USA > Wisconsin > Sauk County > A standard history of Sauk County, Wisconsin, Volume II > Part 2
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PROFESSOR WILBUR EUGENE SMITH. A man of high intellectual attainments and of practical ability, Professor Wilbur Eugene Smith, principal of the Training School of Sauk County, at Reedsburg, is one of the best known educators of this part of the state. Professor Smith's entire career has been devoted to educational work, and while he is still a young man his experience has been broad, comprehensive and diversified. He is a native of Wisconsin, having been born March 20, 1879, near Appleton, Outagamie County, a son of John and Eliza Ann (Greenfield) Smith.
John Smith was born in New Brunswick, in 1832, and when a lad of seventeen years became imbued with the gold fever and made the long
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and perilous journey across the plains to the treasure fields of California. A short experience satisfied him that gold mining was not his forte, and he soon returned to his home in the East. However, he had seen much in his travels and decided that the West offered him opportunities such as could not be found in his home community, and accordingly he came to Wisconsin and settled in Outagamie County. There he met and married Eliza Aun Greenfield, who had been born in 1844, in St. Lawrence County, New York, a daughter of Harvey and Amanda (Cobb) Greenfield, the former born in New York and the latter at Sheldon, that state, March 30, 1822. Mr. and Mrs. Greenfield came to Wisconsin and settled at Dale, Outagamie County, in 1850, Mrs. Greenfield being the first teacher in the school at that place, while her husband engaged in farming and during the early days conducted a tavern on his property. There he died in 1904, aged about ninety years, Mrs. Greenfield having passed away August 18, 1880. They were the parents of three children : Frank W., who is engaged in farming in Michigan; Eliza Ann, who became Mrs. Smith ; and Charles W., an attorney of Chicago. The Cobb family traced its ancestry to England, from which country its earliest members came to America in 1635, making a settlement at Watertown, near Boston, Massachusetts.
John Smith spent many years in the logging business. For some years he had charge of lumber camps on Wolf River, but about 1883 or 1884 went to South Dakota, where he took a homestead. After several years he returned to Wisconsin and settled at Sherry, Wood County, where he again entered the logging business, handling logs and conducting camps for some years. In later life he went to Manawa, Waupaca County, and there his death occurred February 6, 1905, while his widow still survives and makes her home at that point. Mr. Smith was one of the substantial citizens of his community, a Free Mason, and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He and Mrs. Smith were the parents of three chil- dren : Dexter B., of Kaukauna, Wisconsin; Linda, who is the wife of A. N. Hilton, of Symerton, Illinois; and Wilbur Eugene, of this notice.
Wilbur Eugene Smith was still a child when the family moved to South Dakota, and there in the pioneer schools of the frontier he received his preliminary educational training. He was twelve years old when he accompanied his parents to Sherry, Wood County, where he was further trained, and subsequently graduated from the Little Wolf High School at Manawa. At that time Mr. Smith began teaching school, but later took a complete course at the Stevens Point State Normal School, from which he was graduated in 1904. In that year he became principal of a ward school in Chippewa Falls, and after about two months was appointed superintendent of the Waupaca county schools and held that position for four years. Subsequently he went to Wautoma, Waushara County, where he established the Waushara County Training School and was principal for three years, and in 1911 came to Reedsburg, where he has since been principal of the Training School of Sauk County. Professor Smith is a leader not only in the field of his profession, but his familiarity with the conditions and needs of Reedsburg and his natural initiative force, have brought him into prominence as an enterprising and pushing man of affairs. While at Wautoma, as chairman of the Advancement
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Association, he was one of the strongest factors in the seetion identified with the general welfare of the public interests of the community. His political support has always been given to the republican party.
On December 20, 1905, Mr. Smith was married to Miss Margaret Lindsey, who was born in Waupaca County, Wisconsin, October 27, 1879, a daughter of Arthur and Lettie (Ritchie) Lindsey, natives of Ireland and of Scotch-Irish descent. Mr. Lindsey was born in 1843 and Mrs. Lindsey November 18, 1843, and both came to the United States when five years old and located with their parents in New York, although Mrs. Lindsey's parents later went to Ohio. The paternal grandparents of Mrs. Smith were George and Isabel (Wallace) Lindsey, who settled in Waupaca County, Wisconsin, in 1855, and there both died, the grand- father in 1879 and the grandmother in 1891. The maternal grandparents of Mrs. Smith were George and Margaret (Carroll) Ritchie, who came from Ireland to the United States, lived for several years in Ohio, and were pioneers of Waupaca County, where both died, the grandfather in 1883 and the grandmother in 1912, at the advanced age of ninety years. Arthur and Lettie Lindsey were the parents of the following children : Jennie, George, Wallace, Arthur, Margaret and Robert, of whom Wallace is deceased. Mr. Lindsey engaged in the logging business at an early day and for about thirty years has been a member of the Hatton Lumber Company. He is now one of the prominent citizens of Manawa, where he is president of the First National Bank, is a leading democrat and former postmaster, and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Mrs. Smith was graduated from the Manawa High School, following which she attended Lawrence College, of Appleton, Wisconsin, and then accepted a position as stenographer in her father's lumber business at Manawa, retaining that post until her marriage to Professor Smith. They are the parents of two children : Eleanor Eliza, born November 18, 1906; and Arthur John, born December 26, 1908. Professor Smith is justly popular with the people of his adopted community. where he has stead- fastly sought to elevate educational standards. He has won the right to stand with the few who combine a natural aptitude for teaching with the executive force necessary to energize a body of teachers.
LEVI CAHOON. The Cahoons are a family of pioneers. They have been identified with Sauk County since wilderness days, more than sixty years ago, and the pioneer spirit which caused them to come to this new locality had in a previous generation actuated them to remove from the Atlantic seaboard into the wilds of Northern Ohio. The family history is an interesting one and deserves to be carried back beyond the date of settlement in Sauk County.
The original American seat of the family was in Massachusetts, Berk- shire County, where Wilber Cahoon was born December 27, 1772. He married Miss Priscilla Sweet, of Rhode Island. For a number of years they lived in Herkimer County, New York, where all their children but one were born. It was in the year 1814 that these worthy people, par- ticipating in that great westward movement which began about the close of the second war with Great Britain, left New York State for the far West. Wilber Cahoon traded his 100 acres of land in Herkimer County
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for a tract of 800 acres, all covered with heavy forests, in what is now Avon Township of Lorain County, Ohio. Arriving there with his family he established such rude accommodations as conditions permitted for his first home. In 1825 he erected the first frame house in Avon Township. The tract of land owned by the Cahoons in 1814 was so isolated that a trail for eight miles had to be cut through the woods to make it accessible. At the time there was not a single settlement between the Cahoon habi- tation and the little village of Cleveland, Ohio. Wilber Cahoon possessed the character and the energy which would have made him influential in any country. He was a whig, was the first justice of the peace elected in his part of Lorain County, and he and his wife were charter members of the First Baptist Church at Avon. Wilber Cahoon played a promi- nent part in Lorain County, though he died twelve years after his com- ing, on September 27, 1826. His wife, Priscilla, died May 2; 1855. Their descendants are still numerously represented in Lorain County.
Of their eight children one was Wilber Cahoon, Jr., father of Mr. Levi Cahoon, first noted above. Wilber Cahoon, Jr., was born in Her- kimer County, New York. He became a farmer and miller, operating a lumber mill in Lorain County, and subsequently went to California as a gold seeker and died in that state September 9, 1852. He was married April 6, 1826, to Thirza Moore, whose family was also identified with the early settlement of Sauk County.
A son of Wilber Cahoon, Jr., and wife, Mr. Levi Cahoon was born in Lorain County, Ohio, June 2, 1834. Thirza Moore, his mother, was a daughter of Joseph Moore, who served with distinction in the Revolu- tionary war and was with General Washington throughout that struggle. Mr. Moore subsequently moved to Ohio and was also a pioneer in Lorain County.
Levi Cahoon during his youth became a sailor on the Great Lakes and in 1855, at the age of twenty-one, he came to Baraboo and joined his uncle, Capt. Levi Moore. He acquired land, cleared up a good farm and became a widely known and prominent citizen. He served in a number of town and county offices in the early days. Mr. Levi Cahoon married Willie Ann Wells, who was born at Whitewater in Walworth County, Wisconsin, July 4, 1846. She died at Baraboo June 13, 1915. Her father, William Wells, was a native of Nova Scotia and a pioneer in Wisconsin. Mrs. Levi Cahoon was a school teacher before her marriage. She and her husband had six children: Wells, who was killed on a railroad in Montana at the age of twenty-five; Wilber, reference to whose career appears on other pages; Lee, a rancher in Missoula, Montana ; Paul, a farmer ; Doctor Roger, who was born in Baraboo March 2, 1877, is a graduate of the Louisville Medical College and has for fifteen years been in active practice at Baraboo; and Ora, a graduate of the Wisconsin State University in the engineering department and now located in Chicago.
HON. WILBER CAHOON, a former representative from Sauk County in the state legislature, has for years been a successful farmer and busi- ness man and has lived up to the worthy traditions of the Cahoon family for public spirited activity in behalf of everything that promises good to the community.
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Mr. Cahoon was born on the old homestead of his father in Baraboo Township March 22, 1868. He is a son of Levi Cahoon, elsewhere referred to in this publication. He grew up on the home farm, attended the public schools, and for thirty years has steadily pursued his basic indus- try as a farmer. In 1896 he bought eighty acres of land in Baraboo Township, and he also still owns twenty-one acres of the former tract of forty acres, from which a portion has been sold to constitute the property known as the Cahoon Mines. He is also owner of another farm in Bara- boo Township comprising eighty-two and a half acres. Mr. Cahoon is a general farmer and has long been active in the dairy industry and as a breeder of registered Jersey cattle. He is a stockholder in the Excelsior Co-operative Creamery Company of Baraboo and hauled the first load of cream to that plant. He was a member of the building committee which established the first dairy plant.
Mr. Cahoon is a progressive republican. He has served as treasurer of Baraboo Township and was elected a member of the legislature in 1906, serving one term. For two years, 1915-16, he served as supervisor of Baraboo Township and in 1917, was elected chairman of the board. He is vice president of the Farmers and Merchants Bank of Baraboo. For twenty years he has been a member of the local school board and is also a member of the Sauk County Board of Education. Mr. Cahoon is president of the Skillet Falls Telephone Company. He is quite active in fraternal matters and is affiliated with Baraboo Lodge of Masons, and also the lodges of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias, the Modern Woodmen of America and the Order of Beavers. In religious faith he is a Unitarian, but Mrs. Cahoon is a member of the Episcopal Church.
In 1890 he married Miss Ella Davis. Mrs. Cahoon was born in Phila- delphia in 1869, a daughter of Thomas L. and Mary (Thompson) Davis. Her parents were very early settlers in Sauk County, but subsequently removed to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1880 they returned to Sauk County, where Mrs. Davis died in 1906. Mrs. Cahoon's father is still living in Baraboo. Four children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Cahoon. Leelyn T., born September 5, 1892, was educated in the public schools and the Baraboo Business College and is a successful young farmer of this county. He married Martha Bittrich, and their three sons are named Ralph, Wells and Elmer. Wilber Davis Cahoon, the second son, was born November 20, 1895, and since completing his public school education has lived at home. Ivan W., born May 22, 1900, is a student in the Baraboo High School. Ora B., the youngest, was born January 26, 1907, and is attending the grade schools.
MARTIN HICKEY. One of the largest and wealthiest business firms of Reedsburg is Hickey Brothers, livestock and commission dealers. It is a business that has been growing steadily for upwards of forty years, when Martin Hickey moved into Reedsburg and began employing his energies on a limited scale in the livestock business.
The firm now consists of Mr. Martin Hickey and his younger brother, John E. Hickey. Besides livestock the firm handles an extensive produce business. They own a large warehouse and every year buy immense
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quantities of the products raised in the surrounding country district and market them at a distance. Martin Hickey now has the active superin- tendence of the produce end of the business and also the general office, while his brother John is usually in the field looking after the livestock interest.
Martin Hickey was born in Dellona Township of Sauk County Decem- ber 16, 1854. His parents, Patrick and Catherine (Crowley) Hickey, were both natives of Ireland. Patrick Hickey came to Sauk County in 1846, when it was a completely pioneer district and two years before Wisconsin became a state. Locating in Dellona Township, he acquired a tract of Government land and in time developed a 320-acre farm. He lived there in substantial comfort and prosperity until his death in 1903, at the venerable age of ninety-five. His wife passed away in 1886. Patrick Hickey was a democrat in politics and was quite active in local affairs, holding several township offices. He and his wife were members of the Catholic Church and reared their family in the same faith. They were married in Sauk County and their six children were named : Mary ; Catherine, now deceased ; Martin ; Michael ; John, and Anna.
Martin Hickey grew up on the old home farm of his father in Dellona Township. He attended the public schools there, and was a young man about twenty-five years of age when he came to Reedsburg and began handling live stock. From live stock the scope of his enterprise was extended to the produce commission business, and since 1894 his brother John has been associated with him under the name Hickey Brothers. Mr. Martin Hickey is also a director in the State Bank of Reedsburg.
Politically he is a democrat and for the past five years held the position of alderman in the city council. He and his family are Catholics. He was married in 1895 to Miss Ellen Newman, of Ironton, Sauk County, daughter of Patrick and Catherine Newman. Her parents were also natives of Ireland, and on coming to this country first settled in New York and later moved to Ironton. They spent their last days in Superior, Wisconsin. Mr. and Mrs. Martin Hickey have three children. Catherine is a graduate of the Reedsburg High School and is now a student in the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul. Rolland M. is a junior in the Reeds- burg High School, while Agnes is in the eighth grade of the public schools.
PHILIP GRUBB. It might surprise some people, who still have in mind the old-fashioned farm when agriculture is mentioned, if they could have the opportunity of visiting a first class, modern dairy farm such as is owned by Philip Grubb and lies in Freedom Township, Sauk County. Modern and substantial buildings, the best improved machin- ery and sanitary conveniences and equipments in the farm buildings throughout would be seen and with other indications of thrift might be noticed a fine automobile. With the passing of old time methods the old time farmer has gone also, and there is no class more awake to present opportunities than is the intelligent and progressive Wis- consin farmer in the year in which this is recorded of him.
Fortunately it is possible to tell the story of the Grubb family somewhat in detail, and that story is valuable in the strong light it throws upon the pioneer life and times of Sauk County.
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His father, Philip Peter Grubb, was born in Rhenish Bavaria, Ger- many, November 28, 1824. In 1848, when Germany was in a state of revolution, he left the Fatherland and came to Pittsburg, Pennsyl- vania. At Pittsburg he married Philopena Rumpf, who was born in Rhenish Bavaria, Germany, January 25, 1832. She died October 7, 1904, while Philip Peter met an accidental death May 22, 1881, at the age of fifty-seven.
Philip Peter Grubb had a good education. While living in Ger- many he followed the business of teamster. In 1856 or 1857 the Grubb family migrated to Wisconsin. A steamboat carried them down the Ohio River from Pittsburg and thence up the Mississippi and up the Wisconsin River to Sauk City. From there they traveled by wagon and team to the Town of Freedom in Sauk County. On this part of the journey as they came to Zimmerly's in Freedom Township Mrs. Grubb was taken very ill with cholera morbus. As soon as possible they moved to the eastern part of the Town of Westfield and remained there until a log hut had been built and some trees cleared away from their permanent home in section 5 of Freedom Township. All of that region was then a forest of heavy timber. There were no roads, and the only method of conveyance was with ox teams and lumber wagons. In the absence of fences it was possible for the people to drive in any direc- tion where they could get through. Philip Peter Grubb and family lived in their log house until 1870, when they constructed a new frame building. Toward the close of the '50s and the beginning of the '60s two settlements of German people from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, were made in Sauk County, one in the western part of the Town of Bara- boo, including the Nippert and Hishinger and other families, who organized a Methodist church or society. The other colony located in the western part of the Town of Freedom and East Westfield and they constructed a log church for the Methodist denomination. These fam- ilies included the following names: John Werron, Henry Faller, Peter Stachhouse, Christ and George Mook, Henry Herbel, Henry Shuts and others. They were all very sociable and neighborly, and as greed and jealousy were things unknown in those early days social communion was an undiluted joy. These families saw much of each other during the protracted and quarterly meetings of the church, and attended those meetings by going on foot or in wagons drawn by ox teams. It is said that these old time congregations sang and prayed with such fervor that the church benches vibrated. In 1860 a Sunday School picnic was held at Ableman, at Gust Pifron's Hill. The children walked four miles from the Methodist log church to Ableman, John Faller carry- ing the banner at their head. Henry Faller, father of John, and George Mook were Sunday School superintendents for many years.
In 1861 the war broke out and many of the, local boys and men went into the army, including most of the able bodied. Some of them never came back, their bodies resting on the battlefields where they fought so valiantly. Others came home sick and died of disease con- tracted in the army. All of these old timers have since passed away. In the Town of Freedom only one man was drafted during the war. He was Ab Densloy, a neighbor of the Grubb family.
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It is recalled that in the pioneer days when no roads had been con- structed two early settlers in West Freedom named Mike and John Hanely cut out and blazed a road so that the other settlers could find their way. They put the letter H on the trees to mark this trail. John Werron was fond of telling the remark of a neighbor's son, named Mike Hafer, who when he saw the letter H carved on a tree would always remark "here the Hanelys have been."
In May, 1881, Philip Peter Grubb, while removing a large double log barn to make room for a frame barn 34 by 60 feet, was struck by a falling timber and killed. He had a family of nine children, whose births are recorded as follows: Philip, born February 12, 1852, at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania; George, born at Mount Washington in Pitts- burg March 16, 1855; Wilhelmina, born May 31, 1857; William, born November 18, 1858; Charles, born August 30, 1860; Franklin, born February 4, 1863; Sophia, born October 24, 1864; Edward, born May 1, 1867; John, born January 25, 1869. Mrs. Philopenia Grubb, being left a widow, in November, 1883, married August Filter, of Mani- towoc, Wisconsin, and after living at Manitowoc several years returned to a farm in the Town of Westfield, Sauk County, where she lived happily with her second husband and where she died October 7, 1904, at the age of seventy-one.
As he was only about five years old when the family came to Sauk County, Mr. Philip Grubb remembers none of the incidents of that journey. But of his environment and of the incidents of life in this frontier community he has many interesting memories. He recalls the little log house and its surroundings, where a small area had been cleared of trees and brush, while the large trees had been girdled, the bark being cut off at the bottom so that their shade would not inter- fere with the growing of crops. His father would cut down many of these trees in the winter, would roll the logs together in heaps by means of chains and skids and then the entire heap would be burned. As a boy he often crossed the country without restriction in every direction, where now progress would be impossible except by climbing over fences and crossing tilled fields. A special place in his memory was the steep hill across W. C. T. Newell's land on the way to Wer- ron's place, where the religious meetings were held. He recalls when the log church was built on the boundary line between the land of I. Werron and George Mook, and how full the woods were of animals, game, birds and snakes. Many times he saw deer running past the house. Rattlesnakes were a constant pest in those days. Sometimes they even entered the house, and one of these reptiles was found in the basement of the Grubb home. Other animals of destruction were the chicken hawk, which many times invaded the Grubb poultry yard. His parents claimed that they killed more than sixty rattlesnakes the first year of their residence. Close to the log house was a shed which sheltered the two oxen and the cow, constituting the family live stock. Mr. Grubb's father spent many days mowing marsh hay for the cat- tle, and he recalls how Adam Shuster, Henry Shuts and Jake Balloon assisted his father in mowing this hay with the scythe. Philip himself as soon as strong enough to handle the tools wielded the scythe for cut- Vol. IT-2
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ting hay and the cradle in mowing grain. His father at one time went to Gen. A. W. Starks' place to mow hay with a scythe so as to get a lit- tle money for the necessities of life. About the time the Civil war began was a scene on the Starks place when five or six men were cut- ting hay with scythes and following each other in a row.
General Starks had a son named John who went into the Sixth Wisconsin Regiment, was wounded in battle and died. Mr. Philip Grubb has always been a good church member, and as a boy he regularly attended Sunday School. One spring Sunday morning he set off for this school, and was accompanied on the road by two neighbors, Adam Waltz and Dave Conely. They soon came to what was known as the Rattlesnake Den, half way between the Grubb farm and the church. Here a heap of sandstones furnished a favorite covert for the snakes. The men cut sticks, some of them with prongs on the end and others with a sharp hook on the end. A stick with a prong was used to hold the snake down while its head was cut off with a pocket knife. The other sticks they would use to reach down into the crevices between . the rocks and draw the snake forth, after which it would flop and fly around and rattle its tail until the men could capture it and dis- patch it. After witnessing this snake killing Mr. Grubb himself did the same thing a number of times until he had experienced several close calls from getting bit and he gave up the sport as too dangerous to practice.
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