History of Buffalo and Pepin Counties Wisconsin (Volume 2), Part 69

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 69
USA > Wisconsin > Pepin County > History of Buffalo and Pepin Counties Wisconsin (Volume 2) > Part 69

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"Milton Bartlett entered land and built a board house where Frank Trinco now lives. Lowell Curtiss bought land and built a shanty directly on the spot where Louis Brandshaw's house now stands. Asa and Hanley Closson and James Burnett built log cabins under the hill at the head of the lake, Helep and Andrew Closson making their home with their broth- ers. Henry W. Barber, thinking he had found the garden of Eden, soon purchased about 300 acres of land and built the first frame house on Dead Lake Prairie. Just before its completion he went to Westfield, New York, and married Cecillia Dickson, and the two started housekeeping in their new home. There they spent the remainder of their lives. Of their chil- dren there are now living two: Fannie Bell, now Mrs. N. Walter Bowman, of Durand, and Erle, who lives on the old homestead.

George Merrett and William Brunson entered land on the west side of the road, between Arkansaw and the George Brooks place. Mr. Brun- son, who taught singing school, helped to pass the long and cold winter evenings. The family of Henry Benton were the first settlers on the farm where Gerhardt Luther now lives. Lucius Dunbar made a home for himself and three children, Jane, Albert and Auston, on the place now occupied by his grandson, Bert Dunbar. An Englishman by the name of James Rands, purchased something like two acres of land a little north of east of where Frank Latoo lives, and built a log cabin, making a home where he cared for his aged father and mother, Robert and Elizabeth Rands. In the fall of 1861 he enlisted in the 16th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, and was later taken prisoner at the battle of Shiloh, April 6 or 7, 1862, which was the last time he was ever heard from. A sister of James Rands, Mrs. Ann Richard- son, a widow, came from England, bringing three children: Charles Rich- ardson, of Pepin ; Susan, Mrs. John Holden, of Dead Lake Prairie, and Lizzie, Mrs. Henry Clay, of Arkansas. Nicholas and Martin Bowman made their homes at Round Hill, on the Chippewa River, on the northeast part of Dead Lake Prairie. Nicholas Bowman bought land and built a house to which he

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Fought his wife and two daughters, Evangeline, who married John McMahon, of Dead Lake Prairie, and Mattie, who married William Bachelder, of Florida. Nicholas Bowman soon erected a sawmill. Later, his son, N. Walter, now of Durand, was born. He owns the old homestead. Marcus Mosier, with his mother and three sisters, now Mrs. David Humphrey and Mrs. Albert Dunbar, of Arkansas, and Mrs. Samuel Doughty, of Boulder, Colo., came on the prairie and made their home, the girls teaching school, while the mother did the domestic work. Levi McCourtie, who bought 40 acres on the west side of the prairie, married the widow, Mrs. Ann Rich- ardson, built a house and made a home.

In hearing the early settlers talk, one cannot but believe as they tell of the good spirit which existed between neighbors-and they claimed that everyone for miles around was a neighbor-that they really believed that they had reached the land of Beulah. But this idea was shattered at the time when the Sioux and the Chippewa became so blood-thirsty that noth- ing would satisfy them but warfare on each other. How people were terrified one day when, without warning, the war whoop and yells of the Sioux Indians fairly deafened them. They were going north, some 400 strong, to fight the Chippewas. Henry W. Barber and wife lived at that time in a part of the log cabin owned by Hubbard Arnold. It stood across from where Mrs. Frank Plummer now lives, on the hill above the lake. They occupied one room, there being but two in the house, and a door in both sides. The Indians were coming directly toward the house, as it was very near the Indian trail and the greater part of the 400 walked in at one door and out of the other. I have heard Mr. Barber say that he thought at the time that his hair had turned white. At another time they could hear plainly the battle raging on Porcupine, right on the place where Francis Biles now lives. About 60 Indians were buried there. Chief Saugamosier had a son killed there. He was about 16 years of age, and weighed over 200 pounds. His body was taken a little above Reed's Landing and buried. At another time a battle was fought on Battle Island, whence it derived its name. I want to add here that when the Sioux returned, after passing through the Barber home, they were decorated by scalps tied to their belts, necklaces of finger nails, and bracelets made from the lips as cut from around the mouths of the Chippewas. The people of the prairie and nearby settlers never experienced a massacre, but truly they did pass through the shadow of one.

The next year after Jacob S. McCourtie came he built a store north of the Latoo home, and purchased a keel boat, and John Closson was its cap- tain. This was the only method of transportation up the Chippewa. He later built the home where Frank Latoo lives. Hanley Closson and Alfred Cropsy erected a tavern still north of the store.

In a few words I will tell you of as great and remarkable experience with the Indians. One morning, when Mr. McCourtie and his two sons, Charles and David, were in the store, Chief Saugamosier, an Indian, weighing over 300 pounds, walked in and took McCourtie by the arm and walked him out of the door. The boys followed, expecting, as did their father, that he would be scalped, on reaching the door. Think of the terror

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of seeing before them 500 Indians sitting in a circle. Mr. McCourtie was led into the center of the circle, and instead of a tomahawk it was a beautiful pipe, something less than two feet in length, made of red pipe- stone. This the chief filled and refilled with kinnekenic. He then took a whiff, then gave it to Mr. McCourtie, and so on until the whole 500 had smoked the pipe of peace. He then presented the pipe to Mr. McCourtie. Previous to this they had never traded a penny with him, but ever after his store was their headquarters.

Time will not permit me to say more about the fifties, but I feel as though I must say something of the early sixties, as it was the fall of sixty, and in the ideal month of October, when I first came on to Dead Lake Prairie. My soul was certainly absorbed in wonder, love and praise as I looked upon the handiwork of nature, and, as never before, through nature to nature's God. I can never forget the beauty of the prairie at that time, bounded as it was on the south and west with magnificent bluffs covered with heavy timber, which the white man's axe had never defaced, and which at this time was clothed in all the colors of the rainbow; and on the east by a then beautiful lake, and a little farther by the swift run- ning waters of the Chippewa. Many were the days that the very atmos- phere seemed tinted by colors reflected from the hills. It was a great de- sire and pleasure to one who was a lover of nature to arise before the sun to watch its first rays as they kissed the western hills and to listen to the numberless prairie chickens as they made the welkin ring with their voices, and often while absorbed in thought to be aroused by the passing of the wild but innocent deer, intent upon an errand to the lake for the purpose of quenching their thirst, or feeding on the moss which in some places grew under the waters. In the early days the mirage was not infrequent. To view it was a privilege I greatly prized, as I have always been inter- ested in the wonderful as well as the beautiful things of this world.

I think that the first one to come and make a home in the sixties was Josiah Loomis, who built a log cabin by the lake, between the prairie and the Henry Fletcher tavern, at the mouth of the lake. I think its dimensions were about 12 by 14 feet. He brought his family, which, besides himself, consisted of his wife and ten children, only four of whom are now living. He came in the fall of 1860.

In the winter of 1860-61, to pass the time, I attended school, the teacher being Hervy Rounds-and a good teacher he was. Occasionally we had a spelling school, and usually were spelled down by Lydia Mosier. A few times we had a lecture on geology by a Baptist minister by the name of William Sturgeon, which, to me, were instructive and interesting.

In those days I attended dances, which were about our only amuse- ment. Not a great while after I came I was invited to attend what they called a ball. At first I did not understand what it meant, for in the state of New York it would have been called a "hop." Of course, I went, for I certainly did love to dance. Among those who were present and partici- pated in the dance were Mr. and Mrs. Henry Miles, Absalom and Tobias Schwartz, Jennie and Minnie Kelton, Moses Tucker, Terrance Roony, three of Christopher Thompson's daughters, Charles, David and Ellen McCour-

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tie, with others whose names I do not now recall. The building where this ball was given stood where now stands the store owned by Forest S. Plum- mer, and just vacated by Ed. Rounds. It was built for a paint shop, about 15 feet square. The music was furnished by one old man, "Old Fiddler Taylor," who played a violin.

I will pass to the spring of 1861, when districts began to look for teachers, and as I was a teacher from the east I was in great demand to in- struct pupils in the little log schoolhouses. To my surprise, very early one morning, there came a rap on Henry Barber's door, the opening of which disclosed a stranger who introduced himself as Mr. Houghton, of Waubeek, in search of a teacher, and as they had understood I was a teacher from the east, would like to secure my services, and would give me better wages than they had previously given, which would be $16 a month and board, but I would have to board around. Then every town had a superintendent, and as I had no certificate from that town, I told him I would give him my answer later. But no sooner did John Closson, who was invested with power to hire a teacher for the so-called Dead Lake district, hear of this, than he came to hire me and offered me $20 a month, and I could board around or board myself ; and as I knew my board would cost me nothing, the contract was drawn, as I was promised a certificate from Hervy Rounds, town superintendent of Frankfort. But a few days passed before the clerk from Durand came and offered me $25 a month and board. Milton Bartlett, having moved to Durand, Hervy Rounds moved into his house. The log cabin thus vacated was reconstructed into a schoolhouse. This standing on the hill above Silver Birch gave me the honor of teaching the first school ever taught on Dead Lake Prairie. It seems almost impossible, but I had sixty scholars enrolled. I suppose it was because everyone sent their babies.

The following October I took a school of one scholar, David B. Mc- Courtie, who on November 11, following, enlisted in Co. G, 16th Wis. Vol. Inf. Our home has been blessed with one daughter, and one foster-daugh- ter, Mrs. J. L. Throne, of Argyle, Wis., and Mrs. D. A. Schwartz, of Stevens Point, Wis.

In the years 1861, 1862 and 1863, a number of families came to make their home with us; those of George Brooks, Sr., William Steel and Thomas Pearl. George Brooks, Jr., who came with his parents, still lives on the prairie. It was much easier now for people to reach what was then Dunn County, for the keel boats were of the past and steamboats taking their place. The first boat to come up Chippewa River was the "Chippewa Falls." The Chippewa River does not look today much like it did then. Then it was narrow and deep, and only in very low water were sandbars to be seen. It was nothing unusual to see two or three steamboats in sight at the same time. I must mention the little "Monitor," which was built at Reed's Landing by Sevia & Thorp, in the winter and spring of 1862, mak- ing her second trip up the river in June, and the first steamboat to run up Dead Lake, and this was to bring my better-half home from the war.

Again, in 1862, fears were entertained that we might have trouble

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with the Indians-this was about the time of the massacre at New Ulm- so much so that "Cap" Wilson, of Menomonie, sent and got a hundred stacks of arms. I believe some were sent to Eau Galle and word was sent along to the people from Menomonie to Lake Pepin to be on the lookout. I remember well that if a gun was heard, or any unusual noise, the first thought was of Indians. Mrs. Thomas Duclow once told me that she could remember well that her father, Dr. Berry, had a sawmill at Irvington, about four miles south of Menomonie, and that every night for about four weeks the neighbors for a good ways around came to the mill to sleep and kept guards stationed out.

Well do I remember the Civil War prices. We paid $18 a barrel for flour, could only get two and a half pounds of sugar for a dollar, and poor calico 50 to 75 cents a yard. I was well acquainted with a man who paid $12 for a pair of boots, and they did not have red tops, either; and I know a lady who paid $7 for a pair of boots for her boy and paid in eggs at six cents a dozen.

While wild game of all sorts was plentiful in the early days, none was so plentiful as the pigeons. In the year of 1869, or 1870, numberless flocks rested on the bottoms between Dead Lake and the Chippewa River. To anyone who has never listened to the noise they made, I could not de- scribe it so that they would anywhere near understand it. Some days, for hours at a time, the sun would almost be darkened when the young pigeons began to fly, and especially after a little rain it was impossible to drive along the road without killing a goodly number. Farmers were greatly worried for fear that the crops would all be destroyed. But the pigeons are all gone now, and I believe that almost everyone would be pleased to welcome them back.

There is always the bitter with the sweet, so I must not forget to tell you of the snakes which infested the prairies in the early days. They were of various kinds, but most of them were prairie or bull snakes, blow snakes and the blue racers, measuring all the way from a few inches to at least five feet. One hardly expected to go far in any direction without seeing a snake. A few rattle snakes were sometimes seen, occasionally one as it was going from the bluffs to the lake in a very dry time. I remem- ber that one time a man named Robert Stutson came to our house with a rattle snake which he killed as he was coming down the bluff on the west side of the prairie, which measured five feet long and nine inches around. In 1854, and a few years afterward, the bottoms between Dead Lake and Chippewa River abounded with the massasauga, a short, but quite thick rattle snake, more to be feared than the mountain rattle snake as it was quiet and gave no warning.

The mosquitoes were almost everywhere in the early days, and often interfered with outdoor events. The first Fourth of July in Pepin County was held in a bowery built where Mrs. Frank Plummer's house now stands, the mosquitoes being so thick that it could not be held in the grove. The bowery did not need to be very large as there were not many people to gn. The address was delivered by Milton Bartlett.

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The first camp meeting held in Pepin County was at Round Hill on Chippewa River, on the east side of Dead Lake Prairie, conducted by Rev. Woodley.

But these events are of the dim distant past. Today I am not unmind- ful of the years that have passed, and often say, "How long!" but when memory silently wraps her wings around me, and so swiftly carries me back from here to there she tells me the journey is short; but when left to travel the path back alone occasionally an unforbidden tear dims my eyes; and why ? Because the friends of other years are gone-scarcely one to cheer me on my way. Then I realize that the journey from there to here has been long. You ask me where are the friends of other days? Come and go with me into the cemetery at Round Hill, where in the fall of 1860 only one grave marked the place. Then from there to the cemetery on this side of the prairie, to which there had never a thought been given; and lastly, to the silent city here in Arkansaw, where never a tear had been shed, and the answer comes to you-gone!

Frank M. Keith, now a resident of La Grange, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, in a letter dated Jan. 19, 1918, to the Entering Wedge, of Durand, writes in part as follows: "I used to live on the Porcupine, about nine miles from Durand and one mile down the creek from the Porcupine postoffice, in a little basin almost entirely surrounded by hills. I think there were four houses and a sawmill at the place when I left there about May 1, 1880, for Chicago. * * * When I left the Porcupine my brother 'Lafe' was in partnership with a man named John Dahl, and they operated the saw- mill formerly known as Gilbert's mill. John Dahl also was a tailor and made the suit that I wore when I invaded Chicago. It was made of brown Kentucky jeans, and made wrong side out, as I liked the wrong side better than the right. *

* * I remember living in Pepin about the year 1868 in a house which my father bought from a man named Richards- Porter Richards' father, I think. This house was of immense size, and I never could understand why father purchased it. I attended school in Pepin a short time and remember that the principal's name was V. D. Carruth. There was a grocer there named Phillip Pfaff, and I also remem- ber Robert and Mary Axtell. The conveniences we had in the Porcupine woods in those days were very primitive compared with the equipment of today. I can recall when we used to go to evening writing school in the old log schoolhouse, and each one had to supply his own ink and candle, and the one who reached the schoolhouse first would build a fire in the stove. There were no telephones or electric lights in those days, but the spelling matches, sleighing, maple sugar and other parties are among the pleasant- est of my memories. I can remember well the school girls of those days, some of whom have passed on. There was Amanda and Maryette Bowen, Mary, Lona and Amanda Whicher, Hattie Gates, Ruth Lewis, Lona and Phoebe Loomis, Sallie Hight, Cynthia Ames, Sarah and Maggie Biles, Abbie Myers, Bertie and Ida Jackson, Meta and Josephine Juliot, Carrie and Denie Dahl and Estelle Gilbert. Several of my friends among the boys are still on the Porcupine, among them being Henry Foster, Seymour Hoyt, Melvin Bishop, Will Jackson, Will French, and I think the Juliot boys. George

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Gates, I believe, is at Long Beach, Cal. Some of the others have strayed away, I know not where."

LIMA

Lima Township consists of a full government township, and is bounded on the north by Dunn County, on the east by Albany Township, on the south by Buffalo County, and on the west by Durand Township. It is watered by Bear and Fall Creeks and by Dry Brook.

The early settlement centers in the Bear Creek Valley. Joseph Erwin Ward came here with the surveyors in 1852, and selected a tract of land, but did not return to live here until some years later. The first actual set- tlers in the township were C. N. Averill and Nelson Sabin, with their famil- ies, who came on May 28, 1856. At that time Durand had not been started, but there was a small hamlet called Chippewa, located at the mouth of Bear Creek.

The next few years brought quite a few families to the valley, some of whom settled in Lima and some over the line in Canton, in Buffalo County, all, however, forming the same settlement. Among them may be mentioned N. P. Ward, R. H. Newton, Lucius Howard, James Dedrick, Jere- miah Landt, Henry Stevens, Andrew Lobdill, C. O. Preston, Merritt Sabins, O. A. Doane, P. J. Ryan, Aschel Goss, D. B. Gifford, E. Parish, James Fox, Loftus Fox, Harvey Averill, Hiram, Frank and Nicholas Dedrick and a number of others. Orlando Skinner, Charles Twis, Ira Story and others set- tled at Skinner's Corners.

The Bear Creek Valley Old Settlers' Reunion had its beginning May 28, 1895, in the Little Bear Creek Valley Methodist Church. It was held an- nually on that date, and at that place for several years. The meeting place was then transferred to Goss' Grove, and the meeting time changed to June. The reunion was started with the idea of keeping alive the old tradi- tions by gathering the old settlers and their descendants for a picnic dinner and a day spent in visiting and talking over old times. Usually a short program was planned with addresses, papers and talks by the old settlers.

At the reunion held May 28, 1906, Mrs. Nathaniel Plumer Ward, Sr., read the following article :

Fifty years ago the first white settlers came to upper Bear Creek. Du- rand had not yet been started, but at the mouth of Bear Creek they found a small cluster of little wooden buildings, at the hamlet that was then called Chippewa. This hamlet was several times washed out, and was succeeded by Durand.

The C. N. Averill and Nelson Sabin families were the first to make homes in the valley, coming when there were no roads in this whole section. After them from time to time, for the next ten years, came others, until there was quite a settlement here and on Maxville and Skinner's prairies, and quite a little village at Durand. At first times were necessarily hard; the land had to be cleared acre by acre before any crops could be raised. Every- one could keep a few cattle, for the woods furnished a common pasture, and the wild marshes provided hay for the winter. There were one or more loud, clear sounding bells on each herd, and all the members of the owner's family knew the bells by sound. It was the boys' job to find the cattle, to bring

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them home at evening, and as those owned by several neighbors usually ran together in one drove, the boys would hunt them in company, and a hunt it often was, for sure, if they had strayed so far that the bells couldn't be heard. The boys of today may think that wasn't much of a task, but when a person realizes that to go a few rods from the buildings brought one into woods so thick that one couldn't see out in any direction, they will realize that their fathers must have been pretty plucky little fellows to brave the dark woods and the wild animals to bring home the cows.

As some crops began to be raised, that part that could be spared for sale was hauled to Durand, loaded onto a flat boat and floated to Alma or Reeds' Landing. Part of the money received was paid for the actual neces- saries of life, but the necessities of those days were very different from the necessities of today. These purchases were loaded onto the flat boat, which was then poled and towed by hand back up the river; the remaining money was brought home and carefully laid out in clearing and breaking more land so as to raise more crops the next year. A little later, when some kind of roads had been made, the grain was hauled to Alma or Reed's Landing by ox teams, and the settlers were able to buy most of their necessaries at Durand.

During the first few years the nearest postoffice was at Eau Galle. On Saturdays one of the men would walk to Durand, row himself across the river in a skiff, then walk to Eau Galle, get the mail for the neighborhood, and return home, considering he had had quite a holiday. Later, and until comparatively a few years ago, we all got our mail from Durand; anyone going to town brought the mail for the neighbors. Sometimes we got it two or three times a week, but oftener a week or more would elapse without hearing from the office. During the first twenty years horses were almost unknown, oxen being used entirely then. Occasionally some one who had been particularly successful got a horse team, until in time oxen became the exception and horses the rule. Twenty-five years ago there was only one covered carriage in this valley, and but few buggies.

The first houses built on the farms through here were of logs, with one exception ; J. E. Ward built the upright of the house he now lives in when he settled on the land. But we children in those log homes were just as happy and, I believe, more content than the children of today. We expected no luxuries, so were not fretting about wanting this or that; they were so entirely out of the question that we never thought of them. We had to find and make all our toys and playthings, letting imagination supply whatever was lacking in them. Then a large apple had do for two children for a long time, oranges were unknown. A little candy, a few raisins and a whole red apple in our stockings at Christmas made us perfectly happy and contented.

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History of Buffalo and Pepin Counties Wisconsin (Volume 2), Part 69

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

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