Clark County Press, Neillsville, Wisconsin

March 7, 2012, Page 11

Contributed by "The Clark Co. Press"

Transcribed by Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon.

Index of "Oldies" Articles 

 

Compiled by Dee Zimmerman

 

Clark County News

 March 1882

 

Last Tuesday evening a horse that had been disabled was brought to town on a sled drawn by four other horses. The old fellow was standing erect and appeared to enjoy the ride, notwithstanding the fact that the sleighing was not better than mud could make it.                                                                            

•••••••••

Work on the stave factory of Messrs. Hein & Myer is progressing and it is expected that it will be completed about the first of May. The building is one of good proportions, the main building being 32x72 feet on the ground, with a wing to be used as an engine house, 32x36 feet, attached. There is also a building to bee used for steaming bolts, 7x66 feet, in connection with the manufactory, but detached. The steam box will hold twenty-two cords of bolts; the amount required for a day’s run.

 

Hein and Myer have just received the boilers to be used in their stave factory. They are of the same size and together have a capacity of sixty horsepower.

 

The grounds around the building are being cleared and put in shape and when everything is completed, the improvements will add greatly to the appearance to that part of town and by giving employment to a large force of employees, as well as making a ready market for oak and basswood timber, cannot fail to materially increase the business and add to the prosperity of our village.                                                                         

•••••••••

Parties desiring to order costumes of the coming masquerade party are requested to leave their orders with Henry Klopf, at Myers Bros. drug store, as early as noon on next Saturday. The costumes are to be procured at St. Paul, and the order will be sent in that day.                                                                         

•••••••••

English, German and Scandinavian job printing can be done at the Republican and Press Steam Printing House.

•••••••••

The brickwork on one end of the M. E. Church in the Town of Grant was blown down by the storm last Sunday night. The building is a brick veneered structure and the damage sustained can be repaired with but little more expense than the cost of re-laying the brick.                                                                      

•••••••••

Will Woodard recently purchased one of the dwelling houses on Grand Avenue, owned by Mr. Blakeslee, one of  those known as the “blue houses” and will fit it for a residence.              

•••••••••

Anton Barton has bought the building on Second Street, a portion of which he has occupied for some time past as a blacksmith shop, from George L. Lloyd.  Barton will soon commence work on a larger scale, adding wagon and carriage making to the business he is now conducting.                                 

•••••••••

C. B. Bradshaw has turned his workshop into a dry-dock and gone into the manufacture of boats, for different parties, to be used for driving logs. The lot east of his shop looks considerably like a boat-yard the first of this week.

•••••••••

The boiler and engine for the new stave factory at Greenwood were received here last week and have been taken to their destination.  The engine, of which the weight is of about 6,000 pounds, was hauled away on Saturday. At that time the boiler, that weighed 9,000 pounds, was loaded on a wagon and last Monday passed through here being drawn by six horses.  The engine and boiler are both new and cannot fail to furnish a first class power.

•••••••••

Curtiss is now the name of the post office in the Town of Mayville, formerly known as Quar.

•••••••••

The Good Templars’ Lodge at Windfall, in this county, is said to have the largest membership of any lodge of that order in the state.                                                                                                  

•••••••••

On Thursday of last week, about four miles from here, Frank Pierce, while making a wedge with an ax, by an unfortunate blow, completely severed the end of the second finger on his left hand at about the center of the finger nail. The cutting was done as squarely as it could have been done if done intentionally. Frank, shaking the piece of his finger out of the mitten he had on at the time of the accident, picked up the severed off piece and putting it in place, bound up the finger and walked to town.  Then Dr. Templeton, with the assistance of a needle and thread, attached the severed portions together and it is growing on in good shape.                                                     

•••••••••

The death of the Hon. James O’Neill, Sr., who was one of the first, if not the first permanent settler of the territory now embraced in Clark County, and the founder of Neillsville, occurred at his residence in this village at four o’clock on March 28, 1882.  Though his death had been momentarily expected during the entire day upon which his eventful life dates its close, not until the whispered announcement, made in sadness and confirmed by the tolling bells, that he had passed the portals of Time to the great hereafter, did we fully realize how deeply his loss could be felt by a community of which he was the founder and which owes its existence and prosperity to the privations he endured.

 

The deceased was born in the town of Lisbon, St. Lawrence County, New York, May 4, 1810.  He was the third of a family of nine children. At the age of seventeen he left the parental roof and commenced to hew for himself the pathway of life, going into the employ of an older brother, doing business at Edwardsburg, Canada, as a clerk.

 

A few years later, in partnership with another brother, he engaged in lumbering on the American side of the St. Lawrence River, in which business he was engaged in for about a year.  Afterwards he was engaged in various business enterprises in connection with his brothers in that locality until June, 1836, when bidding his father and mother what proved to be a last farewell, he started for the then unexplored and boundless west.

 

During the three years following his departure from home, he visited many places in the west and south.  In September 1839, in the company of his brother Alexander, he procured a canoe at Prairie de Chien, which they stocked with provisions and with which they made their first settlement on the Black River, stopping at a point about three miles below what is now known as Black River Falls, where they built a sawmill.  He remained at that point until 1844 when he settled on the present site of Neillsville, and there put up the first building erected in the territory now governed by our village.  It was a rough cabin that stood on or near the Neillsville flouring mills.  On the sixth of March, 1846, after a bachelorhood that had carried him to his thirty-sixth year, he espoused Jane Douglas, a sister of the Hon. Mark Douglas, of Melrose, Jackson County, and of Mrs. Isabella Mason, of Black River Falls, and with this event in his life ended his disposition to roam from place to place, and made him the founder of our present prosperous village, in whose honor it was named.

 

He was elected to the assembly of Wisconsin in the fall of 1848 from the district composed of the counties of Chippewa and Crawford and was a member of the legislature of 1879.  From 1861 to 1865 he held the office of county treasurer of Clark County and again in 1868 he was elected to the assembly from the district then composed of the counties of Clark and Jackson.  Aside from the offices of honor and trust mentioned above, he served this county in the important position of chairman of the county board of supervisors for fifteen years and held many important town offices.  In official positions in which he was tried repeatedly and well, as in other walks of life, he was ever found worthy of confidence.  He was a man of broad and generous sympathies, whose hand was ever open to the needy.  Generous to his friends, he was equally just to his enemies and today, though summoned to his rest at a ripe old age, his loss is the occasion of universal regret, and his memory will be cherished through life by all who knew him.

 

Among the immediate friends who mourn his death are his widow and their son, now in his seventh year, and two daughters, by his first marriage; Mrs. W. S. Covill and Mrs. F. E. Darling, of this place a brother residing on the old homestead where the life now ended first began.

 

The funeral took place at the courthouse and was conducted by the Rev. H. W. Bushnell, formerly minister of the Methodist Church of here.

 

March 1937

 

History of Logging in Clark County

By Fred Draper, Loyal

Chapter V

 

Like the men that owned the timber, many of the earliest lumberjacks came from Maine, New York State and Pennsylvania.

 

They were sturdy pioneers, descendants of immigrants who settled their native states and who for a large part had been connected with the lumber industry for generations.

 

As the timber began to become scarce in their home state and hearing of the immense pine forests of central and northern Wisconsin they came here to continue their work in the pine timber.

 

Then there were the homesteaders lured to Clark County in the 1860’s by the opportunity of acquiring cheap homes. They for the most part settled on the hardwood ridges rolling up log houses and stables, working in the logging camps in the winters, some on the log drives in the spring, returning to their homes and clearing off a few acres of land and putting it into either wheat or oats for a catch crop, then seeding it into hay for the following year.  The money received for their winter’s work helped them to support their families through the pioneering stage of developing a farm.

 

In the late 1860’s and early 1870’s there was a large immigration from the different provinces of Germany to Clark County in search of cheap lands and they too worked in the lumber camps.

 

The experience of one of them related to me about 1886 is typical of the experience of many others.

 

Quoting his own words as near as I remember them, “I came to Clark County seven years ago when I was about 33 years old, when I came, and have worked ever since I was old enough to work; and had only succeeded in earning enough to buy a steerage ticket for myself to America.  I got to Greenwood just before haying season and hired out to work for Jacob Huntzicker through haying for $1.50 per day and board.  I thought I was getting rich.  I made enough that haying season to send for my wife and three children. They came over that fall and I bought 80 acres of land, making a small down payment.  The neighbors helped me and we rolled up some log buildings and moved in that fall.  Since then, I have cleared and seeded twenty acres besides working in the wood during the winters.”

 

D. J. Spaulding, who at one time was one of the largest loggers in Clark County, used to send to Norway through the steamship immigration officials for Norwegian lumbermen to work for him.  He would send them a ticket through the steamship company and when they arrived they would work for him paying for their passage to this county.  As he was well liked by his men, they would return and work for him winter after winter.

 

The story is told in this connection, the truth of which I am unable to vouch for but will give it fore what it is worth.

 

Ole, who had some knowledge of English, but not a very good working knowledge while in Black River Falls, the home of Spaulding, wandered into a church where a revival meeting was being held, sitting well back in the church.

 

After the sermon, as was the custom, an altar calling was given and several sitting near him went forward leaving him rather conspicuous. The minister went down and addressed him something as follows: “My friend, don’t you want to be saved?” Ole, not understanding just what was said, said nothing.  The minister to make it more emphatic said, “Don’t you want to be a Christian and work for the Lord Jesus Christ?” Ah, here was something Ole could understand, WORK, so he replied, “Ay no tank I work for Jesus Christ, ay work for Dudley Spaulding, sixteen dollars a month, me no tank em jump me job.”  The winters were usually extremely cold, the heavy growths of timber, after it was frozen, kept the temperature more even than it is today and unless the weather conditions were unusual there was seldom a thaw that affected the logging roads before about the 20th of March, and then the timber kept the snow from drifting so that it was a more uniform depth.

 

The cold weather made it necessary of the men to dress warmly and the lumber jack had a type of dress all his own. They were dressed mostly in mackinaw, made of heavy woolen goods. The shirt, jacket and trousers usually were alike with a tall peaked cap to match, the point thrown back over the head and usually extended to the neck with a tassel at the tip.

 

On their feet, until about 1860 when rubbers and socks came into use, they used for the most part Boot-packs, which were fashioned something like an Indian moccasin but with a moderately high top. They were of a very heavy cowhide usually of a dark red color with no extra sole and very little heel. They were made large and roomy to hold plenty of wool socks and the men usually had either a sheepskin insole with the wool on or else put a layer of hay in the bottom.

 

After wearing them for a short time the bottoms became as smooth as glass and unless care was exercised the unlucky owner was likely to get many a fall.

 

To see a bunch of shanty boys together was a colorful sight, their caps and mackinaws were nearly all colors of the rainbow and some not found in the rainbow.  Red predominated but there was always a sprinkling of blues, greens, whites and stripes besides the variations.

 

In describing the camp equipment I forgot to mention one important thing and that was the wannigan; this was usually kept in the office and it was the duty of either the scaler or the foreman to look after it and keep the books. It consisted of a supply of mackinaws, socks, mittens, boot packs and later rubber footwear; tobaccos, the different brands of smoking, and chewing tobacco, both plug of the different brands and fine cut, as well as a supply of common medicines. A man could go to the wannigan and get what he wished and it was charged to his account, taken out of his paycheck when he settled up in the spring.

 

No liquor was allowed in camp for very good reasons and in many of the camps card playing was taboo.

 

 

 

Zion American Lutheran Church Choir of 1895 to 1899, located one mile south of Granton on Hill Road.

 

Left to right, first row: Minnie Lautenbach, Emma Thiede, Agnes Porath, Louise Handt, Ida Thiede, Ida

Krause, Emilie Roder and Emma Riedel.

Second row: Bruno Dudei, John Goebel, Anna Goebel, Fred Handt, August Krause and Werner Hieuesinger. 

 

(Photo courtesy of Amber Pischer, granddaughter of Ida Krause)

€€€€€€€€€€€€

 

 


© Every submission is protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.

 

Show your appreciation of this freely provided information by not copying it to any other site without our permission.

 

Become a Clark County History Buff

 

Report Broken Links

A site created and maintained by the Clark County History Buffs
and supported by your generous donations.

 

Webmasters: Leon Konieczny, Tanya Paschke,

Janet & Stan Schwarze, James W. Sternitzky,

Crystal Wendt & Al Wessel

 

CLARK CO. WI HISTORY HOME PAGE