USA > Wisconsin > Green County > History of Green County, Wisconsin > Part 6
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This evil could not be so easily obviated by keeping the door closed as ignorant people may suppose. Usually, the one window was an aperture provided with a wooden shutter that excluded light as well as air. Consequently, either the door or window was always open, the choice between them being determined by the direction of the wind. Most of the settlers had come from states farther south than this, and did not at once adapt their habits to a northern climate. The first thing to do each morning was to let in the light. Light having been admitted, the draught of the fire was regu- lated by putting up a cloth partition between the open- ing and the fire place. The cloth was easily suspended from the roof or from the floor of the loft. The loft- when there was one, for it was not found in all houses -was reached by a ladder, and was used as a sleeping room. The roof was made of what the Yankees called shakes, and western people called clap boards, held in place by logs laid crosswise. The advantages of such a roof were three. It afforded wakeful persons an opportunity of studying geography of the heavens with- out getting the neck-ache. It enabled people who had no door key to barricade the door on the inside and then go out on top of the house and view the landscape o'er like a prairie dog before they went away. It also enabled visitors who arrived when the lord of the manor was absent to go in and make themselves at home. Perhaps this advantage was not apparent in the village, but in the country many a traveller slipped in- to the house of a brother bachelor to warm and rest
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himself, and then departed in the same free, if not easy, way. There was no cellar. Vegetables were kept in root houses, and pigs ran under the house. If the wealth or size of the family increased, a second room, in all respects like the first, was built, the two apartments being connected by a door. But it was a very large family that required two rooms, and so common was it for a house to consist of one room that house and room were synonymous terms. A lady who came here in 1840 was surprised, early one morning, to hear a girl say she had just mopped three houses. Her admiration of the girl's energy was somewhat diminished when she found the labor had all been expended in three diminu- tive rooms.
It is easy to enumerate the houses here in 1840. Three different parts of the village were known by three different names. Beginning with New Mexico proper, the most important house was Jacob Andrick's, now the residence of Mr. Niles. Across the road was the home of his brother, Christian Andrick. Near by was a third building used at different times as post office, court house, and store. In North, or Paine's, New Mexico was Mr. LyBrand's store, a frame building. It
stood just west of Mr. Paine's public square, which is now known as the little park south of the railroad. East of the park or square, was Mr. Hart's house, in the front part of which was his store. Just south of where the railroad bridge is, was a log house in which, to use the old phrase, school was kept. Between the school house and Mr. Hart's store was a cabin occupied
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by Mrs. Churchill and her family. Near Mr. Sheehan's present residence was a frame building, which, in a dif- ferent locality, is known to us as the planing mill, but which was known then as "the tavern." Near the depot grounds, was the blacksmith shop of Buckskin Brown. The log house on Capt. Foster's place was occupied by Robert Kirkendoll and his family, and the Ream house, near the site of Mr. Geo. Spangler's resi- dence, was the home of Mr. Joseph Smith, who had formerly lived in Clarno. Last, but not least in impor- tance, among the twelve houses contained in the three villages was that occupied by Mr. John Porter just west of the spring. This was the only house in what was then called Monroe. It was built by Mr. Rattan, be- fore the people were hampered in the selection of building spots by such things as streets, and when the county seat was laid out, was found to be in the road. The Kelly and Kirkendoll families had lived in it, and it was here Mr. Rattan lived in 1837, when he raised wheat on the court house square and threshed it on a threshing floor on the site of the Universalist church. Here, in the summer of '40, was the first wedding in Monroe; and Mr. Joseph Kelly, who was then justice of the peace, came from Clarno, to perform the cere- mony which allowed Mr. Joseph McConnell, a resident of " the state," to take away Miss Eurana Porter. The house was a desirable one on account of its proximity to the spring, and as the thoroughfare was not crowded, it was allowed to remain some time longer. Like two or three other cabins whose builders had gone away, it
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was the property of any one who obtained possession of it. Accordingly, when Mr. Porter, in the fall of '40, announced his intention of moving out, two or three families made preparations to move in; and the question most discussed in the social circles in these three villages came to be, who is to live in the house by the spring? When the dawn of the long looked for moving day was seen at last, Mr. Porter solved this puzzling problem by carrying the goods of one of his neighbors into the house before his own were carried out of it. A
rail fence was made around the house, and in the summer of 1841 those who passed that way leaned over the rails and gazed with ever new surprise at the un- wonted sight of flowering beans and poppies. Fences were regarded as a luxury rather than as a necessity in 1840, though most families having no permanent fence had a few rails to fence a garden in the summer, and a stack yard in the winter. A fence was the more con- venient because hogs ran at large, and there were four times as many hogs as persons in the county. All the pigs went to market then, or at least to town, and thronged as mendicants around every door unprotected by a fence. They had all the energetic boldness of pio- neers, and, when the outside gleanings proved insuffi- cient to satisfy their hunger, they entered at the open door. Tradition tells of a sorrowful company at the tavern whose roasted wild turkey, left by the cook a moment while other things were preparing for the table, was seized by these hungry sentinels and borne away.
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As there was hardly anything to be bought, the log house of 1840 contained only such furniture as had been brought from some former home, or the ingenuity of its inmates had contrived. Benches supplied the place of chairs; dry goods boxes served as tables; bottles were used as candlesticks; and a rag in a saucer of lard was a not unusual kind of lamp. A good bedstead was made in this way: the ends of two poles being stuck into the side of the house, the other ends, which pro- jected into the room, were supported by poles resting on the floor. A few poles were laid on the frame work thus made, and the bedstead was completed. When there was company, the bedstead was sometimes made to support a temporary table. In houses of two rooms the inner door was accustomed to come down and serve as a table; and, since the cotton cloth used then for table- cloths allowed all the moisture on the tea-cups to pene- trate to the door, such inner doors appeared ornamented with a series of rings, very suggestive of good dinners to those who understood them, but very perplexing to those unaccustomed to society. Aristocratic families had clocks with weights hanging down to the floor,- clocks which had kept time in the family for more than a generation. Next in the social scale were families that, having no heirlooms in clocks, had been able to pur- chase "patent clocks." Common folks went by the sun.
Now and then a wall was adorned with a portrait of George Washington, at which little boys were expect- ed to look whenever called on to give an account of
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themselves. A more common household treasure was one of a character similar to the epitaph which the Vicar of Wakefield hung on his wall. It was a picture of a willow and of a funereal woman pulling a child by the hand and leaning over a tombstone, whereon were written the names of the departed. But, while the epi- taph addressed itself to the wife only,-"inspiring her with a passion for fame, and constantly reminding her of her end,"-the more modern ornament directed its me- mento mori to all the family alike, and joined to the warning a promise of a moderately enduring name on a guarded tombstone, provided (every promise has its limitation), the person addressed died while there was still vacant space on the stone. But the especial delight of every housekeeper was seen in the pictures on her dishes. In those days, plain, sober folks, ate their pork and potatoes from plates adorned with pictures of archi- tecture more wonderful than the Pantheon, the originals of which could have been found only in some lunatic's castles in Spain ; and, when dinner was over, these strange combinations of the useful and beautiful were all dis- played on a shelf called a dresser, where each plate rested on its own edge, and each cup stood in its own saucer. It must not be supposed, though, that the fore- fathers of the hamlet lived entirely on pork and potatoes. As late as 1843, in one week and from one herd, a hunter killed in this vicinity fifty deer, and other kinds of game were abundant. The bee trees contained honey for all, while plums and all kinds of berries grew in the greatest abundance where the village is now. Crab
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apples sweetened with molasses had a prominent place on every table, and the festal board was often graced with sheep sorrel pies, and sometimes with mandrake pies.
The deserted cabin used as a school house deserves a little of our attention. The seats had no backs, and there were no desks. The children sat doubled over like figure fives, and held their books in their laps. Sometimes, while they buzzed their lessons over to themselves, they rocked back and forth, to the time of their buzzing. The little abecedarians rocked and buzzed as many hours as the oldest scholar. Sometimes they swung their feet, which hung several inches above the floor. Sometimes they curled them up under them for warmth. Along two sides of the room was a shelf, where, when the master had time to set them a copy, the older children wrote. Parents had no fear lest the children, on coming home at night, should announce a change of text books. Those who had grammars parsed. Those who had arithmetics ciphered through a great many sums, and the master helped them on the hard ones. But one lady says she attended school here from 1841 to '51, and never studied arithmetic until the last year, when she was fifteen years of age. Not until she was thirteen did she begin to learn to write. She committed her reading book and spelling book to mem- ory, was called the best speller in school, and her friends were well pleased with her progress.
A description of the society of Monroe in 1840 would be a description of the society of the county. Socially,
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village and county were one. Everybody in the county knew everybody else, and there was a community of pursuits, interests, hardships, and sympathies that brought all the settlers into one brotherhood. The social centre of the county was the tavern. Private houses being small, most social gatherings were necessarily here; and here, too, everybody went, as often as he could, to learn the news and see his neighbors. So vividly does this tavern stand out in all the chronicles of the early settlers that a student of the county's history soon is prone to think he, too, sees it in its olden form. Let us follow such a retrospective student as, in fancy, he enters unseen at the old tavern door. Perchance the first person he sees is Mrs. Paine, the voluble hostess, who has just broken off a long story of the Indian war, to discipline the children with her slipper. All undismayed, he seats himself and waits, sure that she will soon resume her story. In the intervals given to government, there is leisure to observe the other occupants of the room. Here is a group just returned from a " burying " at An- drick's grave yard. There was no clergyman with them, for there is none this week within several miles. Here is Mr. LyBrand, who, with his precise and punctilious .ways, seems strangely out of place in a new country ; and yet he cannot do business where there is competi- tion. If you double the value of his goods, his customers get twice as much for their money. Reduce the value of the goods one half, and they will wait on their shelves forever for the price that was fore-ordained for them. In a few years he must be moving on to the
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West, but whenever he goes, he will be remembered kindly by many he leaves behind him. His are the warmest friendships, the fullest of unselfish sacrifice, that our unseen listener hears of among the settlers. Leaning over the fire is Mr. O. C. Smith, of the old firm, Bininger, Smith & Paine. He and his brother, who together had $10,000, are spoken of as the two men who came to the county wealthy. The older
brother is dead, the property is gone, and the younger brother is destined to be laid in a pauper's grave. Near the door is Mr. John Hart. He is the owner of a small library, which has been read and discussed over and over again by the reading part of the community. Reading matter is so scarce that women sometimes take Washington and the doleful woman from their frames, in order to read again the bits of newspaper back of the pictures.
Our unseen observer stays a long time in his quiet corner. Meanwhile, the visitors come and go. Some- times the observer sits alone; sometimes he has the company of a noisy group of miners, who make the walls ring with their jokes and quarrels. Now, there enters a young man destined to become an honored member of the legislature of another state. A few " hours ago, hearing there was a letter for him in the post office, he dropped his work and hastened after it, only to learn that he could not have the letter until he paid the postage. Now, he is asking his friends to lend him money. Two or three wallets are quickly brought out, and soon he holds the precious letter. It forms its
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own envelope, and is fastened with small red wafers. Where we might expect the three-cent stamp to be, the postmaster has written twenty-five cents. Now, atten- tion is fixed on a victim of the toothache. Red pepper and hot needles proving powerless to reach the aching . nerve, the sufferer thinks he must go to the dentist ten miles away. The dentist is a blacksmith, who, after his patient has lain down upon the floor, sits down on him, and pulls the tooth out with a turnkey. But here is a man who bids the sufferer think no more of the black- smith and the turnkey. He produces a small piece of hickory wood called a punch, which he directs another man to hold against the aching tooth, and with a hammer he pounds the wood until the tooth flies from its socket. The victim groans a little as he finds they have knocked out the wrong tooth; but they try again, this time suc- cessfully. Now, some one announces that Sunday week, there'll be preaching at Mr. Austin's house; and another brings news of a bee at Mr. Andrick's. Still, the unseen man sits in his corner. He listens to the conversation of men who astonish him by their general information, as well as by their shrewd, common sense; and then he gives ear to some good dame who describes the process by which she makes saleratus from ashes, and to another who retails the contents of the almanac that " he " bought at the low price of ten cents, when he went to Galena. He listens to conversations in which neighbors tell, with great minuteness, the par- ticulars of the journey here, the events which induced them and their brothers and their uncles to come, what
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time of day these events occurred, whether it was be- fore or after dinner, and how they know it could not have been early in the morning. The unsuspected listener sees that, for uneducated people, in a new country, this talk is almost the only avenue of escape from intellect- ual torpidity, and is ready to applaud it as he applauds the action of a man who, when confined many years in a dark dungeon, kept the use of his faculties by hunting three little pins upon the floor, throwing them down again as soon as found. And our friend is neither shocked nor surprised by the discovery that many of the settlers are intemperate; for he knows that never until 1808 was there a temperance society of any kind in any part of the United States, and that the society organized then, like all the temperance societies of the next twenty-five years, allowed members to drink liquors at public dinners, dedications of churches, ordinations of clergymen, and ministerial conventions. He knows that when, in 1833, at a meeting of the American Tem- perance Union in Philadelphia, some one advocated total abstinence from all that may intoxicate, even the original apostles of the temperance movement opposed it, on the ground that it would be injurious to health, and that they regarded him who advocated it as a crazy radical, likely to bring disgrace upon the cause.
And now a dance at the tavern, to which fathers and mothers come with all their children, affords a good opportunity to study the styles of dress of a dozen different years, in nearly as many different states. In the course of the evening, liquors seasoned with nut-
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meg are passed around. In the ball-room, half a dozen women sip from one glass; in the bar-room, men drink from bottles, something less than half a dozen wine glasses at a sip. In the bits of talk to which he listens, the visitor is surprised by the changes that many of the names of the settlers are undergoing; he observes, for example, the change of Clarno into Clino; Chilton into Shelton; Hawthorne into Hartharn; and Henson Ir-i-on' into Hanson Iréons. Occasionally, in the pauses of the dance, he hears the people say, in joyful manner, to- morrow we shall know; I'll have mine to-morrow; the peddler comes to-morrow. It is Mr. Ludlow upon whose coming these expectations hang. To his energy the people are indebted for many comforts and conven- iences otherwise unattainable. His route is from Chi- cago to Madison, via Rockford, Belvidere, and Monroe; and, though there are only blazed trees and Indian trails to mark the way, he makes the trip every month. In the summer, he crosses the rivers in ferry boats. In the spring and fall, when the strength of the ice is uncer- tain, he first walks across. If there are no signs of danger, he crosses with one horse. If it still seems safe, the wagon is taken over. His customers are always watching for him at the appointed time. Hastening to meet him, they ask, " did you remember my tobacco?" " have you brought some pretty calico?" And he is al- ways able to say he has remembered and brought what- ever they wish. He stops a day or two at the tavern, intrusting his money, done up in a leather mitten, to the landlady, who puts it under the floor. Such is the hon-
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esty of the people that although everybody goes to see his goods, which seem to be scattered all over the tavern, and although in all his travels he has never had a lock on his wagon, he has never lost a single article.
The observer has marked many other good qualities of the settlers. He sees that it is by their own force of character they make their way. Many of them are the children of pioneers, and they have never been given those weapons for the battle of life which we call educa- tion and culture. The habit of encountering and over- coming obstacles as pioneers has developed within them a tendency to resistance which is not always agreeable, but their life brings them more virtues than faults. They are ever hopeful and helpful. They feel it no hardship to go ten or twenty miles to care for the sick and sorrowing. There is a spirit of kindly affection among them never called out in older places. The lit- tle successes of each one are rejoiced over by all, while individual misfortunes are regarded as common calami- ties, which all hands are ready to repair. They are all as one kindred. The good matrons are everybody's aunts; and their husbands, unless they happen to be squires, like Squire Rust and Squire Gardner, are uncles, like Uncle Jimmy Hawthorne, and Uncle Dan- iel Sutherland. All find their own good qualities re- flected back to them from their neighbors and their county. When asked concerning the home of their adoption, they say it is the best new country God ever made. And, as our historical student brings his long
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sojourn at the tavern to an end, he says to himself, "These patriotic settlers are worthy of their county.
'They are each of the breed of the heroes, The manhood attempered in strife, Strong hands that go lightly to labor, True hearts that take comfort in life.
Ingeach is the seed to replenish The world with the vigor it needs, The centre of honest affections, The impulse to generous deeds.'"
A building intended for a temporary court house was erected in the summer of 1840, where the United States House now stands. The contractors were A. J. Suth- erland and James Campbell. In the fall, however, be- fore its completion, it was accidentally destroyed by fire. The next spring, the county commissioners agreed with Demas Beach to lend him $400 for six years, for which consideration he was to erect a building in which the county should have the use of certain rooms. This building, since known as the American House, had a court room and county offices on the second floor, while the ground floor was used for a store and dwelling. When court was not in session, a shoe shop was kept in the jury room. The building was ready for use in November, 1841.
In the spring of 1841, one of the citizens of Monroe, who had endured many of the hardships of frontier life, was called on to bear trouble of a new kind. The un- fortunate man was the postmaster, Mr. Noah Phelps. The postmaster's duties were not arduous. Only three newspapers were taken at the office. Sometimes, owing
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to high water, there was no mail for a month, and the receipts of the office were only about $3.00 a year .. Whatever the duties of the office were, Mr. Phelps per- formed them faithfully and well-always thawing and drying the mail by the fire when it had been dipped in the river, and always striving hard, as a faithful servant of Uncle Sam, to avoid being convinced by letter wri- ters, whose postage was in proportion to the distance their letters were sent, that the continent was only five hundred miles wide. But political parties had been or- ganized in Monroe in 1840, and it happened that the party which elected Gen. Harrison president that year was not the party which received the aid and sympathy of the postmaster, who accordingly lost his office, being the first victim brought under the political axe in Green County. It was several years, however, before elective offices were made dependent on political views. Com- paratively few of the early settlers had any aspiration for office, and a man who had both the ambition and the qualifications, received the support of all parties .. For years, Mr. Rittenhouse held, at the same time, the three offices, clerk of the circuit court, county clerk,. and register of deeds. He spoke of them as "my offi- ces," and everybody else, both before and after election day, called them " Rittenhouse's offices."
Occasional shopping expeditions to other places were. still necessary. The shoppers travelled in a covered wagon, and carried-besides the load intended for mar- ket-corn for the horses, food for themselves, cooking utensils and bedding, a gun, and a scythe for cutting
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fodder. (In those days women preferred to have their husbands go shopping with them.) Bad as the roads were, there was some pleasure travel. In November, 1842, a party went from Monroe to Mineral Point to see a murderer hung.
In 1842, the county built a kind of bastile. Remem- bering the fate of a house built upon the sand, the com- missioners paid fifteen dollars for a foundation of stone.
1843 is memorable, in the annals of Monroe, as the year in which James R. Vineyard, a state senator, was tried here for the murder of C. P. Arndt, also a senator, or councilor, as the name was then. An account of the murder reads like a telegram from Texas. An alter- cation arose during a session of the council, and, imme- diately after the adjournment, Vineyard shot his antago- nist in the council chamber. The jury acquitted him, and the acquittal was the signal for great rejoicing. Mr. Vineyard received his friends at the new Monroe House, and entertained them so well that they rose almost to a level with those men of Shakespeare's,
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