Clark County Press, Neillsville, Wisconsin

January 20, 2016, Page 15

Contributed by "The Clark Co. Press"

Transcribed by Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon.

Index of "Oldies" Articles 

 

Compiled by Dee Zimmerman

 

Clark County News

January 1881

 

There will be a temperance sermon at the Presbyterian Church next Sunday evening.  All are invited to attend.

•••••••••

There were recorded at the Register’s office during the year 1880, 84 marriages, 62 births and 22 deaths.

 

(At that time not all births or deaths were reported to the township or county officials.  DZ)

•••••••••

The readers are this week presented with a map of the C. & N. W. Railroad lines.  It will be observed that these routes as illustrated by the faithful artist don’t turn out for tree stumps.

 

Rail track is laid to a point this side of Wedges Creek.  A few more days and then cheap travel, warm and smooth, cheap freight, cheap express and goods delivered sound and dry.  The thought is delight in itself.

•••••••••

Fourth Forks News: North Forks P.O. Box is only 100 rods from the railroad station of Thorp; so that we are ahead of Neillsville on the railroad question.                                                         

•••••••••

Marshfield’s new bank will soon be in full-swing, with Llewellyn Arnold as cashier.  This insures to Marshfield an institution much needed, in the hands of a man of through business education and probity. Mr. Arnold’s experience in the Clark County Bank in Neillsville thoroughly fits him for the business.

•••••••••

There is a large display of dressed hogs out in front of Lowe Bros. shop.  Their imported Bolognian sausage man will soon stuff the porkers into barrels and strings.                                             

•••••••••

Abner Gile recently purchased a large lot of Black River Valley stumpage from the Spaulding estate, and will put in five to seven million feet of logs this winter.                                                          

•••••••••

People of Shortville and that of Sherwood are anxious to secure a mail route running direct from Scranton to Neillsville, two trips a week.  By this arrangement, we could get our mail quicker and more promptly.  Come on Levis, wake up and have a post office, and let your light shine or be seen of men.                               

•••••••••

During this past week, James Delaine has put a partition in his store from front to rear, separating the oyster saloon from the other part.  The partition is painted blue.  He has facilities now for feeding oysters to forty people at a time.

 

(Oysters were a favorite meal for the English, Scotch and Irish nationalities at that time and for generations later.   However, with the mild of nationalities through the years, the younger generation hasn’t acquired a taste for that culinary treat, so it had disappeared for the most part.  As a child, our family enjoyed an oyster stew meat on New Year’s Eve. DZ)

•••••••••

At a meeting at the Thomas Reed schoolhouse on Pleasant Ridge early this week, the subject of a new church was discussed and it was decided to have one, located at the Huckstead corners and built of brick.

 

We understand that Thomas Reed headed the subscription list with $50, Messrs. Blackman, King, Vine and others for various amounts, making a total of $436.  It is thus assured that a church building will be put up there.

 

(Huckstead corners would have been three miles east of Neillsville on US Hwy 10.  So we could assume that the proposed church was that of Methodist, built on the northwest corner of Miller Ave and Hwy 10.  DZ)

•••••••••

Mrs. G. Wesenberg of the Shortville area has it rather lonely this winter.  Her husband is away working in the woods and she stays alone, taking care of quite a number of livestock.  That is the kind of woman to have, and Gus is lucky.

•••••••••

 

 

The log house, typical of its period in time, was built in 1866 and occupied by the Harry Mead family until 1871, when they built a frame house.  Referred to as the “Dirty Shirt Farm,” it was located in Warner Township, along State Hwy 73, 2 Ό miles south of Longwood.  Harry worked mostly at logging and was known to have a weakness for playing poker.  Mrs. Mead took in washing for the loggers, who were working in that area, and saved that money to buy the farm.

 

January 1946

 

Edward Achenbach, who died in Neillsville, last Sunday, lived a colorful life in an exciting period.  Known hereabouts as a quiet farmer in retirement, his own memory ran back to a sight of Custer in the days of the Battle of the Little Big Horn.  He was mining gold in the Black Hills and he lived to see Teddy Roosevelt in that country, also.

 

Mr. Achenbach moved from the Black Hills to Pierre, S.C., and contracted with the government to supply beef to troops in that vicinity.  Later, he worked on a government boat plying the Mississippi and eventually became captain of the boat.  Mr. Achenbach tired of the big river and moved to Zumbrota, Minn., where he lived for two years, then to La Crosse, where he traveled for a wholesale grocery.  In 1900, he purchased a farm near Columbia, in this county and remained there for 36 years. But the health of Mrs. Achenbach occasioned their removal to Neillsville. Here Mrs. Achenbach died in 1940.

 

Mr. Achenbach married Margaret Barthel at Zumbrota in 1885.  There are four surviving daughters: Mrs. E. S. Ross, Mrs. J. K. Nielsen, Mrs. Hazel Beach and Miss Vivian Achenbach.  Of these, all, except Mrs. Beach, reside in St. Paul and her home is in Minneapolis.

 

Mr. Achenbach died at the home of Mrs. Leslie Marden. Interment was in the Neillsville City Cemetery.

•••••••••

For the first time in five years, Mrs. Lillian Schweinler had all of her five sons and two daughters with her to spend Christmas.  Four of the boys have recently returned from overseas.        

•••••••••

Milo Mabie, who recently was discharged from the navy after service in the Pacific, has purchased the barbershop operated until recently by Harold Pischer.

 

(Mabie’s barbershop was then located in a one-story building across from the post office. DZ)

•••••••••

A rental charge of $18 and$22 per month for the pre-fabricated house of the “Veterans Village” was set by the city council Tuesday evening.  First of the houses probably will be ready for occupancy in from 10 days to two week.

 

The single-unit houses will rent for the minimum figure, while the larger double-unit houses will rent for $22.

•••••••••

Ice broke up in the Black River to a point beyond the Dells Dam Bridge and broke up in the O’Neill Creek pond here last weekend as Clark County tasted “June in January” weather.

 

With three-quarters of an inch of rainfall measured, and accompanied by temperatures as high as 41 degrees, the local area experienced the most “unusual” weather in the memory of many an old resident.

•••••••••

Three million pounds of Italian cheese is the minimum set for the operations of 1946 by the Stewart Cheese Corporation.  This organization, about to open its plant at Greenwood, has a New York connection, which is expected to absorb about that volume of Italian Cheese.  The Stewart organization looks upon the three million pounds as a minimum and expects to go beyond that figure.

 

The Stewart Cheese Corporation, now putting the finishing touches on its reconditioning, has been a considerable project, requiring a substantial expenditure.  Included in the construction has been an aging room 40 x 80 feet.

•••••••••

The Mormons were the first whites to cut pine in Clark County.  They antedated James O’Neill by a year or so.  Their immediate purpose was to get out timber for the Mormon temple, which was to be constructed at Nauvoo, Ill.  Perhaps their ultimate purpose was to establish themselves permanently.

 

The first group of Mormons came into the Black River country in 1841.  They bought an interest in a sawmill south of Black River Falls, where Woods and Spaulding were establishing themselves.  The word came to Spaulding that the Mormons intended to log the following winter in an area to which Spaulding had claim.  The Mormon elder told his followers that the wilderness was the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, and that no Gentile claim should be respected by the saints.

 

After the Mormons had started their logging, Spaulding went up the river with a body of armed followers.  He left his men in the background and went ahead to see what was happening.  He found that the Mormons had cut about 100 of his trees.  He found the Elder, and demanded to know whether the Elder knew he was trespassing.  The Elder answered that it made no difference, that he had located his camp and intended to cut logs, whether or not.  So Spaulding shouted for his armed men.  They moved in on the Mormons and drove them out.

 

The Mormons went back to Black River Falls, but they did not quit.  The word was sent back to Nauvoo for 60 men and 100 guns.  Spaulding feared such a move and asked the commander of the U. S. Troops at Fort Crawford, Prairie du Chien, to protect him and his right.  This, the commander promised to do.

 

News of this promised help for Spaulding was given to the Mormons, who concluded not to risk an encounter with the soldiers.  Then their helpers arrived from Nauvoo, they put the extra men to work and stored the arms and ammunition.  After a time, it seemed to the Mormons, better to buy Spaulding out than to fight him out.  So they became possessors for a time of Spaulding’s holdings of power and land in that area.  Having sold to the Mormons for $20,000, Spaulding went down to Warsaw, Ill., and was there when in 1844, a mob at Carthage, Ill., murdered Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church, and also Hyrum Smith.  The first news of the tragedy reached them through Jacob Spaulding, who then returned to Black River Falls.

 

The mob violence, reflecting Mid-western hostility to the Mormons, was a body blow.  It forced re-examination of the plan to build a great temple at Nauvoo.

 

Presently, the Mormons determined upon their hegira to go to the far west.  They discontinued all their labors in the Midwest, concluding the logging operations in this region.  Their holdings at Black River Falls, purchased from Jacob Spaulding, were sold back to him.  The Mormons went to what became known as Utah, built their tabernacle there, establishing a great commonwealth.

 

Some information about the Mormons in Black River Falls is given in the following excerpt from the American Sketch book, published in 1875:

 

“During the spring of 1843, Spaulding sold to the Mormons the mill property for $20,000, payable mostly in lumber.  The property in question consisted of the small sawmill on Town Creek, and the larger one on the river, the latter completed except the running gears on one side; the log cabin, spoken of as the first building erected; a small one-story frame boarding house, located near the present A. Wehinger’s store on Water Street; one other log cabin on what is now the northwest corner of Main and Water streets; a blacksmith shop on the present site of Patrick Roddy’s place of business on Water Street, and including the claim to territory first made by Wood brothers.

 

The Mormons activity in Clark County started in about 1844, having established themselves in Black River Falls, coming up into this country for the excellent pine. They cut it and ran it down the Black River to their sawmill at Black River Falls.

 

Evidence of this Mormon activity long remained along the Black River.  One such spot was given the name of Mormon Riffle.  It was just below the mouth of Wedge’s Creek.  One was on the west bank of the river, about a mile below Neillsville at the Herian farm.  A third one was near Weston Rapids, about two miles north above Neillsville.  The fourth was south of Greenwood.  In 1854, these places were grown up with plum trees.  Remains of the log cabins were still in evidence.  They were built of logs and chinked with mud.  Holes in the ground showed where root cellars had been excavated.  Broken crockery has been sometimes dug up in those locations, according to the history of Clark County, which was published by Cooper in 1918 being compiled by Franklyn Curtiss-Wedge and reviewed by James O’Neill.

•••••••••

Mr. and Mrs. Walter Beilfuss have received word that their son, First lt. Bruce Beilfuss, expects to arrive home this week with a naval discharge.  Lt. Beilfuss, who served approximately three years in the navy, has been based in the Philippine-Japan area for the past 10 months.  He was assigned to duty with the Pacific fleet aircraft carriers.  It is expected he will resume his duties as district attorney, to which he was re-elected while in the service.

 

S1/c Wendell Hubing is spending a 30-day furlough with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Hubing.  Wendell has been in the service since July 1944, having served in the South Pacific, Guam and Saipan.

 

Vernon Mech, son of Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Mech, Greenwood, has received his discharge from the navy.  Vernon was last stationed at Manicani, Philippine Islands.  The Philippine Liberation Ribbon and the Victory Medal are included among his awards.  Prior to his induction, he was employed at the Mech Dairy.

•••••••••

Norval Hug of Medford has opened a Surge Service Store in Loyal.  Mr. Hug has had considerable experience in the milking machine field, having been a field service man in a territory consisting of five states for the Surge Company.

•••••••••

Marriage Licenses: Howard Schultz, Town of Weston and Joyce Stigen, Town of Seif

€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€

 

 


© 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