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Gc 977.501 W27qu v.1 1132569
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 00828 6343
M. L.
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
C)XXX
182 32 50
Washington County
Wisconsin
Past and Present
CARL QUICKERT EDITOR
VOLUME 1
ILLUSTRATED
CHICAGO THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1912
32.50 (2vols)
1
Sender.
1132569
As a circle of one inch in diameter and one of forty million miles in diameter have exactly the same geometrical qualities, so the hap- penings and the history of a village and those of an empire are essen- tially the same, and one can study and become acquainted with human- ity in the one as well as in the other .- Schopenhauer.
FOREWORD
"About five years ago I published a little German volume of sketches, mostly of a historical nature, on Washington county, Wis- consin, titled 'Gedenkblätter zur Besiedelung von Washington County, Wisconsin.' The work found a most hearty welcome among the foremost German scholars of the state. It was much more than I dared to expect for a book that had but a casual origin. The work at the time was pointed to as a model for other counties to follow. The collection of sketches first appeared as a serial article in the 'Beobachter,' a weekly paper published at West Bend, Wis., the pro- prietors of which ventured to publish the book. The present work is essentially a translation of that book into English, done by me. Several chapters have been enlarged, others rearranged, or brought up to date, one is entirely new, while other things, especially the poetry of the first edition, have been omitted, for I was content to write a readable English prose. It was the desire to make the work available to English readers, that prompted me to translate it. History is likened to memory. A people who do not know their own history are like a man who has lost his memory. This should hold good also with reference to county history. The material of the sketches has been collected during the fourteen years in which I have held a Ger- man editorship in the county. It came from many sources, from old chronicles, old newspaper files, bulletins published by the state and the federal government, speeches on olden times, which I have listened to, recollections of old settlers with whom I became acquainted, and my own observations during all these years. If the reader will con- sider that the book was written in the few weary leisure hours that the wrestle with the fate of German newspaperdom in this country left, he will perhaps look kindly on the shortcomings of the work."
The foregoing foreword I had written for a historical work on Washington county, Wis., the publication of which was just under consideration, when a representative of the S. J. Clarke Publishing Company of Chicago appeared in our office, looking for somebody to
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FOREWORD
write a county history. Upon looking through my manuscript and conferring with some representative local men, he engaged me as the editor of the first volume of "Washington County, Wis., Past and Present." To the original fourteen chapters fifteen more were added to make the work more comprehensive and in accordance with the new title. Much of what has been said of the original work also applies to the additions. I am indebted to many people for furnishing me with the necessary data, or helping me in the researches. All of them I wish, at this juncture, to thank most heartily.
CARL QUICKERT.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
THE GENESIS OF THE SOIL I
CHAPTER II
THE ABORIGINES
7
CHAPTER III
A JAUNT TO THE MOUNDS
13
CHAPTER IV
THE INDIANS.
17
CHAPTER V
THE FIRST WHITE MAN
21
CHAPTER VI
THE VANGUARD OF THE PIONEERS
.
. 25
CHAPTER VII
FOUNDERS OF "BURGS"
39
CHAPTER VIII
THE FIGHT FOR THE COUNTY SEAT
51
CHAPTER IX
SOME INCIDENTS OF PIONEER LIFE.
53
CHAPTER X
THE LEGEND OF HOLY HILL
59
vii
viii
CONTENTS CHAPTER XI
THE YANKEE ELEMENT 63
CHAPTER XII
EPISODES
69
CHAPTER XIII
THE GERMAN ELEMENT
79
CHAPTER XIV
THE "LATIN SETTLEMENT" 87
. .
CHAPTER XV
CLOUDS WITH SILVER LININGS
91
CHAPTER XVI
FRAGMENTS OF A CHRONIQUE OF 1860
97
CHAPTER XVII
THE WAR PERIOD
.109
CHAPTER XVIII
THE COUNTY TODAY
127
CHAPTER XIX
HUSBANDRY
. 135
CHAPTER XX
IN ROMANTIC TERRITORY
. 145
CHAPTER XXI
THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
.151
CHAPTER XXII
ORGANIZATIONS
.159
CHAPTER XXIII
THE LAKES BEAUTIFUL
I71
ix
CONTENTS CHAPTER XXIV
THE HALL OF FAME
. . . . . . . 179
CHAPTER XXV
THE CHURCHES
. . . . . . . . 197
CHAPTER XXVI
POLITICS AND CIVICS
.217
CHAPTER XXVII
THE CHIEF INDUSTRIES
. 227
CHAPTER XXVIII
STATISTICS
.237
1
CHAPTER XXIX
THE PRESS 241
EPILOGUE
247
APPENDIX
249
.
.
CARL QUICKERT
History of Washington County
CHAPTER I
THE GENESIS OF THE SOIL
The surface of those four hundred thirty-two square miles of Wisconsin, which subsequently were named Washington county, was for the most part shaped under the influence of a prehistoric glacial period, when almost the entire area of the state lay buried under sheets of ice. Like gigantic icy tongues they stretched from Canada south to the Ohio and Missouri rivers. One of these tongues, or lobes, filled the basin of Lake Michigan and is known as the Michigan Glacier; another one, the Green Bay Glacier, moved along through the valley the middle of which lies between Green Bay and Lake Winnebago. For a stretch of about one hundred fifty miles the rims of these two glaciers either touched each other, or they were separ- ated by the accumulations of the moraine. As it is with all glaciers, the ice slowly moved from the center toward the borders. Imbedded in the ice, a mass of stones, from the size of a pebble to that of im- mense boulders, were dragged along and deposited at the edges of the sheets.
The chains of hills which traverse the county from the north-north- east to the south-southwest are made up of débris dumped there from the edges of the glaciers. Here the Michigan and Green Bay glaciers met. These ranges of hills are called kettle moraines, because they were piled up as though in huge caldrons, the sides of which consisted of walls of ice one hundred and more feet high. The continuous melting of the ice at the rims of both glaciers produced an enormous amount of water which could be drained only through the kettle. Thus the débris was piled up, creating the ranges of hills running nearly parallel and consisting of gravel. Each range indicates the po- sition of the glacier's edge at the time, which would advance or retreat
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
according to the prevailing climatic conditions. A cross section through the elevations of this area would show from three to five ranges of hills which occasionally unite in acute angles.
A most impressive view of the kettle moraine is gained from the hill half a mile west of the depot at Schleisingerville. Looking toward east, the village is relieved against a background so abrupt and distorted as to appear like a pile of hills dumped one upon another. To the west, over one hundred feet below the spectator, extends the slightly rolling ground moraine which was formed below the ice of the Green Bay glacier. Between the kettle moraine in the east and the ground moraine in the west lies a strip of low lands several miles broad, partly swampy and occasionally interrupted by groups of hills which are also the work of the receding glaciers. The ranges and hills rise from one hundred to several hundred feet above the plain at their bases.
The valleys between the chains of hills indicate the drainage lines of the water from the glaciers. As a valley could drain the water only as long as the ice stood on one or both sides dumping débris into it, it cannot be expected that these valleys look like well developed river beds. The last of the drainage lines on the side of the Green Bay glacier was the low land at the western foot of the moraine, as mentioned above. It includes the trough of Pike lake. On the side of the Michigan glacier, at the eastern foot of the moraine, the Silver creek and the lakes and swamps through which it flows mark in part the last drainage line of that sheet of ice. Like the lowlands to the west, those east of the ranges are dotted with more or less isolated hills; occasionally they appear as islands in the marshes. A well developed area of such hills is found between Little Cedar lake and Silver lake; tongue-like it extends from the high ridge of the moraine toward southeast. East of the Silver creek the plain at places shows deep depressions, shaped like kettles, which give quite a romantic touch to the country. These kettles are especially con- spicuous on the east side of Silver lake. There gigantic blocks of ice broke away from the receding glacier, which were imbedded in sand and gravel. When the ice was at last melted, the kettles remained. The process may have lasted hundreds of years, perhaps longer.
In this way the climax of scenic beauty in the county was created : Big Cedar lake. The accidental inclosure between morainic ridges, and the partial filling of the trough with immense chunks of ice, are, according to Prof. N. M. Fenneman who has made a thorough geo- logical investigation of these parts, factors which in the genesis of the
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
lake can be traced with certainty. Its rocky bottom lies buried too deeply below the drift to gain satisfactory knowledge of pre-glacial soil conditions. At Hartford, six miles southwest, the paleozoic lime- stone is found near the surface of the ground, and on both shores of Little Cedar lake, about a mile east of Big Cedar, the same rock is found only ten feet below the surface of the water, or about thirty feet below the surface of Big Cedar. The rocky stratum below the latter lake therefore lies much deeper than at its sides. Consequently, there existed a pre-glacial depression which, however, did not cause the trough of the lake, but only resulted in its greater depth. The deepest place in this lake measures 105 feet. The origin of Little Cedar lake and the other lakes of the vicinity is traced back to the same immense forces of nature. They are all fed by subterraneous springs which, it is believed, in part originate from residual ice de- posits buried deeply in the morainic accumulations.
The shores of these lakes, consisting of such loose material as cobble-stones, gravel and sand, necessarily underwent many changes since their origin, and these will continue in the unbroken chain of cause and effect. This may be demonstrated on a peninsula of Big Cedar lake, Linden Point. The peninsula at one time was an island that rose 35 feet above water. Its base unmistakably shows traces of cuts made by waves. Those on the west side originated in a period when the currents from the south flowed uninterruptedly througlı the channel between the island and the mainland, which was over one-eight of a mile wide. In the course of shore construction the currents from the north and the south were compelled to use the larger channel on the east side of the island, and the comparatively quiet water in the rear of it received the material which the currents dragged along from the island and the steep shores to the south. From the mainland and the island tongues of land, or spits, ex- tended which finally united, finishing in a miniature isthmus. This in a prettily swung curve has adapted itself to the currents of the shore to the south. The stagnant water to the north is filled with bulrushes and weeds-the vanguard which in the natural course of things at some future time will be followed by the mainland.
The water which since the solidification of the surface of our planet, the fiery sun-born child Gaea, played such an important part and caused the "coat of mold" on which we living creatures scamper around continues to work out its task assigned by the Supreme Will. It works on big and little scales. Slowly but untiringly it tears down what it had once built up-to use the units for something new.
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
But how could this terrific glacial period come over the country, which nevertheless fathered the most charming landscapes of the county? Eduard Hinze in his "Schöpfung der Erde" offers the fol- lowing explanation :
"The first attempts at an explanation reached back to astronomical causes. It was held that the sun at a very remote period radiated less heat, and consequently our latitudes had an arctic climate. This ex- planation is correct, however it needs a hypothesis: the diminishing heat of the sun. Then they believed to have found the cause of the glacial period in the fact that within a period of 21,000 years one-half of the globe receives a little more warmth and light than the other; but this hypothesis, too, was not regarded as sufficient cause by sci- entists. The famous geologist Lyell, on the contrary, endeavored to show that solely in our geographical conditions the cause of the former extent of the ice is to be found. The influence of the distribution of water and land, according to him, causes the climatic changes even to the complete glaciation. He especially pointed to the effects of the ocean currents. Penk called attention to the fact that the predom- inating system of winds, especially the so-called region of calms, is shifting. With it the trade-winds will wander, and with these again the ocean currents. On that half of the globe which carries the region of calms, the trade-winds are blowing, according to Penk, and with these the tepid waters from the other half flow in, and the higher the latitudes are in which the zone of the calms lies, the stronger will be the overflow of warm waters. That half of the globe which has the longest summers and consequently (as is accepted) carries the zone of the calms, receives through the ocean currents a part of that warmth which the sun had originally meted out to the other half. Its seas are warmed, while those of the latter give off heat. The cooler hemis- phere then has a cold ocean climate which greatly favors snow and the formation of glaciers. These, if once started, will bring the cold down from higher regions into lower ones, and, as Penk puts it, let temperate climes share of the cold which other regions produced. With the spreading of glaciers the temperature is considerably shifted, and in the vicinity of big masses of ice a change of the climate condi- tions must necessarily take place. For a considerable deployment of glaciers, for the inauguration of a true glacial period, not such a se- vere cold is, after all, needed as one is inclined to think. Continuous, severe winters, without the changes of freezing and thawing, will not allow the formation of glaciers, while cool, rainy summers will favor it."
MORAINIC HILLS-SOME ALMOST AS THE GLACIERS LEFT THEM, SILVER BROOK FARM NEAR WEST BEND
L
L
BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF SCHLEISINGERVILLE
5
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
Washington county in that remote period wore a mail of ice like parts of Alaska, or Greenland, do at the present time. Simultaneously -geology calls the age the diluvium-Europe and Asia had their glacial times.
Since Milwaukee and Chicago grew to be great cities, Big Cedar lake is one of the many Wisconsin lakes favored by that lucky part of their population who can afford to spend part or all of the summer in the country. Quite a number of hotels, splendid summer homes, as well as modest cottages rose on its shores, where the jaded city- dwellers seek and find recreation at the bosom of Nature, in sweet, pure, and invigorating air, and among charming scenery. The smaller lakes in the neighborhood with their peculiar, coy, primeval beauty share this favor. They are sought by those who want real rest, or exercise like swimming, rowing and walking in the most healthful surroundings, or who would be all themselves for a spell. The summer guests, steady or transient, leave quite a little money in the county.
CHAPTER II
THE ABORIGINES
After the disappearance of the glaciers and the return of a milder clime it must have taken a vast amount of time before the bleak gravel hills and valleys and the plains of sand and clay could sustain plant life, and clothe themselves with a luxuriant vegetation. It must have taken longer for animal life to appear and find sustenance. And it still was in prehistoric times when the first man set his foot on these regions.
Before the dawn of history, ere the Indian regarded North America as his hunting grounds, a people lived here whom posterity gave the name of "Moundbuilders." They did not leave any written docu- ments, or signs carved in stone, and so they were called after the mounds or hillocks which they are supposed to have thrown up, and which are of various shape, including contours of animals, and even of man. The existence of this people is to a great extent mythical. Where did they come from? What became of them? Nobody knows. The strange earthworks alone tell us of their whilom presence, and they speak an extremely curt language.
The mounds which are ascribed to the Moundbuilders are found- a peculiar fact-almost exclusively in the state of Wisconsin, com- paratively few, however, in Washington county. Mounds, it is true, the first settlers found in goodly numbers, and many an old farmer will remember how he plowed them down to get them out of the way. But they were most likely of a later date, they had not the outlines of animals, but were mostly rectangular, or rounded, and served as burial places for the Indians, as the quite well preserved skeletons found in them seem to prove. In this class also belong the Indian cornfields which were found plentifully in the county, and which were laid out on artificially banked-up ground. Although since their aban- donment woods had grown on them, the first settlers could very well discern the rows with their little hills and furrows. Many of these queer earthworks have been preserved up to modern times, as in the towns of Erin, Farmington, and West Bend.
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
Because animal mounds were found nowhere in the county, the town of Farmington alone excepted, it is not believed that the Moundbuild- ers lived here in large numbers. It was different in the neighboring counties of Milwaukee and Waukesha, where near the mouth of the Milwaukee river and on the banks of the Rock river numerous of their specific mounds or tumuli were found, and where they must have lived in large numbers. But there can be no doubt about their hav- ing very diligently pursued the hunting and fishing chances in the western part of the county as far as Big Cedar lake, and still farther east to Silver lake. In this vicinity have been found, and are still plowed out of the ground, numerous objects wherewith they dexter- ously took the game of the air, the ground and the water. They con- sist of arrowheads, fish spears, lances, knives, axes with holes for the handle, chisels and needles primitively made of metal, mostly copper, also pottery for cooking purposes made of burned clay and adorned with something like the unmistakable beginning of a regular design. The workmanship of all these things proves that the skill of these artisans was far superior to that of the Indians. It was pre- sumed that the Moundbuilders got the copper, out of which they made these things from the vicinity of Lake Superior, on the southern shore of which traces of prehistoric copper mining, shafts with lad- ders and galleries, have been found. But if it is considered that up to this day lumps of native copper weighing from a few ounces up to many pounds are found in the diluvial soil, which the glaciers had together with the rocks torn off and on their backs toted down from the north, it may be allowed to assert with some claim as to plausibility that these half-fabulous natives, as far as they lived or hunted in this vicinity, simply stooped down to pick up the reddish metal when they unearthed it while building their mounds, to shape it for their pur- poses.
Attention may here be called to the remarkable fact that in North America the stone age succeeded the copper age, and that the culture of the first epoch, however crude it was, experienced a vast retro- gression in the second, while in Europe just the reverse took place, i. e. the bronze age followed the stone age.
The only earthworks of considerable extent in the county, which with a fair degree of certainty can be traced back to the Mound- builders, are found in the town of Farmington. The mounds are con- structed of sand, of which the upper stratum of the soil in that town for the most part consists. They are piled up to a stupendous extent without a corresponding cavity in the ground from which we would
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
expect the masses of sand to have been taken. Their height varies from one and a half to five feet, some with undiscernible shapes are even higher, and all most likely were higher at the outset of their ex- istence because the wind must have blown away a good deal of the sand. On one farm are two tumuli which have the outlines of men. One is 180 feet long, and the other 200 feet, and their height is about five feet. Head, rump, arms and legs are easily discernible, while the distance between the finger tips of the outstretched arms of one of the figures measures about 100 feet. On the same farm a mound is to be seen which has the contours of an immense lizard.
When the Indians living in that vicinity were asked whether they were the originators of those earthworks, they shook their heads. They knew nothing of them except that they always had been there -it was the same answer Chidher the Eternal Youth received when he visited a certain spot on earth once every 500 years to see the changes it had gone through, a legend put into verse by that wistful German poet, Friedrich Rueckert.
A burial place of veritable giants was found years ago on a farm close to these strange earthworks. Some farmers were loading gravel to build a road with, when in a layer of sand they found a mass of human bones. They were struck with their size and put a skeleton together which measured eight feet from the top of the skull to the bottom of the heel bone. Alive, the owner of the bones must have been a regular giant. The skull was well preserved, and in the jaws stuck teeth that measured one inch in length. It did not have the pro- truding cheek bones of the Indian skull, and therefore pointed to a different race of men. Soon after their contact with the air, the bones were reduced to dust which would warrant their great age; the skull alone did not crumble.
From the same grave which was only a few feet away from a dwelling house-a circumstance which caused a mild shudder in the farmer's family-about six bushel baskets full of human bones were gathered. They lay under only four feet of sand, but most likely the wind had blown away part of the cover. In two places the sand above the bones had hard, rusty brown veins which like rays branched off toward the surface-the petrified results of decomposition. Most likely this too was a grave of aborigines. What had happened here in prehistoric times? Had it been something terrible, or did these men die in a peaceful way?
Often farmers and other people who more or less may lay claim to the title of archeologists have tried to examine the animal or picture
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
mounds. But all they found after they had bored or shoveled to the level of the surrounding soil was a thin layer of charred matter, a proof that something had been burned. Below that they came upon gravel which forms the sub-stratum of the sand. Who were the Mound builders? Will the question ever be answered ?
Not only is the origin of the Moundbuilders but also that of the Indians shrouded in a veil of mystery. Human remains found in Europe, as in the Leander valley, prove that man existed long before historical times. In America, too, parts of human skeletons and ex- amples of handicraft have been found together with bones of extinct mammalia. For example in Quadaloupe, near Natchez in Missouri, in New Orleans, in the coral reefs of Florida, in Kansas, etc. In Florida the eminent scientist Agassiz found human bones the age of which he estimated to be 10,000 years. Dr. Dowler found some buried beneath four sunken forests in the delta of the Mississippi near New Orleans, and believes to be right in judging their age to be 50,000 years. Human bones have also been discovered in the pliocene forma- tion of California.
In the valleys of the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the Missouri rivers the settlers met with extensive earthworks, some reminding of sim- ilar ones in Mesopotamia, and others of the amphitheaters of the Romans and Greeks. In Mexico they attain the form of pyramids with four sides and steps leading to the flat top on which stands a temple or Teocalli. Europe received its first knowledge of these monu- ments through the great explorer and scientist Alexander von Hum- boldt. There also exist smaller tumuli which most likely served as tombs. These earthworks are from 1,000 to 2,000 feet square and from 60 to 90 feet high. They are not unlike the giant tumulus of Alyattes near Sardes. There is one in the state of Mississippi, which is said to cover a ground space of six acres. The earthworks found in the vicinity of the Mississippi river probably served as ramparts for defensive purposes. They are from 6 to 30 feet high and enclose spaces from 100 to 600 acres; their shape is either circular, or square, or rectangular. R. C. Taylor presumes that the animal mounds of Wisconsin are monuments for the dead.
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