: "If you would have a thing well done, do it YQurself." It- was signed at the "Institute." Since several references are made in different pages of the album to the "Arrlherst Institute," it appears that there was once a school of "higher learning" here, probably beyond the grade school level. Today, no one in Amherst remembers hearing about this "Institute." A.J. Smith, a well-kno-wn attorney in Amherst, was the only one to autograph the album in Latin and he writes: "Valet anchora virtus," which is to say, "Virtue serves as an anchor." Mary N. Stoy, a cousin of Lottie, in 1890 wrote: "The deeds we do, the words we say, Into still air they seem to fleet We count the,m ever past But they shall last In dread judgment they And we shall meet." Here is one from Mrs. Charles Fancher after whom the Fancher community in the Town of Stockton is no doubt named. In May 1885 she wrote from Amherst Junction.: "Constant as the waves of ocean Beating on the silent shore May the loving watch of angels Guard and guide thee evermore." 170 I've never heard of an ocean with a silent shore but that's the way the waves beat in those days. In November 1884 Lottie got her brother August Gasmann to make. his contribution: "There"is a simple little truth Dispute it, ye who can T'is not old age, or lively youth But mind that makes the man." William S. Bigler in October 1887 wrote: "May the hinges of our friendship never rust." This may have been borrowed because another autographer uses the same passage elsewhere. Mrs. J.J. Nelson in February 1885 wrote: "Be kind to all, be intimate with few, and let the few be well chosen." People were trained in the art of penmanship before the era of electric typewriters, and often drew fancy and rather beautiful sketches in ink, as well as lettering. In March 1889, A.P. St. John autographed the book in heavy lettering with these words: "May your joys be as deep as the ocean, and your sorrows as light as the foam." Maude L. Stark of Amherst in March 1885- wrote: "Boys flying kites may haul in their white winged birds, but you can't do this when you are flying words." Hester Gasmann,a"brother of Lottie, wrote in April 1885: "Every person's life lies within the present, the past is spent and the future is uncertain." L. (for Louis) E. Wentworth wrote from Surrey, Wis., in November 1884: "Dear Lottie: You ask me for sonlething Original but where shall I begin? For there is nothing original In me except original sin." Surrey was once a post office in Buena Vista Township, and Wentworth later married Inger Margareta, a sister of Lottie Gasmann. Elsa Bbe, almost surely from the Norwegian community east -of Amherst, wrote, in May 1887: "Let not the wild tempest thy spirit affright Shrink not from the storm though it come in its might, Be watchful, be ready for shipr~ck [sic] prepare, . 171 Keep an eye at the life boat and never despair." John J. Hillstroom in December 1885 may have been visiting Amher~t from Revilloa, Dakota Territory, and he wrote: "On the broad highway of action Friends of worth are few But when one you find to be true Cling to her as she clings to you." Lottie must have taught school in New Hope Township, since there are several entries from. there. Mrs. Nils B. Berge, wife of the first Norwegian Lutheran pastor of New Hope and Alban, wrote in January 1887, "Value your friends by their real worth not by their appearance only as looks are often deceiving." She was probably unaware then how much she would need friends because later that year her husband died, leaving her with three boys to take care of at a time when there were no pension plans for pastors or social security. George Byron Nelson, later a state Supreme Court justice, in February 1888 wrote, in bold letters: "Miss Lottie Gasmann, believe me ever, your grateful pupil." Dina Boe, one of the first school teachers in the Alban Township in the early 1870s, autographed the album on May 17, 1887 with a poem: ' "Beware of sudden friendship, t'is a flo.wer That thrives but in the sun its bud is fair And it may blossom in the summer hour But winter's withering tempest will not bear Our friendship is a tree whose lasting strength Is slow of growth, but proves what e'er befall Through our hope and haven, and at length, Yields but to death the flower that conquers all." Since this poem was composed on May 17, Miss Boe writes in parenthesis (u no), apparently to remind Lottie that this was the Norwegian national holiday. P.S. Thorson. who apparently had the nickname "Toppe," a Norwegian loan word no doubt, wrote in December 1884: "May you be happy each day of your life, get a good husband and make a good wife." Lottie was in Fox Lake in August 1886 visiting with 172 relatives and here a Jennie Lindsay wrote: "If in this world of grief and pain My friend, we never meet again, Oh! may we meet beyond the skies Where friendship blooms and never dies." Lottie's mother, Mrs. Gotfred Gasmann, finally got a chance to autograph the album in November 1889: "Think truly and thy thoughts Shall the world's famine feed. Speak truly and each word of thine Shall be a faithful seed. Live truly and thy life shall be A great an noble creed." A few days later Lottie's sister, Minnie, made her contribution: "Esteem is the dewdrop that freshens the flower Admiration the arched hues that spendidly shine The one is a sprinkle, the other a shower Let thine be the rainbow, the dewdrop be mine." Next comes a bold handwriting with a certain flair to it made in March'1885: "May thy life happy be, is my dear wish for thee. James J.

Nelson." I J.J. Nelson, as he usually signed himself, ran a general store in Amherst for many years, and was the father of Justice Nelson. He emigrated to the United States as a youth when he was known as Jens Jakob Lofthus. Jens is the Norwegian for James and Jakob of course is Jacob. Lofthus, proqably meaning "high house," may have been a farm name which he discarded in favor of Nelson. M.S. McKee wrote in Lottie's book: "Trifles make perfection. Perfection is no trifle." In a corner he signs himself "The Missourian." Since this was written in 1887, it had to do with the split in the Norwegian Lutheran Synod over the question of predestination which f~llowed when those who voted to remain in the old synod were called "Missourians" and those who voted to leave were called "anti-Missourians." There are many other autographs and poems in this album, but more or less along the same line as above. 173 I have another album, pocket-size, which my uncle Jens Rosholt kept while attending Alban school in the 1890s. Its very size precluded any lengthy poems and instead it is filled with two-line and four-line stanzas like this one from Mrs. George Herman of Stevens Point who wrote in December 1891: "Dear Friend: I take my pen in hand And grasp your album light But in my soal [sic] I can not think of a word to write." Maggie Simonis in October 1892 wrote: "A wish for a friend is often given. My wish for you is a home in Heaven." My aunt Laura Rosholt was thinking in the same vein when she wrote this in November 1893: "Dear Brother: Remember me when I am dead And roses blooming o'er my head Forget my faults and drop a tear When your friend Laura is not here." Emma Hanson wrote: "Dear James (for Jens): "I slept and dreamth that life was beauty, I woke and saw that life was duty." On one occasion Uncle Jens must have visited his grandparents on the old Rosholt farm in Scandinavia and his Grandmother Johanne signed his book thus: "Keep thy heart with all diligence For out of it are the issues of life." Probably the most common thought expressed in all these autograph books is: 'if you don't forget n1e, I won't forget you.' Young people, full of dreams, seemed possessed by the thought that they would be soon forgotten by their friends and thus Carrie Rasmussen, daughter of the first settler in Rosholt, wrote her dear friend James: "Remember me and I will you." Later Jens attended Stoughton Academy and here one of his school mates writes: "When hill and dale separates you and I Think of me but do not cry. 174 The wish of your friend and schoolmate, John H. Kinney." In a box preserved in Minnie Gasmann's papers there are the albums already mentioned in addition to a very small, hardcover box two-and-a-half inches wide and four inches long, containing autographs and sentimental poems written in Norway in the 1840s. They are all written in the penmanship of the period; that is, fine, cursive style, almost impossible to read without a ~agnifying glass. Since n10st of the signers appear to have lived in Portsgrund, it is fairly certain that the person collecting th.e autographs was a member of the Gasmann family which originated at Foss, not far from Porsgrund on the south coast of Norway. Although I cannot translate this material, it seems obvious that the verses rhyme much better than the ones found at Amherst 40 years later. And this, no doubt was the result of a Norwegian literary game called "stemming" in which two persons competed with each other to make every other line rhyme. But autograph collecting and "obituary poetry," I suspect, were popular throughout Europe.

175 Chapter XII

THE COUNTRY SCHOOL TEACHER

Reminiscences of pioneer life in Wisconsin are all too rare, and when an entire book of these jottings from the past is discovered, more or less by accident, it becomes both a matter of historical importance and a literary event. The author of these reminiscences is Mrs. J.L. Washburn, nee Alma Jane Pattee, born in New Hampshire in 1856 and taken by her family as a baby to a log shanty located at the mouth of Ten Mile Creek on the Wisconsin River, about 15 kilometers south of "Grand Rapids," today Wisconsin Rapids. She spent most of her childhood years in this wilderness country before her father, Joseph Rodney Pattee, moved to Stevens Point in 1868, and from there, in the spring of 1871, . to a farm on what was then called the "Stockton Prairie" in Portage County. In 1882 Alma Jane married Jed Washburn, a young lawyer from Mankato, Minnesota. An early morning wedding was planned at the home of the bride on the "Prairie," to be followed by a breakfast. The newlyweds wanted to catch a train at Plover, about 15 kolometers away, in order to reach "Grand Rapids" where they planned to spend their wedding night with a relative. But the Methodist pastor was late. The guests ate breakfast, and still he did not come. When he finally arrived, the marriage vows had to be repeated on the double, and the young couple were driven off in horse and buggy at top speed to catch the train, only to see it pull out ahead of them. 176 MRS. J.L. WASHBURN

Alma Jane says they went to a "little one horse hotel" in Plover to spend the night. Later in the day they learned that there was a freight train coming through at 3 p.m. They checked out of the "one horse hotel" and boarded the caboose on the freight train-the beginning of their wedding journey to Minnesota! Alma Jane began to record her memories in 1916 when she was 60 years old, and at intervals she managed to collect enough material from her memory bank to do another chapter. She then collected all her "letters" and had them printed in a book called "Letters to My Children." (A copy of this privately printed book has now been presented to the public libraries in Stevens Point and Wisconsin Rapids by Malcolm McLean, a grandson, president of Northland College, Ashland.) Alma Jane's father, Joseph Rodney Pattee, was born in Goofstown, New Hampshire. Apparently he had heard 177 stories about the Wisconsin River and he wanted to move to the "glorious west" as it was called. His choice of farm land in south Wood County was about as bad as anyone could imagine. As a child, Alma Jane remembers the place where they lived surrounded by forest. But this area had been logged off many years earlier; at least the big pines were gone. What was left, probably, was hardwood like oak and maple, mixed with aspen, birch, etc. Nevertheless, there was clearing to do and stumps to pull, but after the first crops were planted and harvested, Joseph Pattee realized that he was sitting on a sand pile where nothing would ever grow well. He perhaps welcomed the opportunity to join up with the 8th Battery of Light Artillery in February 1864, a year or so before the Civil War ended. He probably collected a bonus for enlisting. His wife was pregnant when he went off to war and he never knew until several days after it happened that she had develope~s in one finger and died. A doctor from "Grand Ra.pids" amputated the end of the finger but could not halt the disease. Mrs. Pattee gave birth, prematurely, to twins, a boy and girl, who both died the day they were born, the mother shortly after. Alma Janes recalls that her mother and the twins were buried in a "little wooded field" where a few years earlier, her sisters, Ida and Sarah, were also buried after dying of diphtheria, the scourage of all children in pioneer times. Joseph Pattee got compassionate leave to return home. The four living children were taken in hand by relatives in Portage County and later sent to relatives in New Hampshire. When he was mustered out in 1865, Pattee came for his children and after stopping several months in New Hampshire, he returned with his family to the old shanty on Ten Mile Creek. Two years later he married the "school mom," Elizabeth Jane Baker of Grand Rapids, and in the next 10 years three more children were born of this union. Not 8 years old when her mother died, Alma Jane remembers that on the last ·day of her dying there was so 178 much commotion going on, what with relatives and friends a-coming and a-going, that she and her bro~her William, older by one year, wandered off to the Wisconsin River, a kilometer away, to watch the lumber rafts drift by. One of the sharpest memories she had of the place on Ten Mile Creek was not of the house but of the picket fence that surrounded it. Her father had tooled the pickets and erected the fence. His daughter was so proud of the fence that she wanted to tell her girlfriends in school about it. She says there was a straight walk from the gate in the fence to the front door of the L-shaped house, "but no one ever thought of entering the house in this way." They had to come around to the side of the house through the kitchen door, a common type of home and fence these people left behind in New Hampshire, even to the "old fashioned flowers" the Pattees planted to decorate the walk from the gate to the front door, that no one ever used. Joseph Pattee tooled these pickets on a "shaving horse," his daughter relates. The most common use for the "horse," however, was for shaving down the one end of a shake shingle. It is an old European carpentry tool. The Germans call it "schnitzelbenk." But in addition to making pickets for fencing on the "shaving horse," Pattee used this for whittling down "grubstakes." These were young tree saplings found in the forest and pulled up by the roots. After the sapling had been cut to four feet in length from the root, and shaved down to about ten centimeters in diameter, it was used to secure the corners of the lumber rafts which were being run down the Wisconsin River. The saplings were pulled up by the roots because the root structure, after trimming, served as a bolt-head to keep the 'grubstake from slipping out the hole that had been augered through the planks binding the lumber together. Thousands of these grubstakes were needed every spring by the lumbermen on the Wisconsin River. In 1872 at Wausau they were paying $7 to $8 hundred for them. A man had to hustle to make ten in a day'. Another memory Alma Jane retained from the old Wood 179 County home was the "mourning piece" that hung on the wall at the foot of her parents' bed. This was an engraving showing a grave under a weeping willow tree with the words on the headstone: "Sacred to the Mem<;>ry of Orlando Stockwell." Beside the grave stood a woman, weeping, her face partially covered by a handkerchief. Orlando Stockwell was a former boyfriend of Mrs. Pattee. He had died, apparently, in youth. Alnla Jane thought the mourning piece was a "gruesome" wall decoration, particularly in view of the fact that it hung over the bed of the man who had taken Orlando's place! A favorite pastime: of ·the 19th century among women was making "samplers," which were framed and hung as wall decorations. The samplers were done in large and small letters, numerals, proverbs and picture designs, all in cross­ stitch' on canvas. Every New England girl was supposed to make one at an early age but Alma Janes does not say she ever did. The tableware used at the Pattee home was mostly "blue plates and platters with their landscapes·" but it was the ambition of most housewives to have white dishes for "best." To have white dishes to set the table with for company was considered a step up the social ladder. Knives and forks were of steel, and the forks had only two tines, quite wide apart~obviously not meant for blackeyed peas. When drinking tea or coffee, people poured the beverage into a saucer to cool, and then drank it from the saucer. This custom continued well into the 20th century. Alma Jane also recalls the "cup plates," that is, small dishes about as large as a sauce dish, which were used to set the coffee cup in after the coffee had been poured into the saucer. The extra saucer was used, of course, to protect the table cloth from "coffee ring." While the word coffee is used in the above, Alma Jane says that her parents seldom had real coffee in the first years on the Indian· Land. They made coffee out of parched rye. At other times they made a drink from browned crusts of bread. Bringing the family cows home at night could be a hazard. There were no fences and the cattle roamed at large. "We 180 would listen for our bell," she says, "before we started and would keep on listening till we found the cows Once we were lost...we had followed an imaginary bell we shouted ourselves hoarse. Before it was entirely dark, father found us-a terror-stricken little pair." The cows had already found their own way home. The rural school she attended was located on Ten Mile Creek near the intersection of a north-south road that led north to "Grand Rapids." "The most peculiar thing about it [the school], considered from our present standpoint...was the fact that it had no toilets whatever either for girls or boys," she writes. "Just' what the school authorities expected pupils and teacher to do under these conditions they never informed us. We made the best of it..." Buildings that were eventually built', she adds, were never called toilets either. They were either "outhouses" or "backhouses," the latter term less dignified than the former and spoken with a slightly lowered tone. She .remembers too, long noon recesses when the children wandered up Ten Mile Creek gathering raspberries, often stringing them together on a straw for the teacher. Like most children in the countryside, Alma Jane went barefooted in summer, even after she was beginning to grow up. On one occasion the family was going to a 4th of July picnic. Alma Jane and her older sister, Ettie, wanted to know from their parents whether they could go in shoes without stockings. They were told they had to wear either shoes and stockings, or go barefoot. She thinks they went barefoot because they could not find any stockings, and were mortified when they reached the picnic grounds to learn that they were the only girls without shoes. She, at least, tried to keep her feet hid,den as much as possible. She remembers the fun she had gathering hazel nuts. She and her brother William went out on Saturday morning one time and filled a three-bushel sack of nuts. These were brought home and emptied on the ground in a place reserved for nut cracking, and after the nuts had dried, they were beaten with sticks to open the shucks. "Everybody ate hazel 181' nuts," she says. In 1868 Joseph Pattee sold his farm in the town of Saratoga and moved to a shanty in Stevens Point, although it appears that he bought a farm in the town of Stockton about the same time. (The 1876 plat of Portage County shows that he occupied two forties in the southeast quarter of Section 8.) "So we took a tiny little house in the outskirts of Stevens . Point," she continues, "in a city already known as the wickedest and toughest place in the northwest." In the next four years or so, Joseph Pattee worked as a teamster, hauling freight from Gills Landing on the Wolf River and from Berlin on the Fox. When she came to "the Point" as it was already being called, Alma Jane found it difficult for herself, a "queerly dressed country girl," to break into "the very exclusive society found in the public school of a one-horse town like Stevens Point." The queerness of dress was not due entirely to poverty. Much of it was due to her father's refusal to adapt himself to change. "Because he had always worn long pants when he was a boy, why of course, they were the proper kind for his sons to wear. And so little Frankie, at the age of seven, was sent to school with these ridiculous long trousers, and even with a vest! Of course all were homemade." The school they attended was the "Old White School" which stood on Water Street on the site of the present Lincoln Administrative Center. A year after they came to Stevens Point, the Pattee family moved out of the little house on the outskirts of the city into a "quite respectable house in a much better neighborhood" where, for the first time, "we had a real sitting room.,,' The Pattees had never had a rug on the floor in their former dwellings, but when they moved to the larger house, Mrs. Pattee and the girls worked together to make a big rag rug for the sitting room. After they finished, they found it did not quite cover the floor, "stretch it as we would and turn it in every conceivable way..." A piece of her father's old gray army. blanket was grafted into the rug and it was laid down so that the blanket would 182 be in the most inconspicuous part of the room, that is, behind a door, usually left open, that led into the kitchen. Although Joseph Pattee was a Universalist, the other members of his family attended the Presbyterian Church on Main Street in Stevens Point. The children also attended Sunday School there. The pastor was the Rev. Jacob Patch, referred to by Alma Jane as "a real old school, hell-fire and­ infant damnation adherent..." But the Patch family "were our very best friends," she continJles. At another time while the Pattees lived in Stevens Point during the years 1868-71, Patch started a private school in his house on the south side and Alma Jane and her sister Ettie were allowed to attend. The teacher was Loretta A. Ramsey, "an unusual woman for a teacher," a graduate of a "female seminary" in Rockford, Illinois. She exercised a profound influence on Alma Jane's life because she "did much to stimulate in me a desire for a better education." But her happy school days under Miss Ramsey came to an abrupt end. Her father needed her on the farm. This suggests that the family moved to the Stockton Prairie in the spring of 1871. However, during the winter of 1870~71, her father took a contract to cut some timber on a tract of land lying to the north of Stevens Point, probably on the Little Eau Pleine River. Her father hired a crew of eight men to help him cut and skid the logs out to the river. . One nlan he hired insisted on bringing his wife along, and as a result she was hired to do the cooking. But she was pregnant and soon found it impossible to keep up with her duties. Alma Jane, not yet 15, had to come to the camp and take over as cook. The baby of the cook was "born right there in that logging camp," she says, "and no one was present but her husband [and] a queer kind of woman from a neighboring cabin and myself." She described the logging camp as a "very crude building" which was divided into a large and small room. The large room had a big fireplace, bunks in the corners, one above the other, a long dining table with benches on either side, and two' or three chairs. The other room had a cook stove, a bed, a sofa and a place "where I kept food and dishes." She says she had never made bread before, but found by 183 experimenting that she could make a fairly decent substitute out of "sourings" and soda. Sourings, she explains, was what "pancake batter would be after it had stood for a while and turned sour." She had no eggs or milk, and she could not send for an·y. She used a recipe she found on the baking powder can, omitted the eggs, and used water instead of milk which was "every bit as good as milk when baking powder is being used." But she could cook vegetables, and she knew how to prepare salt pork which made up the basic meat diet in most logging camps. She also baked beans at times in a big jar which she put in the fireplace overnight, banked with coals and ashes. But a few weeks after she began to cook at the camp, she became ill and had to be taken back to Stevens Point. After her recovery, she returned to the Old White School. At this stage of her life, not quite 15 years old, she wasn't sure what she wanted to do, or could do, to augment the family income. To qualify for a teaching job she had only to pass an examination given by the county superintendent of schools. But she had to be 16 years old. When she finally turned 16 she got her first job teaching at Felch School in the town of Stockton (Portage County) at a salary of $20 per month. She spent $2.50 a week on room and board at the home of Hosmer Felch who lived not far from the school house. The school building was fOinished when she began teaching but she had to wait several days before the school board'could provide seats. When the seats finally came, they were not seats, but two long benches, probably made by a local carpenter, placed along the wall on either side of the room. The teacher did not even have a desk for herself, or a chair to sit on. A neighbor finally donated a chair and table to the school. It is easy to imagine how many text books, aside from McGuffeY'8 Reader, there were available at Felch School. Most of these early schools did not even have a blackboard, and, as already noted, no backhouse. Alma Jane's work load at Felch School was probably . not heavy. A few days after she started teaching, a Catholic priest came to the school and ordered all the Catholic 184 children out and told them to attend a school of their own faith conducted, presumably, by himself. She does not say who the priest was, but in 1872 it could have been Joseph Dabrowski, first resident pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Polonia. (A parochial school was inaugurated at Polonia in 1874 with the arrival of five Felician Sisters from Poland.) At least twice in her "letters," Alma Jane lavishes praise on the Teachers' Institute, a two-week course in teacher training conducted twice a year in the county, spring and fall. The first institute she attended was held in Plover not long after she began teaching at Felch School. She was excused from teaching, at no loss in pay, while attending the institute which, in 1872, was conducted by Charles H. Allen, first president of Platteville Normal School. After a few months of teaching at Felch School, she returned to the family farm and helped with the cooking in threshing time. And she remembers in the late fall going out early in the "snappy mornings" to husk com, using a husking pin and half gloves, like mitts, on her hands. , When her thoughts drifted back to the days on the Stockton Prairie, she also remembered, all too well, the "terribly large washings done in the summer kitchen" which often took all day. The ironing that followed went on through most of the week. "The work that"we did then," she mused, "seems now almost incredible, but I do not remember that it seemed much of a burden at the time. Oh youth and hope! Wonderful gifts!" The "summer kitchen" she refers to was either a leanto off the house, or a smaller house or shanty which people occupied during the summer months. They did not sleep there; they ate there and did the washing, ironing and canning. It was considered a bit cooler because there were usually more windows, and air circulating around it, and, to people tired of living for months on end in the small kitchens of the early frame houses, it was a relief to have a change. At three different harvest seasons, Alma Jane picked hops on the farm of Henry Cate, one of the pioneer settlers on the Stockton Prairie. Like many farmers in Portage County at the time, he was raising hops, the cones of which are used for medicinal purposes, and for brewing beer. 185 The method of growing hops has changed. In the 19th century the most common way was to plant the seed, or cutting, at the bottonl of a pole which stood three to four meters high. As the plant grew it wound its way around the pole to the top. The hop cones were not picked from the standing poles. Instead, the vines were snipped off at the base of the pole and the entire pole was pulled out of the ground and carried to a big box on the field. The poles were laid over the box, and the pickers, usually girls, stripped off the cones and dropped them into the box. The men responsibile for digging up the poles and bringing them to the boxes were called "pole-pullers." They also carried away the hops in big sacks to the "hop house" where they were cured and dried by the heat of a kiln. Alma Jane's father, by this time, was making improvements to the old house which the family occupied on the Prairie, and he was beginning to see daylight through all the debts he had accumulated. His daughter, though, could never forget that last winter they spent in Stevens Point. Her father found little work as a teamster after the railroad came to the city, and the family was forced to vacate the big house in the "better neighborhood" and move back to the shanty first occupied on the outskirts of the city. There was not enough food in the house, or fuel to heat it, and, to make things worse, one of the family became very ill. One of the facts of life in pioneer homes was the lack of heat. There w·as little thought of, or knowledge of, insulation. And it might be recalled that Mrs. Lincoln, the First Lady, was the first person to insist on putting a wood furnace in the White House. Alma Jane .mentions how cold it was in several homes she stayed in while teaching. At one time she boarded at the Patrick O'Keefes in Stockton where there was no heat in the house except the kitchen. The water in the pitcher in her room was usually frozen over every morning. And when her own family first moved to the run-down house on the Prairie, she recalls that the front part of the house where she and her sister slept was "very, very cold." The comforters on their bed remained frozen, where their 186 breath moistened them, "for weeks at a time." Crawling between the sheets at night was "like crawling into a snowbank." In the three or four years she taught at rural schools in the towns of Stockton and Buena Vista in Portage County, she mentions three schools, Richmond, located a short distance north of the present community of Arnott, Felch, located northwest of Lake Emily, and Keene School in Buena Vista to the south of Plover. While teaching at Keene School she met George Else who "belonged to a large family of queerly named people... The mother was a great reader of light novels and usually named her various babies for some character in the last one which she had read... Alma Jane confesses that George Else "made hot and hasty love to me," but -she learned later that he had made the same hasty love to teachers before her. But he proposed and she accepted. Some time later she handed back his engagement gift-a lodge pin of the Good Templars which cost him about six bits, "the only thing he had ever given me." The Good Templars was a temperance society, and while she was at Keene, she joined the group because it served as an outlet for "social and literary aspirations." The group published a newspaper, aptly called the "Keene Blade," and some of the "paragraphs" in it, she thought, were "quite keen." Her older brother, William, married Flora Carver of Keene. Whenever William drove to Keene from the Stockton farm to pick up his sister on Fridays, the conniving parents of Flora, or her grandparents, managed to find a way for her to drive back with him, or even to COI!1e with him. "Propinquity did it all. The mistake happened," Alma Jane signs, "Uncle Will was saddled with a lump of a wife' who hung always like a dead weight about his neck..." In the winter of 1872-73, she remembers that the Grange nl0vement was getting started. An organizer went through the countryside lecturing to groups of farmers and their wives, and organizing chapters of the "Patrons of Husbandry," another name for the Grange. This organization was to the farmers of the 1870s and 187 1880s what the National Farm Organization is to farmers today. The farmers wanted higher prices for their produce and lower prices on farm machinery. Most of the Grange meetings she attended were held at Richmond School, and through these meetings, and the religious services held at the school, she gradually "became acquainted with a better class of people than those in our immediate neighborhood, or those with whom the environment of my schools had brought me in contact." She was referring, no doubt, to the Irish and Polish settlers on the Prairie. She recalls that people spent the entire Sunday at Richmond School, attending religious services, and in "class meetings" where communicants gave witness to religious experience. And she remembered the "baptizings" in nearby Lake Thomas. These events attracted a big crowd, she says. Since the Pattees were Universalist-Presbyterians, she probably was referring to some Baptist group around Lake Thomas. She recalls the "crude dances" she attended in the summer of 1872, and her "first ball." It was on a 4th of July, and there was to be a big dance that night in the "Conniff barn." (The 1876 plat identifies J. Conniff, a neighbor of the Pattees.) About 8 o'clock in the evening "two swains" knocked on her door and invited her to the dance. They were Pat Donelly, probably related to the Conniffs, and Dennis Dawson, a friend. She saw .nothing spectacular about Dawson, but then "you should have seen Pat! Hair fiery red, face covered with freckles, eyes small..." There was a conference with her mother about going to the'dance and finally it was decided she should accept. Obviously, the Pattees, living this close to the Conniffs, could not afford to offend anyone, openly at least. The two "swains" didn't have any wheels, so the trio walked to the barn dance, and Alma Jane says she could well imagine what her face looked like "after this rapid walk of a mile or more..." The orchestra consisted of one musician, a fiddler who played a fiddle, not a violin. The fiddler called off the square 188 dances, and was apt to "become quite noisy and facetious before the evening was over, ringing in many changes on the calling off, frequent pulls at a convenient bottle helping him in the warming up process." Since the dance was being held on the 4th of July, the barn of the Conniffs' was probably fairly empty of hay. It was lit by lanterns, and there were "never enough of them to drive the shadows· from the corners," she says. The brightest light was around the fiddler who, she thought, was "better than a circus" to watch. He paced back and forth, fiddling and giving directions, pointing to a couple going the wrong way, and shouting "till his face was purple..." When there was nothing else to say he shouted "mind your step!" Although Alma Jane, now 16, had never been to a dance before, she was asked that night by a "most elegant beau of the neighborhood, J. Corrigan Jr., to dance the schottische. She accepted and made the best of it, for she reasoned that "there were some things that these crude, uneducated people could do far better than I could..." She was a WASP all right. What she did not seem to realize was that the Irish had come here to escape another potato famine in Ireland. And the Polish, while not facing a potato famine, were just as hard pressed, and what she saw of them was the first wave of immigrants who, like most ethnic groups of the first wave, had nothing but the clothes on their backs when they came, and their hands and hearts to work with. People who yearn for the "good 01' days" should be reminded what an ordeal it was to have a toothache. Alma Jane suffered with one for several days while still trying to teach. It was a "jumping toothache that would come by spells and seem aln10st unbearable. The only way in which I .could stand it at all was to fill my mouth with cloves, which I would partially chew, then with teeth set and lips firmly closed, I would knit away for dear life, the harder the tooth ached the harder I would knit..." It was considered a long way to Stevens Point, and she suffered with that tooth until Saturday when her father drove her to the city to see a dentist. "Of course the tooth was pulled," she says. "At that time dentists always said that 189 they never filled a tooth that had ached." In fact, many people lost most of their teeth before they were very old because it was easier, and cheaper, to pull a tooth than treat it. In the 1870s there was a blacksmith in south Alban township (Portage County) whom everyone went to for relief from a toothache. He made a special kind of plier he used for this purpose alone, not for the horses. After she broke up with George Else, Alma Jane was at loose ends, and when her sister Ettie, who was married and living in Mankato, urged her to come and stay with her while continuing her studies at the Normal School, she accepted. This was the turning point in her life. Although it did not happen immediately, she eventually met and married J.L. ("Jeddie") Washburn. While in Mankato she taught at the Normal School for a time, and one year she taught fifth graders in the public school system. Discipline was bad, she says. She found this the "most difficult work" she had ever undertaken. By the end of the term she nearly had a nervous breakdown. t The Washburns did not remain in Mankato long. They moved to Duluth, Minnesota, where he set up a law practice. Here they spent most of their lives and raised a family of six upstanding children. Mrs. Washburn, born Alma Jane Pattee, died in 1943.

190 Chapter XIII

THE PEREGRINATIONS OF CUTTING MARSH

III Volume XV of the Wisconsin Historical Collections, published in 1900, the editors devote more than 175 pages to the Reverend Cutting Moody Marsh, home mission pastor in Wisconsin for the Presbyterian church from 1830 and into the early 1850s. He died at Waupaca, Wisconsin, and is buried at Lakeside Cemetery. On one side of the obelisk-type headstone which marks his grave is a dedication to his wife Eunice, who died in 1855, a second side of the stone to himself who "entered into rest July 4, 1873," and a third side to Sarah Elizabeth "their beloved daughter" who "fell asleep March 19, 1927 in the 89 year of her age." Cutting Marsh was born in Danville, Vermont, July 20, 1800. Volume XV of Collections includes a sketch of his early life and religious training in Massachusetts. The main chapter, however, is devoted to a series of reports submitted annually by Marsh to his sponsors in Edinburgh, Scotland, '·'.the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge." These reports and summaries of his dairies describe his work with the Stockbridge Indians, first on the lower Fox River around Kaukauna from 1830 to 1834, and later, .from 1834 to 1848 while serving as their pastor on the reservation which had been set aside by the federal government east of Lake Winnebago in Calumet County. Marsh came to Wisconsin, (actually Michigan territory) in 1830 to replace Jesse Miner, also a nlissionary for the society in Scotland, who died near Kaukauna in 1829. 191 CUTTING MOODY MARSH

Marsh's reports to his superiors in Scotland are crowded with factual information as well as rascist views of an alien culture, but taken as a whole, they form a storehouse of significant anthropological and archaeological knowledge. Meanwhile, Marsh keeps assuring his sponsors of the good results he is having among the Indians, but in the end he sees them splitting up, the pagan majority preferring to move north to a reservation shared by the Menominees in the Wolf River valley, the minority preferring American citizenship, Christiany, and farming. Apparently the Scottish society felt that the mission at Stockbridge had failed and terminated its support of it. Obviously a disappointed young man, Marsh left Stockbridge and moved to DePere where he served as pastor for a congregation of white settlers one year, and then moved with his family to Green Bay to carry on as a home mission pastor among the newly-arrived white settlements in 192 Central Wisconsin, under the sponsorship of the American Home Mission Society of Boston. This group required quarterly reports from him and he continues to submit these reports for the next three or four years at which time his connection with the Society was also terminated. Marsh apparently began keeping a diary while a student at Dartmouth College, and from that time until 1855, he was constantly adding to it until he finally had 39 manuscript books, most of them sn1all enough to fit into a man's coat pocket, and all of them on note-book paper cut out and stitched together by the diarist, obviously to save the cost of buying a formal note-book or ledger. In the autumn of 1849, he was in the saddle, traveling west across the state to the Wisconsin River valley, and here is where his diary begins for the purpose of this book. Having visited the new settlement at "Waupaca Falls" (Waupaca) in 1849, Marsh decided to move there and make this the base of his circuit-riding missions. He arrived in Waupaca in December, 1851, but left his family in Green Bay until the following summer. He arrived just in time to be caught up in the dramatic story of the "lost child" of Alvin and Lucia Partridge, farmers who had settled in the town of Vinland, north of Oshkosh. In the spring of 1850 they were tapping trees on a forty of land near Medina (east of Winchester) when their four-year old son, Caspar, was lost. Despite a massive search, he was never found. In the late autumn of 1851, a band of Menominee Indians was· camped on Shadow Lake lying on the south side of modern Waupaca. White settlers thought they saw a boy answering to the description of Caspar Partridge, although the only one who had ever seen the boy was an aunt, Mrs. Myron Boughton, a sister of Alvin, and she was not present when the boy was forcibly taken .away from his Indian mother, Nahkom. After considerable, maneuvering, and protests made by the U.S. Indian Agent and a Catholic missionary, Florimond J. Bonduel, it was finally agreed by both parties to resolve the dispute in court. Marsh was called to see the boy taken by the whites in Waupaca and agreed with the others that he was the child of white parentage. To have disagreed would have been 193 suicidal. In February, he was subpoenaed as a witness to the trial held in Oshj{osh to determine the paternity of the boy. After a hearing that lasted six and a half days, and after listening to more than sixty witnesses, for and against, Court Commissioner Edwin L. Buttrick awarded custody of the boy to the Indian mother, Nahkom, the defendant.* In one of his quarterly reports sent to the American Home Mission Society, Marsh mentions the "stolen boy" incident. It seems clear from the wording that he considered the boy to be the son of the Partridges. But he was writing to his superiors in advance of the court's decision which was not made public until March 27, at which time the boy was to be returned to his Indian mother. After hearing of the court order, neighbors of the Partridges forced the sheriff of Winnebago County to give up the boy, and he was spirited out of Wisconsin, and the Partridge family followed before it . could be cited for contempt of court and other charges. That

I was not the end of the drama, but Marsh plays no further part in it and makes no further reference to it. As a man strongly opposed to disorder, he must have been shocked by . the manner in which the law had been broken by the white man on "Bald Prairie," lying to the north of Oshkosh. True to hisNew England heritage, nothing dismayed Marsh more, it seems, than to see people "breaking the Sabbath," that is, working or playing on Sunday. He harps on this throughout his entire life and on the very last page of his dairy, dated July 20, 1856, he comments on "young fellows playing ball in the streets of Parfreyville (where) there seemed to be little or no Sabbath there." He held to the ·belief, apparently, that most people were spiritually dead and only by becoming a "professor," that is, a professing Christian, could he or she be "saved" from eternal damnation. When a fire burns down a man's house, he takes it as a reflection of God's wrath because the man was a "Sabbath breaker," although when Marsh's own "hovel'> (stable) burned, he did not take it that way, probably because God had nothing to punish him for. He commits his

* A novel Nahkom: the TtVoman of Waupaca (1974) by Malcolm Rosholt, recreates the story of the "lost child." 194 daughter, Sarah Elizabeth, to the Lord, that is, she commits her soul and body to Christ even as a nun in a convent. She never married and the Cutting Marsh line died out with her death in 1927. His wife Eunice, who had been deathly ill for months one winter on the Indian Reservation at Stockbridge, died at Waupaca in 1855. On the last entry of his diary, he eulogizes her. Apparently he had spoken in church that day, July 27, on John 3:2, "It doth not appear what we shall be," etc., and then he has this to say: "For 27 years [she was] a devoted missionary among the Indians, an ornament of the church of Christ, unswerving in effort to do good. She came to her end like the shock of corn that is fully ripe gathered in its season. This memory of the just is blessed." In the July 20 entry of the day before he had ended with these words: "This completes 56 years of my life. The past has been to me a year of afflictions and of men (word not clear) also." Few men have ridden harder and farther in the pursuit of God's will than Cutting Marsh. It is easy to imagine him, in the prime of life, on horseback, following the narrow roads and paths through the wilderness and across the prairie openings, back and forth between Waupaca and Poysippi, Waupaca and Winneconne, Waupaca and Stevens Point. On one occasion he was gone 11 days on a trip that took him on horseback nearly to Madison. He seldom complains, and never once does he express any fear of the road ahead. He was fearless. He was called both "Dr. Marsh" and "the Reverend Marsh." Somewhere in his college or seminary training he apparently attended a class in medicine, and he was often called out in the middle of the night on his circuit to attend the sick or deliver a baby. He never refused to call whether the family was a professing Christian or not, and there is no evidence that anyone ever paid him anything for his services other than a free meal perhaps. What impresses one especially about Marsh is the close attention he paid to order and the democratic process in the organization of congregations in the newly-established settlements. One can see him standing tall, his head perhaps 195 scraping the ceiling in the log cabin of some family where a few neighbors have gathered to discuss incorporation. There is no ramrodding, no haste. Everyone seems to have been given an opportunity to speak, both men and women. Here, it seems, the democratic process was at work at the grass roots level, at the same time at the highest level of the American experience. It was in men like Marsh, far from the centers of power, that Americans learned to establish order and accept a political process that assured the rule of law and continuity of order. Ironically, most European immigrants, and even Yankee migrants to the western frontier, learned how to conduct a parliamentary meeting not at a town meeting, but in church, the pastor almost invariably being elected chairman because he had a rudimentary knowledge of these matters. Sarah Elizabeth Marsh donated her father's dairies to the State Historical Society in 1916, while living in Chicago, where she apparently died in 1927 and was brought back to Waupaca for buriaL While her father was still at the Indian Reservation, he or his assistants had used a conch, or large shell, an old New England device, to call the parishioners together for worship services. (It was cheaper than a bell!) This relic was donated by Sarah to the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia. The records in Waupaca Court House show that a year after the death of her father, Sarah Marsh disposed of his property at a sheriff's sale. In other words, this man of God who had labored without stint or favor to his own body or his family, had died without funds. There were no pensions for pastors in those days and all too many of them died in poverty, neglected by cruel fate. The handsome headstone 011 the. Marsh lot at Lakeside Cemetery was probably erected by Sarah long before she died, as witnessed by the style of headstone so popular before the turn of the century. For the purpose of this book, the diary that begins on November 2, 1849 at "Stephens Point" (his spelling) will form the starting point. It will be carried through to 1853. After 1853 the diary becomes repetitious and lacks sustained interest. Morever, by the end of 1853, there was a newspaper in Waupaca, the Waupaca Spirit, and early in 1853 the first 196 weekly in Stevens Point, The Wisconsin Pinery, came off the press. Marsh's diaries are therefore a source of information on pioneers" places and events unavailable in any other source in central Wisconsin prior to 1853. He includes names of people he has met or visited, usually with a surname only. Complete identification of these names has not been possible. This was a fluid society, with people on the move and often lost to census enumerators. Where no identification has been made, or where the spelling is in doubt, a question mark in parenthesis is used after the name or word. And instead of the several ways that the diarist refers to the day of the month, liberty has been taken to enter the dates in a somewhat consistent pattern. The long entries in the diary on the trip Marsh made from Stevens Point to Wausau in 1849, are quite confused. He apparently made these entries several days or even weeks after the fact, and his mind wanders back and forth between this place and that, repeating over and over again the several species of trees he observes, and jumping back and forth in his enumeration of the many sawmills he either saw or heard about. There is no way to edit this without extensive footnoting, and to avoid becoming bogged down in footnotes, which are not that important here, the text will run without comment the way it is written. The entry of November 2, 1849, from Stevens Point, now begins: After conversing with the old lady before mentioned, Mrs. Gibson (?), [I] read the fifth chapter of Corinthians and prayed with her. Left with her the tract "The Prayer Meeting at Forty Years." In the p.m. called upon a Mr. Bean's family.* Mrs. Bean a member of the Methodist church [and while] there [I] met a Mrs. McGlaflin, (?) a Wesleyan Methodist from Illinois, on her way with her husband to the Big Bull Rapids. She mentioned that she had a brother by the name of More once a Methodist preacher, but now disbelieves there is a God. Called upon a shoemaker Harris, (?) formerly from Woodstock, Vermont, denies moral agency, and he believes

*Probably Enoch Bean, a pioneer to Plover, county seat of Portage County. 197 that all will be saved. More confused ideas of divine things I have seldom met with than he [word not clear]. Disbelieves. miracles and sets up reason over revelation. Gave him the tract, "The Bible, the Voice of God." Number of men engaged in rafting lumber. Mr. Anson Rood who has been engaged some eight years in rafting. thinks there are from 1500 to 2000 men engaged every spring in rafting lumber. He thinks that perhaps one-hundred millions of feet of lumber go down the river every season. When they get down over the rapids, it requires two men to manage a raft, and generally, it takes from ten to thirty days to run a raft from Stephens Point on the pinery to Galena, Illinois, and from there to St. Louis is about eight or ten days. Mr. Rood thinks that the lumbering business is increasing every year and that it cannot go down for fifty years because as yet they have only cut off. the timber lying upon the streams or near the Wisconsin River. Raftmen get from a dollar to a dollar a half a day and pilots from three to five dollars per day. Lumber in the pinery is worth six dollars per thousand, and 'at Galena and St. Louis from [sentence left unfinished] . Cranberries may be bought when brought in for two or three shillings per bushel, and after they are cleaned, they sell for six shillings to eight shillings per bushel. Perhaps 20,000 bushels have been gathered in the whole pinery. When the last census was taken, there were 1500 in the pinery, but now Mr. Rood thinks the number doubled, that is that there are not much less than three thousand souls. Nov. 3. Called again upon old Mr. Gibson. (?) Says that they removed. from Lyman, New Hampshire,* in 1821 to the State of New York. Their poor, intemperate daughter by the name of Storin (?) is the only one except another who lives in Massachusetts who remains of ten children. The old lady said that her parents lived in Bedford, New Hampshire, in the time of the Indian war. That he was obliged to take his family to the fort about a mile from his farm. That he was in the habit of carrying his gun with him

*Not listed in modern Rand McNally Road Atlas. 198 to his field and keep it near him continually. One night on returning later than usual from his work, he had to cross a large brook on a pine log. As he climbed up its side, his faithful dog sprang up on the other side C\nd knocked him back, and a second time he attempted it, and again his dog sprang up and knocked, him back., A third he endeavored to ascend, and a third time his dog knocked him back. He then paused and listened as if admonished by his guardian angel dog, and he heard a noise in the bushes like someone stepping. He waited awhile and again attempted to pass over and his dog did not interfere. He then crossed over and arrived in safety at the fort. The next morning he was furnished with a guard on his return and when they arrived, they discovered where an Indian had sat down upon a log from the wool which stuck to it from his blanket. Thus did God in his providence interpose for the preservation of thi's man's life, as beyond a doubt an Indian had been wa~ting to massacre him. The old lady said she was 12 years old when the Revolutionary War commenced, her parents then lived in Bedford. Said that she had not engaged in sacramental service for 20 years, nor had she during that tin1e heard a Presbyterian sern10n. She experienced religion in Lyman and united with Mr. Sutherland's (?) church. At Stephens Point there are three saw mills one mile and a half below another saw mill and a half a n1ile below a double mill. Six miles below Stephens Point [is] Mill Creek and has three mills one and a half miles above its mouth, one double, and a mill above, about four miles, then another single mill. About sixteen miles below Stephens Point and four 'miles above Grand Rapids Falls there are mills containing two saws, double mill.* Grand Rapids has two double mills or four saws. Below Grand Rapids six miles is Merrell's Mill** containing two saws. One mile below Merrell's mill is

*Perhaps a reference to the mill of Francis Biron. **Henry Merrell, lumberman and census taker on the Wisconsin River. 199 Wakeley's* mills, contain[ing] two saws. A double mill and a lath machine attached. About 18 miles up the river from Stephens Point is the Little Eau Pleine River, and one and a half miles up the creek is a single mill. About one mile above the Eau Pleine is the Little Eau Claire and a single mill about a mile up the river. Five miles from its mouth is another single mill. Four or five miles above the Little Eau Pleine is the Big Eau Pleine, two mills on said stream. Thirty miles above Stephens Point is the Little Bull Falls-one mill having four saws, two circular saws and one butting saw. Fifteen miles above Little Bull is the Eau Claire, one and a half miles from its mouth two mills. Two miles above that another double mill-six miles above another double mill and three miles above that another double mill. Three miles above the Eau Claire is Rib River, west side and has one mill. Fifty miles from Stephens Point is Big Bull, and it has four double mills. Above Big Bull is Warrens' Mills containing one mill. On the Wisconsin River and its tributaries"there are 47 sawmills or saws now in operation. Saturday p.m. went out six miles to visit a Mr. McGreer's family. ** Mr. and Mrs. McGreer, born in Ireland, were trained in the Roman Catholic and Protestant religions. Has been living where he now is ten years. Has a saw mill which he keeps running all the time, night and day. His wife was a member of the Methodist church in lower Canada. Himself a frank, open-hearted man, but irreligious. His wife acknowledged with tears that she had backslidden, but said she had resolved to return and do her duty. Proposed prayers. She voluntarily offered to call the men in and went out and all hands, six or seven, came in. I read the last part of 25 Matthew, made some remarks, and prayed with them. All were silent and respectful. The Lord Jesus blessed the interview to all present. Mr. Corkins (?) teaches at the county seat, thinks there are

*Robert Wakeley, who built a tavern-inn in 1847 at Pointe Basse, just within the south line of present Wood County. His sawmill stood on a small creek a short distance south of" the tavern. **H~gh McGreer, pioneer lumberman on the Plover River at Jordan, Portage County. 200 200 inhabitants at the county seat [Village of Plover], and 250 or more at Stephens Point. Said when he numbered the children the first of September, there were over forty between the ages of four and twenty years and that as many as ten had come in since. He says also that the pinery has improved two hundred percent within five or six years. Fourth Sabbath. Preached twice at Stephens Point. In the morning, attendance better than in the afternoon. I heard the low, heavy sound of the ball rolling in the alleys almost all day [probably ten pins]. Saw the carpenter framing, the joiner at work with his tools, and business going on by many as though it had been a weekday. As I passed one of the alleys, saw a dozen or more about the door, and as I left the village to go to the, county seat, heard them quarreling. When I arrived at the county seat, I ascertained that my notice had not been received which I sent down the day before. Heard of a prayer meeting at Mister Ulines* and attended. Was invited to lead the nleeting as the minister, Reverend Mr. Ward** (Methodist), had not returned from his afternoon appointment. Read the seventh chapter of Luke. Always pray and not faint. Room full and solemn. A number of prayers were offered. It indeed'seemed good to attend a prayer meeting on such grounds. Passed the night at Mr. Ulines. Mr. Corkin, school teacher, boarded there. . Nov. 5, Monday. Set off about 9 o'clock to go up the river. Dr. Morrison*** and John L. More set out also from the Little Bull Falls. The country the first part of the way covered with shrubbery and small trees. Most of the way sandy until we arrived at Du Bay's trading post 18 miles from Stephens Point. This is delightfully situated upon the banks ofthe river. At this place they are high. Only three families at this place~ One American.**** A man at Du Bay said that it was 90 miles from that place up to the head of the river. [Le. Wisconsin] . *Adam Urline. **Probably J.N. Ward. ***Dr. James H. Morrison. ****A reference to the DuBay Trading post once located on the east bank of the Wisconsin River. The site is now covered by Lake DuBay. 201 Set out for the Little Bull Falls ten miles distance. Soon came into thick small pine timber from 60 to 100 feet high. The whole distance was through a thick forest of this kind. It came on dark about two or three miles before we reached the public house. Dark and (word not clear) was our road, but having a good pilot in Mr. More who went ahead whistling along. We arrived in safety about 7 o'clock. Praised be the goodness of the Lord that through this piece of road I had a pilot. Thus, when I shall enter the dark valley of the shadow of death, may I then have Jesus my Saviour as my pilot sure and never failing. Put up at the public house with perhaps a dozen or more from different parts. Saw a young man by the name of Hikok whose father lives on the Baraboo [River?] and his friends on Democrat Prairie in Marquette County. Nov. 6, Tuesday. The day for elections. Set out in the morning with Mr. Farnsworth,. a trader among the Indians.* A very civil,· candid young man. His parents formerly from Grotan, Vermont, thence they went to Canada.. Our way lay through a thick pine forest the same as yesterday. Near the Little (Bull) Falls crossed the Little Eau Claire. After travelling about five miles, came to a small prairie on which· one man lives. Passed another very small one. In passing on, we went through a thick hemlock swamp, the road being very bad indeed whilst it rained steadily and sometimes hard. Before coming out to the Big Eau Claire, passed through a grove of poplars and white birch. All of a sudden I came upon the banks of the Eau Claire. There are two saw mills. The one owned by Dr. Schofield** formerly from Joliet, Illinois, where he practiced physic ten or twelve years. A skeptic and unites phrenology with views of theology-has no settled belief with regard to Bible truth.

*Here the diarist must have met the well-known fur trader, William Farnsworth, an emplyee of the American Fur Company for many years who lost his life in the "Lady Elgin" disaster September 7, 1860. A sketch of his life appears in Collections, Vol. IX. **William W. Scholfield, first mayor of Stevens Point in 1857, also operated a sawmill on the Eau Claire River in a village that took his name but changed the spelling t~ "Schofield." 202 I inquired if they had any preaching. Said they had some years before. A man preached until he was so drunk he did not know what he was saying, but now would swear worse than any man he ever heard before. Called upon the family across the river and found only the woman at home. Not pious, but acknowledged her need of religion. Read a part of the 14th Revelations and prayed with her. The man who was the head of the family affected skeptical also. Said he did not know what to think when he: saw people who had professed so much and then afterwards became so hard hearted that it seemed as though nothing would move them. That a man might be good although a card player [word not clear] for he had seen such. A good man in his view was a humane, hospitable one. Gave him two tracts. He invited me to call again. The doctor refused any compensation. After it ceased raining, I started for the Big Bull Rapids three or four miles distant. From 'the Big Eau Claire to Big Bully River* the road lay through, a thick forest principally of pine and hemlock. Some hardwood such as maple and black birch. A pine tree was cut down upon the Eau Claire last winter which measured one-hundred and eight feet. The pine grows abundantly on these streams, tall and straight and a very heavy growth of it upon the ground. The soil is light, chiefly a blackish sand, sometimes, however, of a brownish ash, but little attention is paid to farming. Potatoes grow well, as many as f9JY-hundred bushels per acre have been raised. Arrived at the Big Bull Rapids before sunset and put up my horse at the public house. Soon I called upon Mr. McGlafflin's (?) family. Mr. and Mrs. McGlafflin I had previously met at Stephens Point. Mrs. McGlafflin a member of the Methodist church. Her brother James More for' a number of years a Methodist preacher soon sent for me to come and stay at his home. And then called himself and invited me to go over and take supper. As he approached me, his breath was scented strongly with alcohol, and he looked

*It seems that he means Big Bull Falls. At other times he refers to it as "Big Bull Rapids." 203 up to me whilst his breath sent forth fumes of alcohol. Can it be possible that this man has "for years been a minister of Jesus Christ! How fallen! Oh alcohol, what hast thou done! What a mighty weapon doth Satan find in it with which to destroy and cast down even the professed ambassadors of the Prince of Peace when once they begin to come under its influence. About 9 o'clock Mrs. McGlafflin proposed having prayers. I read a portion of scripture. Whilst reading, he came in, and just as I closed my remarks, he came ~p and inquired if I was done and said that he wished to have prayers, as it was bedtime. At first he knelt down, then rose and came and sat near me and remained silent. After prayers, he was in haste to have all retire, but sat up himself with his hired man and talked with his boy a part of the time for the space of an hour afterwards, much to our annoyance. Nov. 7, Wednesday. Called this morning upon a Mr. Goodrich (?) from the Jinny Bull Rapids*. He informed me that there are only three families at that point and perhaps 25 or 30 men. One sawmill there having three saws. Owned by a Mr. Warren. Soon, he said, th'ere would be 150 men 'there as soon as the logging season· commenced. The Jinny Bull Rapids about 20 miles above this place. No road leading to it except a trail and no bridges across the streams. Come half a mile, the trail passes along on a steep side hill where it is rocky and is directly upon the brink of the river. Impossible to ride although possible to get a horse through. This being the case, I relinquished my purpose of going [to Merrill] with my horse as I had intended. Was unable to get a passage up by water also, so that I must give up the idea of visiting that place at present. Mr. Goodrich expressed his unbelief in the Christian religion. Said he had read Paley's Evidences and Natural Theology. Also, I gave him the·tract Leslie's [line not clear]. He promised to read together with a few other tracts. Number of families at Big Bull Rapids are nineteen. Mr. J. More said that he came here eleven years ago and

*Jinny Bull Falls, early name for Merrill. 204 built the first sawmill. Then there was not a building at the place, now there are four sawmills in operation, three of them double and a new one is a single saw.* They operate night and day. They shut do,vn at 6 o'clock on Saturday evening. About three hundred miles from this to the mouth of the river [referring to the Wisconsin River], and it takes eight to ten days usually to run a raft down to the mouth. Fifty miles to the Wolf River [from the Big Bull Falls]. This place is 13 miles north of Green Bay and 87 miles west, and St. Anthony's Falls due west 150 miles [Minneapolis]. A road has been blazed through to Green Bay. Seven millions of feet of lumber ma~ufactured here every year. A ridge of good land east of here seven miles and is 30 miles long and ,from three miles to three-fourths in width. John L. Moore, formerly from the State of Maine and now residing at Portage County seat, thinks that there are 15 millions of feet of lumber rafted down the Wisconsin River every year. That from 30 to 50 thousand bushels of cranberries have been gathered this year in the pinery. That there are at least 2500 souls in the pinery or its tributary streams; that it is not probable that the lumbering business will fail in 50 years; that there are about 1,440 n1en engaged in running lumber every year. Saw but little pine timber until past DuBay's. The face of the ground covered principally with oak and pine shrubbery trees. Between DuBay's and Little Bull Falls a very thick growth of pine, very straight and tall, from 60 to 100 feet high. The last two or three miles before we arrived very dark. Names of families at the Big Bull Rapids: William Merwither's, Mr. Kelly's, (?) Mr. Fletcher's,(?) Mr. Davis'; (?) Mr. Hersy's, (?) Mr. Stackhouse's (?) and Mr. McGlifflin's. Mr. McGlafflin prays in his family. Not a member of any

*He is referring to the "sash" or "up-and-down" type of mill then in operation. The sawblade was attached to a headblock at the top of the saw, within the sash, and moved up and down within slots built into the sides of the frame. Some idea of the sawmills that Marsh was looking at in 1849 may be gained from the illustration found in an earlier chapter on George Stevens. A "double mill" was a mill with two saw blades, a "single mill," one saw blade. Both were powered by a flutter wheel with crank shaft. 205 church. His wife from Switzerland. There a member of the Presbyterian church. Been about three years in America. Mrs. Fletcher indulges a hope, not a member of any church, formerly has been in the habit of secret prayer. Mrs. Fletcher is from Pennsylvania. Mrs. Davis from England indulges no hope. Mrs. Hersy from Kentucky, a member of the Methodist church appeared quite well. Her husband appeared friendly. Talked and prayed with this family. Mr. and Mrs. Kelly both members of the Free-Will Baptist Church. Have no prayers now, but had formerly. Intend to leave the pinery and go down the river where they can have their family alone. There is also a Mrs. Newton (?) living on the Island* who is a member of the Methodist church. Took supper at Mr. Fletcher's. Was introduced to Mr. Warren** from Jinny Bull. He informs me that there are six families within as many miles of that place and that there are from 50 to 75 people in that vicinity. Says it is no more than 20 miles up there. Nov. 7, Wednesday. Preached at Mr. Stackhouse's who is the keeper of the public house. Preached from Hebrews 2,:3. "How shall we escape?" Room filled, audience full, and serious attention paid to preaching. Nov. 8, Thursday. Heavy frost this morning. Ice formed on the mud holes. Left Big Bull Falls in company with Mr. McGlafflin and son for Stephens Point. Weather very pleasant. Left about 8 o'clock and arrived at Little Bull Falls at 12 o'clock. Left there about 1 o'clock and arrived at , DuBay's about 3 o'clock or half past 3 o'clock. Arrived at Stephens Point about 7 o'clock. In going up the river, there is no heavy timber until after' Dubay's is past. Between Stephens Point and DuBay's the soil is sandy and the ground covered with pine and oak shrubbery. Some white birch, occasionally a fine piece of bottom land. For a short distance, before arriving at DuBay, the road lies along near the bank of the river, about a mile and a half above DuBay's is the Little Eau Claire. They are building a bridge across. Two miles or more above another

*Probably Clark Island in Wausau. **Andrew Warren Jr., mill owner and founder of Merrill in 1847. 206 stream sufficiently large to carry a mill. No bridge. For a few miles above DuBay's some hardwood in different places, but mostly pine and hemlock and some Norway pine. The Norway pine not large, but the trunk very smooth and straight running sometimes 100 feet or more. The bark is of a brown color. At little Bull Falls there are five families including one Norwegian which is Lutheran and strongly attached to the Lutheran church. The parents will not suffer their children to attend the common school lest they would be led by that means to forsake their church. Think that a law ought to be passed to prevent it. Mr. and Mrs. Fas [or as Faz] (?) are members of the Methodist church. They think there is one other woman also there who has been a professor. Strange language indeed to use "have been professors" with a regard to such as have entered covenant with God and yet it is a co.mmon expression in the pinery and elsewhere in the field I labor .*In. . There being no canoe where I stopped and feeling it would be dangerous to cross the river over the boom, I did not go ,over. Three of the families reside across the river. A Mr. Kollock** keeps the public house. Mr. K. thinks there are some 50 men at work there, says that there are 50 votes polled there, but many did not vote as not being qualified. Left some tracts with Mr. Fas (?) for the families across the river. Said James More, the apostate Methodist preacher at Big Bull Falls, Wisconsin, "Mr. McCoy (?) who now resides at Jinny ,Bull Falls is a greater infidel than I am and I doubt whether he would suffer a classical member [a clergyman] to ride in a canoe with hin1." Mr. Kelly at Big 'Bull Falls informed me that he heard Mr. McCoy speak against missionaries going into the country. Mr. Kelly thinks that six millions of feet of lumber would 'come nearer the quantity made at that place than seven millions, as mentioned by Mr. More. He thinks that there are six hundred thousand bunches of shingles, each bunch

*A "Professor" was one who professed a belief in God and the Bible. **Probably George W. Kollack, later an inn-keeper at Plover. 207 ,containing one thousand or twelve hundred shingles. A half of a thousand bunches manufactured at that place. Nov. 9, passed Thursday noon at Stephens Point. Friday, weather very fine indeed. Set out between 10 and 11:00 to go down to the Grand Rapids 22 miles distant. Called and took dinner at Dr. Morrisons. Distance to Grand Rapids from the county seat 16 miles. Most of the way ground was covered with oak and pine shrubbery. The oak three or four feet high. Within four or five miles of the Grand Rapids came to tin1ber. In some places considerable white birch and poplar. The soil sandy and the ground very level. Not a hill between the county seat and Grand Rapids. No farms nor houses on the road and only' one place where hay is made and that is on a low prairie near the river. Arrived at Grand Rapids about sunset. Put up with Mr. Elephalit Miner, son of my reverend predecessor.* Found him passionately discussing the subject of politics in a store­ was very kindly and cordially re'ceived. Mr. Morrison has been a resident here about eight years and married four years. Has one child about two years old. When he came to the pinery was a member of the Baptist church, but he has woefully wandered, if even a Christian credits Josephus' statement of the creation, who says the three first chapters of Genesis are an allegory and believes that the Creator was engaged many ages'in creating and bringing the earth into its present form. And that all things were not created in six days as mentioned by Moses. That after all that, the scriptures are the work of n1en because a council decided what books were canonical, and that there was a majority of only two in the council with regard to receiving some of the books. That regeneration is a gradual work~ That a child or'a person placed under religious influence would grow up a Christian, but placed under irreligious influence, grows up wicked and that if he had continued those influences which were exerted over him in childhood and youth, he should still have been a conscientious Christian.

*Here the diarist refers to Jesse Miner, who died in 1829, and whom Marsh came to replace as a missionary to the Stockbridges. 208 Says that there is a germ or principal or'goodness in every man which if only cultivated will spring up into everlasting life. That the wicked will be punished according to their deeds, but does not believe that punishment will be eternal in duration because that would not be according to our ideas of a good and just God. That reason was given to us to teach what God is and consequently the scriptures must be interpreted in accordance with reason. Affirn1s that the 24th chapter of Matthew is so much of an allegory that we cannot distinguish betwixt what is real as relating to the destruction of Jerusalem and what relates to the day of judgment because it says that His generation must not pass before all of these things be fulfilled. A very active mind naturally, but poorly and defectively instructed in early life. How important early and correct religious instruction! Number of families at the Grand Rapids and the vicinity of three or four miles is 23, and from one to three-hundred people according to the year. Seventy-five votes were polled here at the recent election. Three millions of lumber made there annually. Mr. Miner of Grand Rapids thinks that no more than 15 thousand bushels of cranberries. have been gathered this year in the pinery. Pine River, 12 miles above Big Bull Falls, has one single mill. Trap River, 8 miles above Jinny Bull, has one mill in progress. Big Plover River empties into the Wisconsin River four miles below Stephens Point, one single mill ten miles from its mouth-Mr. McGreer the owner. One mile and a half from the county seat is the Little . Plover, a grist mill in progress. Distance at ·county seat from Wisconsin River to the Wolf River is eight miles.* The Indians called the Wisconsin River "Wiscouse," or the "bladder that never runs dry." We-bit-a sebe Tooth River empties into the Wisconsin on the west side about one mile below the county seat. Has one double sawmill, one single

*An error. The first important river east of Plover is the Tomorrow which in Waupaca County becomes the "Waupaca River" and joins th~ Wolf River above Fremont. 209 and one in progress. The white people call the above Mill Creek. Wi-o-tik-me-tik-wi-ok-sebe is Eau Claire River in French. Clear water river in English and is on tqe east side of the Wisconsin River. ' Ne-sah-me-won-the-mig-mu-wis-can sebe is soft maple river, or Lower [Little] Eau Pleine River on the west side of the Wisconsin River. Ke-tan-me-won the-mig-ama-wis a con sebe [meaning] upper soft maples or Upper River Eau Pleine. Metan-tik-mit-tik-wi-auk sebe or middle clear water river is the Middle Eau Claire on the east side of the Wisconsin River. Re-tah-me-won Metuh tik-mit-tik-wi-auk sebe or Upper Eau Claire River-clear water on the east side. Mik-wan-ne-sebe on Rib River which has a single mill. 8 miles above Jinny Bull Falls is To-non-gun-a sebe, Trap River. Twelve miles above the Big Bull is Thing-wauk-a,sebe, Pine River, which is on the east side and has two single mills. Twenty miles below Grand Rapids is gawn-win-a sebe or Long Horn River which has one double mill and one single mill in progress. It is sixty miles from Strongs Landing* to the county seat of Portage County; twenty miles from Strongs Landing to Shumway's mill ;** 34 from [word not clear] mill to Buna [Buena] Vista Creek; and eight miles from Buna Creek to the county seat. Prices of provisions at Stevens Point are: flour $5 per barrel, pork mess $20 per barrel, one hog $15 per barrel, potatoes 50 cents per bushel, oats 50 cents per bushel, sugar one shilling per pound, board 50 cents per day, and beef 4 cents and 5 cents per pound. November 10, Saturday. Weather very pleasant at Grand Rapids. Had a long conversation with Mr. Miner. Probably he never had any change of heart, now gives evidence of being unreconciled to God. Gave a tract to him called "Can You

*Strongs Landing,,,.,uamed for Nathan Strong, was a ferry point on the north bank of the Fox River. The village of Berlin developed on the south bank and later absorbed Strongs Landing. **"Shumwaytown", an early name for Wautoma, was founded by the brothers John and Charles Shumway. 210 Die Tranquil?" and fri~nd]y word with the [word not clear]. Called upon old Mr. Ulines family, himself once a Methodist professor, but now an intemperate man" Heard of no others excepting Mrs. (not clear) who it was said Vias 3:: professor. Grand Rapids is a very romantic place. Returned from Grand Rapids to the county seat and passed the night at Mr. Ulines. Nov. 11, Sabbath. The weather is warm and pleasant. Preached in the courthouse in the a.m. from Acts, herein do I exercise myself. In the p .. m. spoke on the Resurrection, the attendance was very good. The audience was attentive and solemn. Sabbath school was discontinued for the winter. The number of Methodist professors is twelve or fourteen, the number of Baptists is six. Mr. Corkins (?) is a Baptist and Dr. and Mrs. Morrison are Episcopalian. Reverend Smith (?) the Baptist minister has entirely lost his influence-a man of weak mind and illiterate, very injudicious, has had street brawls and in business does not sustain himself as a man. Judge Alban is the County Judge of Portage County. Dr. J.H. Morrison, the physician there, is from Fort Atkinson. At evening went up to Stevens Point and preached fron1 Hebrews. Therefore, as the Holy Ghost saith..." [3:7-8] The house was small, but filled. Sabbath day in the morning. A girl, Lavoiner (?) Porter attended my meeting at Stevens Point. She returned to the place where she lived and assisted in preparing supper and retired as usual. During the night a strange noise was heard, the lady of the house went in and found her in great agony. The physician was sent for and she expired a few minutes after he arrived. -A coroner's inquest was held and the verdict was death by poison, supposed to be strychnine and administered by herself. Supposed cause was disappointment in marriage. The Anson Rood's are the only Presbyterian family at Stevens Point.--At the county seat I saw children at play in 'the street jumping rope and on the Sabbath:' On my way to Stevens Point I passed three loaded teams, and met three others and one hunting party. Mr. Rood's father left Stevens 211 Point on Saturday morning to return to Madison. Mr. Rood's father is a member of Reverend C. Lord's church. As I approached Stevens Point Sabbath evening, whilst all was still in t4e elements and delightful as a summer's evening, I heard the noise of revelery and profanity resounding through the air. And saw men at their work as though it were a weekday. Alas! What will these men do in a day when God shall deal with them. Nov. 12, Monday. Weather warm and pleasant.at Stevens Point. Settled my bill for horsekeeping. For keeping him five nights I was charged $2.95. Paid all but fifty cents which Lemere owed me.* At Little Bull Falls I paid for supper, breakfast and horsekeeping for one n'ight which was $1.50. Left Stevens Point about 10 o'clock a.m. Dined at Dr. Morrisons. Called upon Judge Alban's family and had a very pleasant interview. Left the county seat about 2 o'clock p.m. for Grand Rapids, arrived about dark. In the evening preached to a room filled with people. The subject was the same as the evening previous-Hebrews 3:7-8. Was enabled to plead the cause of Christ with some (word not clear), but oh my (word not clear), my (word not clear). How little impressed am I with a sense of what I preach to others. Felt today that I havedo~e wrong by not feeling that it is not by might nor by power, but by the spirit of the Lord his word must prevail. Nov. 13, Tuesday. Weather very pleasant and warm. Set out for Mr. E.S. Miner's. Passed the night at Mr. Klynes'.** Distance from Grand Rapids to Mr. Strong's is 24 miles.*** From Mr. Strong's to Mr. Sylvester's**** is twelve miles, and

*Probably Louis LeMere. **Probably William Kline (also as Cline) an early lumberman at Grand Rapids (Wisconsin Rapids). He later moved away. ***Later known as Strongs Prairie, a stopping place northeast of Necedah in Adams County. ****William Sylvester, blacksmith and inn keeper in the present village of Grand Marsh. 212 from Sylvester's to Portage is 34 miles, 70 miles [all told]. Probably there are 40 or 50 men below Grand Rapids and some half dozen families, principally halfbreeds. The country from Grand Rapids to Mr. Sylvester's is generally covered with oak shrubbery about four feet high and now and then a grove of small pines and a few groves of oaks. On the way from Grand Rapids to Mr. Strong's I passed a mass ·of rock rising suddenly from the openings and does not cover perhaps more than a quarter of an acre of ground and rises to the height of a hundred feet above the common level. The mass ranges north and south and there appears to be two peaks and a third which does not rise quite as high. I ascended as far as I could; but could not ascend to the top, the highest peak so abrupt that a ladder would be necessary perhaps ten feet high. Nov. 14, Wednesday. Weather remarkably pleasant. Set out from Mr. Sylvester's about 8 o'clock a.m. Left in the evening. Mr. Sylvester was so much under the influence of liquor as to appear silly this morning and there was no opportunity to converse with him. This evening had a short conversation, but he evaded coming to a point and would not acknow.ledge that he had strayed except in general tern1S. Returned this evening from two week's tour and one day in the pinery, having travelled in the meantime over 300 miles. With much anxiety and many fears, I entered upon the tour not knowing about what might befall me. But the Lord dealt graciously with me and protected me from all harm and has permitted n1e to accomplish this important journey having experienced multitudes of precious mercies, although not deserving of the least. Hitherto hath the Lord Helped me. Nov. 15, Thursday. At the Portage spent about half of the day in getting my saddle fixed. Paid for fixing 75 cents. Conversed with Mr. Sylvester, but obtained no satisfaction. Carefully evaded the subject of drinking ardent spirits. Said he rented his house upon condition that no liquor be sold. No Presbyterians at Portage except Edwin Sylvester and wife, and he keeps a bar against the kingdom .of heaven. Left the Portage about noon, arrived at Kingston 20 miles 213 distant about sunset. Put up at Mr. Hayward's.* Nov. 16, Friday. Weather very pleasant. Set out to go up to Buffalo Lake about 15 miles. Road generally good, although there are some very bad places. Crossed the Fox River at Dartsford** just at the foot of the lake. The water was up to my horse's belly, bottom hard. A Mr. Loomis (?) from Perce Berkshire Company mass building [not clear] at this place, not a Christian. Goodhues' (?) mill is the third 011 the Big Eau Claire. Formerly he commenced at Watertown. There they appeared to delight in desecrating the Sabbath.*** At the Portage met with Mr. Wakely who has a sawmill ten miles below Grand Rapids. His face was red and bloated. I heard him use profane language, and he evidently appeared at evening as if under the influence of intoxicating drink. Oh! What a life to live to have no reference to that what is to come. Useful hints: When a mis-step has been made, never stop to mourn over it, but inquire how it may be avoided in the future. When trading with strangers, first find out if possible something about their character. Never break in when another is conversing no matter how great my hurry, let others talk a part of the time. (This page out of place in diary:) ...but friendly as well as his wife to the subject of religion. He and another neighbor think there are one hundred families betwixt the foot of the lake and the road leading to the pinery and that within four or five miles from that place there are 20 or 30 families. Although in much haste in finishing off his house, still he suspended all business, .

*R.S. Hayward, a temporary pastor at Dartford near Green Lake before moving to Waupaca in the mid-1850s to become the second pastor of the Methodist Church there. **A settlement at the outlet of Green Lake which shortly disappeared. Probably named for Anson Dart, the first justice of the peace in the township of Green Lake in 1840 and mill owner in 1847. ***This entry appears out of place. The big Eau Claire runs into the Wisconsin at Schofield. 214 came down from the roof of his house and asked me to attend prayers with them which I very willingly did. Left the Sabbath manual with them and gave some books to the children there. Set out about 2 o'clock to return. Night came on and some rain. Some five miles from Kingston saw an extensive prairie on fire. It afforded me light for some two miles to travel by. When I came in sight, saw a chain of fires for more than a mile in extent, running with great rapidity before a fresh southerly breeze. The flames rose right to ten feet high flashing m-ost furiously as if (word not clear) upon the dry stubble with which the ground was covered whilst the heavens were lighted up by their blaze. I could not but notice the providence of God in so ordering it that the fire did not at all molest me as it had passed whilst I was gone. Just as I approached a bad pl~ce, a small piece of grass was burning nearby which gave sufficient light to enable me to see where to cross it. Soon after I came to another bad place where my horse mired and with great difficulty extricated himself. Felt to praise the goodness of the Lord for his deliverance as I was some four nliles from any house. And the night dark and it had been raining. Arrived at Kingston about seven o'clock in the evening in safety. Nov. 17. Concluded not to go to Blufton* today to pass the Sabbath as I had proposed. Weather cloudy and indications of rain. Went down to Marquette four miles distant. This at present the county seat. Counted eleven framed buildings. All built within a few months. A large store house raised. Mr. Hawes,** one of the proprietors, is a Presbyterian. Has no family. Mr. Story (?) says the steam dredge will excavate eight hundred yards in a day, or about 250 feet distance. The dredge draws 30 inches of water, but it wants 36 inches. The engine possesses 22 horsepower, but will move a stone

*Bluffton, once located in the northwest comer of the town of Brooklyn in Green Lake County. **Probably F.B. Hawes, who operated a store at Marquette in Green Lake County as early as 1845. 215 weighing two tons. Distance fron1 Lake Mukwa to Oshkosh is 40 miles. Mr. Story is one of the commissioners. There are seven professors of religion in the village. Mr. and Mrs. Wight Epis (?) are Methodist. An Englishman and his wife is a Wesleyan Methodist. A Welshntan and his wife professors, and Mr. Hawes, making the seventh. Nov. 18, Sabbath. At Marquette the weather changed and quite cool. Saw the steam dredge as if they were at work. Mr. Haywood said that he saw the same, although he travelled ten miles himself on that day. Meeting held at Mr. Wights (?). Pretty good attendance and very good attention. From 75 to 100 souls probably in the village. Subject, I must work on. The night cometh. In the p.m. returned to Kingston. Preached to a crowded room at Mr. Gos's.* Subject: Conscience, and again in the evening out of Hebrews 3:7-8. Today-about 20 families in the village. Nov. 19, Mon~ay. Weather cold and cloudy. Went to a funeral of a young Mr. Hawley from Cambridge, Lamoille County, Vermont. Reverend Mr. Kopan (?) preached from Psalms 39. Lord made me to 'know mine end and the measure of n1Y days. The young man was sick and died at a Mr. Southard's house. Mr. Southard (?) was formerly a member of Reverend and Mrs. Lamb's church in Vermont. He was 24 years old, sick only 15 days and died, probably without hope. After funeral, went on. Returned to Mr. Hayward's and dined. A discussion arose upon the merits of Odd Fellowship betwixt Mr. K. and Mr. Hayward. Was impressed with the idea that Mr. Hayward places a higher estimate upon the Order than upon the Church of Jesus Christ. Indeed, it appears to me that such as belong to the Order make it a quitting to conscience and in a great measure depend upon it for salvation. Rode home with Mr. K. and passed the night at his house. Nov. ,20, Tuesday. White frost this morning and clear. Spent the forenoon with Mr. K. in exan1ining the evidence of the Old Testament, particularly that of Genesis. It appears that the writers of the New Testament did not regard the

*Frank William Goss, a blacksmith at Kingston. 216 three first chapters of Genesis as Allegoricall) from the fact that they never allude to them as being such, and 2) they quote from the first chapters as being matters of fact. See II Corinthians 11:3. For I fear lest by any means as the serpent beguilded Eve, as compared with Genesis 3:4. I Timothy 2,13, 14-for Adam was first fornled, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived. Creations ascribed to the word of God. Psalms 33:6-For by the word of the Lord were the heavens made and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. Genesis 1 :6, Hebrews 11:3 and Peter 3 :5. Tuesday in the p.m. rode over to Moe's* some 8 miles. There I met with Dr. Sargent** from Princeton 5 miles distant. Ascertained from him that there are only 7 or 8 families at Princeton and about the same number at Hamilton. And no Presbyterian professors at either place. The Dr.. invited me to visit him. Found a Mr. Bacon (?) there with his family and youngest child sick. Nov. 21, Wednesday_ Left Mr. Moe's and went to Dartford. Stayed at·R.S.Hayward's a few hours whilst my saddle was fixed, then I went on to Dartford. Called at Deu. Besners (?), but his little boy had just had his leg broken by accident. Passed the night at Dr. H's. Nov. 22. Weather sonlewhat colder, still pleasant. Went out to Mr. Hayward's three miles distant. Nov. 23. Weather very warm and pleasant. Went to Strong's Landing. Returned about sunset. Wrote to my niece and a line to Mrs. Marsh, also to H. Hill, Exquire, and to Pr. [Presbyter] Herald (?) respecting Sabbath desecration. Left the letters at the post office at Strong's Landing. Nov. 24, Saturday. Stormy wind from the northeast. In the p.m. preached a preparatory lecture to five members of this church. The text was "It is finished." Paid for washing 43 cents. [To make] Vinegar:-Water 7112 gallons. Whiskey [not clear], one molasses half gallon, creme [sic] of tartar 2

*Probably Enos Moe, one of the incorporators of the town of Dayton, Green Lake County, 1851. **Probably Charles L. Sargent of Marquette. He may have had some medical training. 217 ounces. For mother, boil half a pint of beans partly and put in or take a piece of white paper and cover with flour paste and ~ut in. Nov. 25, Sabbath. The previous night was stormy and windy. Part of the day was stormy at intervals. Preached in the a.m: to a small congregation from the words "A New Commandnlent," John 13:34. In the p.m. administered the sacrament to six members of the church. The service quite solemn and interesting. In the eve went down to Bluffton and preached from Proverbs 29:1. "He that being often reproved..." Not a large number present but those present solemn and attentive. At the close received Mr. Smith, a Baptist minister. He mentioned that three young men, in the state of New York, met together and were carrying on in a very jovial manner when a tremendous storm came up and they took shelter under a haystack. Two of them manifested fear. When the third inquired of them if they were afraid, they replied "Yes." He made the answer, "I am not" and immediately stepped out and stretched out his hands towards heaven and dared the Almighty to strike him with the lightning. He had no sooner spoken, than a flash of lightning struck and dashed him almost all to pieces! Den Bemis* also mentioned the case of a man in the state of New York who was a rich farmer and at a certain time had a large quantity of hay down, and he had got it partly dry when a heavy shower came up. He was on his way from the barn to the house when his heart broke out in rage and enmity against God for sending the rain and' he blasphemed his awful name on account of it, when a flash of lightning struck him a"nd killed him on the spot. The way of transgressors is hard. Den Bemis wishes another season of communion in two months. Nov. 25. Says that in 3 or 4 weeks he intends to go out missionating.

*Probably related to J.G. (1) Bemis who paid taxes on 120 acres of land in Section 10 of the town of Waupaca~ about 3 miles northeast of the village of Waupaca, in 1857. 218 Nov. 26, Monday. Finished my second report to the A.H.H.M. Society started November 17 and wrote a letter to Rev. A. Montgomery and Ordway and endorsed the report in it and directed it to Beaver Dam. In the close of my report made a few remarks upon the great number of "have been professors of religion." That I feel there is a fearful lack far (?) behind their coming West. A lack of exhibiting the great doctrine of the Gospel which (?) God and (?) the sinner. A lack in exam, and too great haste in admitting menlbers to churches. So'me snow squalls today (Monday) and the weather appears winterish. »- Nov. 27, Tuesday. Ground covered with snow this morn, so as to look white which is the first snow I have seen this fall. It made about a quarter of an inch thick during the night. [The following entry is out of place in the diary.] Oct. 28, Sabbath.* It was dark as night at the Big Bull Falls. J.L. More said that he was riding from Rib river down home that is down the river and it was so dark that he could scarcely see his hand before him. This took place in the p.m. perhaps 2 or 3 o'clock and continued for considerable time. Ignorance of the doctrines of the Bible. At Shumway's Mill I inquired if the close communion Baptists were not like the pres. [Presbyterians?] in doctrine? Mr. Edmond (?) a Baptist prof. [professor] replied, "No they were not because the Baptists believed in free agency.** Importance of properly educating children. E.S. Miner in speaking of a change of heart denied the direct influences of the holy spirit but said "that he had been removed from those influences which tend to promote religion in' the soul and therefore had gotten away from the path of duty, but if he had continued under them he should still have been a Christian as he once supposed himself to be." The thought that a Christian was made by the religious influences which surround h~m, and that the want of religion is the removing of those influences.

*Here he enters October instead of November as he should have done. **Probably in opposition to the Calvinist doctrine of Predestination. 219 That is, religion like- character, is the creature of circumstance and depends upon the influences which surround it for existence. Bad influences destroy, but the good, not only keep it alive, but its very existence in the soul depends upon them. Mr. M. [lVIiner] thought that it was exceedingly derogatory to the character of God to suppose that He wanted to make any of his creatures eternally miserable, because that would be unjust; still thinks it no disparagement to his character to believe that the first three chapters of Genesis [is] an allegory, as Josephus says, and that the account there given ·of the creation is not a matter of fact.* Nov. 27, Tuesday. Spent at Mr. Heg's (?). Nov. 28, Wednesday. Left Mr. Heg's and went to Granville.** Nov. 29, Thursday. At Mr. Kapon's (?), Mr. Kapon says that when he came here three years ago there were less than one thousand inhabitants but he thinks there are over five thousand at present. Left Mr. Kapon's about 11 o'clock a.m. to go to Rushford, about 25 to 30 nnles distant. A part of the way was over prairie, the remainder openings. Saw some fine farms. The weather chilly and cold. My course lay along by the Little Green Lake, Twin Lakes and south of Big Green Lake. I arrived at Mrs. Foster's some time after sunset. Nov. 30, Friday. At Mr. Foster's in Rushford. Mr. Foster contended that they were not ready to have a season of communion, and' must defer still longer. This is the second time which I have gone there to have a season of communion with the church and they were not ready. At this time it has cost me two days ride for the purpose of accommodating this little band, and yet I have been disappointed. As I came near the four corners in Rosendale, met

*At this point, the diarist switches to November 27, 1849, when he was on the Wisconsin River, but at the moment he appears to be traveling through Green Lake County, a mixup in pages. **The 1898 Gazetter of Wisconsin gives Granville, population 115, lying 15 miles north of Milwaukee. 220 Reverend Mr. Bridgemant (?), immediately commenced his interrogation about the church in Oshkosh. Said that Bemis (?) had written that he did not [Here this particular diary ends, a page out of place, but which is found in another diary and continues] ... said that Bemis did not want to join the church in Oshkosh, but that he was pressed into it. Then charged me with telling a falsehood about him respecting his examination at Fond du Lac.* Said I knew better than to say that he did not answer directly excepting when his sentiments were called in question, then quoted other authority. I then turned my horse, saying Mr. B. we will not stop here to dispute about this, and rode off. In view of this I feel that I have not remenlbered the injunction "speak evil of no man." If I had done so, this man who possesses much of ? Ishmaelitish spirit, could not have attacked me in this public manner. Had I said nothing respecting him which I did not believe at the time and now believe to be a nlatter of fact. I resolved to be more careful as to what I say about others to strangers although professed friends.

New Diary 1851 Sept. 8. Made out my returns for the quarter ending Aug. 27, and sent them to Strongs Landing to be mailed. (On front cover of same diary-notebook, this notation "March 1, 1852, made my returns to the A.H.M. Society [American Home Mission Society] up to Feb. 27, 1852 and sent them." [In next line, "Continued from Journal dated July ,26, 1851."] In Waushara,** Dodge County, at General Blake's. (?) The general engaged in the last war with Great Britain and held office in the army. At one time Major Phalin (?) was his

*Prospective members for a new church congregation were examined, that is, questioned about their knowledge of doctrine and Scripture to determine whether they should be admitted to the fellowship of the church. **Here the diarist is referring to the village of "Waushara" on Fox Lake in northwest Dodge County, today called "Fox Lake." 221 adjutant. He has 5 children and all but the youngest indulge a hope. Elder Williams (?) said that he knew in the circle of his acquaintance of more than 50 professors of religion who either give no evidence of a change of heart or else are immoral. The l1un1ber of inhabitants in Waushara [Fox Lake] a hundred. In Trenton more probably 9 hundred.* Each township 9 miles long by six wide. ** Elder Williams' church numbers about 55 members. General Blake thinks that there are as many as a dozen who would like to be organized in a congo [Congregation?] church in the two towns. Protestant Methodism. It is said that all the test of church membership which Mr. Castle (?) of Trenton requires is "an expressed desire to flee from the wrath to come." That he has made about 50 professors of religion by such instrumentality in Trenton. Individuals have gone to his meetings careless and indifferent and have gone away professors of religion. After opening his meeting, and have a season of prayer, he calls forward the anxious. He requires them to kneel down and sets some to praying for then1. In the meantime he is conversing with one and another in a low tone of voice. After prayers, he reads their discipline, or rules, to them and explains so that almost anyone can subscribe to them, and then inquires how many of them would like to join them. As many as express such a desire give in their names. They are then considered as members of the church. Afterwards they are baptized, provided they have not been already, in any way they please whether by immersion or sprinkling, etc. and the work is done. Oh! fearful responsibility. Oh! how dangerous to the [word illegible] soul is such absurdity! Mr. Metcalf (?) says "he cannot hear Mr. Castle preach because he has no confidence in the man." Oh! how long

*Lapham's map of 1850 shows Trenton as a township which was actually two townships and included Fox Lake. **The diarist is confused. The townships, ,as shown on Lapham's map, are all six by six sections, the normal size. 222 shall workers go forth in sheep's clothing! but short(en?) a Lord these days. Aug. 25, Monday, 1851: Cloudy and an appearance of a storm. Left General Blakes's in Waushara for Beaver Dam. Took dinner with Brother Niles and went on to Columbus.* Tues., 26th: The weather pleasant. Left Columbus about 11 o'clock a.m. and went on to Cottage Grove some 20 or 25 miles. In the evening Rev. E.D. Seward preached from the words "Occupy till I come." An excellent practical discourse. The thought was finely calculated. We are God's stewards. Aug. 27, Wednesday: Day occupied in the forepart with business in the latter city. Kapon preached, 'A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.' The important idea was that the spirit of the gospel in the heart or love is like leaven. Oh! My soul! Dost thou possess that spirit? In the evening Brother Porter (?) preached upon the imn10rtality of the soul. An instructive sermon. Aug. 28, Thursday: Weather still pleasant. Business occupied most of the time. Convention closed its session about 4 o'clock p.m. and all soon dispersed. I returned to Columbus. Arrived about 9 o'clock in the evening. Aug. 29, Friday: Roads very dusty. No rain. Called and talked with Mr. O. Lome (?). Appearance of rain. Reached Brother Lamb's (?) in Springvale about dark.** Aug. 30, Saturday: It rained during the night. Pleasant this morning. Left from Omro. 22 ,miles I think. Distance from Columbus to Cottage Grove 25, and Cottage Grove 8 miles from Madison. Aug. 31, Sabbath: Much refreshed by the past quiet night's repose. Great, very great were the agitations of my mind during the week respecting what was duty in respect to the organization of a presbytery and at times I hardly know what to do. Yet I cannot feel that the Great Head of the Church requires me to follow that which may indeed .make for present peace but which will not be the best on the whole for

*Probably Hezekiah Niles. **Springdale appears as a township in Columbia County on the Lapham map. 223 the churches in time to come. May the waters not be suffered to overwhelm me. Preached in the morning to a very attentive audience from the text. "There remaineth therefore a rest," etc. In the p.m. "It does not yet appear what we shall be." In the [ evening] attended a prayer meeting and made remarks. Mentioned the dream of a minister, the danger of seeking praise, and of being circumspect, etc. One Dish. Reverend Mr. Kie (?) in preaching from the text "One thing is needful" mentioned that Martha was careful and anxious to prepare nlany dishes and have a sumptious entertainment but the Savior says to her one dish only is needful and the remainder of the time might be devoted to my instructions. The preacher remarked that others had a different view but that was his own and that the good part which Mary had chosen referred to something else. The Beast introduced infant baptism. Reverend Mr. P.of 0.* said in remarking upon the ~ubject of baptism that all was harmony in the churches until the Beast got into the church and went to baptizing infants. Was ·not Paul that Beast? Mr. P. for the first infant baptism which we read of was evidently performed by Paul. (Sentence not clear.) Sept. 1, Monday: A very heavy shower this morning. Wrote to my family this morn and mailed the letter. Between 10 and 11 o'clock a.m. left Omro for Strongs Landing. Called at Berlin and took dinner at Brother P's. Found Brother P. had made up his mind with regard to the importance of forming a presbyter.** The indications of providence do indeed appear to be favoring and leading to such a measure. Oh! Mayall engaged in this enterprise be endowed with wisdonl from above. Went on that evening to Mr. Selby's about 5 miles. Mr. S. from Kentucky. His wife has been a professor of religion. Sept. 2, Tuesday: Set out early for Waupaca Falls. Went by

*Probably Omro. **In the early church, an officer who exercised teaching, priestly and administrative duties. 224 the way of Poysippi Mill. Called upon Mr. Hawley.* Was anxious to have a minister come into the region. Said there were half a dozen or more who wished to be organized into a cong. [congregational?] church. And four settlements within a few miles where they needed preaching. Went up to Mrs. Foster** and took dinner. Arrived at Waupaca before sunset, after an absence of 11 days. Surely goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life, and for the goodness which has followed me during this tour I bless his holy name. Sept. 3, Wednesday: Went to work aiding in quarrying stones, etc. for my cellar. Sept. 4: Weather very warm. Engaged in drawing stones .. today. Mr. Ware*** commenced stoning my cellar. Sept. 5: Sent some letters to Strongs Landing to be mailed, viz: to Reverend Messrs. Clinton, Niles and Rosenkrans**** and Mr. Mann***** of Stockbridge. Soon after sunrise it began to rain and rained steadily for some time. Mr. Bartlett from Strongs Landing made arrangen1ents for establishing a store at this place.****** Sept. 6, Saturday: A heavy thunder shower during the night. The weather very warm in the forenoon. Quite a hard shower in the forenoon. Just at evening a heavy thundershower. The lightning must have struck near the house. How sensibly at such times am I made to feel the power of God. How impotent human might against the Power of that subtle fluid, but how much more so before Jehovah's might! Another short week has passed. But one of care, anxiety and toil. Something has been accomplished towards building my house. Still little comparatively' is done. On the whole

*No doubt, George Hawley. **Probably C.V. Foster, listed in 1857 taxroll of Waupaca County. ***Samuel Ware, shortly to become judge of Waupaca County. ****C.E. Rosenkrans, a clergyman at Columbus. *****Probably Moody Mann. ******C.L. Bartlett, identified in the 1857 tax roll of Waupaca as a sawmill owner. 225 feel strong confidence in the goodness and mercy of". my heavenly Father, that he will provide me with friends and means to go on with it. Thus far I see and do acknowledge thy goodness and mercy towards me. I have had much anxiety at times respecting the money which I borrowed of that B. [Bartlett]. Seventy-one dollars. Fifty of which I laid out in paying for a claim. But Oh,! My Father, permit me when called to leave this world, to leave it indebted to no one except in love and gratitude. During Saturday night another heavy thunderstorm. Sept. 7, Sabbath: Weather very pleasant. During the day exceptionally warm. In the a.m. preached at the Falls [Waupaca]. In the p.m. went down to the Chandler Settlement.* My subject in the morning, 'I have kept the faith.' Few present. In the p.m. the school house filled. My subject, 'TIle night cometh.' Sept. 8, Monday: It has thundered much of the time today, and a good deal of rain has fallen. Was disappointed in not obtaining 3 men who had engaged to work for me today. May disappointments teach me patience and submission to the will of God. In the p.m. went out to see Mr. John Vaughen, now sick. Disease inflamation of the liver. During the week a great quantity of rain fell. Accomplished but little towards my house. Sept. 12, Saturday. It rained most of the day. Towards evening went down to the Chandler Settlement and passed the night at Mr. Chandler's. Sept. 13, Sabbath. Weather very cold day. Preached in the a.m. at the Chandler school house. "There remaineth a rest," etc. At 3 o'clock p.m. Reverend Mr. Miller preached.** "If the righteous scarcely be saved." Sept. 14, Monday. Weather more pleasant than yesterday. Commenced framing my house. In the p.m. hauled stuff from

*A. (for Augustus) Chandler, is listed in the 1857 tax roll as paying taxes on three forties of land in the vicinity of the present Waupaca airport. The Chandler brothers founded the village of lola with the building of a sawmill and dam there in 1854. **Silas Miller, apparently a lay preacher, the first in Waupaca. He is buried at Lakeside Cemetery. 226 the sawmill. The remainder of the week passed in attending to the building of my house. Sept. 21, Sabbath. Weather cold and some rain. Went up to see Mrs. Bouton who had a felon on her finger. * Reverend Mr. Sherrill (?) preached in the a.m. from the words, 'There is joy in the presence of the angels of God,' etc. In the p.m. I preached from 1 John 3:2, "It does not yet appear which we shall be." A small congregation. Spent the following week in superintending the building of my house for the most part. Sept. 24, Wednesday: Was a very pleasant day [end of sentence running on to next page which has been excised from the diary and which now jumps from September 24, 1851 to February 11, 1852]. Set out for Oshkosh. Weather stormy all day. Arrived at Fremont about noon. An uninviting place. Only 3 buildings and one family on the west side of the river. From thence went on through a thickly timbered tract of land, abounding in pine, oak, ash, etc., until we reached Rat River perhaps 10 miles. Rat River small, and very flat in the vicinity of it. Reached Mr. Vosburgh's** where I passed the night about dusk. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. V. pious. Was very kindly and hospitably entertained Feb. 12, 1852, Thursday: Left early for Oshkosh. About 10 o'clock the court opened. A sad and exciting case for it was to decide which of two mothers was the mother of a little boy about 6 years old. After attending court over 6lh days, having a crowded house, the testimony was concluded. But how singular to hear witnesses on both sides swearing, the one that it was a white child, but on the other that it was an Indian. Since Solomon sat on the throne perhaps a case so singular has not occurred. Both sides could not be correct, but on which was truth and justice appeared not so easy to determine. Yet in listening to all of the testimony and

*Mrs. Myron Boughton, who lived two miles north of Waupaca village, was a sister of Alvin Partridge whose boy was lost in the woods, 1850.

**The 1850 census gives Jeremiah Vosburg, a farmer in the town of Vinland, Winnebago County. 227 especially after a careful observation of an examination of the boy, to hear in what manner he spoke the English language, what expressions he used, [such] as "Yes, sir. No, Sir, No Sir-ee," it appeared abundantly evident that he must be the son of the white woman, Mrs.·Partridge. Feb. 15, 1852: Passed the Sabbath at Oshkosh. In the a.m. preached for Brother Freeman.* In the p.m. his subject was as a man soweth, so shall he reap. Feb. 15:** In the evening I preached at Algoma. Subject: "God's love in sending his son." Members present small. Feb. 18, Wednesday: The Witnesses [in the trial] were discharged. Left Oshkosh. Went up to Omro and passed the night at Brother Robins. Feb. 19, Thursday: Went on up to Berlin and passed the night at Brother Preston's. (?) Feb. 20, Friday: Returned home. Found my family well. Blessed be God for his goodness tome and mine during my absence. Feb. 22, Sabbath: Preached at Chandler Settlement and at the Falls also. In the evening attended a prayer meeting at Mr. Judson's.*** Feb. 24, Tuesday: Went to Weyauwega.**** In the morning it rained a little, towards [noon] became very pleasant, but towards evening the wind changed and it became very blistering and cold. Aided in counting out a quantity of lumber. Mter sunset returned honle. Very chilly and cold riding. Visited some families on the way, the first a caviling Universalist. The woman flippant in speech, but to Universalism adds anti­ nominalism. Feb. 27, Friday. Stormy afternoon all day. Went down to Pleasant Valley*****: for to distribute Bibles. Visited 3

*Hiram Freeman, a clergyman at Oshkosh. **He writes Feb. 15 but means Feb. 16. ***N.P. Judson, a storekeeper at Waupaca. ****This is the first mention of Weyauwega. *****Once a settlement lying to the southwest of the present village of Larson in Winnebago County. familieson the way and 7 after I arrived. Passed the night at Mr. Dayton's (?). Feb. 28, Saturday. Very windy and cold. Returned home. In the p.m. went down to the Chandler Settlement. Heard of the death of Mr. Barton's (?) babe. Feb. 29, Sabbath. Went down to the Chandler Settlement. Few attended meeting. "If thou be wise," etc. p.m. went to Weyauwega. Preached from John 3:16, "For God so loved the world," etc. In returns for February* mentioned Com. [comm·on] schools, no [number of] S.S. [Sabbath Schools]. About the stolen boy. Too great haste in admitting members. Preaching not sufficiently Calvinistic. How a backslider sometimes dies. March 2" Tuesday. Went down to Weyauwega to attend the funeral of Toustelot's (?) child, about 4 or 5 months old. A considerable of a number attended. Addressed the people from Job 14:10, "But man giveth up the ghost and where is he?" Looking upon men in the light of philosophy or reason merely how forlorn his condition. How dark the future. Even the flowers, the grass and trees which are cut down have a preeminence over him. For when cut down, through the genial influences of the sun and rain they will spring up again with all the beauty and vigor of the former years. Not so with man. But where is he? That noble form, the most curious of all God's handiworks, is not [word illegible] man. Where is that deathless principle which loves, desires and longs for immortality? Where? I pause, but obtain no answer. But to the word of God I turn and find a full and satisfactory answer. Where is he? Not annihilated, not remaining in a state of dormancy, or wandering in infinite space, but gone to the judgment seat. Gone to give up its final account. To hear from the lips of its Judge the sentence which will fix him in heaven or hell. To be a companion of angels, etc. or to be a companion of devils and damned spirits. How thankful we ought to be for the Bible? How does it become us to take [word illegible] unto it as unto a light,

*Here the diarist is mentioning subjects he touched on in his monthly report to the American Home Mission Society. 229 etc. That [word illegible] us for God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, etc., for every idle word that men shall speak, etc. And the sea give up the dead. etc. March 3: Weather in the a.m. pleasant. At evening snowed a little. Day appointed for the organization of a church [in Waupaca]. Present Messrs. Lyman Dayton, Winthrop C. Lord, and Samual Pinkerton. Also Mrs. Mary B. Dan, Harriet H. Baldwin, Betsy Moore, Eunice Marsh, Elisabeth Lord and Margaret Pinkerton. The first chapter of Revelation was read. This was followed with singing and prayers. Afterwards the expediency of organizing a church was talked over and it was resolved that it is expedient to organize a church in this place. The above-mentioned individuals gave in their names. Articles of Faith were then agreed upon and a covenant. Then followed some examination ,as to doctrinal views, etc. Mr. Lord said he could not comprehend the subject of election [predestination], still that it was a doctrine of the Bible. Mrs. Dan did not fully subscribe to the doctrine of infant baptism but said her mind was open to conviction and ,was willing to examine the subject. These two cases were passed over without further investigation. A vote was then taken to receive each other into communion and fellowship. Those persons rising were declared to be a church of Jesus Christ and welcomed to the number of the branches of his church militant on earth. This was followed with prayer. Afterwards it was unanimously decided that the pres. [Presbyterian?] form of government be adopted. The three brethren were then elected elders for the coming year ~ It was voted to have a communion season quarterly, on the first Sabbath in January, April, July, and October. Voted to have a preparatory lecture on the week preceding each season with communion. Closed with singing, prayer and the benediction. Harmony and good feeling pervaded the meeting and nothing transpired to disturb in the least or mar the peace of any mind, but all seemed to be united in accomplishing the grand object before our minds, that of organizing a church built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. 230 March 27, Saturday: Weather very pleasant. In the p.m. went down to Pine River, [and] Ontario. Arrived about sunset, Mr. & Mrs. Foster being absent when I arrived, but they returned about dark. Passed the night at Mr. Foster's. March 28, Sabbath: Appearance of storm. Went down to Hawley's at Poysippi expecting to attend meeting there, but found my notice sent by mail did not arrive. Both myself and the family were much disappointed. Returned and preached at the school house near Mr. Foster's. Text, "In thy presence is fulness of joy." Solemn attention paid to the preached word. 0 Lord make it a saving word to all who heard. At 3 o'clock p.m. preached again, [on the] text, "I must work," etc. Not as many present as in the afternoon. In the evening was called to marry a couple, James Adin (?) to Caroline Bason (?). Addressed the newly married couple upon the importance of attending to relative [probably an error for 'religious'] duties. Returned to Mr. Foster's at 11 o'clock in the evening. Felt a degree of pleasure that I had been permitted to pass the Sabbath in that place and proclaim the word of the Lord. In the morning between 10 and 11 o'clock it snowed, hailed and rained. March 29, Monday: Wind E.N.E. In the morning called upon a Mr. Chalmer's (?) family. Himself a Sco~chman, but his wife an English lady from Manchester, England. Resided 7 years in France. Have 2 children. Both members of a pres. [Presbyterian?] church there; but those were admitted who were moral although they gave no evidence of a change of heart. [Sentence not clear.] Mrs. Chaln1ers said she did not think that her husband had ever been converted, but thought that she had been about 15 years ago. Have no family prayers. Sometimes she said that she prayed with her children. Appeared by her conversation to be a Christian. Had a season of prayer with her and her daughter. She could not endure the idea of females speaking in meeting. Had never been accustomed to it. What a difference education and custom make! Next called upon Mr. [name scratched] family. Both formerly members of the United Brethren Society or Church in Stark County, Ohio. From thence they emigrated to Indiana, and remained 11 years. Mrs. M. acknowledged she 231 did not live as she ought, although out of health. She seemed ignorant of spiritual things. Attributed her present condition to being away from class meetings, etc. No fam.By prayers. Have a family of 5 or 7 children. Urged her to repent and return to God lest she experience the fearful doom of such. as "Crucify the son of God afresh," etc. Her husband it appeared was in the same condition with herself. Read a portion of scripture there and prayed. Called upon Willard Mc [balance of name scrptched] a member of a pres. [Presbyterian?] church. Wept at the ungodliness of her sons and neighbors. Possessing irrascible temperament of the Irish, she has a good deal of trouble with her children. Appears lik~ a Christian. Prayed with her also. She mentioned that the man who had his house burnt, Mr. Joseph Robbins, was a sabbath-breaker. Had a man come and break land for him on the Sabaath. Planted his corn also on the Sabbath. The way of transgressors hard. Visited .a Mr. Porter's family from Quebec. Both Methodists. A widow was there who had recently buried her husband. Was herself a member of the Free Communion Baptists in Indiana. Said her hus~and died shouting. Free Communion Baptists, she said, were similar in doctrine to the Methodists. Baptized by immersion. She appeared to know little about the word of God, but depended very nluch upon her experience and feelings. April 3, Saturday: Held the first church nleeting of the Presbyterian church of Waupaca. Present: Messrs. Dayton and Pinkerton only of the members outside of my house, Miss Almira Dayton, his daughter, united with the church. I addressed the church from the 4th chapter of Ephesians. Remarked particularly upon the expression "walk worthy . of the vocation wherewith ye are called," etc. The session voted to join the Fox River Presbyterians. Elder L. Dayton was appointed delegate to attend its semi­ annual meeting at Columbus on the 20th and W.C. Lord his alternate. In this day of small things, oh! my soul, hope thou in God .. April 4, Sabbath: Very stormy in the morning. Wind N.E. Between 8 and 9 o'clock the storm ceased. Perhaps 2 inches snow fall. In the a.m. preached at the Falls [on] Corinthians 232 9 :24, "To run," etc. House full. Felt some considerable freedom in proclaiming the word. At noon the first S.S. [Sabbath School] was commenced at Waupaca. Number of children present not large, but those present seem interested. Lesson, Christ's interview with the Samaritan woman. In the p.m. the first season of communion which the Presbyterian church has had. The number present small but 0 Savior and head of the Church, thou art not confined to numbers. Revive thy work that thy church here may be enlarged. [Notation on inside of last page in diary: "Meeting of Win. Dis. Convene 1st Tuesday of November at Oshkosh." Probably Winnegago District Convention.]

New Diary 1852 April 6, first Tuesday in the month. The weather clear and delightful in the morning. About 10 o'clock set out to go up to the Norwegian Settlement.* Found the men coming down to town "meeting and. I concluded not go to up. Visited four families, found one, Mr. D. [name scratched]** without a. Bible. Himself a Universalist. His wife a lapsed Methodist, and her mother, Mrs. Brewer, a Methodist in regular standing. After calling upon the rest of the families, returned. Went down the river [Waupaca River] to Mr. Cameron's*** shanty to get a bush scythe. When I returned and got in sight of my buildings, saw my hovel [stable] all in flames. Alas! How uncertain are all earthly possessions. The Lord gave these and the Lord in his wise providence has taken them away. May I be enabled to say "Blessed be the name of the Lord." April 11, Sabbath. Weather stormy. Snowed in the morning. Set out for Pleasant Valley. Traveling very bad. Audience small. Preached from "God so loved the world" and "Work out your own salvation." On my return, saw a

*The village of Scandinavia was first called "Waupaca Settlement." **O.E. Dreutzer, an immigrant from Sweden, sailor and Indian fighter, later judge of Waupaca County and U.S. Consul to Bergen, Norway. ***Probably William Cameron. 233 good many at work, more than I have seen in a considerable time before. April 12, Monday. Very stormy. Snowed very hard all forenoon. April 14, Wednesday. Weather pleasant. Attended the funeral of Horace Baldwin's child, aged 19 months. Addressed the people from Job 14:19, "Thou destroyed the hope of man." (?) in number present, but a lawsuit at Weyauwega called away a number. 0 Lord sanctify the affliction of those parents from whom thou has taken their first-born. April 17, Saturday. Set out for Strongs Landing. In the p.m. rode through a heavy rain. It began to rain soon after I left Mr. Foster's on Pine River, and it continued to rain until I passed Willow Creek. Arrived at Mr. Preston's just at dark. April 18, Sabbath. Weather pleasant. Preached twice before P. [Presbyterian] audience. Very solemn and attentive. In the evening the text was the prayer of the penitent thief on the cross. April 19, Monday. Pleasant. Set out together for Columbus 50 miles. At evening arrived at Beaver Dam 40 miles. Traveling bad. April 20. Rainy all day. Rode in the rain over a very bad road until 2 o'clock p.m. Presbyterian meeting, according to appointment. Only one member of the church present. April 21, Wednesday. Weather more agreeable. The forenoon spent in Presbyterian business. P.M. Mr. Preston preached the communion sermon. Text, Isaiah 53:10 "It pleased the Lord to bruise him." The season solemn, but few present. In the evening, I preached upon the subject. of revivals, Habakkuk 3:2 "0 Lord revive nlY work." April 22, Thursday. Left C. [Columbus] with brethren P. [Preston] and Niles. Took dinner at Ordway's.* Passed the night at Harken's (?) Tavern. April 23. Reached Strongs Landing in the p.m. and passed the night there. April 24, Saturday: Looked like a storm. Went to

*Moses Ordway, a clergyman from Waukesha County. 234 Wautoma. Passed Saturday night at Charles Shumway's. April 25, Sabbath: Snowed very fast in the morning. Attended two meetings. Number present small but attentive. I preached from·I Corinthians 15:53 and in the p.m. from Acts 5 :3. Peter's awful rebuke of Annanias. In the evening baptized a child of Dr. and Mrs. Barret* at their own house. What a precious privilege did this almost isolated family feel it to be permitted again to enjoy sanctuary privileges. And Sabbath school is held from Sabbath to Sabbath in their own house. Their daughters and a son comprise it, whilst the father acts as superintendent and teacher. The children took their seats according to age side by side in the S.S. and also at morning devotions, and all was as orderly as though there had been but a single child. How delightful to see a family thus trained from childhood and taught that there is a God whom they ought to worship. April 26, Monday: Set out for Waupaca from -- -(?) to a settlement about 6 miles and from that to Saxe's Mill about 6 more. From that place to Waupaca about 15 miles. Reached home at about 4 o'clock p.m. All was well about the house, but my only cow had got into the mire Sabbath morning and died. But be still! My soul, for thus hath the Lord seen fit to take away what was only loaned. May 2 [1852], Sabbath: Preached at Lind in the a.m.** Subject: "And Enoch walked with God." Audience not large as b~fore but solemn and attentive. In the p.m. went to Weyauwega. In consequence of my letter not being received, no notice had been given out. Mr. G. however, went out and gave notice of a meeting and soon a small congregation was collected. Subject: I Corinthians 15, Resurrection. In the evening returned home but considerable fatigued. Dh! God bless the labors of this day. Was enabled to press the word . with some degree of earnestness. Dh, that I might feel more and more the absolute need of the Holy Spirit for without how powerless does the word fall upon the ear. The first

*Probably Moses Barret, believed to be the first physician to practice in Waushara County. Later in politics. **Later called Lind Center, a community about six miles south of Waupaca. 235 week in this month has been engaged for the most part in making fence through nlY field. Feel that my strength is failing for I cannot endure severe labor as I could once. May 8, Saturday: Weather very fine. Went to Plover 26 miles distant. Passed ~he night at Judge Alban's. Found it settled along for about 8 miles West of the Falls [Le. Waupaca Falls]. Then there were perhaps 4 miles without any inhabitants, then I passed a farm house and went on 2 or 3 miles before coming [to] another house. Then it was settled almost all the way. May 9, Sabbath: Very pleasant. Preached at 1/2 past 10 0'clock a.m. in the courthouse [Plover]. Audience not large but attentive. Subject: Character of Caleb. In the p.m. went up to Stephen's Point ana preached at 1/2 past 2 o'clock p.m. House pretty well filled. Subject: "Oh what shall a man give in exchange for his soul." Had no singing. Very solemn attention paid. In the evening returned to Plover. Passed the night at Mr.. Foster Mitchell's. Both himself and wife members of the Presbyterian church. An only daughter now at home indulges a hope. Mr. M. [Mitchell] from Illinois though formerly from New York state and the N.E. states. An intelligent family and maintains family worship. Was very kindly entertained. May 10, Monday: Weather very fine. Set out about 10 o'clock to return home. Called upon two families in one shanty about 9 miles west of the Falls. Their names Batton* and Eaton. (?) Both formerly from the state of N.Y.: 'Both families supplied with Bibles. Mr. B. has 5 children and the eldest can read some. Mr. E. has one and that a babe. None in these families have ever been professors. Left some tracts. Next called upon Mr. Swan** and family. The aged couple about 80 years of age. His son has a wife and 6 children. Four can read. Both the old people and son and wife belong to the Scotch United - (?) [probably Secession] Church. This church the same with the Free Church. Disavow allegiance in

*John Batton lived in Section 20, town of Farmington, Waupaca County. **Probably Thomas Swan Sr., a farmer in Lanark township, Portage County. 236 spiritual matters to the government. Sing the Psalms of David and are close communionists. In all other respects Presbyterian. These isolated families keep Sabbath. Spend [ part] of the time in the forenoon in instructing their children and in the p.m., the old people came in and they have a prayer meeting. A worthy example for new settlers. Number of inhabitants in Portage County is 2 thousand. The nun1ber of inhabitants at the county seat [Plover] 350, at Stephen's Point 5 hundred. May, Third Sabbath: I had an appointment to preach at Chandler Settlement and also at the Falls. But it rained almost all day. No meetings all day. May, Fourth Sabbath: I preached at the Chandler Settlement and at the Falls. In the latter place a full congregation. May 30: Preached in Ontario on Pine River [Waushara County]. In the a.m. near Esq. Foster's and in the p.n1. about 2 miles from Mr. Hawley's. June 6, Sabbath: Weather cool and delightful in the mo~ning. In the p.m. two very heavy blows of wind. The first moved a framed house, Mr. Lent's,* from its·foundation two or three feet. Preached at Weyauwega all day. Attendance rather small. Heard that old Mr. [name scratched] organized an Old School Church there the Sabbath previous, consisting of seven members. What a fearful responsibility to organize a church for the sake of it, and for sectarian purposes. But if this counsel be of God it cannot be overthrown. Be still therefore 0 my soul. I was exceedingly tried upon hearing of it but endeavored to look unto the Lord and cast my burden upon Him. Returned home at evening. June 8, Tuesday: Received a letter from my brother containing a hoped for 50 dollars. Seldom have I felt more sensibly to the goodness of God. I was in a strait not knowing what to do. Provisions were getting very short, and nails and glass were needed for the addition to my house, but where should I get the n1eans of purchasing? In the meantime the letter containing the draft was received. I wept for joy.

*Probably Ward Lent, listed in the 1857 taxroll of Waupaca village. 237 Blessed be God for his great goodness and mercy to me altd my family. June 13, Sabbath: Weather very warm. Preached at Mr. Carr's twice in the Winneconne Settlement.* I am to preach there and at Mr. Dayton's the 3rd Sabbath in July. The 2nd Sabbath I am to be at Pine River. June 14, 1852: This week has been very warm. A fine shower during the time. - June 19, Saturday: Went down to Weyauwega to attend a funeral. A young child of Mr. and Mrs. Post's.** Addressed the people from the word, "Who hath abolished death," etc. Returned at evening. June 20, Sabbath: Weather warm and very pleasant. In the morning preached at Lind. Audience rather small. What a cold, chilly, moral atmosphere! It seems almost like preaching to the deaf. Some half asleep and others appeared altogether careless. Mr. and Mrs. B. not present. I am afraid they do not feel right respecting their trouble with-{?).. In­ the p.m. returned and preached at the Falls. Subject -(?). "and the sorrow of the world." A very small audience. This is the day of small things. Last Sabbath in July I am to preach in the a.m. at Lind. June 27, -1852, Sabbath: Preached at Lind in the a.m. Room filled and the audience somewhat attentive. Christ is the only way of salvation, my subject. Oh! that I could feel this subject in the same measure as I shall when I attend upon the shores of eternity. In the p.m. went up to the

*The Christian band of the Menominee Indians at this time. still occupied the west bank of the Wolf River south of Lake Poygan. (They moved to the reservation in 1852.) The east bank of the Wolf was opened to settlement by the treaty of the Cedars in 1836 and a small village of white settlers had developed opposite the Indian villages and called "Winneconne Settlement." The Carr mentioned here is no doubt William D. Carr" mentioned in the Commemorative Biographical Record, who later settled at New London and died about 1868. He was born in Corning, New York. **This could have been either L.L. or J.D. Post. 238 Chandler Settlement and preached from text, "work out your own salvation" etc. The Lord bless thine own word. July 3: Preached a lecture at my own house preparatory to the communion on the coming Sabbath, the 4th. One was admitted to the church by letter, Mrs. Dr (?) Thagen (?). July 4, Sabbath: Quarterly season of communion. Preached in the a.m. in the hall over Mr. Cooper's Office.* Attendance good. The Methodists gave up their meeting and - came to the. Presbyterian. In the p.m. administered the sacrament. Remarked upon the duties of Christians. In the evening heard Mr. Simcox (?) [name scratched] preach. Little was said calculated to impress the mind and heart. His text, "for God sent not his son into the world to condemn," etc. July 5: Weather very warm. Appearance of rain but none fell. Celebration of our nation's Independence. An event long to be cherished with fondest delight by every American. The birthday of liberty, the rising of a Sun. Oh, may it never set. Perhaps 5 or 6 hundred people attended and three speeches were made. Harmony and kind feeling appeared to prevade the whole assembly, but there were a few whose appearance indicated partial intoxication, although no liquor was handed around publicly. Passed the remainder of the week in laboring upon my house. July 10, Saturday: Went down to Ontario to pass the Sabbath. A very heavy thunder shower drove me into Mr. Leathrop's. (?) Some hail and the wind blew hard for a while. Mr. L. a close communion Baptist. His wife appeared rather serious, gave her the tract, "Coversion ~f Mrs. (?) Emmerson." Passed the night at Esqr. Foster's. July 11, Sabbath: Weather pleasant. Preached in the a.·m. at the school house near Esqr. F's house. Very well filled and the audience attentive. My subject "I am the way" etc. In the p.m. went down to Poysippi. A good attendance. Met Mr.

*Probably William C. Cooper, a young lawyer who came to Waupaca from Milwaukee in the summer of 1849. Apparently there was no 4th of July celebratidn per se, because the 4th fell on Sunday.

239 Cady*, once a Congregationalist but now a Millerite. ** Lives about 2 miles fron1 Poysippi towards Little River. Himself and family impulsive, of but little use in society or the church. Passed thenight at Mr. Hawley's. July 12, Monday: Found n1Y horse very lame. Was until 4 o'clock p.m. in getting home with him. It rained during the p.m. July 21, Wednesday: Set out for Green Bay. Passed Wednesday night at Mr. Preston's. July 22: Went on to Oshkosh. Weather very warm. Passed the night [at] Geo. F. Wright's. July 23, Friday: Went on to Bridgeport.*** July 24, Saturday: Called upon Miss Laura Wright after prescribing for her, prayed with her. She also prayed. Such a prayer I have not heard for a long time. Such submission, such filial trust in God I have seldom, if ever, heard before. What can religion do' for us poor pensioners of a day? Oh! the spirit which she possessed is worth thousands of words. Oh! Lord give it me, I beg, for Jesus Christ'ssake. July 25, Sabbath: Very pleasant. About 2 o'clock a heavy thunder shower. Attendance at meeting rather small. In the morning a Reverend Mr. Porter (?) preached. Text, "whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause is in danger of the Judgment," etc. The -(?) was God, regards, the purpose of the heart as sin, not the overt act. The guilt lies behind the deed, for when the purpose is formed, although it may never be carried into effect if evil is regarded in God's sight as having all the malignity of the deed. July 26, Monday: Engaged at Green Bay in packing up the balance of my household furniture. July 27, Tuesday: In the a.m. quite rainy. In the p.m. very warm and pleasant. Closed up my business of packing etc.

*Probably Jacob Cady, the first settler in Poysippi in 1850. **After William Miller (1792-1849), who predicted that the end of the world would come between March 21,1843 and March 21, 1844. After the world failed to end, his followers organized a new sect called the "Adventists" who then and since have been looking forward to the second coming of Christ at an early date. ***Early name for Wrightstown in Brown County_ 240 July 28: Left Green Bay to return to Waupaca. Passed Wednesday night at Mr. Reed's at Neenah.* July 29, Thursday: A heavy thunder storm. Left Mr. Reed's and went towards Oshkosh. Passed the night at Omro. Mr. Robin's. July 30, Friday: Left Omro and went on within 3 miles of Pine River. July 31, Saturday: Left about sunrise. Breakfasted at Mr. Foster's. Arrived at Waupaca after 2 o'clock p.m. Goodness and mercy hath followed me through the whole of this journey. Blessed be the nan1e of the Lord. To covenant mercy I committed my only daughter last fall, and it was not in vain. I have not been disappointed. More than this thy hand has protected and been round about her for good and good only. Sure thou art a God keeping covenant and mercy for thou who trust in Thee, and now I am permitted to meet her again on those shores of mortality and I praise thee. Aug. 6, Friday: In the p.m. attended a funeral of an infant child, daughter of'Mr. Dieter (?). Addressed the people from the words of Job 14: "And thou destroyest the hope of man." Why does God destroy the hope of man? To teach him that this is not his continuing city (?). That sin is the cause of all his sufferings, etc. The danger of setting his affection upon anything beneath the sun. "Cursed is the man that trusteth in man. To wean him from this world. Lean not on earth. I will pierce thee to thy heart." Aug. 22, Sabbath: Preached at Pine River. In the forenoon at the school house near Mr. Foster's and in the p.m. went down to Poysippi. Meeting well attended all day. Aug. 23, Monday: Mr. Hawley gave me a bag of corn. Much needed it and knew not where I should obtain any previously~The Lord shall reward him for his kindness. Returned home. The remainder of the week until Saturday, was engaged in getting up and stacking oats. Aug. 28, Saturday: Went down to Weyauwega and Mr.

*Probably Harrison Reed, founder of Neenah. 241 Wilcox's (?). Found my goods in a good condition.* Returned home about lh past 8 o'clock in the evening~ Aug. 29, Sabbath: Appointment at Pleasant Valley. Attendance at Mr. Carr's very good. In the p.m. few attended at Mr. Dayton's. At 5 o'clock preached again at Mr. Mc (?) Lane's. Subject, "And thou mourn at the left," etc. Audience rather small but attentive. Returned home much fatigued but in safety. Ble'ss Lord thine own truth. Aug. 31: Made my report thiS August to the A.H.M. Society ["American Home Mission Society"] for the first quarter of this year up to August 17th. Sept. 26: Preached at Ontario in the a.m. Weather cold and threatening rain. Few present. Subject, "I love them that love me." In the p.m. went to Poysippi and preached. Heb. [Hebrews?] were by nature children of wrath. Found unbelievers in the view of the doctrine presented. In opposition it was stated that man is born into the world without any moral character. That he is sinless, but that such is his nature that he will always sin in every instance as soon as he begins to act. He will sin. The use ,of this is -(?)to be that it makes the guilt of the sinner appear greater than it does to suppose him to have a sinful nature, etc. That every child is born into the world 'with the same spirit which Adam had when he was created. That the reason why none stand is on account of all living in such a polluted atmosphere. This theory, unsustained by the word of God, charges God with being better to such holy beings!! than he is to believers in Christ for such he gives grace to and enables them thus to resist the fiery darts of the wicked. I am to preach there again the first Sabbath in November. Oct. 3, 1855:** Quarterly season of Communion.. Preached in the a.m. from Psalms 56:12. "Thy vows 0 God are upon me." Pretty good audience. In the p.m.

*The diarist had probably shipped his household goods up the Fox River by Durham boat to Lake Winnebago and from there transferred to a steam boat via the Wolf River to the mouth of the Waupaca River where it was taken ashore in a skiff to Weyauwega, thence by wagon to Waupaca. (Gills Landing was not- established until a year later in 1853.) **He writes 1855 but he means 1852. 242 administered the sacrament. Read and commented upon a chapter in Luke, "With desire, I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer." These sufferings were more than the sufferings of the son of Mary. Females have suffered as much bodily agony without expressing such anguish as the Savior did. Awake, 0 sword, against my shepherd, against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts. Could the human son of the virgin Mary be called God and fellow? In the account which the scriptures give of Christ's sufferings, they represent the two united. Oct. 17, Sabbath: Preached all day at Waupaca. Audience small in the p.m. Act. 21, Thursday: Went down to Pine River to marry a couple at Mr. Nobles'. United in the bonds of wedlock were Mr. Augustus L. Brown, from Oconomowoc, to Miss Caroline E. Noble. The room was.filled. After the ceremony was performed, supper was served up in good style and all appeared abundantly satisfied. I returned and passed the night at Mr. Foster's. It was very cold and in the morning a heavy frost. Dec. 5, Sabbath: Preached at Horace Baldwin's. Subject: "It does not yet appear what we shall be." Dec. 12: Preached at Pine River. In the a.m. at the school house near Mr. Foster's. Subject: "Then remaineth therefore a rest." Preached in the p.m. from the text, "The children of this world marry," etc. Meeting at Poysippi. Attention very good. I am to preach there again the 3rd Sabbath in the next month [January]. Dec. 26: Preached at Mr. Carr's Pleasant Valley. In the p.m. went to Mr. Thompson's (?) and preached. 2lh miles from Mr. Dayton's. Audience at Mr. Thompson's small but attentive. Made an appointment to preach there the last Sabbath in next month [January]. My subject the same in both places:. "Seeing all these things shall be dissolved what manner of person, etc." Jan. 7, Friday:* Very pleasant weather. Went to Weyauwega to attend the funeral of Mrs. Hubbard.** Having

*He writes January 7, 1952, but he means 1853. **Probably Mrs. Allen Hubbard .. 243 been married but a few days over six months. Th~ last time I saw her, she was the picture of health, and none could have apparently a fairer" prospect.to live many years. But about two months ago she was seized with fever and at length sunk under it unconscious of her situation in the arms of death. Like too many others she had procrastinated the work of repentance and faith for a more convenient season, but that never came. The house was filled with people and all appeared solemn and attentive whilst. I addressed them from John 4:9. "I must work the works of him that sent me. The night cometh." Sabbath 19-Was prevented from going to Pine River by the sickness of Mrs. Biron (?) and· the death of her child. Attended meeting in the forenoon and heard Mr. Miller [Silas Miller]. In the evening I preached from Malachi 4:1, "Behold, the day cometh," etc.

New Diary 1853 Jan. 18, Monday: At 11 o'clock attended the funeral of Birch's child. Read the hymn "My soul conle, meditate the days," etc. and offered a prayer. It died probably from the rupture of an abscess of the lungs. Was about 6 months old. In the p.m. went up the" river and visited two Swedes that were sick.* In the evening nlarried Alfred Durham (?) to Catherine Edger. Sang ·the marriage hymn, "Since Jesus Truly -(?) appear to make a wedding guest." Jan. 24, Sabbath: Preached in the a.m. at Waupaca Falls from Romans 8:16. In the p.m. went down to the Chandler Settlement. Preached from Philippians 4:6. "Be careful for nothing," etc. Audience rather small but solemn and attentive. Oh! that I felt more the importance and worth of prayer. Surely if trials could have this affect I have enough to

*Here the diarist no doubt refers to the Waupaca River, and since he was going west into the town of Farmington, he encountered a settlement of Scandinavians, mostly Swedes and Danes. 244 make me feel its worth and importance. Lord may they all lead me to thee and thee only for help and relief. (End of this diary.)

Jan. 27: Was called early this morning to visit Erick, a Swede who was brought into town on Tuesday evening. I visited him after 4 o'clock that evening. Found the poor man in great distress. The day was one of the coldest that had been experienced during the winter. They had brought him on that day 30 miles when sick enough to be in bed. His cough very distressing. A burning thirst and stomach irritable. Pulse low and feeble. I attended upon him and in the evening appeared better. Hopes were entertained of his recovery. But on the following morning all these fond hopes were disappointed. After a quiet night's rest, about 5 in the morning, he appeared worse and when I arrived, which was after 8 o'clock, I thought him dying. He soon revived after giving him some carb. Am. * but within a short time had another spasm and soon all was over. How suddenly was this robust young man cut down. Like the flower of the field which today blooms and tomorrow is cut down by the chilling blast. And his bright prospects for life of enjoyment of the things thereof nipped in the bud. Jan. 28, Friday: Weather delightful. Early in the morning went into the tamarack swamp and cut about one hundred poles. In the p.m. attended the funeral of the young Swede Erick. Made a few remarks from the words 'Be ye also ready.' A large number in attendance. Some wept bitterly and one young woman seemed unwilling to leave the corpse. Dh! that God would sanctify this dispensation of his providence to these and to all. Jan. 30, Sabbath: Weather delightful and sleighing good. Went to Pleasant Valley to preach. In the a.m. preached at Mr. Carr's. Subject: prayer. 'Be careful for nothing.' Philippians 4:6. Dh! that I might feel myself more the worthy of prayer. In the p.m. went over to Mr. Thompson's. (?) Subject: Religion an inward vital principle. "The water that I shall give him shall be in him." Solemn attention paid.

*Probably ammonium-carbonate or smelling salts. 245 Lord, Make thine own word a savor of life. The last Sabbath in February I anl to preach there again. Feb. 6, Sabbath: In the norning went down to Ontario* and preached. Though the weather was cold, and the house also very cold, yet there was a good attendance. "The Spirit itself heareth witness," etc. In the p.m. went down to Poysippi. My subject: "the living water which the Savior gives." Lord bless thine own word and make it like a two-edged sword. I am to preach there the 2nd Sabbath in next month. Feb. 7: Called at Mr. [name scratched]. A most unhappy family. Disputing and jangling between husband and wife, parent and children, destroy entirely the peace of that family and make it of all places most undesirable. After spending some 2 or 3 hours in hearing the statements on either side, I then proposed prayer. Read the last chapter of Revelations and then all prayed. The old man and his wife appared somewhat broken down. After prayer I tried to get them to make mutual confessions, etc., which they did, the daughter also united. Oh God. Make them hopest and lead each to see his own faults and 'confess them. Feb. 13, Sabbath: Stormy in the morning and cold in the p.m. In the a.m. preached from Luke 20:34, "The children of this world marry," etc. Congregation rather small owing to the cold. In the p.m. went down to the Chandler Settlement. Subject: Malachi, 3:2, 'But who may abide the day of his coming?' Solemn attention paid to preaching. In the evening the weather was [so] cold that I only read a part of the 4th chapter of 1st Peter, and made a few remarks. 'The end of all things is at hand" etc. was particularly remarked upon. The end of this world, the end of time, the end of probation, the end of offering pardon and salvation. For then the master of the house will have risen up and shut to [sic] the door. Be ye therefore sober, Le. maintain a calm contemplative state of mind and watch unto prayer. "What I say unto you I say unto all, watch." The person who does not watch, cannot pray upright. He is liable to fall into temptation. If he asks he

*Ontario, once a township in Waushara County, in 1855 was changed to Saxeville. 246 will ask amiss. Oh, Lord teach me to be sober and watch unto prayer. Feb. 18: Made my report to the American Home Mission Society for the quarter ending with November 17th. Mentioned the difficulties owing from the sudden proclamation of land sale and conflicting lines.* Also the worldy mindedness of professors of religion on the Sabbath. Reading political newspapers, etc. Mentioned also the example or practice of Mr. Swan's family, and parents who came from Scotland. Also made an apology to the secretaries for not waiting for a draft. Feb. 20, Sabbath: Weather very pleasant. In the a.nl. preached at the Falls [Waupaca]. "Woe unto him that [word illegible]" etc. Audience full and solemn. In the p.m. went down to the Chandler Settlement. [Spoke on] "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high." In the evening preached again at the Falls. "Because he hath appointed a day in the [sic] which to judge the world." etc. Audience not as large as it was in the morning. Feb. 27,** Sabbath: Very rainy until afternoon. Was to have preached at Pleasant Valley, but did not leave. Home during the day. Feb. 24, Thursday. I returned [to Waupaca] from Pine River. Found Reverend Mr. Clinton*** here with two Stockbridge Indians, a delegation from the Stockbridge Church who had come to take testimony relative' to J. Slingerland. They left about 2 o'clock p.m. and between 4 and 5 o'clock. Catherine (?), Oliver Brooks and wife, and Amos Gallop**** and wife, arrived. They passed Friday the 25th here and on Saturday the 26th they left for home. March 1, Tuesday: Weather has turned cold again. Mrs.

*Waupaca County, west of the Wolf River, was surveyed in 1852, earlier than expected by the prospective settlers and squatters. **The date is irregular. The diarist probably meant either February 21, 22 or 23. ***The Rev. Mr. A.P. Clinton, a clergyman at Neenah. ****Amos Gallup, one of the first families in Winnebago County and later a resident of Oshkosh. 247 Dayton passed part of the day here. Mr. Dayton and S. Pinkerton* to assist in taking further testimony relative to Slingerland's case. R.S. Hayward and C.B.M.'s (?) testimony were taken and duly attested.** March 4: Left for Stockbridge. The day pleasant and thawing. Passed Friday night at Amos Gallop's on Bald Prairie.*** March 5, Saturday: Took Mr. Gallup's wagon and went on to Oshkosh. There took a sleigh and went across· the Lake [Winnebago]. Arrived at Mr. Goodell's about dark.**** March 6, Sabbath: Preached to a full house from John 17:3, "This is life etemal," etc. In the p.m. sacrament of the Lord's supper administered. In the evening I preached again from Acts 5:3, ~'Why hath Satan," etc. March 7, Monday: Weather cloudy and appearances of a storm. Attended the trial of J. Slingerland's case.***** He refused to appear, but the church, after a second citation, went and took testimony. Oh! how fallen poor human nature. Now the people see what they could not a few years ago and none except the lowest and most degraded have any confidence in him. Passed the night at Goodell's.

*Samuel Pinkerton, an early business man in Waupaca village. **Here two pages have been excised from the diary and the dating jumps to March 4. ***Bald Prairie, better known later as "Ball Prairie," lay to the east of Lake Winneconne and north of Lake Butte des Morts. The term is no longer used. ****Probably Nathan Goodell, a clergyman. *****Jeremiah Slingerland was a stockbridge preacher whom Marsh earlier considered a valuable assistant in the ministery, but whom he now was blaming for the split within the Stockbridge Nation, one faction preferring to remain pagan and moving to a reservation in the Wolf River' watershed, the other preferring to remain in Calumet County, farming and retaining its allegiance to the Christian church. Slingerland married a white woman, Sarah Irene Seymour, who was associated with her husband for many years as a teacher at the government school in Stockbridge. 248 March 8,left Goodell's about 11 o'clock a.m. and crossed over the lake to Oshkosh. In the evening preached to a full house from John 17:3 and a profound stillness prevailed in the audience. Six or seven arose for prayers. May not one be left to grieve the holy Spirit. Very stormy in the evening. March 9, Wednesday: Left Oskhosh about 10 o'clock a.m. and passed the night at Hortonville at Mr. D. Brigg's. March 10, Thursday: Left Hortonville for Waupaca. Ten miles to Mukwa, a lonesome looking place with less than a dozen houses. At Phillips' (?) sawmill some 4 or 5 houses and at Hobart's (?) mill three families. Phillips' mill perhaps 2 miles from Mukwa 'and Hobart's mill about the same distance, that is, from Phillips. Through the w'oods a vast deal of excellent timber. Reached home about sunset, laden with much experience of the goodness and tender mercy of God for which I praise him. March 13, Saturday: At Pine River. In the morning preached from Psalms 91:1, "He that dwelleth in the secret place," etc. In the p.m. went down to Poysippi. Preached on John 17: 3, "And this is life eternal," etc. At evening went out about 4 miles and passed the night. I am to preach at Pine. River the 3rd Sabbath in April. March 27: Preached at Mr. Carr's in the Winneconne Settlemel1t, and also at Pleasant Valley. I am to preach again the ,first Sabbath in May. April 2, Saturday [Waupaca]: Meeting preparatory to the communion. Preached from Philippeans 1: 27, "Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel." Two male members only present, and one female besides my own family. Where the treasure is there will the heart be also seems as true now as when the Savior made the declaration. And I fear maybe true of such as cannot find time to attend a church meeting but can for any other meeting. April 16: Weather very pleasant. Went down to Pine River. A n u m ber 0 f prof essors of religion from Pres. [Presbyterian?] and Cong. [Congregational?] churches convened at Mr. Foster's for purpose of taking into consideration the expediency of organizing a church. The meeting was opened by singing and prayer. After that I was 249 chosen moderator, and Mr. George Hawley, clerk. After considerable consultation it was resolved that it is expedient to organize a Christian church. Eight individuals then gave in their names, viz: George Hawley, Spencer F. Hawley, Foster, Mrs. Hawley, SpencerF. Hawley's wife, Mrs. Chalmers, (?) and Mrs. Vanarsdale, (?) Mrs. Foster also. After articles of faith and a covenant had been agreed upon, a vote was taken to receive each other in Christian communion and fellowship. They were then pronounced a church of Jesus Christ and prayer was offered. After I gave a short exhortation, the church resolved to have seasons of communion quarterly and to have the first season of communion the third Sabbath in May. But then seasons the second Sabbath in the quarter, viz: April, July, October, and January. Closed with prayer and one benediction. April 17, Sabbath: Very pleasant. Preached in the forenoon to a fuller house than usual. "It doth not yet appear what we shall be." In the p.m. went down to Poysippi. Preached the text, "Remember Lot's Wife." About the same number as usual present. After meeting; married a couple, Mr. Channing Crocker to Miss Mary E. Becker, and then went on up to Mr. Potter's and passed the night. April 24, Sabbath: Cold N.E. wind. Preachedin the a.m. at the Falls [Waupaca]. "Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved," etc. In the evening preached again from Romans 10:4, "For Christ is tl1e end of the law," etc. In two weeks I am to preach there again. A day of great distraction of mind on account of my temporal circumstances. Have tried to disn1iss the subject from my mind so as to keep the Sabbath according to ·the commandment. I desire to adopt the language of the Psalsm, "The Lord is my shepherd." If so, I and.my dear family cannot want. April 26, Tuesday: Weather pleasant. Went to Berlin to attend the meeting of presbyters. In the evening I preached from John: 17:3. The audience very attentive and solemn. April 27: Presbyters met at half past 8 o'clock a.m. and spent half an hour in devotional exercises. The remainder of the forenoon was spent in business matters. In the p.m. Brother Rosenkrans preached and the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was administered. 250 · Mr. and Mrs. Dickey* had their son baptized. In the evening, Brother Preston was installed. Brother Niles preached the sermon from 2nd Samuel 10:12. An excellent sermon though my mind was so much agitated that I could not enjoy it. After sermon I mentioned what had been done by presbyters, and that presbyters would not proceed to the installation. I then put the constitutional questions both to pastor elect and people; then offered the ordaining prayer. Then Brother Rosenkrans delivered the charge to the pastor, and myself to the people. It is the duty of the pastor to be instant in season and out of season; it is the duty of the people to attend upon his preaching. How disheartening to preach to the naked walls. Take an interest in your pastor. Avoid shyness. Nothing is more chilling to a minister's sensibilities. Do not suffer him to want. Be punctual in your pecuniary engagements. Do not listen to idle reports. Be tender of his reputation. An easy thing to destroy a minister's reputation and usefulness by harking to vague reports. Cooperate with him. Could presbyters have installed the Apostle Paul with all the experience he had during his ministry, and all he has had since, even then he would not do all that is necessary to be done. Attend the prayer meeting and preparatory lectures. Pray for him. Paul felt the need of Christian prayers and even a Moses needed an Aaron and a Hur to hold up his hands. The exercises were solemn and interesting and calculated to make a deep impression upon the audience. Mrs. Marsh and myself were very kindly entertained at Mr. Millis. (?) April 28: Appearance of rain. When about at the 4-mile house it began to rain and rained most of the time until we reached Pille River. When 3 miles perhaps from Devoi's (?) broke my hind axle tree, but soon rigged it up and went on again and reached Pine River at nearly 5 o'clock. Passed the night here and the next day Friday we went home. May 1: Preached at the Winneconne Settlement. "I am the Way," etc. A fuller attendance than usual and serious attention paid. In the p.m. went to Pleasant Valley. Preached

*William Dickey arrived on Fox River in company with Nathan Strong in 1846. A "landing" was named for the latter. 251 from Psalms 91:1, "They that dwelleth in secret place," etc.* Lord may I be permitted to dwell th-ere ever more. A good attendance there also. I am to preach there the last Sabbath in this month again. May 14: Weather very pleasant. Went to' Pine River. Preached the preparatory lecture from the words, "It is finished." After this, three were admitted to the church, viz: Mr. Vanarsdale, (?) William Renard, (?) a Scotchman, and Mrs. Waistcoat (?). Sabbath, the 15th: Very pleasant. Preached from 1 Corinthians 9:24, "To run," etc. Audience very solemn and larger than usual. Administered the sacrament to the Pres. [Presbyterian?] Church now numbering eleven members. Made some remarks upon part of the 11th chapter of 1 Corinthians. In the p.m. down to Poysippi and preached on John 3:16. In the evening had a conversation with Ann Dickson living at the Hawley's. Somewhat serious. Still I am doubtful whether it is conviction or some other trouble which occupies her mind. After conversation, prayed with her and tried to get her to give up herself to the Lord Jesus. I am to preach there again the third Sabbath in June. May 17: Made my returns to A.H.M. Soc. [American Honle Mission Society] for the quarter ending this day. This completes another ministerial year, another for which I must give account of the Bar to God. The deficiencies, its sins, its neglects of duty, 0 Lord for Christ's sake, forgive. Mentioned in my report that the county seat had been located here [Waupaca], that the water power and country around would probably make this a place of considerable importance. Still the prospects for the present are not flattering. .~May 22, Sabbath: Weather pleasant. Thunder showers the evening previous. Preached in the a.m. at the Winneconne Settlement on John 3:7, "Marvel not that I said unto thee," etc. and very attentive and solemn audience. In the p.m. went to Pleasant Valley. Preached from John 14:6-8. Congregation very respectable and excellent attention paid to the word. Mentioned the two infidels traveling in Missouri, with money,

*Psalm 91:1 reads "He", not "they", that dwelleth, etc~

252 they went armed. One night had some difficulty in getting a place to stay for the night. In the evening they arrived at a house,but they did not like its looks as they approached and got their pistols all in readiness for any emergency. But as they drew [near] the house they heard the voice of prayer. Said one to the other, "We have nothing to fear here." So it came to pass, for they lived quietly, none molesting. I am to preach there again the 4th Sabbath in June. June 4~ Saturday: The day appointed for the trial of Bartlett's suit against me. M. Chamberlin sat on the judgn1ent seat.* But Dh! What a justice of peace. He suffered Bartlett to bring in even false testimony against me bilt on the [other] hand refused to admit a written contract which B. had given to me to be brot [brought] into court and besides refused to admit any testimony on my part. Still the jurors brought in "no cause of action." Blessed be God for thy goodness to me in thus delivering me from the hand of that wicked man and also for over-ruling and controlling them so that they rendered a righteous verdict. EBENEZER. EBENEZER!** June 5, Sabbath: Was called up last night about" 12 o'clock to see Mrs. Lord,*** who was taken flowing. Found her in a rather dangerous state. Had lost a great deal of blood, and had spells of fainting. Preached at the Falls, "But who may abide the day of his coming?" Congregation rather small. At evening preached from the words "To the one we are a savor of life unto life," etc. But few present. Dh, that I felt more as Paul did when he spoke these memorable words. The importance and responsibility of the gospel ministry.. That I might preach as a dying man to dying men from the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven. June 9, Thursday: Went down to Pine River. Called on the way to see a Mrs. Davis (?) She had taken a sudden cold

*M. Chamberlin is listed in the 1857 taxroll of Waupaca. **The diarist here appears to be appealing to or thanking Ebenezer, which is to say in Hebrew, "the stone of help." ***Mrs. Winthrop Lord. 253 which brought on inflamation of the kidneys. Passed the night at Mr. Foster's. June 10, Friday: Called upon old Mrs. Perkins, (?) Mrs. Bardwell (?) and Mr. Williams, (?) the latter had an erysipelous affliction of the throat. In late afternoon, set out to return home. A thunder shower in the afternoon but it went round to the south. Reached [home] just at night. June 14: Wrote to William B (?) North, care of Emerson & Fitz, Marquette Square, Boston. The amount of the notes now due is 198 dollars and 60 cents. June 18, Saturday= Went down to Pine River with Mrs. Marsh. Weather very warm. June 19, Sabbath: Preached in the n10rning from Matthew 25:10 "and the door was shut." House filled, and the congregation attentive and solemn. In the p.m. went down to Poysippi and preached from Psalms 50:12, "Thy vows 0 God are upon me."* The Lord make the word a savor of life unto life. I am to preach there again the 3rd Sabbath in July. July 3, Sabbath: Weather very pleasant. Was called up about 2 o'clock in the morning to see Mrs. Scofil (?). She was delivered of a living child about sunrise, and I immediately returned home. Preached in the a.m. from Romans 3 :25, "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation," etc. House well filled and attentive. In the p.m. administered the sacrament to the Pres. [Presbyterian?] Church. Commented upon a few verses in the 22nd chapter of Luke, "With desire I have desired to eat," etc. Remarked upon the duty of Christians training their children for Christ. When they feel as EI'ka-nah and Hannah did or as the parents of John the Baptist did, they will train, not raise their children. An undisciplined child is the last to submit to Jesus Christ. July 2, Saturday: Preparatory to the communion read and remarked upon Phillippians 3. Dwelt principally upon the expression "Not as though I had already attained," etc. July 17: Went down early in the morning to Pine River. Began to rain about 9 o'clock a.m. and continued to rain

*Psalm 56:12, not 50:12 in the King James. 254 until towards noon. Few present in the forenoon. At the close of my discourse made some remarks to the children upon the subject of doing good. "For the redemption of their soul is precious," etc. My subject. In the p.m. "That they should repent and do works meet for repentance," at Poysippi. I am to preach at those places again in four weeks. Third Sabbath in August I am to preach at Pleasant Valley, etc. First Sabbath in August at Pine River again, Second Sabbath at Waupaca. Aug. 7, Sabbath: Preached at Ontario and Poysippi. I am to preach there again in 4 weeks, which will be the first Sabbath in September. Aug. 21: Preached at the Winneconne Settlement and Pleasant Valley also. I am to preach there in 4 weeks again. Aug. 28: Preached at Waupaca and Mombroot [more commonly as Mumbroe] school house at 2 o'clock p.m. 1. am to preach at the same place in four weeks.* Sept, 18: Preached at Winneconne Settlement. About noon a tremendous shower came which· prevented my going to Pleasant Valley. I am to preach here again in 4 weeks. Sept. [date omitted]: Preached in the a.m. at the Falls [Waupaca Falls] and ,in the p.m. down to Mumbroe schoolhouse. Text, Daniel 5:27, "Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting." Sept. 25: I am to preach there again in 4 weeks at Ih past 2 o'clock p.m. Attendance very good and solemn attention paid to preaching. 0 Lord make thy word a savor of life to some there. Oct. 1: Went to Pine River with the expectation of administering the sacrament. But as the notice had not been circulated, it was thought best to defer it until I preach there the next time. Passed the night at Mr. Hawley's. Oct. 2, Sabbath: Weather pleasant. Went up to the Frisby schoolhouse and preached.** Subject: "Thou art weighed in

*Mumbroe School lay about nine miles south of Waupaca on the old Waupaca-Berlin road. It was probably named for William Mumbroe, a farmer-surveyor. **Probably B.F. Frisby who operated a sawmill at Pine River. 255 the balance and found wanting." The house well filled and solemn attention paid to preaching. In the p.m. went down to Poysippi and preached from John 8:31-32. House well filled and very solemn. 0 Lord bless thine own word, and make it the power of God ·unto Salvation. Went up to Mr. Strand's (?) and preached again at 5 o'clock p.m. Proverbs 5:12-~3* "And thou mourn at the last," etc. Yet serious attention was paid to preaching. Passed the night at Mr. Stower's.** Mr. S. from Malone, N.Y., has four children, himself not wholly weaned from ardent spirits. Labored to show him the importance of it. His eldest son also an advocate for its moderate use, as he calls it. (Oct. 3: Very severe frost this morning. Went down and saw Dr. Adams (?) a short time. Returned and went up to Mr. Saxe's to attend to some secular business.*** Oct. 6: Borrowed of Mr. Edwards**** one hundred dollars to be paid again within 60 days, but 50 of it is to be paid within a couple of weeks. Bless the Lord 0 my .soul for his goodness to me this day. I asked for assistance and the Lord graciously heard me and opened the heart of Mr. E to loan the amount, and with it [I] obtained a warranty deed.***** Oct. 23, Sabbath: Preached at the Falls. Also at Mumbroe school house. I am to preach there again in 4 weeks. Made remarks upon a part of 3rd chapter of 1st Peter. Oct. 9, Sabbath: I passed at Berlin. On the 11th preached at Columbus and the next Sabbath, the 16th, was at Berlin again.

*The King James gives this as Proverbs 5: 11. **Probably C.H. Stower, later a clerk of the Waushara County Board.

***No doubt Edwin Saxe, after whom the village of Saxeville is named. It lies to the east of Wild Rose in Waushara County. Saxe, later an officer in the Union Army, was killed in action at Shiloh, 1862. ****Probably W.P. Edwards, listed in the 1857 tax roll of Waupaca. *****The 1857 tax roll of Waupaca village shows that Marsh was paying taxes on two lots, 3 & 4, in Block Q, and 41;4 acres in Section 29 of the town of Waupaca. It is not certain whether the two lot nunlbers or the 256 Oct. 30: Preached at Mr. Hawley's half of the day. The Wesleyan quarterly meeting prevented my preaching at the Frisbie school house. Oct. 31: Attended the funeral of Abner Scovil. Addressed the people from James 4:14, "For what is your life?" (End of this diary).

block are correct. An abstract held by Paul Schultz, 728 Lake Street, suggests that the site of the present Schultz house was where Marsh built and it is generally believed that a part ofthe present house-which has been added to orextensively remodelled three times in the past 100 years-was originally built by Marsh. 257

INDEX

Adams, Aaron, 32 Baker, William, 128, 129, Akman (Eckman), John, 163 133 Allen, Charles H., 185 "Bald Prairie", 194 Allen, James, 55, 211; killed Baldwin, Harriet H., 230 at Shiloh, 107 Baldwin, Horace~ 243 American Fur Company, 20, Bangle, Phillip D., 146 34 Baron, Frank, 163 American Home Mission Barret, Moses, 235n Society, 193, 221, 242, Bartlett, C.L., 225n 252 Barwig, C., 163 American Mechanical Baska, Frank, 163 Dictionary, 47 Button, John, 236n "Amherst Institute", 170 Bean, Elphalet (Lef), 128, Ande~on,Lena,169 133 Ann, Carn, 39 Bean, Enoch, 197n Arbutus and Dandelions, a 'Bender, Frank, 163 novel, 135 Berge, Mrs. Nils B., 172 Arnold, Jonathan, 25 Betker, August and Carl, 163 Astor, John Jacob~ 20 Big Bull Falls, see Wausau "Big Bull Rapids", see Wausau Badzinski, Thomas, 164 Bigler, Blanche E., 169 Baker, Andrew, 163 Bigus, Anton, 163 Baker, Ellen (Mrs. Joseph), Bigus, Frank, 163 119 BiIawa~ Paul, 163 Baker, Elizabeth Jane, 178 Biron, Francis, 33, 199n Baker, Joseph, 100; Bischoff, Joseph, 157, threatened, 106; wams 160-162 Courtwrights, 107;shot, Blashkowski, Matis, 163 109; funeral in Plover Bloomer, Robert, 32, 76, 79 Cemetery, 117 Bloomer, Edward, 32 Baker, Joseph H., 124 "Bloomers & Co.", 30, 31, 259 32; Bloomer & Company, Cameron, William, 233n 37 Cammack, Thomas, quoted, Blumer, John, 163 22 Boe, Dina, 172 Carpenter, Sid, 128, 131 Boe, Elsa, 171 Cate, George, 76, 77, 83, 129 Bombenik, Frank, 163 Cate, Henry, 185 Bonduel, Florimond J., 50, Celmen, Michael, 163 193 Chamberlain, M., 253 Bossard, Alfred, 108, 111 Chandler, A. (for Augustus), Boswell, Charles, 42, 43, 45 226n Boughton, Mrs. Myron, 193, "Charette Rapids", 84 227 Chaurette, see Shaurette Bousier, John, 106 Cherwonka, John, 163, 165 Bowman, Joseph, 39 Childs, Ebenezer, quoted, 11, Boyington, Aby (Abbe), 163 12,13,14 Brand, Steffan, 163 Chippewa (or as Chippeway) Brawley, Abraham, 32, 34, Indians, 30, 40, 89 76,146 Church of Jesus Christ of Brinkmann, John, 88 Latter Day Saints­ Britzen, John, 163 (Mormons), 66 Brixius, Peter, 163 Clarke, John C., 35 Bronk, Agata, 163 Clark, Owen, 127 Bronk, Frank, 163 Clements, D.C., 104- Bronk, Teofil, 163 Cline, William, see Kline Brooks, Oliver, 247 Clinton, A.P., 247n Brothertown Indians, 9 Conants Mill, 29; Conant & Brown, Augustus L., 243 Campbell, 32, 34, 40, 44, Brown, J.A., 163 54,55 "Bull Falls Rock", see Conniff, J., 188 Wausau Cooper, William C., 239n Bunger, Peter, 163 Corey, Joseph, 57 Burant, Adam, 163 Corrigan, J. Jr., 189 Burant, Joseph, 163 Cpelyna, Joseph, 163 Bushman, John, 163 Crocker, Channing, 250 Buttrick, Edwin L., 194 Crock~r, Hans, 39 Crocker, Sylvester, 65 Crooks, Ramsey, 20, 21 Cadotte, Michael, 9 Crowell, George, 16, 20, 29, Cady, Jacob, 240n 36,37,39,42,69 Cameron, David, 111 Courtwright, Amos, 100; 260 partner of Luther Doyle, Martin, 163 Hanchett, 102; occupies Doyle, Michael, 163 Buena Vista farm, 106, Doyle, Peter, 163 107; escape, 112; arrest, Draper, Sayette, ·33 114;lynched, 118; buried, Dreutzer, O.E. 228n or as 120; mentioned in diary, Olaf, 50 127 DuBay Bosil, 95 Courtwright, Isaiah, 100, 106 DuBay, Calista, 97 Courtwright, Marcella, 109, DuBay, Charles, 97 110, 120; children, 120 DuBay, Huron, 98 Courtwright, Rodney, 120 DuBay, John Baptiste, fur Courtwright, Sophia, 102; trader, 20, 21, 34, 35, 80, childhood, 103; 92; stage coach operator, employment, 104; aided, 82; wives, 92; children, 94; 119 historical marker, 92 Courtwright, Walter DuBay, John Louis, 98 (Wallie), 120 DuBay, "Maria LeClaire", Cwilkinski, Joseph, 163 95; children, 95 Cychosh, Jacob, 163 DuBay Trading Post, 35, Cychosh, Martin, 163 201,205,206 Czech, Joseph, 163 Durham, Alfred, 244 Czech, Mathias and Frank, Duwell, Elisha, quoted, 26; 163 letter, 31 Dzwankowski, August, 163

Dale, August, 163 Dalman, Albert, 163 Eckels, John, 115, 116 Dalman, August, 163 Edgerton, Benjamen, 25 Dan, Mrs. Mary B., 230 Ednlinister, W.H., 115, 116 Dayton, Lyman, 230 Edwards, W~P., 256n Dennes, Peter, 32 Eiden, John, Jr., 163 Desnoyers, Francis, 95 Eiden, Peter, 163 Dickey, William, 251n Ellis, A.G., 25, 26, 28, 30, Dietrichson, J.W.C., 34 36,37 Disher, Frank, 163 Else, George, 187 Dolman, Teofil, 163 Donovan, George, 128, 129 Dorr, Stella, 120 Fancher, Mrs. Charles, 170 poty, James Duane, 21 Farnsworth, Willianl, 20211 Downey, Richard, 94 Felch, Hosmer, 184 261 Feltz, Albert, 163, 164 Gilchrist, 'William B., 117 Ferries: 44, 79 Gills Landing, 65 Finch, Jack, 128,130 Gilman, Guy, 129 Firek, Peter, 163 Gilman, Rhoda R., quoted Fleming, WjIliam, 119 89 Flix, John, 163 Glischinski, August, 163 Formella, Emil, 161 Glizinski, William, 160 Formella, John, 161 Glodowski, Michael, 163 Formella, Joseph, 161 Golenbeck, Fred, 163 Fort Crawford, 12 Good Templars, 187 Fort Howard, 12 Goddell, Nathan, 248n Fort Snelling, 69 Gorecki, Adam, 163 Fort Winnebago, 12, 18, 21, Gosh, Math and Frank, 163 25,49,51, 75, 92; error in Goss, Frank William, 216 description, 29, 43 Gostomski, Jospeh, 163 Fort Winnebago Times, 82' Gould, Asa, 111, 116, 130 Foster, C.V., 225n Goytowski, John, 163 Fox, John, 54 "Grand Marsh House", 77 Freeman, Hiram, 228n Grand Rapids Tribune, The Fridach, Joseph, 163 quoted, 122 Frieders, Jacob, 88, 90 Green Bay Advocate, cited, Frisby, B.F., 255n 96 Grignon, Amable II,'birth, 10; trading post, 10, 12, Gagas, Fran·k, 164 13; treaty with Indians, Gagas, Valentin, 163 15,16,17,18,21,25,76; Gallop, Amos, 247n as sawmill owner, 19 Garski, Paul, Teofil alld Grignon, Charles, 15 John, 163 Grignon, Louis, 20 Gasmann, August, 171 Griwacz (?), Math, 163 Gasmann, Charlotte, 168 Grocholski, Joseph, 163 Gas;mann, Hans & Johan, 167 Grosby & Loop mill, 67 Gasmann, Hester, 171 Grossman & Dunlap mill, 67 Gasmann, Minnie, 167, 175 "Grubstakes", 179 Gasmann, Mrs. Gotfred, 173 Gyrion, Earl, 134 "Gateway to the Pinery", 50 Gazette, The, 71 Gerewski, Martin, 163 Haakonson, Emma, 101 Gershewski, August, 163 Hanchett, Luther, 102 Gilbrand, Frank, 163 Hanson, Emma, 174 262 Harris, Charles, 163 James McCall's Journal, 16 Hathaway, Andrew, 37 Jelinski, Joseph, 164 Hathaway, Ann Jeanette, 37 Jesse, Peter, 97 Hathaway, E. 39 Jinny Bull Rapids, see Merrill Hathaway, Jeanette, 37 John Week Lumber Hathaway, John, 37 Company, 48, 50 Hathaway, Joshua: early life, Johnson, Edward F., 169 25; letters, 29, 30, 35, 38; Judson, N.P., 228n map, 27; papers, 16, 32; contract to survey, 25; real estate business, 37; death, Kasobucki, Paul, 163 37 Kaush-kaw-nawe-nia, Hathaway, Mary, 37 (Grizzly Bear), 16 Hathaway, Sarah, 37 Kedeowski, Winzent, 163 Haul, D., 163 Kedrowicz, Andrew, 163 Haut du Wisconsin, 9, 20 Kiedrowski, Anthony, 25, Hawes, F.B., 215n 27n, 28 Hawley, George, 225n Kingston, John T., quoted, Hawley, Spencer, F., 250 19 Hayner, George, 98, 99 Kirsling, Mrs. John (Helen), Hayward, R.S., 214n 160 Melminski, Joseph, 163 Kitowski, Enlil, 1·58 Henca (Hintz ?), John, 163 Kischewski, Nick, 163 Hill, David B., 32 Kisewski, Martin, 163 Hillary, Edmund, 53 Klemen, Nick, 163 Hillstrom, John J., 172 Kline (also as Cline), William, "Hop house", 165 80,212 Hop raising, 185, 186 Klopatek, Frank, 163 Houle, Geo., 32 Kluk, Frank, Michael, Houle, T., 32 August, John and Joseph, Howard, Nate, 115, 116, 117 163 Hubbard, Mrs. Allen, 243n Kluk, Joseph (of Custer), , Hudson's Bay Company, 10 163 Hurlbut, Stephen A., 73 Kniple, Christ and Peter, 163 Kniter, August, 163 Knufel, John, 163 Indian fires, 34 Kobasuiski, Lucian, 163 Indian place names, 210 Koklinski, Paul, 163 ,Irvin, David, 83 Kolinski, Frank, 163 Iveson, David, 170 Kollack, George W., 207n 263 Konopacki, Bernard, 163 Liebe, Frank, 152 Konopachki, John, 163 Liebe, Joseph, 156, 163 Kosik, Thomas, 164 Liebe, John, 163 Kositz, John, 163 Liebe, Mrs. Frank (Martha), Kotlowski, John, 163 interview with, 148-159 Kotlows~,Nficham,163 Little Bull Falls, see Mosinee Kotz, Peter, 163 Lombard, Leonidas, 112, Kozrezkowsn,Nfichaffi, 113, 123;sends letter to 148;family home in the Journal, 114 Poland, 158;children Lombard, Washington, 112 listed, 158 Loop, James, 67 Kranski, August, 163 Lord, Winthrop C., 230 Krizan, Xavier, 163 Lorbiecki, Anton, 163 Kropidlowski, Peter, 163 "Lost child", 193, 227 Krug, Merton E., quoted, Labazki, Stefan, 164 92,94 Lukowicz,Joseph,164 Kuklinski, Stefan, 163 Lumber & Lumbering: Kulas, Albert, 163 description of sawmill, Kurkowski, Joseph, 163 46, 205n; photograph of sawmill, 47; early Lady Elgin, 202n European mills, 47; tools Landowski, Frank, 163 used, 52, 53; wages for Landowski, John, 163 mill hands, 57; rafting of Lan~ade,Charresde,10 lumber, 66; use of "grub­ Larrabee, Charles H., 35, 36, stakes", 179; mills in 39 Wisconsin River valley, Lawe, John, 20 199-205 Lea, Earl, 105,110,116 Lynchers, named by Lea,Je~e,110,114 Sherman, 128-129 Leantt,Charles,l04 Lytle, James, 146 Ledwero~ki,Geo~e,163 Lehman, Thomas, 164 Lent, Ward, 237n McDill~ Thomas and A.S., Lepak, Anton, 163 104 Lepinski, Charles and McGown, Homer; 124 Thomas, 163, 164 McGreer,Hugh,76,200 Lesb~ki,Frank,163 McIndoe, Walter, 42, 68 Lescinski, Adam., 164 McKee, M.S., 170, 173 Le~DSki,Lorance,163 McLarky, Clayton, 76, 79, Lezec~ki,Joseph,163 82,105,136,137 264 McLean, Malcolm, 177 Miller, Silas, 226n McMillin, Peter, 116 Millerites, 240n McMillin, Wm., 116 Miner, Elphalet (also as Elephalit) S., 80, 208, 212~219 Manchester, J.E., 103, 111; Miner, Jesse, 191 portrait, 137 Mitchell, Foster, 236 Mann, Moody, 225il Mitchell, Mathias, 65 "Maple Island", 35 Moe, Enos, 217n Marsh, Cutting Moody, 76; Moen, Ellida, 101 quoted in Wisconsin Moore & Upson, 63, 64, 65, Historical Collection, 191; 66 religious training, 191; Moore, Betsy, 230 missionary to Stockbridge Moore (also as More), James Indians, 191;views on: L., 61, 63, 69, 207 alcohol, 204; on Creation, Moore, N.T., 128, 129 208, 220; on child More (or as Moore), John L., training, 208, 209; on 201,205 Sabbath breaking, 194, Morrison, James H., 201,211 217, 232; portrait, 192 Morrison, John, 128, 131, Marsh, Mrs. Cutting (Eunice), 146 195,230 Morrison, William, 43, 45 Marsh, Sarah Elizabeth, 195, Morton, George, 43, 49, 50, 196 57,66 Martin, Morgan L., 17, 28 Mosinee, 35, 53, 56 Masonic Lodge, 119, 127, Murat, John A., 105 134 Mead, George Sr., -99 "Meadow Stack Island", see Nahkom: The Woman of Wausau Waupaca, a novel, 194n Menard, Father, 9 National Museum of History Menomonee (or as and Technology, 48 Menomonie) Indians, 16, Nelson, Byron George, 172 17,18,23,28,144,192, Nelson, J.J., 173 193; Christian band, 238n Nelson, Mrs. J.J., 171 Merrell, Henry, 62, 199 "New York Indians", 9 Merrell, Samuel, 76, 84 Niles, Hezekiah, 223 Merrill, city of, 204 Nodolini, Frank, 164 Metcalf, Ed, 128, 131 Norlach, Louis, 164 "Military Road", 69 Norton, "Hallie", 127 265 Norwegian Settlement, 34 Michael, 164 Nowak, Anton and Frank, Pettis, Joseph, 128, 133 164 Pewelski, Stanislaus, 164 Pichowski, Math, 164 Piechowski, Joseph, 164 "Obituary poetry", 167 Pilowski, Joseph, 163 Oesterle, Joseph, 151 Pinery", "The, 50 Oka (?), Stefan, 164 "Pinery Road", 68, 75, 77, O'Keefe, Patrick, 186 79,81 "Old Settlers Club", 126 Pinion, John, 88 "Old White·Shcool", 182 Pinkerton, Samuel, 230, Olson, Ingebor, 169 248n Oneida Indians, 9 Pitarski, John, 164 Ostrowski, Casemier, Alex, Platta, Michael, 164 Frank, Peter, Martin and Pliska, John, Anton and Andrew, 164 Felix, 164 Ordway, Moses, 234 Plover Portage Trail, 30, 34, Orrich, John, 118 36 Oshkosh, the Brave, 16, 17, Plover Times, The, 123 92,95,96,99 Plumer, D.L., 35 Owen, Wayne, 102 Pointe Basse, 19, 76; as "Pt. Bausse", 32 Polak, Valentin, 164 Palberg, Josephina, 164 Polchibski, Frank, 164 Park, Gilbert, 119 Pollier, Jacque, 20 Partridge, Alvin and Lucia, Polonia's first settlers, 163- 193 164 Partridge, Caspar, 193 Potawatomi Indians, 87, 144 Paschelka, Joseph, 164 Precourt, Antoine, 106, 130 Pashelka, Martin, 164 "Princess Madeline", 92, 93, Patch, Jacob, 183 94 Patchen, Shubel, 135 Prondjinski, Joseph, 164 "Patrons of Husbandry" Prondizinski, Zavier, 160 (Grang~), 187 Pattee, Alma Jane, see Washburn, Mrs. J.L. Quisla, Nils, 165 Pattee, Joseph Rodney, 176, 177 Pattee, William, 1a1, 187 Rasmussen, Carrie, 174 Peankowski, Bernard and Raymond, James 0., 103, 266 104,105,106,107,134 Sevallia, Joseph, 33 Redfi~d,Ben,120,137 Sevallia, L., 32 Redin, Swewster (Sylvester Seward, E.D., 223 Readillg?), 164 Shaurette, Francis, 34, 45, Reed, Harrison, 241n 84,87 Richardson, Azon, 34 Shaurette, Pete, 34, 45, 84; Richardson, Fred, 108 photo of headstone, 86; Richardson, L.W., 106, 107 children, 85, 88 Rolette, Lurant, 21 "Shaurette Rapids", 54 Ronde, John T., DeLa, cited, "Shaw Rapids", 54 20 Sherman, Simon A., 53, 71, Rood, Anson, 198,211 103; names lynchers, 126­ Rood, Galen, 76 131; as diarist 138-147 Rice, Harry (Harrison), 128, Shepard, Writ., 128, 133 131 Shot Tower, 14 Rood, Katherine, 76, 77, 81 Shumway, John and Charles, Rood, Nancy Jane Sylvester, 210,235 76 Shymenski, Walentin, 164 Rosholt, Jacob & Johanna, Sidmore, Austin, 108 169 Sikorski, Mrs. John, 164 Rosholt, Jens, 174 Simonis, John, 164 Rosholt, Laura, 174 Simonis, Maggie, 174 Rosholt, Malcolm, 194n Single, Benjamin, 42 Rosenkrants, C.E. 225n Single, Rosetta, 42 Rothman, Mrs. Win (Edith), "Six Mile" strip, 35 55~131 Skinner, Harold A., 120 Rozek, Tedodora, 164 Skowund, John, 120 Slagoski ("old man"), August, 164 St. John, A.P., 171 Slingerland, J., 248 Sargent, Charles L., 217 Sliwiz (?), August, 164 Saxe, Edwin, 256n Smith, A.J., 170 Schelbrachkowski, Frank, Smith, Elias, 61 164 Smith, Joseph, 66, 67 Scholfield, William W., 202n Smith, Peter, 164 "School section", 77 "Smoky Hill", 89 Schulist, Martin, 164 Society in Scotland for Scovil, Abner, 257 Propagating Christian Scribner,'William, 111, 130 Knowledge, 191 Selewski, John, 164 Soechka, Frank, 164 267 Soikas, Frank, 164 Stroik, John and Joseph, 164 Specht, Ray, 27n Strong, Nathan, 210n Spiza, Stefan, 164 Strong, Nelson, 32, 76, 79 StalTlbaugh, Samuel C., 15, "Strongs Landing", 210 17 Strope, M. (for Minor), 128, Stark, Maude L., 171 131,139 Stena, John, 164 Studinski, Michael, 164 Stensal, John, 164 Stumpf, John, 119 Stephens Point, see Stevens Suika, John, 164 Point "Summer kitchen", 185 Stevens, George; lumber Suydam, John Voorhees, 18; rafting, 32; dam builder, Suydam Survey, 21, 25~ 35; historical marker~ 40; 28,29,30,31,32 portrait, 41; lumber Swallow, Marie, 93, 94· business, 43; journey to Swan, Thomas, Jr., 236n Almond, NY, 43; Sychosh, Jacob, 164 agreement with Wakeley, Sylvester, Edwin, 213 45; purchases supplies, 46, Sylvester, William, 76, 212n 50; journey through the wilderness, 55-57; family and children, 64, 66, 68, Tascher, Julia M., 135 72 Thayer Collection, 42, 43, "Stevens Landing", see 45,60,67,68 Stevens Point Thayer, Eugene, 42, 45 Stevens, Lucy (Corey), 68 Thayer, Lyman, 42 Stevens, Pamelia, 67 Thomashewski, Paul, 164 Stevens Point, 40, 41, 51, 53, "Tooth River" (Mill Creek), 65 34 Stevens Point Journal, Thompson, Anna H., 169 quoted, 105-106, 123 rhompson, Edgar M., 119 Stockbridge Indians, 9, 12, Thorson, P.S., 172 22; mission at Treaties: Cedar Point, 23, 25; Stockbridge, 191-195; permit to Daniel Whitney,

208n 14t 15,18;grantto Stolz (of Pike Lake), 164 Amable Grignon, 15, 16, Stow, Hiram, 66 17, 18, 21, 25; Stower, C.H., 256n Menomonee cession, 30, Stoy, Mary N., 170 142 Stringham, Henry, 37 Treczinski, Andrew, 164 Stroik, Frank, 164 Treder, Joseph, 164 268 Triba, Mathias, 164 Waupaca Spirit, 196 Trudell, Leander, 55 Wausau, 26, 32, 35, 40, 42, Turinski, John, 164 48,49,56,57,62,66,197 Turner, Frederick Jackson, Wausau Central Wisconsin, 113 quoted 122 Tuskowski, Loranc, 164 Wausau Historical Society, Tveitan, Knut Erickson, 34 42 Twiggs, Major David H., 12, Wausau Pilot, 42; quoted, 13 122 Webster, Fred E., 170 Week, Andrew, 50 Upson, Norman, 69 Week, Nelson, 48, 88 Urline, Adam, 147, 201n Weisberg, Frank, 164 Welton, Wm., 128, 131 Wendorff, Henry, John, Vachon, William R., 27n Fred, 164 Van den Broek, Theodore, Wenserski, Mary, 164 65,94,95 Wentworth, Bayard, 167 Vosburg, Jeremiah, 227n Wentworth, L. (for Louis), E., 171 Weranka, Nick, 164 Wallace, Alex, 80, 102, 108, Werowinski, John, 164 111,124,136 Wheelock, Calvin, 129, 134 Wakeley, Robert, 20, 32; Wheelock, Frank, 117 tavern, 32, 33, 39, 43, 54, Whitcomb, James B., 29 55, 65, 68; as lumberman, Whitney, Daniel: as trader, 44, 200; as freight hauler, 10; shingle maker, 11; shot 51; as visitor to Portage, tower builder, 14; treaty 82; characterized, 83; maker, 14, 15, 18; portrait, 178 . lumberman, 23, 75, Ward, Edward, 128, 134 portrait, 11 Ward, J.N., 201n "Willow Island", 35, see Walsworth, Jared, 77 Wausau Wanta, Albert, Bazel, Jacob, Wilmot, Geo., 128, 133 John and Joseph Jr., 164 Winnebago Indians, 12, 21; Ward, Henry, 108 at Smoky Hill, 89, 90 Ware, Samuel, 225 "Winnebago Portage", see Warren, Andrew, Jr., 206 Fort Winnebago Washburn, Mrs. J.L., 176- Wirosmielski, Alberg, 164 190 Wirshba, Vincent, 164 269 Wisconsin Pinery, The, 197 Yagla, John, 136 Woodward, Stephan, 67 Yenter, August, 164 Woyak, Anton and Jospeh, 164 Wright, George F., 240 Zelneski, John, Joseph and Wright, Miss Laura, 240 Walentin, 164 Wroblewski, August, 164 Zigler, L.e., 98, 99 Wyatt, Jonathon, 147 Zinda, Jocob and John, 164 Wysocki, Mathias, 164 Zira, John, 164 Zywicki, John and Stefan, Yach, Thomas, 164 164

270 Other books from ROSHOLT HOUSE

A PHOTO ALBUM OF THE PAST, Pioneer Scenes and Portraits From Central Wisconsin, Volume I, by Malcolm & Margaret Rosholt, (1976), 208 pages, hardcover, $14.95. (Award of Merit winner from State Historical Society of Wisconsin.)

A PHOTO ALBUM OF THE PAST, Pioneer Scenes and Portraits From Central Wisconsin, Volume II, by Malcolm & Margaret Rosholt. (1977), 192 pages, hardcover, $14.95.

A PHOTO ALBUM OF MARATHON COUNTY, a pictorial record of the largest county ,in Wisconsin, by Malcolm Rosholt, (1978), 192 pages, hardcover, $14.95.

DAYS OF THE CHING PAO, a photographic history of the Flying Tigers-14th Air Force in China in World War II, by Malcolm Rosholt, (1978), 192 pages, hardcover, $15.95.

DOG SUGAR EIGHT, a novel of combat intelligence teams behind the enemy lines in China in World War II, by Malcolm Rosholt, (1977), 216 pages, hardcover, $6.95.

NAHKOM: THE WOMAN OF WAUPACA, a novel based on an incident in the early history of Waupaca County in which an Indian boy is kidnapped by the white man, by Malcolm Rosholt, (1974), 255 pages, paperback, $2.50. 271 THE BATTLE OF CAMERON DAM, the first complete study ever made of the struggle between a small farmer and the big lumber companies at the turn of the twentieth century, by Malcolm Rosholt. One reader calls it a "masterpiece," a tale told on the last frontier of Wisconsin. (1974), 168 pages, paperback, $3.00.

FLORIMOND J. BONDUEL, the biography of one of the first Catholic missionaries in Wisconsin, and the first to celebrate mass in Milwaukee in 1837, by Malcolm Rosholt and John B. Gehl, (1976), 238 pages, hardcover, $4.95.

Box 104

Rosholt 9 WI 54473

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