History of Walworth County, Wisconsin, Part 50

Author: Western Historical Co
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago, Western historical company
Number of Pages: 998

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ANNOYANCES.

Tools were few and a general co-operative system of borrowing and lending was in vogue till the first scarcity was over; till then individual rights in personal property seldom asserted themselves against the more communistic and human rights of a needy neighbor. If a tool was not in use, it was cheerfully passed into the temporary possession of him who had need of it. Borrowing and lending and " changing works" made a community of interest not now known, and cemented friendships only to be broken by death. One man hewed timber for his neighbor and helped him build his cabin: he repaid him in plowing, lending him his oxen or plow, or otherwise reciprocating.

The long distances traveled to obtain conveniences now in every house or easily accessible, was no small hardship and illustrates the great value of insignificant things brought out by being deprived of them. The very earliest settlers carried their grist from ten to forty miles to mill. or resorted to the more primitive mode of grinding them with a round stone on the top of an oak stump hollowed out for that purpose. For several years there was but one fanning-mill on Spring Prairie, which was borrowed indiscriminately by all living within five miles of its owner. The miles that were traveled in search of it and in returning it are incomputable. S. A. Dwinnell states that before commencing work on his claim, he was obliged to send to Chicago, eighty miles, to purchase an ax, as the one he had in his trunk when he started from Indiana, was accidentally left at South Bend. An ax was one of the few things hard to borrow, as it was the one indispensable article that could not be spared even for a day. Palmer Gard- ner, of Spring Prairie, had the first grind stone in the county. It was too heavy to borrow, and people came long distances to use it, always in couples, as it took an extra man to turn. It was thus sometimes a good day's work for a man to get his ax or scythe ground. First, some miles journey to get the man or boy to turn, and then some miles further to get to the stone. It is related that, July 15, 1836, Dr. Hemenway persuaded the wealthy prospector, Col. Phoenix, then his guest, to go over to Gardner's with him, three miles, to help him grind his scythe. Even after some blacksmiths had come into Geneva, Spring Prairie. Troy and Delavan, the majority of the settlers had to go many miles, at a very slow pace, to get an ox shod.

Mr. James Aram, an early settler still living in Delavan, relates that at an early day, having immediate occasion for a whole and presentable pair of boots, he found it impossible to buy a

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pair in the county, and was obliged to hire a pair for the occasion, paying therefore 2 shillings in current money.

One settler in Honey Creek purchased a barrel of flour in Milwaukee and wheeled it in a wheelbarrow all the way home -some thirty miles. over a very rough road to travel. Another relates that as late as 1838 or 1839, he went to Milwaukee with an ox-team and there purchased what was then a rare household luxury-a cooking stove. On reaching home with his treasure. it was found to be so cracked as to be useless until it was repaired, which eonld not be done nearer than Milwaukee. Withont unloading. he started again for Milwaukee. In fording a stream which had become swollen by recent rains, he unfortunately dumped his box, which, after inneh labor and delay, he succeeded in getting across the stream. At the end of seven days he returned with the stove in condition for use.

The mending of plows or other eastings involved a journey of three days, to Racine or Mil- wankee. Plow-shares, requiring to be mended. and other ironwork, even often carried on the backs of men a distance of fifteen miles to the nearest blacksmith.

Mr. Baker, in his historical address before the old settlers' society, states that one pioneer brought on his back, a stone churn from Chicago. The gentleman to whom was attributed this extraordinary feat. is still living. enjoying in quiet affluence, the lengthening years. In vindiea- tion of the truth of history. it must be said that it was not a stone churn which he brought in, but a fire-gallon slone jar.

When. as occurred as early as 1840. there began to be asurplus of grain. it had to be hanled from forty to sixty miles to the nearest market-Racine, Southport or Milwaukee, when 50 cents per bushel, half store-pay, was the average price for wheat. If the cash paid the expense of the journey, and the farmer got home with the goods he considered it a lucky trip. Any break- down on the road or unusal delay swallowed up the entire value of the load.

In the summer, constant annoyance and munch suffering was occasioned to both man and beast by dense swarms of insects. Blaek flies tormented the cattle, and clouds of mosquitoes infested the openings, and drove sleep and slumber from the settlements at night. They occa- sionally alighted in bunches, swarming like bees on the necks and heads of the cows, who would thus come home at night bellowing with torment. Here sympathy for the sufferings of the pio- neer cattle would not be misplaced.

The massasauga, a torpid reptile of the rattlesnake species, was quite numerous on the wet lands. Its bite was very venomous, but, owing to its warning rattle, which was promptly and loudly given, few serious results occurred from encounters with them. They were soon thinned out, and ceased to be a source of anxiety. but while plenty, as they were for the first two or three years, they were certainly annoying. if not dangerous.

The inconvenienees of distances met the pioneer at every turn. The early marriages were not seasons of feasting and dancing so often as fasting and traveling. The securing of the bride often cost the groom less trouble than the getting of the proper license and obtaining a magis- trate to tie the connubial knot.

Charles A. Noyes and Naney Warren. the first persons living in the county to be married, could find no magistrate within its limits to perform the marriage ceremony, and accordingly took the " Indian Trail " for Milwaukee, where they were married. The wedding tour was made over the same trail. back to Geneva Lake, which was their home.

Sylvester Spoor, who married Miss Caroline Goodrich in November, 1837, lived in Troy. He was obliged to go to Racine for his license, and to Rochester for a Justice of the Peace to perform the ceremony.

A. H. Bunnell, still living in La Fayette, married, in the fall of 1839, Miss Mary, danghter of Capt. Charles Dyer, then living on Gardner's Prairie. The marriage took place at the house of the bride's father. This involved considerable extra exertion on the part of the groom, before the young couple were fairly settled in their own eabin. He was determined to bring his bride home in style, and he ransacked Waukesha County for a rig worthy of the occasion. He hired a horse of L. G. Smith, of Spring Prairie, and a buggy (the only one in the county) of Henry Phoenix, of Delavan. It took a journey of some miles to get his horse and buggy together, and more miles to get to the place of the wedding. The wife being secured, he drove home with her. and then proceeded to Dolavan to return the buggy. Returning on horseback, he stopped at

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dark at the house of Mr. Hollis Latham, Elkhorn. From there, it being a moonlight evening, he conchided to leave the beaten path, which was somewhat indirect, and make a " bee line " through the openings to his home and his bride. He pushed on with a light heart, riding, as he expressed it, " miles and many miles away." and, after several hours, arrived again at Latham's house. He turned his horse's head homeward a second time, in a wiser and more contemplative mood. This time he took the beaten path, and reached home some time during the night.

There were few horses, the work being mostly done by oxen, and the light travel, by the men, on foot. Not unfrequently, in traveling off the trails, foot travelers became bewildered, and lost their bearings completely. coursing round in a small compass till discovered by some one who had not lost his course.

Mr. Allen Perkins, the first settler at Turtle Creek, where the village of Delavan now stands, selected his claim July 20, 1836, and started for Hemenway's in the evening. He intended to keep the track which Inman's teams had recently made on a trip from Racine to " Wisconsin City," but soon lost it, and, becoming bewildered, wandered about in the openings north of Elk- horn Prairie all night, and till the afternoon of the next day, without food or sleep, when he was met by Col. Phoenix returning from a prospecting trip, who piloted him to his place of destina- tion. Mr. S. A. Dwinnell states that Perkins' mishap was the cause of the first roads being laid ont, as, to prevent the recurrence of like or more serious perils, the settlers of Spring Prairie soon after turned out and drew a tree through the grass to make a track -- a distance of twelve miles-to where Delavan now is.

Mr. Dwinnell himself also got lost. His story, as he tells it himself in one of his historical sketches of early times, is as follows:

" The dangers connected with losing one's way, especially after the cold weather set in, were greater than can now be realized. A little incident in the experience of the writer, trivial in it- self. will illustrate this: A few days after coming to the county, on a Saturday, I set out on an exploring tour to find me a claim, as the land was not then in the market. I came to the beauti- ful burr-oak openings on Sections 19 and 20, in the present town of La Fayette, three miles northeast of what is now Elkhorn. The east half of Section 20, now occupied as farms by R. B. Burroughs, Joseph Bell, John Bell, William Baumis, was a fine tract for a farm, composed of timber, grass, prairie land and openings, and supplied with water. I went to the northeast cor- ner and made what was then called a jaek-knife claim, which would hold for thirty days, by blaz- ing a tree and writing my name and the day of the month upon it. Then, going west to the quarter-stake, I did the same there. Fearing to cross the center of the section to the south with- out any guide, and the day being cloudy, I undertook to follow the lines around the west side of the section. When near where the road now runs, not far from where the house of A. H. Bun- nell is built, I took my line across a wet prairie before me that I might strike the surveyors" blazes again in the openings beyond, and was proceeding along the west side of the present farm of Jeremiah Parmelee when a large flock of deer crossed my path and diverted my sight from my course. After crossing the low and untimbered land, I had a long search in vain to find the section line again. I then proceeded south, as I supposed, to find the east and west line on the south side of the section. After looking a long time, I struck a line which I thought to be the right one, and followed it, as it seemed to me, toward the east. The country looked strange; a stream seemed to be on the south of me which I had not anticipated. I soon, however, saw a fresh claim blaze ahead of me, and supposed that some one had just been there making a claim in advance of me. Judge of my surprise when I came to the corner to read on the tree, in large black letters, " S. A. Dwinnell, November 19, 1836." I saw at once that I was lost, and the points of the compass were all wrong. I was at the quarter-stake on the north side of Section 20, instead of the south side, as I supposed. I stood there until, by force of will. I brought my- self straight. I then took my course one mile through the center of the section, measuring the distance by pacing, and came out within a few feet of the quarter-stake on the south side, when I finished marking my claim and returned to Spring Prairie. I ran an immense risk of losing my life, without a compass, without fire-works, as lucifer matches were then not to be obtained here. I might have wandered for days, and, in some directions, for scores and hundreds of miles, with- out coming to a settlement. The risk I ran of perishing of cold and hunger was very great."

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HISTORY OF WALWORTH COUNTY.

HARDSHIPS.

The early settlers of Walworth County suffered as little from hardships incidental to pio- neer life as was possible in a new country, when the first crop was vet to be harvested. Indeed, they were peculiarly favored No hostile tribes of Indians remained to molest them or make them afraid. The timber stood at convenient distance, ready for the ax. The surface of the land was neither covered with rocks nor broken into bleak and barren hills, as in New England. The soil was fertile and ready for the plow. Food and supplies could already be obtained by a journey to the lake. So it will be seen that the first occupancy of the land was fraught with no exciting danger, and accompanied by no extreme perils or hardships, except such as were inci- dental to pioneer life forty years ago, under the most favorable circumstances. Nevertheless. such as they were, they were endured with indomitable pluck, and, to their descendants living in these later days, surrounded by all the comforts and luxuries of life, they should teach the needed lesson of perseverance and patience, lacking which their fathers would have left them no such heritage as they now enjoy. Their hardships, though then the common lot. were cheerfully endured. and through them the path of ease was hewn for their descendants.

It is not known that any case of starvation or of extreme suffering from the pangs of hunger ever transpired. Several, from peculiar circumstances, got short of food during the winters of 1836, 1837 and 1838. and suffered all the untold agonies of apprehension and anxiety. Subse- quent to 1838, the second crop had been raised by the first-comers. and there was no lack of food, those too poor to get in a crop being able to supply their wants by working for their more for- tunate neighbors till they could get a start for themselves.

Deacon John Reader, who settled in the town of Walworth in February, 1837, went to Illi- nois for supplies. Owing to various causes, his trip was prolonged till the family were reduced to the verge of starvation. It is stated that only a little bran was left, which had been sifted for the third time by Mrs. Reader, and that, on the night of Mr. Reader's return, she had put the children to bed with a scanty meal even of that. She met her husband some distance from the house, and cautioned him to silence, lest the hungry children might awake before she could have a meal cooked for them. Of the hours of weary waiting of this faithful wife and mother, alone in the lonely cabin, with only the voices of her helpless children within, and the moan of the winter wind or yelp of the prairie wolves without. through the long days and the longer nights, no record has been preserved. She was one of the "silent heroes " who wrought to the full measure of her strength, and died unsung. May these lines awaken in the heart of the reader affectionate and tender memories for her and the other faithful women who silently and uncomplainingly bore their noble part in the labors and anxieties of those early times.

Milo E. Bradley, during the winter of 1837-38 -- the first winter after moving on to his farm depended for his supplies on his rifle and the results of his labor as a carpenter. Sickness in his family kept him from labor and the hunt for many weeks, and thus shut up, his provisions became reduced to a few crusts of bread and a marrow bone. Of these he made a soup for break fast, which left absolutely nothing in the house for the next meal. His wife was too ill to be left alone while he should go for supplies. He was a firm believer in the direct efficacy of prayer, and, in his sore distress, he fell upon his knees, and, as he says. " prayed as he had never prayed before." He further stated that. while thus engaged, he saw in a vision, as plainly as he ever saw anything with his natural sight, a large buck standing near a burr-oak tree some eighty rods from his house. He peremptorily closed his prayer, took his rifle. went out and found the deer standing exactly as he had seen it while on his knees in the house. He killed it, and was thus supplied with food until he was able to otherwise provide himself. The truth of the above is established on the testimony of the late S. A. Dwinnell, who had the narrative from Mr. Brad- ley himself.

During the first year of settlement. before the first bounteous crop could be harvested, the food lacked variety. to say the least. Many families subsisted almost entirely upon beans and potatoes, without meat, butter or milk, and instances are related of families being found in a state of health and happiness living on potatoes alone, without even a seasoning of salt. Some affluent families of to-day well remember when bean soup, potatoes and milk at one meal were considered a bounteous repast.

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HISTORY OF WALWORTH COUNTY.

The danger and suffering from extreme cold was great, as places of covert were widely scat- tered. The memorable cold snap of December, 1836, is still remembered with a chill by the sur - vivors of that time. Mr. Dwinuell thus describes it:

" The pioneers of Wisconsin must ever remember the 20th of December for one of the most sudden changes to severe cold ever experienced in our history. It had rained all day upon some fifteen inches of snow. Early in the evening, the wind veered to the northwest and the temper- ature ran down at a rapid rate. Having no thermometer, I can form no certain estimate of the intensity of the eold. It soon became unendurable in our cabin, and, building a large fire and hanging up blankets before it. I sat down in front of them to keep from freezing.

" It was so terribly cold that, had a person been caught four or five miles from a house, he must have perished. Fortunately. few were thus exposed. James Van Slyke, with his hired man, were on their way from Belvidere, Ill., to his house, at the head of Geneva Lake, with a drove of hogs. They had reached Big Foot Prairie, three miles from home. when the change came. They soon left their drove and started at a rapid rate for their house. Van Slyke suc- ceeded in the undertaking, but his boots were so loaded with ice that it took a teakettle full of boiling water to thaw it off, as his wife afterward told me.

"A mile from home, the hired man, named Disbro, fell, exhausted and overcome with the intensity of the eold. He must have perished had not a man. providentially at the house, started out at once and brought him in. As it was, his feet were so frozen that he lost several of his toes, which Mrs. Van Slyke amputated with her shears. having made unsuccessful efforts to ob- tain a surgeon to do it. All the hogs, except two, froze to death that night."

THE FIRST CONFLAGRATION.

The first destruction of a dwelling house by fire in the county occurred in Spring Prairie, and came near depriving the county of two of her future citizens. Samuel C. Vaughn came in 1837 and built a log honse. in which he lived till the fall of 1839, at which time he built him a frame house some eighty rods from his cabin. Into this he moved, and his brother David took possession of the cabin, with his family, consisting of a wife and two boys, George and Henry, then two and four years old. On a bright moonlight evening in December (1839), David proposed to go over to Samuel's house to settle up some unfinished business. His wife proposed to accompany him, leaving the two children asleep in the house. Mr. Vaughn, without any good reason at that time known to himself, strennously insisted on taking the boys along, which was accordingly done. The house of his brother where they went was over a knoll. out of sight of the cabin.

About 10 o'clock in the evening. Dr. Hemenway, who lived a mile away. discovered a fire in the direction of Vaughn's cabin, and, on reaching the spot, found it a pile of glowing embers. with no signs of any of its inmates alive. In great perturbation, he rushed off to Samuel's, where, greatly to his relief, he found David, with his wife, just starting for home, each with one of the boys in their arins. Dr. Hemenway, with a gasp of relief on finding them safe, asked them where they were going. " Home," was the reply. "You have no home." said the Doctor: which was true, and they had little, also. except the clothing they had on, and the two boys, safe and sound. They found a shelter for the winter at the house of Isaiah Dike; a brother-in-law. David Vaughn and his wife see now a reason for taking the boys along. George and Henry Vaughn, plucked as brands from the burning shanty, are still living near the scene of their early eseape from premature destruction in the first conflagration of Walworth County.

CLAIM ASSOCIATIONS.

When the first claims were made, just subsequent to the completion of the Government sur- vey, the tenure to the land was not assured to the elaimant by the Government, except by appeal for relief through the Territorial Courts, which, from the distance and the expense attending such resort, rendered it unavailable to the poor claimant whose worldly possessions often comprised little more than his ax and gun, and the land he had claimed, and on which he hoped to make his home. By custom rather than by sanction of written law, certain acts became acknowledged as necessary to identify a claim made, and certain others to hold the claim against future com- ers. Trees along the line of the claim, if in the openings, were blazed, and the name of the

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HISTORY OF WALWORTH COUNTY.

claimant marked legibly upon them, with the date of the claim. The quarter-stakes set by the surveyors were generally marked in like manner. As proof of occupancy, the claimant, if not making an immediate settlement, was expected to leave unmistakable marks of occupation and " improvements " on the land. The most common consisted of the cutting down of a few trees, piling heaps of brush where they would easily be discovered by explorers, and, if time permitted, the erection of a rude shanty. Having thus secured priority of title, the claimant often left his claim for months, to prepare for a more permanent settlement. Sometimes, on his return, he would find some interloper, not having the sanctity of the right of discovery before his eyes, quietly settled on his claim, and perhaps determined to hold it unless forcibly ejected. The dis- putes arising from this cause increased in number as the settlers became more numerous, and there were many cases of extreme hardship and injustice, when the claims of honest settlers were jumped and held against them by brute force or intimidation. regardless of all principles of humanity or right.

Further, many bogus claims were marked, and thus formally made by speculators who never intended to settle, but only to cause the bona fide settler to buy him off to gain peaceable pos- session.

To obviate these difficulties, and to secure each other in the peaceable possession of their lands, the settlers of the different neighborhoods early formed societies for mutual protection against the prevailing evil. They were known as "Claim Associations." The by-laws of these societies were the first laws concerning the tenure of property ever observed or enforced in Wal- worth County. They were primarily intended to protect all bona fide settlers in possession of their rights, as against all comers and at all hazards, even to that of forcible ejectment. if milder means failed. The number of acres was defined which should constitute a claim for the head of a family or for an unmarried man, and the conditions under which his claim should be deemed valid by the members of the association. Such claim having been recorded on the books of the association, each and every member was bound to defend him in its possession till such time as he might acquire it by purchase from the Government. These associations were the only reliable safe-guard to the squatters prior to the first land sale, which did not take place until February, 1839. The exact number of associations cannot be ascertained, but they embraced in their juris- diction the entire territory of the county, and, by the moral force that lay in their munerical strength, put a stop to claim-jumping. or. in exceptional cases, by more vigorous and arbitrary proceedings, promptly reinstated the true claimant in his possessions.

The institutions worked harmoniously throughout the county, with rare exceptions. A slight unpleasantness grew ont of an amendment made to the by-laws of the Claim Association of Round Prairie, which withdrew protection from unmarried men holding claims there. On the justice of this by-law, which differed from those of the other societies - which gave equal rights of pre- emption to single and married men -opinion was divided, as it acted as an ex post facto law in the case of all single men who had already taken claims.

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History of Walworth County, Wisconsin, Part 50

Author: Western Historical Co Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Chicago, Western historical company Number of Pages: 998

Author: Western Historical Co
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago, Western historical company
Number of Pages: 998