USA > Wisconsin > Brown County > History of Brown County, Wisconsin, past and present, Volume I > Part 30
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"Sufferers flocked into Green Bay and Fort Howard and every house became a hospital and asylum for women and children. The news of the burning of Peshtigo and the destruction of hundreds of lives was brought by Captain Thomas Hawley of the steamer 'Union,' from Menominee. The air seemed on fire east, west and south ; waves and torrents of smoke still rolled around Green Bay. When the extent of the Peshtigo calamity was realized $4.000 was at once raised and large quantities of provisions and clothing gathered. Mayor Alonzo Kimball, of Green Bay, called a meeting and committees of relief were appointed from each ward. Turner Hall was transformed into a relief hospital, under the management of Dr. Horace O. Crane, and the old hopeful, generous spirit of war times was revived in the hearts of the people. Green Bay was the center, too, of the mournful news that poured in from all over the country. Although money, clothing and provisions poured in on every train from all parts of the United States it seemed almost impossible to alleviate the widespread suffering, and the grief caused by the loss of the thousand lives could never be healed. Relief depots were established in Milwaukee and Green Bay and for months the work went on. In Green Bay alone, the receipts from October 8th to January 15th, amounted to $91,085.98. nearly six thousand persons being on the list for this district."
Notwithstanding the desolation caused by the great fire, the following year saw farm houses rebuilt and the plucky owner of the land once more taking up with renewed energy the business of agriculture. Along commercial lines business was booming, for the years of the iron furnace industry had begun and given spur to many activities.
In 1866 a company, the New York & De Pere Iron Company, made a com- mencement toward establishing a blast furnace in West De Pere, but after spend-
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ing considerable money and time, they suspended work and their efforts were looked upon as a failure.
6 These were prosperous times ; the farmers were selling for good prices what to them heretofore had been of little value, and at the same time clearing their land so that they could raise farm produce for which there was a ready market -their land increasing in value also. Each furnace employed directly and in- directly about one hundred and fifty men and fifty teams most of the year, using about twelve thousand cords of wood, for which was paid from $1.50 to $2.00 per cord. This, by each of the four De Pere furnaces, was a great factor in producing good times in Brown county. From a hamlet of 1,500 in- habitants De l'ere 'increased in population to 5,000, and land values doubled and trebled.
Then came the panic of 1873, which resulted in great loss to the furnace companies and indirectly to all connected with them. However, after a period of depression and inactivity, business revived so that the furnaces resumed oper- ations, the farmers were enabled to clear more land, to make improvements and raise the standard of living. This continued until the next financial depression, which, with growing scarcity of timber and increasing prices, resulted in the permanent suspension of furnace operations in Brown county ; not, however, until the farmers had reached a degree of independence, which was hastened many years by the market opened for their timber by the furnaces. .
De Pere furnace was built in 1869 by the First National Iron Company, which was composed of B. F. Smith, G. S. Marsh, Robert Jackson, J. Richards and D. M. Whitney. The following year, A. B. Meeker & Company, of Chicago, obtained a controlling interest, and in 1871 the "First" was dropped from the name of the corporation, which continued business until 1876. Upon the organ- ization of the National Furnace Company in 1879, by A. B. Meeker, of Chicago, H. D. Smith, of Appleton, W. L. Brown, of Chicago, and M. R. Hunt, of De Pere, the property passed into the hands of that corporation. Their property at the furnace consisted of five acres of ground lying on the east side of Fox river, a short distance below the dam, having a river front of 2,000 feet, and provided with 300 feet of dock, at which there was a minimum depth of thirteen feet. Upon these premises stood two stacks, number one being of stone, number two of iron. The former was built in 1869, the latter in 1872, each having a capac- ity of 11,000 tons annually. There was an engine and pump room, two casting houses, a stock house, in which were the crushing machines and hoisting works, boiler sheds, two offices, wood and iron repair shops, a weighing house, stables and sheds. Charcoal was furnished from kilns located along the line of the Wisconsin Central Railroad and Fox river, and was brought by rail and in barges, in addition to which an average force of fifteen teams daily discharged their loads at the company's yards, the product of kilns in the immediate neighborhood of De Pere, and at Greenleaf. The furnaces were supplied with two blowing engines for hoisting and crushing, ten horse-power each; two horizontal engines for hoisting and crushing, ten horse-power each, and hoist- ing engine on dock, fifteen horse-power.
The Fox River Iron Company was organized in 1868 by D. W. Blanchard and S. D. Arnold, became a joint stock company in 1872 under the following manage- ment: D. W. Blanchard, president ; S. D. Arnold, vice president and business
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manager ; D. D. Kellogg, secretary and treasurer ; C. H. Lovelace, superintendent and founder. The land upon which these furnaces were built consisted of a tract of about five acres on the west side of Fox river, just below the dam ; fully one-third of the land was reclaimed from the river by filling in with furnace refuse. The first stack was built in 1868, and fires kindled, February 1, 1869. The first charcoal kilns, eleven in number, were built on the furnace premises in 1868, and had a daily capacity of 1,000 bushels. In 1869 and again in 1870, additional kilns were constructed in the timber country adjacent to De Pere, having a capacity of 1,400 bushels daily. A careful estimate shows that the wood from not less than one and one-half acres of timber land was consumed by cachi stack daily, leaving the land available for agricultural purposes. At Green Bay the Green Bay Iron Furnace Company, inaugurated by John C. Neville, was completed at a cost of $50,000, and went into operation on September 22, 1870.
The county and its manufactories suffered from the panic in 1873, but on the whole, weathered that stormy period successfully. New firms went into oper- ation, De Pere and Fort Howard doing more in this line than Green Bay. Money was plentiful ; the social life of the several towns was never gayer or more full of hospitality and good cheer. The winter brought sleighing parties and dances without limit ; the summer saw the bay and river given over to water sports and excursions to points along the shore.
New Year's day was an event of much jollity and New Year calls began to be an established custom in the river towns as early as 1856. When first instituted everybody kept open house, the ladies of each family vying with the other in the generous provisioning of the table. There was turkey and chicken salad, wine jelly, whip-sillibub, cake of many kinds, thin slices of pink ham, coffee and sometimes wine. All dressed in their best, the ladies awaited the jolly sleigh loads of men, bundled up to the eyes in furs, sometimes as many as ten in a load. Among the older men, the' old New Year's custom prevailed of saluting the ladies on entering the house and there were "jokes and quips and wreathed smiles." The house was still decked in its Christmas greens, with ground pine and evergreen over doors and windows, and open fires blazed in the fireplaces. Later the custom grew of several families joining and receiving at one of the houses, and although this added to the liveliness of the occasion, yet it was on the whole not so well enjoyed as was the old time method. Now the custom has entirely disappeared and will probably never be revived with the different manners and more conventional life of the present age.
DAIRY INTERESTS
The dairy interests of Brown county were at an early day scattering and meagre, as was the case with all the western country. Attention was given more by the early settlers to clearing the land, building their dwelling houses, which must be done usually by their own hands, and going into agriculture to the extent of raising crops sufficient for their own use. As the lumber industry grew and a regular market was required in Green Bay and De Pere, the farmers turned their attention more to general agriculture. The Hollanders were many of them expert buttermakers, as were the wives of settlers from New England and New York, Dutchess county of the latter state being especially rich in dairy products. There was no systematie plan, however.
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"A roll of fresh, untainted butter was an article impossible to secure in early Green Bay. Firkins came to the little commune from unscrupulous dealers in the eastern market, the odor of which impregnated the atmosphere even before the kegs were fairly unsealed. When this sort of cargo arrived late in the autumn, no redress was possible."
The tide of emigration from the old country began about 1848; the thrifty denizens of Germany, Holland and Scandinavia, the hardy and industrious Belgians and Irish, cleared for themselves farms in the midst of the forest, under- going all sorts of privations, but in the end winning out in the race. One of these pioneer farmers, John Platten, who came from Holland with his parents in 1842, says, "Our nearest neighbors at this time were seven miles north, ten miles south and none at all west. The next winter a squad of Indians terrified us by making their camping grounds near us, rendering us as helpless as caged birds. Happily they became very friendly, bringing us venison in exchange for potatoes."
The Wisconsin Agricultural Society was organized in 1851, and at once began a systematic inquiry into the progress made along that line throughout the state. Dairying came in for a share of discussion, an expert from the east giving his views at this time, said: "I have never considered Wisconsin preemi- nently a dairying state, yet there are many portions well adapted to the business." In cheese making little was done throughout the state, almost none in Brown county, although farmers here and there owned a press and turned out a cheese or so during the year.
In 1850, census returns show just one cheese was made in Brown county, but the meagre record does not state the name of the bold spirit who undertook this experiment in pioneer cheese making.
That Green Bay was well supplied with cows in the year 1850 is proven by the following skit in the Green Bay Advocate of September 19, 1850:
"We find written from this place a letter by some ninnyhead of which the following is a specimen : 'The present towns, for there are two or three rival interests, are standing upon the beach sand, beyond which they can scarcely be said to have extended, and in the principal business street from one end to another the sand is fetlock deep to the horses traveling it.
" 'The lands for a long distance about this place are thrown open to commons. In a morning walk upon the terrace which overlooks the town we counted upon these commons grazing, one hundred and twelve cows, in company with about fifteen horses, collected together like a herd of buffalo, in close compass feeding and drifting peaceably from the town, yet with the unceasing confusion of sounds caused by the tones of over fifty bells'."
"The beach don't happen to be beach sand, it is the light sandy soil which extends back a mile or so from the river, and the town may be said to extend with it. True it is 'fetlock deep' in the streets but that is far better than mud-with which we are never troubled. The second paragraph which we have copied is a pretty good indication of the writer's character. We should think he was just about such a man as would go around in the morning count- ing cows. Ifad another been counting about that time he would have made the result thus: One hundred and twelve cows, fifteen horses, and one jackass."
In 1880 the following item is written : "Brown county is the quiet, philosophic home of the cow. The milk goes to the cheese factory at the crossroads or to
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HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY
the creamery which is to be seen near the railway station, a milk depot indeed. The disposal of the milk at the creamery is a most systematic operation. The farmer drives to the side of the building and his cans are hoisted to a loft, where the milk is weighed and tested with a sort of hydrometer, which tells exactly the proportion of butter fat in the product. Along with his empty cans he receives a brass check. Then he drives around to the other side of the building where is a hose about the size of one used in metropolitan fire depart- ments. He inserts the check in a slot in the side of the building whereupon the hose squirts out his due amount of skim milk."
Brown county farmers were careless in putting fences around their pasture land; the cows strayed in the woods or were lost eternally in the tamarack swamps. The Wisconsin Agricultural Society laments these thriftless methods and gives lengthy directions as to the making of fences, the Virginia or worm, rail, zigzag or snake fence being the most popular. In 1852 Mrs. Edgerton, of Summit, having received a diploma for the best fifty pounds of butter by the State Agricultural Society reports, "This butter was made in September from a dairy of eight cows, being a cross of Durham with the native. The milk is set in eight quart tins, and left to stand twenty-four hours before skimming, except in hot weather, when the milk would sour sooner. The churning is done three times a week, in a common stone churn. Two ounces of common salt are added for each pound of butter and subsequently it is worked twice with a wooden ladle-once at the time of salting, and the second time twenty-four hours later." The butter is worked as little as possible to get out the buttermilk. We use no saltpetre, or any other substance. We make very little winter butter, usually scald the new milk, and set it in a room where it will not freeze for twelve hours. The further process is the same as above.
Notwithstanding the laborious process of churning and working most deli- cious butter was made during the '50s and '6os at Duck Creek, Holland, Den- mark, Ashwaubenon and elsewhere in Brown county, and was brought in with other farm products to the market at Green Bay, De Pere or Wrightstown. The butter was made up into pound and half pound rolls or pats, and was marked not by the name of the maker, but with prints more or less elaborate in design of roses and other floral emblems, or geometric figures.
The old time dairy was a room built separate from the dwelling house, and if possible over running water. The spring house was a common adjunct of the farm, for living springs were not uncommon, many of them with mineral properties, and brooks and little streams filled with brook trout were a feature of early Brown county. As, with the milling industry, these streams on which early mills were situated dried up and dwindled with the destruction of the forests, and the farm dairy house, a most attractive place on a warm summer day, cool and airy, with its rows of shining tin milk pans filled with yellow cream was replaced by a less picturesque system of butter making.
There seems to have been little talk of sanitary conditions in the annual meetings of the State Agricultural Society, or in the Brown County Agricultural Society at an early day, but there were many warnings as to keeping the dairy clean, the tin pans shining, and great care was urged in not using milk that had stood too long, simply because the butter might have a disagreeable taste.
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The year preceding the Civil war, Henry S. Baird of Green Bay, wrote: "Brown county being well watered by numerous living springs and small streams and possessing a large amount of natural meadows of rich grass, is well adapted to raising stock and for dairy purposes. There are several large settlements consisting of well cultivated farms and substantial improvements; the prin- cipal are in the towns of Green Bay, Glenmore, Holland, the Belgian settlement, Morrison, New Denmark, Howard, Suamico, Duck Creek, Belleview, Wrights- town, De Pere, Lawrence, Preble and the Oneida settlement. The farms are for the most part well cleared and well cultivated, with good and substantial rail and board fences, comfortable dwellings of log or frame construction, many of the latter being neat and commodious with good and ample barns, stables and other outbuildings.
"The farming community is of a mixed character, being Americans, Ger- mans, Belgians, Hollanders, some Irish, Danes and French; but the latter who formerly formed a large majority of the population are fast disappearing before the people of other classes, who greatly outnumber the old Canadian French. As a general thing the foreigners who cultivate the soil are good farmers; they do not cultivate very large farms but do it well."
This report of Brown county's rural industries was the last word on that subject for eight years, except for occasional allusions through the local press. The great Civil war shook the country and in Brown county as elsewhere the men were away from their farms and fighting for their country.
The Wisconsin Agricultural Society went out of commission for eight years, no meetings were held, its annual appropriation from the state of $3,000 was necessarily discontinued with the understanding that this amount should be renewed at the close of the war. In 1868 the first volume of transactions in eight years was published, but the society found it impossible to gather statis- tics as to what had been accomplished along economic lines that were at all full or accurate, during the war interval. The state fair held in September, 1864, was the first since the beginning of war times, which was pronounced creditable to the state considering that Wisconsin had sent 50,000 of her sons to the field to defend the government.
During the war when husbandry was necessarily retarded by the withdrawal from the farms of so large a proportion of working men the women did an immense amount of manual labor. In the country districts especially, the girls of the family ploughed and sowed, churned and picked berries, made their own shoes when they had any, and rode the old horse bareback to the nearest mill with the grain harvested by their own hands to be made into flour.
The first effective organization for the promotion of dairying in the state was in February, 1872, when on the 15th of that month seven good men and true, headed by W. D. Hoard organized the Wisconsin Dairymen's Association. The necessity as stated by Mr. Hoard for such an organization was the low condition of the market, the unmarketable character of the principal portion of our cheese and the lack of action on the part of buyers to handle Wiscon- sin goods. The only market was Chicago, and three car loads would glut that for a week. Western cheese bore about the same relation to that of New York that marsh hay did to early blue grass or timothy.
There were at that time in Brown county no cheese factories, no creameries,
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no skimming stations ; there are now throughout the county, according to Report of 1910, forty-eight cheese factories, eighteen creamneries, and one skimming sta- tion: Giese, Big Suamico; Denmark, Denmark; Denmark Combine, Denmark ; Maple Park, Denmark, R. D. 1; Backman, Denmark, R. D. 1 ; Fontenoy, Den- mark, R. D. 2; Hevel, Denmark, R. D. 2; Langes Corner, Denmark, R. D. 2; Rockland Cream & Butter Company, De Pere; Smith, No. 2, De Pere, R. D. I ; Planert, De Pere, R. D. 1; Cronk, De Pere, R. D. 1; Meyers, De Pere, R. D. 2; Ledgeville Cooperation Creamery Company, De Pere, R. D. 2; Shirley, De Pere, R. D. 3; H. W. Busse, Flintville ; Poland, Green Bay, R. D. 3; Ellis Creek, Green Bay, R. D. 3; Pine Grove, Green Bay, R. D. 3; Maternowski, Green Bay, R. D. 5; Pittsfield Cooperative, Green Bay, R. D. 8; Thymm, Green Bay, R. D. 8; Greenleaf, Greenleaf: Holzschuh, Greenleaf, R. D. 1; East Ilolland. Greenleaf. R. D. 2; Krieser, Greenleaf, R. D. 2; East Wrights- town. Greenleaf, R. D. 3; Schroeder, Greenleaf. R. D. 3; Butter & Cream Factory. Kaukauna; Red Clover, Kaukauna: Saenger, Lark; Smith, Lark, R. D. I; Morrison, Morrison; Kratz, New Franken, R. D. 2; Roznowski, New Franken, R. D. 2; Elm Dale, Pulaski; Pittsfield, Pulaski. R. D. 2; Sonnabend, Reedsville, R. D. 1; Brown Cream & Butter Company, Seymour, R. D. 37; Natske. Wayside. R. D. 1; Wayside. Wayside; S. Lawrence Cream & Butter Company, West De Pere, R. D. I.
Quite a number of these establishment plants combine creameries with the cheese factory : Wequiock, Green Bay, R. D. I; Wrightstown, Wrightstown ; E. R. V. Creamery Company, De Pere R. D. I : West De Pere, West De Pere ; Fox River V. Creamery Company. West De Pere, R. D. 1 ; Howard Cooperative Company, Green Bay, R. D. 9; Oneida, Oneida : Bellevue, Green Bay, R. D. 4: Anderson & Wendrick, Green Bay; G. B. Pure Milk Company, Green Bay ; Summit Creamery Company, Green Bay. R. D. 2; New Century Cooperative, New Franken; Pulaski Combination Cheese & Butter Company, Pulaski; Rock- land Combination Cheese & Butter Company, West De Pere; Wisconsin Butter & Cheese Company, Wrightstown; South Lawrence Butter & Cheese Company. Wrightstown; Greenleaf Combination Cheese & Butter Company, Greenleaf.
Skimming stations-New Century Cooperative, New Franken.
In the beginning of the dairy industry in Wisconsin dairymen merely fol- lowed the practices of their fathers and grandfathers without concerning them- selves about reasons. They had little, if any, scientific knowledge and small incentive to improve their methods. The establishment of an experiment station and a great state dairy school has more than anything else tended to raise the standard of production. The school is planned upon the theory that it should be an object lesson for students, and a model for the cheese factories and cream- eries of the state. The scrupulous cleanliness of the apparatus, the floors, the windows. the ceilings, the walls, the receiving room, the brightness and cleanli- ness of the cans used by patrons, the fresh clean and wholesome milk product received for manufacture into butter, the exact weighing and testing of the milk or cream, the strictly high class fresh quality of product always supplied to the market are models for the creameries and cheese factories of the state.
The annual inspection made by the state is also a constant spur to greater excellence. A careful examination is made of the sanitary conditions of the various plants and a fine imposed for disregard of rules.
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That Brown county dairy products have a good standing is shown by the fact that the last report of the state dairy inspector brought to light the fact that there was but one conviction in the whole of Brown county for transporting cream in rusty unclean cans, four for selling adulterated cream, and four cheese factories considered in an unsanitary condition.
Not only do the agricultural college and dairy school teach new knowledge and the application of the same, but the various associations which call together practical farmers from all parts of the state are tremendous enlighteners and the discussions brought about by contact with other minds intent on the same questions of how to improve methods and bring about best results are an inspira- tion to those who attend. The Farmers' Institutes have for the past twenty-five years been a power in agricultural education.
Growing out of the Wisconsin's Dairymen's Association are the Wisconsin Buttermakers' Association, the Wisconsin Cheesemakers' Association, and the Southern Wisconsin Cheesemakers' Association, whose effects have been spe- cialized along the line of improving the skill of the cheesemakers and butter- makers of the state, and of improving the quality of cheese factory and creamery products.
In Brown county, 1910, the cheese factory statistics show the number of pounds of milk received for the year, 44,240,379; number of pounds of cheese produced, 4,205,040; amount received for cheese sold, $605,445.84; number of patrons, 1,549 ; number of cows, 14,266.
In creameries the number of pounds of butter made in 1910 was 1,427.730. amount paid in for butter, $396.525.91 ; other creamery products, $58,918.54, making a total of $445,444-45 ; number of patrons, 1, 115; number of cows, 9,490.
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