MERLIN ENNIS -- Memories l877- l882

Written circa 1955

Transcribed by Anonymous




MERLIN ENNIS -- Memories l877- l882 
Little Neenah Creek:  It is not much of a stream.  Its small flow empties into Neenah 
Creek and that into the Fox River which discharges in Green Bay, an arm of Lake Michigan.  
So a pint of water from Little Neenah may flow over Niagara some day.  A teaspoonful may 
eventually reach the Atlantic Ocean and roll a grain of sand up an African beach.  Little 
Neenah Creek is almost wholly in the town of Douglas, which is the southwestern corner of 
Marquette County.  The creek rises in some marshes in the Western part of the township.  
Possibly some of the springs are in New Haven, the home of a locally famed baseball team, 
the New Haven Clippers.  The house where I was born stood under a towering cottonwood, on 
the East side of the road (from Douglas Center to Briggsville), and just south of the creek.  
Below the bridge there was a deep pool with a sloping sandy beach on the side toward the 
house, a typical swimming hole, a hole in which I was never permitted to go.  I recall 
watching my father and the hired man wash the sheep there in preparation for the shearing.  
The sheep were penned in on the beach side.  The men would seize a sheep, drag it into the 
stream, souse it under, then thoroughly knead and squeeze the fleece until a major part of 
the year's collection of grime had been washed away, then, to the great relief of the 
baptized, it was lifted onto the high farther bank which was in a pasture, where it stood 
about, dripping. 

Very indistinctly I recall that one day Bat Mullin came with cables, planks, rollers, and 
a windlass.  His gang jacked our house up, put skids put under it, and rollers under the 
skids; the cable attached to a sling attached to each side of the house was wound onto the 
windlass and our house went careening and creaking across the road to be placed on foundations 
on a cellar hole that had been prepared on the west side of the road and not so adjacent to 
the swimming hole.  I have an idea that mother [Charlotte Chapman] was the mover behind the 
professional mover. 

One of my oldest and most definite memories concerned a day when mother's sister, my aunt 
Carrie [Chapman], at that time unwed, wanted to know if I would like to go and look at the 
creek.  I was delighted to do so.  On the west side of the road, there were trees along the 
stream all the way back to the hill where there was a long steep sandy slope from the hill 
top to the stream which rippled over a bright sand and pebble bottom.  We strolled, picked 
up things to carry home.  When we got back, I found that I was the brother of twin sisters, 
Lola and Lulu -- an event that made less of an impression on me than the wonderful trip 
along the Little Neenah.  This when I was three years old. 

The first fish:  Perhaps I was two years older when, one day, my father [Hugh Ennis] had to 
repair a pasture gate on the far side of the creek and near the bridge.  He took along a fish 
line and hook attached to a short alder pole.  Father baited the hook and directed me to drop 
the wormed hook into the stream.  After cautioning me not to fall in, he went to his task with 
hammer and nails.  It was not long before I had a bite and soon I pulled up a bullhead and 
while it was flopping around on the planks, I jumped up and down In glee, piping at the top 
of my lungs, "Tartar Jack Welch, Tartar Jack Welch."  I have no idea who that character may 
have been. 

Indians:  The Indians used to come and camp beside the creek.  They built their wigwams at 
the end of the hill where it seemed as though Little Neenah had cut off the hill.  This was 
a sheltered nook where there was good water and firewood.  It was the family of Mackawaimi 
which used this site.  He was an example of the aborigine which one wishes to think of.  
Mackawaimi was an oldish man, tall and thin, who walked with a lithe dignity that was 
indicative of the soul.  Occasionally, he ate at our table.  At the time, I, as a child, 
never gave a thought to the difficulties that he and his family must have had in remaining 
alive.  I recall that once, in the winter, some two or three of father's hogs broke through 
the ice on the creek and were drowned.  With some hesitation, my father suggested that 
Mackawaimi might utilize some part of the carcasses.  With very sincere gratitude, he took 
them, saying they could utilize all.  This was a case where we ourselves might have enjoyed 
spare ribs. hams, etc. if we had not been stopped by artificial squeamishness. 

Other Indian families camped near by, but not on Mackawaimi's site.  Most of the others 
belonged to the Da Corah family.  There was the father of the clan, Big Jim, Sam, and a 
younger, crafty member whose name comes back to me as Will.  Associated with them, although 
I am uncertain of their relationship, was Old Aleck and his squaw Pasigaw.  Each was one-eyed.  
The legend was that when Aleck was on a spree, he beat Pasigaw and blinded one eye.  The camp 
court took up the case and decreed that the culprit should be punished by having an eye 
destroyed.  They were both of them undignified and persistent beggars. 

Some of the younger Indians sought work, usually grubbing out trees or in wood cutting.  
Most, if not all, the Indians of that period were Winnebagos who had been removed from the 
area by the Federal Government and placed on reservations west of the Mississippi.  They, 
having lived in a wooded land of lakes and streams, did not like the prairies so they just 
walked back.  In a condition of acute destitution, they begged help from those who now held 
their former lands with the formula, "Me heap footsore, walkum all the way from Nebraska."  
In these circumstances, there were those who were ready to exploit their need. 

McMillen and the Indians:  I recall father McMillen as a tall, thin, white-bearded man who 
lived In the valley of the Neenah, some three miles to the north and east.  There was a 
large family of young men and very good looking daughters.  "Old McMillen" was a friend 
of the Indians, a sort of co-opted chief.  They went to him with all their troubles, even 
family and personal ones.  All his life he never failed them and, when there was any dispute 
with a white, the Indian would appeal to McMillen with the well founded statement, "McMillen, 
he know." 

Indian economy:  The Indians followed a cycle of seasonal camps.  In the spring, they hunted 
wild fowl and caught the sucker and red horse that were pushing into the smaller streams to 
spawn.  Later, some of them made plantings of squaw corn.  In late summer, they went into 
Adams and Juneau counties to gather blue berries, after that, they moved to regions where 
the wild rice grew in order to harvest that.  Later, they went deer hunting.  In the winter, 
they came among the farms where they looked for work, hand-outs, and sold their manufactures: 
excellent baskets made from ash splints, moccasins, beaded work -- some of this artistic and 
well done.  In speaking of McMillen, I forgot his son-in-law, Mr. Lee, a lawyer who lived in 
Stevens Point.  He was equally devoted to the welfare of the Indians and took up their rights 
before the courts.  Some of those who were cheated of their prey dubbed him in derision "Lo 
the poor Lee."  Certainly he made no money off the defense of human rights. 

In those days, circa 1880, the Indians wore blankets and moccasins.  The squaws had a sort 
of legging coming up to the knee.  In the outer side of the leg, they carried a well sharpened 
knife, sheathed between the leg and the legging.  With frontier toughs, this secured them 
a degree of respect.  Some of the men still used the bow and arrow.  The bow was not very 
long, of a rectangular cross section and, I believe, made of hickory.  The arrows were of 
wood.  They danced and sang on occasion, thumping a sort of tambourine-shaped drum.  We 
could hear them altogether too clearly from our house.  The steady monotonous beat of the 
drum and an occasional shouted "hi-yah, hi-yah, hi-yah -- hee-ee-e," 

Mixed blood:  There were some of the older settlers with some Indian blood.  Instead of a 
pride in this, they tended to forget it.  There was a character of whom I often heard, 
although I never saw him, Indian Jack.  I surmise there was some reason for the name.  What 
his real name was I never knew.  There was a corny anecdote about him which ran thus:  at a 
dance, a young woman wishing to embarrass him said, "Jack, is there a little Indian in you?"  
He replied, "No miss, but there was in my mother before I was born."  (Blushes). 

Douglas Center:  Geographically, this place must have been very near the center of the 
township.  It is a place  that has been like many places in New England, and for the same 
reason.  In Angola, for bureaucratic reasons of the past, I had to state in writing the date 
and place of my birth.  The place where I was born no longer had an existence.  When the 
county was settled, there was need of lumber for making doors and furniture and the grinding 
of grain for the making of bread.  The one available source of power was from the water in 
the streams.  Thus it happened that many small centers of population gathered about a grist 
mill located at some place where a stream could be dammed and a mill built.  So we have 
Briggsville, Oxford, Westfield, Montello, and there was Douglas Center where a dam was built 
on Neenah Creek.  I do not know who built the original mill but, at the time I became conscious 
of affairs, the owner and operator was Oscar Pomeroy.  Our house must have been a little over 
half a mile outside the town.  We were friends and visitors of the Pomeroys.  I cannot recall 
all the inhabitants.  I know there was a blacksmith shop.  Probably Johnny Blume was the smith. 
 His sister [Mary] had married my uncle Jim Ennis.  There was one son [John Ennis] and they had 
separated.  The Blumes were Germans and the elder Blume's farm joined ours on the west and over 
the hill.  Johnny, the blacksmith, ate at our house occasionally.  I recall two inventions of 
his.  He described a certain person as having a bad "forgettery" and he spoke of an addition 
to a house as a "condition."  If he had gone in for journalism instead of iron mongering, 
undoubtedly he would have enriched the language.  The store and post office were run by Mr. 
Pierce.  There was also a tavern; I do not recall under whose management.  There was a dress 
maker.  Pat McMahon's house was in the village and his farm on the side of it.  It was a 
rambling structure under some great trees.  My memory of it centered about a chain pump in 
their well, and the first I had seen.  The chain ran over coggle wheels, one on the platform 
at the top and another submerged in the water of the well.  Every six inches or a foot on the 
chain there was a rubber-edged disk which just fitted the bore of an iron pipe which reached 
down into the water.  When the handle of the top wheel was revolved, the disks brought up water 
which ran out of a spout at the top 

McMahons:  There was a numerous family.  Mr. McMahon was a thin man and worked hard to keep 
his large family fed and clothed.  His fences were in disrepair so my father used to speak 
of the youngsters as "McMahon's fence," for they were used to an extent in keeping the live 
stock in place.  Once when I went with my mother visiting at their house, we saw that their 
cattle were breaking into the corn field.  My mother gave the information as soon as we 
reached the house.  Mrs. McMahon called the oldest boy and said, "Patsy, run and get those 
critters out of the corn, and don't go draggin' a horse under you, nayther." 

On the east side of the mill stream, where I never went, there was the house of Widow White.  
Below the mill on the east side of the creek there was a high cliff-like bank with trees, 
and among them a small house occupied by a hermit old bachelor, Peter Dunn. 

Pomeroys:  Now to return to the miller, Ock Pomeroy.  His wife's name was 0live and her 
home was in the southeastern part of Wisconsin and one of her friends was the poetess 
Ella Wheeler Wilcox.  One of my early playmates was Willie Pomeroy.  He was one of the 
untamed and uninhibited.  As a child, I recall seeing "hair snakes."  They were in water, 
a little thicker than a horse hair, and transparent.  Popular word had it that they were 
horse tail hairs that had come alive in water.  I recall Willie pulling hairs from his own 
head and throwing them into the horse trough in order to raise up hair snakes for himself.  
One day when his mother was having a "tea" for neighbor women, she aimed to set a social 
norm for the benighted and wished to send Willie to fetch a bread board from the kitchen.  
He expressed the unwillingness common to children putting on company independence.  Finally 
his mother broke through his alleged ignorance and he said, "Now I know" and went through 
the house chanting, "The guttin' board, the guttin' board, the guttin' board" to the amusement 
of the guests and the chagrin of his mother.  He had a faithful small dog which allowed him 
to bury it in a heap of leaves, which Willie fired, removing much of the dog's coat.  My 
last recollection of WilIie was his first day at district school, which was about two miles 
from our house.  Our teacher was a veteran with many years' experience, Kate Donaher.  Willie 
was in the front seat and when she told him to do something or other, Willie not only refused 
but was offensive in method.  When she insisted he, being unacquainted with the voice of 
authority, told her if she felt that way about it he was going home and he started for the 
door.  With one swoop the teacher had him by the collar with one hand and brought a switch 
from the desktop with the other, and started such a vigorous intimacy between the two 
handsfull that not a breath was drawn in the benches for the next half minute.  Willie 
stayed, shut up, and did what he was told.  I cannot say that the teacher was an educator 
but, as there are practical nurses, so Miss Kate Donaher was a practical teacher. 

Associated with Ock Pomeroy was his younger brother Hank.  They and a third person, I guess 
a brother-in-law, were interested in some new invention having to do with producing flour 
by a new method.  I know I heard the words "rollers" said.  Perhaps it was the roller process 
which made all the old stone grinder mills obsolete.  I may have been where history was made.  
I know that the Pomeroys sold the mill, went away, never came back, and were reputedly 
prosperous.  A sister, Rosie, a buxom red headed young woman, was a friend of mother's who 
often stayed at our house a week at a time, and teased me by calling me "Merlin B. Ennis." 

The Widow Green:  In later years, I have often wondered who she may have been and where she 
went.  The bridge from which I caught my first fish was the Widow Green Bridge.  On the north 
side of the creek and west of the road there was a small field of father's, about four acres, 
which was called the 'Widow Green field.'  The year that I graduated from Endeavor Academy, 
father let me have his buggy team and the surrey and the graduation class went to Portage City 
to have the class picture taken.  We were Martha Bennett, Maggie McMillen, Alfred Gardner 
(Allie), Jim Bennett, and myself.  After exposing ourselves to the camera, we drove back to 
Douglas so that the Academy baseball team could play a local club.  The game was played in the 
Widow Green field.  Jim Bennett was captain, played first base, and hit a home run.  I pitched 
the game; we won, and it was the last game I played on the Academy team.

Pinery Road:  Long ago, a street in Portage City cut diagonally across the right angled net 
work of streets conforming to the mid-west city plans.  It was called Pinery Road.  The last 
time I was in this metropolis, the name of this old thoroughfare had been modernized and it 
is called Franklin Street or some other such tasteless name.  Early in the century, the birds 
of prey had begun to exploit the great pine forests of North Wisconsin.  Great fortunes were 
made and individuals made honorable, elected to prominent offices, and their names permanently 
embedded in history on the basis of the amount of loot taken from the public domain.  One 
outlet for their loot was the Wisconsin River.  The river furnished the power to operate the 
mills which turned the logs into lumber.  The river brought the logs down to the mills; the 
river carried the rafted lumber down to the Mississippi, to St. Louis and to the world. 

The river did not present a channel for the food, tools, and machines needed for logging 
and lumber making.  These supplies were taken in by teamsters, by wagons in the spring, 
summer, and autumn, and by sleighs in the winter.  Horses were the chief motive power.  
As oxen were used in logging, I suppose that the oxen went into exile attached to some 
vehicle.  No one has ever spoken of the roads as having been made and it is probable that 
little effort was given to their upkeep away from the advancing settlement. 

Portage Wisconsin:  Portage, on the boat portage between the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers and 
later on the line of the Chicago, Milwaukee and Saint Paul Railway, was a point of departure 
for supplies being teamed to the "pineries."  As far as I knew, Pinery Road came through 
Briggsville, passed to the west of a chain of hills, crossed the Little Neenah along the 
west side of the Widow Green field, passed Riley's, on up to the west of Neenah Creek, 
through Oxford, and on and on up to Grand Rapids (later the name was changed to Wisconsin 
Rapids).

Pinery Road at Little Neenah:  When I came to observe traffic, much of it had been diverted 
across the top of Widow Green Field and onto the turnpike running due south as straight as 
a line on ruled paper.  This road went past our house.  Portage was the shopping center for
 a great agricultural area.  I believe that it was 13 miles by road from Widow Green Bridge 
to Portage.  Farmers from as far away as twenty five miles passed our house, taking fowls, 
eggs, butter, hogs, wool, wheat, and other produce and coming back at night or the next day 
with stuff purchased in the better and cheaper merchandise found in the local metropolis.  
This road in wet weather was muddy and rutted, in dry weather, sandy and dusty.  The slope 
up from the bridge on the south side of the creek was red clay.  In the spring and in time 
of heavy rains, vehicles sank into this clay clear to the hubs.  My father kept a yoke of 
oxen and a long chain.  With them he rescued many a baffled wayfarer.  Oxen are better 
draught animals than horses for such occasions for they do not have the "nerves" of the 
swifter animals.  Kipling's "the bullock is a fool" was assembled by some one unfamiliar 
with the ox.

Peddlers:  The road brought to us many friends and visitors as well as the passers by who 
wished a drink of water or directions in order to get to where they wished to go.  There 
were also the tramps and the city folk going a-hunting or a-fishing.  There were the peddlers 
and the mobile traders such as "Yankee Smith."  I do not know that he was a yankee; he was 
called that because his caravan was loaded with "yankee notions" as well as pieces of dress 
goods and some kitchen ware.  He was welcomed, asked to stop to dinner or over night.  He 
was a purveyor of local news and gossip.  One character who went about with horse and light 
wagon selling meats was an Englishman, Joe Tempest.  He was about as tempestuous as a tea pot. 
 My father would tempt him to make his standard reply to a certain complaint.  Father would 
say, "Mr. Tempest, this meat is a little high."  Joe would reply, "'E smells a little, but 
not enough to 'urt."

Philips:  Some miles to the north there were two English brothers, Philips, Tom and his wife 
were well to do, great friends of mother, and they had no children.  Joe Philips, the brother, 
was an indifferent farmer.  He had a numerous family.  He too had an habitual answer.  Most 
folks when making the long journey to Portage would get away early and pass our house before 
we had breakfast.  Invariably Mr. and Mrs. Joe Philips with their numerous brood in the wagon 
box would come along sometime toward eleven.  When this was spoken, Joe, a thin dispirited man 
would say, "One of the children was sick in the night and we did not get hup 'til habout hate 
ho'clock."

Binding out boys:  A road leads to all the world; even a dead end street has a live end.  A road 
such as the Pinery Road is an exit as well as an adit.  The two decades following 1845 brought 
people from many lands to Marquette County, even some Africans.  In the following twenty years, 
there was a steady exodus.  I as a child did not comprehend what I saw and heard.  The county was 
fairly filled up and, to some, their numerous progeny proved to be a problem, a problem which was 
often the sole heritage of the progeny.  I heard without understanding that some one or other had 
"bound out" his son or some young man had been "bound out" to such and such a farmer and that when 
he was twenty one that the young man planned to go west.  This must have been some sort of apprentice-
ship which had gone out before I was grown up, for in my later years I never heard of any such practice.

As it was in the seventies and up into the eighties, young men went away to work. Many of them went 
to the "woods."  That was up North into the lumber or logging camps.  This, in general, was a seasonal 
occupation and lasted through the winter while there was little doing on the farm.  Others went to work 
on the prairie.  The prairie was anywhere south of the railway from Portage to Milwaukee and east of the 
line from Portage to Janesville.  There were large well developed farms with good soil and good markets 
in this region, and some of those who went there to work got year long employment.  There were others who 
went to Iowa and Minnesota for the harvesting season.

Father went to Dakota:  About 1881 when the Northern Pacific was building and there was offer of government 
land In North Dakota and Montana, some sold their holdings and moved their families to this land of promise.  
Father went along with some of his friends to look and see.  He got work on the construction of the bridge 
across the Missouri River at Bismark.  He had time to look around and was not tempted.  After he came back, 
he and mother decided to sell the farm and move to the Wisconsin Central line at Merritt's Landing in the 
town of Moundville and set up a country store and lumber yard.  This they did in 1882 when I was eight.

People of Douglas:  There was much in the way of character in the region just emerging from the pioneer stage.  
Many of the farmers were either immigrants from Ireland or from Germany.  These immigrants were in the south-
western two thirds of the town.  Most of them were Roman Catholics and some were uneducated.  There was a 
story of one priest who served the parish whose church was in Briggsville.  He was preaching on the theme 
of improving living conditions.  He, an Irishman, praised the housekeeping and upkeep of the Germans in 
his parish.  Then he said, "When I go to the house of an Irish parishoner and approach the door to knock, 
I stand with my feet wide apart.  And now why do I do that?  Why, of course, so I won't interfere with the 
pig when the door is opened.  Now then, quit making your pastor straddle." 

O'Rahelty:  One of our closest friends and our closest neighbor was Mr. Riley, Morgan O'Rahelty, but as the 
Americans could not say that with the proper gutterals, he compromised on Riley.  He had a small farm and, 
as I recall, there were two or three grown children.  There was a son, Morgan, who was married, a bit spoiled, 
and at one time he, his wife and child lived with the old man.  We were visiting there and I went out to slide 
on a patch of ice.  The young grandson joined in the sport although he had bare feet.  It was my first realization 
of what it is to be poor.  It bothered Johnny not at all.  There was a young girl of ten or twelve, Maggie, who 
was fond of me and sponsored me on the long trip to the Parrott School.  The elder Mr. Riley was a staunch friend 
to the family and always glad to neighbor.  He had a peculiarity of speech whereby all words with "WH" in them he 
pronounced the diphthong as "F."  In speaking of a road race with some other farmer he said, "I firled and hit the 
fite horse with my fip."  (I whirled and hit the white horse with my whip.)

Peter Dunn:  Peter Dunn, he of the small house above the mill stream, was often helped in one way or another.  
Father was clearing some new land and he told Peter that he would give him wood for his winter fire if he would 
cut it up.  When this was done, father hauled the wood with team and wagon to the wee house.  Peter was telling 
Mr. Riley about it and he said, "Hugh is a good man.  It is too bad that he is not a Catholic."  Mr. Riley replied, 
"There are plenty of them about and a hell of a lot of good it does you."  Once, when I had been there with Maggie, 
I came home and told mother, "There were some old men there and Mr. Riley was talking Indian (Erse) with them."  To 
come back to Peter Dunn, once he told father that having meat hunger, he stole one of Widow White's hens and ate it.  
Then, when he went to confession, the father had given him a penance by condemning him to go with half a dozen dried 
peas in each shoe for ten days.  Father said, "Peter, that must have been pretty hard on you."  Peter replied, "Ah Vic, 
I biled them."

O'Keefe:   We were on good terms with our Irish neighbors.  I recall visiting the Clearys, the O'Neills, McMahons, 
Blumes, O'Keefes, and Boyles.  I was a puny kid but I recall how good the men were to me.  They called me "Conn."  
I do not know the significance of this.  I think that it had to do with some belief in incarnation.  Later, when I 
was a student in college, I encountered a boy in his early teens at the railway station In Portage.  He was blinded 
and being sent to the State School for the Blind at Janesville.  I helped him, sitting and conversing with him until 
I turned him over to the proper authority.  His name was Placide Mugenot (I hope that is the spelling).  He was an 
orphan and had been placed with a Boyle family in Douglas, I suppose a son of Pat Boyle of my memory.  Some fool 
youngster had pointed a shotgun at Placide and it had been discharged destroying both his eyes. 

Jack O'Keefe:   Neighbors to the Boyles on the North-South road on the east bank of Neenah Creek was the farm of 
Conn O'Keefe.  The house and farm buildings were in plain sight across the valley from our house.  They were about 
5 miles away, going around by the road.  The threshing machine that came to do our grain was captained by Conn's 
son, Jack.  To my young eyes, he was an heroic figure, like the Lone Ranger of later days to a later generation.  
It was told how Conn O'Keefe tried to keep his son from going into such a dangerous occupation.  Conn said, "I 
devised him and his mother devised him, but he took (name forgotten)'s device and bought a machine and now he 
is gone to the divil entirely." 

Breshnahan:  To the west of us, there was a Breshnahan family.  Corny Breshnahan was the source of many anecdotes.  
My father, passing his farm one day, found him plowing with oxen.  Evidently he was not too familiar with the process 
for he had attached the plow at the full length of the chain.  The long connection caused the plow to run into the 
soil clear to the beam.  My father said, "Mr. Breshnahan, you are plowing pretty deep."  Corny replied, "Ah, Hugh, 
the plow is terribly ayger for the ground."

Heberlein:  On the way from our house to Briggsville, between the corner where we turned to the west for a half a mile, 
between that corner and Neenah Creek, there were two well set up farmsteads belonging to families of Germans, Heberlein 
and Brancell.  On these farms there were two big boys, Fred Brancell and Fred Heberlein.  Later, the latter went away 
to college and seminary.  He was ordained into the ministry, had churches in the Southwest, North Wisconsin and finally 
at Endeavor, where, when we were home on furlough, we renewed friendship.  Since we retired, Fred Brancell, grandson of 
the Fred I knew, went to Angola as a missionary of the Methodist Church.

Grays:  When the road turned south again to skirt the range of hills, we passed three farm houses of Grays:  that of 
Gene (of whom more later), that of Tip Gray who wore a fine heavy beard and, as I remember it, drove mules, then there 
was the house of the father, Old Man Gray.

Waldo and Brooks:  In Bríggsville we traded at Waldo's general store.  Furthermore, we were visitors back and forth.  
Charlie Waldo was widely known and liked.  There was another character in Briggsville known throughout the region, 
Mother Brooks.  One day when I was about three, I was playing in the barn while my father was working at something 
when the wind slammed one of the big doors shut catching one of my bare feet and partially crushing it.  I can recall 
father picking me up and carrying me to the house.  My ankle did not get well and a sore developed.  After a time 
mother said that something had to be done and that I should be taken to a doctor.  Father balked at Dr. Parrot (more 
of him later).  Father said, "Let us take him to Mrs. Brooks."  Mother was a bit dubious.  We went to Briggsville.  
Mother stopped with Mrs. Waldo while father took me across the mill stream and up a small hill on a street leading 
to the south.  The small, low house was on the left hand side of the street.  The herbalist was a short, pleasant, 
motherly person, perhaps sixty years of age.  She asked carefully about the accident, what had been done.  She said 
there was nothing to be concerned over.  I do not recall what medications she provided; I do know that the sore healed 
up and soon I was on the go again.

Curtis Cushman:  One of our Briggsville friends was Curtis Cushman, a young man of a lively disposition, gay and 
entertaining.  Some eight years after we left Douglas, he called at our house and had us all in stitches as he 
related a domestic incident which involved Ma Brooks.  He said that his wife had a mole on her nose and that he 
used to say to her, "Jule, if it weren't for that mole on your nose, you would be a pretty good looking woman."  
So, one day when he was shaving, he was kidding her about the mole when she said, "If you don't like it, why don't 
you cut it off?"  He said, "Pshaw, you wouldn't let me·"  She averred that she would and that as he had his razor 
in hand to go ahead.  This was a "Wade and Butcher" type razor, not a Gillette. The upshot was, that after negotiations 
of the daring kind, he took his razor and sliced it off.  The result was like the bomb at Bikini; they exceeded all 
anticipation.  The stump began to spout blood and they were both panicked.  Application of cloths only spread matters 
and soon the whole front of her dress was soaked and he himself was gored.  He ran and got flour from the flour sack 
and applied it liberally.  He said the combination of flour and blood on face and clothing was horrifying.  Their 
numerous children were circling about weeping and saying, "Papa has killed mama, papa has killed mama."  He said, 
"I began to think I had."  Then Jule said, "Curtis, go get Ma Brooks."  The team was outside, harnessed to the wagon.  
He took one of the horses from the wagon and, without removing the harness, mounted and galloped away to Ma Brooks 
house.  She said, "Why Curtis, what have you done to yourself?"  He said, "It is what I did to Jule."  Then he told 
her and she told him, "Go home as fast as you can; go into the attic and gather some cob webs and put them on her 
nose and I shall come as fast as I am able.  So he went galloping back with the harness flapping.  "When he got back 
the bleeding had lessened.  The cobwebs helped again.  When Ma Brooks came panting, she put on something that stopped 
the flow of blood and then helped them wash up.  He said that cured him of fooling.  A doubtful statement.

Dr. Parrot:  Now to come back to Dr. Parrot.  He and his wife were English -- it exuded from them.  They had a fine 
green-shuttered, white house with lawn and flowers on the east side of the Neenah Creek, a mile above the mill at 
Douglas Center.  He had a farm which he worked using hired help; I do not recall how many.  The grown older son was 
Arthur and I suppose he worked on the farm.  The younger son, Alfred, was grown and a particularly handsome youth.  
Later he married our friend Roay Pomeroy and they succeeded to the farm.  Dr. Parrot had a license to practice and 
did, but his skill was not highly rated.  I have often wondered about his history and what may have led him to come 
and locate in such a community.  Mrs. Parrot was a good looking woman who always was well dressed.  Their chief 
friends were the Brickwells.  Mr. Brickwell was a lawyer living in Portage.

Black sheep:  Then there were the local black sheep.  First there was Jess Morgan.  He was a strong character and 
a well-to-do farmer.  His place was just west of Dr. Parrot's and on the west side of the creek.  There was a fine 
white house and extensive red farm buildings.  He wore a full black beard and drove good horses.  He had been married, 
I believe to a Tiffany, and they had two sons, smart and active young men.  The older, Will, married mother's sister 
Carrie [Chapman].  This was before my recollection.  They moved away to the Dakotas and never returned except for 
rare visits.  The original marriage broke up, I do not know how and Jess took up with a local girl -- my impression 
was that they were not married though living together.  Whatever the merits of the case may have been, it was not 
locally approved.  Perhaps ostracism burned this proud man and he began to drink heavily and ultimately lost his 
farm and moved away. 

Gene Gray:   A somewhat similar case was that of Gene Gray.  He had a good farm, a capable wife from a family of 
repute and, I believe, two growing children.  They were among those with whom we visited.  He became enamored with 
a dashing, gypsy-like daughter of a family of partial repute.  This caused much scandal.  He left the farm to his 
wife; I suppose a divorce was arranged.  I recall going with my parents to call on the discarded wife.  As we moved 
out of the community, I have no recollection of what happened to Gene and Tilly -----. 

Pages:  My father was an Odd Fellow.  The lodge had meetings in a hall in Brlggsville.  One of the brothers was 
Bill Page.  The Pages had a farm some four miles to the northeast.  Bill was an advanced farmer.  I recall that 
he was one of the first to store his hay under a light roof mounted on posts and arranged so the roof might be 
raised and lowered.  The contraption was called a barrack.  Mrs. Page was a daughter of McFaulkner, an Englishman 
resident in Moundville.  They had two sons and two daughters; the youngest, Ellen, is today in 1955, my oldest 
living friend.  Our acquaintance goes back more than 75 years. 

Deaths:  My father's younger brother, David [Ennis], was the pride of the family.  He was a scholar.  Today, I do 
not know where he went to school.  This I know:  that he was principal of the high school in Westfield at the time 
of his death, which occurred in his young manhood.  He was unmarried.  I recall him as a medium-sized, cheery 
individual, red-haired, and with a short, well-trimmed beard.  His death was sudden and unexpected and I can recall 
the gloom and sadness of the whole family.  I could not comprehend the disaster and did not share the sorrow and sense 
of loss.  I suppose that I must have been about 4 years old.  I have written of the birth of my twin sisters in my 
third year (really 4th, I was a bit more than 3 when they were born).  Lulu died of "summer complaint" when she was 
about six months old.  I have no recollection of the sickness, but I can recall the funeral.  The burial was in the 
cemetery near the Loomis School House.  Later, a Presbyterian church was built adjacent to the burying ground.  I can 
recall holding to my father's hand in the cemetery and my mother leaning on one of her sisters while she wept.  The 
people sang hymns and the tunes of two of them were in my memory for many years.

Economics of the 1870s
Subsistence:  The farming was largely subsistence.  People took their grain to the grist mills and had it ground into 
flour.  The grains taken were wheat, rye, maize, and buckwheat.  The Germans went in for rye bread but everyone ate 
wheat bread and mostly from white flour.  The corn meal was used for "mush" and for making "Johnny Cake," also in 
Indian pudding.  I recall my grandfather [Benjamin Henry] Chapman getting the pot of water hot on the kitchen stove 
and with the pudding stick in one hand he sifted corn meal in with the other hand while he stirred steadily until 
the mush was cooked enough, when the pot was lifted off and we all fell to.  I suppose every farm had it's buckwheat 
patch.  Buckwheat was used for feeding fowls, especially turkeys.  All through the winter, people reveled in buckwheat 
cakes with sorghum syrup.  Some mills specialized in the grinding of buckwheat.  There was a mill to the north of 
Packwaukee, run by Charlie Richards, which was famous for its buckwheat flour.  At our house, we also had pancakes 
made from whole wheat flour.  For these, as well as for the buckwheat cakes, a perennial batter was used.  I do not 
know how the batter was started, perhaps newlyweds brought a bit from home to start them in house keeping.  This 
batter was made in a crock or some other such container.  The correct amount of flour, water and salt stirred in, 
and the mixture put where it would enjoy the proper temperature.  In the morning, saleratus would be added and the 
batter blown full of bubbles which gave the cakes their desired lightness.  Here is where the skill of the cook was 
tested, for if there was too much economy the cakes would be soggy and sour; if one was too generous with the soda, 
the cakes would have a jaundiced appearance and an appropriate flavor. 

Sorghum:   Now, in order to have top satisfaction from the buckwheat cake, butter and syrup were required.  Maple 
syrup was a rarity and the molasses sold at the stores was of a robust quality, so the prime favorite was sorghum 
molasses.  Almost everyone had a patch of sugar cane.  In addition to care and fertilizer, this cane had to be cut 
at the right point of sweetness.  As a small boy, I was pressed into the job of stripping the cane.  I was given 
a lath and sent into the patch where I slashed the leaves from the stems.  When this was done, father cut the seed 
tops off  then cut the canes close to the ground with a corn cutter.  The canes were then tied into bundles the 
thickness of a man's thigh and they were piled up crisscross, that is, a layer of bundles laid on poles oriented 
east and west then a layer north and south.  Of course, co-ordination with the points of the compass had nothing 
to do with it.  The pile was covered with hay to prevent evaporation.  When a date had been made with the sorghum 
mill, father loaded the wagon with bundles and we set off the five miles or so to Al McMillen's. 

Al McMillen's cane mill:  Al ran a sorghum mill in addition to operating a large farm.  We found that many had been 
before us so we were assigned a place to put our cane.  I know that father made more than one trip.  This was an 
experience for me.  First I looked at the crusher which was operated by a team at the end of a long sweep.  As the 
horses went round and round, they caused the roller of the mill to revolve.  These rollers stood perpendicular, and 
the man in charge inserted the canes between the rolls which crushed the canes and then squeezed them so that a 
yellowish-green, watery juice ran out and into a large barrel.  There was some one who disposed of the bagasse.  
Next my father took me to the boiling shed.  There was a whole series of shallow, rectangular metal pans set 
over a masonry tunnel in which a fire was kept burning, there being a smoke stack at the far end.  There were 
divisions and gates in the pans.  The watery juice boiled vigorously at the first section and passed on into 
another section where it was thicker and had a yellowish color. There was a person in charge who had a long 
handled skimmer.  He skimmed off a greenish, frothy scum which was put into a barrel.  As the boiling juice 
progressed, there was less scum and, at a certain point, it became thin syrup.  At the end, the syrup was 
drawn off, measured and put into a container.  This final stage required good judgement, for if the syrup 
was insufficiently cooked it would ferment.  Care was needed in the whole process to keep the pans from 
becoming overheated -- syrup with a scorched taste was unpopular.

Summer for the farmer:  The summer was a busy season for the farmer and for the house wife.  A garden was a 
necessity.  This was well manured and plowed early.  The first thing to come on the menu was parsnips which 
had been left in the ground all winter and dug as soon as the frost was out.  Next was asparagus and pie 
plant. Before the winter was passed, most of last year's vegetables had been eaten.  As far as they were 
able, the whole family worked in the garden.  After preparing the ground, there was weeding and hoeing.  
It was an aim to have the first new potatoes and green peas by the fourth of July.  Between the time of 
pie plant and new potatoes, there was the season of "greens" --  dandelions and nettles, also, later, pig 
weeds and red root. 

Autumn:  By the time cold weather set in, there were squashes, pie pumpkins, rutabagas, beets, carrots and 
cabbage to be put away with the potatoes in the cellar.  During the summer, apples had been dried, sweet 
corn dried, jams and jellies made, and some had begun to can fruits in mason jars.  By my day, most every 
farm had an orchard with apple trees and sometimes with cherries and plums.  Everyone expected to grow their 
own strawberries and many had currents, gooseberries, raspberries and blackberries. 

Farm animals:  All farms had cows, fowls, turkeys and hogs; many had geese and some had ducks.  Thus, they 
had turkeys for Thanksgiving and to sell, goose for Christmas, and chicken when wanted.  The hogs were butchered; 
hams and bacon smoked in the smoke house, and lard made in quantity.  Usually, there were no eggs in the winter.  
Milk, butter and cottage cheese were produced in sufficient amounts.  Parenthetically, I may say that sometime 
about 1880, my father, coming back from Douglas Center, reported two new food items for sale:  1) "butterine" -- 
name later prohibited by law and thereafter written "margarine" and said "margerine" and 2) "glucose," sold as 
Karo today.  We tried the glucose and deferred further experiment.

Wild fruit:  As an addition to the diet, most of the farmers did some hunting and fishing.  Many looked for 
wild berries and expeditions were made into the scrub pine regions further north in the blueberry season.  
Most of the farms had a melon patch where they grew both watermelons and muskmelons.  In the fall, hazelnuts 
and hickory nuts were sought and put away for winter use as was a stock of pop corn. 

Home industry:  Then there were the other devices for saving one from having to buy store things.  Most every 
farm had sheep.  Most of the wool was sold but, in many houses, there were spinning wheels and the women had 
cards and teasel.  They knit socks, mittens, scarves, and caps.  Wool was an excellent substitute for cotton 
in making comforters and quilts.  Those who had geese plucked them in season and the feathers acquired made 
the best pillow filling. 

Candles:  Both beef and mutton were used and the tallow was saved for many purposes, especially for making 
tallow candles.  I remember watching my Granny [Mary Pepper] Chapman melt the tallow, put the wicking through 
the orifice at the small end of the molds, pull it tight, and tie it to a nail laid across the larger end of 
the tube.  My thought is that there were eight of these tubes all arranged in one unit.  When the tubes were 
all equipped with wicking, she carefully poured the hot liquid tallow into each tube.  The knot at the bottom 
of the mold kept the tallow from escaping.  The candle mold was set aside to cool and, when the candles had 
hardened, the knots at the tips were untied, the whole set then gently heated, and the candles removed, and 
then the process repeated.

Soft soap:  Another home industry was the making of soap:  soft soap.  I suppose that many who use the term 
as a literary device have little idea about the actual article.  There was a container into which all surplus 
grease was put.  Sometimes this soap grease was offal, dirty or smelly grease.  It was a high grade garbage.  
Somewhere back of the house, there was the "leach."  Some households had an article made for the purpose.  
Ordinarily, there were boards nailed together to make a square some 2x3 feet; some grooves were cut in the 
boards running with the grain. This tablet was mounted on something to raise it up from the ground two or 
more feet.  It was placed at a slant with the length of the boards slanting down.  On this platform would 
be mounted a barrel with some holes bored through the bottom and the bottom of some staves.  Into this barrel 
would be thrown all the wood ashes from the house, then water would be poured on the ashes.  This water, having 
extracted the alkali from the ashes, would seep out through the holes in the barrel, run down the grooves and 
be caught in a container placed to catch the drip.  This drip was lye.  The lye was put away and kept until 
soap-making time came around.  I remember when we made soap.  The cauldron kettle, generally used for cooking 
feed for the hogs, was hung from a pole supported by crotched stakes firmly fixed in the earth, the lye and 
soap-grease put in, and a fire kept going under the kettle to keep the mess simmering.  I do not know how they 
determined how much lye was used in proportion to the fat.  When the soap was made, it was transferred to a barrel 
which was kept in the woodshed.  It was a brownish tinged semi-liquid of a stringy consistency and very slippery 
to feel.  It was not perfumed.  When clothes were to be washed, some was taken out with a dipper and put into the 
suds.  A small quantity was put in one hand preparatory to washing up.  It was tough on dirt and most everything 
else.  As far as I know, after 1890 it was used only by politicians and book agents. 

Fencing:  Fencing was another matter of considerable importance and for the most part depended on home provision.  
The early fences were the rail fence and the worm fence with stakes and riders.  These were still being built while 
I was a boy in Douglas.  They were the fences that earned Lincoln to be called the "rail splitter."  The best rails 
were those split from big logs.  Later, they made excellent firewood.  When the surplus timber was used up, the farmer 
had to turn to other devices.  My earliest memories are of the board and pole fences along the highways.  Fencing 
was perhaps the most common stock of the lumber dealers.  The stuff was unplaned boards, one inch thick, six inches 
wide, and 16 feet long; 12 and 14 foot lengths were also stocked.  All the stores carried fence nails.  These were 
square nails, thicker and stronger than those used in building.  Generally, the farmer cut the posts from his own 
land.  As these were often put in green they rotted soon and were an item of failure and weakness in the project.  
There were three posts to a length, one at each end and one in the middle of the board.  The board needed two nails 
at every post.  Of course, in the whole length of fencing there were two posts to each board length.  The pole fence 
was like the board fence except that those who had long, slim, straight poles cut them to length, sniped the butts 
to a sufficient thinness, and nailed them to the posts.  Sometimes the fence was a combination of boards and poles.

Father and the Tamaracks:  My father owned forty acres of tamarack swamp some five miles to the northeast.  It was 
possible to get to this land only in the coldest period of the winter.  He would go and break a road to this, trampling 
down the snow into the unfrozen slush beneath.  After this had frozen, he would go with horses and bob sleigh to fetch 
poles for firewood and fencing.  He, having spent years in the pine woods, was an accomplished axe man.  He would do 
his chores by lantern light, breakfast while it was still dark, and come back at night with a big load of tamarack.  
Evidently the growth in the swamp was dense, hence the boles of the trees were straight and long, keeping their 
thickness for a considerable distance.  The wood was soft and a very few blows of the axe brought the tree down.  
As the branches were small, in the time of frost most broke off when the tree hit the frozen surface, and a few 
sweeps of the axe and a blow cut off the top.  When he had cut enough for a load, they would be put on the sleigh, 
hauled out of the swamp to hard land, and unloaded for future haulage when the frost had gone out in the swamp.  
Then he would go back to the swamp, eat his lunch, cut more poles, load them, and come home.  He cut red tamarack 
to be used for posts.  This kind was more resistant to rot.  After the cold was past, he secured the services of 
a portable power saw and the poles were split into two, three or four slices.  These slabs and unedged boards were 
used in fencing our fields and pastures.

Metal fencing:  Digging post holes for these fences, setting the posts, cutting the rails to the correct length 
and nailing them on, entailed much hard work and discounted the amount of effort that could be given to production.  
The first metal fencing that I saw was along the road near Date's Mill.  It was a shiny strip of metal (I suppose 
galvanized) fastened to posts.  The next, I believe the same year, was on the farm of "Colonel" (Cornelius) Merritt.  
This was a 3/4" wide strip of galvanized sheet iron, having one edge notched, like saw teeth, and the whole twisted 
and stapled to posts.  We heard from father's brothers, who were farming in Buffalo, that they had bought a kind of 
wire fencing with barbs on it.  I do not recall where I first saw barbed wire itself.  But barbed wire released for 
production much farmer energy. 

Economics for barter:  I have often wondered what the first settlers sold, to whom they sold it, and where it went.  
I do not know when the railroad came to Portage City.  As they celebrated the centennial of the town's organization 
in the fifties, I imagine that the railroad must have dated from about 1850.  My grandfathers came into Marquette 
County in 1848.  My grandfather [B.H.] Chapman was among the first to build in Moundville.  He made no mention of 
a railway.  He and the Haweses came up from Sauk Center way by wagon.  Twenty years earlier, people came to Fort 
Winnebago via the Fox river.  Soon after my grandfather Chapman was established,  Grandmother became hungry for 
bread.  He walked 40 miles or more across country to Beaver Dam and carried fifty pounds of flour back on his 
shoulders.  Where he stopped on the way I was not foolish enough to ask, but it would seem that if supplies had 
been available in Portage that he would have preferred the 15-mile carry.

Packwaukee:  Packwaukee was a trading post from earlier times.  I imagine that the same was true of Montello and 
of Marquette.  There is a legend which was current to the effect that, at the time of the Black Hawk War, both 
Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln visited Packwaukee.  So its existence would reach back to the 1830 -1835 era.  
My first sight of Packwaukee, circa 1880, recorded it as a city.  I know that at that time there were docks, two 
grain elevators and a large storehouse on the bank of the lake (Buffalo Lake, a widening of Fox River).  This would 
lead me to think that the first markets were on the rivers -- Fox and Wisconsin, principally on the Fox.  The saleable 
stuff would be foods for man and beast -- first wheat, then com and oats, cattle, hogs, sheep and fowls, next salt 
pork, corned beef, wool and hides, probably some sale for hay.  Then there would have been sale for wood for steamboats 
as soon as they began to run. 

1850-1860:  Between 1850 and 1865, there must have been great advances in settlement, clearing of farm lands, making 
of roads and building of bridges.  I suppose the digging of the canal between the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers belongs 
to that period.  The war created many demands and the development of the lumber industry created demands for many 
of the products of the farm. 

Hops for beer:  Sometime before my consciousness there must have been a boom in hop raising.  I judge that this rose 
and fell in the 15 year period between 1865 and 1880.  I used to hear my mother [Charlotte Chapman] and her sisters 
discussing experiences at hop picking.  My guess is this was in the period 1870 -72.  When I was a small boy, I can 
recall the sight of a hop yard -- the vines hanging from tall poles set in rows in a field, men bringing vines to 
groups of women and girls gathered round large boxes with barrow-like handles on them.  All through the country 
there were hop houses in later years, distinguished by cupolas for allowing hot fumes to escape.  At the same 
time, on many farms there were stacks of hop poles awaiting the time that they would go into the kitchen stove.  
I saw instruments for pulling hop poles.  When I was about ten, I climbed a stairway at the unused hop-house on 
the Harrison Coon farm and went into the drying chamber.  The floor was made of strips of inch lumber, about 3 
inches wide, set on edge, about an inch and a half apart.  Over these there was fastened some very loosely woven 
burlap.  Peeking through a hole, I saw a large iron box stove in a large empty room.  Our school house, the Town 
Line School, was heated by a discarded hop stove.  I was told that when they raised hops, a hot fire was made in 
the stove in the lower room, the hops were spread in the upper room, the hot air came up through the cracks in 
the floor and out through the cupola, thus preparing the hops for baling and sale.  As far as I can recall, the 
hop business was out by 1882.  What stopped it I do not know. 

Pig feed:  By 1882 when we left Douglas, the dairy industry had not developed.  Potatoes were grown only for local 
use.  In the last years before we left the farm, my father had depended largely on the growing of hogs.  He grew 
quantities of pumpkins and had a machine for grinding corn and oats.  He grew the pigs on pasture, then fattened 
them on corn, potatoes and oats cooked together in the great iron kettle.  And he gave them pumpkins and mangel-
wurzels in the fall.  We had a root cellar. This was the cellar of the house abandoned when the house was moved, 
covered over with beams with poles on top of the beams and plenty of straw over the poles. He grew quantities of 
large carrots, mangel-wurzels, and rutabagas.  These, along with potatoes, were put in the root cellar and in the 
winter were taken out for our food and as feed for the stock. 

Sailor Mann:  I have one vivid memory from this old root cellar.  On two different summers, there appeared at our 
farm a sailor by the name of Mann.  If I am not mistaken, it was Alonzo Mann.  He was a large, bronzed, taciturn 
man with tattooed arms and immense powerful wrists.  He said that he was tired of the sea and was not going back 
again.  He carried a seaman's duffel bag and asked for work, which my father gave him.  He was a good worker.  
One day at table some one mentioned Havana.  He spoke up and said, "I know that place.  I was in prison there 
for three years."  My father said, "Why Mr. Mann, what did they put you in prison for?"  He replied in Coolidge 
style, "Good behavior."

Well, when sister Lola was about two years old we were playing on top of the root cellar.  Lola broke through 
the straw and fell down through to where her arms stopped her descent.  We both began to yell with fright.  
Sailor Mann, who was working near, came running and with a sweep of his powerful arm picked her out and said 
to me, "But why don't you do something for your God damned little sister instead of yelling your head off?" 

Hogs and sheep:  Hog raising was one considerable source of income in the 1870 -1885 period.  Corn, potatoes, 
clover and other things too bulky or heavy to be hauled away to advantage were converted into pork, and this 
found a ready market.  There was a constant discussion of the comparative merits of the Berkshires and the 
Chester Whites as money producers.  Most farmers had flocks of sheep.  There was a considerable clip of wool 
and this was a profitable product.  I remember the wagons going past piled high with wool.  The surplus animals 
could be either carried to market in a wagon or driven in on the hoof.  When we moved from Douglas to Merritt's 
Landing, I drove the few remaining sheep over the roads all the way. 

Roads:  In general, the roads were poor.  They were kept up by the farmers themselves.  There was a poll tax 
and it was permitted to pay this through work on the road.  The township was divided into districts and there 
was a town official in charge of each section.  He had a list of the payers of poll tax in his area and was 
charged with calling out the men and deciding where they should work and what should be done.  It seems to 
me that his title was "pathmaster."  Some of these were definitely interested in good roads, others in 
securing the minimum of compliance.  Under this system, it was hard to develop trunk lines leading to markets.  
When the ground was frozen before the snow came, the wise farmers loaded their wagons to capacity and set out 
for market.  Sleighing sometimes offered good transport facilities, but as there were many rail fences 
reinforced with hazel and briar bushes, there was much drifting of snow in the regular roads and it was 
common for an opening to be made in a fence and a winter road through the fields and woods to be improvised 
and used all through the winter. 

Miscellaneous:  I suppose most readers of Americana know the term "shake roof."  I have, in the Douglas days, 
seen shakes in place and in use on out buildings and old log houses.  They appear to have been a superior type 
of shingle and more durable than those cut with a saw.  I was curious about them.  My father explained their 
manufacture and qualities.  When he went into the 'pineries' in the sixties, he was sent far up into the woods 
to prepare the buildings for the logging camp to be used in the coming winter.  As it was too difficult to 
send shingles, the crew included a man to shave the shakes for the roofs.  A log with a straight grain and 
which split readily would be cut in lengths approximately 20 inches long.  Rectangular blocks would be split 
from these sections.  The man would take a long knife like tool having a heavy back.  He would hit this froe 
(I hope that is the spelling) a sharp blow splitting off a piece, then he would split off a thin slice from 
the block and continue until he had reduced the block to a series of thin flakes.  The ones I saw appeared 
to be about 1/4 inch when well weathered.  After these blanks had been split off with the froe, any unevenness 
was removed.  The shakes were laid as shingles are, but the exposed laps were wider. 

Arrow heads:  I began observing early.  One day when father was plowing, I followed behind him walking in the 
furrow, probably to collect grub worms for bait so that I might go fishing.  I found a large and beautifully 
made point made from a yellowish-pink flint.  It was then called an arrowhead.  My thought afterward was that 
it may have been a lance head.  I called my father's attention to it and together from the same spot we unearthed 
four more.  The five were almost identical.  We surmised that it might have been either a cache or else a burial 
offering.  I do not know where they went later. 

Kangaroo mice:  Since I have been writing, there has come back to me an experience which had gone unrecollected 
for a great many years.  On the west side of the road in a pasture strip there were trees and bushes along Little 
Neenah for a distance of perhaps 75 feet (not heavy growth) on a sloping terrain.  I was strictly charged not to 
go to the stream, an injunction which I always observed.  I was permitted to go to the edge of the partially wooded 
strip.  I was sitting at the root of a tree when I saw a small creature hopping about.  It was not as large as a 
rat but larger than a mouse.  It had long hind legs with short fore legs like a diminutive kangaroo.  At that time, 
I had never seen a kangaroo nor heard of one.  I have never seen such a creature again nor heard of one.  I am sure 
that I saw this and at that time and place.  There is a somewhat similar rodent in Africa which I have seen.

Passenger Pigeons:  I can recall the passenger pigeon in the days of it's abundance.  On the occasions when we went 
to visit my grandfather and grandmother Chapman, it was the ordinary proceeding to avoid going up the stony, bumpy 
hill to the north of Frank Seavy's place (later Whitney's and Frank Sweeny's), cross the field of the old Hawes 
farm (later the Marvin Mills farm), enter the woods on the north side of the field, and go through the woods until 
we struck the regular road at the comer of grandfather's field.  At the place where we entered the woods, the soil 
was sandy with only a scattering of stunted trees.  One time, as we passed on a Sunday, the netters of pigeons had 
had their nets operating in this place during the week.  Some poles used in the operation were lying scattered about.  
There were branches that had been lopped from the standing trees on one side.  I never saw the nets.  It was said 
that the trappers spread buck-wheat on the ground and when a sufficient number of birds had gathered that the net 
was sprung over them by some mechanism, the working of which I did not understand.  I heard the account of how many 
birds were caught, how they were shipped, and the destination.  All of this has escaped me.  It seems that this 
piece of woods was a regular roosting site.  It was also said that so many pigeons attempted to roost on a tree 
that some times the branches were broken down. 

I can remember the last time I saw these pigeons.  It was in 1881.  I do not recall the time of year, perhaps it 
was in autumn.  The birds passed over our house in a ribbon formation going from north toward the south.  I lay 
on my back and watched them streaming by in a stream of numberless individuals.  Their manner of flight and their 
general appearance was fixed on my memory.  I think that I never saw a live bird close at hand.  Twice since we 
have been here in Lexington [Massachusetts], I have seen birds whose flight reminded me of that of the passenger 
pigeon.  Once there were four together.  The next time there were at least a dozen in a flock.  Is there a remnant?

Machinery:  This topic should have preceded the miscellany.  The use of farm machinery must have been making its 
entry into our part of Wisconsin in the 1870s.  I do not know what the first machines may have been.  My first 
and earliest recollection is that most wells had wheel, rope and old oaken buckets, though there were a fair 
number with the sweep, a very long slender tree trunk mounted on a crotch of some height at one side of the well.  
Often a rock was tied to the base of this lateen-like yard arm to be a counter-weight for the pail or bucket 
attached to a hook which was at the bottom end of a slim pole attached to the top of the slanting yard arm by 
some hinge-like toggle.  When it was desired to get water, a bucket was hung on the end of the pole hanging 
over the well; the pole was brought down hand over hand until the bucket was submerged, then the process was 
reversed, the bucket taken from the hook, and the water carried away. 

Windmills and Pumps:  Between 1875 and '80, there was a rash of pump salesmen and pumps, most of them being 
of the wooden variety.  Those who could afford it and who had much stock to water began to put up windmills 
to operate the pumps.  The first windmills had the vanes and tails made of wood.  In order to catch the wind, 
the mills were mounted on tall, tapering, four-legged towers, also of timber, towers such as are now associated 
with oil fields.  Where there were many animals to be watered, a large tank made of planks was placed somewhere 
near the well and the water from the pump spout conducted to the tank by a trough.  The windmill would go on 
patiently clanking and squeaking and filling the tank while the farmer was away working in the fields.  This 
released a considerable amount of manpower for production. 

Horses and Plows:  Most all the old hand tools used by farmers were used by a great many in my childhood.  Some 
of the more progressive farmers had sulky plows, both of the riding and of the walking variety.  They had a plow 
that cut a wider furrow and some, using three horses, had two plows in a gang.  But most of the plowing was done 
with the personally-conducted, wood beam, chilled mold board plow drawn by two horses or a yoke of oxen.  Maize 
was being planted more and more.  Some cultivated this corn with the hoe; even if they used a cultivator drawn 
by one horse, they would go over the field once with the hoe.  I can recall the debates between the followers 
of the single horse drawn cultivator going twice to a row and the "lazy" operators from the cast iron sect of 
the sulky drawn by two horses and doing a row at a time.  The riders introduced wide harrows to take the place 
of the (A) drag and, by harrowing the field after the planting and even after the emergence of the first leaves 
of the corn plants, so discouraged the weeds that subsequent use of the hoe was not needed.

Planting Corn:  My first memory of corn planting was of men with a planting bag tied to the waist, armed with 
a long-handled hoe, the left hand picking four grains from the bag while the other hand was lifting a hoe full 
of dirt from the mark.  The four grains were skillfully dropped into the hole and the dirt dropped back and 
stepped upon in a wonderfully rhythmic series of acts.  And good planters took pride in the amount they could 
plant in a day.  I recall how some brave progressives bought mechanical planters.  One kind was used without 
hands.  This automatically counted out 3, 4, or 5 grains, dropped them into a metal chute, a metal plunger 
shot the seed into the ground and covered it up  -- twenty times while I am writing about it.  Thus there was 
another contender requiring the use of both hands, the hoe, condemned by automation.  More man-hours were added 
to production.  The horse drawn two row planter came later. 

Haying:  In the past, hay had been cut with scythe and grain with the cradle.  The sickle and reaping hook were 
of ancient times.  Grain, after being cut with the cradle, was gathered with a hand rake.  The bundles were bound 
in a twinkling with a handful of straw made into a band by a special twist of the wrist, drawn tight around the 
bundle of grain and knotted, all in one motion.  My father was a craftsman with either scythe or cradle.  In my 
time, he bought a mowing machine, mower, and a horse rake and only finished off corners with the scythe.  The 
mower and horse rake reduced the physical effort and materially shortened the time devoted to haying, and thus 
provided more time for productive labor.  The great hay barns, the haying and the heavy, disagreeable hauling 
of manure were carried on to provide the motive material for the horse power used on a farm to save man power 
and increase its productive capacity. 

Cutting Grain:  Though father bought and used a mower and horse rake, as long as he was on the farm he cut the 
grain with the cradle.  Up to 1882, machines for cutting grain were expensive to purchase and to operate.  They 
were heavy and needed a crew to work efficiently.  When I started to school at the Town Line School, across lots 
from Merritt's Landing, in the fall of 1882, I found an abandoned McCormack reaper in John Merritt's field back 
of the hill at a spot which is now the corner of the cemetery.  This was an immense heavy machine, complete in 
every way.  It appeared to have been used to cut grain in that field and -- as a warrior hung up his shield, 
said, "Never again."  I do not know how long it had been there.  Ten years later when the farm was sold, it 
went to the junk dealer.  This kind of reaper required a number of horses to haul it and a man to run after 
it and rake the grain from the platform on which the grain was laid flat by a revolving reel.  Then at least 
two men had to follow and bind the sheaves, putting them out of the way of the next round of the harvester.

Reapers and Harvesters:  As a boy, I was enthralled to watch the newer, lighter version which had rakes like 
great combs which waved round and round as the three horses pulled it through the heat.  Every so often, one 
of these great combs, instead of swishing the falling stalks into line, would sweep clear down to the floor 
of the platform on which the stalks fell and push the whole accumulation off onto the ground.  Those binding 
the grain would hasten from bunch to bunch.  These swept off bunches did not impede the machine on its next 
round and under these circumstances, the grain could be bound later.  Another machine which preceded the twine 
binder was called a harvester.  On these, there was a platform on which men stood, I believe a crew of four.  
This machine delivered the cut grain to the platform, the "binders" in turn look enough of this for a bundle, 
bound it and put it in a container which automatically dumped off together enough bundles to make a shock. 

Threshing Machines:  I cannot say when the first steam threshers began to take the place of the separators 
run by horse power.  I recall that on the farm, all our grain was threshed by machines run by horse power.  
The threshing machine was a noisy, dusty thing.  If they were threshing from stacks, there would be two men 
pitching from the stack onto the feed boards.  The "band cutter" armed with a knife with saw-like teeth, 
attached to his wrist with a thong, slashed the straw band and pushed the released straws to the "feeder" 
who pushed the grain head first into the teeth of the whirling cylinder and the fixed concaves.  He took 
the straws by their butts and swayed the bunch back and forth to get even distribution.  It was like some 
insatiable dream monster as it devoured and roared and sometimes squealed like an angry bull.  AII the time 
the grain was pouring into the half bushel measurers where the boss kept tally on a slate.  The measurers, 
as they filled, were emptied into a special kind of sack known as grain bags.  If there were plenty of these, 
they were filled, two bushels to a bag, tied and stood in a growing company beside the machine.  Otherwise, 
there were a number of men told off to carry half-filled sacks to be dumped into a bin in the granary.

Some tried to borrow enough bags to take the whole threshing, for the filled bags, two bushels to the bag, 
were a check on the tally on the slate, where an occasional checkmark might be omitted or be duplicated.  
Payment was by the bushel.  I have a faint impression that, in the time I am writing of, the take was 3 
cents a bushel.  The first steam threshers, when they came to the region, were not locomotive, though they 
had wheels.  They were hauled about by horses.  The separator, divested of straw carrier and other accessories, 
was a heavy, swaying, bulky article requiring a good driver to handle the four or more horses used to move it 
from farm to farm. 

Story of too much grain:  Once when a board secretary thought our African mission was over expanded, I wrote 
a parable-like reply which was printed in the Missionary Herald.  This was based on a legend current about 
1880 of a man, his name and locality were given but I cannot recall them, who, while the threshing was going 
on, went into the house and then came out waving his arms, shouting, "Stop the machine, stop the machine."  
This was no simple matter for there was no brake and no clutch to be disengaged.  The driver, who sat on the 
housing of some of the gearing of the "horse power," and from this central post wielded a whip with a long l
ash, would stand up shouting "whoa" and lightly flick the lash of his whip in the faces of the horses.  Every 
man would be at attention, slowly the cylinder and all its related pulleys and belts would lose momentum, as 
well as the "tumbling rod" which connected the horse power to the threshing machine and provoked its activities. 
 When the din had ceased, the head thresher came to find out what it was all about.  The farmer said that he 
had been in the house to count his money and found that they had already threshed more grain than he had money 
wherewith to pay for the threshing.  This statement was hugely enjoyed as well as the "coffee break" welcome 
to man and beast, although there would have been no coffee but there may have been cider.  This is illustrative 
of the humor of the time.  The master whose rate of profit depended on no breaks, laughed with the rest. 

Fanning Mill:  The fanning mill was a machine, already established before my day, used to prepare the grain 
for mill or market.  The chaff and broken straws were driven out by the current of air generated by the fan 
wheels and weed seeds, etc., fell through the sieves which were shaken back and forth at the same time that 
the fan blades were propelling the air through the grain as it fell from the hopper to the sieves.  In the 
old barns, I have seen the flail hanging from a nail but I have never seen it in operation. 

Trucks:  Another improvement of the time was the 10-wheeled, broad-tired farm wagon, generally referred to 
as a "truck."  In pioneering, there was a certain advantage in the use of a wagon with high wheels and a 
tire of 11/2 to 2 inch face.  This vehicle, when used in hauling to and from the fields, would produce ruts 
and sink into soft ground until it became mired or even completely stuck.  Some genius had the idea of reducing 
the size of the wheels and broadening the face of the tire to three or even four inches.  The reduction in 
height made loading and unloading easier.  On fields, meadows and other soft ground, the wheels did not cut 
in, making life easier for horses and drivers.  Immediately these became popular; I believe that at one period 
a differential in taxes was introduced to secure their use on the roads where they flattened out the ruts.

Saws:  The portable saw must have come into common use sometime in the era 1875 - 80, at least in our region.  
I have spoken of the saw which ripped tamarack poles into fencing.  I do not know whether it had a carriage 
or not, nor how the poles were fed to the saw.  The "buzz-saw" was the more common type.  This was run by 
horse power, the tumbling rod running to a jack and from the jack a belt ran to a pulley mounted on the same 
shaft that held the cross cut circular saw.  Poles and logs were cut in the woods, hauled in, and piled in 
advance.  The pole to be cut was laid on a hinged swinging guide, the sawyer advanced this so that the saw 
engaged the wood and with a shriek it cut the piece off.  This was the "buzz."  The stick was advanced a 
stovewood length by the helper and another cut was made.  A third man picked up the block and threw it into 
a pile.  In a day or two, the pile of poles was cut into a heap of blocks for splitting into wood for the 
kitchen stove and chunks for the "acorn" heater.

The Flood:  This had nothing to do with Noah but it was the subject of interest and conversation for the whole 
countryside.  The high water was in the Wisconsin River. I am not sure of the year, but think that it was 1880.  
The Fox River makes a turn at Portage and flows north to Green Bay, Lake Michigan, and the St. Lawrence.  A 
mile and a half away, across a sandy plain, the Wisconsin river, diverted to the east by the barrier of the 
Baraboo Bluffs, here turns to the southwest to empty Into the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico.  It is said 
that the bed of the Wisconsin is some feet higher than that of the Fox so that, if it were desired, that stream 
could be diverted to the St. Lawrence system.  The canal connecting the two rivers had locks to prevent any such 
diversion.  Levees were constructed along the Wisconsin to prevent accident in case of high water.  In the year 
of the flood, there must have been a greater flow than usual and the levee in Lewiston, some 10 -15 miles west 
of Portage, gave way and the flood waters poured into the "Big Slough"  -  I suppose the relic of prehistoric 
events.  The water there broke into Neenah Creek which joins the Fox somewhere about the southern line of Marquette 
County.  Neenah Creek has low banks and, below the junction, the Fox is bordered by marshes and swamps till it 
comes to Buffalo Lake at Endeavor.  Buffalo Lake is from 1/2 mile to 3/4 mile wide and 14 miles long, ending at 
Montello.  The result was that a raise of level of say eight feet flooded a great deal of territory, shut off 
many roads, and floated bridges away.  The Fox had a great many fish in it, and some quality of the water from 
the Wisconsin caused the fish to die.  My memory of the flood is of the vast number of dead fish cast up on the 
shore of this temporary lake and reeking to heaven in the summer sun.  On a visit to grandfather's, I went with 
my father and uncles when they went to view the damage.  After we moved to Merritt's Landing, I know that in 
ditches on the right of way of the railroad there were still fish left there from the time of the flood. 

My Forbears:  My father, Hugh Ennis, was the son of John and Mary Ennis and was born on Amherst Island in Lake 
Ontario near Kingston on February 17, 1846.  Grandfather was the son of William Ennis of Kircubbin, County Down, 
Ireland, who was known as "Big Willie Ennis."  Grandfather John Ennis was born January 1, 1805 and died March 23, 
1885.  Mary (McGee) Ennis was born May 1, 1816 and died April 18, 1884.  Father died June 26, 1933.  Mother was 
Charlotte E. Chapman, the daughter of Benjamin Henry Chapman and Mary Pepper Chapman, and was born at Trenton 
Center, Dodge County, Wisconsin on June 26, 1849.  B. H. Chapman was the son of Charles Chapman and Sarah Chapman 
and was born in Ballyloughlin Parish, Wicklow, Ireland on October 24, 1820.  His mother's name was Sarah Hudson 
before marriage.  Mrs. B. H. Chapman was born Mary Pepper of Avoca, Wicklow; it is supposed that the name was of 
a French refugee family, Peppard.  She was born in 1819 and died May 30, 1888.  Mother died September 11, 1917. 

Ennis Farm:  Grandfather Ennis came to Wisconsin sometime between 1847 and 1850.  He bought the farm of Mr. Muir, 
the father of John Muir, the naturalist, beside Muir [Ennis] Lake in the town of Buffalo, Marquette County, 
Wisconsin.  Besides my father, there were seven other sons:  Thomas, William, John, James, George, Samuel and 
David.  There were two sisters:  Mary, who married Hugh McGuin, and Eliza, who married Alonzo Yates.  My father, 
when he was a boy, lived with a Tiffany family for four years, I believe about 1856 to 1860.  He had little 
schooling, perhaps equal to four grades.

Father in the Pineries:   When my father was sixteen or seventeen, he went to the pine woods where there was 
demand for workers.  He worked for a lumberman by the name of Rabelin whose business was in Grand Rapids, now 
Wisconsin Rapids.  He spent two of the four years that he worked for Rabelin at the head waters of the Wisconsin 
River at Lac Vieux Desert.  He worked in the pine woods in the winter and, with a companion, herded the work 
oxen in the summer when the other workers went down the river with the logs. 

He must have left the pine woods when he was twenty or twenty-one, probably in 1866.  I know little of his life 
from that time until his marriage in 1872.  He bought a farm adjoining the old home farm on the west side of 
Ennis Lake.  One day, in talking with him, he spoke of being engaged in transport "teaming" - probably hauling 
supplies to the pineries and returning with lumber.  The time he spoke of this was to relate an instance of Irish 
ability to make a snap reply even in the case of youngsters.  He said that he was walking to keep his feet warm 
when he overtook a small boy on his way to school.  Father, in order to start a conversation, said, "Bub, do you 
know where I am going?"  The lad without waiting an instant, said, "To Hill (Hell), I suppose." 

After his marriage, he traded farms with his brother-in-law, Hugh McGuin, who had married Mary Ennis.  Each wife 
wished to be near her own people.  That is how I came to be born in Douglas Center.  My father and mother were 
married at Thanksgiving in 1872.

Mother's early life:   I know few details of my mother's early life.  She grew up on the farm overlooking Buffalo 
Lake.  I suppose she spent her first winter in the log house which was on an old farm purchased by my father in 
the 90s: later he sold the old homestead to Marvin Mills.  My grandfather Chapman told me some of the scouting 
for a home in the "Indian Land" thrown open for settlement in about 1849.  He joined up with a Mr. Hawes.  Mr. 
Hawes was of old American pioneer stock.  They came up with horses and wagon to look out a place.  They chose 
a place lying between a tamarack swamp and Buffalo Lake, about a mile from each.

Wisconsin in 1848:  My grandfather said that the whole county was like a park.  It was covered with tall grass 
with an occasional great oak tree.  The grass was so tall that, in order to mark the trail for the return, they 
cut a small tree and tied it to the rear of the wagon and let it trail as they went back to fetch their families 
from Dodge County. 

First winter in Moundville:   When they came back with them, it was already late and they were put to it to 
complete a house before real hard winter set in.  They cut logs in the tamarack swamp and built a large log 
house.  These were fine timbers for, some 45 years later when father bought the place, I helped tear down the 
wall and haul away the logs which were sound and as hard as bone.  I think that the building was roofed with 
shakes.  A large fireplace for cooking and heating was made of stone.  They did not have bricks for the chimney, 
so they cut green oak and split it into straight, even sticks some 40 inches long; then they secured some clay 
and mixed it with marsh grass to make a sort of mud layer.  The oak sticks were built up log-house style, a 
layer of mud-cake hung over each stick, some of the cake lapping down inside and some outside.  So they built 
a wood-clay chimney which, when duly dried, smoked, and fire-hardened, disposed of the smoke for that winter.  
Two families pioneering through a long Wisconsin winter was a bit trying and generated an isolationist yen.  
At any rate, the Chapmans, having chosen land and a building site under a hill with a wonderful view of lake 
and woodland, built themselves a more comfortable house and moved away to it, a distance of about a mile.  
The Hawes family continued on in the first house, which was roomy and durable in spite of its hurried building. 

Mother taught school:  I have no recollection of accounts of my mother's school days.  She spoke of the anxiety 
the family had lest my grandfather be drafted into the civil war army, and the relief they felt when he became 
45 and no longer subject to military service.  About the time that she was twenty, she secured a certificate 
authorizing her to teach in the district schools.  I believe that this was called a third grade certificate.  
As far as I know, she taught in three schools.  Once in a school somewhere in the direction of Big Spring, in 
an Irish settlement.  I recall that she told stories of her experience.  One was that of the younger of two 
brothers who came to school bawling and, on being questioned, said that his brother thrust a bunch of nettles 
into his face after asking him to smell them.  The older brother, when interrogated, answered in the lisp which 
he had, "That'll teath him to go sthmellin' of everythin'."

Again, she taught in the Beyer school in the northwest of Douglas or the southwest of Oxford.  Here she boarded 
with Mr. and Mrs. Tom Philips.  They were English, well to do, and had no children, and neither was able to read 
nor write.  They became very much attached to mother and she was like a child to them as long as they lived.  
Mrs. Philips, Maria, lived with us for a considerable period after her husband died.

The last school that she taught was in the town of Buffalo.  This was the district in which the Ennises had gone 
to school.  Here she met my father and they were married in 1872 at Thanksgiving time.  I recall very little that 
she reported from her experience in this school. 

My Aunts:  Two of my mother's sisters taught school.  These were younger sisters, Ella and Harriet.  I have a 
feeling that the oldest sister, Sarah, also taught, but I have no sure memory of this.  She, Sarah, married 
Andrew Reid of Buffalo, a leader of the United Presbyterian church of the community.  They had five children.  
Duncan became an authority on fowls and taught at a branch of the University of Texas at College Station.  
Logan also was a teacher and taught at Berkeley.  The youngest, Walter, stayed on the farm and cared for his 
parents.  After their death he, in his forties, moved to Wheaton, Illinois, attended college and seminary, and 
is now a minister of the regular Presbyterian church.  Of mother's other sisters, Carrie married Will Morgan.  
They then went west to Minnesota, Dakota and to Canada.  Ella went to Minnesota to teach.  She married Frank 
Bishop and they moved to South Dakota.  The youngest, Harriet, also went to Minnesota where she married a man 
by the name of Daniel Arbuckle.  The had a family and were absorbed into the life of the state. 

Joe Chapman:   The oldest male of the Chapman family married Lide Waldo.  They went to central Missouri and had 
a farm near Breckenridge.  The land was good and they became well-to-do.  He adopted the ways and speech of the 
south and was elected county judge, and in his later years was Judge Chapman.  Their family consisted of two sons 
and a daughter, Elizabeth. 
Cousin Lizzy:  Elizabeth was near my age.  I never met her.  My impression of her is that she was a proper and 
conscientious miss and not equipped with the steel-trap, sharp, worldly wisdom of her mother.  She gave one an 
impression of extraordinary intelligence, shrewdness and capacity.  At any rate, at that time I was about to go 
to Africa and later, I developed a correspondence with cousin Elizabeth.  She was quite solicitous for my equipment 
and urged that I be sure to subscribe for the Saturday Evening Post.  Much later I did.  Our common aunt, Ella 
Bishop, was more or less of an invalid for several years.  Elizabeth wrote in one of her letters, "Aunt Nellie 
has become a Christian Scientist; she is much better.  Isn't it too bad?"  It is possible that I have misunderstood 
Cousin Elizabeth.  On the occasion of her marriage, she wrote many details of the extensive sewing operations that 
she and her mother were engaged on in preparation for the event, and they were in despair of completing them.  She 
wrote, "but fortunately, Charles fell and broke his arm and the wedding had to be postponed for two weeks." 

Henry Chapman:  Another brother went west to Minnesota where he found relatives.  My great grandfather died young, 
the circumstances I never heard.  My great grandmother, Sarah Hudson Chapman, married again (Charles Johnston) and 
had children, half brothers of my grandfather.  At some later date, some one of these came to Minnesota.  Henry 
Chapman married Charlotte Johnston, his half cousin.  They lived for some years in South Dakota and, on the death 
of my grandmother, came to live with grandfather and ultimately inherited the farm. 

Cecil Chapman:  Cecil Chapman, another brother, married an heiress, Ann Brown. They lived on one of the farms she 
inherited, then Cecil worked for the railway, moved to South Dakota and finally he and Ann came back to Endeavor 
and spent their remaining days in a house which they built at the side of Buffalo Lake; which was originally called 
Brown's Landing. The youngest son, Walter, lived at home, was unmarried and, while still a young man, died of 
tuberculosis.

The Fox River 1882 -1890
It was in the fall of the year when we moved from Douglas Center to Merritt's Landing.  I do not recall any 
emotion connected with leaving the farm, only a sense of adventure.  I do not recall to whom the farm was sold.  
I know that, in addition to household stuff loaded on a wagon, that I drove a few sheep, keeping up with the 
wagon.  We took along a muley cow which father had bought from a herd being driven through the region and offered 
for sale.  She was a good milker and father kept her descendants for the next forty years.  Also there was a 
young mare which ultimately became "Old Sailor." 

Merritt's Landing:  At Merritt's Landing, father had secured two acres of land out of John Merritt's sheep pasture.  
This was a square facing the road which followed the line of the depot ground, so that across the road was the siding 
of the railroad, and beyond that to the north the marsh which was the bank of the Buffalo Lake and the Fox River, of 
which the lake was an enlargement.  My father had built a house on this.  The upright was to serve as a country store 
and the ell was for a residence where there were chambers in the second story of the main portion.  I can recall little 
of the season, the spring and summer, while this was building.  Father must have spent the week days overseeing the 
building.  There was a woodshed and stables.  Also, there was a fence around the two acres, for John Merritt's sheep 
could not be allowed to escape.  The store was equipped with groceries on one side and with cloth and a variety of 
other dry goods on the other.  There was a long counter on each side and shelves for the goods along the walls.  
There was a back store room where the kerosene barrel was located as well as coarse salt, nails, and other such.  
Father also dealt in lumber and there were piles of lumber across the road and along the siding. 

Brown's Lending:  Before taking up other matters, the geography of the place has to be attended to.  Merritt's 
Landing was a misnomer.  The name had been, for some time back, Brown's Landing.  I failed to get any biography 
of Brown.  He was the father of my Aunt Annie, the wife of Cecil Chapman.  He appears to have been a man of property 
and had considerable land both in Buffalo and Moundville.  I have no idea how long he had been dead nor how it came 
about.  I suppose that Cecil and Ann must have married about 1875.  His widow had married again to Perry Leach; I do 
not know for what reason.  Mrs. Leach's parents were living a little over a mile to the south on the road to Portage 
on a farm which was a part of the estate left to Ann. 

Fox River:  Now the banks of the Fox and its widened part were marshy almost all the way from Packwaukee and for 
several miles further up stream, except for the landing on Brown's property.  I suppose the place had had an 
Indian name.  The Fox River had a large part in the development of the region.  It had its source to the east 
of Portage and was a sluggish slow moving stream that, at Portage came within more than a mile of the Wisconsin 
River, which coming nearly due south through the length of the state flowed away to the southwest to empty into 
the Mississippi at Prairie de Chien.  The Fox flowed away to the north with many windings among the marshes and, 
after having made a big double turn at the oxbow, widened into Buffalo Lake.  Brown's Landing was the head of the 
lake which turning at nearly a right angle at Seaman's Island stretched away for some ten miles in a fairly straight 
course to Montello, the county seat at the foot of the lake.  Buffalo Lake is a shallow lake, somewhere about a half 
a mile wide and 14 miles long, well stocked with fish and, in 1882, visited by great flocks of water fowl. 

Montello:  Montello had, I suppose still has, a famous granite quarry.  The outcrop is of limited extent, a very 
hard, fine-grained, pink, granite, much used for grave stones. The sarcophagus in Grant's Tomb on Riverside is from 
Montello.  The Custer Monument is also from it.   In 1882, aside from grist mills, Montello had the only industry 
in the county.  There was also a factory, I believe a knitting mill. 

The Fox River was important in the early days of the fur trade as, with the Wisconsin, it provided a water link 
between the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence system by using the portage at Portage.  Father Marquette passed this 
way, and then a great many others.  Today, September 13, 1955, I had a clipping from a Wisconsin paper recording 
the finding of a skeleton at Packwaukee.  This was the skeleton of a young man found buried only about a foot 
beneath the surface.  The corpse had been buried face down.  With the skeleton was found a pair of silver-plated 
shoe buckles, and a pipe bowl of red stone.  They suppose that it had been in the ground for about 150 years. 

Jeff Davis:  Early in the 1800s, a post was built on the banks of the Fox at Portage and called Fort Winnebago.  
This was supplied from Green Bay by way of the Fox.  At the time of the Black Hawk War, there was a military 
force stationed here.  Jefferson Davis was, I believe, in charge of the fort, at least he was an officer of 
the regular army stationed at Fort Winnebago.  It was said that Abraham Lincoln was here at the same time as 
a member of a militia company from Illinois.  Packwaukee had a claim that both of these figures of history 
visited that flourishing trading post on the west shore of Buffalo Lake. 

When we came to Merritt's Landing, there was still considerable traffic on the river.  I believe that this went 
no farther than to Portage.  If any craft used the canal and went down the Wisconsin, this was confined to small 
craft.  One boat that attracted attention was the "Belle of Charlevoix," a good-sized schooner.  The intention 
was to pass through the canal and then on to the Gulf of Mexico.  For some reason it did not, and one day it 
returned the way it came. 

The other means of travel at Merritt's, as the railway station was called, was the line of the Wisconsin Central 
Railroad.  The main line came from Chicago to Milwaukee, from there to Stevens Point, and then north to Ashland 
on Lake Superior.  Its purpose was to haul away the lumber from the pine forests and to haul the ore from the 
iron mines of the Hurley region.  Then they built the branch from Stevens Point to Portage.  It was said that 
the intent was to continue the line from Portage to Madison where it would link up with the Illinois Central 
and make a complete system running through central Wisconsin and central Illinois to Cairo, Memphis and New 
Orleans, thus connecting the Great Lakes with the Gulf and by-passing Chicago.  There was talk that this 
grandiose plan was defeated by rivals through political means.  At any rate, long freight trains carrying 
lumber went south by day and by night.  There also was considerable passenger traffic, if I am not mistaken, 
of two trains a day. 

John Merritt:  Just across the roadway from the northeast corner of our lot there was a large boulder of 
rhyolite brought from the ledge on McNutt's Island at the east end of Buffalo Lake.  This rock, some ten 
feet long, six wide, and the part above the surface of ground some four feet high, marked the grave of a 
child, a daughter of John Merritt.  Over the rock, there spread the finest elm tree that I have seen.  It 
had a large trunk and a wide dome crown.  It was a tree of the weeping variety and the drooping branches 
reached the ground in a circle perhaps 75 feet across.  Some 100 yards away, across the railroad tracks, 
there was another large elm of the standard shape.  By this tree, there was the remains of a house foundation 
in a tangle of tansy plants.  This is where the first house that belonged to John Merritt stood.  I do not 
know that this house was built by John Merritt.  Probably this was the first house at this place.  From my 
present knowledge, I think that neither elm could have attained their size in 1882 in less than 40 years.  
At the time we came, John Merritt lived in a small frame house in a grove to the south of the railway and 
facing the Portage Road.  I used to go across through the sheep pasture, over a rail fence, and through the 
grove to fetch milk for our use.  This house interested me for, in the center of the living room, the floor 
rose up in a dome-shaped hump that must have been a foot higher than the edges of the room.  John Merritt 
was a small, quiet old man, soft-spoken and retiring.  He had a large and valuable farm and was reputed to 
be well-to-do.  His wife was dead and he lived with his two children.  His one expletive was "Buoy Gad." 

His daughter Ettie was mature, about the age of my mother.  She must have been born an old maid.  She was 
the living example of the cartoonist's "maiden lady" and she would go out of her way to avoid meeting a man.  
Her brother Leonard was younger and equally peculiar.  He studied telegraphy and, after his marriage, went 
into the employ of the Federal Government and went away to Washington, and I believe only came back for his 
father's funeral. 

Colonel Merritt:  The other building at this whistle stop was the depot.  This was a rectangular two story 
wooden building by the railway tracks.  There was a platform along the side of the building next to the siding 
and of the height of the doorway of a box car.  The ground floor had a store room for freight, a waiting room, 
and an office for the agent when they should have one.  The second story was reached by a long flight of wooden 
steps going up at the end of the building.  In this second floor was the country store of "Colonel" Merritt and 
the post office was in the store.  Colonel  Merritt, the younger brother of John, was everything that John was 
not.  The Colonel was bearded, burly, loud-voiced, assertive and domineering.  I pass up his by-words.  He was 
the station agent, postmaster, proprietor of the store, and owner of the lumber yard.  He had a good farm and 
farmstead a half mile down the Portage Road, also a wife, three daughters and two sons.  There is a story 
illustrative.  Two miles away to the southwest there was the farm of the Skinner family.  Both the parents 
had died and the large family of children with great pluck, intelligence and mutual trust had held together, 
kept the farm and themselves.  Like most of the other people of the region, the pancake was their staff of 
life.  One morning it was discovered that there was no saleratus to raise the batter to make the cakes, so 
one of the younger boys, Moe (Moses), was put on a horse and sent post haste for a package of saleratus.  
When he appeared the Colonel boomed at him, "Boy, there is mail for you folks," and he gave him a paper.  
Mail was such an unusual thing that Moe, in excitement, rode off home with it.  His worried elder sister 
was not amused and demanded the saleratus.  The whole family joined in speeding Moe away.  When he showed 
up again, the Colonel demanded an explanation and, when he had it, he said, "Hell, Bub, are all your folks 
that smart?"  Some folks thought that the lord of the manor was Colonel Merritt.  But not so.  This was a 
nickname derived from his real moniker, Cornelius.  lf they had made it the ordinary diminutive, Corny, it 
would not have been too bad. 

There is a story about the first winter that the railway was in, and that in the first winter there was a 
heavy fall of snow with drifting.  As there was a slight cutting at the location of the station, this was 
drifted full to the depth of thirty inches or so.  The Colonel brought his whole family out onto the platform 
in front of the building.  When the snow plow came with two locomotives behind it, the Colonel shouted, "Kate, 
look at that.  Isn't it grand!"  And as he exulted, the trio swept by throwing tons of snow up against the 
building engulfing the whole family; Kate was not amused. 

Needless to say the Colonel was not pleased to have a competitor for the trade in the small world which he 
dominated.  There was no thought of peaceful co-existence on his part.  There came to be a following of each 
store.  The Colonel was handicapped by the long climb to the second floor of the station building.  Very soon 
he had a store building built.  Of course, the coming of a second store increased the trade so there was 
probably four times as much business as before, but the profits were not so high. 

Moundville:  There were a great many Indian mounds on the southwest side of the river within a distance 
of a mile from the river.  These were in great number and variety:  round burial mounds, elk, bison, bears, 
and some very long mounds were supposed to be either mink or otter.  I recall one eagle mound and one owl.  
I do not know of any neighboring region that had these mounds.  The mounds covered a distance of some seven 
miles and were clear to the town boundaries, so the name Moundville was justified.  The Fox River passed 
diagonally through the township.  A township consisted of a rectangle of 36 sections of land:  six columns 
of sections, six in a column.  A section was a mile square.  Now, as the river was not passable, the part 
of the township on the east of the river, for administrative purposes, was joined to the town of Buffalo, 
making a town of unusual size.  The part on the west of the river was thought to be too small, so one column 
of six sections was detached from Douglas and added to Moundville on the west side. 

People of Moundville:  So much for the geography of Moundville.  To the more important feature, the people.  
Douglas had a fair number of native Americans (and I do not mean the aborigines) and a second, larger, 
community of Irish with a few German families.  In contrast, Moundville was largely an English colony.  
I believe there was only one family of Germans, some four of Scotch, perhaps eight of native Americans, 
one of Irish, and the rest were English.  The bulk of the English seemed to be of one community that had 
come together.  They belonged to some branch of the Methodists other than the Episcopal.  I do not know 
the part of England from which they came.  They established a church and had regular services.  In this 
church, there were a number of lay preachers.  I knew and heard Mr. Jones Barrow and Audiss, and heard 
of Smith and Whitehead who had already passed on.  They set the pattern of life for the region, and it 
was good.  One item of the town's mores was that, from the organization of the state in 1848, they had 
not permitted the sale of alcoholic liquors.  As a concomitant of this, there were no paupers, no one 
"on the town."

Dr. Clark:  I have already written about my grandfather and that he came up with the Hawes family.  I do 
not know when they left, but before my memory there came to the next farm to the west a man who later 
intrigued me, Dr. Clark.  He, as far as I know, had no family.  He came from England and had a very 
pretty white house with shrubs and a number of spruce trees as well as a line of Lombardy poplars.  
In my boyhood, these were lined along the roads on all well conducted farms.  Dr. Clark was a friend 
of the Chapman family.  He did not have a license to practice medicine.  After it was too late to ask, 
I wondered where he came from, what were his antecedents, and why did he come?  (When my memory took hold, 
the farm was occupied by Frank Seavey, distinguished by his team of large and powerful mules.)  There may 
have been private reasons for his going into exile, which is suppositionary.  I suppose my grandfather 
knew whether or not Dr. Clark had touch with his family and his past.  There is no written record. 

Townley:  Some three miles away, there were two brothers, Townley.  They came from a prominent English 
family.  In my day, both of these had passed into legend.  Many supposed that one of these was a sort 
of remittance man.  His name was John and the legends indicated that he was original.  One of the stories 
dealt with his attempts to farm.  He acquired a yoke of oxen and a plow and assayed to plow a field.  The 
oxen, sensing that he did not have the know-how, yawed and otherwise disported themselves as oxen are wont 
to do when they find themselves in the hands of the innocent.  Finally, John in exasperation said, "Damn 
thee.  Go where thee wilt.  Thee hast to plow hit hall hanyway." 

Sam Townley:  I do not know the name of the other brother who developed a very fine farm to which his son 
was heir; he was a handsome and capable young man when I first saw him late in 1882.  In after years, he 
was a prominent farmer with a fine family.  One of the things which made him interesting to the American 
element was the location of his aitches in speaking.  One illustration was a called statement to a pal 
of the same age, Ace Rundle.  Sam called across the road, "Ho Hace, hi found hay nest huv little howls 
ardly big henough to oot." 

Sykes:  There was a third Englishman who was definitely a remittance man, a Mr. Sykes or "Old Sykes·"  
He was a large man, perhaps in his sixties, educated and with cultured manners, but definitely incompetent.  
Mrs. Sykes, who was in charge of him, was competent but neither educated nor urbane.  It was said that she 
received a regular income for caring for the husband.  They lived somewhere toward Oxford. 

Grandfather Chapman:  This is leading too much toward the abnormal.  The people of Moundville were normal, 
although exhibiting individuality.  In many ways, my grandfather, Benjamin Henry Chapman, was the most 
outstanding individual of the town when we went to Merritt's Landing.  He was an intelligent man who had 
been educated in a private school sponsored by the English Church in Wicklow.  If I recall correctly, this 
was at New Town (pronounced thus, rather than Newton).  Some time in the period of my memory, and I suppose 
prior to 1880, he was thrown from a wagon when a young team of horses attempted to run away.  The femur in 
one leg was broken not far from the hip joint.  The medical help available was insufficient for righting 
this and, after lying in bed for many months with a weight pulling the leg into place, finally a frail 
healing of the bone took place which left one leg 4 inches shorter than the other and too frail to carry 
his weight.  As a result, for the next twenty odd years he had to get about using two crutches.  He was a 
big man, but never fat.  He wore a beard all his life.  He was just a shade over six feet tall.  He told 
me that when he was sixteen he weighed 210 pounds.  He had a chest girth of 48 inches. 

Town clerk:  He served as the Town Clerk of Moundville, I believe, all his life up to the time of his death 
in 1903.  He was an omnivorous reader and, as he could work at few things, he read a great deal.  At that 
time, the State of Wisconsin attempted to have a lending library connected with each rural school.  I do 
not know how this was financed.  I do know that grandfather had the duty or opportunity of buying the books 
for the three school districts of Moundville and, to make sure that the books were suitable, he read them 
before sending them to their respective librarians.  The people of the town were exposed to the classics.  
When I was checked on when I entered college, the professor was astonished to hear the reading that I had 
done in the backwoods.  He asked questions about this book and that and found that I knew more than the titles. 

First grand child of the Chapman family:  I was the first grandchild, which is an advantage.  Furthermore, 
I appreciated grandfather, which some did not.  He was uniformly cheerful and optimistic; to put it plainly, 
he was a hero.  Consequently, he told me many things which otherwise would now be forgotten.  Most of these 
items have been written in my journal.  I believe that I have already recorded the incident of his having 
walked to Beaver Dam to fetch fifty pounds of flour for the purpose of making bread.  When he came to Beaver 
Dam, he bought a pint of whiskey and poured it into his boots to keep his blistered feet from being infected.  
An onlooker asked the meaning of this libation.  When grandfather explained, the frontiersman said that if 
it were he, the blisters would have been treated through the mouth.  It appears that grandfather had been 
a teetotaler all his life, and this was a practice passed on to all his descendents without any ill effects. 

Grandmother:  My grandmother Chapman was a very quiet unobtrusive person.  There was one story passed along 
which showed that when the occasion arose she could act.  The family had a large and powerful dog of a decided 
disposition.  Some Indians came to the house one day when grandfather was not at home.  There was a dog with 
the Indians which joined in a fight with the house dog.  This grim canine grabbed the Indian dog by the neck 
and refused to let go.  The Indian owner tried to release his hound but the Chapman dog would not yield.  The 
Indian knocked the gripper on the head with the back of his tomahawk without effect so he shifted to the blade 
side to chop his mutt loose.  The children had been playing with the poker and left it in the fire; the end had 
become red hot.  Grandmother grabbed this and went for the brave.  The whole lot fled from the house in hot 
haste.  I am sorry to say I do not know whether Tige let the Indian dog go or not.  I do know that, in my day, 
the formidable poker graced the kitchen stove, 20 inches long and with a 5/8 inch bolt hammered at the end to 
be a lifter for the stove lids, and bent to conform to the use to which it was put. 

Grandfather Chapman and the ship:  One day when I was eleven or so, grandfather asked me to get him a good 
piece of timber.  I secured the end of a 4x4 piece of pine that had been cut off in some building operation.  
He took this home and from this he whittled out the hull of a model ship.  He cast a bar of lead to go on the 
keel as ballast and fitted the whole with mast and sails, using cord to make the stays and the rigging.  He 
cast anchors by pouring melted lead into a matrix cut in a potato.  The ship was painted and had black squares 
on the side to serve as port holes.  I was very proud of this, but unfortunately this was lost when our house 
burned. 

It is incumbent to explain that from our house to my grandfather's was 1 3/4 miles over a poor road.  But, when 
walking on the railroad, one traveled only about a mile.  My grandfather had a lift fastened to the shoe for 
his short leg.  Using this and two stout crutches, he walked this mile to visit us once a week in suitable 
weather, I believe on Friday.  I think that it took him about an hour each way.  He knew the train schedules 
and we were always looking for him.  Later, he gave me his flute and the book of music for the same, written 
by his music teacher at his mother's request, and given to him when he left Ireland.  One of my sorrows is 
that this was destroyed by the white ants in Angola. 

Dan Coon:  One of the families of pioneer stock were the Coons.  They had relatives in Indiana and I suppose 
that they came by the way of that state.  The family consisted of Old Man Coon and Grandma Coon.  Hank Coon 
was a tall, lank, tobacco chewing buck who lived with his parents.  I have no intimation that he was ever 
married, or for that matter that he was not.  They lived on the "River Road" about a mile and a half from 
Merritt's Landing.  They had an old log house and a few stables.  Dan was an old man, loquacious and with 
a lively imagination.  It was a pleasure to call at their house which had a supply of old-fashioned flavors, 
and an air of hospitality.  The living was of the primitive frontier type, a cow, a hog, a garden, and a 
supply of fowls, a few turkeys, ducks and geese.  Dan was proud of his feet.  I suppose that, in size, they 
were the largest the town ever had.  There was no report of his having worked, except his own claims of the 
feats of former years.  He sat, smoked, and invented tall tales.  If some industrious person had written these 
down they would have made a book.  Here is a sample.  In a gathering of farmers, they were discussing the art 
of mowing with a scythe and the feats of local performers, when Dan broke in to tell what a whiz he was when 
he worked.  He said, "The biggest day's mowing I ever did was to cut a hundred swaths, each a mile long, and 
I carried my swath."  (To "carry the swath" meant that when the mower reached the end of his cut or swath, he 
took his scythe under his arm and walked back to the place where he started, there he whetted his scythe and 
started in on a new swath.)  The feat of walking back 100 miles in one day left the others speechless.  There 
were many other tales of Dan's prowess which have escaped me and I suppose they are remembered by no one else.  
The other son of the family was Harrison who had been in the Union Army and had been part of the force sent 
down to the Texas/Mexico border at the time the ill-fated Maximilian was making an attempt to occupy the throne 
of Moctezuma.  As a souvenir of this experience, he had a genuine Colt revolver, a big heavy weapon.  As I recall 
it, the cylinder was not intended for cartridges, but each chamber had a nipple for the reception of a percussion 
cap. 

The development of trade at Merritt's Landing:  I have the impression that when my father decided to leave the 
farm and go into business at Merritt's Landing, that very little business was being done by Colonel Merritt, and 
it would appear that father sensed a good opportunity.  He was not well equipped for business and not for the 
store-keeping end of it.  If he had attempted to handle lumber and farm products he would have done well.  He 
was neither neat enough nor meticulous enough for handling a country store.  Mother had the family and the house
work to do and was not able to give much time to the store.  One side of the store was devoted to dry goods and 
notions, foot wear, ready made work garments, cloth, thread, buttons, ribbons, etc., etc.  The other side had 
groceries.  Some bought supplies on time and this involved much book work. 

Father's store:  Father bought eggs, butter, fowls, potatoes and some grain.  In addition, he had a lumber yard 
where he sold all sorts of material for building residences, barns and other farm buildings.  He was unfortunate 
in the period of economic stringency which set in.  He did not have adequate capital to finance the stuff he 
sold on time.  He bought some of his stock on 30 days time, some at sixty days.  Those who supplied him required 
prompt payment.  Some of the farmers to whom he sold were anything but prompt.  It was a constant battle to make 
dates meet.  He made a living and was thoroughly busy.  The amount of business done at the place ballooned.  The 
Colonel increased his stock of lumber, built himself a new store business, and increased his business again and 
again.  A man began to handle farm machinery and another began to buy and ship livestock. 

Trade with the river craft:  Father did quite a lot of business with the river boats in the time that the river 
was free of ice.  As the "Dock Lot" belonged to Uncle Cecil Chapman, or rather to his wife, he had control of the 
river traffic.  Great quantities of cord wood and pulp wood were cut in the winter and piled back from the river 
bank.  When the season opened, the steamboats came and took it away.  The boats brought barrels of salt from 
Michigan, and lumber from Oshkosh.  Occasionally, they brought lime.  One line was run by a man named Steadman.  
His boats were of a finer kind and suitable for passengers.  On occasions, they planned "Excursions," which meant 
running to Packwaukee, Montello, through the locks there, then down the river to Lake Puckaway and to the old town 
of Marquette. 

Blacksmith:  A man came and opened a blacksmith shop, a place that interested me, and every opportunity that I had 
I would go and watch him making repairs or shoeing horses.  One day he told me that only two blacksmiths had gone 
to hell.  One for pounding cold iron and the other for not charging enough.  This last fault was one which kept my 
father from making a fortune.  In lieu of the fortune he got many friends. 

The Town Line School:  Soon after we were established at Merritt's, I was faced with the pleasant excitement of going 
to school.  I had learned my letters at home in my third year.  I recall asking my mother the names of the letters on 
the "elevated oven" cook stove.  When I had these learned, someone got me a primer.  Later I went some to the Parrot 
School along with Maggie Riley.  I suppose that I was seven.  When we came to Merritt's, Will Leach volunteered to 
be my guardian in going the 1 3/4 miles to the Town Line School.  This school house was the typical little red school 
house.  It was just over the township line on the corner of one of the sections taken from the town of Douglas.  The 
school house faced a road running from west to east, from near the Neenah Creek in Douglas to the Portage Road, which 
is now U.S. 51.  U.S.51 is a north and south road from New Orleans to Ashland on Lake Superior and from there to Duluth. 

School House:  There had been an older school house, I believe a log house, 1/4 of a mile north which my mother had 
attended.  I suppose that the red Town Line School house must have been in use for 15 years, or thereabouts.  The 
school house was surrounded by woods.  That year, there was a man teacher by the name of Chadwick.  As in most country 
schools of the time, there were a good many grown young men who went to school in the winter term.  To my boy's mind, 
some of the girls appeared to be adults.  Because of the influx of grown youths, the school boards tried to get male 
teachers for the fall and winter session of school.  As I recall, the first term at the Town Line there were a good 
many grown men:  George Coon, Enveh Skinner, Charley and Dave Merritt, Dave and John Rodgers, Fred Pettus, and others
whom I do not recall.  Mr. Chadwick was living in one of the quarry houses out on the Leach farm.  I have a feeling 
that he had been connected with the quarry on McNutt's Island which was on the point of folding up.  Perhaps it had 
already folded. 

Furniture:  The one thing that I recall more than anything else was the long road, the deep snow, and the cold.  I am 
not sure but that that was the winter that I began to wear felt boots with overshoes.  The school house had been used 
in an earlier day for some sort of lodge meetings and singing school.  There were bracket lamps high up on the window 
casings. The glass bowls of the lamps contained kerosene which because of age had turned yellow. The school house had 
also been used for Sunday school and there were Bibles and other books belonging to that era in a cupboard under the 
chimney.  The desks were carpenter-made from pine wood, and the seats had backs.  In places, holes had laboriously 
been drilled through the back through which a slate pencil could be pushed by the boy in the seat behind to the 
discomfort and annoyance of the occupant. 

The one room was heated in the winter by a big box stove that once had been a hophouse stove.  It would take fire 
wood more than three feet long.  Some days in the winter, the room would not be adequately heated when the chilled 
pupils arrived and some were permitted to stand by the stove until they were warm.  It was not an uncommon thing 
for the stove to become so hot that the room was too warm for comfort.  There were two long rows of desks.  Those 
on the right, as viewed from the teachers rostrum, were for the girls.  The boys sat on the left.  There was a 
middle section back of the stove and under the stove pipe, I believe three desks.  The blackboard was back of the 
teacher's desk, reaching across the whole space between the two doors.  There were maps on the side walls between 
the windows. There were three windows on a side.

School functions:  Along each wall, there was a board bench running the whole length of the building and known as 
the ·side seat.  The side seat facing an open space, and to the right of the teacher, was the recitation bench.  
When a class was called for a recitation, they came up front, lined up along the side seat and stood until the 
teacher told them to sit.  As each was called on to read or recite, they stood for the ordeal.  On the opposite 
side of the room there were hooks on the wall for coats, hats and caps.  The water pail, a wooden one, was on 
the side seat along with a tin long-handled dipper.  Water was fetched a half a mile from the well on Elijah 
Hopwood's farm.  Fetching water was a privilege.  Perhaps a speed of two miles an hour was attained by two boys 
who did not dawdle. 

There was a platform some five feet wide and more than a foot above the ground across the outside front of the 
building, I suppose for the convenience of a person alighting from a vehicle.  I do not know that anyone ever 
did that but it was a possibility.  I was a rather insignificant unit in this educational institution.  In fact, 
I suppose that I was the very least, for at that time I was 48 inches tall, or short, and weighed 48 pounds, and 
I am quite sure that there were none younger. 

School was another matter when it came spring.  The numbers were much reduced.  The big boys stayed at home to 
work on the farm.  If I am not mistaken, there were only four boys.  The big girls came, for most of them were 
hoping to get enough instruction so that they could go to the "examinations," pass, and secure a limited certificate 
for teaching in a third grade school.  The spring term was taught by a woman teacher.  I do not recall that there 
was a man teacher after Mr. Chadwick left.  The young men of the district were looked upon as sufficiently well 
mannered to be left under the charge of the cheaper teacher.  The pay of teachers was very low.  The custom of 
boarding them around had already passed for the schools of Moundville.

Teachers:  Some years later, my father was on the school board and I heard at home that a young woman from East 
Moundville, by the name of Mason, walked a full two miles to teach, and received the princely sum of $16.00 a month!  
In listening in on the deliberations of the board, I judged that the lowness of salary that an aspirant would take 
was the main qualification considered.  Some did not have a third grade certificate, only a temporary permit issued 
by the County Superintendent of Schools.

The capacity of the teachers, even good ones, was pointed up for me when I was fourteen years old.  That year, for 
some reason, the school did not function in the fall term of the Town Line School.  My father was, as a side line, 
always dealing in horses.  At that time he had a span of three year old black geldings; it was my task to break the 
young horses, that he bought, to the bridle; this I did by riding them.  One of these, Prince, was a spirited, 
intelligent horse and we delighted to go out together.  I did not use a saddle.  Because of the lack of school, 
it was decided that I should go to the Loomer School in Douglas, something over four miles away.  We secured 
stable room and I rode Prince to and from school.  This school that year was taught by Eben Mills who was a 
very competent teacher whose teaching inspired me.

In the spring there was a teacher's examination held in Briggsville.  My parents secured permission for me to 
take the examination.  I had old Sailor and a road cart for the trip, and put up at the hotel, which increased 
my ego.  I took the examination for the third grade certificate and passed very well, but of course could not 
have a certificate because of juvenility.  Eben Mills also was there taking the same examination.  At the close, 
as he did not have transportation, I took him home in the road cart.  On the way he began asking me, "How did 
you answer so and so?"  When I told him, he said it was correct but that he did not make it.  As these questions 
dealt with a number of subjects, I felt a queer sense of surprise that I had out-played a teacher that I admired 
very much; also that he, a grown man and married, had talked to me, a boy, as man to man.  Much later I came to 
realize that a teacher who does not have pupils who excel him is a poor teacher. 

Good Teachers:  In the period between 1882 and 1890, there were a number of different teachers and I can not name 
them all.  Among them there were two who impressed me especially.  One was Lottie Hartt.  I do not know that she 
had any especial degree of education, but her way of keeping order was remarkable.  She had no set of rules; she 
did not say that she would punish anyone.  She just came in and asked us all our names and put them in a book.  
When the time came, she rang the bell and announced the program for the classes, and everything went off smoothly.  
She gave no orders, did no scolding, and every child in school was anxious to know what she wanted done and did it.  
They knew that whispering and playing in school time annoyed a teacher and no one thought of doing anything to annoy 
her.  We all worked hard at our lessons and recited to the best of our ability.  Discipline was a co-operative affair 
and we all enjoyed it.  I have never seen any other person who was her equal in having their will done so thoroughly 
with so much mutual satisfaction.

The other teacher who impressed me was Maria McNutt.  She was a teacher who had been teaching for years and enjoyed 
a reputation for her ability.  She had had more education than others who taught in the Town Line school.  I believe 
I am right in saying that she enjoyed the privilege of having a first class certificate good for life.  I do not know 
why she came to our school unless it may have been to be with her brother, Gid.  She taught in the year following my 
taking the examination.  As that examination covered all subjects taught in little red school houses, I was in position 
to enter high school and wished to do this but my parents were not able to afford such a venture.  Maria McNutt was 
pleased to take an interest in me.  She put me in a class by myself, had me review a lot of the work in history, 
geography and arithmetic, gave me work in science outside the regular curriculum, and introduced me to the study of 
algebra.  She was efficient as an organizer and teacher, and her school progressed without hitch or incident.  There 
was no such outpouring of affection as in the case of Lottie Hartt, but she was a very good teacher and that was the 
last of my experience with the Town Line School.  No, not by one term -- the teacher who came in the spring term had 
neither the education nor the ability and I attended but spent much of my tim