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- Old Settlers' Stories - Number two
-
- Dear Friend:
- Your very cordial invitation to write up something of my
early life and experiences of
- early days in Wisconsin received.
- Writing for publication is out of my line. I saw enough of
the early history of Wisconsin
- to make an interesting article for the younger inhabitants
of today who complain of hard times, if I were a ready writer.
- I came to Wisconsin with my parents in the summer of 1845
arriving in Janesville on
- the 4th day of July of that year. We drove all the way through
from Orford, N.H., with a span of French ponies. There were five
of us, father and mother, and one brother and sister, younger
than myself. Mother did the cooking and we all slept in our wagon.
Old Mr. and Mrs. Silas WILCOX, and their daughter Mrs.
Jeremiah DAME came all the way with us, cooking their
provisions beside the road as we did. Mr. DAME had come
on the fall before and had bought a half section of land five
miles northeast of Janesville, which had a small log house on
it. We made Mr. DAME's our headquarters for a day or two.
- Father pre-empted a quarter section of land on section 18,
town of Johnstown, seven
- miles east of Janesville. We lived in our wagon till we built
a small log house; when this was done Father had just money enough
left to buy a cow and a stove and we were ready to commence living
in style.
- Wheat was a fine crop that year and about to cut when our
house was finished. The
- reapers and binders in those days were the cradle hand-rakes
and men to bind by hand. There was plenty of work at what they
called good wages, if we would take wheat for pay so we did not
fear starvation.
- Father's land was a nice piece but there was no good water
on it. We had to draw our
- water one mile in a barrel, so in the summer it soon grew
warm and in the winter it froze. When we tried to dig a well
we soon struck rock and as we could not hope to get water nearer
than 80 to 100 ft. it would cost more to dig a well than to pay
for the land, which was very discouraging to one who had money
to pay for neither the land nor a well. So Father sold out his
claim for what he could get and moved to Magnolia. Here he contracted
with a man, Mr. MENZIES, to enter sixty-six acres of timber
land in Spring Valley and forty acres of prairie in Magnolia,
as was termed "on a share." As I remember he was to
double his money in two years. Father had a bond for a deed and
if he paid it when due he was to have a deed, but if not, he
could step down and out and leave his improvements, but this
he was not obliged to do.
- We moved to Magnolia into a part of G. W. ADAMS' house
during the winter of
- 1846-7. Before we moved father and I drove out several times
and stayed a week or ten days at a time. We cut and drew logs
onto the prairie to make fence and build a house. This was a
very cold winter with a great deal of snow. Before going away
we would draw a barrel of water for Mother and the children to
use while we were gone. I remember one very cold week we drove
out to Mr. ADAMS' and worked till Saturday forenoon. We
thought it was too cold to work so we went home. Mrs. ADAMS
gave us some doughnuts for a lunch. The doughnuts were frozen
as hard as rocks. We softened them a little by the fire and ate
them, and decided we had a cold dinner. When we reached home
our folks were glad enough to see us. The barrel of water we
left for them to use had been frozen and Mother and the children
had been obliged to gather and melt snow not only for all the
water they used, but to give the cow and pigs.
- Let me say before going any farther, I had no underclothes,
overcoat or overshoes,
- had to exercise to keep warm. I had chilbains so badly that
I would be in misery at night, when my feet got warm. Many times
I have put them into snow to stop their itching. In the morning
they would be so badly swollen I could hardly pull on my boots,
though they were a larger size.
- During the winter Father bought a second yoke of cattle.
He traded the ponies for a
- yoke of oxen soon after we came to Wisconsin.
- In the spring we built a house, broke up some land and planted
corn and potatoes.
- We put our two yokes of oxen with a neighbor's and a neighbor's
boy a little older than myself, and I ran a breaking team till
harvest time. When we finished a day's work, we unyoked the cattle
and let them go where they would. In the morning it would take
form an hour to half a day to find them. The grass and bushes
were always wet with dew and by the time we had the cattle together
we would be as wet as though we had been wading in the river.
We always dried our clothes on our persons; not a very good health
producer. I used sometimes to feel tired and old even then.
- In those early days wheat was about the only produce raised
to sell for money and no
- one counted on any failures after the wheat was sown. Debts
were contracted on the strength of this faith, sometimes with
12 to 25 percent interest.
- I think it was in the summer of 1848, Father bought a span
of horses, late in the fall of
- 1850 he bought a half interest in a threshing machine and
I went with it will the threshing was done, then I went to school.
I went with it the next two falls. Wheat was nearly a failure
these two seasons. A part of the head blighted, turned white.
The kernels were about full size but turned a light brown color
with a pinkish shade about the germ. This was called "pink
eye." The grain was light and worthless. One of our neighbors
lost one of his oxen and had no way to draw off his wheat to
get money to pay us for threshing, so I drew a load of his wheat
to Janesville, fifteen miles, and sold it for twenty cents a
bushel to get our pay for threshing.
- On December 26, 1840, I took a load of flour, eleven barrels,
from the Excelsior mills, Janesville, RICHARDSON &
TRUSDELL, proprietors, to Milwaukee at five shillings
per barrel, half goods. I still have the receipt I gave when
I took that load of flour. What would our boys or men think of
being obliged to earn a living by drawing flour to Milwaukee
for 62 1/2 cents a barrel and to take half of it out of the store?
- In the spring of 1853, John HALL took a company of
men through to California,
- overland. I was one of the company. We paid him $100.00 a
piece. He was to board us and we were to do our share of the
work, such as driving team, watching cattle, and cooking. We
started the last day of March and camped out all the way. I was
twenty years of age. I did not hear a word from home for over
six months. At Council Bluffs, Iowa, we left civilization and
it was almost a stretch of imagination to call that civilization
for here I saw the heaviest gambling and the first and only vigilance
committee I ever saw. I saw the murderer and the man he had murdered
about 10:00 a.m. and he was hanged shortly after noon.
- We crossed the Missouri river on May 17, into willow brushes
where I suppose
- Omaha now stands. We did not see another house till we reached
Salt Lake City. We stopped about one week a little out of the
city. While here some of the Mormons gave a dance in our honor,
hoping I suppose to get some of our money. We all had more curiosity
than money, so we went to the dance to see and learn, but had
no money to buy tickets. The entertainment was at the house of
one of the leading Mormons, who had seven wives ranging in ages
from eighteen to seventy years. When we arrived, the company
was pretty well gathered and sat around the house like a lot
of Quakers waiting for the spirit to move. After a while the
old man arose and said they usually opened their dances with
prayer, but as many of us were Gentiles they would omit prayer.
After we had watched them dance for a short time we all wanted
to dance at least once at a Mormon dance. The Mormon boys were
generous and let us dance on their numbers. One of our boys found,
when he looked for a girl, the only one not engaged was a seventy
year girl, but nothing daunted he asked her for her company for
the next dance and she very promptly consented. He declared ever
after that he never danced with so good a partner. A part of
our company were so much pleased with the Salt Lake country and
people, they decided to stop there till the next spring, but
I had started for California and did not propose to stop short
of there. I kept along with Hall till we came to Lawson's meadows
on the Humboldt river when four of us decided to leave the company
and go on foot into northern California. It was about three hundred
miles. We took our wordly effects, blankets and provisions which
we hoped would last us till we could get more. We would walk
till we would get tired, then stop and rest. We usually walked
a while after dark, then go a little way from the trail to camp,
so if an unfriendly Indian had been watching us through the day
he would not surprise us at night. There was strong talk that
the Indians were feeling ugly and one man was shot about this
time by an Indian.
- On the second day we came to the desert proper where not
a spear of grass nor a
- green thing grew. Here is where I learned what it means to
be thirsty. When the sun was about an hour high the morning of
the third day I felt faint and tried to eat some bread, but there
was not enough moisture in my mouth to swallow it. It made me
feel sick and I was hungry no more that day. We did not find
water till about two o'clock p.m. A crust of salt had gathered
on my lips. When I touched my tongue to the roof of my mouth
it was sticky, that was all the moisture there was in my mouth.
The water we found was quite brackish, but I could not taste
the salt in it till the next forenoon. This was the most deceiving
place I ever saw. The mountains which were probably ten miles
distance looked not over half a mile away. Once we saw some ravens
probably ten or fifteen rods away; they looked like men on horseback
five miles from us, in fact that is what we thought they were,
only they looked ten or fifteen feet high.
- The night before we reached the first trading post on the
west side of the Sierra
- Nevada mountains I ate the last of my provisions except one
pound of rise that I bought of an emigrant after I left the company.
I payed 75 cents for it. The next morning about nine o'clock
we came to the trading post and found a family we had seen on
the road early in the summer. They were camping there to let
their cattle recruit. The man had shot a deer the day or two
before. There was a young lady in the family and she cooked my
rice for us and prepared us a nice breakfast with a liberal supply
of that venison. Here we found a rancher who had been out to
buy cattle of the emigrants. he was about to start for home and
wanted to hire two men to bale hay.
- Mr. WILCOX and I hired to him one month for $50.00
and board. he and his two
- brothers had a contract to furnish the government 150 tons
of hay at $65.00 per ton delivered at Ft. Reading, twelve miles
from the ranch. It took us one day and a half to get to their
ranch, and I had just one dollar left. After my month was out
I went into the mines and worked at mining till I came home in
the summer of 1857. When I went to California wheat was worth
20 cents per bushel. When I came home it was from $1.50 to $2.00
and everything was booming.
- If you think what I have written is worth printing you are
welcome to it, if not throw it
- in the waste basket.
-
- N. N. PALMER
Spring Fall, Wis.,
January 31, 1895, P. O. Address: Brodhead, Wis.
- Courtesy of Ruth Ann Montgomery
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- Old Settlers' Stories - Number Three
-
- Editor of The Badger:
- In response to your request to say something of my early
experiences here as a Rock
- County pioneer I have made a few notes which may be of interest
to some of your readers.
- I was born in Rutland County, Vermont, February 13, 1819.
My ancestors on both
- sides of the houses were of Puritan stock, both members of
families who helped to develop New England. My father's name
was Calvin R. EVANS. My mother's name was Penelope GOODRICH.
When I was fifteen years old my mother died and I spent several
years with grandfather GOODRICH. When I was nineteen I
came west as far as La Porte, Ind., to join my father.
- My journey from Vermont to La Porte was made every step of
the way by stage
- coach. It took two weeks to make the journey. By the time
I reached Ohio I was badly used up from exhaustion and had to
leave the coach for a while. This was in February of '38. Later
in the same year I went on horseback from La Porte to the west
side of Chicago. On Lake street, near the mouth of the river,
I got stuck in the mud and had to get off my horse in order to
get the animal out. The man that owned the land came along to
help me and offered to trade me that quarter section of land
for the horse but as she was a good mare I would not trade.
- There were not nearly as many openings for boys in those
days as now. My education
- was such as could be gotten from the common schools of Vermont,
but I then had no thought of studying for one of the professions.
- In casting about to decide upon something for a business
I decided to be a carpenter
- and served my three years apprenticeship. Owing to a trouble
in one hip I was advised by my physician to give up carpentering
and so I began the study of medicine under Dr. Meeker of La Porte.
When a medical school was founded in that city I became one of
its students and was a member of its first graduating class,
finishing in the class of '46.
- I began to look about for a desirable opening for a young
M.D., came to Chicago and
- then on to Freeport, thinking some of locating there, but
finally concluded not to stop there, but came here, all the way
on horseback.
- Some of my La Porte friends had settled in this vicinity
and so in looking for a place to
- locate I came to "The Grove." I found my new home
was located in a settlement consisting of one frame house, one
log school-house, and one double log cabin.
- The frame house was the one already referred to by Mr. BENNETT,
owned by
- Henry SPENCER. The school house was the one where
Mr. LEONARD was hired to teach the children useful knowledge.
- The log cabin was owned and occupied by Amos KIRKPATRICK,
the original
- owner of the quarter which had for its northwest corner the
site of the Pioneer drug store.
- For about two years I boarded in the family of Henry SPENCER,
and had my office
- up stairs. My practice was mostly riding as people did not
live close together in those days, but the roads were good, (plenty
of room to turn out) they have never been bettered except by
grading marshes and bridging steams.
- There was one other physician, living in Union, at this time.
- Those were good old days; everyone was a friend to everyone
else. We had many
- privations and hardships but we helped each other to share
them and looked ahead to the better days coming and they came.
- I had been here two years when I bought the corner where
CUMMINGS &
- CLARK now have their store, of Lewis SPENCER.
There was a frame house near the corner facing on Main St. It
is the same house now owned by James Powles, on Liberty street,
situated between his residence and that of S. J. BAKER.
My sister, now Mrs. McCOTTER, joined me and we went to
housekeeping. Around the corner facing on Madison street I built
an office and occupied it for some time. Later I had one where
the house of my son now stands, having purchased ten acres of
land from Henry SPENCER, fronting on Main Street.
- In 1849 we had come to be of enough importance to have a
post office established
- here as a part of the postal system then carried on by stages.
- I was appointed postmaster and had the office where W. F.
BIGLOW now has his
- furniture store. The office was called Evansville and in
1855 when the town was platted the same name was kept.
- In 1854 I was married to Miss Emma CLEMENT of La Porte
and after that we
- boarded a few months in Janesville.
- In about a year after my marriage we came to Evansville to
live in the red brick houses
- which was torn down a few years ago, on the site where we
now live.
- In 1861, I accepted the commission surgeon of the Wisconsin
13th Infantry and
- followed the fortunes of war till 1865 when I was obliged
to resign on account of my health. I gladly welcomed peace and
home. For four years I had been trying to do my best to get our
boys so they could go back home or help them die a little easier
under foreign skies.
- Since then my residence has been uninterrupted here. I have
watched nearly every
- house go up, all the schools, all the churches, and feel
that the early men of this community were made of good fiber.
It is with pardonable pride that I mark each improvement in our
prosperous town and take a personal interest in every thing connected
with the community. I enjoy looking down our streets bordered
on either side by beautiful shade trees and became convinced
a long time ago that hard work and privations have been paid
for. The pioneers that broke the sod and hewed the logs have
been permitted to live and see their children and grandchildren
enjoy the fruits of their early labors.
-
- J. M. EVANS
- (p. 4, cols. 4 & 5)
-
- Courtesy of Ruth Ann Montgomery
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