USA > Wisconsin > Sauk County > A standard history of Sauk County, Wisconsin, Volume I > Part 30
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his fun and sarcasm, he could utterly annihilate his adversary and win a victory with flying colors. But if a close knowledge of the law was required, then he was at a disadvantage, for he did not claim to be studious, and preferred to sit and joke and tell stories in the hotel than be thumbing the dusty volumes in his office. He was not difficult with his clients in matters of fees, and would often take his fee from a farmer in a basket of vegetables and carry it home himself. He was a pleasant appearing man of stout build and rather dark complexion. His countenance was full, broad and prepossessing. His mouth was large and it was the easiest thing in the world for him to break into a hearty laugh, though he rarely laughed at his own jokes, which made them all the more comical. He was a veritable caricaturist with his physiognomy and voice, and could imitate the manner of almost anyone he chose so as to not be mistaken. His fund of good stories was inexhaustible and he could select one or more to cover almost any case in hand. No one ever thought of being offended by any of his sallies of wit, even if a party on the opposite side of a lawsuit. His genial manner thus saved him from making enemies, which a more stern disposition would have surely done under like circumstances.
C. C. REMINGTON
"We now come to C. C. Remington, who was perhaps the best lawyer Baraboo ever claimed when considered in all respects. He was not a fine speaker, but always diffident even to almost paining his friends in court. But he knew the law and never went into court unprepared. All his cases bore the marks of preparation and so he was never surprised, but often surprised the other side. Besides the law he appreciated the value of evidence and had the facts well supported by witnesses. When he came to sum up to the jury he took his time, and if he was seemingly tedious to spectators, he succeeded in interesting the jury, in whom he was mostly interested, whereas Nels Wheeler cared apparently more for the crowd even if he hazarded his case.
"It is said that Remington studied law on the veranda of his grand- father's house in Lyons, so that he was truly a self-made man. In the trial of causes he could be very severe and sarcastic with witnesses, and, likewise in summing up, he could be unmerciful with the opposite party. He thereby made some enemies, but he was an honest man and true as steel to his clients.
"Mr. Remington had no time or appreciation for wit, jokes or stories so common among lawyers generally; he was never known to joke or tell a story and probably could not if he would; he was not built that way, while Nels Wheeler simply was. It can scarcely be called a defect, and it is doubtful if in the practice of the law Mr. Remington suffered any loss from utter absence of humor. Withal, he was a model
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citizen, a family man with a comfortable income and home in a pleasant part of the town. Personally, he was a man of few words, but meant always what he said. He was of slight build and not fashioned to with- stand great strain of nerves and strength in protracted trials. He was seen very little about hotels and drinking places so attractive to most lawyers in those days, but rather be at home with his family and per -. haps working in his garden in the proper season. He had a high appre- ciation of personal integrity always, and while a lawyer open to fees for a client, still, it was always understood that C. C. Remington himself was not for sale. This was shown in giving a young man who sought a position to teach in a state institution, a letter of recommendation, for which the recipient offered to pay a fee, whereupon Mr. Remington gently rebuked him with the remark that if it could be paid for it would not be worth anything.
"Had Mr. Remington lived to advanced age, no doubt he would have continued to serve his large clientage and taken an interest in public affairs. It is doubtful if he had any especial talent that the average young man does not possess with industrious habits. While we are amused and have a certain admiration for the man of humor, still for long wear and usefulness in the community, plain people of undoubted character are the ones of most value. They form the great body that keeps the community ever conservative and without whom such a giddy state of things might prevail as to overturn the very foundations of society and endanger its endurance. Some very great heights have been reached by plain people in the profession of the law. A conspicuous instance is that of Chief Justice Marshall, of the Supreme Court of the United States, who was so plain and old-fashioned in his ways as to walk between >'s home and the capitol, some two miles, four times a day for years, and much of the time while his wife was so nervously ill as to not bear the noise of housework by a servant, actually did it himself, going about in his stocking feet for stillness. It was his habit on retiring to repeat the little prayer of childhood learned at his mother's knee, 'Now I lay me down to sleep, etc.' Who would not prefer to be classed with such than to be gifted with brilliancy which all the world seems ever striving to praise and admire?"
COLONEL NOYES' START AS A LAWYER
Col. David K. Noyes, who practiced law in Baraboo for several years after 1847, became better known as a newspaper man and a brave and able soldier of the Civil war, and a state legislator and official, than as a member of his profession. As a young man he had gone from Vermont to the lead regions of Southwestern Wisconsin. In 1845 he was an associate of General Amasa Cobb as a prospector in that part of the state. Although they both enlisted for the Mexican war, the
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company which they joined was not accepted. Late in the same year Mr. Noyes read law at Beloit, Wisconsin; was admitted to the bar early · in 1847, and in June of that year located at Baraboo to practice his profession and deal in real estate and farm lands. Of this period of his life, he himself says: "I came here to Baraboo to reside in June, 1847, and put up a shingle, 'Law and Land Agency,' but there was nobody coming in to buy land that season. Judge Remington and I dealt out some law, perhaps more law than justice, and more law than pay. There was no money. Rails, slabs and verbal orders were a lawful tender. We could try any sort of case in our learned justice's courts, arson as easy as burglary, or assault with intent to kill a yoke of oxen. All criminals we cleared, or they cleared out themselves. We had pretty good times. There were a number of royal good fellows trying to live here. Some succeeded. Our old friend, the head and front of this old, old settlers' association and ever the untiring secretary, was up here on Skillet creek, in the woods, as happy as a lord to all appear- ance. He has lived up in the woods so long that he pays no more atten- tion to the hooting of an owl than the crowing of the rooster in the morning. We went through that summer and the following winter of '47 and '48 without much trouble, lived on salt barrel pork raised in the east, freighted here from Milwaukee by horse and ox teams, and bread and Orleans molasses. Occasionally we would get venison, and toward spring our good, accommodating landlord, Lyman Clark, Esq., killed his cow for beef. We lived finely for a few days. Early in the spring of '48 settlers came in fast and I had all I could do in hunting and enter- ing lands for them. In June of that year I went back to my native place and was married on the eighteenth of that month in Chelsea, Vermont, returning here in July; and here we have lived without being divorced ever since. We have raised a family, and they have all left the old nest, and we are back again where we started-alone in the old house. My dear old friends, such is life, and we must accept the inevit -. able. For many of us our time is well nigh spent, but I'hope and believe that this country, our home, is a little better for our having lived in it."
LAWYERS OF A LATER PERIOD
The general standard of the members of the Sauk County bar has been elevated, and among those who have materially assisted to maintain its high level may be mentioned, besides those who have already figured in these narratives, the late R. D. Evans. He died in the fall of 1900, just as he was gaining an enviable reputation as a lawyer of high stand- ing. His political outlook, also, was of the brightest.
The late M. Bentley was of the older school and G. Stevens, of Reeds- burg, ably represented that section of the county until his reeent death.
The Sauk County har at the present time consists of the following: F. R. Bentley, J. M. Kelley, Jas. H. Hill, J. L. Bonham, V. H. Cady,
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E. F. Dithmar, J. W. Frenz, A. J. Gemmill, H. Grotophorst, H. H. Thomas, R. M. Rieser, Norman Quale, W. T. Kelsey, J. A. Malone, D. Ruggles, Wm. Evenson, E. Aug. Runge, Baraboo; H. J. Bolm, E. C. Got- try, Walter Meyer, R. P. Perry, Charles Stone, Jas. A. Stone, H. B. Quimby, H. N. Winchester, W. A. Wyse, Reedsburg; Thomas King, Spring Green.
THE PHYSICIANS OF THE COUNTY
Sauk County has been especially fortunate in the character of its physicians and surgeons, whether of an carly or a late day. The average writer is prone to dilate on the comparative superiority of the old-time country doctor over the modern practitioner. Nothing surely should be said to detract from the faithfulness of the old country doctor, or his versatile ability, displayed amid his erude instruments and discouraging surroundings. At the same time, when judging of the difficulties which attend the career of the physician and surgeon of today, one should take into account how much is expected of the modern representative of the profession. Both have labored under special disadvantages, and have acquitted themselves with honor and dignity.
DR. B. F. MILLS AT REEDSBURG AND BARABOO (1849-50)
It is not for the author to form judgment as to the comparative prominence of the practitioners in this special field of professional life, and fortunately several papers have been prepared by old and tried members of the profession, who are well qualified to speak with some authority. Among the most complete and interesting is one by Dr. B. F. Mills, a native of New York who came to Wisconsin just as it was enter- ing statehood, and became a resident of Baraboo in 1850. He writes to the following effect: "In the fall of 1845 I left Watertown for the West, came by steamer to Ohio and spent the winter there. At that time there were no railroads west of Buffalo with the exception of two spurs in Ohio, one running from Sandusky to Mansfield, the pioneer railroad in Ohio, and the other from Xenia to Cincinnati. In the spring of 1846, I left Cleveland by way of the Ohio canal to Portsmouth on the Ohio river and then by steamer down the Ohio river to Cairo, up the Mississippi and Fever rivers to Galena, stopping for the summer in Mis- souri on my way. From Galena, I came by stage to Beloit in the fall of 1846, arriving just before the election resulting in the rejecting of the first constitution submitted to the people of Wisconsin. At that time there were no railroads in Indiana, Illinois, Missouri or Wisconsin. I lived in southern Wisconsin, till 1850 when I moved to Baraboo, although I had visited Baraboo and Reedsburg in 1849. I took my first meal in the basement of a hotel where Ruhland's brewery now stands. Men
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were engaged in digging out stumps in Walnut street from the river to the location of the present South Side church. On my visit to Reeds- burg in 1849, I found the village consisted of the Mill House and Shanty Row occupied by the pioneer settlers, consisting of Messrs. Strong, Rudd, Croswell, McCling, Bishop and others, whose names I do not now recall. These pioneers occupied the palatial row of shanties above mentioned. I was sent to the unfurnished Mill House to sleep, which place, I now understand, was recently torn down.
"They had no feed for my horse and sent me to Mr. Babb's on Babb's prairie, to procure some, and all I could get was buckwheat bran. They furnished me a boy to pilot me there, saying Mr. Babb would not let them have any or me either if they went with me. On my way back to Reedsburg the boy ran me into a quagmire from which I had a serious time extrieating myself and horse. Mr. Babb asked me if I intended to locate in Reedsburg and warned me not to do so as he was building a dam on his creek and this would prevent them from building a dam on the river, as he thus had the prior right.
"In 1850 I located in Baraboo. At that time the village was called Baraboo and the township was called Brooklyn and the postoffice was named Adams. The name of the postoffice was afterwards changed to Baraboo, as they thought this name unique and also there was another postoffice in the state named Adams. The census of the township was taken in 1850, which was then larger than now and included the then unincorporated village of Baraboo and altogether the census was only about 800. C. H. Mclaughlin took the census at that time, and estab- lished the 'Sauk County Standard,' the first paper in Baraboo.
"OF COURSE, HE DID NOT RECOVER"
"I had been here only about a week, when I was called to Lyons to attend a man named Donelson, who had his skull erushed in on one side with a hand axe. I removed several pieces of the skull bones, which I now have in my possession. Of course, he did not recover. I, together with my wife, boarded at the hotel called the Sumner House at the corner where A. R. Reinkings' store is now located. The proprietor was Mr. Locke. One day he had trouble with his help and gave us roast pig with blood oozing from the meat. Of course we were disgusted and my wife, together with Mrs. C. H. Mclaughlin, who was also boarding at the Sumner House, and was the wife of one of the publishers of the 'Sank County Standard,' which was started soon after, discussed the situation, and all decided to move to my old home on the corner of Second and Ash streets, which I had recently purchased, and live together till we could get settled by ourselves.
"As I could not get a cooking stove in Baraboo, my wife and I went to Sauk to get one. On our way back in the night, a severe storm over-
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took us and the only light we got was from the flashes of lightning, and in the darkness we ran into a tree top which had fallen across the road and caused much trouble.
DRS. COWLES, ANGLE AND CRANDALL
"The following sketch of the Doctors of Sauk County was read before the District Medical Society which met in Reedsburg in 1897 and which I have revised to date by inserting the Doctors who since have located in Sauk County.
"Dr. Charles Cowles was the first physician who located in Baraboo Valley. He came here in May, 1846, and Dr. Angle also came in this year. Dr. Cowles was in the prime of life, full of vigor, and had a prac- tice which extended many miles. On one occasion at sundown, January 3, 1847, he was called to go 64 miles to visit a lumberman taken with pleura-pneumonia. On an Indian pony he rode that distance by 4 o'clock the next morning without dismounting and the thermometer registered 26 degrees below zero, such a feat demonstrating a degree of physical endurance seldom seen in our time. He excelled in quick diagnosis, arriving at quick conclusions and was remarkably accurate as a rule. Under the head 'Musical' I find the following: 'Dr. Charles Cowles might be called with propriety the father of music in this and other parts of Sauk County. He taught singing school in the village of Baraboo and neighborhood some twenty years, and many who might now be called "old singers" received their first lesson from him. He died several years ago.'
"The writer located in Baraboo in June, 1850. Dr. Cowles, Dr. Angle and Dr. Crandall were practicing here at that time and I believe were the only regular practitioners in the county. On my way here, I came through Sauk City and Prairie du Sac where they had no physician at the time, although Dr. Woodruff had lived there. He came there in 1843 and was the first physician in Sauk County.
"Dr. Angle came in 1846, but did not practice much after 1850, being engaged in erecting a mill at Angelo, a part of Sparta.
"Dr. Crandall practiced here a few years only and has since died.
DOCTOR JENKINS
"In the winter of 1853 I was called to Newport to attend a man with fractured femur and comminuted fracture of the patella with Dr. Jenkins, an honored member of the profession. The case was on our hands for months and from this association I date the commencement of a warm fraternal feeling towards Dr. Jenkins which I still cherish. . He now lives in Kilbourn.
THE BARABOO MEDICAL ASSOCIATION
"Under date of January 26, 1852, I find in a record I have, the following: 'Doctors Cowles, Noyes, Alexander and Mills were members
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of a medical society organized in Baraboo styled the 'Baraboo Medical Association'-Chas. Cowles, President; D. S. Alexander, Secretary and Treasurer.'
"When I came to Baraboo, there were no doctors in Reedsburg and I attended patients there and at Babb's Prairie.
DOCTORS JONES AND WILLIAMS
"Dr. Ambrose Jones eame to Sauk County in 1850, at Delton, where he now resides. Dr. Williams located in Reedsburg in the early fifties.
"I have mentioned the earlier doctors and will now include those practicing later. The number is so great that many names will unavoid- ably be omitted.
LATER PRACTITIONERS
"Baraboo-Doctors Alexander, Davis, MeKennan, Hall, Koeh, Sny- der, Cowles, Noyes, Mills, Vittum, Angle, Crandall, English, Riley, Kelley, Gorst, Cramer, Irwin, Cahoon, Beach, Sayles, Farnsworth.
"Reedsburg-Doctors Williams, Mackery, Salada, Hall, Hunt, Gil- lula, Selden, Van Buskirk, Ramsey, Rood, Kordinat, Hulburt, Edwards, Daly, Shelden.
"Ironton-Doctors Booher, Bennett.
"Prairie du Sae and Sauk City-Doctors Bassinger, Young, Riley, Buehler, Lachmund, Farr.
"Merrimack-Doctor Martin.
"La Valle-Doctor Hilliard.
"Spring Green-Doctors Christman, Bossard, Pelton.
"Delton-Doctors Jenkins and Jones.
"The above list ineludes all the regular physicians who now reside or have resided in Sauk county that I recall at this time. I may have omitted some, but not intentionally, and have written more particularly about the earliest resident doetors and will leave to abler pens to extol the merits of those coming later."
MORE OLD-TIME DOCTORS
The names of three old-time physicians of Baraboo were not men- tioned by Doctor Mills. They were Dr. Joseplı Alexander, Dr. Miller Blachly and Dr. L. C. Slye.
Doctor Alexander came to Baraboo in the '40s and had a practice extending as far as the Lemonweir. He died of consumption about 1857.
Dr. Miller Blachly was born at Niles, Ohio, August 13, 1804; married Mary Satterfield in 1833; praetieed medieine in Niles eight years; eame to Dane County in 1850; to Okee in 1853; and to Baraboo in 1857. He moved to Northi Freedom in 1883 and died there in 1894.
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Dr. L. C. Slye was born at Bennington, Vermont, and commenced the practice of the allopathic system of medicine there. Later he located at Waukesha, Wisconsin, then Prairieville and next at Baraboo. Although he had a large practice in Baraboo and the surrounding country, he died a poor man. He never hesitated to answer a call although he knew there was little hope of compensation. He was one of the first to bring the ideas of his school of medicine into this section of Wisconsin. Doctor Slye died in 1898 at the ripe old age of eighty-two.
DOCTOR JONES DIES
Dr. Ambrose Jones of Delton recently died at the age of nearly one hundred years. He had lived longer in the county than any other physician.
LIST OF TODAY
Among the older ones of the profession in the county are Dr. J. E. English of Baraboo, Dr. J. W. Buehler of Sauk City, Dr. C. A. Rood and Dr. T. R. Hastings of Reedsburg.
A list of those in the county at the present time include the following : Baraboo-Doctors J. E. English, F. R. Winslow, A. L. Farnsworth, H. J. Irwin, L. W. Sayles, Charles E. Getchell, Walter A. Hazelton, D. M. Kelley, Edward MeGrath, Roger Cahoon and W. F. Nuzum.
Reedsburg-Doctors F. P. Daly, F. D. Hulburt, C. A. Rood, T. R. Hastings, Otto Spoerhleder, A. Edwards, A. N. Jones, Zimmerman and Thompson.
Ableman-Dr. W. J. Hummell.
La Valle-Dr. J. W. Miller.
North Freedom-Doctor Dierschke.
Prairie du Sac-Doctors J. W. Buehler, Rex Schlag and Buckner.
Sauk City-Doetors Charles von Hiddisen, S. C. Keller, Lalor and Johnson.
Ironton-Dr. Joseph Tkadlec.
Spring Green-Doctors Frank Nee, E. G. Christman, Marus Bossard.
Plain-Doctors P. H. Fowler (now with the United States Army) and Mary Hanko.
Loganville-Doctors O. E. Westedt and Edward Hanko.
Merrimack-Doctors M. T. Martin and F. E. Tryon.
A FEW FACTS FROM DOCTOR NOYES
Dr. A. A. Noyes, who moved from Baraboo to Mason City, Iowa. was one of the pioneer physicians, and in a letter to the Sauk County Historical Society sends the following items regarding some of his pro-
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fessional associates: "I first went to Baraboo in 1846 and, after a stay in Missouri I returned to Baraboo in 1850. While I had my office in Missouri, I practiced in three different states up and down the Des Moines river on both sides, and also across the Mississippi river at Wausau, Illinois. It was in 1849 that I made my first venture as a physi- cian and surgeon, after my graduation. In the spring of 1850 I was flooded out of my habitation by the old Mississippi and returned to Baraboo. I soon gained the confidence of the citizens and the surround- ing country as a successful practitioner of medicine and surgery. I was the leader and charter member of the first medical society in Sauk County.
"I have been running over in my mind's eye the names of the young men (old bachelors) who were in Baraboo from 1846 to 1850. Boys we all were; rollicking, boyish boys! Here are the names of some of them, who were there then or a little later: M. C. Waite, Morris Waite, Joseph Alexander, Samuel Hiles, William Brown, D. K. Noyes, E. O. Gregory, John Crawford, Rosewell Crement, William H. Canfield, Lewis Hayes, Daniel Ruggles, Eb. Nelson, H. D. Evans, Fred Nelson, Elisha Walbridge, E. E. Ames, James Cowles, Nels Wheeler, J. E. Wilkinson, E. H. Potter, Orin Huyck, Dr. H. S. Alexander, Simeon Crandall, A. A. Noyes, Edwin Paddock, Levi Crouch, Henry Hurlbut, L. C. Stanley, Hiram Hurlbut, Howard Huntington, Joel Hurlbut, Levi Moore, Noah Kirk, James Haines, Levi Munson, Henry Peck, C. C. Remington, Henry Cowles, R. Lewis Walker, Henry Southard, John Goode and Orange Cook.
"I was the youngest of them all, twenty-four years old in 1846. All were wrestling boys. I used to have a good many boyish scraps with Dr. Cowles, M. C. Waite and H. D. Evans, in the trial of strength, in scuffling. One time, with Dr. Cowles in front of his house we were both faces down in the sand. Dr. Cowles was considered the bully of Sauk county.
"In a former article I was not sure about the number of years Dr. Crandall was there (in Baraboo). He went there in 1846, and in the fall of 1851 returned to Missouri, where he formerly lived and where he married his wife. He died there in November, 1853. His family returned north in June, 1856, with his brother, D. P. Crandall and his family. The wives of the brothers were sisters. When they went to Baraboo in 1846 they lived in a little board shanty which stood near the location of the hotel where Mr. Moore lived on the flat; it was then called 'under the hill.' Both families lived there together until Dr. Crandall built a house for himself and family across the street from this shanty. Soon after this Dr. Crandall went onto his farm. My wife, Mrs. Noyes, was a charter member of five who organized the Baptist church of Baraboo in 1846."
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SOME SAUK COUNTY SCHOOLS
Viewing from top to bottom: Reedsburg High School; Ableman School; Baraboo High School; typieal district schoolhouse: Spring Green High School
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CHAPTER XI
COUNTY SCHOOLS AND. RURAL CLUBS
SOURCES OF DISTRICT SCHOOL SUPPORT-MODERN ACTIVITIES-ORGANIZA- TION OF BOYS' CORN GROWING CONTESTS-COUNTY TEACHERS' ASSO- CIATION ORGANIZED-CONTESTS AND FIELD MEETS-PUBLICATION OF "SAUK COUNTY SCHOOLS"-EDUCATIONAL EXHIBIT AT STATE FAIR- WORK IN AGRICULTURE PRACTICAL-WARM LUNCHES FOR COUNTRY SCHOOL CHILDREN-A RURAL SCHOOL SURVEY-SCHOOL DISTRICT AGRICULTURAL FAIRS-FARMERS' CLUB MOVEMENT-SCHOOLS, TEACH- ERS AND SALARIES-SAUK COUNTY COUNTRY CLUBS-FOUR CLASSES OF CLUBS-DEVELOPS LEADERSHIP-THE COUNTRY TEACHER-HOW ONE CLUB WAS ORGANIZED-WHAT A MINISTER DID-GENERAL FEATURES OF THE CLUBS-SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MOVEMENT-COUNTRY LIFE LIBRARY-FEDERATION OF COUNTRY CLUBS-CONSTITUTION-BY-LAWS -SCHOOLS AND SCHOLARS OF LONG AGO-A VETERAN SCHOOLHOUSE.
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