The history of Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, Part 61

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

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HISTORY OF FOND DU LAC COUNTY.

Strong, Sarah A. Strong, James R. Strong, Emily Strong, Asenath Hubbell, William W. Hubbell, John A. Hubbell, George W. Clark, Mary M. Clark, W. H. Clark, George Clark, Gersham Danks, Caroline A. Danks, Adeline E. Danks, Henry C. Danks, Richard D. Mason, William Starr, Linus B. Brainard, James Clarkson, Job Bennett, Stephen Bates, Emily Bur- gess, Russel Smith, Eliza Smith, Julia M. Smith, Hezekiah G. Smith, Martin L. Smith, Ellen E. Smith, Phoebe Ann Smith, James M. Edgerton, Byron S. Sanborn, Adaline Sanborn, Josephine M. Sanborn, Arabella A. Sanborn, Caroline M. Sanborn, Mary A. Sanborn, Betsey Parsons, Levi Parsons, Pamila Woodruff, Frank Woodruff, Mary R. Wilson, Samuel Babcock, Rachael Babcock, Aaron C. Babcock, Henry C. Babcock, Walter S. Babcock, Stephen V. Babcock, Simeon Babcock, Hitty Ann Babcock, Charles F. Timan, Mrs. Sophia Stevens, William P. Stevens, Eunice E. Stevens, Duane Doty Stevens, Robert Miller, Margaret Miller, Margaret A. Miller, William Miller, Elizabeth Miller, Minerva J. Miller, Mary Jane Miller, Lucina Miller, John Irving, Mary Irving, Elsy M. Irving, Isabella Miller, George Miller, Lucy M. Kellogg, Agnes Kellogg, llelen S. Kellogg, Sarah Limbert, Emma J. Limbert, Al- bert Shepard, Nancy Shepard, Merrit Shepard, Albert Shepard, Jr., Mary Bennett, David O. French, James M. Boutelle, Charles W. Carntz, David D. Martin, Mary E. Martin, Mary J. Martin, Cassius C. Martin, Esther Martin, Louisa Shelden, Olive Shielden, - Shelden, Mary J. Lane, Elihu R. Rounds, Melissa B. Rounds, Mary J. Rounds, Lucy A. Hunter, James M. Clark, Mrs. Celestia M. Clark, James Maxwell Clark. Miss Celestia M. Clark, Alice Caro- line Clark, Benjamin Wright, Sally Wright, A. D. Wright, Julia A. Wright, S. J. Wright, Melvira M. Wright, David Simpson, Harriet Edgerton, Leroy Edgerton, Orrin Devine Wright, Melissa J. Adkins, George Adkins, Garrett H. Baker, Elmina Baker, Mary Eliza Baker, Ellen L. Baker, Hannah D. Baker, Charlotte A. Haven, Harriet H. Haven and Matthew Limbert.

Warren Chase, the leader of the Ceresco Colony, was born in Pittsfield, N. 11., January 5, 1813. Was educated at the academies of Pittsfield and Gilmanton, N. II., and in 1835 emi- grated to Michigan and settled in Monroe, where he married Mary T. White. of Newport, N. H., who died in November, 1875, leaving three children, the eldest, Milton Chase, M. D., now living in Otsego, Mich .. and who was Assistant Surgeon of the Sixth Michigan Volunteer In- fantry during the war, the second, Mrs. C. C. Whelpley, residing in Cobden, Ill., and the third, Albert Chase, residing in St. Mary's, Mo., not married. In the spring of 1838, Mr. Chase moved from Monroe to Southport, Wis. (now Kenosha), where he resided till the spring of 1844. when he came with a colony and settled in the northwestern corner township of this county which at that time had no settler and which the colony named Ceresco (now Ripon.) He re- sided there until 1853, when he moved to Battle Creek, Mich. During this time, he held the office of Chairman of the Board of Supervisors one year, was elected a member from this county, of the two Constitutional Conventions, and to the first State Senate from this and Winnebago Counties, which then constituted the Senatorial District. In the second session of the Senate, he was on the Judiciary Committee when the revised statutes were adopted .*

In 1872, Mr. Chase was elected one of the Presidential Electors of Missouri, residing then in St. Louis. In 1876, he moved to California and settled in Santa Barbara, where he now resides and is editor of the Santa Barbara Independent. In September, 1879, he was elected to the State Senate of California for three years from the three counties of Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Luis Obispo, and took his seat in the Senate of that State January 5, 1880, the day he was sixty-seven years old.

* He was the Free-Soil candidate for Governor of the State in 1850, and on the Electoral Ticket for Hall and Julien in 1852, and delegate to the National Convention.

CHAPTER V.

FOND DU LAC COUNTY BIBLE SOCIETY-COUNTY COURT HOUSE AND JAIL-COUNTY POOR FARM AND BUILDINGS-AGRICULTURE IN FOND DU LAC COUNTY-THE DAIRYING INTERESTS OF FOND DU LAC COUNTY -- COUNTY AGRICULTURAL AND MECHANICAL SOCIETY-RIPON AGRI- CULTURAL ASSOCIATION-PLANK ROADS-RAILROADS-FOND DU LAC COUNTY A QUARTER OF A CENTURY AGO-A TERRIBLE DISASTER.

FOND DU LAC COUNTY BIBLE SOCIETY.

On the 17th day of June, 1847; a meeting of the friends of the Bible cause was held . at the Court House, in the village of Fond du Lac, for the purpose of forming a Bible Society for the county, which should be auxiliary to the North Wisconsin Bible Society. A constitution was presented and adopted, after which William H. Sampson was elected President: M. S. Gib- son, Vice President ; L. C. Spofford, Secretary, and K. Gillett, Treasurer. These officers were chosen for one year. The object of the Society was declared, by the constitution, to be " to pro- mote the circulation of the Scriptures without note or comment." For the next twenty years annual and called meetings were held to promote the circulation of the Bible within the county, when, on February 24, 1867, at an annual meeting, a new constitution was adopted. The society was now named " The Bible Society of Fond du Lac County, Auxiliary to the American Bible Society." The object of the Society was declared to be " to promote the circulation of the Holy Scriptures, 'without note or comment,' and, in English, those of the commonly re- ceived version." The officers under the new constitution (elected for one year) were, for Presi- dent, I. K. Hamilton : Vice President, N. C. Griffin; Secretary, J. E. Peabody ; Treasurer, J. C. Huber. At the annual meeting held December 15, 1878, John S. MeDonald was elected President ; Prof. C. A. Hutchins, Vice President ; P. B. Haber, Secretary, and J. C. Huber. Treasurer.

COUNTY COURT HOUSE AND JAIL.

The Court House is by no means a credit to the county of Fond du Lac, nor in keeping with its wealth and importance. Another building to take its place is expected soon to be erected. As a new Court House is now a necessity and likely soon to be a reality, the present rickety structure, which, during ten years, has been the butt of all manner of jokes by judges, lawyers, newspapers and travelers, will be dealt with more briefly in this history than it otherwise would have been.

On the 4th of March, 1844, Dr. Mason C. Darling and Naomi Darling, his wife, executed a warranty deed to the Board of Supervisors of the county of Fond du Lac, Territory of Wis- consin, of the land on which the Court House now stands, the consideration being $1 in hand paid, and a contract to build and locate a County Court House thereon. This parcel of land is on the corner of Main street and Western avenue, and is described in the deed as follows : " North half of the northeast quarter of Seetion 15, Town 15 north, of Range 17 east, of the Fourth Meridian east, in Green Bay Land District, and containing 90,000 square feet." At the same time, Dr. Darling entered into the following bond :

KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS, That I, Mason C. Darling, of Fond du Lac, county of Fond du Lac, Ter- ritory of Wisconsin, am hereby held and firmly bound unto the Board of Supervisors of the county of Fond du Lac, in the sum of $500, good and lawful money of the United States, to be paid to the said Board of Supervisors or their successors, to which payment well and truly to be made, I do bind myself, my heirs, executors and adminis- trators firmly by these presents, sealed with my seal, and dated this 4th day of March, A. D. 1844. The condition

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HISTORY OF FOND DU LAC COUNTY.

of this obligation is such that if the above bounden Mason C. Darling, shall provide, or cause to be provided, a suit- able room for the use of the county of Fond du Lac, free of expense, theu this obligation shall be null and void, otherwise to remain in full force and virtue. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal the day and year first above written.

K. A. P. DARLING, HIELEN M. DARLING. J Witnesses.

[Signed] MASON C. DARLING.

These instruments were acknowledged before Alonzo Raymond, Justice of the Peace, and recorded by Osear Pier, Register of Deeds, on the same day.

On the 14th of October, 1846, the Board of Supervisors accepted plans for a Court House by Brown & Arnold (Isaac Brown and Leonard Arnold) and directed that the plans be left with Edward Pier for the inspection of mechanies. The Board paid Arnold $10 for plans and specifications.

The manner of paying for the Court House and " Gaol " (jail) was determined by the Super- visors like this : October 14, 1846, $1,400 was appropriated out of the treasury for the jail, which was a part of the building ; one-half of balance to be paid February 1, 1848, and the residue, February 1, 1849. With a drollery not appreciated at the time, doubtless, it was solemnly ordered that if anything remained after the "residue " had been paid, it should draw 10 per cent interest. At a special session of the Board, the report of the Building Committee was accepted September 11, 1848, adding $100 for " stoves and fixtures for the Court House."

The building, above the basement, which is of stone and was the first County Jail, is of wood, and three stories in height. The second floor is used for elections by the town of Fond du Lac, and for jury rooms, and the third floor for elections by the First Ward of the city, and for holding terms of the County and Circuit Courts. It is dirty, shabby, and poorly ventilated ; nevertheless, the wits of the State have exhausted their stoek-in-trade in praising it, as witness the following :

"The same year that Wisconsin was admitted into the Union as a State, Fond du Lac County built a Court House. At that time, it was regarded as a model architectural pile, and it was built to stay. It was founded upon a roek ; for men were pure in those days; and the winds and rains of forty years have beat upon that house, and still it stands, a noble wreck in ruinous perfection. The elements have failed to sap it, and no amount of prayer or profanity has been sufficient to consign it to . where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenehed.' Ineendiaries, who are thoroughly depraved and have not one redeeming quality, have persist- ently and maliciously withheld the torch. Like the Pennsylvania Democrat, who has wended his way to the polls every election since 1840, and consistently put in a vote for Gen. Jackson, the Fond du Lae Court House maintains its position and repels all innovations. The story that the wood of which a part of it is composed was once a part of a celebrated vessel, and that a boy who was on board the vessel eut his name in one of the planks with a jack-knife, is doubt- less untrue. It is believed that a young lawyer, in Judge McLean's court, eut the name him- self, while waiting for the opposing counsel to make his plea, and that the word is 'Joseph,' instead of . Japhet.' And still the building is pretty old."

The following imaginative sketch is from a Fond du Lac paper: "The plans for our elegant new Court House were drawn up a few days before election. The building was to eost not less than $9.000,000. The contract, which has been awarded, required that the mate- rial should be purchased at the following rates: Stone, $1,000 per cord; lumber, $956 per thousand ; shingles, $100 per thousand, and nails $40 per pound.

"The building is now finished and ready for occupaney. It stands on the old site, at the head of Fourth street, and is an imposing structure. It is 400x400 feet square, 100 feet from the ground to the cornice and 400 feet to the splendid bronze statute on the dome. It is built of the finest Parian marble, trimmed with purple porphyry. The basement is for the use of the County Board, and has a committee-room in the back end with walls forty feet in thickness. It has no windows, and but one small iron door. In one corner is a splendid bar-room and back of it a poker-room. The first floor above the basement is divided into six rooms-three on either side of the hallway-which are occupied by the Clerk of the Court, County Clerk, Register of

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HISTORY OF FOND DU LAC COUNTY.

Deeds and County Superintendent. The second floor is the court room. It takes up the entire dimensions of the building, with the exception of the vestibule. At the west end is the bench for the Judge. It is built of solid granite, trimmed with pearl and Mt. Ophir gold, the seat being hollow for ice in summer and hot air or coals in winter. Under the desk is a large cup- board with time-lock, for bottles and demijohns, and a newly invented beautiful spirit lamp ingeniously arranged for making toddies. These are all out of sight of the audienec. On the right of the bench is a monster pair of highly finished and perfect scales, in which every ease is weighed by the Judge ; and on the left a dungeon in which refractory witnesses are confined until they will swear as they have been instructed. The garret is used for empty bottles.

" The dome is a beautiful piece of workmanship, something of which the tax-payers should be proud, for it is not every county that can boast of a steeple 400 feet high and surmounted by a bronze statue. The whole building is carpeted and richly furnished, and is lighted with electricity.

" It is indeed a magnificent pile, shimmering in the sunlight like a mountain of jewels, and giving all better thoughts by its striking resemblance to the walls of the City of Life. It is the temple of justice, whose glittering dome shines like a beacon far over the prairies, rivers and lakes, guiding the benighted travelers from Green Bay, Sheboygan, Madison and Milwaukee to the Second City, with all her splendors and purity of politics."

The Connty Register's office, which may be called an appendage of the Court House, a one-story building of brick, stone and iron, was finished in 1854, by John Nichols, and cost about $1,200. It is fire proof, the floor and walls being stone and roof being covered with ashes to the depth of two feet. There were no fire-proof rooms in the Court House, which fact made necessary the erection of this building, which stands on the northwest corner of the lot donated in 1844 by Dr. Mason C. Darling to the county for county buildings. It is now as full of records as is convenient, and if a new Court House is not built soon, a new Register's office will be required.

When the Court House was erected, it combined a court-room, offices for all county offi- cials and a jail in the heavy stone basement. After a few years, this basement not only got out of repair, but was too small for all intended purposes, namely, a place of confinement for pris- oners and a residence for the Sheriff and Jailer. Therefore, in 1869, the County Board made an appropriation for the erection of a county jail building, and the contraet was let to Theodore Euł. The superintending architect was Thomas H. Green, of Fond du Lac, but the specifica- tions and plans, which required that the structure should be of stone and iron, were by G. P. Randall, of Chicago. It was finished ready for occupancy in 1869; is located on the west side of Linden street, not far from Western avenue, in the city of Fond du Lac, and cost $42,000. The main walls are of Fond du Lac gray limestone, with dressings for the doors and windows. of Joliet stone. The cells, of which there are twenty-eight single and six double ones, arranged in two tiers, are inclosed by slabs of Joliet stonc. The portion of the jail building nsed as a residence and office by the Sheriff, is 34x45 feet, and two and one-half stories high, with base- ment for kitchen and storcrooms. The prison proper is 34x58 feet, two stories high and very strongly built. The outer walls, through which prisoners have several times made their escape, were strengthened with iron in 1878. No prisoners ever escaped when locked in their cells.

COUNTY POOR FARM AND BUILDINGS.

The County Poor Farm consists of 172 acres of as good farming lands as exist in Fond du Lac County, situated in Sections 21 and 28, town of Fond du Lac. The first purchase of land for the purpose of supporting and furnishing a home and a place to work for the indigent inhab- itants of the county, was made in December, 1856, being seventy acres of the present farm. The cost was $2,640. Other tracts have since been added, the last being by M. W. Simmons, of twenty-six acres, at a cost of $1,040. Thus the whole farm embraced 176 acres, less the right of way for the Chicago & North-Western, and the Fond du Lac, Amboy & Peoria (narrow

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HISTORY OF FOND DU LAC COUNTY.

gauge) Railways. The farm is in an excellent state of cultivation, nearly enough potatoes, wheat, oats, rye, corn and vegetables for the paupers and insane being produced from it. Cows are also kept, which produce milk and butter, and, in 1879, 10,000 pounds of pork and 2,000 pounds of beef were produced and packed on the farm. To do this, not a dollar was expended by the county for labor, the paupers under Michael Gaertner, Overseer of the farm, being able to perform all the work of tilling, seeding, harvesting and storing. This is a better showing than for previous years, because never before had there been so many paupers able to perform manual labor sent to the Poor Farm.

The buildings, except the Insane Asylum, erected in 1878, are not worthy of extended mention. The building occupied by the Overseer of the Poor Farm is of wood, and those occupied by the paupers are of gravel and considerably out of repair; that is, they are old and cracked. They were all erected by the county. Until 1878, the incurably insane and all the paupers, whether sick or not, were confined together. This was a source of trouble to the Overseer, of danger to the paupers, and of annoyance and continued irritation to the demented. Therefore, during 1878, under the statutes which grant authority to each county to provide for the incurably insane by and within its own borders, a commodious, substantial and beautiful building of brick, iron and stone was erected. The architect was Thomas H. Green, of Fond du Lac, and the cost about $7,000. It is a model building for asylum purposes, and its inmates are as comfortable, safe and well cared for as those of the State hospitals for the insane. The main building is 28x70, with thirty-two dormitories, arranged in two tiers. sixteen on each floor. The building is two stories high, with basement. On the west side is a wing 14x173 feet, used as a reception room below and for the attendants above. The entire building is ceiled with matched and beaded oak, and is provided with an admirable system of ventilation. It contains two Boyanton furnaces for warmth, in which wood cut on the farm is burned. Although in use only one year, the asylum is nearly full of incurables. At the beginning of 1880, the county poor buildings had fifty-eight inmates. Of these, thirty-one are insane. The list shows that twenty-one are chargeable to Fond du Lac City, three to Fond du Lac Town. two to Ashford, three to Auburn, three to Alto, one to Calumet, two to Friendship, one to For- est, three to Eldorado, four to Lamartine, one to Metomen, two to Ripon, three to Oakfield. two to Osceola, two to Wanpun, two to Taycheedah, and three are "transients."

Up to the December session of the County Board in 1879, the general system of support- ing the paupers of the county had been in vogue. That is, all the expenses of maintaining the Poor Farm and its inmates, as well as furnishing fuel, clothing and food to those indigent per- sons who did not live at the farm, was charged to the whole county in a general tax. This was not satisfactory to all cities and towns, as some of them had no paupers and others had a large number of them. Under this system, the county was divided into three districts, and the County Board, by statute authority, elected a Superintendent of Poor for each district. This was supplanted by the town system in December, 1879. The Superintendents offices were a bolished and the Chairman of each town and ward charged with looking after the poor of his precinct. The County Farm is kept up, but the expense of running it and supporting the paupers is charged to the towns or wards which have paupers thus maintained, in proportion to the number each has been credited with at the farm. The average cost of supporting the paupers and incurably insane, including all salaries, medieal attendance and aid furnished to families not at the county farm, has been about $12,000 per year. It is thought the new system will reduce these figures somewhat.

Before the county purchased a Poor Farm in 1856, its paupers were cared for at certain. rates by C. D. Kendall, who lived near the present Poor Farm.

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HISTORY OF FOND DU LAC COUNTY.

AGRICULTURE IN FOND DU LAC COUNTY.

He who follows agriculture is the pioneer in all new countries, and prepares the way for lawyer, editor, miller, minister, blacksmith, and all others who depend upon anything but farm- ing for a livelihood, and who never fail to come after them when the soil has been made suffi- ciently productive. The carly settlers of Fond du Lac County were no exception to this rule. On the 21st of April, 1837, Colwert and Edward Pier turned the first furrow in the county about one mile south of where the Court House now stands in the city of Fond du Lac. Six days later, they sowed wheat, oats and peas. The year before this, a few potatoes and garden vege- tables were raised near the corner of Brooke and Rees streets, in the city of Fond du Lac, by Colwert Pier. In the town of Waupun the work of tilling the soil was begun in the spring of 1839, by Seymour Wilcox, John N. Ackerman and Hiram Walker. They raised no wheat, but had potatoes, corn and roots enough for their own use.

From these small beginnings agriculture has grown to astonishing proportions in Fond du Lac County, and, although considerable attention is given to manufacturing, still represents the bulk of capital and population. Any other condition of things would be unnatural, as, with its rich soil and good markets, the county has always furnished a field for the most profitable returns of industry, skill and means applied to the labor of tilling the ground. The whole county is more than usually well watered. Where there are no springs, lakes and streams, good water is obtained at a moderate depth.

Generally speaking, the soil is most suitable for raising wheat, or was when new, and that has always been the principal product. Winter wheat was largely sown at first and returned profitable yields, especially in the "openings." Spring wheat throve better on the prairies, where the soil was less adapted to winter grain, and the winter winds were more severe. Win- ter grain was abandoned almost entirely, and for twenty-five years, up to 1879, spring wheat has taken the lead. In the fall of that year, owing to the unprofitable returns from an overworked soil, and the disastrous effects of drought, chinch-bugs and weevil, large quantities of winter wheat were put in everywhere in the county.

The nine towns constituting the western portion of the county of Fond du Lac-Ripon. Metomen, Alto, Waupun, Springvale and Rosendale-in soil and surface, differ somewhat from the towns lying east of them. Nature seems to have indicated this difference by extending Lake Winnebago southward, in part dividing the east from the west on the borders of the timber and prairie. In the nine towns just named, there are prairies, openings and marshes, and originally. there were groves of heavy forest trees. The territory is well watered by springs and brooks, by Silver Creek, and by branches of Rock, Fond du Lac, and Grand Rivers. The soil is an argillaceous loam, moderately mixed with sand and lime, and resting on a thin layer of lime- stone much broken and occasionally interspersed with knobs of gravel ; underlying the whole is a red sandstone which occasionally crops out in the ravines. On a few of the highest points on the prairies, mostly in the towns of Ripon and Metomen, the limestone comes to the surface, but, in some of the higher points in the openings, the gravel appears at the surface. This por- tion of the county, as elsewhere explained, dates the commencement of its settlement virtually in the years 1844 and 1845, although there were a few settlers there before those years. Most of the first farmers came from New England, and adopted, generally, the mode of farming then practiced in the East. Since that time, experience as to the capacity of the soil and as to the climate, has caused, of course, considerable change in the methods of farming in this region as it has elsewhere.

The towns in the eastern portion of the county have more lime in the soil. more swamps of tamarack and ash, more glades of wild hay, more tracts of heavy timber, more hills, more gravel beds and more heavy outcroppings of limestone. In short, the soil and capacity of farms arc more diversified.

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The history of Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, Part 61

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