The pioneers of Outagamie County, Wisconsin : containing the records of the Outagamie County Pioneer Association; also a biographical and historical sketch of some of the earliest settlers of the county, and their families, their children, and grand-children, Part 11

Author: Spencer, Elihu
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Appleton, Wis. : Post Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 314


USA > Wisconsin > Outagamie County > The pioneers of Outagamie County, Wisconsin : containing the records of the Outagamie County Pioneer Association; also a biographical and historical sketch of some of the earliest settlers of the county, and their families, their children, and grand-children > Part 11


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A vote of thanks was tendered to the singers and to the executive committee for their services in making the day a success, and to the gentleman who put a five dollar bill in the contribution. Notwithstanding the extremely cold weather the hall was well filled and every one was highly pleased with the exercises.


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Pioneers' Meeting, Feb. 22, 1890.


The Pioneers' Association met pursuant to notice in South Odd Fellows' Hall in Appleton, Feb. 22, 1890, for their annual festival. The meeting was called to order at 11 a. m. by Mr. John Dey the president; E. Spencer was present as secretary.


The first business in order was the election of officers for the ensuing year : John Dey was unanimously elected president; Joseph Rork, vice-president; John McGillan, treasurer; E. Spencer, secretary. The following executive committee was chosen: W. F. Johnston, Henry Kethroe, C. E. Spicer, J. S. Buck, Daniel Huntley.


The following resolution was adopted:


Resolved, That the date of the settlement of the pioneers as con- ditions of membership be stricken from our constitution, and all actual residents of the county be considered as members of our society.


The afternoon program of the pioneer meeting was of a highly interesting nature. When, at noon, after a brief business session, the company adjourned to partake of a sumptuous dinner the ladies had prepared, over seventy- five of the old sturdy pioneers of Outagamie county filed into the dining hall, and took seats about the heavily laden tables, which were spread with all the substantials and delicacies imaginable. An hour and a half later, when President John Dey called the meeting to order, the hall was unusually well filled with representatives from all parts of the county, who had come to share the pleasures of the event. To look over such an audience of gray- haired old settlers, who have withstood many a storm, im- pressed one deeply. The vicissitudinous lives they have lived, the dangers they have braved, the privations and hardships they have endured, together with the weight of


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years of unceasing toil, have left traces upon them that cannot be effaced.


As soon as all had become quiet the college quartette favored the audience with a song, after which Rev. Faville led in prayer. President John Dey made a few very appro- priate remarks. At the outset he requested those who had come to the county previous to the year 1849 to rise, and only four responded. In the year 1849, there were nine; in 1850, five; in 1851, two; in 1852, six; 1853, one; in 1855, five. Besides relating the changes that have taken place and the progress that has been made in the county, Mr. Dey called attention to the painful fact that since the asso- ciation last met a number of old pioneers, who were present at its last meeting, had been called home, and that the annual death rate in their ranks was exceedingly high.


Rev. Gardner followed next on the program, and he was not long in getting everyone in good humor. A letter from the Rev. P. S. Bennett was read by Rev. Faville. Mr. Bennett is now visiting his native place in New York, and in the letter related his pioneer experiences as a resident in the Empire state. The president then called on Henry Ryan, who excused himself by presenting Judge Myers and H. W. Tenney. Mr. Tenney responded. He spoke in a humorous vein and kept his listeners in continual laughter. Mrs. L. B. Mills, formerly of Greenville but now of Appleton, spoke next. She related a number of her early experiences, all of which were entertaining.


At this point a collection to defray expenses was taken up, and something over twelve dollars was raised.


Rev. A. A. Drown then delivered the annual address, which riveted the closest attention. Mr. Drown said:


This is an hour devoted to reviewing the past. You are mostly aware that since your last meeting a novel method of looking backward has been introduced by that fanciful romancer, Mr. Bellamy. It is in the modern style of "French without a teacher," or, retrospection made easy. The fiction is a piece of brilliant imagination of a people who have retired from individual competition and achieve- ment, who have delegated the direction of most of their


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affairs to the paternal instincts of a central government. The scheme leaves out the imperfections of our humanity and so avoids much that has humbled us in the struggles for perfection. Mr. Bellamy's hero has never known toil or struggle. He does not even patiently await on the promise "He giveth his beloved sleep." He gets hypno- tized in the forenoon of life's busy day, and enjoys a century and more of mesmeric slumber. Then he awakens, with no aid of a general resurrection, awakens prematurely to a new order of affairs. Mr. West's fancy, wonderfully fertilized by his long rest, disports itself luxuriantly among the promises of a new earth, and realizes at once upon all such as he had a taste for. He modestly chronicles him- self as awakening at the threshold of the next thousand years, but his illusions are freely fraught with the most of material hopes possible to the whole millennium.


Now it is nice enough for us old boys, foot-sore and wearied with the ground floor of real life, to go a kiting once in a while with a child of a vivid imagination; but we know very well that our humanity is too heavy for that balloon. The young enthusiast for social perfections has our sympathies; we should be glad to have him land his air castle, and anchor it somewhere upon our planet and bequeath all that is practicable to posterity. But we strongly suspect his imaginary republic won't materialize. For the kind of people he so easily fancies as living happily together are "not born of the will of man" alone, much less does fair progeny come forth from the paternal- ism of any human government merely. It must itself be be born from above. When the spirit of the Divine Father shall have descended upon all, and be in all and through all city fathers, and state grandfathers and national great grandfathers, then Mr. Bellamy's vision may be realized.


But our looking backward is over the real earth, wherein we have not prematurely rested underground in pro- found sleep. Our awakenings have not been under any overshadowing gourd of a night's growth. We are review- ing a period of unbroken toils, in which we have borne our parts. We have dropped in here to-day from the real


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battle field of principles where the struggle for righteous- .. ness has been constant and severe; where nothing has been looked for in the perfections of the organisms, civil or ecclesiastical, that does not arise from and is not sus- tained by the individual perfections of the majority. Mind, I do not say, that each one of the majority must be superior to our social institutions, but each one helps to mass a grandeur of character, and to voice a sublimity of thought, inherent in the majority, which is greater. Even republics cannot bequeath eminence to their citizens. In any democracy must be found a plurality of men and women whose characters are grander than the nation which they build, the commonwealths they fashion, the institutions they found. Every town and county has had settlers and pioneers intellectually great or morally grander than their municipalities. Just as Washington, whose birthday we commemorate, was nobler than the confederation, and just as he and his worthy compatriots gave the rich overflow of lives fed from the supernal fountains, to the securing of surer forms of a more perfect union, so may we continue to arise out of the increasing excellence and probity of more enlightened and purified majorities or we may gradually fall through their decadence.


The revered Washington, both in his inaugurals and in his ever memorable farewell address, was a supplicant to that Almighty Being "who rules over the universe ; who presides in the counsels of nations," that His benediction might enable every instrument employed in its administra- tion to execute with success the functions allotted to his charge.


Now I wish to emphasize again that this Washington, instead of being the child of the colonial paternalism was the father of his country. It was his virtues, his heroism, grandeur of his character that gave his country renown. What is a country, my hearers, but a landscape of its notable men and women, good or bad? What is the proud- est nation, but a chart of earth, whereon are marked the birth places, the scenes of toils, of sacrifices, of heroism, of victories, and the resting places of her noble dead ?


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What has made our country more glorious than any other on the round earth ? Was it her mountains, her valleys, . . her lakes, rivers, forests, mines, skies and climates ? All were here with the red men. Was the home of the savages either lustrous or of high repute ? No! No! But there migrated hither. some noble men from the best bloods earth ever nourished, and they and their descendants have given it all its fame, all its splendors and sublimities.


It was those pioneers who cleared our Atlantic shores, and made way for the majesties of civil and religious liber- ties; who gave large place to broadening manhood, but none to crowns and thrones; who welcomed a democracy of brawn and brain, among which should be neither prefer- ence of aristocrat, nor proscription of plebeian. It was such men as could camp in a wilderness and plant it with a civilization of free churches, free schools, free presses and free governments, that gave renown to the former land of savagery. It was the clusters of heroes that planted these institutions in the wilderness. It was the circles of their defenders, that gathered like "coronets of flame about the wise leader of freedom's battles," together with the uncon- querable recruits that swept up the north for their second maintenances, that made the nation.


O the dignity of men that can survey wilderness and give immortality to their pathway. That can found a government that shall change the world's choices of its social institutions.


It is an immense, pleasure for me on this 22d day of February, to look into the faces of self-forming men, who have also formed new societies and states, worthy suc- cessors of the revered Washington, who have imparte.1 your own excellence to your rising institutions.


Venerable pioneers you have not been solicitants of governmental nutriment. You have not been reared as leeches or parasites living upon benefice or sinecure, nor at the expense of public or private virtue. You are men who were in at the fights, but not at the spoils; you have not grown fat upon jobbery or robbery of towns or states. But you are representatives of the hardy sons of labor, and


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honest industry by whose toil all that is sublime in our past has been achieved, and by whose exposures to the perils of war, that which is best has been preserved.


I could pray that each of you might go late into heaven to join the company of your coadjutors who have been pro- moted to the other world solemnities.


Our anniversaries are made less lustrous by the passing of their familiar faces behind the veil, their heads grown hoary in the way of service were crowns of glory to our assemblies .. But other crowns awaited them beyond the river. We deem it not strange nor wholly sad that they should be advanced to other fields. For the sake of their better portion we can rejoice in their rewards. But let the distinguished privilege remain to us and to our anni- versaries, of wearing some chaplet or wreath of laurel, that long may breathe the essence of their lives and the fragrance of their memories.


For the best manhood of every age is enriched by the heroic lives of preceding centuries. And every philosopher and historian, every poet and orator should incarnate again something of the spirit of Old Mortality, whose chief pleasure was found in unearthing the buried monuments of the old Scotch heroes; clearing the mosses from head- stones of the covenanters and rechiseling the inscriptions of their hardy virtues, their enduring fidelities, and in erecting fresh memorials of hitherto unheralded fame, be- longing to men who had neither been bred nor fostered by paternal governments of kings, but who were really puri- fied and perfected by the fires of their persecutions and the narrow intolerance which drove them apart with God.


But the memorialist should not forget that we are a composite people, having a blood enriched from heroes' veins from every land and race. That the whole world is here made kin, in the amalgum of one assimilated humanity, in one affiliated brotherhood. Let true worth be com- memorated in all our pioneers alike; in the French mis- sionaries of the Romish church; in the children of the Netherlands and Germany, and in the sons of Erin with equal pride.


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It matters little what strain of blood has fed "hearts once pregnant with celestial fires." "Hands that the sod of empire might have swayed or waked to ecstacy the living lyre."


Worthily might we pause to read the whole elegy over the grave of every village Hampden, or mute inglorious Milton, whose patriotic or poetic fires were consumed in burning the forests' primeval, from fields where posterity is to enjoy its earthly paradise. Let their obituaries be prepared with care and so become an inspiration to our children.


But I will not leave you with the fascinating picture of Walter Scott. There is an English painting of no less present interest. The artist names his fine conception, "How they met themselves." It is described as a man and a woman, haggard and weary, wandering in a somber wood. Suddenly they encounter the shadowy figures of a youth and maid; some mysterious fascination fixes the gaze, and stills the hearts of the wanderers, and their amazement deepens into awe as they gradually recognize themselves as once they were-the bloom of youth upon their rounded cheeks; the dewy light of hope in their trusting eyes ; exulting confidence in their springing step ; themselves blithe and radiant with the beauty of the dawn. Pioneer couples, turn to this picture as your own. Let me introduce you to your former selves, and now I close, with a picture of, your first home, as De Tocquevill looked in upon you while visiting the American Democracy. He sees a pioneer in a new retreat, felling a few trees and building a log house. He says nothing can offer a more miserable aspect than these isolated dwellings. The traveler who approaches one of them toward nightfall sees the flicker of the hearth-flame through the chinks in the walls, and in the night, if the wind rises, he hears the roofs of boughs shake to and fro in the midst of the great forest trees. Who would not suppose that this poor hut is the asylum of rudeness and ignorance, yet no sort of comparison can be drawn between the pioneer and the dwelling which shelters him. Everything about him is primitive and unformed ;


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but he is himself the result of the labor and the experience of eighteen centuries. He wears the dress and speaks the language of cities. He is acquainted with the past, curi- ous of the future, and ready for argument upon the present; he is, in short, a highly civilized being who consents for a time to inhabit the backwoods and who penetrates into the wilds of a new world with the Bible, an ax and a file of newspapers.


My knowledge of some of you verifies the description, and my reverence for the "noble rage" that is now re- pressed within your genial souls bids me make room for the embellishments of this feast that you will give.


When Mr. Drown had concluded, Henry Kethroe occu- pied the floor for a few minutes. The audience was then favored with a selection from the Appleton Banjo Club, which received a tremendous encore. Judge Ryan fol- lowed with a few minutes' speech, which he made in his usual pleasant style. A letter was presented by Rev. Drown, written by Mrs. B. B. Murch, giving her experi- ences of the settlement of Grand Chute, in 1840; a letter from Charles Wolcott, now residing in Georgia, was also presented. Among those who were called on later for a few remarks were: William Briggs, William Whorton, E. Spencer, John McGillan, Mrs. J. F. Johnston, John Bot- tensek, Mrs. Alexander Ross, Mrs. T. W. Brown, R. Randall and Rev. Faville. This closed the exercises of one of the most successful pioneer meetings ever held in Appleton.


·


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Pioneers' Meeting, Feb. 21, 1891.


The annual meeting of the Outagamie Pioneer Associa- tion met pursuant to notice at Odd Fellows' Hall, at 10 o'clock a. m. The meeting was called to order by John Dey the president; E. Spencer was present as secretary.


The first business in order was the election of officers for the ensuing year, which was accomplished as follows: President, John Dey; vice-president, John F. Johnston; treasurer, John McGillan; secretary, E. Spencer; execu- tive committee, William F. Johnston, Joseph Rork, A. H. Burch, E. A. Abbott and A. A. Winslow.


The afternoon session was called to order at 1:30 o'clock by President John Dey, who in his opening remarks, re- gretted that the attendance was not as large as formerly, and returned thanks for his re-election to the office of president of the society.


Prayer was then offered by Rev. John Faville, followed by accordion and harmonica music by Bertie Johnston, son of William Johnston.


The opening speech was made by Henry Kethroe of Ellington, one of the oldest pioneers in the society, who came to this part of the country in 1849. He related in a vivid manner the hardships through which many of the early settlers passed and told how at the first town meet- ing held in 1850, John Rynder was elected chairman, and before spring had held as well the offices of assessor, treas- urer and town clerk, on account of the incumbents stepping out before their terms expired.


Judge Ryan was next called upon but was excused on account of throat difficulty from which he was suffering.


Mrs. Joseph Rork told an interesting story of what was probably the first torch light procession ever held in Mil- waukee. She was living in 1840 in that vicinity when a


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neighbor's son was approached one evening by an Indian whom he guided to the Indian encampment, two miles away. He was a likely young fellow and the tribe wanted to adopt him. He replied, however, that his father needed him, and after being entertained royally until late in the evening, all the Indians, some sixty in number, lighted torches and escorted him home. Mrs. Rork also told how, while a preaching service was being held in a barn in the neighborhood, a gust of wind came in and blew the pas- tor's sermon under the barn floor. It took a boy half an hour to find it and the congregation meanwhile took a recess.


Daniel Huntley said he was glad to live in time of plenty and progress, and wished he could live another fifty years. He disagreed entirely with the sentiment that the "good old times were the best," and drew a graphic picture of the comforts and enjoyments now almost the universal possession, in distinction from the hardships of the past.


After more music by Bertie Johnston and a brief and happy address by President Dey, Rev. John Faville de- livered the annual address upon the topic, " Wanted-More Pioneers," as follows :


The subject I have chosen to-day is: "Wanted-More Pioneers." Nothing is more evident nor inevitable than the thinning of the ranks of the original members of this association, those who came to this county before 1853. This is the twentieth year of your life as an organization. In another twenty years hardly one of the 124 whom you may call the charter members will be here to tell the story of their struggles and triumphs.


We do well to devote part of our time to-day to a memorial service for those who have left us the past year. But we cannot regret their going, for the honest, faithful pioneer must have a better inheritance awaiting him. We may rather congratulate those who have already emigrated to their new homes. But every arrival there makes a vacancy here, and if there was anything valuable about their work and life, we may well ask, who are to take the places of the old pioneers ?


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The early settlers of this county bore a peculiar relation to it. A certain kind of pioneering is a thing of the past. Many of the outward conditions of the days of 1850 can never return, but what is a pioneer ? First, a worker. You cannot separate the idea of work from a pioneer any more than the quality of hardness from iron. Second, a first worker in a certain place or a worker in a new field. No matter what kind of work, if one goes out into the woods, or on the prairies, in the shop, or schoolroom, or labora- tory, and works, when others have not been at work be- fore him, he is a pioneer. The credit due the pioneers in a county like this, however, is in the amount or breadth of pioneer work done. They found nothing done for them except by the Almighty. They came to found new homes, to make new farms, and roads, and mills, and cities, and schools, and churches, and government. They helped do what is the lot of very few in this world, lay the corner stone of a great state. In a word, they brought civiliza- tion to Outagamie county. And so marked are the changes they have made, so brilliant their success in turning forests into farms, and logs into houses and mills, and Indian camps into cities, that we sometimes sigh for more such worlds to conquer, and because we cannot have them, say pioneer work is done.


But that isn't true. We are not yet through with Outa- gamie county. There is still work to be done, and fifty years hence it will not all be finished. So the question for this hour is not what pioneer work has been done, that is an open volume before us, but what needs to be done, that is as yet an unwritten volume. Not how many pioneers could be mustered in 1853, but how many have we in 1891 ? We cannot go back to 1850. We must go forward as a county to 1950.


I said the old pioneer by his coming to our county brought a new, a higher civilization to it. That was his mission. So is it the mission of the pioneer of to-day. That would have been a poor kind of pioneering forty years ago that had only kept the conditions of life and society and government it found here. So they are not pioneers


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to-day who do not have the spirit that says we are here to bring a higher civilization to our county.


But what does that word mean, and what did the old pioneer do and know that made him succeed in bringing it ?


Civilization means the developing and using the powers of matter and mind. We shall have a perfect civilization when we get a complete mastery over and use of physical forces about us, and the spiritual forces in us. That's the pioneer's task, then, in any age-to do new work in mas- tering the world, to make new conditions for advancing man.


1. Wanted, then, in our county to-day, pioneers on the soil. The old pioneers would have made poor work of it had all insisted on becoming clerks or teachers or preachers. An ax and saw and plow are as necessary in the civilization of this world as a yard stick and spelling book and testament. He is a pioneer who clears ten acres of woodland, but not less. He who first experiments as to the kind of crop it is best fitted to, the stock to be raised, the fruits to cultivate, the barns to be built, the feed to be prepared, the machinery to be used, the homes to be made healthful and beautiful. There are a hundred chances on every farm in our county to-day for the pioneer, the man or woman who can improve on the farm life of the past.


2. Wanted, pioneers in the industrial world. What a wilderness we are in on what we call the labor question. We haven't any roads made yet we can fully rely on. We have blazed our way along like the early settler on the Indian trail.


You read this week that there are seventy tramps in our jail. Outagamie county is housing and feeding them at an expense of a dollar a day. The farmer and his wife who work twelve to fourteen hours a day, the hard work- ing mechanics and merchant and manufacturer, is paying the bill. We quarter from two hundred to three hundred tramps in Outagamie county each year, and it seems that all the combined wisdom and efforts of our officials cannot devise a way to make them work. Here's a chance for pioneer work for some of us. To get rid of the wild-


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cats and wolves and bears, was the mission of the old pioneer, but a far more difficult work is before us. Some- thing is tremendously wrong in ous industrial system in this county, if we must care for hundreds of able bodied men as we would for invalids or babes.




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