USA > Wisconsin > Fond du Lac County > Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, past and present, Volume I > Part 10
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encountered a severe rain storm; swam our horses across a swollen creek; got lost in the darkness as night came on; but finally, after much difficulty, reached my brother's house.
"We stayed here a few days but it rained most of the time and the creeks were overflowed and more than half of the surface of the country was under water. My brother and I were anxious to know what our father thought of the country for farming purposes ; but he was sick, a long way from home, and quite . outside of all civilization. He said but little on any subject. All we got from him in relation to the place was that it looked like a good country for grass. As my father was a farmer and had haying and harvesting at home to attend to, he soon felt it was necessary to start for home. A short distance before we arrived at the Bay, I asked him if he thought mother would ever see this country. After riding several rods he replied that if she ever expected to see her chil- dren or be near them, she would have to come here, 'for,' said he, 'three of her children are here now and the rest of them will come, and they will never leave such a country as you and Colwert are in and go back to Vermont.' Before he started for home he gave me the money to pay for the one hundred and sixty acres which we had reserved for him, and said that he was going to return to tell his family what he thought of our location, and to consult with them; and that he should write us what they concluded to do. In a few days, he left Green Bay for home. And thus ended my second visit to Fond du Lac.
"In September I received a letter from my brother Colwert, in which he said that he had a quantity of hay cut and ready to stack but that he had no one to help him stack it, and requested me to come to Fond du Lac and help him. On the 14th I started to go there. When I reached Wright's (now called Wrights- town), I stopped-as was the custom of all others at that time-to feed my horse and get dinner. I there met a stranger from New York state by the name of Harkness, who inquired where I was going. I replied that I was going to the upper country. 'Well, sir,' said he, 'when you get to Fond du Lac, I would advise you to stop at least a week. I stopped there nearly two weeks to rest, look at the country and get acquainted. Why, sir, they are the best people I ever met and that is the best kept house this side of Buffalo. After you pass there you will not find another such place if you travel five hundred miles.' I said to him that I thought I would avail myself of the benefit of his experience and stop when I got there. The next day I reached my brothers but now came two days of damp weather. Benjamin Funk, from the region of the lead mines, came along the next day with a drove of cattle, going to the Bay. Of him we purchased two yoke of oxen and a cow and calf, to pay for which I gave him an order on Daniel Whitney, at the Bay. The weather now became fair and we stacked our hay. I sold my horse to a man from Manitowoc and walked back home. This ended my third visit to. Fond du Lac.
"Some time in December, 1836, I received another letter from my brother at Fond du Lac, in which he told me that he was getting short of provisions of all kinds and that it was not expedient for him to leave his wife there alone for the length of time that it would take him to go to the Bay and return; that he wished me to get some man to pack a couple of horses and bring him some pro- visions, if no other way could be found. I spoke to Mr. Whitney about the mat- ter and he told me that he had agreed to send some goods to my brother to
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trade with the Indians, and that he ought to have done it before. 'And now,' said he, 'I will furnish a horse and train if you will go and take a load up to your brother's.' I said to him that there was no road and that I could not get there with a team. He ridiculed the idea and said there was not the least trouble, that the ice on the Lake ( Winnebago) was good. I said to him that I was not accustomed to the lake and that I was not pleased with the idea of attempting to cross it alone. But his reply was that I was not accustomed to a frontier life; that there was not the slightest danger on the lake; that I could not make a hole in the ice in half an hour large enough to get a horse into the water, and that, as yet, there were no cracks in the ice. Said he, 'If you will go, I will risk the horse.' So, on the 20th of December, I started from Green Bay for the fourth time, for Fond du Lac. It was a mild, misty morning. Before I got to Wright's it rained quite hard. While I was there the wind came from the north and the rain changed to snow. I started, and before I reached the Stockbridge Mission, the weather was quite cold. The harness on the horse was frozen so stiff that it was hard to get it off. The next morning was extremely cold, so much so that the Rev. Marsh tried to dissuade me from going on that day, 'for,' said he, 'I fear you will perish before you reach your brother's.'
"However, knowing that my brother was short of provisions, I thought best to try to get to him. I went on the lake at Pipe Village. I found the snow so badly drifted that I was compelled to tread the snow for some rods before the horse could get through to the lake. This, I think, detained me near or quite an hour. In the meantime the wind blew so severe from the southwest that it was with difficulty that I could keep my horse from turning around. After I got on the lake, the snow was so strongly driven by the force of the wind that I could only see a few feet before the horse. The snow upon the lake was in drifts, with places of sometimes half a mile of smooth, uncovered ice. The cold was so intense that I was obliged to go on foot or perish. It was the worst day but one that I can remember, and that was January 1, 1864. I traveled as fast as possible until about three o'clock, when my horse dropped his hind feet through the ice into the water. I was behind the train. I sprang to him as soon as pos- sible and loosened him, but in his struggles to get out, I saw that the ice was crumbling and breaking off. Soon he was in the water all except his head. There was a drift of snow of several rods in width where he went in, so that I was able to stand. I put the lines around his neck and choked him, and, in his struggles I pulled him on the ice, but it immediately broke and when he went in again he took me with him. I sprang on top of him and went over him, and caught on the ice on the other side. I was in the water up to my waist. I then got out. I believe it was pretty quick and spry work I did. My overcoat was frozen stiff. I now discovered that my hands were frozen. I then whipped them around my body until the blood was pressed into them, and they felt warm. I then went round the broken ice and placed the horse's head or neck across the shaft. He was quivering, but otherwise motionless. I saw that he was gone and I now started to find the only house in Fond du Lac county.
"My boots were filled with water and frozen stiff. My clothes were wet up to my waist. About this time I saw the sun for the first time through the day. It appeared to be about an hour above the horizon. Where the ice was covered with snow I could get along very well, but where it was smooth it required all my
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strength and utmost care to stand. I succeeded in reaching land just before the sun disappeared. The prairie had not been burned and the snow was about seven or eight inches, including the grass. Near the lake it was blown to the depth of two feet or more. The wind was blowing strong from the southwest and the weather was intensely cold. I made the best time possible to reach my brother's house, knowing that was the only chance for my life. Of course I was in great anxiety for fear I could not find it. I struck the timber about one hun- dred rods north of the house. The cattle had been out on the east side of the timber that day, and I will here say that I never was so glad in my life to see the tracks of a cow, as it was just as darkness was closing in upon me, on the 2Ist of December, 1836. I soon reached the house, when I found that my hands were badly frozen and also my cheeks. I found in the house my brother's wife and a lad from Brothertown, whom my brother had persuaded to stop with her until his return; for, not having heard from me, and their provisions being short, he had started that morning in company with a traveler who came along, to go to the Bay. Some idea of the storm I encountered may be had when I state that we had passed very near without seeing each other's teams at all. The next morning the young lad accompanied me back to the spot where my horse had been left. I found him in the same position in which I had left him the night before."
Reuben Simmons and his wife, Louisa Parker Simmons, arrived in Green Bay from the state of New York in the summer of 1837 and in the fall of that year, with three other men, Simmons reached Winnebago lake by way of the Fox river and thence on he journeyed by water to the mouth of the Fond du Lac river. The party paddled its canoe up the river and "tied up" opposite the "Fond du Lac House." After exploring the beautiful woods and prairies of the vicinity, Mr. Simmons returned to Green Bay, greatly impressed with his venture. Hav- ing become acquainted with James Duane Doty, Mr. Simmons related to him his experiences in Fond du Lac county and it was then that Doty prevailed on Sim- mons to return to the settlement and take charge of a farm, afterwards known as the George D. Ruggles place. Doty agreed to furnish the lumber for a house to be built on the farm, which was erected at Doty's expense and, in conformity with this arrangement, Simmons, in the winter of 1838-9, hauled the lumber and other necessary material for the building from Green Bay to Fond du Lac and put up a frame structure 12 x 16 feet, finishing the work in the following spring. This was the second frame house erected in Fond du Lac county, the first hav- ing been erected by Judge Doty a short time previously, in 1838, in what is now the town of Empire.
After a roof had been placed on the house, Mr. Simmons put a cook stove in one corner, provisions in another, and here the men lived until the building was completed. In the spring Simmons was joined by his wife, little daughter and four sons; also two hired men and a Brothertown Indian, which was quite an increase in the settlement's growing population. Within a year the Simmons family was on a large place belonging to Judge Doty, which was afterward known as the Phillips, being situated on section 7, in the town of Empire. From this place Mr. Simmons took his butter, eggs, honey and other farm produce to Green Bay, that being the nearest market place at that time. These were bar- tered for family necessaries.
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In the fall of 1841, Reuben Simmons built a house on section 23, Fond du Lac town, which became known as the Simmons' homestead. To this place the family moved in the spring of 1842 and the old pioneer died there in 1869. There also the widow spent the remainder of a long and eventful life. The children who came to the wilds of Fond du Lac with this worthy couple, married and raised families of their own. The name of the daughter was Eliza Ann and she became the wife of James B. Clock. The boys were Alonzo L. Simmons, Amasa P. Simmons, William Leroy Simmons and Enos Marcellus Simmons.
George White was a hardy pioneer, upright in his dealings and was looked upon by the Indians, with whom he had many dealings, as their friend and pro- tector. White came to the Fond du Lac settlement, from Green Bay, in 1837, at the time that only one house had been built, which was occupied by Colwert Pier. He remained but a short time at Fond du Lac and then took up a claim in the town of Calumet, where he became one of its leading anad influential citi- zens. He conducted a small store for a time but always refused to sell liquor to the Indians. For several years Mr. White was the pioneer postmaster of Calumet village and was intimate with the big men of Fond du Lac county of that day, such as: Dr. M. C. Darling, Governor Doty, Governor Tallmadge, Major Tall- madge, George McWilliams, Edward Pier, J. M. Gillet and Dr. Delaney. Mr. White laid out the village of Calumet. He lived to a ripe old age and while an octogenarian was a clerk in the pension department at Washington.
Gustav De Neveu and his charming wife were long residents of Fond du Lac county. When he arrived here and had built a log hut for a dwelling, there were but four resident white people in the county. Mr. De Neveu became a man of importance and influence in this community. He was widely known and being active and alert during the county's callow youth he became acquainted with most if not all of the early settlers and had at his command a splendid fund of in- formation pertaining to them. In 1880, a history of Fond du Lac county was published, for which this pioneer prepared a most interesting and valuable rem- iniscent article. It is well worthy of a place in this work and is here reproduced almost in its entirety :
"On the 20th day of April, 1838, I came from Detroit to Green Bay on a rickety old steamboat whose name I have forgotten, but believe it was called the Pennsylvania. We had a terribly rough passage and came pretty near going down to the bottom of Lake Huron. The water was knee deep in the cabin; we had to stand on chairs and tables or lie in the upper berths in order to keep ourselves dry. This was during a dark night opposite Saginaw Bay. We were unable to make the safe harbor of Presque Isle in the dark, as there was not a single lighthouse in those days on the eastern shores of Michigan be- tween Fort Gratiot and Mackinaw, a stretch of about two hundred and fifty miles, and had to put back to Port Huron.
"While in Green Bay, hearing excellent accounts of the country about the head of Lake Winnebago, its farthest end, as the French name of Fond du Lac implies, I made up my mind to visit it. Through the kind offices of Messrs. Charles and Alexander Grignon, sons of Augustin Grignon, of Big Butte des Morts Lake, I procured the services of two Menomonee Indians, who understood French, and started with them in a bark canoe. At night, the canoe was drawn upon the shore, carefully propped on edge, answering the purpose of a tent; a
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fire was kindled opposite, and as we always had plenty of ducks and fish besides the provisions we had brought along, we were very comfortable. Thus. I visited Neenah, Garlic Island, the present site of the city of Oshkosh and Lake Buttes des Morts as far as Winneconne. At Oshkosh, Mrs. Stanley of that place, wish- ing to visit the family of Edward Pier, asked me to give her passage in my boat, which, as there was plenty of room, I readily granted. We passed the old log house erected by the Fond du Lac Company, which many of you no doubt remember, and landed on the prairie near the place where George McWilliams' house stands, this point being apparently the head of canoe navigation, and walked across the prairie to the house of Mr. Pier, which was in sight from that point and about one mile and a half distant. Like all the other houses in the country at that time, it was constructed of logs. It stood not far from the place now occupied by his residence. We were very cordially received. Hearing of a little lake seen by Mr. Pier in the vicinity, I resolved to visit it, and so the next morning I started with Albert Kendall, a brother of Mrs. Pier. We found the lake and walked clear around it, returning to Mr. Pier's house by noon. The lake was charming in its quiet beauty ; its placid face reflected the surrounding woods which bent down over it as if endeavoring to kiss the waves. I was quite charmed by the scene and resolved that Uncle Sam and myself would have a trade about that lake. This was consummated on the 17th of May by my pur- chasing the lake and all the land around it, and also the quarter section in the town of Fond du Lac now owned by James Wright, being something over five . hundred acres.
"Permit me here to correct, for perhaps the hundredth time, a mistake which, the more it is contradicted the more it seems to gain currency, viz: that I pur- chased that lake believing it to be a marsh. From that I have just said, my hear- ers will certainly know how utterly impossible it was for me to have made such a mistake. I presume that the report originated from the fact that when I arrived at Green Bay to buy the tract, I found that the government surveyor who had surveyed the lake in the winter had failed to perform his duty and had found it more convenient to report it as a marsh than to ascertain its nature and meander it as he should have done. The officers in the land office had no dis- cretionary powers in the premises and I had to pay for the lake which the parti- ality of my neighbors had named after me, or to go without it. But I do not regret my action. The lake is well worth all I had to pay for it.
"The next day I went back to my bark canoe, taking back Mrs. Stanley to Oshkosh, well pleased with her visit. At Grand Chute, now Appleton, I enjoyed the splendid excitement, not free from danger, of shooting down the fall, some seven feet almost perpendicular, and of admiring the skill with which the guides avoided the rocks in the rapids below, the contact of which would have been instant death.
"A few days later, having completed my purchase and procured some neces- sary articles, I took advantage of the company of a body of troops marching from Green Bay to Fort Winnebago, now Portage. Captain Marryatt, the hu- morous novelist, was one of the party. We were together much of the time shoot- ing pigeons and partridges, while the soldiers were engaged in cutting and repair- ing the military road. The Captain was on his way to St. Louis, with the inten- tion of visiting the western plains to the Rocky Mountains, and invited me to
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accompany him at his expense. I thankfully but firmly declined the offer, hav- ing traced out a different line. After all, Captain Marryatt never visited the west- ern plains, being recalled home sooner than he had expected.
"And now commenced for me the hardships incident to a new settlement in a wild country-hardships of such a discouraging nature that when I look back upon those early days, I often wonder how I could have withstood them, why I did not run away from my purchase and go back to a civilized country, where I could carn my living in a far easier way. But Horace was probably not the first who observed that man is so constituted that he is rarely satisfied with the condition in which he finds himself and is seduced mostly by what he does not possess. That is what ailed Robinson Crusoe and many others, besides myself. I had been for a few years past following the profession of a teacher of the French language, for which I was tolerably well qualified; but my perverse nature and desires would lead me to become a tiller of the soil, for which I was not qualified at all, and, let me add, probably never can be, for farming is in the main composed of two things ; a very moderate amount of theory and a very large amount of practice. After a while things began to look very discouraging. There was a large amount of things to be done, such as clearing, fencing, build- ing, etc. and an equally large amount of nothing to do them with. My pile never very large, grew smaller by degrees, and I soon found the bottom of it. "At the time I erected my log house, in May, 1838, there were four others in the county, those of Colwert Pier, of Edward Pier, the old Fond du Lac House and that of Luke Laborde, mine being the fifth and the only one of them still left standing. Dr. Darling, who had originally settled at Sheboygan, came to Fond du Lac about the time I did, but did not build his log house, long since removed and whose place is now occupied by Darling's block, until the fall following.
"That year a few families settled in the county, among whom I remember particularly Calvin Pier, his wife and such members of his family as were not already here; also Joseph Olmsted, his son-in-law; Mr. Wilcox settled at Wau- pun. A. D. Clark was erecting a sawmill on the school section. Two brothers by the name of Palmer were staying with John Bannister, Frank McCarty and and Reuben Simmons moved to Taycheedah with large families, in the early spring of 1839. John T. Denniston and family lived with me. Among the early settlers I remember, besides those named above, Patrick Kelly, William Stewart, Alonzo Raymond, John Case, Samuel Wilkinson, William Hayes, Har- vey Peck, (later of La Crosse), William Lalondre, Raphael St. Mary and Brouil- lard, Joseph and Frank King, William Parsons, Samuel Butler, John Trelevan and his three brothers-Joseph, Daniel and Thomas, George W. Elliott, B. F. Smith, Mr. Perry (father of two bankers of Fond du Lac), D. C. Brooks, Charles, Juba and Erastus Olmsted, General Ruggles, Joseph Clark, who, if I mistake not, were all here by or near 1842. In the fall of 1841 Joseph L. Moore started a store at Taycheedah, and Frank Moore, his relative, came with him. It was a great convenience for the people to have a store where they could procure necessaries. Moses Gibson started a store upon Main street of Fond du Lac, about the same time, and Messrs. Clock and Weikert also opened one in the old Fond du Lac log house.
"Until 1840 the Indians in this county outnumbered the whites at least ten
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to one. They were generally friendly, bringing venison and other game and wild honey and skins for sale or exchange, but sometimes they would kill hogs that they never paid for and had a way of setting the woods on fire while hunt- ing deer, burning up fences and pastures.
"In 1840 John Bannister took the United States census and I think the num- ber of whites of all ages was 139, all told, in Fond du Lac county.
"In 1843 Colonel H. Conklin moved with his family to the farm now owned by Lyman Phillips. Governor Tallmadge also came along about that time and the ledge in Empire and Eden was rapidly settled by David Lyons, John and Henry Westervelt, Germond, Shoemaker, Mayhew, Sweet, Hatch, Vincent and many other gentlemen, who came principally from Dutchess county, New York, a valuable accession to the county.
"Before 1841 the settlers received all their goods and furniture from Green Bay by way of the Fox river and Lake Winnebago. They were brought up in Durham boats, carrying eight or ten tons and propelled up the rapids by a crew of ten or twelve men, the price charged being $1 per hundred pounds. The boats belonged to a company with the high sounding name of Fox River Trans- portation Company. Considering the laborious process of propelling the boats up the rapids and making several portages, the price was certainly reasonable, although when added to Green Bay prices it made commodities very dear to people who had hardly any means of raising money.
"The settlers generally brought with them clothing enough to last a year or two, but in spite of all the good wife could do in the way of mending and patch- ing, it could not last forever. Everything is perishable in this world and some- how clothes have a wicked way of being most perishable of all. After awhile the original garments would not bear the patches. What was to be done? Good looks will hardly pay for a new suit, especially in a country where there are no stores. So it came to pass that the settlers bought from the Indians buckskin coats, without being too particular about their being second hand articles and smelling smoky. Almost every one of the early settlers sported his Indian coat in those days, and I must confess that they were quite light and comfortable, but they looked neither dandy nor dignified. Even the grave old doctor who founded the city of Fond du Lac wore one of the things at times and I must say that he did not look like a learned doctor at all. But still he looked some- what like an Indian doctor. The Indians called him Mushkiki-enini, the medicine man.
"The pants were often made of buckskin also; more frequently the tattered garment was faced with buckskin over the front, which operation gave it a longer lease of life and usefulness, and, like charity, threw a mantle over many failings. Could you now see those courageous and worthy men, many of whom have reached their last resting places, leaving honored names and good deeds behind them, file down Main street on a busy day, it would no doubt provoke a smile, but with them it was the result of sheer necessity.
"What about their fare? Milk and butter they had in abundance and also pork and excellent potatoes. They had enough of coarse food, but as you know, variety is the spice of life, and to eat constantly pork and potatoes and beans is apt to become monotonous in the end. George W. Featherstonehaugh, of Calumet, said that he had fed so constantly on pork that he could not look a
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