USA > Wisconsin > Columbia County > A history of Columbia County, Wisconsin : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests > Part 24
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This chapter was organized in 1898, its charter having been granted on December 14th of that year. To Mrs. A. C. Flanders, who became a member of the National Society January 3, 1897, is largely due the credit for its existence. Early in 1898 Mesdames E. H. Van Ostrand, W. M. Edwards, S. A. Holden and C. W. Latimer also became members of the national organization, and, reinforced by this able corps of assist- ants, the necessary twelve were soon secured and the local chapter organi- zation completed in December, 1898. The twelve charter members were: Mesdames A. C. Flanders, E. H. Van Ostrand, W. M. Edwards, S. A. Holden, Clark Latimer, C. M. Bodine, James Gowran, R. O. Spear, M. T. Alverson, S. H. Low, and Misses Minnie Decker and Fannie Waldo.
The first officers were: Regent, Mrs. Flanders; vice regent, Mrs.
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Van Ostrand; registrar, Mrs. Edwards; recording secretary, Mrs. Holden ; treasurer, Mrs. Latimer; historian, Mrs. Bodine; corresponding secretary, Mrs. Alverson.
The principal work of the chapter has consisted in the marking of historic points in and about Portage, the most pretentious effort being the placing of a granite monument, with appropriate ceremonies, to mark the place where Father Marquette and Joliet launched their boats in the Wisconsin River after crossing the Portage on their historie trip in 1673.
To stimulate an interest in the study of history, both national and local, prizes have been given to the pupils of the schools for proficiency in United States history and for essays on local history.
The custodianship of historic Old Fort Winnebago Cemetery has been committed to Wau-Bun Chapter by the National Government, and the ladies hope to make the spot a beautiful and worthy memorial to the pioneers and soldiers who lie buried here, among whom is a Revolution- ary soldier, Cooper Pixley, whose memory the "daughters" delight to honor on each recurring Memorial Day.
The present membership of the chapter is sixty-five, about half the number being non-resident members.
The present officers are: Regent, Mrs. Chester W. Smith; vice regent, Mrs. E. S. Purdy ; recording secretary, Mrs. S. A. Holden ; corre- sponding secretary, Mrs. H. J. Puffer ; treasurer, Mrs. T. J. Hettinger : registrar, Mrs. Clark Latimer; historian, Mrs. D. A. Hillyer; chaplain, Mrs. M. T. Alverson; custodian, Mrs. J. E. Jones.
KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS AND FORESTERS
The Knights of Columbus, and Foresters, have strong organizations in Portage. The former, Portage Council No. 1637, was organized May 12, 1912, and has a membership of 112. William O. Kelm is G. K .; Herbert J. Slowey, D. G. K .; John J. O'Keefe, C .; Henry W. Williams, W .; Joseph Buckley, F. S .; Frank C. Kenney, R .; Louis Yanko, O. G .; Thomas Devine, I. G .; Joseph Gabriels, lecturer ; Arthur R. Tobin, advo- cate. Although the name of T. F. Curry does not appear officially, he is accorded full credit as being one of the founders of the K. of C. in Portage.
S. B. Ernsperger is C. R. of the Foresters; James McMahon, P. C. R .; F. G. Klenert, V. C. R .; L. F. Yanko, R. S .: Joseph J. Rubin, F. S .; Joseph Dalton, T .; W. O. Kelm, speaker.
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LODGES OF RAILROAD EMPLOYES
Railroad employes have several well organized lodges or unions, the engineers, firemen and trainmen being all represented. Perhaps the strongest of these bodies is Portage Lodge No. 767, B. of L. E. & F., which was organized by Dr. W. B. Corey, general medical examiner, in March, 1909. Of this, P. J. Mulcahy is president; H. J. Arn, vice president; E. W. Smith, F. S .; D. T. G. Mulcahy, R. S .; Frank Is- berner, T.
PORTAGE LIEDERKRANZ
Notice is due several organizations which are neither secret nor benevolent. The oldest of these is the Portage Liederkranz, primarily a German music society, which has projected several enterprises of another nature. The society was organized December 31, 1856, with Robert Gropius, president ; Charles Diedrich, secretary ; Charles Moll, treasurer ; John B. Bassi, conductor. In 1864 the Liederkranz purchased two lots on Conant Street, moved thereon a building, employed a German teacher and opened a select school. This enterprise not proving success- ful, in 1872 the building was sold to the city for an engine house. Thereafter the society confined its activities quite closely to social and musical matters, its annual balls being for many years marked events in German circles. Its regular membership is now about thirty-five, with the following officers; J. Schnell, president; L. Rotter, vice president; John Diehl, treasurer; Rudolph Schroeder, secretary.
.THE NATIONAL VERBAND
In 1913 the German-Americans of Portage organized a local society of the National "Verband," whose objects are both patriotic and in furtherance of the interests of that element which wields so much good and sturdy influence in the community. Though so young, it has already reached a membership of more than one hundred. Alois Zienert is president; John Diehl, vice president ; Ludwig Baerwolf, treasurer; and J. Schnell, secretary.
COUNTRY CLUB OF PORTAGE
The Country Club of Portage, which has about sixty members, was organized in 1906, and has forty acres of land on the north shores of Vol. I-15
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Swan Lake. The property includes a hotel, five neat cottages, a com- mon dining-room and kitchen, and provision for fishing, bathing, golf, tennis, baseball, and everything providing for out-of-door amusement and invigoration. The presidents of the club have been T. H. Cochrane, F. E. Bronson and J. H. Rogers.
THE Y. M. C. A.
The Y. M. C. A. has an organization in Portage which is doing a good work. It opened a large room in the center of the business district, in 1909, and supplies the public with reading matter, games and facilities for exercising and bathing.
CHAPTER XV
COLUMBUS CITY
FIRST SETTLER-WAYNE B. DYER DESCRIBES THE VILLAGE-DRAKE SUC- CEEDS DICKASON-FIRST LAWYER AND FIRST DOCTOR OFFICE TOGETHER -JAMES T. LEWIS-POSTMASTER WHITNEY AND "OLD HYSON"-LUD- INGTON PLAT AND ADDITION-FIRST HOTEL, STORE AND SCHOOL-MILL PROPERTY PASSES TO J. S. MANNING-COLUMBUS BECOMES A VILLAGE -INCORPORATED AS A CITY-CITY DEPARTMENTS AND ACTIVITIES- ELECTRIC LIGHT AND WATERWORKS-FIRE DEPARTMENT-FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY-THE SCHOOL SYSTEM-HISTORY OF THE SCHOOLS- PRESENT GRADED SYSTEM ESTABLISHED-WILLIAM C. LEITSCH-CON- GREGATIONAL CHURCH OF COLUMBUS-GERMAN LUTHERAN CHURCH- GERMAN METHODISTS-ENGLISH METHODISTS-THE CATHOLIC CHURCH -LEADING LODGES-FIRST COLUMBUS BANKS-FIRST NATIONAL BANK -FARMERS AND MERCHANTS UNION BANK-EARLY BREWERS-THE KURTH COMPANY-COLUMBUS CANNING COMPANY.
Columbus, the second city in size, importance and influence in Colum- bia County, is located in the extreme southeastern corner of its territory. To visitors it presents a clean, brisk, substantial appearance, with its well- paved streets, its attractive city hall, County Training School and other modern buildings, and its handsome residences surrounded by spacious grounds. The residents of Columbus have spirit and perseverance, believe in their city and are "boomers" in the good sense. The general result, it will be admitted by both strangers and townsmen, is to give the impression that Columbus is more populous than it really is. It is unusually metropolitan for its size.
FIRST SETTLER AT COLUMBUS
The first settler to locate within the present municipal limits of Columbus was Elbert Dickason. In 1839, he came as the owner of a considerable tract of land on the west side of the Crawfish River, which
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he had purchased from Lewis Ludington, one of that great family of lumbermen whose tracks are found in so many sections of Wisconsin and Michigan.
LEWIS LUDINGTON BECOMES OWNER OF THE TOWN
Erecting a log cabin on his land not far from the present site of the St. Paul Railroad depot, Major Dickason commenced to dam the Crawfish and build a sawmill. He evidently came to stay, for he brought with him a herd of cattle, a number of horses and a few wagons, with men to assist him in his work. But his first winter at the site of Columbus was so severe that most of his live stock died, his stock of food reached starva- tion dimensions, most of his help left him and he was solidly "down on his luck." This seemed to be the beginning of misfortunes which attended him during the succeeding four years. He finished the sawmill, and got it in operation, but he was unable to meet his payments on the land which he had purchased on time from Mr. Ludington and, like many another pioneer worker, passed over the fruits of his labors to a "watchful waiter." It is said that the major received $200 in cash from Mr. Lud- ington for all his rights in the property upon which he had spent nearly ten thousand dollars, and then departed for his new location at Duck Creek, now Wyocena.
WAYNE B. DYER DESCRIBES THE "VILLAGE"
Wayne B. Dyer, afterward of Durand, Pepin County, Wisconsin, came to Wisconsin from the East in the month of August, 1843. When he passed over the present site of Columbus, the log cabin of Major Dickason on the Crawfish and that of Hiram Allen, not far from the mill, constituted the entire Village of Columbus. Mr. Dyer relates an incident in the experience of Dickason which illustrates the trials he bore so patiently. Once the major got out of hay and was compelled to drive his cattle to a point near Beaver Dam, and chop down elm and basswood trees for them to browse upon. This operation was called "grubbing it," and what is now known as Beaver Dam was than called Grubbville.
In that same spring of 1843, the deer lay dead upon the Crawfish- starved to death, because the deep snow shut them away from their usual browsing grounds. Dyer was a great hunter and trapper in those days and killed many a deer in the vicinity of Columbus. Indeed, for years after his arrival he could start out almost any day and return with one. His lodge was seldom without venison. After Columbus had grown to
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be quite a village, he saw several deer run across its main street. He trapped many otter also, in the early days along the Crawfish.
Mr. Dyer relates that Major Dickason passed through Otsego on his way to locate at Duck Creek, the next day after the former settled in his new home at Columbus, and he took a primitive dinner with him.
DRAKE SUCCEEDS DICKASON
Jeremiah Drake, as the agent of Mr. Ludington, succeeded Dickason in the management of the property on the Crawfish, and built the first frame house in the place. From 1841 to 1845, the arrival of strangers was of almost daily occurrence, and many of them came to remain. Among the prominent settlers of that period were: 1841, Jacob Dickason, brother of the major, who settled near the latter's cabin; 1842, Noah Dickason, James Shackley, S. W. St. John and Mr. Baldwin ; 1843, H. W. McCafferty, H. A. Whitney, Jeremiah and W. Drake, who located just outside the village limits ; 1844, Jacob Smith and the Stroud family ; 1845, James T. Lewis, J. C. Axtell, D. E. Bassett, J. E. Arnold, Warren Loomis, W. C. Spencer, Jesse Rowell, E. Thayer and W. M. Clark.
FIRST LAWYER AND FIRST DOCTOR OFFICE TOGETHER
Of the foregoing, Mr. Lewis was the first attorney and Dr. Axtell, the first physician. These pioneer professional men got busy at once, as was the custom, and, to economize, occupied the same office for some time. There was another good reason why they should thus be associated; they were friends, and both young men of unusual talents.
JAMES T. LEWIS
In view of the unusual prominence attained in after years by the former, the continuous stream of the narrative takes a turn at this point to eddy around the personality of Wisconsin's War Governor.
After Mr. Lewis came into national prominence, the old Columbus settlers enjoyed describing the young lawyer as he appeared in July, 1845, upon his arrival from his eastern home. He had left Orleans County, N. Y., a short time before, to find a home in the West. Arrived at Buffalo, he and Dr. Axtell made the trip around the lakes to Detroit together, and there parted. Shortly after, Lewis landed at Kenosha, and purchased a "mount" for thirty dollars-a scrawny Indian pony who was used to traveling in the Wisconsin of those days. On this steed,
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able if not always willing, he skirted the shores of Lake Michigan toward Green Bay.
At that date Oshkosh had made a slight start, and Neenah and Appleton were in embryo. Fond du Lac was a small village, Milwaukee an infant city, and Green Bay still not far advanced beyond the grade of a trading post. Green Bay did not appeal to the horseman, and he turned his steed southward. At Fond du Lac, Lewis was told that he would find another village about a dozen miles away, which proved to be the Waupun of the present. Having ridden about the distance men- tioned he inquired at a log house by the wayside how much farther it was to the village, and was told that he was in the very midst of it. As this did not seem to promise well for the practice of the law, the young man pushed on to the real little village of Beaver Dam. There he heard of a road which led to another settlement to the southwest. Along it he made his way to the present City of Columbus. He found four houses on the very site and a few more in its immediate vicinity.
It was upon the termination of this journey on the travel-worn pony, with the muddy and the torn evidences of the trail and the bush all over and about him, that the few who had preceded him obtained their first impressions of the future governor, which, in after years, they pictured with such a mixture of gusto and pride.
By a welcome coincidence, Dr. Axtell arrived the same day as Lewis, his route having been by way of Detroit and Chicago, and thence, across country, to Columbus. The doctor, according to tradition, was both a handsome and a brainy man, and shared the admiration of the pioneer villagers with his friend Lewis.
For nearly sixty years thereafter Columbus was the home of James T. Lewis, and year after year his strong and fine character threw out its roots into the hearts and minds of the people, his influence spreading far beyond the bounds of Columbia County. At his death, on August 4, 1904, no man in Wisconsin had a stronger hold upon the affections and confidence of its people than the old War Governor. A few months before his death his friend and fellow-worker in Wisconsin affairs, A. J. Turner, paid him this tribute :
"In the quiet of his old 'colonial' home, picturesque in its environs, and hallowed by many sacred memories, Wisconsin's venerable War Governor still lives, nearing his eighty-fifth year, enjoying the repose earned by a long and honorable life, tenderly cared for by loved and loving children, amid troops of friends, serenely but bravely awaiting 'the inevitable hour.'
"James Taylor Lewis, the subject of this sketch, a native of Claren- don, Orleans County, New York, was born October 30, 1819. From
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the union of Shubael Lewis and Eleanor Robertson, seven children were born, and of these James was the third child and third son. His paternal grandfather, Samuel Lewis, was a native of New England and lived for a time at Brimfield, Mass. This branch of the family is of English lineage, with probably a slight admixture of Welsh. From the maternal side he received a strong infusion of Scotch blood-a blood prepotent to a high degree in its assimilation with others with which it commingles.
"There is, however, little authentic history touching the first migra- tion of the family from the Old World. At all events the record is so hidden in the far past that for present purposes the Lewis family may rightly be considered as:
" 'Native here, And to the manner born.'
"The Lewises about whom we are immediately concerned, were first known in the New York village already mentioned. The family must have been fairly well-to-do, for we learn that James had completed the English and classic courses at Clarkson College and Clinton Seminary, New York, and was prepared for admission to the bar before he had attained his twenty-sixth year.
"As early as the year 1845, anticipating by many years the wisdom and importance of Horace Greeley's advice to young men about going west, he removed to Wisconsin and opened a law office in Columbus, where for nearly sixty years he has since resided. The following year he returned to his old home and was married to Miss Orlina M. Sturges, the beautiful and cultured daughter of a prominent merchant and es- teemed citizen of Clarendon. From this marriage four children were born, Henry S., the eldest, who died in infancy; Selden J., so named for his father's early friend and benefactor, the eminent Judge Selden, and sometime governor of New York; Charles R., named for the late Hon. Charles D. Robinson of Green Bay, an esteemed friend of the family in pioneer days in Wisconsin, and Mrs. Anna L. Dudley, the accomplished wife of Mr. Frank Dudley, long a highly trusted official of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company in Chicago. The elder son, Selden, is a prominent lawyer and much respected citizen of Vermillion, South Dakota; Charles R., the younger son, has for many years held important and responsible official positions with the St. Paul Railway in Minneapolis.
"Declining tempting inducements to open a law office in a neigh- boring town near his old home in New York, young Lewis, with his bride,
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removed in July, 1846, to Columbus, as already stated, where he has since resided. This singularly happy union was severed, however, by the death of Mrs. Lewis, in the year 1903, who died profoundly mourned by all who had known her in life, and their name was legion.
"Upon his arrival in the territory, Mr. Lewis, at once, began the prac- tice of law in the inferior and nisi prius courts and was early admitted to the bar of the supreme court. While Wisconsin was still a territory, he was chosen probate or county judge, and a few years later was elected district attorney for Columbia County. Our young attorney's law prac- tice was early interrupted by calls to the public service, and the allure- ments and fascinations offered by business inducements in a new country. In 1848 he was chosen a member of the second constitutional conven- tion and is probably the last living signer of that organic act. He was less than thirty years of age when he sat as a member of this convention. In 1852 he was elected a member of the lower house of the State Legis- lature and the following year was chosen a state senator. As a legisla- tor he took an active and prominent part, having a place on many im- portant committees. It was during the session of 1853 that the senate sat as a court of impeachment upon the trial of Levi Hubbell, judge of the second judicial circuit. The trial attracted universal interest because of the prominence of the defendant and the eminence of the attorneys engaged on either side. Judge'Hubbell was acquitted after a prolonged trial, Senator Lewis voting for acquittal.
"In 1854 Senator Lewis was elected lieutenant governor and as such it became incumbent upon him to preside over the senate, of which he had so recently been a member. As presiding officer of the body he was specially distinguished for fairness, impartiality and uniform cour- tesy. His term as lieutenant governor ended, he resumed his private business at Columbus, which he continued uninterrupted till the outbreak of the Civil War. Hitherto he had been a consistent and steadfast dem- oerat of the Silas Wright school, but at the opening of hostilities, he soon became restive under party restraints and early repudiated what he conceived to be a lack of frankness and unquestioned loyalty on the part of the dominant leaders of the democratic party. Indignantly de- claring that 'he who is not a faithful friend of the government of his country, in this trying hour, is no friend of mine,' he at once threw the weight of his name and influence in support of the war, holding that partisanship should abate in such a fearful emergency. It was the course of thousands!
"In the autumn of 1861 he was nominated and elected secretary of state, on the so-called Union Republican ticket, and at the following election, 1863, was chosen governor by the same party, with the largest
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majority ever given in the state to that time, and for many years there- after.
"Since his retirement from the executive office, January, 1866, Gov- ernor Lewis had devoted his attention to private business, the education of his children, the up-building of his home city and the promotion of educational and church enterprises. He has also traveled extensively abroad and throughout the United States. A few years ago he made a tour of the world, visiting all parts of the Orient and Europe. Since quitting the governorship he has never sought, but has often declined, public office, but, meanwhile, he has maintained a keen interest in public affairs, abating nothing within reason that would promote the success of the Republican party to which organization he has persistently ad- hered since the great war between the states.
"His life-span has covered the most wonderful period in the annals of the world and is almost co-extensive with that of the Republic itself. Governor Lewis was born in the same year with Victoria, and during the first term of President Monroe. At his birth, Washington had been in his grave scarcely twenty years. He has lived under the rule of twenty-two presidents and enjoyed a personal acquaintance with most of them. He was seven years old when Adams and Jefferson died. In his youth he knew many of the heroes of the Revolution and must have known some of the signers of the Declaration of Independence as the youth of today know him or as they know the surviving leaders of the Civil war. He was helping on the Constitution of Wisconsin when the younger Adams fell stricken upon the floor of the old House of Repre- sentatives, and was thirty-three when Clay and Webster died. Far within his lifetime Wisconsin has grown from a wilderness to an empire of more than two and a half million souls. In the work of her upbuilding, Governor Lewis contributed much; few more, and fewer still, who have more fully earned the repose he is now enjoying as he serenely contem- plates the past and hopefully faces the future.
"Governor Lewis, in his best days, laid no claim to great oratorical gifts, but, as Jeremy Taylor once said of another, he had always "the endearment of prudent and temperate speech," and as Lamartine said of Mirabeau, "his genius was the infallibility of good sense." However, the governor possessed the power of strong and fluent speech and of succinct and cogent statement far beyond the average of men in public life.
"It is the hope of his friends that he may yet live on for several years with no further impairment of his powers. Whether this hope is to be realized or not, all rejoice that he is passing to the close, spared the fate of so many public men of going to the grave full of grief and disap-
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pointment. Such was the fate of Seward and of Greeley; more cer- tainly was it true of Blaine, the greatest partisan leader since Andrew Jackson, and yet he died, if not without a party, full of resentment towards that he had so long led. During his last days, it is said of Sumner that he passed to his seat in the Senate as to a solitude. While dying, an open book was found upon his table with this passage marked by his own hand :
" 'Would I were dead! if God's good will were so; For what is in this world, but care and woe.'
"The list of statesmen dying heartbroken and disappointed, could be extended almost indefinitely, but the subject of the foregoing sketch has no place on it. His life has been one full of hope and not of despair. Whether his remaining days be few or many, his name will long abide a cherished memory with the people he served so well."
POSTMASTER WHITNEY AND "OLD HYSON"
H. A. Whitney, who was a co-worker with Major Dickason in building the dam and sawmill, also opened the first tavern and store in Columbus. Late in 1845 a postoffice was established at Columbus with a weekly mail, and there was an animated contest as to whom should be appointed post- master. The friends of Mr. Whitney rallied to his support, and Colonel Drake, who had succeeded Major Dickason as the developer of the Lud- ington interests, was his strongest competitor. Whitney received the appointment. Shortly afterward he went to the pineries on business, and in his absence the duties of the office were performed by Sylvester Corbin, familiarly known in after years as "Old Hyson."
Corbin carried the mail about the place in his hat, except when out with his gun hunting prairie chickens. On such occasions he would leave the contents of the postoffice with Governor Lewis. The first postoffice was kept in a low, flat-roofed building which stood nearly opposite the site of the structure long afterward erected and known as Shaefer's brick block. F. F. Farnham, who came to Columbus about this time, thus describes it: "The apartment was partitioned by the aid of blank- ets, and in the room lay 'Old Hyson' prone upon a bed shivering with ague. In one corner stood a barrel of whiskey, and in another was a 7x9 glass box, the contents of which constituted the postoffice, which the inquirer after mail rummaged at his leisure."
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