The history of Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, Part 53

Author:
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago, Western historical company
Number of Pages: 1082

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Pioneers always have some doleful tales to tell of privations and hardships gone through with in settling up a new country, but I have none to relate. When I was a boy, I had some experi- ence in the hardships of clearing up heavy timber, but here we had none of that. Our meadows were all ready to put in the scythe and cut all the hay we wanted. The ground was already cleared, ready to put in the plow. Could there be anything more delightful than our work in improving our prairie farms ? And they have paid so well! You farmers must not get the blues. Wheat will rise in value. If it does not, raise something else. Your lands are rich, you have good markets at your door, and you get your lumber here in Ripon as cheap as it can be purchased anywhere in the country. The climate here is as good as any in the world; no long droughts, but alternate rain and sunshine. I hear some wishing they could sell out and go where the winters are shorter. Why are you so fearful of winter ? You are not obliged to do more than to make the contrast agreeable. Your fuel is cheap ; so fill your stove, look out of the window and whistle at the cold. Do not go away from Central Wisconsin to find a better place-you cannot do it ! You may be proud to say, when away from home. that you hail from Ripon.

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HISTORY OF FOND DU LAC COUNTY.

If your daughter is educated at Ripon College, that will pass her to a good husband ; if your son is schooled here, his addresses will be cordially received in the best families of the country. I have seen the little girl grow up here to be the accomplished lady ; to be the bride gracing the drawing-rooms of Eastern cities. My own daughter was schooled here. She and her husband went away from Ripon. They brought her back and laid her upon that beautiful hill ! Beautiful? Yes, if there can be beauty in a graveyard, it is in that spot of ground lying in the very center of the city, so retired from the stir and bustle of business ; it is " death in the midst of life." I have dear friends there; and when the time comes that I must go, yon that may be present, lay me quietly by their side. Were I to tell you how many years I have lived, you might think that that time cannot be delayed long, and it may not be, but it is not the number of years that always make men old, but how those years have been lived !

I had almost forgotten some of our early institutions. When I speak of our first livery stable it will cause a smile upon the face of him who recollects the proprietor-Jesse Campion. Do you see him ? an English plowman, with a walk that gave a peculiar swing to his body. as though one foot was traveling on the land and the other in the furrow. His "'orses " were three, one spavined, and two ringboned. He used to carry his passengers by weight ; distance was of no account, for his customers had to pay his bills on the road. His was the first wedding in the city. Ile married a Yankee girl.

The first dray horse in Ripon was " Dick." He had the misfortune to break a leg while on the road from Milwaukee to Ripon, and was turned out to die ; but "Dick " did not die. His leg calloused over so that he could be used, and the public did their draying with him. He was a sort of public property, for he who got " Dick " up first had the best right. But the citizens began to quarrel who should use him, and, as he was my property, I sold him into other service.

Our first Congregational clergyman was a young man by the name of Sherrill. He was fresh from the schools, and had much to learn of Western men and manners. He officiated at the second wedding, and weddings of those days were not as Ripon weddings now are. The groom was a young carpenter of about twenty years, the bride a young girl of about thirty. They had walked about six miles to the village and found Mr. Sherrill away from home, but he was expected back soon. They waited ; the hours went away slowly to them ; the girl got very impatient, and would go to the window every few minutes, fearing, apparently, that he would not come so as to marry them that night. But he came at last, and the poor girl was happy.

At an early day, when the community resorted to hot bricks, and, perhaps, a little No. 6 for medicine, we had no drug stores. Perhaps Mr. Northrup or Mr. Starr might have supplied us with opodeldoc or pain-killer, but that would have been all. Now we have fine and extensive drug stores, the fixtures of which are alone worth more than the whole of Ripon was then.

Now we have extensive stocks of boots and shoes; but, in pioneer days. the best you could do was to get a pair of stogies of Mr. Starr. I remember one pair that he sold. An immigrant, who had just moved into the town of Rosendale, walked into Ceresco barefooted to get himself boots. He said he had a pair at home that were calfskin, but for every-day use they were too costive ' Mr. Starr sold him a pair less costive.

If we had in those early days a milliner shop, the business must have been poor, for, at that time, our ladies were glad to trim over their old bonnets, and make the new ones themselves. Now, it is changed. In war times, this business was prosperons, and the shops made money, and built up several fine establishments for such as kept up with the fashions and tastes of the day. I think the gentlemen, who have now to pay millinery bills, ought to be thankful for the late improvements ; for a lady's hat used to cost $10 and upward, but they must be cheaper now they are so very small. I do not mean to ridicule the fashions, for I like to see a well- dressed lady, and see her dress in the fashion. Gentlemen who travel much know how a well- dressed lady looks to them after making a trip up in the backwoods where the poor woman has to work hard and go barefooted.

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HISTORY OF FOND DU LAC COUNTY.

Now, take Ripon as it was and compare it with the present, and are we not all satisfied with its progress ? Take Ripon as she is and compare her with other places, and is there not full reason to be proud of her ?

VI .- BY GUSTAVE DE NEVEU. 1875.

On the 20th day of April, 1838, I came from Detroit to Green Bay on a rickety old steam- boat whose name I have forgotten, but believe it was called the Pennsylvania. We had a terri- bly rough passage and came pretty near going down to the bottom of Lake Huron. The water was knee-deep in the cabin ; we had to stand on chairs and tables or to lie in the upper berths in order to keep ourselves dry. This was during a dark night opposite Saginaw Bay. We were unable to make the safe harbor of Presque Isle in the dark, as there was not a single lighthouse in those days on the eastern shores of Michigan between Fort Gratiot and Mackinaw, a stretch of about two hundred and fifty miles, and had to put back to Port Huron.

While in Green Bay, hearing excellent accounts of the country about the head of Lake Winnebago. its farthest end, as the French name of Fond du Lac implies, I made up my mind to visit it. Through the kind offices of Messrs. Charles and Alex. Grignon, sons of Augustin Grignon, of Big Butte des Morts Lake, I procured the services of two Menomonee Indians, who understood French, and started with them in a bark canoe. At night, the canoe was drawn upon the shore, carefully propped on edge, answering the purpose of a tent : a fire was kindled opposite, and as we always had plenty of ducks and fish besides the provisions we had brought along, we were very comfortable. Thus I visited Neenah, Garlic Island, the present site of the city of Oshkosh and Lake Buttes des Morts as far as Winneconne. At Oshkosh, Mrs. Stanley, of that place, wishing to visit the family of Edward Pier, asked me to give her passage in my boat, which, as there was plenty of room, I readily granted. We passed the old log house, erected by the Fond du Lac Company, which many of you no doubt remember, and landed on the prairie, near the place where Mr. George Mc Williams' house stands, this point being apparently the head of canoe navigation, and walked across the prairie to the house of Mr. Pier, which was in sight from that point and about one mile and a half distant. Like all the other houses in the country at that time, it was constructed of logs. It stood not far from the place now occu- pied by his residence. We were very cordially received. Hearing of a little lake seen by Mr. Pier in the vicinity, I resolved to visit it, and so the next morning I started with Albert Ken- dall, a brother of Mrs. Pier. We found the lake and walked clear around it, returning to Mr. Pier's house by noon. The lake was charming in its quiet beauty ; its placid face reflected the surrounding woods which bent down over it as if endeavoring to kiss the waves. I was quite charmed by the scene and resolved that Uncle Sam and myself would have a trade about that lake. This was consummated on the 17th of May by my purchasing the lake and all the land around it, and also the quarter-section in the town of Fond du Lac now owned by Mr. James Wright, being something over five hundred acres.

Permit ine here to correct, for perhaps the hundredth time, a mistake which, the more it is contradicted the more it seems to gain currency, viz., that I purchased that lake believing it to be a marsh. From what I have just said, my hearers will certainly know how utterly impos- sible it was for me to have made such a mistake. I presume that the report originated from the fact that when I arrived at Green Bay to buy the tract, I found that the Government Surveyor who had surveyed the lake in the winter had failed to perform his duty, and had found it more convenient to report it as a marsh than to ascertain its nature and meander it as he should have done. The officers in the land office had no discretionary powers in the premises and I had to pay for the lake which the partiality of my neighbors had named after me, or to go without it. But I do not regret my action. The lake is well worth all I had to pay for it.

The next day I went back to my bark canoe, taking back Mrs Stanley to Oshkosh. well pleased with her visit. At Grand Chute, now Appleton, I enjoyed the splendid excitement, not free from danger, of shooting down the fall, some seven feet almost perpendicular. and of admir- ing the skill with which the guides avoided the rocks in the rapids below, the contact of which would have been instant death.

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HISTORY OF FOND DU LAC COUNTY.

A few days later, having completed my purchase and procured some necessary articles, I took advantage of the company of a body of troops marching from Green Bay to Fort Winne- bago, now Portage. Capt. Marryatt, the humorous novelist, was one of the party. We were together much of the time, shooting pigeons and partridges, while the soldiers were engaged in cutting and repairing the military road. The Captain was on his way to St. Louis, with the intention of visiting the Western plains to the Rocky Mountains, and invited me to accompany him at his expense. I thankfully but firmly declined the offer, having traced out a different line. After all, Capt. Marryatt never visited the Western plains, being recalled home sooner than he had expected.

And now commeneed for me the hardships incident to a new settlement in a wild country -hardships of such a discouraging nature that when I look back upon those early days, I often wonder how I could have withstood them, why I did not run away from my purchase and go back to a civilized country, where I could earn my living in a far easier way. But Horaee was probably not the first who observed that man is so constituted that he is rarely satisfied with the condition in which he finds himself, and is seduced mostly by what lie does not possess. That is what ailed Robinson Crusoe and many others, besides myself. I had been for a few years past following the profession of a teacher of the French language, for which I was tolerably well qualified ; but my perverse nature and desires would lead me to become a tiller of the soil, for which I was not qualified at all, and, let me add, probably never can be ; for farming is, in the main, composed of two things: a very moderate amount of theory and a very large amount of practice. After a while, things began to look very discouraging. There was a large amount of things to be done, such as clearing, fencing, building, ete., and an equally large amount of nothing to do them with. My pile, never very large, grew smaller by degrees, and I soon found the bottom of it.

At the time I erected my log house, in May, 1838, there were four others in the county, those of Colwert Pier, of Edward Pier, the old Fond du Lac House and that of Luke Laborde, mine being the fifth and the only one of them still left standing. Dr. Darling, who had origin- ally settled at Sheboygan, came to Fond du Lac about the time I did, but did not build his log house, long since removed and whose place is now occupied by Darling's Block, until the fall following.

That year, a few families settled in the county, among whom I remember particularly Mr. Calvin Pier, his wife and such members of his family as were not already here; also Joseph Olmsted, his son-in-law ; Mr. Wilcox settled at Waupun. A. D. Clark was erecting a saw-mill on the school seetion. Two brothers by the name of Palmer were staying with John Bannister. Frank McCarty and Reuben Simmons moved to Taycheedah with large families, in the early spring of 1839. John T. Denniston and family lived with me. Among the early settlers I remember. besides those named above. Patrick Kelly, William Stewart, Alonzo Raymond. John Case, Samuel Wilkinson, William Hayes, Harvey Peck (now of La Crosse), William Lalondre, Raphael St. Mary and Brouillard, Joseph and Frank King, William Parsons, Samuel Butler, John Treleven and his three brothers-Joseph, Daniel and Thomas, George W. Eliott, B. F. Smith, Mr. Perry (father of two bankers of Fond du Lac), D. C. Brooks, Charles, Juba and Erastus Olmsted, Gen. Ruggles, Joseph Clark, who, if I mistake not, were all here by or before 1842. In the fall of 1841, Mr. Joseph L. Moore started a store at Taycheedah, and Mr. Frank Moore, his relative, came with him. It was a great convenience for the people to have a store where they could procure necessaries. Moses Gibson started a store upon the Main street of Fond du Lac, about the same time. and Messrs. Clock and Weikert also opened one in the old Fond du Lac log house.

Until 1840, the Indians in this county outnumbered the whites at least ten to one ; they were generally friendly, bringing venison and other game and wild honey and skins for sale or exchange; but sometimes they would kill hogs that they never paid for and had a way of set- ting the woods on fire while hunting deer, burning up fences and pastures.

In 1840, John Bannister took the United States census, and I think the number of whites of all ages was 139, all told. in Fond du Lac County.

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HISTORY OF FOND DU LAC COUNTY.

In 1843, Col. H. Conklin moved with his family to the farm now owned by Mr. Lyman Phillips. Gov. Tallmadge also came along about that time, and the ledge in Empire and Eden was rapidly settled by Messrs. David Lyons, John and Henry Westervelt, Germond, Shoe- maker, Mayhew, Sweet, Hatch, Vincent, and many other gentlemen, who came principally from Dutchess County, N. Y., a valuable accession to the county.

Before 1841, the settlers received all their goods and furniture from Green Bay, by way of the Fox River and Lake Winnebago. They were brought up in Durham boats, carrying eight or ten tons and propelled up the rapids by a crew of ten or twelve men, the price charged being $1 per hundred pounds. The boats belonged to a company with the high-sounding name of Fox River Transportation Company. Considering the laborious process of propelling the boats up the rapids and making several portages, the price was certainly reasonable, although when added to Green Bay prices it made commodities very dear to people who had hardly any means of raising money.

The settlers generally brought with them clothing enough to last a year or two; but in spite of all the good wife could do in the way of mending and patching, it could not last for- ever. Everything is perishable in this world and somehow clothes have a wicked way of being most perishable of all: after awhile the original garments would not bear the patches. What was to be done? Good looks will hardly pay for a new suit, especially in a country where there are no stores. So it came to pass that the settlers bought from the Indians buckskin coats, without being too particular about their being second-hand articles and smelling smoky. Almost every one of the early settlers sported his Indian coat in those days, and I must confess that they were quite light and comfortable, but they looked neither dandy nor very dignified. Even the grave old doctor who founded the city of Fond du Lac wore one of the things at times, and I must say that he did not look like a learned doctor at all. But still he looked somewhat like an Indian doctor. The Indians called him Mushkiki-enini, the medicine man.

The pants were often made of buckskin also ; more frequently the tattered garment was faced with buckskin over the front, which operation gave it a longer lease of life and usefulness, and, like charity, threw a mantle over many failings. Could you now see those courageous and worthy men, many of whom have reached their last resting-places, leaving honored names and good deeds behind them, file down Main street on a busy day, it would no doubt provoke a smile, but with them it was the result of sheer necessity.

What about their fare ? Milk and butter they had in abundance, and also pork and excellent potatoes. They had enough of coarse food : but as you know, variety is the spice of life, and to eat constantly pork and potatoes and beans is apt to become monotonous in the end. George W. Featherstonchaugh, of Calumet, said that he had fed so constantly on pork, that he could not look a hog in the face without feeling guilty and blushing. Tea and coffee were quite scarce articles, as well as sugar, and were not used freely, although a little was kept for company. The country was ransacked for substitutes. Even such articles as wheat, barley, peas, beans, dandelion roots, crust coffee and many other substitutes, were resorted to and decorated with the names of tea and coffee, but when you came to taste, especially without sugar, the fraud was too palpable and would not go down, in spite of all assurances that the drink was very healthy indeed, far more so than the real articles, which, as everybody knows, are notori- ously injurious to the system. [ drank water mostly in those days.

The mail carrier had to do many errands for the settlers, buying for them in Green Bay such light articles as tea or tobacco, and he was therefore a very popular character with the settlers. But, after all, the greatest dependence in emergencies, and the one most practiced, was borrowing. Every family knew pretty accurately the condition of the neighbors' flour or pork barrel and supply of groceries. In case of sudden emergencies, some youngster was dis- patched to the neighbor with compliments and the request of the loan of a cupful of tea or some sugar, a few pounds of pork, or a panful or two of flour for a few days. Those few days were often protracted into weeks, but the borrower was seldom called upon to return the loan

FOND DU LAC'.

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HISTORY OF FOND DU LAC COUNTY.

until the lender herself found her own provision exhausted, when frequently both parties had to wait together for better times and more propitious skies.

After the establishment of stores the practice became less general.

Yet, in spite of these many privations, the settlers had many happy days. The positions in which they were placed made them more dependent on one another than now, and they were consequently excellent neighbors and always ready to assist each other, whether for a raising or a logging bee ; there was, I think, a greater cordiality. Often they would start in the morning, with the old sled drawn by the yoke of oxen, and visit a neighbor perhaps three or four miles away, and make a day of it, returning in time to do the chores and the milking, after enjoying their visit far more than our fashionable calls are now enjoyed. At those visits, each party told all its news, and talked over its plans for the future. Party politics were entirely ignored in those days, and the offices were bestowed upon the best men. There was also an inexpressible charm about the deep solitudes of the smiling prairies, dotted with beautifully variegated flowers. Delicious wild strawberries were so plenty in places, that one could hardly take a step without crushing some. The country was a very paradise for those who were fond of shooting, and many times I have got, in two or three hours, as many prairie chickens and pigeons as I could carry ; so that the people of the house declared they would throw them away unless I would do my share of the picking. The fish and water-fowl were equally abundant.

This county has now attained a large population and considerable wealth The original 139 of 1840 have grown into more than 50,000 in 1875. The poor early settlers are now living either in affluence, or, at least, in ease and comfort. Their days of hardships, privations and toil have passed away, and they can now sit under their own vine and fig-tree to enjoy the repose they have so richly earned. Wealth has increased at a greater ratio than population. Good dwellings have taken the place of the old log cabin, refinement has succeeded cramped poverty. Fine turn-outs and good roads have replaced the sled, and the ox team, and the Indian trail. Schoolhouses. some of them elegant structures, dot the land. This is as it should be, and with you I rejoice that it is so. But are we not running from one extreme into another? Are we not living a little too fast? Are our cakes and pies and puddings, our ice creams and sweet- meats and dainty fare generally as conducive to health and bodily vigor as the coarser food of former days? Do we take sufficient bodily exercise? Vigorous exercise creates a vigorous appetite for strong, solid food ; a lack of it leads to dyspepsia and pallid cheeks, to a want of desire for food : the appetite has to be coaxed with dainty delicacies and condiments which are injurious to the system. Late hours aggravate the evil. Please think a little on these things ; they deserve the consideration of all. Remember that there is neither happiness nor beauty without health.

I would especially say a word of advice to those who are tempted to run into debt for the acquisition of perishable articles of luxury. The day of reckoning must come and embitter the enjoyment. Debt, in itself an evil under any circumstances, is only tolerable when contracted for purposes of legitimate production, the acquirement of imperishable real estate or articles of necessity, never for the gratification of luxurious living or ostentation. Better wait a year or two and get what you wish when you have the money to pay with.

The periodical recurrence of commercial revulsions is always traceable, in a greater or lesser degree, to the prevalence of extravagant living and display and consequent debt in the community. Failures are simply impossibilities with those who owe nothing. A man who is largely in debt is like Damocles with a sword suspended by a thread over his head. Ile does not know when the sword is coming down; he is in constant dread and consequently cannot be happy. Micawber is right ; let us live within our means and display nothing but what is our own-what we have paid for.

A little reflection will enable you to understand how slow the improvement of the county must have been in the early times of its settlement. Nature had done much, it is true; the climate was healthful, although the winters were cold, the soil was as fertile as could be wished, prairies were inviting, and only required to be turned over to produce abundantly ; but everything

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had to be done, and there was not even a blacksmith-shop or a mill within twenty miles. We frequently ground wheat, or parched-corn, in our coffee-mills. If an ax or hoe was lost or broken, we had to procure others from Green Bay, sixty miles distant, a journey of three to four days on horseback, the roads being impassable for wagons on account of the deep mud holes : nor do I think that there was a single lumber-wagon in the settlement or a good span of horses. Hauling was mostly done with oxen with a sled or a cart.

Our mails were brought to us on the back of an Indian pony every Friday evening. John Bannister was the Postmaster at the old Fond du Lac log house. On that day, I usually left my place about 5 o'clock in the afternoon and walked down six miles to get my mail. But I never went without my dog and my trusty double-barrel. Sometimes on my return, between 10 and 11 at night, it was so dark that I could not see my way. I had to feel the old Indian trail, which was worn some six inches below the adjoining level, and if I stepped out of that trail I knew it instantly. I occasionally saw glaring eyes apparently looking at me as I walked along, but was never attacked.

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The history of Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, Part 53

Author: Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Chicago, Western historical company Number of Pages: 1082

Author:
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago, Western historical company
Number of Pages: 1082