USA > Wisconsin > Jefferson County > Lake Mills > A reminiscent history of the village and town of Lake Mills, Jefferson County : embraced in a period of ten years, from 1837 to 1847, and while Wisconsin was a territory > Part 2
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An old settler in our log house was heard complaining of his fare. He said he had nothing to eat but corn cake and "jerked pork." In answer to an inquiry as to what kind of food "jerked pork" was, he replied. that it was a piece of pork tied firmly to one end of a strong string with the other end of the string mailed securely to the center of the oaken table. The pork was passed around and swallowed by each person to grease his throat, and was jerked back for further use.
As I said it was a long time before the settlers learned the knack of procuring game, either venison or wild fowl in much quantity. In this age of luxury and plenty, when one scarcely goes hungry, or certainly needs not, it would seem very strange if the father of a family who, as the members of his household
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gathered around the table, should be obliged to divide up the food in so many equal parts, and say to each one, "This is as much as you can have and no more;" but in those early times it was frequently practiced. Many times have I known it to be done by my father in his family.
The first settlers in Jefferson county were American-born. The great tide of foreign emigration, which since that time has set in so strongly westward, had not then begun, and it was a number of years after the first settlers came to Jefferson county before the foregn-born sought homes here. The first settlement was of Germans near Jefferson in '42, and the first German girl I ever saw was engaged in my father's family as a domestic. She was a girl of good birth and education, who came there and was willing to work in order to learn the English language. and when she acquired that she returned to her home near Jeffer- son. That was a period before hired girls had become an insti- tution. There were no girls who sought employment of this character, and if there were any in the settlement who were willing to assist their neighbors in domestic matters, they were the daughters of American parents, and not ashamed to work . out. About this time or, perhaps, a little later, the Norwegians began to settle in eastern Dane county.
Before the establishment of stores for general trade. the set- tlers bought their supplies of dry goods and knick-knacks mostly of peddlers, and this class of dealers was quite numerous at that time, appearing at every house. The two Cooper boys. Horace and Lucins, were early in that business, and must have started out in the year 1810. They finally opened a small store at Aztalan, and in 1814 they moved their goods to Lake Mills. These two young men were active and energetic, enured to hard- ship and possessed of untiring energy; and they pushed this. business with great success.
One of the earliest marriages in Lake Mills was that of Hor- ace Cooper and Julia Wiliams, early in 1845. At that time there was not in the village any person authorized to tio the knot. To meet the emergency a boy was started for Aztalon with two horses, riding one and leading the other. He quick !: returned with Justice Joel Gardner riding the extra horse. and very soon the ceremony, was performed.
There was another peddler who plied his vocation here for a
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while, during the earliest years, by the name of Alvinza Hay- ward, but he soon became tired of this business, and, marrying Charity Hathaway, one of a large family of daughters who re- sided across the river at Milford, he started for California where he now resides, and where he has since been visited by a few of the old residents of this region. His career there was success- ful, and he became a many millionaire. At one time the girl Charity, afterwards his wife, was a member of our family, in the capacity of general assistant at house work at so much per week.
Payne and Byington were the first general dealers to open a store in this village, which must have been in '39 or '40. They were followed afterwards by the Cooper boys, and Codwise & Fleury.
At the period of which I write Wisconsin territory might be said to be full of Indians. They were to be found and seen in almost every portion of it. They were the orignal settlers and occupants of these beautiful lands. The smoke of their wig- wams could be noticed in many directions. They were a happy, healthy and stalwart race. They had not then become demoralized from their intercourse with their white neighbors. The lake here and its surroundings was one of their best hunt- ing grounds, and crossing the creek where the bridge now is, was their trail as they came from the northeast to hunt along the southern shores of the lake, and it was almost an every day occurrence for them to return, passing our log house, going to the northeast, laden with venison and other game, and they were always ready for barter of some kind. What they de- sired most was whiskey. A drink of whisky would buy a sad- dle of venison or any other article they possessed, even to their last rifle, but all decent settlers always refrained from dealing ont this fire-water to them. because when intoxicated they were ugly and dangerous.
I remember one afternoon in '38, when my mother was alone in the log house with the younger children, my father and my older brother Abe being absent. a band of Indians loaded down with game came from the south end of the lake and stopped in the yard in front of the log house, and their leading Indian en- tered the room. Seeing upon the shelves several vials filled with medicine, he commenced a search through the bottles for
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whiskey. A taste or two of their contents satisfied him so that he wanted no more, and he gave it up. It was washing day. A big tin pan stood upon the table containing wet clothes. An old Indian wanted to buy the pan. A trade was struck up be- tween him and my mother, and for the pan he gave a quarter of venison. My mother happened to think that possibly an old calico shirt, which was up the ladder in the chamber, might suit him; so it was obtained, and when he cast his eye over it. it evidently pleased him. He went out to his pack and brought in a saddle of venison, put it on the table, snatched the shirt and put it under his blanket, evidently afraid that the trade would not be consummated. My mother with great firmness ordered him to pull it out and put it upon the table which he did, angry and mumbling in his Indian tongue. After he had done this, she said, "All right ; now, we swap," and he took his shirt and tin pan, and very soon the band passed out of sight in the openings.
A band of Indians dressed in their war paint once gave me a terrible fright. We were surprised in the forenoon of a day by a visitor at our house, and my mother when she came to take an account of stock found that she had neither tea nor coffee for dinner. So it was decided that I should go to the nearest neighbor, which was one of the Atwoods, about a mile and a half distant, to see if I could borrow a small quantity of one of these articles. When about a half a mile from the house I espied in the path before me a dozen or more of Indians. As they had also seen me, it was of no use to retreat; therefore; I made up my mind to go ahead. As I came in sight of these stalwart fellows. I noticed they had formed some plan in refer- ence to myself. and they soon commenced trying to pull me off the pony I was riding, jabbering and insisting it was their pony, but I stuck to the animal thinking they had no serious in- tention of doing me any injury. After a while I broke away from them and put the pony to the top of his speed. One of the Indians on foot chased me quite a distance .. being able to out- run my pony. and when he got within shooting distance he would drop upon one knee, take aim and pretend to fire. but only flashing the powder in the pan of his unloaded flint-lock rifle. It was enough, however, to frighten mne almost to death. Finally he got tired of the fun, and I proceeded on my way and
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borrowed enough coffee for a drawing. On returning home I found the Indians. My brother asked the leading Indian what their intentions were regarding me. He answered saying, "We only wanted to frighten the little papoose."
It was an old saying that you could not tame an Indian, and I remember an early effort in that direction which was a dismal failure. The family of Mr. Armine Pickett discovered a young Indian about twenty years old, who appeared to be a good sub- ject for the white man to try his taming process upon. He was known as "Indian John," and was domiciled in Mr. Pickett's family for some time, working upon the farm and performing the usual services of a laboring man, and he seemed quite handy. He lived in the house, ate with the family, slept in a bed and seemd to take naturally to the habits and practices of his white brother. One winter he attended the district school as a companion to his white brother, James Pickett. He sat in the school house during the school hours, and pretended to study. He seemed to be desirous of learning something from books, but he was a dull, stupid fellow, and made but little progress during his winter attendance at school. He was more interested with the slate and pencil than study. Still he was kindly, and all of us boys took a great interest in him, and he participated in all our sports and games. When the school was out and the spring had come, the general opinion was freely ex- pressed that the wildness of Indian John was out of him; that in reality he was tamed, and that he would continue to be like a white man and live with them, but one day John turned up missing. He left unexpectedly to his friends, and the place to which he had gone was unknown. He had made no sign of discontent. As it were, he walked out in the darkness and was lost to sight. Some apprehension was felt about him,-that he had been foully dealt with. Several weeks elapsed before any tidings came of John, and it came in this manner. He reported himself. One bright sunny afternoon from out of the oak openings there came an Indian with a squaw walking behind him. As they approached nearer to the log house and to the mill they attracted close attention, and when within hailing distance the familiar features of Indian John were recognized. but he was no longer a white man. He was dressed in the garb of his race; his face was striped" in various colors of paint; the
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quills of the eagle were tied in his hair; his buckskin suit was rich and gaudy-in the best style of his tribe. A beautiful young Indian woman was his companion, and in answer to an inquiry as to who she was, he replied, saying, "My squaw." So it was and turned ont to be, that he had deserted his white friends, and returned to his native wildness. John had learned to speak and understand the English language very well. On his first meeting with Mr. Pickett after his return, Mr. P. said to him, "John, where in the world have you been all this time?" John pulled his blanket a little closer around him and replied, "Mr. Pickett, I no understand English any more." And ever afterwards he wholly refrained from speaking English if he could avoid it.
His Indian name was Ma-shook-e-nicker. He had taken unto himself a wife from his tribe, and he wanted no more to do with the manners and customs of the white people. Nevertheless for quite a while he remained a favorite with those who had known him under other circumstances, but after a short time Indian John and his squaw drifted away, following their tribe to some other locality, and they were forgotten.
The Indians of those early days were well off, by which I mean they were well dressed, with the best guns made, owners of Indian ponies, even quite droves of them, and you could hardly find an Indian but had Mexican dollars stowed away somewhere on his person, saved up from payments made by the government, to be used and invested by them in some- thing that might especially please their fancy. And when they traveled from point to point through the country, it was not generally on foot, but on the backs of their ponies with other ponies laden down with camp equipments and other articles. I remember well that Mr. George Farmer had been compelled to use some of his specie, which he had carefully laid away to pay for his land when it came in market, and he was wondering how he could make up the deficit, when one day an Indian came along with several Mexican dollars, which he exchanged with Mr. Farmer for some brass buttons and other trinkets probably not worth twenty-five cents.
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There was an old Indian chief named See-sink-e-ter, who was quite prominent in the councils of his tribe, and well known to all the old settlers. He attracted a good deal of attention, vet
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he was an Indian of an ugly temper, especially when he was under the influence of whiskey and many settlers were afraid of him. There was a companion piece to old Chief See-sink-e-ter, a squaw of uncertain age, called Nich-e-nacker, and reputed to be a widow. Judging from her glibness of tongue, she must have outrivaled any white woman in the scolding business, as she would make the braves and papooses of her tribe "get up and dust" whenever she sounded her notes, in that shrill and piercing manner, characteristic of the Indian when speaking in a loud and excited tone of voice; but if there was any one thing in the world that the poor old girl had a weakness for, it was whiskey. She loved it with an affection almost unprecedented, and she made it a point to get beastly intoxicated whenever she could secure enough of the "seud-a-wa-ba" or firewater to ac- complish that purpose. It was lamentable that she should by her conduet set such a poor example to the dusky maids and matrons of her tribe, but old "Nish" was so firmly set in her way in reference to this enjoyment that modern prohibition, if closely applied to her case, would never have accomplished her reform.
If you should at this period be traveling through a lonesome piece of woods, and you should discover a human body poised in a treetop, it would undoubtedly startle you exceedingly; but that was the custom, at the time I speak of, during the depth of winter for the Indians to dispose of their dead, by suspend- ing the body in the branches of the trees, high up from the earth, carefully wrapped up and securely fastened there to re- main undisturbed until the frost should have disappeared in the spring so that the body could be consigned to the ground. This was the Indian custom in such cases and was generally ob- served.
The Winnebagoes, at this time, under the treaty, really had no right to remain in the vicinity, but still they lingered. They hated to leave the land of their fathers. They refused to go. In the summer of 1841 a company of United States Dragoons, about one hundred strong, passed through Jefferson county. camping one night on the lake near the mills, and gathering up all the Indians they could find. Such a well equipped military force appeared very formidable indeed. Success attended their mission, and a large number of Indians were removed, although
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they soon returned to their old haunts. After several similar removals the matter was given up, and the Indians permitted to remain wherever they pleased so long as there was no special complaint made by the settlers against them.
For a number of years the present limits of Jefferson county contained as many Indians as white people, although the whites were swiftly gaining on them in numbers. The Indians gener- ally were peaceable and well disposed, although in those early days there was a good deal of apprehension on the part of the settlers, the most serious of which was an occurrence very early. The Indian settlements were mainly in the woods on the east bank of the Crawfish, extending from its junction with the Rock at Jefferson to about ten miles above Milford. Word passed through the settlements from house to house that there might be trouble with the Indians; that a young Indian, the son of a chief, had suddenly disappeared from his wigwam and hunting grounds. His absence could not be accounted for. It was charged by his tribe that he had been murdered by the white man. This, of course, was most vigorously denied, be- cause no grounds for it existed, and no trouble was known be- tween the two races which would provoke such a result. Never- theless the settlers of the townships of Lake Mills, Aztalan, Jef- ferson and Milford felt it incumbent upon themselves to take some action in the matter. The murdered Indian was last seen in the heavy timber between Aztalan and Jefferson engaged in hunting; therefore a most thorough search was instituted in that vicinity for some evidence of his disappearance, and the people of the several townships turned out en masse, and formed a line between the Crawfish and Rock rivers, moving forward cautiously and examining every point. Before reach- ing the junction of the two rivers, the body of the Indian was found. He had been shot through the head. Ilis own ritle lay by his side. The manner of his death was in great doubt. It could not be determined whether he had been fired upon from ambush and brutally murdered, had committed suicide, or had met with an accidental death. So much doubt was involved in the matter, that his Indian relatives and friends became quieted. as they could not charge with any reason, that the death of the Indian had been caused by the bullet of a white man. Still I remember very well that the impression prevailed very strongly
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among the settlers that a certain white man, a hunter by occu- pation, who about that time disappeared, was the man responsi- ble for the death of the Indian.
A few years previous a white land hunter had been murdered near Johnson's Creek. Vigorous effort was made by Gov. Dodge of the territory to arrest and punish the murderers, and an old Indian chief and his son were arrested, charged with the crime, and during the period of the summer of '37 that I at- tended school at the old court house at Milwaukee, these two were confined in the jail. The old Indian was sullen and un- communicative, although during their confinement both had learned to speak the English language quite well. But John, so called, the son, became well acquainted with the school chil- dren, and was a great favorite with them. Many hours have I spent at the grated window in communication with him, and almost daily my luncheon was shared with him. When the time for our departure to the Rock river country came, John was affected to tears, and in his broken English he struggled to say, "I so sorry you go; you so good to me. I never see you more."
Very soon thereafter Gov. Dodge came to the conclusion that there was so much doubt about their guilt that he ordered them set at liberty, and the old chief and his son resumed their tribal relations somewhere in the interior of the territory, but ever afterwards kept shy of the white settlement.
Only five years before our settlement in Lake Mills had the Black Hawk war been concluded. Black Hawk and his band were pursued through this section of the territory by regular troops, by volunteers, and by friendly Indians in greater num- bers than he possessed. His stronghold was at the head of Lake Koshkonong. Two young girls, named Rachel and Sylvia Hall, who had been stolen by Black Hawk and his band from their parents near Ottawa, Illinois, were ransomed by the pay- ment of $2.000, by some friendly Winnebagoes, who represented the Indian agent at. Galena. In this pursuit Black Hawk's line of flight was from Lake Koskonong towards Whitewater through Bark River woods, where he crossed the river not far from Jefferson JJunction, and then went on westward through Lake Mills to Cottage Grove and Madison to the Wisconsin river, where the battle occurred, and where the destruction of his band was made alnost complete.
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Very soon after the first settlement of the village an interest sprang up among the residents for the establishment of a school. The first school I attended was taught by Mrs. J. F. Ostrander, at Aztalan, in the summer of 38, and I used to walk the dis- tance most of the time on barefoot. It was then thought to be quite a task, but the necessity of attendance was so apparent that I fulfilled my part of the programme without complaint. My father finally concluded that there should be a school nearer home, so as soon as the saw mill was completed and the lumber for building purposes could be procured, he built a schoolhouse at his own expense, and hired a teacher to teach the school, who was Miss Rosey Catlin of Cottage Grove. She boarded in our family, and my father paid her salary. This was the first school, and was not very large, only about a dozen scholars, and was taught in the summer of 1839. The next school we had was taught by Miss . Nancy Atwood, now Mrs. Daniel Wood, who is living and is one of the few pioneer women of Lake Mills who are spared to us today. I remember this lady with a re- gard almost akin to love. She was a most successful teacher. and the children of her school all loved her with a sincere affec- tion. She possessed the happy faculty of enkindling in the minds of her pupils a strong desire to learn, and they were al- ways obedient to her. There was about her, as I remember, an ease and dignity that well befitted the school-room. As I look back through the years, I can find no recollection of my school life that was so pleasurable to me as the time I attended Miss Nancy Atwood's school in this village. I always flattered my- self that I was a great favorite of hers. She seemed to take extra pains with me in helping me out of difficulties in my studies, and especially in my ideas of the art of composition. and if I am not mistaken, and I think I am not. some of those com- positions of mine prepared at that early day were not wholly original with me, but were in a great measure inspired by her. Nevertheless the instruction was valuable. Miss Atwood taught three terms, commencing in the summer of 1840.
The school succeeding the one taught by Miss Atwood was a winter school, and was taught by a gentleman. The first one, I think. by Mr. Birdsall, in the same old wooden schoolhouse. AAfter a while the district was organized and a briek school- house constructed, and more dignity attached to the school. In
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those early days the schoolmaster always boarded around. That is, all the families that sent children to school, in propor- tion to the unmber sent, boarded the school teacher. The boys cut the wood and took turns in building the fire, and this prac- tice prevailed until the village had grown, and it became neces- sary to put on more style.
For a short time Lake Mills had a seminary. It was taught by two gentlemen, brothers-in-law, named S. W. Munn and Henry Mixer. It was an object of great interest and very suc- cessful as long as it continued. It was well supported by the people with a goodly number of students. The manner of its location in Lake Mills was as follows:
During the time I was a farmer boy upon the Phillip's place, at about noontime one day a man drove into the yard with a peddler's cart, and inquired if he could feed the horse, get some dinner, and pay for it in goods. I answered that I reck- oned he could. His horse was put in the stable, and he sat down to dinner with the family. In conversation with him we learned he was looking for a place to establish a select school. I suggested Lake Mills as probably the best point in the state. He seemed pleased with the suggestion, and investigated the matter as fully as he could during his brief stay with us. He left. promising to communicate with me further, which he did very soon. The result was an agreement to open a seminary at Lake Mills, and at an appointed time I met the two gentlemen with their families in Milwaukee, where they had landed from a steamer, and brought them and their household goods to this place. That fall the school was fairly started -in '48-but only maintained an existence for one year when it was closed, and the parties left the place. Mr. S. W. Munn, the principal. was afterward a resident of Joliet in Illinois, a member of the state's senate and a very prominent citizen.
As the settlement increased, and there became resident of Lake Mills a number of families with children. more interest was created in the school question. This territory had been a portion of the Aztalan district, and in the opinion of the settlers the time had come when it should be divided. and Lake Mills and its proper surroundings be organized into a separate school district. Therefore notice was given on the fifth day of June, 1841, that there would be a meeting of the regular voters for
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the purpose of organization. On the twelfth day of June in said year, a meeting was held in the old school district No. 3, which included Aztalan, for the purpose of organizing the Lake Mills district. Joseph Keyes was chosen moderator; Lester Atwood, clerk; Issac Atwood, collector; Joseph Keyes, Armine Pickett and Wm. S. Wadwell were chosen trustees for one year. The only business transacted was the election of these officers. At a meeting held in said district on November 12th, 1841, it was voted to raise $42.00 to support three months school, and $15.00 was appropriated to buy a stove and pipe. At a third meeting of the district held April 12th, 1842, it was voted to have sixteen weeks summer school; and at a meeting of the district held February 22nd, 1844, it was voted to raise $200.00 toward building a new schoolhouse, and Benjamin Salts and A. J. Waterbury were appointed a committee to select the site. Work was commenced upon the building in the early spring of that year, and the work continued, with frequent in- tervals, and was finally finished and ready for occupancy in the year 1845.
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