Walworth County, Wisconsin - Chapter 17: County Historical Society Old Settlers' Society, 1912

Chapter 17: County Historical Society Old Settlers' Society

The county board. January S. (846, adopted a resolution directing Sheriff Bell "to lease without rent the middle office on the east side of the hall in the court house for the use of an historical society whenever said society shall be formed in the county and shall desire the use of the same for a library and cabinet. Said lease to be completed and ended whenever the board of super visors shall so order, and said society is prohibited from keeping a fire and lights in said room without the special consent of the sheriff." It is not probable that the board thus acted on its own initiative, but quite likely that Messrs. Dwinnell and Gale had prepared its way. Fifty-three citizens signed a call for a meeting, to be held April 2d, to organize such a society!, but that date had been fixed for a school convention at Elkhorn, and the matter was neglected and forgotten.

\ small county, its towns settled nearly simultaneously and having lie tween them no physical or other barrier: most of its permanent citizens known eacli to each in the transaction of public and private business, and not a few of them affected by ties of blood and marriage; the pioneer period only thirty years behind and vividly remembered - such a county is the natural home of an old settlers' society. So thought the men who met at the Farmers' Hotel, in the homelike village of Darien, March 30. [869, organized a new count) institution, and gave the old and the young of Walworth another yearly 1 1 < .It day. A constitution was adopted: a president, seventeen vice-presidents, a recording secretary, a corresponding secretary, a treasurer, and five executive committeemen were chosen; a day was fixed, October 5, [869, for the first yearly assemblage, on the fairground ai Elkhorn; and this constituent assem bly then adjourned.

At the October meeting, the second Wednesday in June was appointed tor the county reunions; but, since [875, these meetings have been held on other June days and on other week day-. The sixth and seventh mi were held at Lake Geneva, the ninth and tenth at Delavan, the eleventh and twelfth at Whitewater. \11 the other meetings were held at the fair ground, Elkhorn.

It was resolved June 18, 1879, to take measures to procure the compilation and publication of a short, authentic history of the county with some accounts of the lives and characters of no longer living pioneers; to urge the co-operation of living pioneers and their children in the work of collecting data; to appoint a historical committee to receive the gathered information and to determine how much of it should be printed - the rest to be preserved with the records of the society, - and to authorize the committee to choose a suitable person as editor, who should prepare the selected matter for the printer. All expense incurred was to be paid from the society's fund and from proceeds of sales of the finished work. A special meeting was held at the court house, September 2, 1879, at which James Simmons, Stephen G. West and Rev. Joseph Collie were chosen as the historical committee, and a large sub-committee of one or more men of each town was appointed for the work of collecting data. The Western Historical Company (publishers), of Chicago, became aware of the society's purpose, and arranged with the committee to take from Mr. Simmons the information - which must have been considerable - already accumulated, to finish the compilation, to canvass the county, and to deliver the completed work to subscribers. The book was as nearly faultless in plan and execution, editorial and mechanical, as most county histories of thirty years ago. Many of its minor errors might have been corrected had proofs been sent to Mr. Simmons for revision. The history of each town closed with biographical sketches of notable citizens, nine hundred and ten in all. The compiler. William G. Cutler, of Milwaukee, was at almost infinite pains to secure full and accurate information. (His father. General Lysander Cutler, was one of the commanders of the Iron Brigade - men of Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan - the fame of which should be deathless.) The book was published in 1882.

The presidents of the society have been men whose names appear once or oftener in the official lists of the county and its towns, and hence most readers will readily assign each to his home ;

The corresponding secretary from 1869 to 18S1 was Edward Elderkin, except in 1872, when Peter Colder was chosen. The recording secretaries were :

These yearly meetings, in the best of all the months, made opportunities for a few hours of reunion of such of the pioneer families as bad been neighbors and friends in their eastern homes, but had long been separated b\ nearh the county's width. There was for several years yet so much of the pioneer ways among them that it was not unusual to bring with them old-fashioned picnic baskets, well filled with the richness of this favored land, and the fair- ground buildings gave shelter when needed. Fortunate was the villager of Elkhorn, who, straying among the several groups, found at lunch time old or new friends from the county corners. For that once in the twelve-month such hungry, water-mouthed wight might do as "Governor Hartran-uft." who, it was told, "h'isted food at the Eisteddfod and stuffed, and stuffed, and stuffed." It was a custom, for a few of these earlier years, of good Elkhorners to supply the lunchers with enough coffee, sugar and cream for the day's need. The pioneers are gone, and a fourfold cord no longer hinds the society, but a threefold cord is still strong enough to hold together their successors. The year's business is generally dispatched with little debate and less dissenting vote. Domestic and imported speakers fling about their spells of woven words and waving arms, thus to hind indulgently consenting hearers to their hard seats and wearying standing places, alternating with band players and douhle-quartette singers. Governors, congressmen and eminent thunderers at the bar of greater county seats have aforetime come this way in much desired June, and may conic in long aftertime to lend the day each his "small peculiar," and to see old Walworth in one of it- non-sectarian. non-partisan, uncommercial, unscheming aspects.

The Walworth Count) Historical Society was incorporated August 29, 1904, by ten members of the I'M Settlers' Society. It was not attempted, as in other years, to arouse the indifferent, nor to assemble unknown friends of such a movement. Mr. Page said to a friend, "Let us act at once." Eight more friends were ready for instant action, and the dream or hope of [846 became a reality. Nine of these movers were named in the first officer list. which is yet unchanged 1 except as to treasurer) by election, resignation, removal, or death; and the tenth lies in a soldier's grave. In it- first report, in September, [904, to the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, to which the count) society is auxiliary, was shown a list of twenty members. Pursuant to provisions of chapter '150, statutes of 11)07. a room in the basemenl of the count \ courl building, well wanned and lighted and accessible, was in that year placed at the society's service for storage of it- bulkier collections \houi two hundred feet of shelving is crowded with its variously valuable printed matter. I low this societ) sees the task it ha- undertaken may he fudged, perhaps, from the following extract from it- reporl for 1006:

"This hod)- is made up of intelligent members, who are therefore capable of doing some useful work, and who. h\ the fad of their membership, ma\ be presumed to he willing so to contribute to the society's objects. ITo find and take some working part, greal or -mall. 1- to assure and increa - ch one's permanent interest in the institution we have founded. We have taken the first step, which costs; and movement forward at some fair rale, and continuously, is but a just expectation. Neither one nor a hundred willing minds and hands can do all that has been too long left undone; hut we can gather no inconsiderable fraction of the records and memories of the past and tlie passing, and can move onward with the ceaselessly coming.

"A great collection of hooks, pamphlets, circulars, maps, charts, diagrams, pictures, autograph letters, and relics of real interest is very desirable; hut such matter will accumulate with comparatively little effort. The most important division of our work - one that may yet give some distinction to our societv - is what each member or his friends may contribute: Manuscript accounts of early arriving families; of the earlier social life; of long-gone relatives and esteemed friends; of pioneer road-making; of abandoned highwavs; of the growth of villages; of church building; of earlier schools; of business development, and changes therein; of the decay of certain industries and the causes thereof; of crop-, greatly above or below the average; of changes in the county landscape arising from known causes; of earlier caucuses, conventions, and public meetings; of various phases of public opinion; of early mail communication; of wayside taverns; of stage routes; of past generations - how they lived, how employed and amused themselves; where men and families came from, and whither they went for greener graves: of epidemic diseases and other notable calamities; of the personal appearance and distinctive qualities of men in public service, and similarly of law vers, physicians, and clergymen; of personal service in war; of local geographical names now disused or not found on maps - in short, of things the like of which we mis- in the meager details of the histories of our ancestral Eastern towns, and which will he valuable in many ways to coming generations, since they will show how men, women and children of the nineteenth and first decade of the twentieth centuries lived, thought and acted."'

Mem Ber List I98 Walworth County, Wisconsin

Mr. Flanders, December [6, [909. Asterisks denote members of the State Society. Officers, 1904-11)11: Beckwith, president: Lyon, vice-president; I. II. Snyder, secretary; Kinne, corresponding secretary; Eames, librarian: Carswell, treasurer; Page, F, W. [sham and Sprague, executive committee.