USA > Wisconsin > Walworth County > History of Walworth county, Wisconsin, Volume I > Part 13
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In 1907 this area was increased to nearly seventy acres, which includes a part of the narrow strip of section 12 which lies between section i and the water's edge. The lake frontage is six hundred feet long, and a pier for steamers has been built there. The lake, at this end, is about one and a half miles wide, covering most of section 12 and about half of section 13, and the view from the observatory to the opposite shore is not in any way likely to become less fair or more shut in. The observatory stands within easy distance from the highway, one mile westward from Williams Bay, and from the highway leading southward to Fontana, about two miles away. By way of Fontana and Harvard to Chicago it is seventy-six miles. By way of Williams Bay and Lake Geneva it is about ninety-three miles. It is nearly equidistant from Lake Geneva, Delavan and Elkhorn, and its dome can be seen from the south- western quarter of the last-named city. Its latitude is 42º 34' 12.64"; its longitude 5h. 54 m. 13.64 sec. or 88° 33' 18.6" from Greenwich observatory. The site of the building is one thousand and fifty feet above sea level and about one hundred and ninety feet above the level of Geneva Lake.
Mr. Hale visited the greater observatories of both hemispheres before determining his own plans and derived some especially useful suggestions from the buildings and equipments at Mount Hamilton and at Potsdam, Prussia. The form of the building is cross-shaped, with head to eastward, its longer dimension three hundred and twenty-six feet, ending, westward, in the great dome, ninety-two feet in diameter. The centers of the smaller domes, at the arm-ends, are one hundred and forty-four feet apart. The style is described as Romanesque. The outer walls are of brown Roman brick and terra cotta. The equipment is adapted to a wide range of astro- physical work. perhaps the whole range of astronomical investigation. Be- sides the great telescope of forty-inch aperture, there is one of twenty-four inch and one of twelve-inch aperture; there is, apparently, a full furnishing of apparatus for photographic, spectroscopic, spectroheliographic and what- ever other processes men of this century may use for their prying into the visible and invisible contents of "nature's infinite book of secrecy." The cost of ground, buildings and apparatus is estimated at four hundred thou- sand dollars.
The first successful measurements of star heat were made at this insti- tution in the summers of 1898 and 1900, and a long and valuable record is already made of photographic observations of sun and stars. Results of these and other investigations are published in book form and as contributions to scientific journals. Among these publications are "The Study of Stellar Evolution." by Prof. Hale: "Researches in Stellar Photometry," by Prof.
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Parkhurst; "The Rotation Period of the Sun," by Profs. Hale and Fox; and two volumes entitled "Publications of the Yerkes Observatory"; Vol. I, pp. 296, "A General Catalogue of One Thousand Two Hundred and Ninety Double Stars Discovered from 1871 to 1890," by Prof. Burnham; Vol. 2, PP. 413, papers by Profs. Barnard, Burnham, Frost, Hale, Parkhurst and others. The observatory contains more than three thousand volumes and about the same number of pamphlets, and receives eighty scientific magazines and journals.
No time is found available for permitting visitors to look through the telescopes, but two or three hours are given each Saturday to visitors for seeing, under the instruction of a staff member, the instruments and their working. Each year several thousand visitors are received and go away wondering. The observatory staff is composed of the following named persons :
Edwin B. Frost, professor of astrophysics and director.
Sherburne W. Burnham, professor of practical astronomy.
Edward E. Barnard, professor of practical astronomy.
John A. Parkhurst, instructor in practical astronomy.
Storrs B. Barrett, secretary and librarian.
Philip Fox, instructor in astrophysics.
Oliver J. Lee, computer.
Mary R. Calvert, computer.
Mary F. Wentworth. stenographer.
Frank R. Sullivan, engineer in charge of forty-inch telescope.
Oscar E. Romare, instrument maker.
Henry J. Foote, carpenter.
Wilfred Beguelin, lantern slides.
Diedrich J. Oetjen, day engineer.
Louis F. Clay, night engineer.
Astronomers from other institutions often pass the summer there, as volunteer assistants in researchi.
STATE SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF.
In 1843 Increase A. Lapham, of Milwaukee, whose various services to science are not yet ungratefully forgotten, wrote to Moses MeCure Strong, then president of the Territorial Council, asking him to lay before that body for its consideration and favorable action a draft of resolutions which, in effect, petitioned Congress for an appropriation of public land in aid of in-
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stitutions for the instruction of deaf and blind children, and for the care of the insane. The Legislature duly memorialized Congress, but without result.
Ebenezer Chesebro, an early settler of the town of Darien, had a daugh- ter who was born deaf and thus "wisdom at one entrance quite shut out." Ariadne had received some instruction at a New York school for the deaf. Her father, in 1850, induced Miss Wealthy Hawes, then of Magnolia, in Rock county, to come to his house and continue the girl's education. A neighbor's son, James A. Dudley, then aged twelve years, found here, for him, a golden opportunity. These two continued their study, the next year, under John A. Mills, a graduate of the New York institution. Four years later these two pioneer teachers became man and wife, and both were employed at the state school, he as teacher, she as assistant matron. The little class at Mr. Chese- bro's house increased to eight pupils, but was soon suspended for want of funds. The six later pupils were Clarissa B. Kingman, of Darien. Washing- ton Farrer, of Summerville, Rock county, with Abraham, Betsey, Charles and Helen Hewes, of Eagle. Mr. Chesebro's feeling was too deep and strong and his mind too beneficently active to let the school drop and become one more matter for sterile regret. About one hundred citizens of the county joined him in a petition to the Legislature of 1852 for the establishment of at least one school in Wisconsin for instruction of deaf children. Thanks to the merit of the proposition in itself and to Assemblyman Barlow's effective presentation of its justice and expediency. Governor Farwell's signature, April 19. 1852, made the bill to incorporate the Wisconsin Institute for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb a law. The site was to be at or near the village of Delavan. Nine trustees were appointed, one-third of the board re- newable each year. This number was reduced about 1870 to five, and in 1881 the board was abolished, its functions having been transferred to the state board of supervision. This body succeeded the older board of state charities and reform and is now known as the state board of control. For a few years the trustees were chosen from the county ; but, with increase of the school's importance to the state came representation of other parts of the state. The trustees resident of the county were:
William Cheney Allen Delavan . 1852-62. 03-71
James Aramı
Delavan 1872 -- 75 Joseph Baker
Sharon 1857-58
Alanson Hamilton Barnes
Delavan 1861-73
Chauncey Betts (II)
Delavan 1854-65
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WALWORTH COUNTY, WISCONSIN.
Dr. Orrin Willard Blanchard. Delavar 1854-57
Ebenezer Chesebro Darien
1852-54
Edward P. Conrick Delavan 1858-61
Nicholas Montgomery Harrington Delavan
1854-70
Dr. Ilenderson Hunt . Delavan
1852-58
William Willard Isham
Delavan
1857-69, 75-76
Samuel Rees LaBar
Delavan
1876-81
Rev. Phipps Waldo Lake.
Walworth
1852-56
Hollis Latham Elkhorn
1858-81
Chester Deming Long
Darien
1860-72
Dr. Thomas M. Martin.
Delavan
1862-65
James Alexander Maxwell
Walworth
1852-54
Dr. Clarkson Miller
Lake Geneva
1858-61
Dr. Jesse Carr Mills.
Elkhorn
1852-56
Joseph D. Monell, Jr
Delavan
1854-58
Timothy Mower .
East Troy 1 858-63
Franklin Kelsey Phoenix
Delavan
1852-54
Albert Salisbury
Whitewater
1 880-81
Wyman Spooner
Elkhorn
1852-53
Salmon Thomas
Darien
1853-58
George G. Williams
Whitewater
1852-54
NON-RESIDENT TRUSTEES.
Winchell D. Bacon.
Waukesha
1869-72
Henry L. Blood
Appleton
1868-78
Rev. Aaron L. Chapin
Beloit (College) 1870-76
Dustin G. Cheever
Clinton 1875-81
Samuel Collins
Yorkville
1859-60
Martin Field
Mukwonago
1859-62
Joseph Hamilton
Milwaukee
1875-78
Edward D. Holton
Milwaukee 1879-81
Harrison Reed Oshkosh
1856-58
Albert Salisbury
Whitewater
1879-81
Moses McCure Strong
Mineral Point
1856-58
John E. Thomas
Sheboygan Falls
1874-77
Dr. J. B. Whiting Janesville
1869-72
Some of these trustees of the county and of the state at large, at their official visits, found more or less personal interest in the pupils, making
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them feel that the state, while performing its duty in instructing them, had also parental care for each one's comfort and happiness. President Chapin addressed them in their signs, wisely and profitably; and left them with a truer understanding of their relations with that larger world from which they had seemed so harshly cut off.
The state's appropriations in 1852 were one thousand dollars for build- ing and five hundred dollars for a year's conduct of the school. Dr. Joseph R. Bradway, of Delavan, was appointed principal and John A. Mills teacher. Franklin K. Phoenix, the only son of the founder of Delavan, himself a youthful pioneer. gave nearly twelve acres of the highland beyond the outlet of Delavan Lake, now the west end of the city, lying north of the Janesville road, an extension of Walworth avenue. About twenty-three acres were bought a few years later. The first building was of brick, two stories high, and was part of a larger plan. It gave room for thirty-five pupils. When finished, in 1857. the main building was of three stories, its cost about thirty thousand dollars. To this a sufficient workshop and a barn were added at some further cost. On the morning of September 16, 1879, the main build- ing was burned to the ground. For several months thereafter temporary quarters for the children were found in the remaining buildings and in one of the churches of Delavan. A change of site was proposed and urged by a few newspapers at Milwaukee and elsewhere-each as in duty and honor bound preferring its own city as the heaven-appointed though thus far man- neglected home for the wards of the state. There was probably but one judg- ment or feeling among the men and women of Walworth and this was promptly and fairly well expressed two days after the fire by the newspaper at Elkhorn in the following editorial comment :
"It is believed and hoped that the location of the school will not be changed from Delavan, but that the new building will be located on the site of the old one. The school has passed through many ordeals, recently, but it was pros- perous in a high degree when this calamity came upon it, and it is hoped that every citizen of Walworth county will feel an anxiety to have it re-established on its old foundations and under present management."
At the legislative session of 1880 Assemblyman Barnes (a well-chosen member for the task in hand) looked effectively to the greater good of the in- stitute and to the smaller interest of Delavan, and the sum of seventy thou- sand dollars was appropriated for re-building. Thus, one more phoenix arose from its own ashes with youth and vigor renewed. ( Had the institute been burned and re-built otherwhere than at Delavan the cruelly over-worked Arabian bird need not have done service here. ) Besides the administration
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WALWORTH COUNTY, WISCONSIN.
(main ) building, a school house, chapel, dining hall and dormitory were pro- vided for the growing needs. The establishment is sufficient for the full care of two hundred and fifty pupils. The yearly expense is from fifty thou- sand to sixty thousand dollars. The total expense since 1852 has been about two million one hundred thousand dollars.
A statute of 1858 required payment of seventy-five dollars for each pupil, but it so operated to restrict materially the usefulness of the school that it was soon repealed. A similar ill-advised statute was enacted in 1867, and this, too, was soon repealed. The Civil war seriously affected legislative liberality, and the teachers were the most direct sufferers. In June. 1861, a class of five pupils was graduated with the full formalities or ceremonies of such oc- casions at other institutions. Miss Emily Eddy, the first woman employed as teacher, in 1868 began her experiments in speech-teaching. As early as 1861 she had observed some, to her, suggestive facts as to pupils who, from disease or accident, had become deaf, and she patiently and in- geniously evolved methods of her own by which to teach these children to speak with their lips and to hear with their eyes. In 1868 Miss Harriet B. Rogers, a teacher of this art in a Massachusetts institution, visited the school at Delavan. From her Miss Eddy received that summer a short couse of instruction by which she so profited that hundreds of pupils have since found reason to remember these two women with more than common grati- tude. At a later time Miss Eddy brought some improvement of teacher- method from the institution at Jacksonville, Illinois. It is said that Wiscon- sin and Illinois were earliest of the states of the old Northwest to adopt this branch of mute-instruction.
The school year of forty weeks begins the first Wednesday of Sep- tember. To the usual instruction in writing, reading, composition, arithmetic, geography, natural science and drawing, with oral speech and lip-reading to semi-mutes and capable congenital mutes, is added manual training. Cabinet making began in 1800, shoe-making in 1867, printing in 1878 and baking in 1881. Girls are also taught housekeeping, baking and sewing. About 1879 began the publication of the Deaf-Mute Press, a home organ of the teachers and pupils. About 1882 its name was changed to Deaf-Mute Times, and about 1806 it became the Wisconsin Times. Its edi- torial work has always been from fair to excellent, and its mechanical appear- mice creditable to foreman and printers. In 1906 Prof. Warren Robinson took a holder step, and put forth the American Industrial Journal, an illuis- trated five-times-a-year magazine, "in the interest of the industrial depart- ments of schools for the deaf and the deaf themselves throughout the world."
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WALWORTH COUNTY, WISCONSIN.
This is said to be the only such publication in the world. Its number for De- cember. 1910, indicates its temporary, if not permanent discontinuance for want of sufficient support. The editor, who speaks, but does not hear, has acquired a mastery of the art of expression in pure, plain English words and clearly-formed sentences, seldom met in modern newspaper work, and at least one of his contributors has profited similarly from judicious teaching.
Miss Auna Johnson, a blind inte (one of three at this school), now about twenty-four years old, tells in simple, faultless phrases some of the in- cidents of her silent, darkened life. The short story is interesting and suf- ficiently moving, though in nowise an appeal for sympathy, and its style is. for its purpose admirable. . \ school which does such work as this well de- serves the state's. support and encouragement, even if its opportunities for such work were still less frequent. Miss Johnson's case is not that of Laura Bridgman, nor of Helen Keller, since she lost her sight at twelve and her hearing at fourteen. "For three years I lived in darkness and it was very much like a prison: for no one seemed to recognize me, and as I could not see or hear enough to help myself, everything around me was silent." In 1904 she was sent to the school at Delavan, but sickness so far interrupted that but four years have been profitable for instruction. She had learned at home to sew and knit, and has since learned to use the Braille writer ( for the use of blind persons ), and now finds it easy to use the Remington and other typewriters, and also the Singer sewing machine, with its various at- tachments-threading her needles and regulating her work with ease. She has read many books for the blind, but most enjoys the "Life of Helen Kel- ler." A few of her own words may show this young woman's unconquer- able spirit :
"To be deprived of sight and hearing is not so great a misfortune to those who are so afflicted as it may seem. A blind-deaf person can be just as happy as one who has his perfect sight and hearing. *
* * No one can im- agine how happy I have been since I learned to sew. I can sit alone in the dark or light with my sewing and be as happy as any queen. How many happy thoughts I have now when I am making something for a friend or for my sisters or mother. When I can be among the flowers and trees I am perfectly happy. There is always something which can amuse a blind-deaf person and add much to make his life like that of a person with sight,"-and more in like cheery strain.
The average attendance at the school is now about two hundred pupils. The whole number, since 1852, is about eighteen hundred. Until 1880 the head of the school was designated as the principal. Since that year. he is
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WALWORTH COUNTY, WISCONSIN.
known as superintendent. The following official list shows several long periods of service there.
PRINCIPALS.
Dr. Joseph R. Bradway. . 1852- 3 Dr. Henry W. Milligan .. . 1865-68
Rev. Lucius Foote. . 1853- 4 Edward Collins Stone. . .. 1868-71
Horatio Nelson Hubbell (acting) 1854
George Ludington Weed .. 1871-75
Louis Henry Jenkins 1854- 6 William Henry DeMotte .. 1875-80
John Scott Officer 1856-65
SUPERINTENDENTS.
John W. Swiler 1880 Elmer Warren Walker. . 1903 . Charles P. Cary. 1901
No subordinate at this school may hope to reach its superintendency. Time has shown the usefulness of this limit to promotion. But from its teachers have been drawn chief officers for similar schools of other states.
STATE NORMAL SCHOOL.
The board of regents in May, 1866, chose a site at Whitewater for the second of the state normal schools, this, after having exacted from the vil- lage a bonus of twenty-five thousand dollars. Two members of the building committee were Newton M. Littlejohn and Samuel A. White, the first then a state senator and the other a regent. The school was opened and dedicated April 21, 1868, and enlarged in 1876, 1881 and 1897. The area of its ground is ten acres, rising eight hundred and seventy-six feet above sea level and sixty-six feet above the ground at the railway station. It has been planted with more than a hundred species and varieties of trees and shrubs, largely under direction of the late President Salisbury. Thus Normal Hill, as seen from its foot and from afar, has become as fair to look upon as a vice-regal country seat.
This institution, one of eight such parts of the system of public instruc- tion, has, like them, the full equipment of similar schools in other states. It employs twenty-six teachers including those in the training schools. Its valuable library has more than fifteen thousand volumes. Since 1870 the school has graduated one thousand six hundred and twenty pupils. of whom about ninety-seven per cent. have since done teachers' work.
The men whose influence upon their fellow citizens secured this school for their village builded no better than they knew, for they acted in the full
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WALWORTH COUNTY, WISCONSIN.
light of observation, experience, sound judgment, and true public spirit, and thus kept step in the march of American civilization. Greater benefit has thus come to Whitewater than the profits to retail dealers and boarding-house keepers. The whole county, too, and the adjacent towns in Jefferson and Rock have some appreciable share in this greater gain, as many a poor man and his child well knows.
The presidents of the school have been : Oliver Arey, 1868-77; William F. Phelps, 1877-9: John William Stearns, 1879 to January, 1885; Theron B. Pray, January to June, 1885; Albert Salisbury, July, 1885, to his last sick- ness and death in 19II.
Mr. Arey died at Brooklyn, N. Y., December 13, 1907. Mr. Stearns passed to a chair in the State University, that of theory and art of teaching.
Albert Salisbury was born at Lima, Rock county, January 24, 1843; died at Milwaukee June 2, 1911. His early life throws some light on his later career. He was bred to farm work; served in war time in a regiment that never rested: finished his college course at Milton in 1870; conducted ' teachers' institutes from 1873: superintended and inspected schools in the Cotton states, for the American Missionary Association from 1882; and be- gan his presidency at Whitewater in 1885. All that he was by natural en- dowment and by acquisition, the total sum of which was enough to warrant at least a moderately high-aiming ambition, he gave wholly to the plain duty before him. Most of the graduates of Whitewater passed under his master- ship and guidance, and to most of them those brief years were the most profit- bearing of their lives. He had much of that collateral knowledge which gives its own value to every man's work, but he cared more to know a few things and understand them thoroughly and comprehensively. He could admire a superficially brilliant man without envying him. In or out of school, honest endeavor and modest worth were unlikely to escape his notice and surely en- listed his sympathy. He took ground early, with tongue and pen, for free text books for township high schools, for free carriage of pupils to and from their district schools, for everything that in theory was desirable and by wisely considered and carefully conducted experiment had been shown else- where practical and beneficial. His feeling was deeply moved in behalf of children whom poverty deprives of their share in public instruction, and he talked often and well of the state's duty to see that their right be not taken from them without their fault. To have known him as a friend was a goodly thing and is now a pleasant memory. To have known him as a teacher was great good fortune. He helped to make history for the county. He has be- come rightly a part of the county's history.
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WALWORTH COUNTY, WISCONSIN.
MILITARY ACADEMY.
A fourth institution, of great importance to American parents and sons, but not of Walworth's creation or maintenance, is likely to come within a year or two. It is proposed to transfer the Northwestern Military Academy from Highland Park, Illinois, to the shore of Geneva lake, at the place long known as Kaye's Park, in the town of Linn. The managers have secured the option of buying forty acres of land, having one thousand feet of lake front- age. This situation is very convenient for such instruction in naval exercises as is useful for soldiers; and, if found expedient, for a department of the more general naval instruction. The Legislature of 1911, by appropriate en- actment, authorized prohibition of the sale of intoxicant beverages within a circle of five miles radius, measured from this site as its center.
The object of this institution is not only to train citizen-soldiers, but also to form Christian character and develop manliness; and to such ends the discipline and instruction are directed. Major R. Davidson, commandant, with his officers and one hundred or more of his pupils, came to this place on Memorial Sunday, 1911. He had invited attendance from all the neighbor- ing posts of the Grand Army of the Republic to take part in the program of prayer, band music, singing and speaking, and he gave these survivors of a half century the place of honor in the order of marching. Colonel Jerome A. Watrous, a soldier of two wars, and Major Davidson explained the gen- eral purpose of the school, and the cadets closed the day. at retreat call, with a few evolutions on the parade ground. All this will become familiar here for the needful work of building is (in 1912) about to begin.
CHAPTER XIV.
WALWORTH COUNTY AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY.
Within less than fifteen years after the end of the Pottawattomie occu- pation, a few men of mind and will and of some weight in the affairs of their towns, mainly farmers of the Troys and adjoining towns, combined to form, or develop, a county agricultural society, and thence a yearly county fair. Most of these men lived long enough-and worked as long as they lived-to see the infant enterprise of 1850 move in orderly progress, without halt or backward step, to the foremost place among similar societies of the state. Of these men the names of Homer and Seymour Brooks, Jacob and William Bur- git, Simon Buel Edwards and Emery Thayer, of East Troy; John Fearnley, Albon Mann Perry and Augustus Smith, of Troy; Sherman Morgan Rock- wood, Jesse Pike West and Stephen Gano West. Sr .. of Lafayette; Perry Green Harrington, of Sugar Creek. and Edward Elderkin, of Elkhorn, are preserved. No other record is found of work done previous to the fair and cattle show opened at East Troy October 16. 1850. The day was showery, but the attendance was encouraging. The plowing matches were postponed to the 25th. Thirty-five first premiums, seventeen second premiums, and three third premiums were awarded. Of these, nineteen first premiums went to citizens of East Troy: William Bates, James Booker, Josiah F. Brooks (3). Homer Brooks (2). Jacob Burgit, S. Buel Edwards, Charles Hillard, Cephas Hurlburt. Mrs. John A. Larkin, S. McNair, Michael O'Regan, Joel Pond. Elijah Pound, Walter A. Taylor, Emery Thayer (2). To men of Troy, five first premiums : Hiram Brewster, William Lumb, John J. Olds, Paris Pettit, Augustus Smith. Other first premiums were awarded to Franklin Kelsey Phoenix, of Delavan; Charles W. Smedley, of Hudson; William Child. of Lafayette : James Lauderdale, of Lagrange. Mr. Phoenix displayed twenty-five varieties of apples and a noteworthy entry of garden stuff. Josiah F. Brooks sold two bulls, brought from New York, one at two hundred and ten dollars, the other at one hundred and fifty dollars.
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