USA > Wisconsin > Sauk County > A standard history of Sauk County, Wisconsin, Volume I > Part 14
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Wood's skill as a riverman made him in more or less demand in the rafting season. On one occasion, having hauled in his snubbing line, with several companions he set off on a trip in high spirits. All day long the panorama of verdant field and wood, of fleecy cloud and ever-chang- ing sky passed them by as they drifted with the current or swerved from treacherous sandbars. From morn until night the craft continued its course, finally to be snubbed at the straggling Village of Prairie du Sac. For Wood, the path of least resistance led from the river-landing straight to the village tavern. Here he was refreshing himself leisurely with a glass of rum and exchanging incidents of his trip for fragments of conn- try gossip when an hysterical voice shonted in the tavern doorway :
"A bear! A bear!"
Instantly the tavern emptied itself into the street. "Where?" cried Wood vociferously.
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Pointing, the carrier of the exciting information tried to tell that his friend, Tabor, and himself had spied a bear attempting to climb a fence in a field but a short distance from where they were at work. Tabor faced the intruder with a pitchfork while his companion hastened for aid. When the bear reared up in an endeavor to gain the fence, the doughty husbandman would thrust the fork between the rails and force the animal to drop on all fours. This performance, repeated severa! times, was beginning to tell upon the farmer as well as upon the bear when the relay from the tavern came in sight. With Abe in the van, the little company drew near. In a moment bruin was surrounded and dispatched without ceremony.
The excitement over, Wood calmly drew his knife and began the operation of removing the hairy coat from the carcass. The pelt of the animal was of unusual size, and as Abe proudly held it up for inspec- tion Tabor eyed the trophy covetously. However, not a word was uttered as to the ownership of the hide and, after exhibiting it to his satisfaction, Wood folded the prize, calmly threw it across his shoulders and pro- ceeded with even strides down the road to the tavern.
Tabor had fully expected to possess the bear skin, and Wood's pre- sumption in appropriating it was a direct insult to the man who had kept the bear at bay with a pitchfork. Chagrined at his loss, the farmer spent the remainder of the afternoon nursing his injured feelings to a point of action. At length his decision was made. Though no match physically for the brawny Abe, let come what might, he would have that bear skin.
With purpose defined, the angry man strode toward the tavern, paus- ing as he neared the entrance to assure himself that Wood and his ill- gotten prize were within. His face like a thunder-cloud, Tabor stood for a time watching the movements of the men as the flickering light from a single pair of tallow candles revealed them. He could hear the hum of their voices, the occasional clink of glasses, and now and again an uproarious outburst of rough laughter fell upon his ears. There in a corner lay the hide. At no great distance sat the brawny Abe, as un- concerned as a few hours previous when he had stalked away with the pelt. At last the farmer entered the tavern door. With a determined glance round the room, he reached for the disputed treasure and, firmly grasping it, flung it savagely into the center of the company. Then, deliberately unfolding the skin, he planted himself upon it and gave verbal utterance to his defiance:
"If any man thinks he has a better right to this hide than I have, let him take it," he blazed.
Tabor straightened his slender body, much inferior in size to Wood's, and drew himself to his full stature. With folded arms and leaving breast he stood a moment, then threw out again :
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"If any man here thinks he has a better right to this hide than I have, let him take it."
The suddenness of the challenge struck the tavern loungers like a shock of electricity. Instantly every eye turned toward Wood. In silence, "the terror" of the community took in the significance of the farmer's outburst. With a movement familiar to all, the haystack hat went up, the massive head trembled and shook like a storm-tossed tree, and Abe, the mighty, bending double, broke into a roar of uneontrollable laughter. In a moment the shouts of the onlookers mingled with those of Wood, echoing and re-echoing through the rafters of the old tavern. The atmo- sphere was cleared. The spectacle of a man of Tabor's size defying Abe Wood, the redoubtable, was too much for the gravity of a Prairie du Sae assemblage. It was not long until the glasses were merrily elinking, and Tabor, without presenting further argument, shouldered the precious skin and went his way.
THE BEAR THAT ROLLED DOWN HILL LIKE A CART WHEEL
Otter Creek is a peculiar stream. From a deep ravine in the Baraboo hills it flows to the southward, sometimes hugging the low range of sand- stone bluffs until it disappears in a sandy bed a mile or more from the Wisconsin River. For a distance it flows beneath the surface of the earth, following a stratum which gives it a subterranean passage until it emerges and mingles with the river a few miles below the Village of Prairie du Sac. From its hide-and-seek attribute, the little stream is known as Lost Otter Creek. At flood season it frequently overflows the region where it or- dinarily disappears, and the spreading of the water over this territory is usually so unexpected that rabbits and other small animals often are forced to seek available grassy knolls in the district where they are taken easily by the sportsmen in hip-boots or boats.
At the time of this tale, the newly discovered Sauk Prairie was being rapidly peopled by New Englanders and New Yorkers, whose efforts were directed more toward tilling the fertile prairie than to the occupations of fishing and hunting which had suffieed for the redmen. The hilly land to the west of the prairie remained a wooded tangle infested by wildeats, wolves, lynx and bear long after the prairie had felt the prod of pioneer plowshares.
Near Lost Otter Creek, one windless September day in the middle '50s, Herman Albrecht was calmly plowing in a field on the Samuel Crockett Farm. The place is almost surrounded by bluffs and is known in the neighborhood as the pocket. On this early autumn day the maples and sumac on the upland stood a blaze of fire amid the green of oak and elder. From their involucres the acorns had rattled down and lay a scattered harvest in the drying grass beneath a thousand parent oaks. Congregated birds flew and fed for hours in the harvest fields in anticipa- tion of their approaching migration to the southward.
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It was a day of drowsy contentment. Albrecht, following the furrows with monotonous regularity, paused a moment as he came to a turn in the field, in leisurely enjoyment of the landscape. As he rested, his roving eye fell upon a dark object moving slowly upon one of the distant hills. "A hog," he thought, and looking toward his friend, Ephraim Crockett, plowing on an adjoining farm, he shouted across the fence to him :
"Look there! Payne's old black sow is out again."
Crockett's eyes turned in the direction of the bluff, and in an instant came his reply :
"That is no hog; that is a bear. I'll unhitch my horses and eall the Jolinson boys."
During the brief colloquy, the bear, oblivious to danger, wandered slowly from tree to tree in quest of food. Crockett, meanwhile, hastened across the fields and breathlessly announced the presence of bruin on the neighboring hill. Commotion at once took possession of the Johnson household. Roswell Johnson and his brothers, William and Joseph, hur- ried toward the upland with eagle speed and readily sighted the animal moving contentedly along, feeding here and there upon the mast on the steep hillside. When near enough to aim, Roswell Johnson fired. With the first crack of the gun, the bear, without a moment's hesitation, thrust his head between his forelegs and, cartwheel fashion, rolled over and over, down the steep incline, before the eyes of the astonished onlookers.
It was a laughable performance, resembling nothing in the world so much as the tumbling of an acrobat in the ring of a sawdust-scented circus. It is well known that a bear when pressed will take this mode of accelerating his movements, but the feat is one that is rarely wit- nessed. With precision and in perfect silence, bruin gave his vaudeville aet. At the foot of the incline his fat body struck a tree, squarely, rebounding like a huge rubber ball. A vociferous grunt was his only audible complaint. As the bear unwound himself from his circular position, Jolinson's dog, plunging through the thick underbrush, rushed upon the animal. A cuff from the huge paw and the dog went rolling down a declivity, clutching at available weeds and stones, in a vain endeavor to regain his feet. The bear's chances for escape seemed about even with those of his capture, when Roswell Johnson, aiming through the trees and heavy undergrowth, felled bruin with a single shot. The following day the housewives on Sauk Prairie along Otter Creek served meat on their tables, while the story of the bear that rolled down hill was repeated from every corner of the prairie.
A BEAR AND SOME BEANS
Among those doughty pioneers who made up the little group of first families locating among the Baraboo Hills, no member of the settlement was so widely known as Dr. Charles Cowles. IIe was
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the country doctor, a familiar figure in every household, as necessary a factor in the development of a new country as any tiller of the soil. The friend of everyone, no ailing wayfarer, no matter how unworthy, ever summoned Doctor Cowles in vain; and his kindly words and cheer- fulness often comforted when pills and potions failed.
Doctor Cowles' skill as a physician made calls from remote locali- ties of frequent occurrenee, and many a weary hour he passed in the saddle, his horse struggling over root and rock on winding Indian trails, frequently fording streams, and often being compelled to stop to blaze the trees that he might have a pathway by which to return.
As years passed, the good doctor's journeys of necessity grew shorter and less arduous, and more often than before his evenings were spent with old-time friends and acquaintances at the village drugstore. Here he chatted and frequently took a hand at eards, playing a good hand, as those of his comrades who remain will tell you. They also recall how they used to wait with a smile and a wink for the doctor's invariable remark, "In the spirit of love let us begin," with which he always opened the game.
But this is not the doctor's story. He only heard it from the trembling lips of his wife when, unnerved from the experience of the night, she met him as he returned from the Village of Portage, whither he had gone in answer to a call the evening before. He sometimes related it afterwards, dwelling humorously upon his part in the adventure, which had nothing whatever to do with the bear, being merely the matter of making a door.
Spring was opening in the year 1843 when the Cowles family, con- sisting of the doctor, his young wife and infant daughter, came to Wis- consin. The doctor had experienced some of the hardships of pioneering in his boyhood days in Ohio and was not altogether unequipped for the privations which confronted the early settlers among the Baraboo Hills.
From the hour of their arrival the days were filled with interesting experiences which caused the severity of the life to sink into insignifi- cance. There was the building of the cabin, the universal habitation of the early settler, the clearing of the woodland and endless preparation for the long, cold winter which the newcomers were gravely informed be- gan in November, and continued until May.
The Cowles cabin was situated some four miles east of the present City of Baraboo on the road leading to old Fort Winnebago. The farm is designated to this day as "the Cowles place," though no member of the family has occupied it for some years.
Three miles distant, at the lower narrows of the Baraboo River, the Garrison sawmill was located. Here, under the management of "Mother Garrison," logs were sawed, a ferry operated and numerous other activi- ties commenced. The expectations were that the mill would influence
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the location of a village site and Doctor Cowles had this in mind in selecting his farm. The dream of "Garrisonville," however, was never realized, and later years found the old mill and primitive ferry decaying landmarks.
In their haste to take possession of their home, the Cowles moved their few household belongings into their cabin as soon as it was habitable. The single room served as living and sleeping-room, dining-room and kitchen combined. One side of the rude structure was almost entirely occupied by the huge fireplace. On the long erane hung an iron pot for cooking, and strung across like decorations were various utensils, such as long-handled cooking spoons and forks, and the inevitable wooden paddle for stirring Indian pudding. Hanging on hooks were smaller kettles of brass and eopper, and below, the wide stone hearth awaited the gridirons and skillets and bake kettle.
Instead of windows, two small openings were cut in opposite sides of the cabin in which window sash containing small panes of glass would be placed before the winter season opened. A heavy blanket hung in the doorway would later be replaced by a strong door. In the farther corner of the room stood the bed, corded with strong eord and covered with a gay patchwork quilt.
"This looks like home," the doctor declared when the last article was in place. His wife smiled. It was home.
Not many weeks after the occupation of their eabin, a messenger came for Doctor Cowles from the Village of Portage, some twelve miles distant. A patient needed medical attention at once and, throwing his pill-bags over his saddle, the doctor, with a hurried adieu to his wife, rode away.
It was late in the afternoon of a summer day. The young wife loitered about the cabin for a time, drinking in the beauty of the surrounding bluffs whose rugged outlines rose softly blue in the distance. . As evening drew on she rocked her baby to sleep with no fear of harm to herself or the little one. Before retiring she set the room in order, glancing at the smoking hearth to assure herself that the embers of the fire, kindled to cook a savory pot of beans, were nearly extinguished. Lulled by the note of bird and insect, mother and babe soon sank into deep slumber.
What aroused her, Mrs. Cowles could never explain. Oppressed by a sense of danger and with a vague consciousness of an unknown presence, the woman opened her eyes and was horrified to see squatting before the fireplace, but a few feet from her bed, a huge black bear. With a shudder of fear, she followed with fascinated gaze the movements of the marauder. The moon shone brightly through the window opening, throwing a radiant track of light across the room, and plainly revealing the bean pot with the bear near-by. One stroke of the powerful paw and the savory beans were pouring upon the heartlı. The escaping odors hastened the bear's movements. Like a half-famished creature he gulped mouthful after
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mouthful of the unaccustomed delicacy. At last pausing, the animal turned his head toward the frightened woman on the bed. His eyes appeared to her like two balls of fire as he gazed into the shadowy corners of the room. Trembling, the mother pressed more closely the babe at her side ; a ery, and the bear might be upon them. Stories of hairbreadth adventures with starving wolves came to her mind. Would the baby sleep on? Perhaps-perhaps they might remain undiscovered, if-but something, what was it, was attracting the bear's attention. A vagrant breeze blowing gently through the window opening stirred the folds of the blanket at the door. The bear's watchful eye caught the slight movement. The strange surroundings made the animal wary. He turned once again to the bean pot. The vessel was empty. The scattered contents were licked clean. Apparently there was nothing more to eat, therefore no reason for longer tarrying. With a contemptuous snitt at the devastated hearth, bruin at last slowly turned and shambled away.
To the frightened woman on the bed it seemed hours before she could bring herself to rise and barricade the doorway. At last, however, with every movable piece of furniture arranged to prevent further interrup- tion from unwelcome visitors, she lay down beside the sleeping child to await the break of day. The morning hours brought the doctor, who listened intently as his wife recited the experience of the night. When she had finished her story, he turned without a word and remounted his horse, riding away in the direction of the Garrison sawmill. Before another nightfall a door had replaced the blanket in the Cowles cabin.
STATUS OF THE SMALLER ANIMALS
As to the smaller animals wolves have almost been exterminated, as the settlers have made unrestricted war upon them from the first. Red and grey foxes are somewhat rare, as are the fierce badgers, the mortal enemy of the dog. Raccoons are quite plentiful, and the little collection at the State Park will probably be increased. The only land animal of fair size which the first settlers found in Sauk County, and which is more numerous now than in the pioneer times is the skunk. That dis- agreeable breed has been encouraged by the householder's disposition to raise chiekens and eggs and other food which the pretty little beast greatly favors. The porcupine is now very rarely seen; probably one has not been caught wild for many years. The gray rabbit is plentiful ; the water rabbit a rarity. Woodchucks, gophers and squirrels have ap- parently suffered no decrease in numbers, while the common field mouse, with more to eat than in the old days, is ever with the farmer and his grain. The improvement of various water-powers for industrial pur- poses, and the investigation of every stream and run of the county by the sportsman, the canoeist, the fisherman and the pleasure seeker, have long since driven away the beaver which formerly frequented them.
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The white weasel (brown in summer and white in winter) and the mink are frequently taken, while the muskrat, bolder and more prolific, lingers in lessening numbers. Wolves are occasionally captured and a few otter have been observed during the past year in the Wisconsin River between Kilbourn and Portage.
SAUK COUNTY BIRDS
Charles Deiniger, who came to Sauk City at an early day and en- gaged in business first as a brewer and afterward as a real estate man, was, for many years, a hunter in the Honey Creek bottoms and in other parts of the county. He commenced at onee to mount the finest of his game and other birds and, as the years passed became an expert taxi- dermist, with a remarkably complete collection of native birds of the county. A number of years ago, with Professor E. F. Hobart, of Bara- boo Collegiate Institute, and William H. Canfield, a close friend and frequent companion in his out-door excursions, Mr. Deiniger completed a classification of his specimens, which included virtually representatives of the entire range of bird life in Sauk County.
The list was as follows: Prairie falcon, pigeon hawk, sparrow hawk, marsh hawk, American buzzard, goshawk, Coopers hawk, red tailed hawk, sharp shined hawk, broad winged hawk, rough legged hawk (?), Ameri- ean fish hawk, golden eagle, bald eagle, great horned owl, snowy horned owl, barred owl, screech owl, hawk owl, long eared owl, black billed cuckoo, red headed woodpecker, golden winged woodpecker, yellow bellied woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, night hawk, whippoorwill, belted king- fisher, great northern shrike, white breasted nut hatch, king bird, pewee, humming bird, golden crowned kinglet (golden erested warbler), ruby crowned kinglet (red erested warbler), Maryland yellow throat, black throated blue warbler, Myrtle warbler, chestnut sided warbler, black and yellow warbler, blaek throated green warbler, black poll warbler, bay breasted warbler, black and white creeper, mourning warbler, brown thrush, wood thrush, water thrush, green blackeye flycatcher, American redstart, scarlet tanager, purple martin, chimney swallow, white bellied swallow, barn swallow, bank swallow, eedar waxwing, Bohemian waxwing, cat bird, snow bunting, brown ereeper, blackeyed titmouse, prairie horned lark, gold finch, purple finch, song sparrow, fox sparrow, tree sparrow, indigo bird, erossbill, red breasted grosbeak, pine grosbeak, ground robin, bobolink, red winged starling, yellow headed blackbird, rusty blackbird, purple grackle, meadow lark, Baltimore oriole, mourning dove, passenger. pigeon, blue jay, pinnated grouse, sharp-tailed grouse, ruffed grouse, quail, albino quail, sandhill erane, great blue heron, bittern, least-bittern, Bertraman sandpiper, night heron, golden plover, killdeer, ring plover, Wilsons or English plover, pied-billed grebe, black bellied plover, yellow legs, king rail, sora rail, coot or mud hen, Canada goose, brant, green
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heron, black duck, red head duck, ruddy duck, blue winged teal, mallard duck, wood duck, shoveler or spoon-bill duck, bald pate or American widgeon, scaup duck, pintail duck, buffle-headed duck, green winged teal, shell drake, goosander, American-merganser, loon, canan cormorant, double crested cormorant, marsh tern, sea gull, golden eye, tufted duck, robin, tawny bunting, blue bird, snowy heron, white throated sparrow, snow bird, red winged blackbird, Bob White, cow bird and pheasant.
The Deiniger collection of mounted birds is one of the most complete and finest in the state. The specimens are in the high school building at Baraboo.
In mentioning the wild birds which the early settlers knew so well, and upon which they largely depended for a varied meat diet, it may be said, the wild turkey is a thing of the past.
Mrs. W. T. Kelsey, of Baraboo, who has made a study of birds for . many years and who has also reported them, furnishes the following list of specimens observed in Sauk County.
American bittern, erow blackbird, red-winged blackbird, rusty black- bird, yellow-headed blackbird, bluejay, bobolink, Bob White, brown- thrasher, indigo bunting, catbird, chickadee, chewink, American coot, cowbird, brown creeper, erow, black-billed cuckoo, yellow-billed cuckoo, diekcissel, buffle-head duck, golden-eye duck, American merganser duck, ruddy duck, scaup duck, blue-winged teal duck, mourning dove, purple finch, crested flycatcher, kingbird flycatcher, least flycatcher, pewee fly- catcher, green-winged teal, mallard duck, canvas back duck, wood duck, red-head duck, blue-bill duck, fish duck, spoon-bill duck, saw-bill duck, phoebe flycatcher, Traill's flycatcher, yellow-bellied flycatcher, Florida gallinule, blue-gray gnat cateher, goldfinch, Canada goose, pied-billed grebe, evening grosbeak, pine grosbeak, rose-breasted grosbeak, cardinal grosbeak (rare), ruffed grouse, herring gull, fish or osprey hawk, marsh hawk, pigeon hawk, red-tailed hawk, sparrow hawk, great-blue heron, little-green heron, little-blue heron, ruby-throated "hummer," junco, killdeer, kingfisher, golden-crowned kinglet, ruby-crowned kinglet, prairie horned lark, loon, meadowlark, nighthawk, red-breasted nuthatch, white- breasted nuthatel, prairie hen, Baltimore oriole, orchard oriole, barred owl, great-horned owl, screech owl, snowy owl, sora rail, Virginia rail, red-poll, least sand-piper, solitary sand-piper, spotted sand-piper, log- gerhead shrike, northern shrike, Wilson's snipe, snowflake, chipping sparrow, field sparrow, fox sparrow, grasshopper sparrow, Harris's spar- row, lark sparrow, Lincoln's sparrow, Savanna sparrow, song sparrow, swamp sparrow, tree sparrow, vesper sparrow, white-crowned sparrow, white-throated sparrow, bank swallow, barn swallow, cliff or eaves swal- low, purple martin swallow, rough-winged swallow, tree or white-bellied swallow, chimney swift, scarlet tanager, black tern, blue-bird thrush, gray-cheeked thrush, hermit thrush, olive-backed thrush, robin thrush, Wilson's or veery thrush, wood thrush, bluc-headed vireo, Philadelphia
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vireo, red-eyed vireo, warbling vireo, white-eyed vireo, yellow-throated vireo, bay-breasted warbler, blackburnian warbler, black-poll warbler, black and white creeping warbler, black-throated blue warbler, black- throated green warbler, Canadian warbler, Cape May warbler, cerulean warbler, yellow breasted chat warbler, chestnut-sided warbler, Connecti- cut warbler, golden-winged warbler, magnolia warbler, mourning warbler, yellow-rumped Myrtle warbler, Nashville warbler, ovenbird warbler, palm warbler, parula warbler, pine warbler, prothonotary warbler, red- start warbler, Tennessee warbler, water-thrush warbler, Louisiana water- thrush warbler, Wilson's warbler, yellow warbler, northern yellow- throat warbler,. Bohemian waxwing, cedar waxwing, whippoorwill, downy woodpecker, flicker woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, red-headed woodpecker, sapsucker woodpecker, house wren, long-billed marsh wren, winter wren and greater yellow legs.
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