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Clark County Press, Neillsville, Wisconsin
August 29, 2012, Page 15 Contributed by "The Clark Co. Press" Transcribed by Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon. Index of "Oldies" Articles
Compiled by Dee Zimmerman
Clark County News |
Some Old Clark County History as Told by Her
Pioneers:
Memories of Mrs. Jane Gates
It was a gloomy afternoon when the
Neillsville Press reporter called on Mrs. Jane Gates. With the fact that Mrs.
Gates has been confined to her room and mostly to her bed for several years
past, might lead one not to expect a very cheerful visit. We were happy to find
this not so.
Mrs. Gates still notes with keen
interest the events of the day and goes back with still keener pleasure to the
old times gone by.
“Yes, we came here at an early
day,” she said. It was in 1856.
Major Wedge was then logging on the creek that is named after him.
Mr. Gates and I went to work for him. I was to do the cooking in camp and
my husband went to work outside. I
was taken sick and had to quit work.
When I got better, I took charge of the tavern, or stopping place at the
mouth of Wedge’s Creek where I stayed five years.
It was pretty new here then, lots of deer all around. Major Wedge killed
a great many and we ate venison most of the time. Between our place and
Neillsville, the only houses I remember were Dr. French’s, Mr. Clark’s, where
Geo Bandelow now lives, and Rob Ross at Ross Eddy, until we got to Cawley’s.
We had the first horse team brought
to Clark County. All sorts of people stopped at our place, settlers coming into
the country, or going back and forth for supplies, lumbermen, tote teamsters,
and now and then a bridal party.
Judge Dewhurst and his bride ate dinner with us as they came in from Madison
where they were married. Mrs.
Dewhurst was formerly Miss Maria Curtis, niece of the wife of Gov. Taylor.
Chauncey Blakeslee, then a prominent businessman of Neillsville and his bride,
Miss Boardman stopped for dinner with us on their way to Sparta to be married.
There were some great romances in those days, too.”
At this juncture, Mrs. Gates’
daughter, Mrs. J.J. MacBride, came to call on her mother and together they
recalled many an incident of early times.
There was a schoolhouse in the
vicinity of the Lowery farm, where Mrs. Mac Bride and her brother, Jas L. Gates
first attended school. Their father took them on horseback. George Richardson
was the first teacher, being followed by Miss Pope and Robert Sturdevant,
afterward a District Judge in Washington.
(This would be the Riverside School in Levis)
Blakeslee ran a store and hotel
where the Neillsville Bank is now located.
He built a large barn where the First National Bank is now located.
When the barn was finished, Mr. Blakeslee gave a big dance in the barn,
which was attended by nearly every person in Clark County.
The guests all got supper at the hotel and were well fed. Between the
hotel and the barn, there were then no buildings, but a big vegetable and flower
garden that covered the area. When the Blakeslee’s moved out of the hotel, Mr.
and Mrs. Gates moved in and ran it a year before moving to the farm home where
Mrs. Gates still lives. (The Gates’ farm
home was located on Neillsville’s south edge and by State highway 73. DZ)
Mrs. MacBride says she remembers
well her first Christmas experience.
“We didn’t hear anything about Christmas when we lived down at Wedge’s
Creek,” she said, “but I remember well when my brother, Jimmie, told me that he
had heard that if one would hang up his stocking on Christmas Eve, there would
be something in it in the morning.
We resolved to try it and each got a chunk of loaf sugar and a silver quarter.”
Reminiscences by Mrs. Emma F. Robinson
The following paper was originally
written for by Emma F. Robinson, Nov. 25, 1901, for a reminiscence party given
at the home of Mrs. S. M. Marsh in Neillsville, and later was read at an old
settlers’ reunion at Loyal.
“I came to Clark County Wis., in
January 1859, with my husband, and a 23 month old girl, now Mrs. James O’Neill.
We drove through from La Crosse
with a team of horses, to what was then known as Weston Rapids.
We were four days in making the trip. There were but few settlers then in
Clark County. Among them was the late James O’Neill, founder of Neillsville,
Judge Dewhurst, Robert Ross, Chauncey Blakeslee, B. F. Chase, James Hewett and
S. C. Boardman.
Neillsville was then a mere hamlet,
although the county seat was there then.
It was three that I attended my
first Fourth of July celebration in Clark County.
Dr. B. F. French was the orator of the day.
That day I met Mrs. French, Mrs. A. W. Clark and Mrs. John King, at that
small gathering of patriotic settlers.
There was a dam and bridge across
Black River at Weston’s Rapids. A sawmill and gristmill were in operation there.
There was a large hotel, or tavern,
as it was then called, which served as the accommodation for lumbermen and
several tenement houses. We lived
in one of those houses for nearly two years and kept the first post office
there. We only got our mail once a week and had no county paper at the time; in
fact all literature was very scarce in those days. The books and periodicals,
which we had brought from our Eastern homes, were gladly exchanged with our
neighbors. They were read and
reread, passed about from one home to another until when returned they were
often in a somewhat dilapidated condition.
After a time, we were favored by having a very good little district
library, which was greatly appreciated.
Mrs. Melvin Mason, Mrs. Chandler and I composed the committee to select
the books for this small library of 100 volumes.
A Methodist Church soon sprang up.
It was built in Neillsville, with everyone contributing most willingly.
Its good influence was soon felt and it was a means of bringing the old
settlers together oftener, in a social way.
Many were the church sociable we attended when our only conveyance was a
big wagon or sleigh drawn by oxen or a span of mules.
Before we had our little church, our only pleasures socially were the
meetings in our homes to read and discuss our well-worn books and papers, or for
dancing. It was not considered a
hardship by any means to have the big sleigh brought around right after supper
and drive six, eight, or ten miles to a dance, gathering up our friends on the
way. Mrs. Stafford, Mrs. Blakeslee,
Mrs. Clark, Judge and Mrs. Dewhurst were usually along and always ready for a
good time. By the way, it did (not)
take as much to give us a good time then as at the present day.
We were all young and full of health and hope, enjoying every thing to
its fullest extent; our books, our dances, our drives and last but not least,
our church meant much to us in the wilds of Northern Wisconsin.
There was a log shanty near what is
now known as Schofield’s Corners, which was then used for a trading post for the
Indians, by quite a notorious character in the early history of Clark County, by
the name of George Pettengill. He
was a tall, muscular fellow and affected Indian style by dressing in buckskin
and wearing his hair long, reaching to his waist.
He spent his time hunting, trading with the Indians.
He, at one time, openly shot and killed
a half-breed, which so enraged the Indians that the settlers were obliged to
have Pettengill arrested and lodge in jail at La Crosse. But, he was afterwards
acquitted. He was not generally
disliked by the white settlers, so was allowed to trade with the Indians in the
shanty on the corner, without being interfered with, although all they got in
exchange for their furs and game was a few gaudy trinkets and lots of poor
whiskey; which often resulted in nights of hearing hideous weird cries of those
poor residents of the forest as the went reeling by to their wigwams after
indulging too freely in “fire water.”
Derivation of Clark County Names
Black River was named from the
color of its water.
Cunningham Creek, from Thomas
Cunningham, an early Mormon settler;
Wedge’s Creek’s name was from Major
Wedge, an early settler.
O’Neill Creek from Neillsville’s
founder, James O’Neill, Sr.
Jack Creek from “Jack” Murphy, a
man educated as a priest, who lived on the farm where Mrs. Matt Noel lives.
Bruce Mound from Franklin Bruce, an
early settler near here;
Greenwood, for the green timber
that surrounded it;
Longwood, for the area’s tall
timber;
Hemlock, from the species of timber
that grew around it;
Abbotsford, after Mr. Abbott, an
officer of the Wisconsin Central Railroad;
Colby, after president Colby of the
Wisconsin Central Railroad;
Sherman, after General Sherman;
Mentor, after Mr. Mentor, an early
settler;
York, from the fact that many of
the township’s settlers were from the state of New York, or because of the
Yorkston families who were its early settlers;
Fremont, after General Fremont;
Hewett, after James Hewett;
Pine Valley, originally named for
the great amount of pine trees that surrounded the region;
Grant, after General Grant;
Lynn, from the basswood, or “Linn”
wood, which grew abundantly in its area;
Levis, for Wm. Levis, an early
logger and mill man who lived there;
Washburn, after Governor Washburn,
who was governor of this state in 1872; He also owned and harvested much
pine-covered land in that township.
Thomas LaFlesh was head foreman of Washburn’s lumber operations.
Sherwood, from “Sherwood Forrest”
of England, named by Mrs. Thomas LaFlesh;
Hendren, after Rev. Hendren, the
well-known pioneer Presbyterian minister of Greenwood;
Withee, after N. H. Withee,
ex-county treasurer and ex-member of Assembly; He held these offices, while
living in the city of La Crosse.
Hixon, after Gideon C. Hixon, a
partner of N. H. Withee;
Worden, after Zeph Worden, an old
settler;
Reseburg, after August Reseburg, an
old settler who lived there;
Green Grove, from its green
forested area;
Mead, from Harry Mead, an old
settler of Clark County;
Warner, after Mark Warner;
Beaver, after beaver dams on Rock
Creek that ran through the township;
Unity after the “united” character
of people;
Eaton, after Lige Eaton, an early
settler on the town site of Greenwood;
Thorp, from J. G. Thorp, president
of the Eau Claire Lumber Company;
Humbird, after, Mr. Humbird, an old
officer of the Northwestern Road;
Veefkind, for Mr. Veefkind, who
owned a heading mill at the village;
Loyal, from the fact that the early
settlers of the town were “Loyal” soldiers of the Civil War.
Dr. Baxter, Our Earliest Surgeon
Dr. Baxter invaded Clark County at a very early date. Information gotten seems
to point to the fact that he came here from Monroe County in the early 1850s.
He was somewhat of a migratory
disposition and was familiar to all the early and later pioneers of the county.
He seemed quite ready to meet emergencies as it is told that one time a
gentleman by the name of Ike Williams suffered from frozen feet, which
necessitated amputation. Dr. Baxter lacked the necessary instruments for the
work and at last resorted to an old case knife from which he made a saw by the
means of a file. This was the chief
instrument used to carry out the operation on Williams.
Some Reflections of Homer M. Root
“I came to Clark County in 1869,”
said H. M. Root, cashier of the Commercial State Bank, in response to the
inquiry. “I came west from New York
State, stopped a few weeks in Chicago, came on to La Crosse and then came up
Black River to where Greenwood now stands.
Greenwood was not thought of then,
but had a settlement of five houses; the only person left of their original
occupants is Mrs. Hattie Andrews. She lives nearly on the same spot that she did
then.
Bob Schofield then lived at
Schofield’s Corners, opposite Weston’s Rapids.
I went to work in camp that winter and worked for nineteen consecutive
winters. That winter I scaled and tended landing, but I worked at every job
there was to do in and about a logging camp, even cooking.
Up to 1880, all the timber was
felled with an ax and I did a great deal of chopping.
In 1874, I went into partnership with B. F. Thompson and we logged
together eleven long winters. We
did most of our toting from Hatfield and Wrightsville.
“The big winter for logging on Black River was 1871-1872; that year
350,000,000 feet of pine was put in; the next winter about 250,000,000.
In the “Al Brown Winter,” 1877-78,
practically no logs were put in.
Farmers plowed every month during that winter, and on New Year’s, the road
between Greenwood and Neillsville was impassable because of mud, and a log drive
went on continually on Black River.
Hemlock Dam was built in 1878 and
the old Dells Dam in 1879. We had some dry seasons in those years.
In 1874 and 1875, we had a plague of grasshoppers that hurt crops
considerably around Greenwood. They
ate everything except tomatoes.
There were lively times when
logging was in flower on Black River. Among the prominent loggers of those years
were the Withee’s, Hixon, Bright, the Coleman’s, D. J. Spalding, Price, C. C.
Washburn, Sawyer and Austin, Gile and Holway and Hi Goddard.
Provisions and nails were packed
from Black River Falls to this point for a number of years.
It takes courage to shoulder a sack of flour at Black River Falls and
carry it clear up into the town of Eaton. But that is what the Huntzicker’s and
many others did some 60 years ago.
More than this, hardware and nails were carried from that same point to build
the first houses in the area.
Neillsville Postmasters
Neillsville was first established
as Clark Post Office, May 31, 1855 with Samuel C. Boardman as postmaster.
The name Clark was changed to Neillsville, October 6, 1856 and Mr.
Boardman was appointed for a second year.
Then
followed: George W. King in 1857; Chauncey Blakeslee 1858; Wm. C. Tompkins 1860;
C. W. Carpenter 1863; A. J. Manley 1865; Wm. C. Hutchinson 1867; J. W. Ferguson
1871; Wm. Campbell 1882; Isaac Carr in 1886; Fred Reitz 1890 and 1903; William
Huntley 1894; L. B. Ring 1899; and A. E. Dudley 1906.
The above 1878 photo of Neillsville’s Main Street was
taken on Hewett and 5th Street’s intersection, looking east.
(Photo courtesy of Bill Roberts’ collection)
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