Bio: Wilson, Orin (1832 - 1915)

Contact: stan@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

----Source: (Taken from an address delivered by Orin Wilson at the Centennial Celebration held at Neillsville, July 4, 1876. Published in the Humbird Enterprise, Jan. 13 and 20, 1906.)

Surnames: WILSON TRAVIS WRIGHT O'NEILL HUMBIRD SCHMIDT

Orin Wilson, (9 Mar 1832 - 9 Sep 1915)

ORIN WILSON, first chairman of Mentor Township, writing in 1876, says: "At the request of this Centennial committee I write a short history of that part of Clark County now comprising the town of Mentor. "In June, 1856, the first settlers landed in the town of Mentor with our oxen, cows, pigs and chickens, our covered wagons being our only shelter. There was not a vestige of a road, no mark of civilization, with the exception of government surveys. Our colony consisted of twelve families coming from different parts of the world, five from England, two from Erin's Isle, one from Germany, three from the state of New York, and one from the state of Pennsylvania.

"As the season was far advanced our first work was with our noble oxen to break some of the prairie soil and plant and sow such grain and vegetables as would ripen. What the husbandman would break and harrow in the forenoon, the wife and children, with their baskets filled with choice seed, would plant in the afternoon. But a few days elapsed ere we could look from our covered wagons on small fields of growing grain and garden vegetables.

"The next business that demanded our attention was to build houses, and we built them in old-time style, not as nowadays, with sawed and planed lumber, and all covered with paint, with a tower on top and all such modern improvements. We built them of logs. They were all straight and sound and hewed down on the inside they were covered with hollows and rounds, and our floors were made of good substantial plank, split out with the axe. The last of June we moved into our log cabins we were all happy and contented.

"Wild berries were abundant. Strawberries were the first to ripen and were a luxury. Next came the blueberries. The hillsides were blue with them yes, they were slick, and thick, too. Many a time have two of us filled a large wash tub in an hour. We used to pickle them by the barrel and dry them by the bushel, and preserve and can them. Well might we be called the whortleberry farmers.
"Well do. I remember our first Fourth of July. We were all speakers and all listeners. We talked over our nation and the great improvements it had made in eighty years and then we had our picnic dinner. We ate sumptuously and went home feeling well. "The first summer was a busy one and soon passed away. We joined teams and broke a few acres each, built log stables, and put up some wild hay to winter our stock. Each had a small field of buckwheat it was the staple product. Winter came in earnest and hung right by until spring. The principal excitement that winter was hunting deer and elk. We killed a plenty for our meat, used their tallow for our lights and their hides for mittens and moccasins. The snow was so deep that we could not go afoot, so we hunted on snowshoes. But the long winter disappeared. The next summer a sawmill was built at the edge of our town by D. B. Travis. Our nearest gristmill was Wright's, and was the only gristmill in the country, and there we took our wheat and corn and Moses ground it for us. Our nearest post office was Black River Falls, a distance of twenty miles also the nearest point to a store. That summer there was a post office established in Garden Valley on the Black River Falls and Eau Claire stage line. Union and harmony prevailed in our neighborhood. When one went to the post office he brought the mail for us all. Likewise when one would go to the store the rest would send by him for their dry goods and groceries.

"That summer we petitioned to our county father, James O'Neill, to come and lay out a highway for us. In answer to our call he came, bringing with him one of the side board, S. C. Boardman, and the county surveyor, and laid out a road through the town. This road proved to be the best route from the upper Trempealeau Valley to Augusta, and is today (July 4, 1876), the main thoroughfare. The next summer a road was laid out and made passable through the forest from Neillsville to our little settlement, a distance of sixteen miles. Previous to this we could reach the county seat only by way of Wright's mill. The opening of this road made a ready market for our produce, consumed by the Black River lumbermen.

"Unfortunately for our town it was given to a railroad company and a large portion was entered by speculators, consequently settlers came in very slowly. Year after year rolled by with few new settlers, yet we employed ourselves. Our lands produced well, our log cabins were turning into frame houses and our log stables into frame barns reapers took the place of the old cradle, the mowing-machine the place of the scythe and the horse-rake was used instead of the old hand-rake.

"In 1867 the town of Mentor was organized, comprising Towns 24, 25 and 26, Range 4 West, being in the southwest part of Clark County. In 1869 the West Wisconsin railroad was built, which formed a direct line from Chicago to St. Paul. This road runs through the southwest corner of the town of Mentor, and a little village started up and was named Humbird in honor of Jacob Humbird, the builder of the road.

"The soil is well adapted for a village, and the water is of excellent quality. There are two dry goods and grocery stores in fact there is room enough for a flourishing town. It could be incorporated if there were people enough, and then it would be called a city. The people living there are very kind. They claim it was an honor for men to work and improve the country, and they love to see them do it. In the warm summer days they sit under the veranda on the east side of the street in the forenoon and on the west side in the afternoon. They prefer shade to sunshine. The topics of the day are fishing, bird shooting and fast horses.

"In 1872 there was a gristmill built on one branch of Hall's Creek in our town by W. T. Schmidt, and it makes the best quality of flour. Alas twenty years have passed away, though it seems but little improvement is made each year. We now have at our hands lumber mills of nearly every description, a good gristmill, a post office with daily mail running east and west and north and south, and stores and shops of nearly every kind. Yes, the change has been great since twenty years ago, and it is a fact tha tthose twelve families who immigrated here in 1856 are still residents of this town, and have raised up families of sons and daughters that are an honor to their parents and society. We are looking forward to a brighter future, hoping that our lawmakers will strike at the root of all evil and that the American people will reach that state of perfection that they will look at wars and disturbances as something away back in the dark ages of the past and never to be any more."

Cemetery Records

1880 Mentor Township, Clark Co., WI Federal Census

Orin Wilson @48, b. NY, Farmer, Father b. VT, Mother b. NY

Wife: Alvira @32, b. NY, Keeps House, Parents b. NY

Dau: Harriet @14, b. WI, Student

Dau: Laura @12, b. WI, Student

Son: Asa @9, b. WI, Student

Son: Henry @7, b. WI, Student

Son: Sylvester @2, b. WI

Son: Wilson Boy @5 Mo., b. WI, Parents b. NY