History of Buffalo and Pepin Counties Wisconsin (Volume 2), Part 59

Author: Franklyn Curtiss-Wedge
Publication date: 1919
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 885

USA > Wisconsin > Buffalo County > History of Buffalo and Pepin Counties Wisconsin (Volume 2) > Part 59
USA > Wisconsin > Pepin County > History of Buffalo and Pepin Counties Wisconsin (Volume 2) > Part 59

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

HISTORY OF BUFFALO AND PEPIN COUNTIES

Loans and discounts, $245,719.10; overdrafts, $1,047.19; U. S. Bonds, U. S. Certificates of Indebtedness, War Savings Certificates and Thrift Stamps, $37,119.88; banking house, $5,000; furniture and fixtures, $2,700; due from approved reserve banks, $55,362.43; checks on other banks and cash items, $857.67; cash on hand, $17,898.94; total, $365.705.21. Lia- bilities-Capital, $10,000; surplus, $12,000; undivided profits, $4,826.56; individual deposits subject to check, $110,866.11; time certificates of de- posit, $219,363.35; savings deposits, $6,788.62; Christmas Banking Club, $1,100.26; Liberty Loan Account, $760.31; total, $365.705.21.

The First National Bank of Alma was incorporated in 1906, with a capital of $25,000. The first president was C. G. Kapelovitz, the first vice president was A. N. Beiseker, and the first cashier was T. S. Saby, the directors being these three with Edward Clark, J. W. Kurtz and E. S. Huckins. The present officers are: President, C. C. Kapelovitz; vice presi- dents, A. N. Beiseker and John Accola; cashier, T. S. Saby; assistant cashier, Ruth Gobar. The directors are the Messrs. Kapelovitz, Beiseker and Saby and Charles Kaste, C. J. Thies and Ole Hem. The institution owns a modern brick building, erected in 1906, and fully equipped to carry on an extensive banking business. It has a capital of $25,000 and a sur- plus of $10,000.

The Alma Investment Co. was incorporated in 1915 for the purpose of conducting a general financial business in mortgages, loans and invest- ments. The business is housed in the First National Bank Annex, in a modern and well equipped office. Theodore Buehler, Sr., is the president; John Accola is the vice president, and T. S. Saby is secretary and treas- urer. The directors are: Theodore Buehler, Sr., J. A. Ganz and Charles Kaste. The establishment of this firm has done considerable toward the development of the agricultural and financial interests of this vicinity.

The First State of Fountain City was organized in 1906, with a capital of $10,000 and the following officers: President, F. J. Bohri; vice presi- dent, C. A. Kirchner; cashier, Harry E. Bohri. These officers are still serving, the present board of directors being F. J. Bohri, C. A. Kirchner, H. E. Bohri, M. L. Fugini and Henry Roettiger. The statement issued Nov. 1, 1918, is as follows: Resources-Loans and discounts, $359,- 574.65; overdrafts, $625.47; bonds, $41,900.31; U. S. Bonds, U. S. Cer- tificates of Indebtedness, and War Savings Stamps, $44,671.89; furniture and fixtures, $2,101.25; due from approved reserve banks, $148,589.09; cash on hand, $8,037.22; total, $610,562.77. Liabilities-Capital stock paid in, $20,000; surplus, $10,000; undivided profits, $1,742.01; individual deposits subject to check, $168,716.94; time certificates of deposit, $402,- 070.07; cashier's checks outstanding, $6,033.75; reserved for interest, $2,000; total, $610,562.77.

The Farmers & Merchants State Bank, of Cochrane, was incorporated late in 1907, and began business in January, 1908, with a capital of $10,000. The first officers were: Charles Huber, president; John B. Hofer, vice president; A. W. Hofer, cashier; Gottfried Klein and G. M. Rohrer. A small brick building did duty as a banking house until the fall of 1916, when it was replaced with the present sightly structure, of pressed brick,

Digitized by Google

949

HISTORY OF BUFFALO AND PEPIN COUNTIES

two stories high. The capital has been increased to $20,000, and there is a surplus of $10,000. The officers are: John B. Hofer, president; Gott- fried Klein, vice president; A. W. Hofer, cashier ; John R. Lindrud, assist- ant cashier; A. E. Guettinger and H. O. Stein.

The Farmers State Bank of Nelson was organized in 1910 as the Farmers State Bank. The officers were: Gottlieb Nold, president ; Thomas Ottesen, vice president ; Edmund Geibel, cashier; T. S. Saby and Lawrence Kennedy, and the original capital was $10,000. May 11, 1915, the institu- tion was reorganized as the First National Bank of Nelson. The first officers under the reorganization were: Gottlieb Nold, president; Thomas Ottesen, vice president ; Edmund Geibel, cashier; Violet A. Giebel, assist- ant cashier; Lawrence Kennedy and T. S. Saby. On Sept. 14, 1918, Gott- lieb Nold resigned as president and Edmund Geibel as cashier. The pres- ent officers are: A. E. Urnes, president; Thomas Otteson, vice president ; W. J. Eberwein, cashier ; Lawrence Kennedy, Ole C. Olson, Thor. S. Severson and T. S. Saby. The assistant cashier is Violet A. Giebel. The capital is $25,000.

The Gilmanton State Bank, of Gilmanton, was incorporated in January, 1910, by George W. Smith, A. D. Smith and A. B. Hutchinson. The first officers, Feb. 25, 1910, were: President, George W. Smith; vice president, A. D. Smith; cashier, E. W. Hanson; directors, George W. Smith, A. D. Smith, E. A. Kenyon, H. D. Forest, Jerry Gumbert, Ludwig Schultz and A. B. Hutchinson. The building was erected in May, 1910, and opened for business July 14, 1910. January 7, 1911, Nic. Hanseman succeeded A. D. Smith as cashier. January 2, 1912, E. A. Kenyon became president; and George W. Smith, cashier. January 12, 1915, P. J. Hutchinson became president, and George L. Krampeter vice president, and these with George W. Smith, cashier, constitute the present officers. The financial report issued Nov. 1, 1918, shows the following items: Resources-Loans and discounts, $42,402.75; overdrafts and war savings stamps, $1,079.17; bonds, $500; banking house, $2,500; furniture and fixtures, $2,200; due from ap- proved banks, $13,517.23; cash on hand, $9,139.49; total, $71,358.64. Lia- bilities-Capital stock paid in, $10,000; surplus, $2,000; undivided profits, $683.83; deposits, $58,674.81; total, $71,358.64.

The Farmers State Bank of Modena was organized Jan. 13, 1917, by Sam Meyer, R. P. Godard, Jr., Wm. Jensen, Hans Otteson, Charles Marshall and Henry Linse. The first officers were: Wm. Jensen, president; Olaus Ottum, vice president; H. C. Brown, cashier; H. L. Lowe, H. C. Brown, Arthur Hitt, Wm. Jensen, Olaus Ottum, Sam Meyer, A. H. Lurndal. The bank opened for business June 14, 1917, in a substantial building com- pleted June 5, 1917. The present officers are: Wm. Jensen, president : Olaus Ottum, vice president; Harry C. Brown, cashier. The bank does a solid, substantial, conservative business, its motto being "Courtesy and Service." The report of the condition of the bank at the close of business, Nov. 1, 1918, is as follows: Resources-Loans and discounts, $44,504.20; overdrafts, $666.61; U. S. municipal and other bonds, $9,530.56; banking house, $2,049.57; furniture and fixtures, $1,832.96; due from approved reserve banks, $562.11; checks and cash items, $555.38; cash on hand,

Digitized by Google

950 HISTORY OF BUFFALO AND PEPIN COUNTIES

$3,687.38; current expense, $245.19; total, $63,633.96. Liabilities-Capital stock paid up, $10,000.00; surplus, $2,000.00; total deposits, $46,633.96; notes re-discounted, $5,000.00; total, $63,633.96.

Digitized by

Google

CHAPTER XVII

A PIONEER BOYHOOD (By Chauncey H. Cooke)

There is a noble painting in one of the corridors of the National Capi- tol at Washington that vividly pictures the manner in which the pioneer settlers made the long, weary journey by wagon from Indiana and Ohio to the then wilds of Buffalo County.

The painting represents a band of homeseekers on a western plain with wagons, horses and cattle pressing forward, as if in haste toward the setting sun. There were ten or a dozen wagons in two parallel lines. They have just left the foothills and are debouching into the broad cpen plain. A cloud of dust rolls up from the wagons, or prairie schooners as they are called, some being drawn by oxen, some by horses with four to six animals to each wagon.

Bareheaded children in groups peer out from the deep covered boxes, men and women on foot, the men with rifles and the women with babes in their arms, courage and anxiety written in their faces, are striding rapidly forward. Girls without bonnets, their skirts streaming in the · wind, are helping the boys on ponies and the dogs to round up the cattle and sheep that loiter to eat the grass by the roadside. The oxen strain at their yokes, urged on by the writhing lash, and on a bare eminence rising out of the plain stands a group of Indians silently watching the strange coming of the white man.

In the distance is a range of mountains with peaks above the snow line, and over all a summer sky mottled with a flock of fleecy clouds flushed with the hues of a glorious sunset.

The painting appeals to thousands as it recalls incidents in their pioneer lives. In this way my father came west, and as I looked at those figures pictured in spirit and movement to very life, memory went back to that 650 miles of journey from the state of Indiana, with its daily cares and burdens, especially to my mother. Yes, the real hardship, as I remember, fell to my mother. There was the care of brother Kit, a half sick babe nearly always in her arms, during the swaying and jolting of the heavy wagon all day long. Breakfast, dinner and supper brought their manifold tasks, of cooking, washing, baking around a smokey fire, camping stoves were unknown. The next day and the next, came the same routine, for more than six weeks, varied only by storms and sunshine and mud and dust.

My father, born and reared in the wilds of Ohio, had all the instincts of a native of a new world. I remember my mother depreciatingly telling him that if he had been born in a wigwam, he would have been an ideal Indian. He had in his veins that mixture of the savage, which none the

951

Digitized by Google

952

HISTORY OF BUFFALO AND PEPIN COUNTIES

less was eagerly helpful in blazing the ways of the untutored Indian to the higher estate of the white man's civilization.

I was a mere lad and knew nothing of the trials and hardships of the journey. I was just learning to ride horseback, and my repeated falls from the back of old Doll were much enjoyed by the hired man.

At length the narrow vale nestling in amid the hills of Buffalo County, for more than 60 years known as "Cooke's Valley," was reached. Our journey was ended. The covered wagons, which for six weeks had been our dwellings, were abandoned for a comfortable tent. Our morning naps were no longer broken by the awful cry "get up to breakfast, the wagons are moving."

Three incidents marking the first night and day in our new home stand out distinctly in memory. The howling of three or four wolves soon after going to bed, as if resenting our presence in their particular domain, father's catching a mess of trout for breakfast, using his gun stick for a pole, and the passing of a band of Sioux Indians along a deep worn trail close beside which we had staked our tent. We came to know much of the Indians before the end of the summer. A mile and a half down the valley was a permanent camping ground, where ofttimes as many as a hundred Sioux would be encamped. These bands that frequented our valley were frequently attacked by marauding bands of the Chippewa. One day in August four warriors called at the tent and begged some bread of mother, and while they were lying upon the ground eating it, a number of rifle reports followed in rapid succession in the direction of the Indian camp. The four Sioux were on their feet in an instant and tying their blankets about them, caught up their rifles and ran in the direction of the guns. The next morning father and I visited the camp and found the Indians had gone. Alongside each of the twelve wigwams was a deep grave like a trench, which the chief of the band told my father, on his return in the fall, was for the squaws and papooses that the Chippewas attacked that night.

For several years the Indians continued to be much in evidence. They kept us supplied with fresh meats, such as venison, elk and bear meats, for which we would trade flour, pork and potatoes. They ofttimes staked their ponies quite near the house, and after building a fire the squaws would visit mother to beg thread and needles and bright pieces of calico. The squaws always got the best end of the trade as mother, holding the Indians in terror, did not dare insist on a fair exchange in values.

Often we children and mother were alone during these visits, and on one occasion I recall a party of Sioux having stopped to roast some veni- son, a squaw was noticed with a long rope in her hands approaching the tent. Mother was terribly frightened, thinking we were all going to be hung, until the squaw put the rope around the neck of one of their ponies which had strayed near our tent. When father came he smiled at our fears and chided us for being cowards. I well remember my first impres- sion of our savage neighbors, so fierce looking and wild and how nearly naked, buckskin moccasins and leggins and a scanty breech clout of calico their only clothing. They threw clubs at my dog, regardless of my pres-

Digitized by Google

953

HISTORY OF BUFFALO AND PEPIN COUNTIES

ence. They were tall and straight, and their nude bodies from the belt up were swarthy and muscular as athletes, and their long, coarse black hair hung in braids, or in coils, about their necks. I grew in time to like the Indians. They made me bows and arrows, and I hunted and played with the boys of my age, romped with them on their beautiful buffalo robes, and their mother would have me share in their food. At meal time she would hand me a huge piece of elk stake or venison, sometimes using a knife, again taking it in her fingers and pulling it apart, as you have seen birds do in feeding their young. After six years of friendly intercourse they came no more. On the outbreak of the Sioux war in this state, Minne- sota, in 1862, a war due not to the treachery of the Indians, but to the bad faith of the Washington government, in withholding overdue payments, they disappeared, doubtless to aid their tribe in its hopeless struggle against the coming of the white man.

Coming back to our subject; to follow the first comers in a new country possesses a certain fascination. The instinct of the pioneer was inherited from Adam, who was monarch of all creation. Our pioneer fathers in Buffalo County were not unlike the Chaldean shepherd a thou- sand years before Christ, those freebooters of the wild Babalonian hills, living close to the heart of nature, guarding their flocks through the long watches of the night, uttering loud cries at intervals to frighten the beasts of prey, making friends with the stars, and in their bright pages communing on the fate of man and empires. Our pioneer fathers seemed almost as much isolated, in a land almost as wild. The beasts and birds by day and the moon and stars by night were our best and constant companions. Our fathers were glad to make friends with the native Red Man, and in imita- tion of them they came to worship God in the clouds and to hearken to him in the winds, for our communings with the strange and wild were varied by the work of building a log dwelling, making hay for a considerable drove of cattle, breaking land for cultivation, splitting rails for fences, and of Sundays for variety would go fishing or climb the highest bluff where we could view the country far and wide.

The country abounded in all manner of game, and it was almost a daily occurrance to see deer, elk or other animals crossing the valley. Bears and wolves were not so bold during the day and were seldom seen, though their trails through the grass showed they came near the house during the night. About a month after our arrival we were awakened one night by a strange rattling of the cow bells and bellowing of the cattle. Father guessed at once that wolves or bears had attacked the cattle, and catching up his double-barrel rifle, he ran out of doors and fired both barrels in succession in the air, and soon the cattle all came running to the house.

In the morning we found tusk marks on two of the yearlings, showing that they had been attacked by wolves. On dark nights during the first two winters the wolves came boldly to the cow shed, and their tracks showed that they tried to get through between the poles into the calf pen. They were the big timber wolf, they always traveled in packs in search of prey, and on cold winter nights when the wind howled and the snow was drifting through the shingles in the faces of three little boys who

Digitized b Google

954

HISTORY OF BUFFALO AND PEPIN COUNTIES

slept in the attic alone, the yelping of the wolves in concert with the rage of the storm king, made those little boys huddle closer together and to keep very still.

Our watch dog, bold and fearless in attacking a bear, was craven and unwarlike in facing wolves, and on their approach curiously enough, he would drop his tail between his legs, crawl in his kennel and lie there and growl.

My father had the fancier's liking for all manner of pets. For years he had a sort of private menagerie of coon, ground hogs, deer and bears. The bears were rude playfellows and were taken to Fountain City, 30 miles, our nearest market, and sold to steam boats. The deer we never tired of. They were very social and liked to be caressed. They would sometimes come leaping to the house, their tongues out, apparently having been chased by wolves, rush into mother's bedroom and lie down. The deer were very chummy with our immense grey hound, and that grey hound became famous in newspaper accounts because of his speed and terrific fights with bears. He saved father's life when attacked by a bear, and when he died, some years later, he was buried with honor, not unlike Lord Lewellen's favorite hound, Gellert, which had torn a wolf to pieces to save his master's child. Lewellen built a famous tomb to mark the grave of Gellert. I piled a heap of stones in loving memory above the grave of dear old Prince.

I have no sense or appreciation of that sentiment which dwells upon the pioneer years of our fathers as years of hardship. Why, the native instinct of cultivated man inclines him to look longingly to the untrodden vales and hills, "where things that own not man's dominion dwell," where man is "monarch of all he surveys," "where rolls the Oragon and hears no sound save its own dashings." Whoever thought of pitying Adam and Eve? Because of their solitude, living alone with the birds and beasts of the field, their habitation was given the fondest name in language, Para- dise. And so we, the children of Buffalo County Pioneers, looking back through the long vista of 60 and more years, have only fond memories of childhood's days. Oh, the lure of those happy years now gone forever. In vision I am again a child, the companion of birds and beasts, the play- mate of Indian children with bows and arrows.

Oh, the lure of those wild days of happy childhood. In vision I am again a carefree one-gallus barefoot boy, giving free rein to boyish fancies, companioned by wild pets and tramping from morning till night the hills and valleys, with limbs that never tired. The birds of the air and the denisons of the woods were our constant delight and wonder. The children of the present have little conception of the myriads of feathered creatures that peopled the earth and the air during the past.

Multitudes of singing birds beguiled the long hours of summer with their songs, and for long periods during fall and spring, the sky by day and by night teemed with migratory ducks, geese, brants and sand hill crane, who would pipe out their greeting or goodbye as they winged their way south in the fall and north in spring. Many of them are extinct and live only in the pages of John Burroughs and John James Audubon.

Digitized by by Google"

955

HISTORY OF BUFFALO AND PEPIN COUNTIES

Again in seeming we hear the notes of the blue bird, and oriole, softer than the tones of the flute, and the red winged black bird from the shores of the gulf, that we used to throw stones at, because he pulled up the corn, sits again upon the topmost spray of the old willow carolling an amorous ditty to his homely brown mate.

The brown plover, now extinct, slowly settles to the earth with long drawn whistle, on tremulous wing. Oh, that whistle! How we boys of sixty years ago tried to emulate the plover's whistle!

And the saucy bobolink, like the plover, he too has passed in his checks. He was the last to come from the rice swamps of the South. But when he arrived he was wonderfully in evidence. His sweetheart was a yellowish girl with a dash of ebony on her bosom. And oh, how he loved this sweetheart of a summer. He made her the theme of all the ecstacy and passion of his song. He was vain and operatic, and scorned all rivals in the domain and art of melody.

Oh, the lure of the dear old farmstead of a half century ago, with all its treasures of childhood memories! With hands outstretched it seems calling to me to come back again. And the old cabin that father built, away back beyond the years, with its roof of twisted shakes, that let in the driving rain on our faces, and when winter came mother's precious hands stretched a blanket or some cotton sheet to shelter our face from the indrifting snow.

Far happier are such memories to the pioneer children of Buffalo County than if they had been born to purple and fine linen and their feet had trodden none other than smooth shaven lawns.

Samuel S. Cooke was the first settler in Dover Township. A lineal descendent of Samuel and Hope Cooke, who came from Kent, England, and settled in Wallingford, Conn., in 1667, he was born in Franklin County, Ohio, in December, 1818, and became a saddler and harnessmaker. A lover of the chase, he desired a greater opportunity for outdoor life than his occupation afforded and he accordingly determined to cast his lot in the upper Mississippi region. With his brother, Chauncey, he set out in June, 1855, and reached Fountain City. Here, with a view to stock-raising, he secured a quarter section of land between Fountain City and Winona, and a quarter section fifteen miles from Fountain City in Glencoe Town- ship. Then he returned to his home in Indiana, going by boat to Prairie du Chien, and thence by rail. In the following spring he made his plans for coming west and settling on his land. He had two wagons made, purchased four horses, thirty head of cattle and a bull, and with provisions, household goods, some chickens and two dogs started out. The party consisted of Samuel S. Cooke, his wife, whose maiden name was Loduskey Gardner, a daughter Dora, aged twelve, who afterward mar- ried John Hunner, merchant, editor and one time treasurer of the state of Wisconsin, and died in Spokane; a son, Chauncey H., aged ten, now a leading citizen of the county; Warren, aged six, a potato merchant, who owns a farm on the shores of Lake Chetek, Barron County, this state; and a baby named Kit Carson, who in manhood moved to Sioux Falls, where he

Digitized by Google

956

HISTORY OF BUFFALO AND PEPIN COUNTIES

died. There was also a driver who came for adventure, and immediately went back, and two young men who remained for one winter cutting wood at Fountain City.

Wending their way along, the party in time reached Fountain City. Their herd of cows had been reduced, Mr. Cooke having listened to the eager requests of a number of settlers whom he had encountered in La Crosse Valley, and who, less prudent than he, had failed to provide them- selves with live stock. Upon their arrival in Buffalo County, Mr. Cooke found that the land which he had previously acquired was unsuitable for his desires, and accordingly, on the advice of the Pierce Brothers, at Foun- tain City, he came to what is now Dover Township, and secured the half section that has since been known as the Willow Farm, on Cooke Creek, a tributary of the south branch of Elk Creek, that creek being so named from the bands of elk once frequenting the region.

Neighbors there were none. About a mile and a half down the creek, on the west bank, were the alder frames of the tepees of the Indians, who came and went until the Sioux Massacre. There was no one in Dover and no one in Naples. The Farrington colony had settled at Mondovi. The Gilman colony came about the same time as the Cookes and settled on the west side of Beef River, in what is now Gilmanton Township. In the summer came Warren Garwood, a young man, who had learned the harness- making trade from S. S. Cooke, and came here to be with the family. He spent the summer splitting rails in Dover. In the winter he cut wood at Fountain City. George W. Wooster came in the fall of 1856, and spent the winter in the western part of what is now Gilmanton Township. He was a bachelor and devoted his time to hunting. The next year he took a quarter section four miles below Cooke's and two miles above Gilmanton.

As soon as the Cooke party arrived they built two log cabins, one 14 by 16 feet, and the other 12 by 16 feet. A log barn was built for the horses, surrounded by a shed for the stock. Preparations were made for the winter, wild hay was cut for the stock, and twenty-five acres of land was broken.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Buffalo and Pepin Counties Wisconsin (Volume 2), Part 59

Author: Franklyn Curtiss-Wedge Publication date: 1919 Publisher: Number of Pages: 885

Author: Franklyn Curtiss-Wedge
Publication date: 1919
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 885