USA > Wisconsin > Winnebago County > History, Winnebago County, Wisconsin: Its Cities, Towns, Resources, People > Part 29
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HISTORY OF WINNEBAGO COUNTY.
Town of Nekimi.
The town of Nekimi presents a beautiful panorama of wide, well cultivated farms, fine dwellings and ample barns, showing evidence of thrift and prosperity. The land is rich glacial loam, rolling and well drained in the creeks leading to Lake Winne- bago. Formerly a portion of the land was natural prairie sur- rounded with hardwood timber lands and openings. The town contains a total of 19,484 acres, of which 15,800 acres are im- proved, and valued at $1,400,000. The population is 906, of whom 685 were born in the state, 150 in Germany, 34 in Wales and 9 in Ireland. The thrift of the people of the town is shown in the annual products of 4,500 bushels wheat, 98,000 oats, 82,000 barley, 32,000 corn, 12,000 potatoes and 5,400 apples, while they possess 784 horses, 2,800 cattle, 3.300 hogs, and from 1,200 sheep had 4,600 pounds of wool, 1,600 milch cows, 59,000 pounds of butter, and 8,000 fowls and 43,000 dozen eggs. The sales of real estate show the average value per acre of $93.
Nottleman Brothers operate a creamery, Mr. J. W. H. Jones a cheese factory and Mr. Richard Foulkes a cheese factory. There is a postoffice at Nekimi. The first settler in the town was Mr. William Greeman, who came in the summer of 1846, followed by Mr. David Chamberlain, A. M. Howard and Robert W. Holmes in the fall of the year. William Cassett and Chauncey Foster built a blacksmith shop on Crossett's claim, since owned by Milan Ford. These settlers built a log school house the same summer near the Boyde school house. The school was taught by Miss Eliza Case. Mr. William Simmons moved into the town in 1847, and Mr. Iliram B. Cook came the same year. Hon. Milan Ford came with his father, Chester Ford, to this county as among the first five families to settle in the county in the fall of 1837, locating near Wright's (then Ford's) point, in Black Wolf. and finally he located in this town.
The Welsh settlement. so called, was begun in 1847. The set- tlement lies through the towns of Nekimi and Utica, extending into Rosendale in Fond du Lac county. The first party was made up in Waukesha in July, 1847, consisting of Abel Wil- liams, Owen Hughes, Robert Roberts, David E. Evans, James Lewis, Peter Jones and John Williams, afterward of Neenah. They selected the region of Nekimi for its rich promise of fertile lands. As soon as their claims were selected they walked to the land office at Green Bay to enter them and secure titles. Re-
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turning they proceeded to erect log cabin homes. During the next few years they were joined by a large colony of their coun- trymen and the region became known as the Welsh settlement. Mr. William Powell with his family came direct from South Wales and located on section 10 in 1848. Mrs. Powell died in 1851 and Mr. Powell in 1874. William, David and Jeannette, left on the old farm, are now all dead.
Rev. John Evans delivered the first sermon in the summer of 1849 at the house of Peter Jones. This year they built their first church. Rev. Thomas Foulkes was the first pastor. In 1855 another church was erected by a division of the first congrega- tion. A Congregational Church was organized in 1851 by Rev. Jenkin Jenkins. A Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in 1855 and a church erected in 1862. The Baptist Church was organized in 1848 by Rev. Evan S. Thomas. There are now five churches and seven school houses in the town. The first town meeting was held at the home of William Powell in 1850, at which Milan Ford was elected chairman.
Town of Nepeuskun.
The town of Nepeuskun is nearly a full township of six miles long and wide. The surface is rolling. Rush lake, in the eastern part is about four miles long and two miles broad. The soil is generally a rich clay loam, producing good crops. In the settler days there was sugar maple, burr, white and black oak standing in the western part in "openings." Limestone is the rock be- neath the soil with an occasional ridge of sandstone. The only stream, Waukau river, the outlet of Rush lake, which runs through Waukau, where it develops a water power and empties into the Fox river. Years ago when the settler arrived there were several creeks, but clearing the lands has dried them. Rush lake seems to be supplied mostly by springs. Rush lake was sur- rounded by numerous Indian mounds, many of which have dis- appeared on the advance of cultivation.
There are 19,865 acres in the town, of which 12,476 are im- proved and valued at $70 per acre. The total value of the land and improvements is $1,100,000. The population is 888, of which 779 are native born and 661 born in Wisconsin. Of the foreign born 112 are native to Germany. The industry of the people and the production of the lands is shown in the produce and stock marketed. They raise 59,000 bushels of corn, 4,000 wheat,
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103,000 oats, 37,000 barley, 43,000 potatoes, 5,700 apples, 400 tons hay; and possess 685 horses, 2,569 cattle, 754 hogs, 11,000 sheep and 1,664 cows. There are three creameries which pro- duce $186,000 worth of butter.
The first settlement in the town was made by Mr. Jonathan Foote, his wife and daughter, and a nephew, W. H. Foote, who located their home on section 11 in March, 1846, near a fine grove of sugar maples and a number of springs. The family lived in their wagons several weeks until their frame house was completed. It was only thirteen by sixteen feet in size; but in it they frequently entertained strangers who passed that way. In May Mr. Lucius B. Townsend, his family and brother took up lands in the town. The day following their arrival they un- loaded a plow and turned the first furrow in the town. They set up two stakes in the ground, joined by a pole overhead, against which they leaned boards, making a tent camp into which they moved and lived all summer, breaking up sixty acres of prairie sod in the season. Before the close of the year their number was increased by the arrival of more than twenty pioneers. Among these were Aashel B. and James H. Foster, Samuel Clough, Sidney Vankirk, John Vankirk, John Nash, Dan Burmine, T. F. Lathrop, George Walbridge, W. C. Dickerson, Lyman B. Johnson, H. F. Grant, Solomon Andrews, H. Stratton and Alonzo J. Lewis.
The log school was erected in 1847 on section 8, and Aashel B. Foster installed as teacher. Religious services were first held by Rev. Iliram McKee on September 26, 1846, in the home of George Walbridge. Afterward religious services were held in the school house by Elder Manning, a Baptist minister. A post- office was located at Rush Lake named Nepeuskun in September, 1849, with James J. Catlin postmaster. It was moved to Rush Lake Junction on the coming of the railroad. A postoffice was established in 1850 named Koro, and James II. Foster appointed postmaster. Mr. J. Hasbrouck, of Oshkosh, carried the mail be- tween Oshkosh and Berlin. The town was set off by the county board November 17, 1849, and given the name Nepeuskun, from the postoffice in the town of that name.
The Milwaukee and Horicon railroad was completed through the town to Berlin in 1857, locating a station, now known as Rush Lake Junction. This is the oldest railroad in the county. Three years later the road was completed to Winneconne via Waukau and Omro. These roads are now owned by the Chi-
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cago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad Company. A small vil- lage has developed at Rush Lake with sixty inhabitants. It has a blacksmith shop, a produce company and a general store.
The town contains six school buildings and three churches. The government rural mail delivery brings the mail directly to the door of the farmer. The county traveling library has a station at Rush lake.
Miss Orlena Foote, daughter of Mr. E. P. Foote, who after- ward became the wife of Mr. John Edward Sheldon, made a journey to Neenah from her home in Nepeuskun with her brother, W. H. Foote, in 1847, when there were no roads in the county. They crossed the river on the ferry at Oshkosh, stopped at the tavern of M. Griffin, then newly opened, and continued their journey north to Neenah, where they visited a friend in the wool carding mill of Daniel Priest. This carding mill was then the only machinery on the water power at Neenah except the old mission flour and sawmills.
Sidney Vankirk settled in the town in 1846. Having been in the Menomonee river region, he, with a companion, made a canoe journey to Green Bay and thence over the Indian trail to Chi- cago. The next year he made a claim to land near Burlington, where he settled and married. Here he constructed a wagon, the wheels being sawed off from the ends of logs. Into this ox cart the household effects were loaded, and with his wife they com- menced the journey north, finally landing on their lands selected in this town.
Hon. James H. Foster moved into the town in 1846 and resided there until five years before his death, when he moved to Berlin, six miles away, where he died August 11, 1907. in his eightieth year. Mr. Foster came from Massachusetts. For many years he was one of the foremost citizens of the county, an excellent speaker, and had a rare faculty of making and holding friends. Almost as soon as Mr. Foster was eligible for the position he was honored by election to the position of superintendent of public schools, an office which he filled most creditably for a number of years. From this he was advanced to the position of county register of deeds, then to state assemblyman, where he served two terms, and in 1870 he was chosen as state senator in an elec- tion which was one of the hottest ever known in this county. He also had the distinction of being one of the ten presidential electors from this state who helped to nominate President Ilaves in 1876, and for nearly sixteen years he served as deputy state
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railroad commissioner, embodying into concise form and finished shape the elaborate statements and reports of that department in a manner that has always stood as a model for similar work.
Mr. Samuel P. Button, a native of Vermont, arrived at Strong's Landing, now Berlin, in 1847. He became aware of the want of shingles for dwellings and embarked in the business in a primitive way. Going up the Wolf river, he had pine trees cut into 36-inch logs and loaded them on to a flat scow, which was poled down the Wolf river over Lakes Poygan and Winne- conne and up the Fox river, and eventually split and shaved into shakes, as these rived shingles were called. He purchased a farm in Nepeuskun of 160 acres and made a contract to furnish 100,000 rived shingle for $100. Mr. T. J. Lathrop immigrated from Vermont in 1846. The energies of the pioneer were mostly devoted to wheat raising, which was carted ninety miles to Mil- waukee for sale. Mr. Lathrop preferred to sell his on the place at 3 shillings a bushel and save the expensive journey. Mr. H. T. Grant came from Connecticut in 1846, built a log shanty and broke up nine acres of sod the same year, raising twenty-six bushels to the acre. IIe recollects drawing pork to Milwaukee and selling it at $1.50 a hundred pounds weight, and wheat taken to Milwaukee brought 50 cents a bushel. The journey there and return required six to ten days, and thirty bushels of wheat was an average load.
Edward Baker and five sons came from England and com- menced the manufacture of pocket cutlery on the shore of Rush lake in 1850. The father and Henry made the handles, James forged the blades and backs and Edward ground and polished them. The machinery was run by horse power. The best qual- ity of goods was made and the neighboring merchants were good patrons, but the enterprise was abandoned. Mr. A. Y. Troxell, a native of Pennsylvania. came to the town in 1847. By his remembrance they gathered 500 bushels of corn in the ear from five acres which was broken the year before, and the year 1848 they harvested forty bushels of spring wheat to the acre. Their grain was threshed with a flail or treading it out with horses. The nearest mill was at Ceresco, owned by the Fourierites com- munity, but was for their exclusive use and they refused to grind for the settlers, who were compelled to take their grain to Watertown. An indignation meeting was held and a conference arranged at which the Ceresco people consented to set apart two days each week to grind for the settlers. The great rush to the
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mills on these days occasioned strife to be first there. A farmer, finding his neighbor there in advance, expressed surprise, ask- ing, "How did you get here so soon! I started as soon as I could see." "Oh, I started last night," was the reply.
Rev. J. W. Fridd, of English descent, settled in the town in 1848. For fifty years he preached the gospel, having been ordained an elder in the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1846 in New York state. His son, John A. Fridd, born in this town October 29, 1850, has been for many years a leading citizen, elected for several years chairman and a.member of the assembly from the district, and now the state senator from the county.
Mr. Jerome Betry was one of the forty-sixers, coming from New York state. He started on foot from Milwaukee to his claim in the present town. Coming up with a sick teamster mov- ing a load of goods to Fond du Lac, he was given a ride to drive and care for the team. He found Fond du Lac a small hamlet with one small tavern, three little stores and several dwellings. He took the trail for Ceresco, where he found a lady about to drive past his brother's shanty and she was pleased to have him drive for her. He drove the team as far as the shanty, where he alighted. He found the wilderness cabin a small log shanty with a bark roof. No one was at home when he saw the interior through the window. The furniture consisted of a rough board table and a bunk. Hearing the sound of axes, he discovered his brother in the forest splitting rails. At the shanty they had a meal of potatoes and cold-water shortcake. The settler depended on his gun for fresh meat. One day a flock of prairie chickens alighted near the cornerib and, removing a block from between the logs, Mr. Betry shot a number of the birds before their mates became frightened and flew away. Mr. Betry bought a tract of land, and once having occasion to borrow some money to pay for another piece, he obtained the loan at 25 per cent interest. The first grain his brother raised harvested forty-three bushels to the acre. This was taken to Watertown to mill, requiring a week for the trip.
In the monograph on the "Archeology of Winnebago County," written by Publius V. Lawson and published in the "Wisconsin Archeologist" for January, 1903, there is an extended descrip- tion of the ancient mound remains of the vanished races, from which some extracts are copied herein.
The following extract from a letter directed by the late Hon. James G. Pickett to Mr. Charles E. Brown, dated April 17, 1903,
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will assist the reader to a proper understanding of the antiqui- ties listed under this town. He says: "Agreeable to my promise, I have revisited all of the village sites, mounds and other evi- dences located on the east side of Rush lake, in the town of Nepeuskun.
"I had been over them all many times during the years fol- lowing 1846. The mounds were then quite prominent and re- mained so for seven or eight years later, when those who had entered the land began its clearing and cultivation. At the pres- ent time they are nearly obliterated and their exact locations can only be learned through the assistance of the old residents. Probably no section of the state was in prehistoric time more densely populated than the eastern border of Rush lake-in fact, this entire shore line appears to have been one continuous village site, as evidenced by the numerous mounds and earthworks and the hundreds of human remains exhumed from them or turned up in the fields by the plow. Nowhere in the state has a greater harvest of aboriginal implements of stone and copper been ob- tained, and certainly no site could have been better chosen for the location of an aboriginal village. The locality known as Dutchman's island, bounded on the west by the lake and on its other sides by great peat marshes, was then a veritable island, containing about three sections of firm ground. The lake had its outlet at its southern extremity, connecting with Green Lake and the Fox river instead of at its northeastern side, as now. The waters of the lake were from 4 to 6 feet higher than at pres- ent, thus covering the great marshes and making it fully three times its present size. The evidence of this change is shown by the miles of ridges surrounding the marshes, composed of gravel, boulders, shells and the debris thrown up by the action of the ice. The island was only approached by boat and could be easily defended. Wild rice, fish and waterfowl were very abundant. These natural advantages combined to make the locality an ideal dwelling place."
In a communication dated April 11, 1903, and directed to Hon. James G. Pickett, Mr. W. H. Foote, a pioneer resident of the town of Nepeuskun, gives the following information in regard to an enclosure formerly located on the property of his father, Mr. E. P. Foote, located at the head of Rush lake in the southeast quarter of the southwest quarter of section II. "The sides of the square were about four rods long, three to four feet high and three to four feet broad. They had prob-
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ably once been somewhat higher. At the openings at each corner within the square were round mounds of earth. When we first broke up the land for cultivation, we went around it, but it has since been obliterated by successive plowings." This property is now owned by Mr. Will Hall.
The Hall mounds were located on the north shore of Rush lake on the farm of Mr. Will Hall, on fractional section 14. The first of these tumuli stands at a distance of about 200 feet north of the lake shore on land elevated about 50 feet above the water. It was constructed of rich loam similar to the sur- rounding soil and was 30 feet in diameter and 6 feet in height. This mound was excavated by Mr. Charles Stever, af Waukau. and the following description is drawn from notes kindly fur- nished by him. Below the base of the mound on a hard earthen floor and lying in a general north and south direction, the head toward the north, the bones of a human skeleton were un- earthed. Near the left hip bone a catlinite platform pipe was found. The bones were in a poor state of preservation and fell to pieces when their removal was attempted. Fragments of broken pottery were found throughout the mound. At a. dis- tance of 200 feet west of this mound there was a second of the same material. When excavated by Mr. Stever this mound was found to contain at its base a single interment, the grave being walled in on either side by a double row of round and flat boulders probably gathered from the neighboring fields. The grave lay north and south and the stone walls were 2 feet apart, 20 inches in height and 6 feet in length. There was no head or top or bottom stone. Besides the very much decom- posed bones of the leg, arm, ribs and a portion of the skull there were taken from this grave a number of animal bones, a turtle shell, clam shells, pottery fragments and flint chips. Dis- tributed through the base of the mound was a large quantity of charcoal, some of the pieces being of unusually large size. Both of these mounds are about 3 feet in height at the present time. They have been under cultivation for fifty years. Mr. Will Hall has carted a number of wagon loads of black earth from them. About 20 feet to the west of this mound Mr. Stever located a number of Indian graves. from which he took six human crania, which he afterwards reinterred in the same place. The bones were well preserved, indicating that they were of more recent origin than the mound burials. Mr. W. II. Foote in a letter to Mr. Pickett corroborates the statements made by
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Mr. Stever, but adds that there were originally three mounds in the group.
Up to as late as the year 1846 there was, according to Hon. James G. Pickett, a Winnebago village numbering from one to 200 Indians, located about the present outlet of Rush lake near the center of section 13 of this town. The cemetery be- longing thereto was located on the farm of Mr. David Llewellyn on the south side of the present highway and about forty rods east of the outlet bridge. In a communication directed to the author, and dated November 30, 1902, Mr. Pickett gives the fol- lowing interesting description of the burial customs practiced here, as observed by himself: "With the Winnebago Indians there were two styles of burial, temporary and permanent. A person dying in the winter time, when the earth was frozen solid, was wrapped in his blanket and usually enclosed in a roll of bark, or the body was deposited in the smallest canoe at hand and elevated into the branches of a tree. Sometimes a staging was built between two trees and firmly secured, and the remains placed upon it. They were left in this position until the frost was out of the ground in the spring, when the permanent grave burial occurred. Not having proper digging implements a shallow grave, seldom more than two feet in depth and slightly rounded over with earth, was prepared and the body placed therein. A small forked post about three feet in height was set in the ground at each end of the grave. These posts supported a ridge pole, against which, one end resting on the ground, were placed split shakes or puncheons, thus forming an "A"-shaped enclosure over the grave and pro- tecting it from disturbance by wild animals. To mark the grave of an adult male a peeled post about 8 feet high and painted in two colors was set in the ground at its head. If the deceased was a man of note his white dog (if he owned one, if not, one was found), was killed and hung by the neck to the post. Such graves were very common at the different villages of the Winnebagos at the time of the settlement of the county by the whites. When I first visited the village site above de- seribed in the early summer of 1846, I think that there were to be seen at that place as many as fifty graves with their roof coverings in various stages of dilapidation and decay, as well as several recently made and with the dogs suspended from the painted posts at their head. I believe that it was during the winter of 1847 that I saw the last elevated temporary burial at
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this place. In exhuming these graves the only articles which have been brought to light were a few glass beads, a childish trinket, a rusty knife or some similar object. I have, however, been informed by the Indians that when a great man dies, a 'noted chief, or one who has in Indian ways distinguished him- self, his most valuable belongings were buried with him. If he owned horses, the most valuable one was killed on the day of his master's death, but not buried with him. His gun was usually interred with the body, so that with his horse, dog and gun he was fully equipped for business in the new field to which he was going."
Mr. Pickett states that in the year 1846 this peninsula, located in the northwest quarter of section 24, was covered with a heavy growth of hard maple. It was undoubtedly a favorite camping ground of the Indians, as a large amount of pottery frag- ments are still scattered over the new cultivated land.
Upon a sharp wedge of land locally known as Eagle Point, in the northeast quarter of section 26, where the north and south boundary line of sections 25 and 26 touches the shore of Rush lake, there were formerly located, according to Mr. Reagan, an old resident of the neighborhood, one or two small round mounds and a number of Indian graves.
Upon the property of Mr. F. Radke and about twenty rods east of the shore of Rush lake (N. W. 14 sec. 25) there was for- merly located a group of some seven or eight round mounds. Mr. Reagan, who piloted Mr. Pickett over the property, stated that when he first noted them in about the year 1857, before the land was cultivated, they were from 18 to 20 feet in diameter and not more than three feet in height. Although nearly oblit- erated indications of five of these mounds are still to be seen. A paper treating of this group was read before the Lapham Archeological Society of Milwaukee, in 1878, by Mr. Thomas Armstrong of Ripon. Extracts of this article were afterwards published by the same gentleman in the United States Smith- sonian Report of the year 1879. "These mounds." says he, "are situated on the southern shore of Rush lake, on land be- longing to Mr. (J.) Gleason in the southeast quarter of the southeast quarter of section 27. and the southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of section 26. and were visited by a party of students from Ripon College. May 12, 1877. The mounds, sixteen in number, are ranged in an irregular line run- ning essentially east and west, about twenty rods from the
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