USA > Wisconsin > Sheboygan County > History of Sheboygan County, Wisconsin, past and present > Part 36
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FRATERNAL ORDERS-JAIRUS RICHARDSON POST, NO. 12, G. A. R.
This organization of veterans of the Civil war was organized July 10, 1883. The charter members were: J. M. Hunter, T. C. Hawkins, A. T. Dean, George Spratt, H. E. Wood, J. C. O'Brien, John Arnold, W. P. Bryant, James Sims, Joseph Osthelder. As the years have gone by the ranks have become thinner and thinner until there is scarcely a corporal's guard to appear in answer to roll call at the meetings, which are held twice a month.
ST. JOHN'S LODGE, NO. 24, A. F. & A. M.
was organized September 6, 1849, with a membership of 10. The first officers were: Harrison C. Hobart, W. M .; L. W. Davis, S. W .; L. B. Brainard, J. W .; V. Young, S .; William Trowbridge, T .; G. H. Smith, S. D .; S. Roberts, J. D .; Thomas I. Graham, tiler. The present member- ship is 80, and officials are: W. M., H. P. Giddings ; S. W., John E. New- house; J. W., P. F. Schlichting ; S. D., William S. Lumsden; J. D., Dr. A. R. Lindow ; Treas., H. E. Boldt; Sec., E. P. Heidenreiter ; stewards, August M. Bertram, Clair W. Bryant.
GUTTENBERG LODGE, NO. 285, i. O. O. F.
This lodge was organized June 5, 1880, with the following charter members: A. F. Meyer, D. Hemschemeyer, C. Wedepohl, Joseph Osthel- der, Sr., Frank Krannich, Charles S. Weisse, August Schweitzer. The officers are: N. G. Balkins, N. G .; M. Kutzback, V. G .; Dr. R. M. Nichols, Sec .; William Kubel, Rec. Sec .; August Michael, Treas. The membership is now about twenty. Guttenberg Lodge is probably an offshoot, or the reorganization of Fidelity Lodge, No. 34, which was organized March 7, 1849, and reorganized in 1871.
FALLS CAMP, NO. 1073, M. W. A.
Falls Camp was organized in 1889 and has a membership of 101. Its venerable counsel is George Kalmerton; vice counsel, James De Smith ; clerk, C. C. Meyer. Meetings are held every third Monday of the month.
RIVERSIDE CAMP, NO. 764, R. N. A.
This lodge was instituted October 5, 1897, with 22 members. The present membership numbers 47. The first officials were: Oracle, Mrs. Ella Robbins; vice oracle, Mrs. Lizzie De Smith; recorder, Mrs. Ida Bar- ragar ; receiver, Mrs. May Showers; marshal, Mrs. Minnie Boldt. The Vol. 1 -31
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present officials are : Oracle, Mrs. Mary Constance; vice oracle, Mrs. Edith Chase; past oracle, Mrs. Mary Riebel; recorder, Mrs. Lizzie De Smith; receiver, Mrs. Ida Barragar; chancellor, Mrs. Alice Wilson; marshal, Mrs. Sarah Melendy.
SHEBOYGAN FALLS ASSEMBLY, NO. 80, E. F. U.
The Equitable Fraternal Union was organized in 1899, with twenty charter members. There are now 220 members. The officials of this organization are: President, M. J. Deeley; vice president, T. W. Eich- horn; secretary, Joseph Osthelder; treasurer, George A. Robbins; adviser, Mrs. E. C. Gloff ; warden, E. C. Gloff; sentry, Clinton E. Brown.
BEAVERS RESERVE FUND FRATERNITY, COLONY NO. 577
The Beavers lodge was organized September 9, 1909, with 85 charter members. The present membership is 110. The charter officials were: C. F. Heald, commander; C. J. Heule, vice commander; W. C. Bryant, secretary ; Otis Mckinnon, treasurer. The present officials are: C. J. Heule, commander; Herman Reichert, vice commander; E. H. Granger, secretary ; W. L. Piper, treasurer. The Beaver Queens of Sheboygan Falls, No. 599, an auxilliary lodge, was organized in May, 1910. There were 27 charter members, and the membership now numbers 42. The first officials were : Mrs. A. E. Cox, most worthy queen ; Mrs. S. Byrum, worthy duchess; Mrs. Alice Osthelder, worthy princess; Mrs. E. Holden, past worthy duchess; Mrs. E. Holden, worthy princess; Mrs. A. E. Cox, past Miss May De Groff, queen of charity ; Mrs. Hilda Granger, queen of faith; Mrs. E. Themming, queen of humanity; Mrs. Emily Fricke, queen of the home; Bessie Holden, queen Victoria; Amy Scheirk, queen Louise; Mrs. Louisa Arndt, queen Isabella; Mrs. H. Hansen, queen of love. Present officers: Mrs. Sylva Byrum, most worthy queen; Mrs. Louisa Arndt, worthy duchess; Mrs. E. Holden. worthy princess; Mrs. A. E. Cox, past worthy queen; Mrs. Hannah Granger, secretary; Mrs. Jane Pfeifer, treas- urer; Mrs. Rose Patrick, queen of charity ; Mrs. R. Lintner, queen of faith; Mrs. Fannie Cox, queen of humanity ; Miss Edith Piper, queen of the home; Bessie Holden, queen Louise; Annie Scheirk, queen Victoria; Mrs. H. Hansen, queen Isabella; Mrs. Myrtle Ramaker, queen of love.
HISTORIC OLD SCHOOL BUILDING
An old unpainted wooden building, bearing evidence of having withstood the attacks of the storms of many years, stands in the east part of the village of Sheboygan Falls. This landmark of historic interest, erected about 1846, of the very best of the original pine timber grown in the vicinity, and prob- ably sawed at the old mill then a few rods distant, is supposed to be the first school building erected in Sheboygan county. In early days Sheboygan Falls was the metropolis of the county, at one time leading Sheboygan in pop- ulation, and it was about this period that the old school house was built. In
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this modest structure many of the younger people of the early settlers began and finished their school days, and doubtless many are the pleasant memories clustering around the old building and treasured by the few remaining teachers and pupils of the long ago. A number of the students and teachers who frequented this building have become prominent in the county, and some even attained national fame. Among the latter was Hon. Horace Rublee, who was Ambassador to Switzerland at one time, but is better known in Wis- consin as the editor of the Milwaukee Sentinel, a position he filled with abil- ity for many years. He was at one time a pupil of Samuel Rounsville of Sheboygan, and about 1851 he was a teacher in the old building that is the subject of this sketch.
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CHAPTER XVII
PLYMOUTH
TOWN VILLAGES AND CITY-ONE OF THE EARLIEST SETTLEMENTS IN THE COUNTY-EARLY CHURCHES AND SCHOOLS THE VILLAGE OF PLYMOUTH IS LAID OUT-MERCHANDISING AND COST OF LIVING THE FIRST GRIST MILL-CITY OF PLYMOUTH-PUBLIC UTILITIES AND INSTITUTIONS-POST- MASTERS-SCHOOLS AND CHURCHES-INDUSTRIAL PLYMOUTH.
Plymouth town was surveyed in 1835 by United States Engineers Mullet, Brincke and King, and the river which flows through the town, the Mullet, a branch of the Sheboygan river, was named after the first named engineer. It was called by the Indians, Ta-quit-qui-oc (crooked river). The town is in the second tier from the north and is bounded on the north by Rhine, on the east by Sheboygan Falls, the south by Lyndon, and the west by Greenbush towns. It is well watered by the Mullet river and several smaller streams. The first land sold to private parties in the present town of Plymouth was a portion of section I, to John Law, of London, England, August 13, 1836. The next entry was on the 23d of August, 1836, by Thomas Margrave, of London, on section 5. Other aliens also held titles to land in the town about this time.
The town of Plymouth then comprising Rhine and Plymouth towns, was organized April 3, 1849. At the town meeting held on that date at the home of John W. Taylor, Daniel Hyatt was chosen temporary chairman, L. A. Babcock, clerk, and Albert Walton and Henry P. Davidson, trustees. There were then elected the following officers: Supervisors, Elon W. Baldwin, Daniel Hyatt and Francis Krackenberger; clerk, James Cleveland; asses- sors, Adonijah Carter and Valentine Bub; superintendent of schools, Frank- lin Bond; treasurer, Hiram Bishop; justices of the peace, J. F. Moore, Erastus C. Sessions, Henry Giffin and Julius Wolff; constables, Samuel C. Jerome, S. D. Wilson and Augustus Bettlehauser; sealer of weights and measures, Daniel Weary. The whole number of votes cast at the election was ninety.
The geographical center of the county is within this town in section 36. The eastern part of the town is gently undulating, is highly productive and the farms are among the finest in the county. The western part is more hilly, as here is located a range of the Potash Kettle hills. Notwithstanding this there are many good farms in this locality. The town of Plymouth is unsurpassed by any in the county for the variety and quality of rich pro- ductions. Its cheese factories have a world wide reputation.
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HISTORY OF THE TOWN
In 1872, Mrs. H. N. Smith, a pioneer resident, wrote a series of historical articles pertinent to this locality, which were published in the Plymouth Re- porter from week to week. Most of the facts herein related will therefore be taken as coming from the pen of Mrs. Smith, as the compiler of this his- tory has extracted from her articles practically all of the data relating to the town of Plymouth. This foreword has been adopted in order to give Mrs. Smith credit for her excellent work and to avoid the use of quotation marks.
It was on the 8th day of May, 1845, Mrs. Smith relates, that Isaac Thorpe, William Bowen, John Thorpe, Renssalaer Thorpe, with wagons and lumber, traveled all day from Sheboygan Falls and camped at night just below where the house of H. N. Smith stands (1872). They were immigrants from Tioga county, Pennsylvania. Examining the land upon which the city of Plymouth now stands, they found it all along the stream to be swampy ground and covered with thickets of alder. Tired and hungry they went back as far as the place known as the Boutwell farm. Isaac Thorpe, then an old man, determined to remain here and on the same day Renssalaer Thorpe, a young man of nineteen, cut down the first tree for a house, which was constructed of logs and completed on the 12th of May. Its roof was made of long boards laid across the top. There was no floor and no chimney. Just as the four men were preparing for their first night under shelter, three wagons loaded with emigrants, men and women and children, stopped at the door. A little later Lieutenant Webster, U. S. A. and J. L. Moore rode up to the door. They also joined the party in the new cabin. A fire was built by the side of the logs and the smoke escaped through apertures in the roof. In four days more Mr. Thorpe's wife and children arrived, and in a few weeks potatoes, corn, buck- wheat and garden vegetables were in the ground that had been cleared. The yield of all these showed the excellence of Isaac Thorpe's judgment. The soil of the new farm was pronounced to be good. The same fall Renssa- laer Thorpe cleared four acres of land on what later became the Reuben Clark farm and sowed the first winter wheat in the town. The yield was forty-four bushels to the acre. There was then a one "run of stone" in the county,-in the mill at Sheboygan Falls, so that in spite of the good yield the first crop of wheat in Plymouth was not a valuable one in dollars and cents, but precious as grains of gold in another point of view. It demonstrated to the settlers that their land was valuable and the soil as good for wheat as any in the world. The necessaries of life were cheap and well it was for the set- tlers, as the time and cost of transporting flour and provisions over the woodland tract was considerable. Flour at Sheboygan was $5 a barrel; a pair of boots cost $2.50. Game was abundant-partridges, rabbit, squirrel and deer." Young Thorpe soon became an expert huntsman and supplied the family with an abundance of excellent meat.
The Thorpe family was not left long in solitude. In July, 1845, Henry P. Davidson and his son, Thomas I. Davidson, selected the land near the Cold Springs, which had been rejected by Isaac Thorpe. Mr. Davidson at
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once built a log cabin here, with the assistance of a few men from Sheboy- gan Falls. Besides himself there were in his family his wife, two sons, Thomas and Henry, and two daughters, Julia and Susan. They had come from Hartford, Connecticut, and had brought with them much of the cul- ture of New England breeding. The elder Davidson gave the name of Springfield to the new settlement, but Thomas named it Plymouth, in mem- ory of a town in Connecticut dear to him. Davidson's log cabin soon be- came famous as the best on the road.
While the Thorpes and Davidsons were the first settlers of the town, they were not the first purchasers of land here. Cyrus Johnson on the 7th of June, 1845, entered land but did not settle in the town until the fall of that year. On December 18, 1845, Hiram Bishop purchased land on section 22. He located in the town with his newly married wife, in August, 1846. .Joseph F. Weed purchased land on section 22, October 10, 1845. October 24, 1845, J. W. Briggs bought land on section 23, and December 29th of the same year, Jacob Mantz bought on section 23. William S. Turner secured land on section 27, October 16, 1845; Peter Van Patton, on section 25, November 20th of the same year, and James De Groff bought land on sec- tion 26, November 3, 1845. At the close of 1845 there were in the town the following persons and their families: Isaac Thorpe, John Thorpe, Renssa- laer Thorpe, Avery Childs, William Bowen, Henry P. Davidson, Thomas Davidson, Cyrus Johnson, John D. Briggs, James De Groff, Bradbury Robinson, Abner Walton, Jacob Mantz, Ezra Andrews, Almon Andrews and Henry Gilman.
Early in the spring of 1846 Nelson and Ira Bradford settled here, and on the 28th day of May, 1846, William Hueppgen purchased land on section 22. This land is now a part of the city of Plymouth. Mr. Hueppgen built a log shanty just south from the old Quitquioc House, and cleared an acre or two of ground. John W. Taylor arrived in August, 1846, and purchased the property then owned by Henry P. Davidson on section 21, including the cabin tavern, which later became the bar room of the Cold Springs House of later date. The Taylor family were from Byron, New York, and consisted of J. W. Taylor, wife and three daughters, Mr. Taylor's parents and a sister of Mrs. Taylor, Miss Coleman, who afterwards married Thomas I. David- son. Mr. Taylor soon established a land agency here, which was in no small degree the means of bringing many settlers to this part of the county.
In the fall of 1846 Martin H. Flint, with his wife and one child, came to Mr. Taylor's log cabin from Vermont. He bought the land then occupied by William Hueppgen and also a tract on section 22 of Henry P. Davidson. Before winter had set in, Flint had erected the first frame house in Ply- mouth, which later served as the kitchen and dining room of the Quitquioc House. C. E. Sessions and a Mr. Butters assisted in building this structure. There were several purchases of land in the town in 1846; James Crane on section 10, in November; James Coon, on section 11, in November ; James Tryon, on section 11, the same month; William Tryon, on section 11, in No- vember; Almon Andrews, on section 30, July 17; also on section 30, June 25. The Andrews were the first settlers west of the village. W. D. Moore purchased on section 33 in November; Aaron Henry Sedgwick, on section
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30, in December; William W. Webster, on section 27 and section 28, in Sep- tember; James M. Bunker, on section 23, in December; Albert Walton on section 23, May 14; Peter Rogers, on section 27, January 25; J. T. Maxby, on section 28, in August. Other purchasers this year were Adam Moore, George McCausey, Amos F. Brewster, James Andrews, Albert Walton, Wil- liam Holcomb, O. D. Andrews, Elisha Taylor, Hubbard Sanderson, M. M. Flint and Ebon W. Baldwin. Not all of these purchasers, however, settled in the town.
MURDERED BY INDIANS
In April, 1846, an event occurred which must have cast a deep gloom over the minds of the settlers. On the morning of the 27th of that month Mrs. Asenath Briggs, the wife of J. W. Briggs, left her home to go to Nel- son Bradford's cabin a half mile northwest, leaving her little son with her disabled husband, her errand being to get some milk and meal for her family, but she never returned and never again was seen alive. She was tracked by her alarmed neighbors and after days of fruitless search, all hope was abandoned. Weeks afterward word was brought to the friends of the unfortunate woman by Indians that they had found her remains in the "big bend" of the Sheboygan river in Manitowoc county. Renssalaer Thorpe, Cyrus Johnson, Avery Childs and E. F. Wright went at once in search. They found the body as indicated and strong suspicions were en- tertained that the poor woman had been murdered by the savages. The condition of the body led to the dreadful conclusion. The skull was found several feet from the bank. Her shawl was not upon her person but under her body and her clothes spread over her. Her pail and wooden measure were standing by her side. Strange to say, the remains were not removed and buried until the following fall.
February 8, 1846, the birth of the first white child took place in the com- munity. This child was the daughter of Cyrus Johnson, who later became the wife of John Knowd, long the station agent of the M. & N. railroad. A son of Jacob Mantz, born on the 20th of March, 1846, was the next. Samuel Savage Robinson, a son of Bradbury Robinson, was born September 27, 1846. It might here be stated that a doctor and nurse were not needed at this period of Plymouth's history.
The first religious services held in the town were at Isaac Thorpe's cabin, conducted by "Father" Cole, an English Methodist, in the summer of 1845. It has been ascertained that a Mr. Hitchcock, a Baptist preacher who lived in Sheboygan Falls, also held services here occasionally that year. In Sep- tember, 1846, Thomas I. Davidson became the first postmaster at Plymouth. He kept his office in the log tavern and later in the kitchen of his new log house. The receipts of the office for the first quarter were $2.50. Postage was ten cents, and the mail arrived once a week by "pony express" by way of Sheboygan.
J. T. Maxby, who came here in 1846, was the first tailor in the town and it is believed that Miss Plautina Stone taught the first school, in Reuben Clark's house. In the winter of 1847-8 a Mr. Babcock, a young lawyer from St. Paul, Minnesota, taught a very small school in the village.
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VIEW OF PLYMOUTH TAKEN IN THE '60s FROM WEST HILL LOOKING EAST DOWN MILL STREET To the left is the first graded school of Plymouth, the Lutheran and Episcopal churches
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Three weddings took place in 1847. The first was that of S. V. R. Thorpe and Miss Jane Van Patton, who were married by Elder Hitchcock, March 12 of that year. This was the first marriage to be celebrated in the town. The second was that of William Richardson, of Sheboygan Falls, and Miss Julia Davidson, September 27. On Christmas day of that year the Cold Spring House was formally opened and the occasion made most interesting by the marriage of Thomas I. Davidson and Miss Elizabeth Cole- man. In 1847 occurred the births of Marshall Baldwin, Marvin Gilman, Ira Jerome Bishop and Mary Asenath Flint. Adam Moore, who lived alone in a log shanty near the Cleveland place, was found crushed by a tree and buried near the spot. He was a brother of J. F. Moore.
On the Ist day of July, 1847, H. N. Smith, with his wife, the author of this history of Plymouth, one child, Anna, Mrs. Eliza Chase, mother of Mrs. Smith, Miss Charlotte Smith, who afterwards became the wife of Samuel B. Ormsbee, and Patrick Henry Smith, a brother of H. N. Smith, came to M. M. Flint's house. Mr. Smith returned to Sheboygan, where he opened a store.
The first important road leading out of Plymouth north and south was laid out during the month of June, 1847, by Commissioners Davidson and Taylor. Its course was from the corner of Main and Milwaukee streets north to the county line, also south to the county line. Elon W. Baldwin was the only settler north of Plymouth at this time.
Other settlers who came to the town in 1847 were Adonijah Carter, and Allen Carter, from Indiana; Jacob F. Moore, George W. Barnard, C. W. Dawley, from New York; John Barber, Charles Ubbelido, James Collins, Charles Warbush, Daniel Hyatt, B. L. and Charles Nutt, a Mr. Plugge, Fer- dinand Brown and Harvey Treadwell.
THE VILLAGE OF PLYMOUTH IS LAID OUT
In the summer of 1847 John W. Taylor employed a surveyor to lay out the village of Plymouth, having purchased that portion of Plymouth lying west of Division street, and divided it into town lots. Mr. Davidson, who assisted Mr. Taylor, at the time expressed little faith in the future of Ply- mouth. In the spring of 1847 Thomas I. Davidson built a log grocery store, having purchased a small stock of goods from G. N. Lyman. In June, 1847, William D. Lipe built a small log shop opposite the Cold Spring House, wherein he placed a forge and anvil and became the first blacksmith of the village. He also built a log dwelling house for himself and family. George W. Barnard, a carpenter and joiner, erected a small shop for the first shoe- maker, S. H. Houghton. This was the second frame building in the town.
MERCHANDISING AND COST OF LIVING
In the early part of 1848 H. N. Smith put up a small building 13 by 30 feet, two stories in height, on lot 4, block 13, the work being done by Daniel Weary. It was neither plastered nor painted and had no chimney. A stock of goods amounting to $2,500, furnished by Mr. Smith, was placed in the
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building and on March 11 P. H. Smith, his brother, opened the store as general manager. At this time maple sugar, shingles, baskets, eggs, bees- wax, ax helves, hand made window sash, all in very small quantities, were taken in exchange for coffee, at twelve cents per pound, Young Hyson tea at seventy-five cents a pound, whiskey at ten cents per quart, tobacco at twenty-five cents a pound, shoes one dollar a pair, corn meal $1.75 per hundred pounds, flour two and one-half cents per pound. The first butter trade of the town was begun by Mrs. Benson. She brought five and a quar- ter pounds of butter on the 20th of June, 1848, and received for it at eleven cents a pound, goods to the amount of forty-eight cents. Indians were fre- quent customers at the store. They would receive nothing but the hard cash for their goods but would at once return and purchase articles they desired, one of which would be a goodly supply of "fire water."
At this time twenty-five dollars a year was a fair average for the actual outlay of a settler's family. Kerosene was not in vogue, tallow candles were cheap and people had but little use for a light in their cabins other than that given by the fire place. Maple sugar and wild honey, blackberries and wild strawberries, gooseberries and wild crab apples supplied the backwoods tea table with the sauce dear to every housekeeper's heart. Canning fruit was not then thought of. Salt pork was a once-a-week luxury, white fish an- other. The woods were full of game and those who had cows were fortu- nate. As for clothes, a "wamus" was a man's coat. Boots were $2.50 a pair, and calico or cotton delaine was the height of feminine ambition.
During the summer of 1848 Henry I. Davidson, having purchased the water power, built the first sawmill in Plymouth. William Glenny made the dam and a Mr. Curtis was the millwright.
Others who came in 1847 were James T. Flint, a brother of M. M. Flint, Joel Parmeter, Carl Roehr and Carl Schwartze. L. F. Eastman and family arrived in the village in May, 1848, and built a small log house near Enos Eastman's subsequent residence. G. W. Glidden arrived in the fall of 1848 and settled on what afterwards became known as the Sanford farm. Joseph Ichstedt also was a settler of 1848, and the first wagon maker here. Others prominent among the "forty-eighters" were George Kebbel, Eliab West, S. C. Jerome, James Cleveland, William Witte, Jonah Brown, John Keiper, William and John Burton, John Vanderhoff, Solomon Dobbin, W. W. Warner, Hobart, Allen C. and George W. Grant, three brothers, who came from Maine. They bought land on section II of the Tryons, paying $2.50 an acre. The Grant families did not come until 1849.
In June, 1848, Dr. Franklin Bond settled in the village.
Thomas Arnold settled in the town in 1849 and about this time came a Mr. McDonald and William Haigh and family. Other settlers in the town in 1849 were Enos Eastman and L. M. Evans, a young Vermonter, who was one of the pioneer fruit growers of the county. In October, 1849, E. M. McGraw removed with his family from Sheboygan here. He soon after- ward, in company with J. Ichstedt, opened a wagon shop in the upper room of Lipe's building. Carl Schwartze built his blacksmith shop in the summer of 1849, and that same year Daniel Weary, who removed here from Sheboy- gan, put up a house. The first schoolhouse was built during this summer.
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