Review
of Early Times in Western Portland
(By
H. P. Whipple, Waterloo, Wis.)
We were not the earliest settlers of Portland by a couple of years or so.
There were quite a number of families in the town when we came there.
I remember Ed Bolger, father of Michael, John, James and Ed Bolger and
four or five daughters; Mr. Joice, father of James Joice; Martin Welch, Michael
Torpy, Thomas Torpy, George Sheldon, and later a Mr. Stoddard.
Both lived on the farm now known as the James Byrnes' place. There was
also Moses C. Kenyon, living on the farm now owned by L. P. Knowlton; Mr. Sweet
on the Hannifin farm now owned by Ramegus Langer; Mr. Finch where L.
P. Knowlton now lives; Ruel Parker on the J. A. Clark place; D. V.
Knowlton and Jedediah Smith on what is known as the Brookins Farm now owned by
Ewald Zimbrick, Jr.
Jedediah Smith was the father of Mrs. James Brookins.
There was also J. Sheldon, Timothy Burness, Steven Linderman, Hiram,
Jacob and Solomon Johnson, Albian Carter, John V. King who lived on the farm now
owed by the James Murray family, and Asa Porter, Robert Hammond, Hannibal
Kimball, Jedediah Kimball and a few families at the Village of Portland.
These were all west of the Crawfish.
East of the river were Abiger Sweet, Aaron C. Fisher, Milton and Samuel
Fisher, a Scotchman named Russell, and a few Germans whose names I do not know.
My father, Alphonse Whipple, moved his family consisting of my mother and
sister Caroline (later Mrs. Austin Hasey), my
brother Casper and myself from near Elgin, Illinois in November 1848.
I was then ten and one-half years old and remember things that happened
about that time more vividly than I do later happenings.
We were nine days on the road coming a distance of 110 miles; our wagon
loaded with our household goods lay stuck in the mud two nights on the road.
The country all the way was new and roads, where there were any, were
very poor.
My father moved from Cattaragus County, New York to Illinois in 1835 and
first settled in Cook County about 30 miles west of Chicago.
He bought a farm of 120 acres on Section 7 in the Town of Portland in the
Spring of 1848. He came here in June
and cut hay to winter his stock and in November moved his family onto the farm
where he lived until his death in 1895 at the age of 89 years.
That farm is now owned by Daniel Draeger.
Father drove two yoke of oxen on a wagon loaded with his goods and hired
a man in Illinois with a horse team to bring my mother and sister.
He brought thirteen head of cows and young cattle and a pair of two year
old colts which, except a pair of colts owned by Edward Bolger and a team owned
by Cyrus Perry, were I think the only horses in the town at that time.
We crossed the Waterloo Creek near where the City Hall now stands on a
bridge made of poles and small logs.
The Crossing next west had no bridge; teams went through the creek.
Of our neighbors, King, Lindermann and Hammond came from Illinois and
Porter, Burgess, the Johnsons and Carter from New York.
I do not know what states the others came from.
The west tier of sections of the town were first settled entirely by
Americans. The country thence east
to the Crawfish River was settled almost entirely by Irish settlers with a few
Scotch families, and in the south part some Americans.
The east side of the river being a heavily timbered country did not
settle up so fast as the "openings", as the sparsely timbered country
west of the river was called, but later was largely settled by Germans, who by
perseverance and hard labor have made some of the finest and best cultivated
farms in the country. This part was
densely wooded largely with oak on the uplands and soft maple, basswood and elm
in the valleys and lowlands which made it a slow and hard task to clear a farm.
A person that has not seen it could scarcely believe that the valuable
and highly cultivated farms with their elegant and convenient residences and
farm buildings occupy the wooded wilderness of fifty years ago, but the
industrious and steady Germans have made homes there that are not excelled in
the country. The labor required to
clear and prepare for cultivation of a farm at the best was a matter of great
hardship.
Money was very scarce and hard to get but, notwithstanding these
drawbacks, there was probably never a class of people in this country who
enjoyed life more than did these early settlers. If we had little, our wants
were few and easily supplied from our farms.
We of course raised our own bread, meat and vegetables.
We did not use many groceries. Tea
or coffee for the grown people, a very little sugar and a small amount of other
groceries were the general order of things.
We killed our beef each fall and from the tallow made candles to furnish
our light for the year. Those who
did not have the beef to kill, or the tallow, used a shallow earthen or tin dish
in which was put some lard, coon's oil, or other fat. A narrow piece of cotton
cloth or a piece of candle wick was placed in this, the end hanging over the
edge. This when lighted, answered
all purposes of a modern lamp. Our
mothers spun wool and knitted our stockings and mittens which were both warm and
durable.
We had chopping bees, hauling bees and log "raisings", when the
neighbors all turned out to help someone to get logs out or hauled for a log
house or stable, or to roll these logs up and build a building.
Then there were the winter sleigh rides when a lot of young folks, and
some that were not so very young. They
would bundle into a wagon box filled with hay on an ox sled and glide away
across the country (no fences to bother them).
They went to some neighbors where they had been invited, or went without
invitation, it made no difference whatever.
They were always sure of a warm welcome and a good time as could be made
for them. Then there was generally
dancing until break of day when they were away home again to the begin the days
work.
Every community had its violin players, or "fiddlers" as we
called them, who gave us McDonald's reel, Money Musk, Opera Reel, Devil's Dream,
Deering Rickets, Fishers or the Sailor's Horsepipes, or any of the many good old
tunes which we never hear anymore unless some "old fellow" whistles
one. It would have taken a very
strong argument to convince us that "Ole Bull" ever knew
much about violin music. Then
there were the evening visits; the grown people visiting in one house and the
younger ones in another, all having a grand old time all by themselves.
Where are those young people now? I
can glance back and see how they looked and see the different efforts each one
would put forth to make an enjoyable time, but I look around and cannot find
more than four or five left. All are
gone, most of them over to the other side.
Our school district was Joint District No. 6 of the Town of Portland and
Town of York. There was no school
house when we arrived nor district organization.
The first school was taught by my sister Caroline in the summer of 1849,
in the chamber of the log house in which we lived.
There had to be three months of school in a year to enable us to draw our
public money. During the winter of
1848 and 1849, the residents of the district got out tamarack logs and had them
sawed for lumber at the saw mill at the Village of Portland.
In the same summer, a school house was built, afterwards known as the
"Tamarack School House". It
was ready for occupancy in the fall of 1849 and that winter George Pinney from
near Waterloo tried to teach the school, but being incapacitated as a teacher
and not possessing muscle enough to back up his brutality, he left us between
two days to avoid a well deserved threshing.
That is the way George Pinney cleaned out the Whipple District as quoted
by one of the correspondents in the History of Waterloo recently published.
Clarence Vanderpool, who attended the Waterloo homecoming in 1905, and
who died shortly after that event, was our next teacher.
He was a good teacher and worked hard.
He taught our school two winters. Our
next teacher was George Hill, son of Bradford Hill of Waterloo, since deceased,
a fine teacher and a genial, fine, young
man. Then came L. D. Rosencrans, an
old gentleman and a very able man and a good teacher.
There was a Methodist Episcopal Society which held
regular meetings in the school house a good many years.
When the weather and roads would permit, these meetings were held once
every two weeks. The circuit was
large and travel slow and uncertain, and for the first few years, the conference
only provided two ministers for this
circuit (I think it was called the Fox River Circuit).
A sermon every other week was all they could give the Society.
There were a number of revivals (they were called protracted meetings)
with more or less success.
Of the regular Circuit ministers, I well remember the Revs. Tucker,
Lathrop, Martin, Maxen, Beecher, and Fancher, besides Uncle James Follensbee of
the Town of York, and Joseph Bolton of the same town used to do some exhorting.
Bolton was afterwards a regular minister.
At one time, Samual Fallows, now Bishop Fallows of Chicago, delivered a
sermon there. He was then quite a
young man. Our Irish neighbors and
others built themselves a tidy little Catholic Church in the Town of Elba on the
site where the Catholic Church building now stands.
They had a fair congregation from the first.
The first priest that I remember who officiated there was Rev. Father
Roche, a very bright and amiable man. I
am not certain whether he was the first priest or not but I think
he was.
The Germans on the east side of the river had a Lutheran Church
organization and I think one of some other denomination but I do not know what
one. The Catholic Church was built
in the early 50's. At these times,
the old fashioned Methodists used to hold some very interesting and at times
exciting services. Christmas
demonstrations, and of course, others unconnected with religious matters, were
also had such as visiting back and forth of friends and relatives.
Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's turkey shoots and raffles, and
always a grand ball at some village taverns (we had no hotels, they were just
taverns).
The written or printed invitations always announced the price of a ticket
and that "dancing would commence at 4:00 or 4:30 o'clock P.M".
They did not announce the number of fights that would take place in the
ball room nor the exact time they would occur, but usually everybody said they
had a good time and from where I stood I used to think they did.
The fourth of July always got a proper and general notice in the Town of
Portland. They used to come down
heavy of course. We had no race
horses or wheels of fortune or fakirs. We
were not modern enough to know that these things signified national independence
but we had the old fashioned regulation
celebration; speeches, reading the Declaration of Independence, public dinners,
marching of everybody in a procession, etc., and always a grand ball at night.
Everybody and his wife and all the children went and enjoyed a grand good
time. The politics of the times in
the town had not ought to have cut much of a figure.
The town was largely Democratic and a few Whigs.
At the time the Republican party came to view in the early 50's, it
swallowed all of the Whigs and a part of the Democratic element.
Although the most of the voters were of one party, there were some warm
times at the Caucuses and town meetings as there were different men from one
party opposing each other for some town office.
Excitement ran high. There
was a sprinkling of a rather tough element here as elsewhere in every newly
settled country and at the election they always had their innings.
It was once remarked that an election in the Town of Portland would not
be legal if there were less than fifteen fights on election day.
Most of the old timers are gone; a very large majority of them are dead.
Some of them with small farms, or who became involved in debt at or about
the time of the Civil War, sold their old homes and
whatever surplus saved, went West or South where they could get more land
for a little money. Those who
remained are nearly without exception well-to-do and are enjoying the fruits of
a long life of hardship and labor experienced in those early days.
Two sons of Edward Bolger are still living on large and valuable farms in
the neighborhood where their father settled in 1847.
They are old men now with large families.
Michael and James died within a few years.
The family of James still owns the home that he had made.
James Joice lived on the old homestead until his death in January 1908.
Michael Torpey died quite recently at a very advanced age; his son
Michael lives on the old homestead. His
second son Thomas is a practicing physician at Minocqua, Wis.
Owen Sullivan and wife who moved in about 1850 are both dead.
One son William survives them and lives at Escanaba, Mich.
Hiram, Jacob and Solomon Johnson, Stephen Linderman, James Sheldon, D. V.
Knowlton, James Brookins and many others are long since dead.
G. W. Johnson, son of Hiram, resides in Waterloo as does my brother
Casper Whipple.. here are many of the children of those old settlers whom I once
knew intimately that are gone. Some
are dead and some moved away. It
would be impossible to give a list of the dead or the present whereabouts of all
the living. L. P. Knowlton is still
on a farm on the south boundary of the town.
Alexander Campbell died years ago. The
Scotch families of the town, Chalmers, Foxwell and Smith, are all dead except
Smith and J. Chalmers. Mr. Smith was
in Oregon when last heard from and John Chalmers resides at Montesano,
Washington.
When we first came to Portland, and years afterwards, there were no railroads. Our produce had to be hauled to Milwaukee which was our only market then. It took from six to seven days to make the round trip with ox teams and three or four days with horses. Our wheat in those early days brought from 38-45 cents per bushel and barley 20-35 cents. Pork dressed was often as low as $2.25 per hundred, so it will be readily perceived that it was pretty slow work laying up money. But as I have said, we needed little besides what we raised except in cases of sickness or the tax collector. I well remember one year early in the 50's. My father took a load of grain to Milwaukee to get money to pay his taxes.
He
had a little bad luck breaking his wagon. After
paying the expense of repairing it, he had to go with another load to Milwaukee
to procure money enough to pay the taxes although the amount was only seven
dollars and a few cents. But we
still lived and had lots of fun hunting rabbits, quail and prairie chickens, and
fishing for suckers and red-horse at Portland with dip nets in the Spring, and
for bullheads and pickerel at the "Bluff" in Summer and Fall.
We went to "Check Apron" dances and broke steers in the winter.
We went to school when there was one and worked at home when there was
none so our time was pretty well taken up. Speaking
of breaking steers, I expect there are a good many boys and young men who never
had a taste of that pleasure. To
such I can say you never had any fun. The
boys used to break the steers generally, and when they became oxen, the fathers
sold them and pocketed the price. But
it was all in the game and we always thought that our side was a good deal the
better. The proceeding was like
this: the owner would go in the yard
and look over his steers and if he had more than one pair, would decide from
their size, form and apparent disposition which ones would work best together.
Then we would catch them and put the yoke on and generally let them go a
while about the yard. Usually one
would pull forward and the other go back.
Later they might put their heads together and throw their bodies outward
in opposite directions and turn the yoke; the bottom of the bows would be on top
of their necks. We would then
straighten them out. After a few
days driving about, we would put a rope around the near ones horns for the
driver to hang onto, hitch onto a sled and start.
Then the fun began in earnest. If
the sleighing was good, everybody rode except the driver who had to walk or run
just as the steers decided. They
generally ran. So did the driver who
occasionally fell down. His
passengers always had all they could do to keep from laughing at the wrong time
or to laugh enough at the right time. When
a pair of steers were properly broken, it was surprising how tractable they
were. A person could go up to the
off ox anywhere and yoke him, then remove the bow from the other end of the yoke
and motion to the near ox with it calling him by his name.
He would come, though several rods away, and take
his place under the yoke.
The sleds we used had no bent runners.
They were sawed from a tough white oak tree which showed a root with the
right turn for a runner which was called a "Sled Crook".
The runner was cut from one of these planks and dressed down to the
proper shape and size. When
completed, the sled had three beams fastened to the runner at regular distance
with one inch white oak pins wedged at the bottom and projecting through a red
elm or white ash rave running the whole length of the sled.
The pins were firmly wedged on top. Two
inch holes were bored in each of the front and rear beam for stakes.
A tough piece of oak five or six inches square was attached to the front
of the runners by boring a two inch hole in the end of each runner fitting the
ends to these holes. This was called the "roller". The pole or tongue
was mortised into this roller and the sled was completed except shoes. We got
iron shoes in a few years. At first they were made from small ironwood poles
flattened on the side to fit the runners and pinned fast with half inch oak or
hickory pins. On the first sled,
there was no iron nor even a nail. Today,
they would be called a "holy terror".
They were most wonderfully if not mysteriously made.
There were no bob sleighs, no cutters, no top buggies, no buggies of any
kind. These things have all come
since. After a few years, horses
began to be more plentiful but the ox teams were the main dependence until each
farmer had a good tract of land broken up and under cultivation.
Horse teams would have had no place in one of our old fashioned big
breaking teams. They consisted of
from five to seven yokes of oxen, and the plow which they drew and which broke
up the tough thick sod turned a furrow from eighteen to twenty-four inches wide
and five to six inches deep. The sod
was very tough and required a great force to turn such a furrow.
The number of teams depended on the size of the plow.
One man who understood the business drove the whole seven teams of oxen
and he had to understand it to be able to drive properly.
It was hard work but no harder than the man had who held the plow.
Going at a fair rate of speed, the plow would sometimes be drawn into a
root or stump with such force that a team had to be hitched to the rear-end of
the plow beam to draw it out.
Our threshing was at first done with the little open cylinder threshers
about the shape of a fanning mill but
rather larger and was run by a tread power; horses or oxen being put on the
track in the tread mill. The straw,
chaff and grain all came out together. The
straw was raked away as fast as it fell and the grain and chaff were run through
a fanning mill to separate them. Some
farmers with small crops used to clean a small place on the hard ground, lay the
sheaves in a circle with the heads inward and drive their oxen, or horses if
they had them, around the circle on the grain until it was threshed.
Later, came the Brayley or Pitts six and eight horse power threshers
manufactured in Buffalo, New York, and later one made by Frank Duvall of
Milwaukee. Horses were by this time
quite plentiful. Even then off times
oxen were used on the sweeps in place of horses.
These machines had no strawstackers or carriers.
They had a short slat rake in the separator that received the straw and
dropped it upon the ground. All the
straw that was raised, except what the farmers wanted to fix his beds with, was
run back a few rods from the machine into a pile and burned.
No one seemed to have an idea of putting it back on the land as a
fertilizer until years after when it became a necessity.
The soil then was as loose as a pan of new ashes.
All we had to do was to sow the grain and any old thing would do to cover
it. Once I saw Mr. King, having
loaned his harrow and not wishing to bother the neighbor who had it, hitch a
couple of yokes of oxen onto a small burr oak tree that he cut down for the
purpose and draw it over the land where he had sown some wheat and did a good
job covering the seed and raised a fine crop.
The present day cultivators and disc harrows would not have found a very
ready sale those days.
In the 40's, the deer were quite plantiful but were more numerous on the
east side of the Crawfish in the heavy timber and tamarack swamps than in
openings. There were also some black
bear but not very many. Prairie
wolves were very numerous but, after a few years drindled..
The Town of Portland in the great Civil War did her duty nobly and
furnished a large quota of volunteers to go to the front in defense of our
government. Many came back at the
close of the War but many a good boy from the old Town of Portland
stayed there. I suppose that
many things which I recall and which I have noted here will be of no interest
whatever to many of the readers of the present generation, but these things are
always looked back to by us old "has beens" with keen pleasure and
unabated interest. Of all the old
time matters that come to my mind, the most pleasant perhaps is the old
neighborhood associations of the earliest days, and our fishing and hunting
excursions.