Trempealeau County, Wisconsin - Chapter 10: Historical Papers, 1917 (part 3 of 4)

My father, Albert Rouse Rathbone (properly bun but changed by mistake in the war records) was born June 28, 1838, at the old Rathbun homestead on Amity Hill near Wattsburg, Penn. His father was an itinerant doctor carrying among his pills and liniments, kerosene oil, a great new cure for colds and throat trouble. When Lincoln called for men my father enlisted in the 145th Pennsylvania Volunteers, and being soon ordered to the front, he married Adeline White, and left her with his widowed mother upon the homestead where mother tended her flock of sheep and did tailoring. Father saw most of the Wilderness Campaign, was taken prisoner at Chancellorsville, held in Libby prison eleven days, after which he was exchanged. Wounded in the arm by a minnie ball at Spottsylvania Courthouse as he raised his sword in sign for his men to charge the breastworks, he returned home after hospital treatment at Annapolis with a wound that prevented further army service.

Grandfather had procured his kerosene medicine from the surface of pools, but now they were deriving it from wells. Father bought a partnership in the Titusville Wells, but having little faith in the business, sold mother's sheep, a goodly flock, packed up their few belongings, took mother and the four-months-old baby, waved goodby to a tall form at the homestead bars, and was off to try his fortunes among the pioneers of Western Wisconsin.

Their baggage was light. Clothing cost much in "Wartimes," muslin, coarse, unbleached stuff, sold at seventy-five cents per yard. People had no machines by means of which they could turn off two or three garments a day. I imagine most of the space in that leathern trunk which bore the misuse of travel right up to and including father last move, was taken up with keepsakes.

Time, prodded by boat, stage, and a hired ox team on the last lap. landed them, in the spring of 1866, the new cook stove, the precious baggage intact, upon their possessions at the mouth of Black River some fifteen miles from La Crosse near the old McGilvray ferry. The little log cabin but recently vacated containing its rough hand-made furniture was clean. The new stove in position, mother stored the provisions, conspicuously at the front a jar of Pennsylvania blackberry jam blatantly labeled, hung the dimity curtains, wound and set the clock, while father at a near neighbor's filled the tick with bright oat straw, brought home the cow which had been included in the purchase, a rangy, long-haired creature jangling a bell but a trifle smaller and every bit as badly cracked as that one of 1776 fame, and another home venture was launched.

carried his arm in a sling, he earned enough that summer driving teams for the farmers to pay for three good milch cows. Mother, by holding boards up to be nailed, and down to be sawed, helped put a small milk house over the spring. Mother made prime butter bringing war prices. On a Sunday might have been seen an odd couple - a tall, soldiery young man, his baby bundled at his back in a scarlet shawl, true Indian fashion, and a puffy short woman trudging along the lovely river paths, off to spend the day with a congenial neighbor. This during the cool days of May, then it turned warm, and oh, the mosquitoes! And oh dear, for the resultant smudges ! There was a smudge under the table while they ate, one under the baby's cradle all the time, another for the cow when milked, and yet the mosquitoes nearly ate them alive. Mother ran slapping to right and left with a switch from house to milk room. Father, his one arm useless, defenseless against their onslaughts, tied down his coat sleeves, wore a veil and a heavy coat for protection. The creatures followed one in a black cloud. Up out of the bottoms the cattle rushed, tearing like mad through the brush.

Father was surprised one morning to find a stray ox at the barn. Inquiry among the neighbors established father's title thereto. It was Jim, the ox that had been included in the trade. He had a bad lump on his jaw, but it didn't hinder his working. He was shy but gentle and took quite philosophically to the most outlandish harness beast ever wore in man's remembrance. How father chuckled as he attempted to fit the contraption, trying it fore and aft, right side and wrong side before getting it properly adjusted to those particular parts of Jim's anatomy for which it had been intended. It had the merit of strength, and it resembled hustling to see father hauling great cart loads of wood behind Jim instead of lugging it up on his own back.

The summer passed, and, best of all, the mosquitoes went with it. Fall on Black River. Did you ever gather plums there ? Burbank may keep his hybrids, the flavor of those wild goose plums can never be improved. Did you ever struggle in a thicket for black haws, high bush cranberries or fox grapes after Jack Frost had performed his magic? Yet over all the glory hung the memory of those mosquitoes.

So, when, during the winter father had an opportunity to sell, they concluded one summer there was enough, bought a mate for Jim, packed a few belongings into the sled and drove over the ridge into Trempealeau Valley. It took two days, but mother and the baby were cozy in the sled box, and father kept his blood up gee-hawing the oxen through the drifts. They located a few miles from Arcadia in the lower part of American Valley on the Harmon Tracey place. Here the third child was born, a fragile babe, and, only sixteen months later ere this one had vacated the maternal arms, hardly able to sit alone, I was born. You mothers with every convenience, steam-heated rooms, hot and cold water on tap, and perhaps one child, consider this pioneer woman's part. A child of three years, a weakling of sixteen months (whom I over a year later helped learn to walk) , and here a hvely lusty youngster demanding her share of attention, a fireplace for warmth, melted snow to wash in.

As I read the few notes my mother, now a woman of nearly four score, pioneering in the wilds of Washington, has furnished me, for this sketch, it seems their married life was a series of broken advances and retreats, halting in their migrations for one of two or both reasons, to-wit : to trade horses, or receive the stork. That we left Trempealeau County only to hop the more gingerly back in again. And so if at the time my tale is a trifle overcharged with baby, horse, or vagabondage, - oh well, if you love the three as I do, nothing I may write will prejudice you against the book containing other articles most charmingly handled by experienced pens.

We advanced a step in civilization here - had horses to drive. Mother did most of the marketing. She tied me into the seat beside her, put the two older.girls on the floor of the hack (I believe they called it the democrat wagon) with a foot upon each one's skirts, father stepped from the heads of the wild young team and away we flew. Mother declares if it hadn't been up-grade after each down hill plunge she never could have brought them to a halt in front of Storm's store in East Arcadia. Long years after I saw her drive our vicious coach stallion in South Dakota and I am fully persuaded she gloried in those wild pioneer dashes. Father didn't enjoy renting. The next year he bought a place and in March, 1868, moved over into Travis Valley where our regular feathered guest got in two paying visits before we could pack and resume the broken march over Wisconsin, which, in spite of a very rapidly increasing family calling for an extra board seat across the wagon box every halt, ceased only when the thirteen child was born the thirteenth day of June, the birthday of the first babe, had broken the charm.

That father was a financier goes unchallenged. He shod and provided books for a family where it was not unusual to meet nine at a time plodding a mile and a half to school, sister Kate, that most to be pitied being, the oldest, bringing up the rear with the peck basket of lunch. That he was a true blue farmer is proved by the fact that the twelve grew up stron.e healthy men and women (though Kate in making her first dress declared in a flood of tears that she was one-sided from carrying that basket, to find later that she had left out an under arm piece) ere one of the number dropped out, and he grew the food that fed them, and most of the clothing to keep them warm. Recent dietitians would probably exclaim at the rich diet so generously larded with pink and white ham, and great prints of butter. How many fleeces from his flocks were exchanged with the Bangar Woolen Mill wagon (maybe you remember that curly horse) for bolts of flannel that so stimulated the circulation of blood and gave us a bran new epidermis daily if scratching counted. What tear blurred scenes each fall to get brother Virgil properly clothed for a cold Wisconsin winter. How, after he had been coaxed and shoved into those home-made domestic flannels he'd watch his chance to hide them in the haymow only to be betrayed by shivering and obliged to go all through the coercing again and again until the tender, outraged hide had thickened itself against its aggravator. Consider, too, the excruciating sensation from wearing one of father's heaviest red flannel shirts in a hot summer all afternoon, next your thin

.But to our sidetracked story. The last of October, 1871, as soon as these last little ones could sit, one between father and mother on the spring seat, the other in mother's arms, we packed the leather trunk in the back of the wagon, emptied the ticks, rolled up the bedding and clothing, and with us three girls down in the wagon bed on a pile of hay, for three days bumped and lurched across the hills, to a farm father bought, as so many did in those days of slow transit, with no real estate man to whirl you out in a super six, without first seeing the place. Lunch on the first day was eaten at Ettick, a small Scandinavian settlement, and early that afternoon we reached Melrose, spending two nights with Aunt Nan, to rest mother's arms a bit. With a dawn start and steady driving, we made the Wisconsin River at dark, where we camped out, the baby crying, it seemed, all night. I was divided between the fear of wolves devouring us, and hunters shooting us for panthers on account of it, but the baby, unmindful of these dangers, gave vent to its troubles in its own noisy way. We crossed on a small ferry near where Germantown now stands just as the sun rose, and hurried on again as nearly due east as the roads permitted. Those moves must have been keenest torture to mother, but I never heard her complain. The nearest to it being when late that day as the sun plunged into his cloudy bed, we looked down upon our eighty acres of sand, unfenced, un almost everything, she turned her tired face to father, asking pleadingly, "Isn't there some mistake, Albert?" "Yes," father returned in his characteristic, quiet way, taking the blame upon his own shoulders, "I have made the mistake of trusting one man too many."

Indeed, it would have taken a Chinese wall to keep realty in bounds there. The wailing fall wind seemed never to weary of carrying sand from one spot to another, piling it against the scant clumps of grass, leveling it, and shaping a mound farther on. Over and over again it piled and leveled monotonously. We drove through the creek bounding one side, where, as the horses drank, we sat in wearied silence, up to the tiny house standing on a knoll in a small grove .of oaks. It was banked to the window sills. From a broken pane of the attic window a bit of white rag waved and beckoned. "The peace signal, Adeline," father said, smiling whimsically. We had traded even up everything except the team, wagon and what it held. Here we found rude furniture not unlike we had left behind. Mother, it is true, complained that the milk crocks were seamed and cracked, and what a boiling and scrubbing in home-made soft soap suds they did get. She found bedbugs, too, but they were soon routed through her persistent deluge of boiling brine. A pecuhar hardness of atmosphere foretold snow. Mother made up a good hot supper, we girls ransacked our future room, the attic, and father, after stabhng the jaded team, brought in the rest of the load, filled, as usual, the bed ticks, and we were again ready to receive. However, we missed the periodic visit of our most constant guest. Either it didn't look for orphanages in this outlandish country or had mercy because of its barrenness. In a few days the snow had covered the bleak prairie.

It puzzles me how it was managed, but we never lacked comfort. Our homes, though plain, were always clean, our table provided with wholesome food, and our beds neat and inviting. I love to remember that snowbound winter. Up in the attic you could hear the wind moan in the flue, and rattle the dead oak leaves. Then there were the lovely cracks of gold in the floor telling of father up hours before chore time, reading and studying by lamplight those precious books that never were left behind. Hugh Miller's "Old Red Sandstone" seems a part of him. It was the first book I noticed - from it I learned my letters. It gave one a fine inteflectual feeling to read the A B C's from father's book, standing straight beside his chair, enunciating each letter with bravado. As far back as my memory reaches, he was taking the Atlantic Monthly. The first "piece" I spoke was a prelude to some lengthy article in it, taught me by father, and so like his own sayings - "It is not all in bringing up. Let folks say what they will. To silver scour a pewter cup, It will be pewter still." Housekeeping wasn't so complicated those days, and, in spite of its lack of conveniences, mother found many hours in which to help father teach us. She was an early Montessori. "

The only real rushing business of this locality was horse stealing among the outlaws. And although a moral consciousness precluded father's adoption of the profession, he did quite innocently become possessed of one of their thefts, a black Morgan mare, balky to such a degree I doubt not her owner considered himself well rid of her - of which more later. Occasionally scraps of talk about these raids reached us, furnishing a little healthy excitement.

As the last snow was vanishing, father took the sack of cloverseed down from the rafters and sowed it upon the most favorable ground along the creek bank. Then the waiting and the watching through unseasonable heat, freezes and snow flurries. I am reminded of Old Goody Blake dowr on her knees blowing up the faint embers of the poor little fire she obtained by filching handf uls of Harry Gill's brushwood. During a dry spell, assisted by mother and every toddler that could carry a bucket, however small, I distinctly remember my part in it, and of sounding the depths of the creek coming up with the tip top of my new shaker plastered with mud - father kept the patch moist. He said the Sahara might be reclaimed if clover could be started upon it. It was his creed and he spread its gospel wherever he farmed. Nature couldn't turn a deaf ear to such prayers, it grew and flourished. That fall it was a great temptation to cut it for Bossie, but father had mowed some fine-bladed marsh grass while it was young and tender, dried it beneath the bleaching sheets, salted it down in the mow, and she performed as well or better than most cows of those days ; that is, she didn't give milk during the five winter months, but kept in good condition and brought us twin heifer calves early the next spring.

Father was gone off and on most of the summer at work for the more prosperous farmers in the adjoining valleys. Once when mother was there with only us children, a band of Indians trailed by, the men sitting erect and dignified on their shaggy ponies, the squaws so humble and browbeaten, trudging afoot, loaded nearly double with great bundles at their backs.

carried by means of broad leathern straps across the chest and forehead, httle girls and boys innocent of clothes scampered along in the cloud of dust. Papooses dangled from every budget. Cur dogs with red lolling tongues darted out and in among them. As we stood at the gate one big fellow stopped, and thrusting his dirty fingers in our cat's fat sides, asked tersely, "How much?" And for a minute we children held our breath, certain our lives were to be spared at the sacrifice of pussy's. Then, seeing the fowls, they wanted chickens, "You so much, me, one," they pleaded. But mother, knowing their tricks, was firm; one meant that many for every Indian able to beg. The long line of perhaps two or three hundred ended at last. They forded the creek and camped less than a half-mile distant in a grove of oaks. Toward evening one of the neighbors riding by cautioned mother to be on the lookout, the Indian had liquor. While she was not abashed at the nearness of Indians pure and simple, she knew there were good reasons to be afraid of the best of them, no matter how civilized, when mixed with firewater. So with all of us children hanging to her, her face to the foe, she set out to find the chief, who assured her most solemnly that she had nothing to fear, and pointed out a number of yelling braves tied to trees while they sobered off. We visited the camp several times and were unmolested except that they begged for everything in sight.

As before mentioned, it was here that father bought, unwittingly, the stolen mare, Doll. She was jet black with a blazing white star in her forehead, an exact match for the colt obtained during our stay at Travis Valley. As father led Doll behind him in the barn, the very day of her purchase, she kicked out in play, hitting father a terrific blow in the side that laid him up for a long time. During the two and a half years of our sojourn here father had used all the barn fertilizer he could get from the horse dealers (?) and our own stable to enrich his ground. The patch of clover was now several acres, the corn and grain in splendid trim, when Mr. Mattison, of spirit rapping fame in Arcadia, passed by and fell in love with the place. Before he left he owned it and father received in exchange an eighty in (of course) Trempealeau County. In his anxiety to get back, the start was made before father was at all fit for even a short journey, mother driving the stallion and his mate on the wagon holding a few household articles and four little ones, father following in the buggy drawn by Doll, with the oldest, a child of eight, to watch over and care for him. All went well until we reached the foot of Waushara Hill, a hard, sandy climb enough to discourage any horse. Doll was completely overcome. She stopped short, letting one hip drop in a resting posture, her delicate ear radiating toward the rear to catch the verbal abuse her former owners had subjected her to. Except to chirrup a time or two, father said nothing. He was so sick nothing really mattered. He sat and waited, placing all the responsibility of action on Doll. Somehow, somewhere, while yet young he learned the value of patience, that attribute needed first and usually gained last. He was not a hustler ; violence of any kind was foreign to his nature, but his tender, watchful endurance was godlike. It was his winning card in every game. Through his own remarkable self control, he governed others without visible effort. It seemed so cheerfully right to do anything father suggested. He never antagonized one. His influence was always soothing. It soothed and conquered Doll. With an indescribable gesture of exasperated patience that melted into puzzled incomprehension and crystallized into life lasting confidence, she gave father a long, studied look, then with a soft, blubbery sigh, pushed out gently on the bit, starting up the first of many, many long hills that in her life of over twenty years in our service she climbed with never an untrue move.

For years father was associated in business with that most canny Scotch horse dealer, James Low, of Baraboo, buying and selling largely and constantly, but never to find Doll's equal in intelligence or trustworthiness. To my knowledge no one outside the immediate family was ever allowed to drive her but once. It was threshing time with its accompanying hustle. In those days people did not grow enough grain to pay them to invest in high-priced threshers. They engaged a tramp horsepower machine that passed from one setting of stacks to another. At our place one horse took sick and father, driven to it, put in Doll. The noise excited her, yet she did fairly well until the driver became loud and profane in his exhortations. Doll stopped and appeared to be recalling similar scenes. The driver let out a half-rod of whip lash that shot in sinuous, snakelike coils and cracked immediately over her sensitive ears. She not only hesitated now, she balked stifl" with ears pinched flat, her distended nostrils blood red, a perfect fury. Had mother been struck it could not have incensed us children more. We popped up and down like mad Dervishes, and the yell of bloody murder passed down the line like water in a bucket brigade. Father was there before anything worse happened, and Doll was quickly and quietly led out of the traces and inside the barn. How the crew managed, I do not remember, we were too busy loving our outraged old bonnie to notice small matters. Once father drove her and a mate into Humbird, traded the mate for a great white Durham cow, Lily White, an imported animal that, refusing to breed, had been worked in the lumber camps with oxen, and came driving back with horse and cow hitched together. It must have been humiliating to Doll, but father required it of her, that was enough.

The Mattison home, to which we moved in 1872, adjoined the south side of the Arcadia burying ground, the house so near the line you could toss a pebble from the back door to the nearest graves. You could look through the window on the other side and occasionally see deer among the oak thickets of the barn yard. Once we shot a bear in the crotch of a tree over the path leading to the pasture, when we had discovered why the cows kept turning back at that point. At another time we saw Mrs. Bruin and two cubs taking their constitutional across a field, headed for Barn Bluff", upon whose sandy summit grew the earliest sweetest wind flowers. It was at this place we had a fearful siege of typhoid, every one being stricken except father and sister Kate, who maintains she underwent worse suffering than the fever victims. No professional nurses on tap then. Dr. Lewis spent all his spare time assisting, but upon father fell the hardship of nursing night and day, napping occasionally in his chair between the rows of suft"erers. Worn out at last he was persuaded to lie down while

Mr. and Mrs. Conant watched. To his horror upon awakening he discovered that through a mistake in the bottles I, who lay at death's door, had been given a spoonful of turpentine. I estabUshed my reputation then and there of being contrary by mending at once. Father brought us all through, bald-headed skeletons, but alive, thanks to his untiring care.

Several families from the old Pennsylvania district came out and settled near. One woman brought a peck of peach pits. Father carefully cracked and planted his handful in boxes. Several sprouted and grew amazingly. He kept them in wooden tubs, moving them into the cellar the first two winters, when they became pot bound and were placed in the open ground. In the fall father dug up one side of the roots, weighted the trees to the ground, covering them with dirt, coarse litter and rails. After danger of frost in the spring they were straightened. In their fourth year they bore fruit. True, it had a decidedly vegetable flavor, but none the less home grown peaches. In much the same manner he grew our first grapes. He planted a small orchard of hardy apples, which thrived and bore when others thought it useless to try. His pear tree seemed always beckoning for succor. Like homesick women in a foreign land, it refused to bear. Its influence was so saddening that it was replaced by a more cheerful pioneer. We popped corn over its burning twigs, the only real, spirited, happy time of its existence.

We were moving less often now. We remained on the three hundred and sixty-acre Humbird farm, which now became our home, from 1877 to 1881, nearly five years, perhaps because it took that much longer to overcome the desecrations of man. Nature had been lavish in her bestowal of beauty, but man apparently had worked with extraordinary ingenuity to upset her plans. What a place ! Dead cattle lying unburied in the barnyard upon which great, gaunt, hairy hogs were eating, dead fowls under the perches, a new barn erected above the carcasses of several sheep, half the pickets fallen from the front fence, buildings unpainted, the windows of the big house stuffed with rags, worn out fields. Father put the full force of men and teams to clearing the premises. The dead were buried in a pit after covering them with lime. Tons and tons of fertilizer were hauled from the yards and stables to a worked-out forty, as level as the floor, but too poor to raise a row. He bought at a dollar a load all the manure at the Humbird livery stable, and how the neighbors laughed to see a man pay, actually pay, for manure. He grew a crop of clover knee deep on it and turned that back to the land. The neighbors shook their heads and called him crazy. You should have seen the crop of corn following! Its like was never seen there before. On other depleted fields similarly treated the heavy-headed oats stood shoulder high. A lover of good stock he paid one hundred and fifty dollars for a Short-horn bull, an unheard of price in those days when cows and chickens were a much sUghted side issue.

Fences were straightened, buildings painted, a great barn built with old-fashioned driveway between two immense mows. He flailed some grain with the jointed rod of long ago on that barn floor. And winter evenings, the horses and cattle watching from their stanchions, the sheep from their pens, we husked long ears of yellow corn there. Had I been gifted with the pen of a Whittier my snow bound might read as pregnant with Hfe as his, I sensed it all in a dumb ecstasy.

Our land extending into two districts entitled us to entrance at both the town school at Humbird and the rural school at Houghtenberg. We took the full year of the former and the summer term of the latter, for father placed great faith in schooling. He helped us evenings. I cannot remember a home without its blackboard and night sessions. Father wished us to be teachers and ten of us fulfilled his desires.

The instant you crossed the long puncheon bridge to the east you were in a forest of pines, and upon a carpet of pigeon vines and winter green. If it were spring the vines were fuU of puffy red berries, and you could hear the drumming partridge from every direction. Once at the bridge's approach a neighbor came face to face with a great shambling bear, as large as a two-year-old heifer. We often saw them in the slashings, where we gathered blueberries with wooden box rakes, and buckets of juicy blackberries. At dusk from the open country to the west came the prairie chickens' boom, "Man's a fool !" with its peculiar up and do%vn inflection. Such winters of snow! How the sleighbells jingled to and from school ! Fences completely hidden ! Doll and Dido, their breasts frost white, would come racing into the back yard from the clearing, the sled piled high with alder pole wood, icicles hanging to father's mustache, his nose white. Then mother would rush out with a pan of steaming doughnuts to regale father while he rubbed the blood back into his nose and ears, and she stroked Doll's soft muzzle.

Often he engaged strolling bands of Indians to cut wood and clear land. When they came to the house to engage hay for their ponies, an armful at a time, if invited in, as they usually were, at the risk of our catching undesirable things, they squatted about the stove in stolid silence except to answer a direct question in short guttural notes ; so unlike the musical tones used in their own language, when their high-pitched voices rose and fell like the wailing wind in the pine tops. And of course they begged. One old half-frozen squaw, so wrinkled she looked less than human, asked for milk. She held her mouth full for a moment, then fumbling in the front of her dirty blouse drew out a very young puppy that placed to her lips avidly sucked out the warmed milk. A young squaw, evidently the belle, had earl lobes stretched nearly to her shoulder from the weight of ear ornaments made up of dimes, half dimes, and quarters, amounting to at least five dollars, connected by silver rings. A very tall straight young buck, when asked his name, replied promptly, "Paul, P-A-U-L," proud of his schooling, and stalking across the room to the organ drummed "out with one hand, "Home, sweet home," a strange tune for a wandering Red man. At another time an old chief and his squaw arrived just as we had finished dinner. When asked they readily went to the table. Before seating himself the chief reached the table's length to get a large dish of boiled Irish potatoes. He divided them with great exactness between his and the squaw's plates, adding first to one then to the other, then satisfied they were evenly filled, gave a grunt of contentment and finished the pile in no time. They seemed always like happy, irresponsible children. We destroyed an ideal existence when we took their lands.

A rather perplexing thing happened once. It was during an exceedingly cold spell, boards snapping, snow squeaking under foot, the pump almost freezing between trips to the kitchen with water, windows furred thick with frost, when just at dark an Indian and a young squaw nearly overcome with cold stopped for the night. They were exceptionally clean. We had a bed in the wood house attic kept purposely to accommodate the many looking for work who passed up and down the railroad track that cut our farm and lay a few rods from the house. Instead of sending them to the barn we let them sleep in this attic, which was warmer. In the morning something the Indian said about his squaw that didn't seem to apply to the one with him caused father to ask, motioning to the two, "You married?" "By 'n bye," was the laconic answer, which left us to wonder about their ideas of white man morality.

Our next move in 1881 to the George Dewey place, across the road from his shrewd Yankee brother. Uncle Dan Dewey, at Arcadia, was father's last investment in Wisconsin land. The house of three stories was not too large, for, during those years at Humbird, we had prospered in more than wealth. The stork had blessed our home with four visits, two of them a half hour apart. One room on the third flooi held long rows of rich yellow home made cheese, the rest were play rooms, where paper men and women and every description of animal, with some even beyond describing, were manufactured as fast as the limited supply of scissors allowed. While we lived here farm institutes were held yearly in the old Mineral Springs Hotel. Father always attended, eager to get new ideas, admiring Governor Hoard, whether he talked dairying or broke the monotony of farm discussions by singing "Finnegan's Wake," or reciting the pathetic "Johnnie Kunkerpod." Most of the farmers took to dairying. Father did, and sold cream at so much an inch - a little more than enough to pay for the cows' salt now. You all remember how George Kelley used to fly around in the mud with his wild team gathering up cream for the creamery, and spilling it occasionally, too. Our place was rich and grew wonderful crops of corn and clover. We were near good schools. It was a pity to sell.

The thirteenth baby was born here, the thirteenth day of June, 1884. Counting cribbage style the figures in the year make two more thirteens - an awful assemblage of that most unlucky number. Whether that was responsible for father's ankle being broken twice that year, each time by stumbhng mules, I can't say, but it did look as if bad luck had us by the collar to see father hobbling about on crutches the next March in a cold, drizzly rain, and Tom Barry pegging around on his wooden leg, using all his Irish wit to auction off the personal property. Mother, as usual doing her share, kept pots of boiling coft'ee and trays of ham sandwiches on hand to cheer the crowd. Yet every one felt it was a sad move. What wasn't sold was given away or packed in the freight car with the bees, Virgil's pup, the Shorthorn stock, the stallion Frank, old Doll's last grandchild and Doll, too, would have been there had not mother, misunderstanding father, caused her to be shot. Faithful old creature, it hurts yet to remember coming from school and rushing out to learn why she lay so still beside the fence, discover the bullet wound in the blood-stained star in her forehead. I ought to think now, after all these years, that perhaps it was best, that it may have saved her a lingering, suffering death. I can't do it. I can't forgive the lack of gratitude for a dumb animal living for our comfort and profit, nor an unkindness to a child for whose being it is not responsible any more than my father could.

Leaving the two married girls in April of 1885, we made that most unfortunate move into the Ozarks, mother and the ten children by passenger train.

Space is too limited to tell you of the wild life there in the woods filled with flowers, nuts and fruits ; the raids of the Bald Knobbers and our constant fear, father being a northern man, he should suffer the resentment of these ignorant people, still bitter over the Civil War ; of a winter not as open as the natives vouched for, we with stock and no hay, howfather kept some of the cattle alive by feeding them great lengths of pickled side pork; of little Frank traded for land, starved to death by his owner, and father unable to save him. No space left to picture the lives of these mountain children, often four generations living in a single miserable hovel, of the little log school house with its broken windows, dropped chinking, backless puncheon benches, ruled over by an asthmatic old teacher, who spent the noon hour smoking his pipe and his asthma over a fire in a hole in the ground; of the precipitate move, amounting almost to flight, away from these degrading social conditions to the open prairies of South Dakota, with its droughts, hail storms, cyclones - every force of nature turned against success, just at the outbreak of the Rosebud Indian Agency in 1891.

Nor shall I offend my father's memory by dwelling with unnecessary words upon his last sad illness, the result of that Waushara injury, so patiently borne throughout the intense heat of the summer of 1901 ; the misunderstandings, apparently wrong medical treatments; his life needlessly lost at the age of sixty-six. The big bays, the team he loved, carried him on the first relay back to the little cemetery at Arcadia in the beautiful Trempealeau Valley that had ever beckoned his return. In the lonely days that followed, how, by loving those creatures he had made his tender care, we tried to feel him near; not forgetting the King birds, that having built in the tool box of a cultivator, rather than cause them grief through the destruction of their home, he worked longer hours with one machine that the other might stand idle until the little birds could fly. Some comfort came at last, and I could feel, as he would wish, that he was but a little way ahead, beyond a turn in the road, at the summit of a hard climb, with dear faithful old Doll treking on.

Galesville University. It was a pleasant May morning that a child stepped across the threshold of the assembly room in the old court house at Galesville.

Rude wooden benches filled the main floor; the judge's desk was at the opposite end ; connected with this was a long narrow desk, inclosing a

The few young people present sat at the long desk. Beside the table sat Samuel Fallows, a young man of brilliant promise, secured to take charge of instruction in the new institution.

School had commenced the day before. There was a recitation in Latin. The professor turned to the child repeating the questions he had just asked of the class. His kindly manner brought reply, for every word had been indelibly impressed.

He took the new books - National Fifth Reader, Davies' Arithmetic, Clark's English, and Andrew's and Stoddard's Latin Grammar - writing within her name and the date. May 18, 1859.

That Latin Grammar, solid and hard, was quite unlike the modern "Easy Lessons," but the children sang the declensions and conjugations about their play and received no permanent injury, wondering at the greater difficulty experienced by those older.

An accurate list of those attending the first term nas not been obtained. We have always recalled the number as sixteen. Of this number were Addie Marsh Kneeland and Geo. Gale, yet residing at Galesville.

Those were the days of "flowing" sleeves, "low neck" and ample crinoline. The hair drooped low over the ears in "basket" braids, and twenty strands were announced as a triumph one morning. No bandeaux or jewels, but graceful sprays of wild flowers. They were pretty girls.

Elvina Swift, later Mrs. Farrington of Mondovi, and Emma Clark (Mrs. R. A. Odell) were sweet singers, alto and soprano. Their voices, hushed long years ago, I can hear yet trilling the "Rain Upon the Roof."

One beautiful autumn day in the second term, rooms having been made ready, we marched in a body the length of the village to the permanent building.

One can remember many things with amusement. So has the world always looked back, as it will to the end of time. The jokes that pleased our grandfathers grace as new the pages of the latest college journals. Professor Fallows, questioned at the close of the first day, is said to have remarked : "We have done better than old Harvard at its beginning."

Of Bishop Fallows we all know. In this year of 1912, strong and magnetic in humor or in pathos, he moves his audience as of old. The inspiration of such a personality was of more worth than many text books.

The new country contained individuals rarely endowed in intellect and thoroughly trained. Shabby as to clothes, and roughened by the hardships of pioneering, they were, nevertheless, an able resource when there was need.

Professor Kottinger, author of books in use in the schools of his native Switzerland, was most proficient in Hebrew, as well as several o^her languages, while his hands could draw rare harmony from piano or violin.

Professor Cheney, of Middlebury, Vt., after driving a breaking team of oxen all day, could help many a student over the hard places, perfectly conversant with classic, science or mathematics.

to the new country. Older men came to make good as best they might that the advance of civihzation should not find them wanting. That the child of ten should be classmates of the man of forty years was only example of the wide range that sought instruction.

Numbers and influence were steadily increasing when the Civil War bade all stand still, and the boys hastened bravely to their country's defense.

In later years, when the older colleges began to consider co-education, we realized upon what progressive ideas our training had been founded.

We girls were always welcomed to the boys' ball games. Those who wished were privileged to take part in oration or debate. Fine courtesy toward each other prevailed.

The Indian trails were well worn, their corn fields deserted at the coming of the white man yet well marked. The surroundings were not like those left in Eastern homes, but I can recall no expression of ill-natured comparison.

The life record of many is already complete, and across its page has been written success. Light-hearted and happy, as youth ought to be, I think an unusual earnestness pervaded that htle band; upon them, the impress of responsibility, that they were in the making of a future for others, as well as directing their own lives. Over all, the spirit of the pioneer. - (Written at Durand, Wisconsin, Nov. 8, 1912, by Flora Luce Dorwin.)

Early Osseo. The site of the now busy and thriving village of Osseo was surveyed and platted Sept. 22, 1857, by a company, W. A. Woodward of the state of New York, C. R. Field and W. H. Thomas of Richland County, Wisconsin, and they commenced the improvements - W. H. Thomas and a company of men, including our first blacksmith. Dye Ellis. Mr. Thomas and family boarded at Green & Silkworth's Station until the barn was built, when they moved into it and used it for a dwelling until the hotel was erected. They then moved into the hotel, where they lived until Mr. Field and company arrived and took possession in 1859, at which time Mr. Thomas moved into his house, which had been completed at the same time as the hotel.

The arrival of these new immigrants from Richland County took place October 14, the party consisting of the Hon. C. R. Field and family, J. D. Tracy and family, E. Hyslop and family, with a few young men and others, E. S. Hotchkiss, W. S. Hine, Freem Coats, and some others who did not come to stay. Mr. Thomas and crew had arrived in the fall of 1857.

At the time the Field party arrived Osseo consisted of a few scattered buildings. The principal building was the hotel. Next in importance was the residence of W. H. Thomas. That house is now a part of the residence of Erick Nelson and stands west of Hume's blacksmith shop. A shanty occupied the present site of the Congregational church. Dye Ellis had erected the frame of what is now the dwelling of Mrs. Newman, and a little east of the frame stood his blacksmith shop. The shop consisted of a few pieces of jack pine trees arranged to form a forge with some kind of a cover over them, his anvil being outside. When Mr. Ellis got a job of work to do he went out into the pines and gathered pine knots and such-

On our arrival there were probably only about half a dozen famiUes at the old Beef River Station of Green & Silkworth. About the same number were over in the South Valley, Jim King, from whom the creek takes its name ; H. G. Daniels and family, Jefferson Gorden and family and a young man, John Spaulding ; James Mclntyre and family, with whom were William and Mary Lindsay, brother and sister to Mrs. Mclntyre. William Henry had taken his first crop that summer of 1859, but did not build a home until 1860. East of Osseo, on the farm now owned by James Crawford, Austin Ayers and family lived. On section 8, a little below the Linderman mill, Dennis Lawler lived for a time before taking up his later home.

The postoffice (Sumner postoffice) was at the Beef River Station, owned by Green & Silkworth, with Mr. Silkworth as postmaster. The postoffice was in a barroom of the old log house, the letters being kept in a little box, or desk rather, where their account books were - a desk probably about eighteen inches or maybe two feet square, which anyone had access to. Beef River Station was on the stage road from Sparta and Black River Falls to Eau Claire and Menominee. Although we were few in number in those days there was lots of fun and amusement for all who wished to enjoy it.

After the arrival of those immigrants there was a school meeting called to organize a school district, and it was voted to build a schoolhouse, so there were bids called for, R. C. Field and Mr. Silkworth being the only bidders. Their bids were $500 each and to get the contract Mr. Field promised to put on a belfry without extra charge.

At that time there was a small store kept in the house of W. H. Thomas and owned by him. In the other end of the house a Mrs. Bucklen, afterwards better known as Mrs. Barber, taught the first school in Osseo, a school of four scholars - two Lawler girls and Delia and Julia Thomas. After our arrival the next school was kept in the barroom of the station and taught by Ruth Griswold, who had arrived in our company from Richland County. Then there were a few new scholars. The next school was kept in that shanty spoken of and taught by Hattie Field, afterwards Mrs. E. S. Hotchkiss of Independence.

At the time of building the school house in Osseo the school house in South Valley was built, Mr. Silkworth having the contract. The work was done by Mr. Smith, then of South Valley.

In the summer of 1859 Mr. Field contracted to have a lot of marsh hay put up on what was then called the "big marsh," just beyond what is now called the Stillman farm. In the fall there was a prairie fire coming over from the west and to save that hay Mr. Field hired a lot of us to go down and fight the fire, which was done successfully.

One day during the same fall, or it may have been winter, hay was needed at the hotel, so Stoddard Field hitched up "Buck" and "Booch," and another team of the same kind, and he and I went down to the big marsh for a load. He drew up alongside of a real nice stack or rick and I went onto the rick to fork the hay onto the load. I had not got much off before I went right down through. That nice rick of hay was quite hollow-hearted. for under a covering of hay there were two tamarack stumps, supportmg poles against which brush had been piled. Mr. Field had contracted with a man to put up twenty tons of hay on that marsh, and W. II. Thomas was to estimate the amount of hay in each stack, each to abide by his estimate. This particular stack had been highly estimated. "Billy" Hines says that man was a preacher and Mrs. Field says so, too. In those days there were more preachers than there was good preaching.

I will relate another little true story of two or three years after. An Irishman came in to Osseo - Mike Murty by name. He had an ox team and the settlers needed hay. One day Mike came to me and asked me to go with him down onto what was called Lawler's Creek, where there was real nice marsh grass to cut for hay. So on Sunday we went down and cut hay. On a Sunday after we went and stacked it. In the fall, to save the hay from prairie fires, I went one Sunday and ploughed two furrows a little apart around the stack and then set fire between the furrows so as not to let it run over the prairie. When we had got almost around the fire leaped over our firebreak on the other side and into the stack of hay, which all went up in smoke. On Sunday, too! Well, some people will say, "So much for working on Sunday ;" but in pioneer days we had to do and work every way to make a living. As for Mike, that was about all the hay he had for winter fodder, and seemingly it almost broke his heart. I had a good deal of hay on other marshes, so I gave Mike a stack on one of them to help tide him over. He left Osseo and I never knew what became of him.

In 1860 the Second National Republican Convention was held and men around Osseo were anxious to get the news of the convention. Mr. Field was an enthusiastic Seward man. Maybe partly because he was a New York man himself, and it seemed to be sure that Seward would be the man. In due time after the convention I went up to the postoffice to get the weekly newspaper. On coming back to Osseo I met Mr. Field. "Well, who's it?" said he. "Who do you think?" "Seward?" "No." "Chase?" "No." The others he named I do not remember. "Well, who is it?" "Lincoln." "Lincoln, Lincoln, Lincoln, who is Lincoln, anyway?" "Don't you remember Lincoln stumping the state of Illinois against Douglass two years ago?" "Oh, yes." And he went to get his paper to read the news of the convention. Although he did not get Seward, he did not go back on Lincoln.

On the first call for troops there left three young men to walk all the way to Sparta to enlist. These three young men were F. N. Thomas, W. S. Hine and Hank Robbins. In my mind I can see them yet take the road. Road ? No, the wagon track. We had no roads in those days ; did not need them. Those men served Uncle Sam faithfully during the war, Mr. Thomas being sorely afflicted, Billy Hine coming back safe and Hank Robbins setthng in some part of the state east.

In December, 1859, there occurred the birth of the first white child born in the village of Osseo. That child is now Mrs. Barbara Mclntyre, and she is here yet. True, they went to Seattle once to make a home, but on

The old blacksmith, Mr. Ellis, was a character in his way - he and his old horse Jimmie. That old horse was the slowest horse that ever stood. Trot? No, he didn't know how. (Oh, now, Hyslop, be easy on old Jim. You must remember how you used to like to get him and the old cart when you wanted to take your family in a buggy riding over to the South Valley.) A whip was of little use, but he did not like a stick with a brick tied on the end of it. Ellis was a widower, I suppose, at least he lived by himself here at first. In about a year or two he had an addition to his household, a stepson, two daughters and a son coming to keep him company.

I had bought a claim on land of C. R. Nelson, on the east half of 15. There were 15 acres broken on it, but I had no way of putting it into crop. Mr. Ellis had his horse, this old Jim, and another he had got some way, and his boy, Ruff. So I let the 15 acres to Mr. Ellis. He rigged up an old plow and sent Ruff to plow the land for the crop. But the plow would not work, or Ruff thought so. In fact he would rather that it would not. So he brought it down to the shop. Mr. Field had had before this a shop erected about where the furniture store now is. Mr. Ellis was busy working and poor Ruff had to take it. When he got the job done at which he had been at work: "Now we will just see whether that plow will work or not," took the team and plow onto the prairie on the south side ; he took hold of the plow and Ruff had to drive the team. It was probably the old man's emphatic and picturesque language that frightened the horses, but they went at it and that old plow did turn over a furrow or two. "That's as good a plow as ever God made," said he, so Ruff had to go back to his plowing.

In those early days Mrs. Delia Field, then Delia Thomas, used to ride horseback up to the station and get the mail from the Sumner postoffice. One day the mare, who had a colt, got in too much of a hurry to see the colt, jumped over the fence or bars rather, with Delia on her back, but Delia kept her seat just the same. She was gritty in those days, though a young girl.

Now why did we all come up here from Richland County? Well, just to see if we could find better openings. Variety is the one thing needful, and the way of the world generally always has been so and always will be. Probably another matter which had an influence was that there was a prospect of what is now the C, St. P., M. & 0. Railroad being built down Beef River Valley. But the projectors thought there was a better prospect for them to go further north and did so, leaving Osseo in the lurch. Then the Augustaites could lord it over Osseo and often laughed at us Osseoites. Oh, Osseo was nowhere, and the prospects were quite poor for a good many years. But they don't laugh quite so much nowadays, and we are all real good friends and neighbors.

In Richland County there was no land to be got by the moneyless. But Uncle Sam had lots of land up this way that he was anxious to give - no, not quite give yet, for the homestead bill did not pass until 1862 - but he was anxious to dispose of it ; so land was some inducement, too. Oh yes, there was land to be had, nothing but land, save that already taken up by the few scattered settlers, and, oh, there was water. Yes it was a wellwatered country. One Sunday I went over the ridge and down onto Elk Creek to look for land. Yes, the land was there and nothing else. For the time being I was monarch of all I surveyed, but I believe there was some one away down near Elk Creek who would dispute with me the monarchy. That was too far from Osseo, so I came back and let Mr. Hale have it all. In course of time the Norwegians and other Scandinavians began to arrive and take up* the land.

In 1861 two men came to Osseo from Eau Claire with the purpose of building a mill. They located the site of the proposed mill below the forks of the river, near where the railroad crosses it, but had some trouble getting the right of water-power from the owners of the land - the state land, I think - and before that could be accomplished the war started and they packed up their tools and took themselves back to Eau Claire. That put an end to the building of a mill in Osseo until 1867, when it was started again by W. L. Fuller, a miller fi-om Black River Falls, W. H. Thomas and E. S. Hotchkiss going in as partners, the mill being that now owned by Lee & Sons. In 1873 and 1874, I think, the Linderman mill was built by J. L. Linderman of Eau Claire and E. S. Hotchkiss.

In 1861 I had built a house for myself and family on the lots now owned, I believe, by H. P. Williams, formerly the Gates property. In 1863 I got up a bee of ox teams and moved it onto my then claim on section 15. I presume it is still there and used as a dwelling. We had quite a time taking it up onto the prairie, on the way from the bridge and up the side, breaking two or three neck yokes. The first house erected in Osseo after our arrival was the front part of the house now owned by Ellis Johnson and then owned by Mr. Field ; that was built in 1860. All timber for buildings had to be sawed out of jack pines. I have my old saw now. I wish some of those carpenters would buy it and go to work again.

The first garden on Osseo was on the block now owned by Messrs. Harris and Smith, where Mr. Field had his garden in 1860, and where it was supposed he would build his residence. But "the best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley," so instead of building in Osseo he built on the farm. In 1866 Thomas Love and family arrived from California, where he and his newly wedded wife went to from New York in 1853, during the golden days of California. He built that part of the house now owned by E. Remington, where Mr. Carpenter now lives.

In 1865 and 1866 the postofiice was moved from the Beef River Station to Osseo and the name changed from Sumner postoffice to Osseo, with, I think, W. H. Thomas as postmaster. The stage then came down on the south side through Osseo to Eau Claire, the road, or track rather, being over the high land of Olson farm on over the ridge to Otter Creek and on to McLellan's.

In one of those early years A. B. Ayers moved from the farm now owned by J. Crawford and started a store in the building now owned by Frank Smith, on the corner by the big tree, afterwards building the house

In 1861, I think, R. C. Field donated one acre of land on what is now cemetery hill for a cemetery, and that, with other land acquired by purchase, now comprises the Osseo cemetery. It was Dr. Dickie, who died while living with his stepson, John Spaulding, in South Valley, on what used to be the WiUiam Anderson farm, who was the first to be interred in the cemetery. I made the coffin and W. H. Thomas and I took it over there on the day of the funeral. The room was so constructed that the coffin had to be put in at the window and the remains taken out the same way. You will see that we had no undertakers and fine caskets in which to lay the dead away.

As for the roads in those days, they were anywhere, and as for bridges, if we had good corduroy bridges, that was enough. Oh no, no steel bridges, and only corduroy roads now and then. And pasture for the flock, that was everywhere - north, south, east and west! the great thing was to find the cows at night, when they failed to come up. Many had to search all over for miles around.

Now we will do a little breaking up of land. On Mr. Field's arrival in Osseo he had a number of yokes of cattle. Those, or at least part of them, he disposed of to men to do breaking ; that helped men to own cattle and him to get his breaking done on section 16. If I remember right, I think the bouts of breaking were about a mile long, so there was not so much turning. The land being all what was called grub land, there was a good deal of grubbing to do, the grubs being used for firewood. The first breaking of land in what is now called Tracy Valley was done by the writer on what is now the Yarnall farm on section 20, near that fine spring of water near the south section line. Being a carpenter, I gave two days' work for an acre of breaking, Mr. Mclntyre getting ten acres broken for me in that way; John R. Brown, then of Thompson Valley, another ten - twenty in all, I stopping there and doing the grubbing when necessary and serving the victuals which my wife brought over from Osseo every day. That breaking was done in 1861.

About that time A. D. Tracy got what is now the Paul Christopherson farm, bought in on a tax deed from, I think, William Silkworth, if I am not mistaken, the price for the quarter section being $50.

Here is a little incident that has just come to my memory. John Wells' father had come on a visit, while, I think, John was still working for Mr. Field. One day he was sitting in the store then owned by Thomas & Hotchkiss, writing a letter, and while writing was talking politics. I remember that I stood looking at him talking pohtics and writing a letter, too. This talk was to the effect that every American citizen should vote one way or another, for or against a candidate.

In speaking of building operations, just think of a carpenter going out into the jack plains and cutting down trees to be hewed by hand for barns or houses, and then of lumber and siding all to be dressed by hand, and the doors and sashes made by hand, as we had to do in those days.

built. There not being enough men in the settlement to raise the barn - an old-fashioned timber frame barn - Mr. Field took a few of us from Osseo to help raise it, which was done successfully. Mr. Chase afterwards enlisted in the Civil War and was killed, I believe, by a cannon ball taking off his head. A real fine man was David Chase, who among thousands gave his life to save the Union of the United States.

After the organization of the town of Sumner the voters at the settlement had come to Osseo to vote. At a town meeting the men of the settlement asserted their right to share in the town meeting, which was fair. So in, I forget what year, a vote was taken, the west town meeting in the school house at the settlement, and carried. Accordingly, in either 1862 or 1863, the town meeting was held at the settlement. All went off well, though the proceedings were rather monotonous, there being so few voters, until the annual business meeting was called, when a quarrel arose between two men about, I think, some road work. From words they came to blows in the school house, but were ordered outside. So they went at it there. These two men were Sam Brown and a Mr. Davis, both quarrelsome men. Davis afterwards was sent to the penitentiary for killing a man. Brown got Davis down and was trying to put his eyes out when Mr. Thomas stopped that. So both got up and Davis acknowledged that Brown was the better man. That was the first and last fight I ever saw at a town meeting.

How many of those "old timers," previously mentioned, are still left? Mr. Henry and Mr. Lawler, who were here ahead of us, have both recently passed over. Mrs. Delia Field and Mrs. Julia Shores, who were then little girls playing around, are still with us, and long, long may they remain. (They came to these parts in the fall of 1857.) Of our company from Richland County there are Mr. and Mrs. E. S. Hotchkiss, of Independence; Stoddard Field, of Osseo, and Mrs. P. J. Linderman and Mrs. Nettie Jones, of the Tracy family; E. Hyslop, one son Robert, Mrs. Mclntyre increasing the family that,, winter; Billy Hine, of Bellevue, and James Mclntyre, who was then a little boy. So far as I can remember, all the rest have gone to the great beyond. Such is hfe. For a few years Mr. Lawler, Mr. Henry and E. Hyslop were the three oldest settlers, being all over 80 years. The two former are gone and I am left, for how long, who knows? Being now in my eighty-fifth year my time will necessarily be short.

The Olson Lynching. Hans Jacob Olson was lynched at his home about three miles from Blair on the night of Nov. 24, 1889. Olson, on June 8, 1885, was convicted of setting fire to the building of B. K. Strand, a Blair merchant, on Dec. 29, 1883, by loading a stump with blasting powder, the stump being afterward conveyed to Mr. Strand, who put it in his stove, where it exploded. Rumor had it that Olson did not take the stump to the merchant's woodpile personally, but furnished it at the request of another person and left it at a place agreed. Olson was sentenced to five years in State's Prison. He was released in the spring of 1889 and almost immediately, upon the testimony of his wife and son, was put under bonds to keep the peace. Unable to furnish bonds he was sent to jail, where he served some six months. The term expired in November. Of the events which followed, it has been said :

"The hanging took place at his home on the 24th day of November, 1889. He lived in a small log house and a few feet from one of the windows was a burr oak tree with a branch sticking out from the tree almost horizontal, and on this tree he was hung. The day was Sunday and word had been quietly given out in the neighborhood for the people to come to a certain place near Charles Johnson's farm where there was a vacant house at that time. The place of meeting was about one mile from Olson's house. Charles Johnson was the instigator and leader, and had encouraged the men who went with him by telling them that if they could get together a mob of forty or sixty men, that no jury would ever be found to convict them. Most of the men who followed Johnson had the idea that the purpose was to drive Olson out of the country, but Johnson probably knew what would be the result from the beginning, for at this vacant house they provided themselves with two ropes, one a heavy well rope and the other a smaller rope, probably taken for the purpose of tying him, as they knew Olson to be a man of extraordinary strength and a very determined man. At the place that the mob met, a son of Olson's met with them, and after going within sixty rods of the house the mob sent Olson's son to reconnoiter. He went to the house and found his father asleep and came back and reported the fact to the mob. The mob went to the house and I think four men went in and took him from the bed and called him out under this tree. He refused to go and they put the rope around his neck and pulled him up, held him a short time suspended, then let him down and renewed their demand. Then they strung him up again, this time keeping him suspended so long that when they let him down they found he was not able to stand, so they carried him into the house, laid him on the floor until he revived. Someone in the crowd asked his wife what they should do with him and she told them to take him away. They then took him out in front of the house barefooted on the frozen ground, and asked him to leave the country. His reply was this: 'This is my home, and I will not leave it till God takes me away.' He was then strung up the third time and left hanging until morning. During the whole time he never resisted. His strength was such that probably no two or three men, or even more, would have been able to handle him had he made resistance. Whether his courage was moral courage or simply animal courage, it is difficult to say, but certainly the courage shown was of the highest kind in its class. After the hanging the mob dispersed, with the exception of two members who remained all night with the wife and children and to screen the window so that the corpse would not be visible, the woman hung up a blanket, and twice during the night made coffee for the men who stayed. Early the next day an inquest jury was summoned, and Charles Johnson was foreman of that jury, and the decision of the jury was that Olson had come to his death by hanging by persons unknown to the jury.

"The same day the district attorney issued a warrant for the arrest of Johnson and some thirty others on the charge of riot. Johnson went to the district attorney's home at midnight and made dire threats, but in spite of this, warrants were issued charging Johnson, the widow, the son, and a neighbor with murder. Charles Johnson, Bertha M. Olson (widow), Ole J. Hanson (son) , and Ole J. Sletto were convicted of murder in the first degree and sentenced to life. More than fifty others who took part were convicted of riot. Most of them paid their fines. All four were pardoned by Governor Peck after having been in prison for something over five years. The people who took part in this killing were most, if not all, good, peaceable, law-abiding citizens, and some were men of excellent character. Mr. Johnson, who was the leader, claimed to be afraid of Olson - afraid that he would burn his pi'operty or injure his family. Johnson was a man of acute intelligence, had been chairman of his town several times, was president of a Farmers' Trading Association, and in fact a leader in all municipal affairs in his neighborhood. Johnson, after his return from prison, stayed in and about Blair for several years."

Winnebago Festivities. The festivities among the Dakotas and Winnebagoes consist of dancing, singing, feasting and speech-making, and are held several times a year.

The peace jubilee, or autumn festival, is celebrated by the Winnebagoes after the cranberry season is over, usually some time in October. This jubilee includes the "medicine" or "magic" dance. Invitations are sent out four days before the dance, and an immense tepee is erected on the ground where the celebration is to be held. This structure is about 110 feet long and 12 feet wide, and is covered with boughs and canvas. The invited guests are each supposed to make a present of four blankets to the person getting up the entertainment. On the evening of the pow-wow the Indians assemble, and after building large fires, start the celebration with a chant. Then the young squaws and bucks begin the dance, and the tum-tum is kept going continuously, all night long. As the enthusiasm kindles, the older Indians join in, and finally the children. The surging mass of dusty humanity grows hilarious, and shouts and songs ring through the air while the tum-tum beats its savage music until the very lodge poles seem to dance. In the glare of the great fire, the scene grows weird, and the forms look more hideous, the faces grow inhuman and shrieks stab the night air. The demons of the night, as it were, are turned loose, and in their frenzy slaughter the peaceful harmonies that brood in the darkness over the streams and forests. A feast is prepared and when the guests are hungry and weary of the dance they assemble in circles and enjoy the soup and meat that is placed in big bowls before them. Day dawns, but the dance goes on, and the feasting continues, and not until another night does the ceremony end.

The buffalo dance is the source of a great deal of amusement among the Winnebago Indians. The place is chosen and the tepee is erected and covered the same as in the medicine dance. Each one who participates is dressed to imitate a buffalo and then they gather on the grounds, build fires and wait for the herd to make its appearance.

A bowl is put in a hole in the ground and filled with maple sugar and syrup. The old buffalo leader comes out and is followed by the herd, consisting of calves and young and full grown bisons. The tum-tum begins and the dance is on. Around the maple sugar bowl they swarm and shout and sing and bellow. The old buffalo leader stoops down and sticks his head in the bowl and eats - then he gives way and the rest follow - they keep on dancing and eating until the sugar is all gone. Then the great fun begins. The old buffalo must hook the bowl out of the ground without using his hands. If he is unable to do this he is the laughing stock of the whole crowd the rest of the night, but he generally manages to hook the bowl out after a great deal of hard work on his part and a continuous roar of laughing and shouting from the participants and assembled guests. When his task is accomplished all join in a feast and then smoke, and lie around until morning.

Scotch Settlers of Glasgow and Decorah Prairie. The early Scotch settlers who founded the settlement known as Glasgow - the postoffice so named because the people were mostly Scotch - came as a rule from the mining districts of Scotland to follow the occupation of mining in this country. Wages in Scotland were low and the coal pi'etty well mined in many of the old localities, so they set out for America to improve their condition, settling in Maryland, Kentucky and other States where coal is mined. After saving money and hearing of homestead lands awaiting settlement in Wisconsin and other Western States, they came farther West and, locating in Trempealeau County, proceeded to open up to civilization a new country, much as others under similar circumstances had done, until success came their way. Their farming methods at first were crude, and for years they suffered the hardships incident to pioneer life, but with Scotch tenacity they stuck to the work until they had established comfortable homes and were deriving a good living from the soil. The early settlers of Glasgow were James Hardie, Richard Bibby, John Bibby, Joshua Bibby, Peter Faulds, Andrew Gatherer, John McMillan, and also the parents of the McMillans - these with their wives formed the little Scotch settlement of Glasgow at its origin. They were nearly all related, Mrs. James Hardie's maiden name being Margaret Bibby - a sister of the three men named above. Mrs. Richard Bibby was Mary Faulds, a daughter of Peter and Mary Faulds. Mrs. John Bibby was Mary McMillan, a sister of John and Niel McMillan. Mrs. Joshua Bibby had no blood relations in America at that time ; all were left in Scotland. It is no wonder she often used to sigh for the old home across the sea, and to sing, "0, why left I my hame," when memories proved too strong; but that was just for a time. She loved America the best at last. The Gatherers were related to the Faulds. The McMillans were natives of the Highlands of Scotland, while the others came from Lanarkshire or thereabouts. All were devoted Presbyterians and all worshiped God on the Sabbath. No matter how hard they worked through the week nor how much remained to be done, all work was dropped on Saturday night ; the Bible was read and prayers said, as described by Burns in "The Cotter's Saturday Night." Sabbath school was held in the schoolhouse every Sabbath, Richard Bibby or Joshua Bibby taking charge. Before the Presbyterian church at North Bend was built, of which later they were all members, services were held in the schoolhouse, a pastor from Galesville filhng the pulpit. Visiting among themselves was practically all the amusement there was in those days. Quiltings were favorite pastimes for the women, and were profitable as well as pleasant, as the quilts were, as a rule, always needed. The late Joshua Bibby, the youngest man in the colony, and a half-brother of Richard and John Bibby - the elder Bibby being married twice - was a lover of music and poetry, and a great reader. He used to read and recite Burns, was a member of the Burns Club, and loved a game of "curling" on the ice - an old Scotch game. He was a genial, winning man. who radiated good cheer wherever he went. The others took little interest in Burns and rarely attended Burns festivals.

Alexander Vallens was another old Scotch settler whose name must not be omitted. He, with his good wife, occupied the farm adjoining Joshua Bibby's. "Sandy" was a hot-tempered, although kindly man, whose "dour" disposition and queer ways led him to leave his farm and go back to Scotland, never to return. He refused for some reason to pay his taxes, and the result was too much for his sense of right - hence his decision. All these farms join and form one continuous whole.

The Decorah Prairie settlers were mostly from the mining districts of Scotland, also, having left fheir native land for the same reasons that influenced those of the Glasgow settlement - to improve their condition as miners, but eventually drifting father West and settling on homesteads. Among the first to settle there were James Sampson, John Davidson, Thomas Hunter, Robert Oliver, William Dick, David Cook, Duncan Grant, Robert Grant, Collins Irving, Robert Sommerville and Robert Oliver, a relative of the one above mentioned. Decorah Prairie is fine farming land, and these hardy Scots waxed prosperous thereon. They built even in the early days handsome homes, and all were, as a rule, well-to-do. They were, as a class, genial and fond of company. Dances amused them often, many being musicians of no mean ability, so an orchestra could be extemporized on the spot. The Scotch songs were sung at all their merry-makings with a vim and heartiness that showed they came from the heart. The good old Scotch brogue was there in abundance, and no one was ashamed of it either, God bless them. The Galesville Burns Club originated with them, and to these good old Scotch folk belongs the honor of it for all time. Of course the years have improved it, as most good things improve with time, but in the midst of it in all its glory let us not forget those old Scots who founded it in the early days and did their best to keep aUve the memory of Robert Burns, the much loved poet of dear old Scotland. - (By Jemima Bibby.)

Wessel Lowe and his wife, accompanied by their three sons, William, Ira and Rufus, left the State of New York in April, 1853, and migrated to Belvidere, 111. The following summer was spent in that locality, the two younger sons dying before winter. Before the next spring they moved north to Brooklyn, Green Lake County, Wis., where they lived until the spring of 1856. In company with a friend, Herman Snyder, Wessel Lowe set out afoot for Trempealeau County and reached the town of Preston in April, 1856, his wife and son William following in October with an ox-team, a cow and calf, some meat and flour. The first year the family lived in Preston. They broke ten acres and sowed to wheat, buckwheat, corn and potatoes. This was cut with a cradle, hauled together with an ox-team, and threshed with a flail. A fanning mill from near the east county line was hired to separate the grain from the chaff. William Van Sickle and Cyrus Hine settled in the town of Preston about the same time. The first town meeting was held in Reynold's log house, less than 20 votes being cast. The following is a list of voters : Henry Lake, Chester Beswick, Simon Rice, John Hopkins, Robert Thompson, Henry Sheppard, Jacob and Peter Tenneson, Nels Halvorsen, Burch Olson, GuUick Olson,

Ebenezer Thurston and Herman Snyder. Money hired in those days cost 50 per cent in interest. A later reduction to 20 per cent was hailed with great rejoicing, though the debtor was obliged to work it out at the rate of 75 cents per day. After the War of the Rebellion broke out the son Wifliam enlisted and from the meager salary of $13 a month paid the debt of $150 and saved the homestead. Galesville, Black River Falls, Squaw Creek and Sechlerville were the nearest milling places. Mail was gotten at Black River Falls. Later a postoffice known as South Bend was located on what is now Paul Thompson's farm. All mail during the Civil War to these parts was directed to South Bend, Trempealeau County, Wis. This postofiice remained here until the building of the Green Bay Railroad in 1873. After the war, in the winter of 1865-66, Wilham Lowe hauled lumber from the sawmill at Merrilan and the East Fork of Black River, called Mead's Mill, with an ox-team, and began preparations for the building of the new home in 1866. This house is still standing on the old farm now owned by Hans C. Johnson of Preston. Game was plentiful in those days and deer were often shot from the windows of the home without the exertion or pleasure of "going hunting." Grandfather died in October, 1905. Father Lowe is still living and makes his home with his son Ward near Blair. Grandmother Lowe died in October, 1891. - (By Mr. and Mrs. F. W. Lowe.)

James N. Hunter, many years connected with the county board, has many an interesting story to relate of life in the vicinity of Independence in the early days.

ber of his Winnebagos near the mouth of Elk Creek, and aside from the carousals which they held among themselves and their habit of begging they gave little trouble.

But one day a well known character of those times came to his home with a companion, both somewhat under the influence of intoxicants, and exhibited a badly cut head, with the story that the Indians had attacked and tried to scalp him.

With the Massacre of 1862 still fresh in their minds, some of the citizens wished to attack the camp and exterminate the Indians at once without warning. But wiser advice prevailed and it was decided to first investigate the matter.

Little Beaver met the accusation with a request to see the men so savagely attacked, and further inquiry brought to light that the two men had not even seen the Indians, but that the wounded man's cuts were received from falling into a grain cradle.

Another favorite story of Mr. Hunter's has to do with early days at New City. Fugina's tavern was then the gathering place of many a roisterer, and also of many a Polish farmer who came here to take his joys more quietly, and to talk over affairs in their native land.

One day the fun was waxing furious, when the men on mischief bent, took some dry goods that were hanging on a line in Fugina's store. The Polish people informed Mr. Fugina, and a race riot ensued. One of the men even fired shots into the crowd from outside the window, injuring one of the participants in the affair.

Order was finaly restored and wholesale arrests were made. The hearing was held one winter night at the Cripps school house, before George W. Parsons, a justice of the peace. The prisoners were defended by G. Y. Freeman of Galesville, while Edward Lees of Buffalo County looked after Mr. Fugina's interests. A number of the prisoners were bound over, but were later acquitted by the Circuit Court.

So interested had the spectators become in the trial that they had not observed the heavily falling snow, and when they started home after midnight they had to find their way to their distant homes through snow which was above their knees.

George H. Markham is one of the oldest settlers in Trempealeau County. He came to Independence with the Markham party in 1856, and has since continued to take an active part in local affairs. His diary is replete with interesting incidents of the early days, and his memory of those far-distant times is most vivid.

The family, then consisting of John Markham and wife and two sons, George H. and Arthur A., accompanied by Walter Maule, a retainer, and Charles F. D. Lyne, the tutor of the two sons, came to America in 1856, embarking from Southampton. In originally planning their trip they had purposed going to Canada, but had changed their destination upon the advice of Rev. William Davis, whom members of the family had met in France.

by stage. At Columbus they were joined by Mr. Davis. There also they were met by David Wood, who offered to guide them to Trempealeau Valley, where homesteads were awaiting.

Consequently, leaving John Markham and his wife and Arthur A. Markham at Columbus, the remainder of the party, consisting of George H. Markham, Walter Maule, Charles F. D. E. Line, William Davis, Mrs. Davis and two children, started out to seek a new home, guided by David Wood, still a resident of the county. The trip, which was made with an ox team, was filled with interesting adventures. Through Portage, Mauston and Sparta they found their way to Billings Ferry, over the Black River, passing near the present site of the city of Melrose, and thence entering the Trempealeau Valley near the present site of Blair. The first settler encountered in the valley was WiUiam Thompson. The first night in the valley was spent at the home of Edmond Reynolds. A short stop was made at the home of Alvah Wood, where David Wood remained. They found a poor bridge across Pigeon Creek, and continued on to Hiram Stratton's, where a short stop was made. Stratton accompanied them down the valley to the mouth of Elk Creek, and assisted them in selecting a location. He also assisted them in procuring some poplar logs near his place, and with these logs they erected a cabin, 24 by 24, a few hundred feet south of what has since been known as the Markham or English castle. A shed for the cattle was built of poles thatched over with marsh grass. Some marsh grass was also cut for the use of the cattle.

The remainder of the month of October soon passed, and before long came the famous winter of the deep snow. Miles from the nearest habitation, unaccustomed to the rigors of pioneer life, and with only the crudest of equipment, the little party spent the long hard winter. Both oxen died as a result of the poor food and inclement weather. The people themselves would have perished had it not been for two trips which George Markham took to Black River Falls with a hand sled. On one of these trips, when the snow was four feet deep, he stopped at the home of Gullick Olson, near the present town of Blair, obtained there a pair of snow shoes, and within a short time learned their use.

Mr. Markham remembers distinctly those settlers living along the Trempealeau River between Independence and the Jackson County line with whom he was acquainted. First came the home of Elder Moses Ingalls and his two sons, Francis W. and Moses D. They were south of the river. North of the river not far away was Hiram Stratton. Above the present village of Whitehall was Alvah Wood south of the river, then came William Van Sickle, Ed. Weeks, Cyrus Hines, John Debow and Wessel Lowe north of the river, and then John Hopkins, Simon S. Rice, Henry Lake, Herman Snyder, Chester Beswick, John B. Dunning, Edmond M. Reynolds, WiUiam Welch and Gullick Olson, all south of the river. Ebenezer Thurston was north of the river. Then came Robert Thompson and Severt Johnson south of the river. Messrs. Stirling and Culver were north of the river over the line in Jackson County.

To this list David Wood, who accompanied Mr. Markham on his first trip to the county, has made a number of interesting additions. The Ingalls

Of those in what is now Preston Mr. Wood believes Sivert Johnson to have been the first in 1854, followed in 1855 by Gullick Olson, Lars Olson Bjorgo Olson, Sigbjurne Ellickson, Peder Pederson, Gullick A. Storlee, Bengt Danielson, Nels Halverson and Jacob Tenneson.

Ebenezer Thurston, Robert Thompson, Edmond M. Reynolds, John B. Dunning, Henry Lake, Simon S. Rice and John Hopkins, with his sixteenyear-old son James, arrived in 1855, and Wessel Lowe, Herman Snyder, Chester Beswick and probably William Welch came in 1856.

Others who took land in 1855 and became residents here were William A. Conger, Hiram Walker, Isander P. Armstrong, George W. Malory and Richard Porter, the last named of whom died a short time after his arrival.

While the little Markham colony was spending the winter of 1856-57 at Independence, John Markham and his wife and son Arthur A. had moved to Black River Falls. In the spring they hired a team there and started for their new location. They were met at Stirling's, near the county line, by George H. Markham. Near the Culver home, with the assistance of Culver, they built a raft and thus made their way down the Trempealeau River to the mouth of Elk Creek. The next summer was spent in breaking the land, but no crops were raised except vegetables.

Settlers came in but slowly. In the summer of 1857 Giles Cripps and family arrived and settled three miles up Elk Creek, the first settlers in that valley. No more settlers arrived that year.

In 1858, George Hale, accompanied by a friend, arrived at the Markham home on April 30. On their trip up the river they had lost their guns. The Markhams took them ten miles down the river in boats and they recovered the missing firearms. In the fall George Hale brought his mother and located nine miles up the valley, being the first settler in the township which now bears his name. It was this year that George H. Markham and Charles F. D. Lyne blazed the first trail between Independence and Arcadia along practically the route of the present wagon road, the trip being made for the purpose of allowing Mr. Markham to cast his first vote. The river and creeks were swollen and had to be crossed in several places. In order to accomplish the passage it was necessary to construct temporary bridges across which the oxen were led and across which the wagon was carried after being taken apart.

In 1859 came David Watson, who settled still further up the valley near the present site of Pleasantville. In 1860 came a great influx of population.

Of these first settlers John Markham and his wife died here and are here laid to rest. George H. and Arthur Markham have since continued to live here. Charles F. D. Lyne first took a claim nearby, then left for Missouri and for many years was assistant rector of St. Joseph's Parish, St. Joseph, in that State. Walter Maule never married. He took a claim near the mouth of the cooley which has since borne his name, and spent

Giles Cripps died here and is here buried. George Hale moved to Carrington, N. D. David Watson stayed a dozen years or so and then went to Michigan.

Before the war there was a large settlement in Burnside Township. Peter Sura and Lawrence Bautch, the first of the Polish people, arrived, and soon influenced many of their countrymen to settle in the same locality. About the same time came George Parsons, Talcott Moore, James Reid, John Reid, Reuben Meggs, George Meggs, William Cramer, Hamlet Warring, Dr. James Kelly and his two sons, John and James, Lowell Fay and his two sons, Henry and Aaron, Thomas Bennett, George Bach, D. C. Cilley, H. W. Rumsey, H. P. Rumsey, E. A. Bently, Michael White, George Bartlett, Robert Brookings, William Nichols and others and obtained farms.

Alfred and Harrison Rogers, and Abraham and Samuel Coy, settled near New City, and up Travis Valley settled Dr. Joshua Travis, an Indian herb doctor ; Jessie Kidder, Lovell Kidder, Albert Spaulding, Elias Spaulding, Frank and L. D. Tubbs, Theodore Hutchins, John Raymond and

Vance with his two sons, Irving and Washington. There also lived Elder Isaac Hickey, of the Mormon faith, around whom was gathered a scattered settlement of his own belief.