USA > Wisconsin > Grant County > History of Grant County Wisconsin, including its civil, political, geological, mineralogical archaeological and military history > Part 41
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C. Goldsmith was a partner of Cover in the publication of the Herald. but editorially confined his writings to horticulture, he being a nurs- eryman.
John Cover continued as sole publisher and editor of the paper till the beginning of 1877, when Edward Pollock became a partner, and at the beginning of 1878 Mr. Cover withdrew, leaving Mr. Pollock sole proprietor, and the latter continued as such and as editor of the paper until January 1, 1881, when he sold the paper to Joseph Cover, son of J. C. Cover, and H. D. Farquharson, familiarly called "Cap Ferg," who had once been foreman of the Herald and was a first-class printer. Cover soon withdrew and Farquharson continued the publi- cation with George P. Mathes as editor, until January 1, 1885, when Walter G. Chandler bought the paper. On May 16, 1886, was begun a semi-weekly edition: that is, a five-column paper was isssued on Mondays in addition to the nine-column paper on Thursdays. This was continued a little more than a year and then abandoned. Wm. B. Miner, purchased the paper July 13, 1888, and continued to run it till June 15, 1892, he sold it to Charles L. Harper, who had long been County Superintendent. Mr. Harper published the paper till Janu- ary 1, 1895, when he sold it to Clyde R. Showalter, who sold it to H. J. Johnson in April, 1900.
When Mr. Chandler purchased the paper he removed the office from Ryland's Block, which had been its home for fifteen years, to the Budd Block, where it remained until that building was burned in 1888. The office was then removed to the old stone church, and after two or three more moves, now rests in a building on the west side of the pub- lic square. For about ten years it has been most of the time printed as a six-column quarto.
The Grant County Democrat .- After the suspension of the Potosi Republican in 1855, the Democrats of Grant County were left without a county organ for fifteen years. They wanted one and it was thought they would support one, and during the campaign of 1870 Thos. W. Bishop, moved the material of his paper, the Boscobel Dial, to Lancaster. He shortly afterward took in as a partner Robert B. Rice, and started the Democrat. The Democrat was a seven-column paper, printed on a hand-press in the third story of the Horstman Block on Maple Street. Bishop soon withdrew. Robert B. Rice was a good printer and a writer of fair ability, but financially he was a combina-
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tion of Micawber and Harold Skimpole, and in the latter part of 1872 the paper ceased to be issued. Rice then worked for a while on the Herald, and afterward as editor of the Boscobel Dial. His subsequent experience in starting newspapers and running them for brief periods on promises to pay would take a volume to describe. The better part of the type was taken by the publisher of the West Grant Advocate in paymentof his wages as a printer on the Democrat-one of the very few bills contracted in the publication of the Democrat which were paid.
The Grant County Advocate .- In October, 1874, the West Grant Advocate was removed from Bloomington and on October 14 the first number of the Grant County Advocate was issued from its office in Budd's Block. The transfer was made without missing an issue. The publishers were C. N. Holford and P. Bartley. With the change of lo- cation the politics of the paper was changed from independent to Dem- ocratic. On January 20, 1875, Augustus Reifsteck was taken in as a partner, and the firm was styled the "Advocate Publishing Com- pany." With the issue of May 19, 1875, C. N. Holford and P. Bart- ley withdrew. The former was not a Democrat and neither of them approved the financial measures Mr. Reifsteck was bent on adopting. Reifsteck also wanted to publish a Democratic paper and support the financial policy of the Republican party, something which could be done in New York. but not in Wisconsin. Reifsteck was a brilliant paragraph and local writer and made an excellent local paper, but he knew nothing of the economies necessary in running a country paper. Everything was done "regardless of expense." Of course, the estab- lishment was soon hopelessly in debt. and on January 1, 1878, the office was closed by foreclosure of several mortgages. A half sheet was issued from another office the next week, and the Advocate was no more. The proprietor had purchased a fine power-press, with much new type, and enlarged the paper to a six-column folio. The publisher knew how to make a good paper and if he had had unlim- ited resources he would have made one. Though he knew what work was necessary to make a good paper, and could write an interesting local; make unlimited "copy" out of the scantiest and most unprom- ising materials, and get off stinging and caustic paragraphs on polit- ical subjects, he could not or would not write a political "leader" or editorial requiring the marshaling of arguments and the application of facts in reasoning. He always employed someone to write his edi-
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torials or took them from the papers of his favorite "Big Four," Whitelaw Reid, Henry Watterson, Sam Bowles, and Murat Halstead. His admiration of Whitelaw Reid was so great that he even imitated him in dress. After a further short editorial experience in the Gazette at Lancaster, he wandered all over the United States, from the At- lantic to the Pacific, and from Florida to the Dakotas, writing num- erous voluminous and interesting letters to papers in several States, especially the Teller of Lancaster. His letters were curious medleys of everything under the sun, from poetry to statistics of raw hides, and a critique of the last new novel to a description of a big irrigating ditch. His brilliant talents as a writer were always exerted as an amateur, and hedid not profit by them professionally. In business he was a hotel clerk, druggist, paint-seller, and what not. His last newspaper work was done as a reporter of the proceedings of the Wisconsin legislature in the winter of 1889. He died of consumption in the spring of that year at a hospital in Dubuque. If with his brilliant talents and ex- quisite tastes he had had a fortune, he might have lived a long and happy life. He was born in the town of Hazel Green or Jamestown and educated at the Platteville Academy and Normal School. In later years Mr. Reifsteck changed his name to Fred A, Hess, as he said in re- gard for his mother, who had no male relatives to perpetuate her name.
The Grant County Argus .- The first number of this paper was issued from its office in Budd's Block, July 31, 1876, by C. N. Holford, who had until then heen foreman of the Advocate since he had with- drawn from its publication. It was at first a seven-column folio, but was soon changed to a six-column quarto. It earnestly supported Hayes for the presidency and the Republican candidates generally, but bolted the nomination of George C. Hazelton and fought him vig- orously to the end. The editor wanted the truth and believed the old motto that the truth is generally found in the mean between two extremes; but he also experienced that whoever goes in there to find it is pelted with mud (not to mention more solid missiles) from both sides. His creed was expressed in these lines from a New Year's ad- dress which he wrote:
"This its creed : Though for the present You may find it warm and pleasan In some great man's castled hall, Yet without the air is purer, And your place is freer, surer. 'Trust in princes not at all.'
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"And the selfish politician Seeking undeserved position Through obscure and devious ways, Finds not here a pliant minion, Ready with a hired opinion And with prompt and purchased praise.
"By no master's lash be driven ; Speak the truth as God has given You to see what is the right. Whosoe'er opposes, shrink not; Thick howe'er the darkness think not It can quench the coming light.
"When fair Truth falls slain or wounded In the temple she hath founded, In the dwelling of her friends, And her sworn defenders present Stand like cowards acquiescent, Speak! whomever it offends."
Though a Republican on all the issues which in the sixties divided the Republican party from the Democratic, the editor was utterly op- posed to the financial policy which the Republican party adopted in 1877, in direct contradiction to the position of such Republican lead- ers as Logan, Sherman, and O. P. Morton in the sixties, and he sup- ported the Greenback ticket in 1877. In March, 1878, Holford sold the Argus to Reifsteck & Martin, who immediately changed the name to the Gazette and removed the office to a room over James A. Jones's drugstore. A. Reifsteck soon withdrew and Martin continued the publication alone until January 1, 1880, when he removed the press and type to Prairie du Chien, and the Grant County Gazette ceased to be.
The Teller .- This paper began its existence with the New Year of 1883, with Edward Pollock as editor and publisher. The office was and has always been in Clark's Block on the northwest corner of Ma- ple and Jefferson Streets. The editor had had long experience in the newspaper business on the Herald dating back to ante-bellum times, and on other papers, and knew just what was necessary to make a good county newspaper, and had also the advantage of a thorough acquaintance with the county and its people, having lived in it from early boyhood. Being, as Fred A. Hess aptly put it, "one of the few country editors who know and can tell what they know " in vigorous and incisive English, he was well fitted for the arduous task before
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him of running an independent county paper. The Teller has been Re- publican in principle, though often opposing Republican candidates whom the editor declared not good men for the place. As the editor has been entirely fearless in his attacks on men and measures, the path of the Teller has not been a peaceful one, though its annals have, for seventeen years of its existence, been entirely uneventful in the way of changes of publishers and locations.
The Lancaster Reporter, an independent paper, was started by W. E. Howe, July 1, 1895. It was published for about two years by Howe himself, and then he turned it over to other parties, and after changing managers several times, the paper was discontinued Janu- ary 1, 1899.
FIRE DEPARTMENT.
At a meeting held November 11, 1889, for the purpose of organiz- ing a fire department for the city, the following officers were elected : John Stephens, chief; John M. Hurley, assistant chief; Richard Meyer, Jr., treasurer; Aug. Michaelis, secretary. The present officers are: Al- bert Budworth chief; Reuben Trensch, assistant chief. The Hook and Ladder Company has a truck and the following officers: George Holmes, foreman ; Bert Angus assistant foreman ; H. G. Nathan, treas- urer; George Marks, secretary. The Hose Company has three hose carts and 1,600 feet of hose. John Pendleton is foreman. There is a chemical engine and a pump engine, but they are not used where water can be had from the waterworks.
HURRICANE.
This settlement had its origin almost contemporaneously with the first settlement of Lancaster village. It lies mostly in the southwest- ern corner of the town of Lancaster, but portions of it extend into the towns of Beetown and Potosi. This was one of the few localities in Grant County which were heavily timbered three-quarters of a century ago, and the immigrants from the forests of the East and South prob- ably felt more at home there than on the prairies. A cyclone at some unknown date had overturned many of the trees, and from this cir- cumstance the settlement received its name. The earliest comers were the Bonhams. A writer in the Herald thus speaks of them and those other early settlers, the Kilbys :
"The Bonhams, bringing with them their aged father and mother, came, some of them, as early as 1834-35. There were five brothers, James, Joseph, Harvey, Francis, and Martin. Some of them were re-
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markable for strength of character and individuality. Martin, the youngest, owned in the Hurricane a fine farm. Ambitious and adven- turous by nature, he concluded to found a city on the bank of the Mis- sissippi, which at that time appeared predestined to be the great commercial highway of the West for all time. Not even his indomit- able energy could prevail against the combined decrees of commerce and nature. Sickness in his family, the death of his wife, and finally his own death early in the fifties, ended the scheme, and Martin and his wife, along with the old father and mother, sleep in a lonely coun- try grave-yard in east Hurricane. He who threads the tortuous cur- rent of the Mississippi, looking toward the Iowa shore some miles below Cassville, sees a small cluster of buildings, I think called Wab- peton, locally known as 'Wappytown,' where Martin Bonham lived, dreamed, and died.
"James Bonham once owned a farm just north of Lancaster, and afterward removed to the Hurricane and was known for many years as "Squire' Bonham. Some of the since noted legal lights of Grant County were glad to be called to practise in his court. In his old age he went to Kansas, where he died. Two of his sons, Frank and L. M. Bonham, still reside in Grant County, in or near Beetown.
"Francis Bonham, whom all knew as 'Uncle Frank,' died in Grant County a few years ago, feeble and bent in mind and body by many years of honest industry and useful toil.
"Joseph Bonham, whom all citizens of Hurricane knew as 'Uncle Joe,' spent a long life there. He was a man of numerous rare quali- ties, upright and of stern and uncompromising morality. And his wife, good old 'Aunt Leah,' whose warm and kindly heart beat with love for all humanity, and whose feet but lately trod the dark Valley of the Shadow. John Bonham, lately of Bloomington, A. G. (Grant) Bonham, of Hurricane, and Mrs. Muldoon, of Beetown, are meinbers of the large family of Uncle Joe and Aunt Leah.
""Uncle Harvey' Bonham went to California early in the sixties, and died there a good many years ago. The sturdy and sterling qual- ities of his character well fitted him for the life of a pioneer.
"'Uncle Edins' Kilby (we called all those men Uncle, and so they seemed to us) was a character familiar to all the old-timers of Hurri- cane, and none of them but remembers him. A lady of Bloomington a year or two ago told me that many of the bright memories of her youth clustered around the Sunday school in the old log school-house
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in Hurricane where for so many years Uncle Edins held it under his care. Said she, 'I so well remember him as he would come smiling among us children many a Sunday morning with a capacious hand- kerchief filled with big red apples.'"
J. Allen Coombs, the son of another old settler of Hurricane, and a gifted writer, both in prose and verse, contributed the following to be read at a meeting of the Old Settlers' Club:
"The first school-house built in the Hurricane was a small, rude log building a short distance south of the Corners, on the west side of the road. Matteson F. Smith there taught the first school ever opened in this locality. The house was built by interested citizens each con- tributing a log. It was short-lived; the settlers awoke one morning to find it a heap of smoking embers. The stove and school-books had been carefully placed out of the reach of the flames, but the first school-house of Hurricane had vanished. The next school-house stood half a mile west of the Corners on the farm of Edins Kilby. Many of the present citizens of Hurricane received a part of their education at this humble temple of learning. It was the scene of many a religious gathering and many a rousing camp-meeting was held in the grove near by. At one time or another nearly all the early preachers of the county preached within its walls. I fancy there are very few who lived there in those days but will associate Edins Kilby with their memories of that old school-house. For many years, when the weather would permit, every Sunday morning saw him at his post as superin- tendent of the Sunday school, directing in an humble but sincere way, always working for the right as God gave him to see the right ..
"Of the men who, as heads of families, settled first in Hurricane, only Ruell Morrell is left [in 1885]. The widow of Edins Kilby still lives on the old homestead. The widow of Edward P. Coombs died in March, 1884. The widow of Joseph Bonham lives with her son, A. G. Bonham, in Hurricane. A year ago she told me of an old-time bee- hunt of her husband and one Fitzgerald in the Hurricane woods. The result was eighty gallons of strained honey. Think of that, ye sons of these degenerate days, who count sorghum molasses a luxury, or perhaps anoint your breakfast cakes with a compound of starch and sulphuric acid known in commerce as 'golden drips.'"
The school referred to was taught in the fall of 1839. The school- house contained the first stove ever brought to the neighborhood. The teacher, Matteson Smith, after drifting about the world many 29
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years, died at the poor-farm of Grant County in 1885. According to the memory of others, the first school in the settlement was taught in the winter of 1836-37 by Darius Bainbridge, a Baptist preacher. Mr. Bainbridge went to Kansas and died there several years ago. It is rather probable that those who settled here in 1836 did not wait until 1839 to have a school. A school was taught in a log cabin about forty rods from the Corners in the summer of 1843 by Miss Susannah Durley, of Platteville, and in the winter of 1843-44 by Mr. Zimmer- man. The house was burned in the spring of 1844 and the following winter term was taught in a private house at the Corners by Jason Lothrop.
Mrs. Leah Bonham, (née Ford) wife of Joseph Bonham, died at the Hurricane April 12, 1891, aged 87 years. She was born near Knoxville, Tennessee, and emigrated with her parents to Missouri in 1817, going down the Tenneesee River in a flat-boat, exposed to the perils of navigation on the water and of the Indians on land. She and her husband came to Galena in 1827, to Shullsburg in 1834, and to the Hurricane in 1836. "Uncle Joe" died in 1880, aged 79.
Samuel B. Keene came to the Hurricane in 1837. His son, Henry S., then one year old, grew up there and became one of the legislators of the State, dying at Seattle, Washington, in 1898. The father died at his old home in 1880, aged 83. In 1840 Russell Cardy came and settled in the southern part of the settlement in the town of Potosi, and lived there till his death in 1892, aged 75 years. Another one of the earliest residents in the Potosi part of Hurricane was Andrew Hogle, who carried the mail on horseback over the route from Galena to Prairie du Chien. He contributed several daughters to Grant County's then very scanty stock of marriageable maidens-among them Mrs. A. W. Vedder, Mrs. Levi Crow. Mrs. Josephus Duncan, and Mrs. Michael Crouch. He is (or was recently) living in Iowa with one of his children.
Another of the early settlers in Potosi-Hurricane was James Gro- shong, whose daughter Susan was married to Henry W. Hodges at the Hurricane in 1836. She died near Lancaster in 1888. Thomas Shanley, who came to the county in 1826, and settled between Lan- caster and Hurricane in 1831, died March 19, 1875.
Edward P. Coombs came to the Hurricane in 1834, entering land on Section 29, and returning in the fall to the East for his family. He was both a blacksmith and a carpenter, and was very "handy" in
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making furniture, and was therefore a very useful man in the com- munity. Alanson and Ruel Morrell came about 1836. The former died at the home of his son-in-law in Lancaster in 1895, aged 88.
The Wise family were among the early settlers. P V. Wise, the eldest son, became a teacher and lawyer. He taught in Beetown about 1852 and old settlers remember him on account of a fracas with one of his pupils, a sturdy German boy, who is now one of the gray- headed old settlers. He also suffered another mishap from his mis- chievous pupils. While coming to the school-house in a pair of very soft, thin-soled shoes called "pumps," he came to an old hat in the path. He gave it a vigorous kick and discovered to his great grief that it contained a large stone. In 1860 he was a rabid secession Democrat and went to Memphis, Tennessee, to live. As a Northerner he became a "suspect" and was given his choice to enlist in a Rebel company or "pull hemp." He managed to escape, and experienced such a revulsion of feeling that he enlisted and reënlisted in the Union army and fought through the war. He is (or was recently) living at St. Joseph, Missouri, and doing a large pension business.
In 1840 the school at Hurricane was taught by J. P. Hubbard, afterward County Superintendent of Schools. Oliver P. Gardner came in 1837, and died there March 2, 1882, aged 82. Kellogg Taylor came in 1838, and William Harper in 1836. Caleb Taylor came to Potosi-Hurricane in 1836 and married Nancy, one of the daughters of Edward P. Coombs. He died September 20, 1887, aged 68. Orling- ton. P. Stone came in 1841, from Missouri, and John M. Segraves in 1842. The latter afterward lived in Beetown. Conrad Napp, a Ger- man, came in 1846. He was the leader in organizing the German Presbyterian Church society, which held its first meeting at the house of Daniel Garner, on Boice Prairie, in the summer of 1858. Rev. Jacob Liesveldt was the preacher. John Duncan came in 1845. He died at Lancaster in 1895.
During the whole territorial period the Hurricane was a precinct of the county. Among the justices of the precinct were: 1843, Ruel Morrell and James Bonham; 1844, Alanson Morrell and James Bon- ham; in 1846, Slade Hammond, Elijah Hampton, James Bonham.
Although the Hurricane was thus early a settlement, it never be- came a village. It has long had a post-office; it has generally had a store and a blacksmith shop. In the last sixty years the store has been in various hands: Thomas Chandler, John J. Kilby, Wm. Long-
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botham, Mrs. Andrews, Lee Duncan, Will Garner and Samuel Kerr, the present owner.
The Townsend Homicide .- This tragedy (whether. crime or acci- dent) occurred September 21, 1885. Mark Townsend, a young farm, er, who had formerly taught school, shot and killed his wife Esther with a revolver, the ball passing through her head. He claimed that the shooting was accidental, the pistol being discharged while he was cleaning it. Although some of the neighbors thought the killing was intentional, the coroner's jury did not impute guilt to him, and he was not then tried. He soon went away to Indiana to school, and those who thought him guilty were sure he had got rid of his wife that he might go to school. The neighborhood was divided into two fac- tions : one, headed by Henry S. Keene, asserted Townsend's guilt; the other, headed by J. Allen Coombs, held him innocent. Townsend after- ward went to Oregon, while Keene went to a place in Washington not far away. Townsend married again, and had trouble with his wife, and especially her parents. They heard of the killing of his first wife, and, aided by Keene, gathered information on which Townsend was arrested and brought to Grant County for trial. He was tried in the spring of 1897 at a special session of the circuit court. To the sur- prise of most people who knew of the circumstances, he was convicted of manslaughter in the fourth degree. The jury evidently held the kill- ing to be accidental, but occasioned by carelessness so gross as to be criminal.
THE GRAND ARMY IN LANCASTER.
Tom Cox Post, No. 132, Dept. of Wis., G. A. R .- The present offi- cers are : John G. Harshberger, Commander; C. H. Angus, S. V .; John T. Taylor, J. V .; Alex. Ivey, Q. M .; George E. Budd, Adjutant; James Woodhouse, Chaplain, T. D. Goodrich, Surgeon; E. S. Walker, O. D .; J. W. Miles, O. G .; R. B. Showalter, Sergt .- Major; A. C. Morse, Q.M.S.
Women's Relief Corps, No. 47 .- The officers are : Pauline Williams, Pres .; Phoebe Chatfield, S. V .; Eugenia Hannum, J. V .. Lottie C. Ward, Sec .; Emma Wheeler, Treas .; Elizabeth Spencer, Chap .; Florence Brad- ley, Con .; Mary Cornwell, Guard; Elizabeth Stephens, Asst. Con .; Eliza Tuckwood, Asst. Guard; Mary E. Woodhouse, Fannie Croft, Minnie Angus, Louisa Dobson, Color-bearers.
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CHAPTER III.
PLATTEVILLE, GENERAL HISTORY.
First Comers and First Events-The Black Hawk War-The First School-house and Church -- Small-pox-The Bevans Lead -The Gold Fever-Fires and Casualties-Town Officers-Village Officers-City Officers.
FIRST COMERS AND FIRST EVENTS.
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