_By_ EDWIN D. COE
My father left his old home in Oneida County, New York, in June, 1839, a
young man in his twenty-fourth year. The beauty and fertility of the
Rock River valley, in Wisconsin, had been widely proclaimed by
participants in the Black Hawk War and in the glowing reports of
Government engineers. In fact, the latter declared it to be a very
Canaan of promise. As a consequence, hundreds of young people, restless
and ambitious, and very many older ones whom the panic of the late 30's
had separated from their business moorings, turned their thoughts and
then their steps toward the new promised land.
When my father was rowed ashore from the steamer at Milwaukee, he could
have taken up "government land" within the present limits of that city,
but the bluffs and swamps of the future metropolis had no charms for him
compared with the vision he had in mind of the Rock River country. So he
crossed Milwaukee River on a ferry at the foot of Wisconsin Street,
walked out on a sidewalk quavering on stilts until solid ground was
reached at Third Street, and then struck the trail for the west.
[Footnote 1: From the Proceedings of the State Historical Society of
Wisconsin, 1907.]
Along the shore of Pewaukee Lake, the traveler met a wolf which bristled
and snarled but at last surrendered the right of way before the superior
bluff, which was put up against him, backed by a "big stick." That night
he stayed with a friend named Terry, who had come West the year before,
and preëmpted a piece of land on the east shore rock, about seven miles
above Watertown. The next morning he saw on the opposite bank a gently
rising slope covered with stately maples and oaks; beneath were the
grass and flowers of mid June, and the swift flowing river, clear as a
spring brook, was in front, making the scene one of entrancing beauty.
It was fully equal to his highest expectations, and he never rested
until he had secured title to that particular block of land.
He at once prepared to build a log house, and, after a few days, the
neighborhood was invited to the raising. Some men came eight and ten
miles, and a big laugh went around when it was found that logs a foot
and a half and two feet in diameter had been cut for the house. Four
large ones were rolled together for a foundation, and then the
inexperienced young man was told that for a house he needed to cut logs
half as large, and they would return in a week and raise them. This they
did, showing the kindly, helpful spirit of the early settlers.
In August my mother came and brought the household furniture from their
Oneida County home, together with a year's provisions. The trip from
Milwaukee to their log house, nearly forty miles, took nearly three days
by ox team. She was delighted and happy with the building and its
surroundings, and never faltered in her love for that first home in the
West. A barrel of pork was among the supplies she had brought, and
people came as far as twenty miles to beg a little of it, so tired were
they of fresh meat from the woods, and fish from the river; and they
never went away empty-handed, as long as it lasted.
They came, as I have said, in 1839, and I the year following. There is a
vague, misty period at the beginning of every life, as memory rises from
mere nothingness to full strength, when it is not easy to say whether
the things remembered may not have been heard from the lips of others.
But I distinctly recall some very early events, and particularly the
disturbance created by my year-old brother, two years younger than
myself, when he screamed with pain one evening and held his bare foot
up, twisted to one side.
My mother was ill in bed, and the terrified maid summoned my father from
outside, with the story that the baby's ankle was out of joint. He
hurried in, gave it one look, and, being a hasty, impetuous man, he
declared, "Yes, the child's ankle is out of joint; I must go for a
doctor;" and in another moment he would have been off on a seven-mile
tramp through the dark to Watertown. But the mother, a level-headed
woman, experienced in emergencies, called out from her bed, "Wait a
minute; bring me the child and a candle;" and a minute later she had
discovered a little sliver which pricked him when he set his foot down,
and extricated it between thumb and finger. "There," said she; "I don't
think you need walk to Water-town to-night."
Indians were so numerous that I don't remember when they first came out
of the haze into my consciousness, but probably in my third year. They
were Winnebago and Pottawatomi, the river being a common inheritance of
both tribes. In the winter of 1839-40, about thirty families of the
former tribe camped for several weeks opposite our home and were very
sociable and friendly. Diligent hunters and trappers, they accumulated
fully a hundred dollars worth of otter, beaver, bear, deer, and other
skins. But a trader came up from Watertown in the spring and got the
whole lot in exchange for a four-gallon keg of whisky. That was a wild
night that followed. Some of the noisiest came over to our house, and
when denied admittance threatened to knock the door down, but my father
told them he had two guns ready for them, and they finally left. He
afterwards said that he depended more on a heavy hickory club which he
had on hand than on the guns--it could be fired faster.
An ugly squaw whose nose had been bitten off years before in a fight,
stabbed her brother that night, because he refused her more whisky. He
had, according to custom, been left on guard, and was entirely sober.
The next day the Indians horrified my mother by declaring that they
should cut the squaw into inch pieces if her brother died. They went
down to Lake Koshkonong two days later, but he died the first day out.
The squaw escaped and lived a lonely life for years after, being known
up and down the river as "Old Mag."
At any time of the year we were liable to receive visits from Indians
passing to and fro between Lakes Horicon and Koshkonong. They would come
into the house without ceremony further than staring into the windows
before entering. Being used only to town life in the East, my mother was
afraid of them, but she always carried a bold face and would never give
them bread, which they always demanded, unless she could readily spare
it.
One summer afternoon, when she had finished her housework and had sat
down to sew, half a dozen Indians, male and female, suddenly bolted in
and clamored for bread. She shook her head and told them she had none
for them. When she came West she had brought yeast cakes which, by
careful renewal, she kept in succession until the family home was broken
up in 1880. Upon the afternoon referred to, she had a large pan of yeast
cakes drying before the fireplace. Seeing them, the Indians scowled at
her, called her a lying woman, and made a rush for the cakes, each one
taking a huge bite. Those familiar with the article know how bitter is
the mixture of raw meal, hops, and yeast, and so will not wonder that
presently a look of horror came over the Indians' faces and that then
they sputtered the unsavory stuff out all over the newly scrubbed floor.
My mother used to say that if they had killed her she could not have
kept from laughing. They looked very angry at first, but finally
concluded that they had not been poisoned and had only "sold"
themselves, they huddled together and went out chattering and laughing,
leaving my mother a good share of her day's work to do over again.
[Illustration: HALF A DOZEN INDIANS BOLTED IN]
One day I saw a big Indian shake her by the shoulder because she
wouldn't give him bread. She was ironing at the time, and threatened him
with a hot flat iron till he hurried out. Another came in one warm
summer afternoon, shut the door behind him, and leaned against it,
glowering at her. For once she was thoroughly frightened. He had with
him a tomahawk, having a hollow handle and head, that could be used as a
pipe. However, her wits did not desert her. Seeing the cat sleeping
peacefully in the corner, she cried, "How did that cat get in here!" and
catching up the broom she chased pussy around till she reached the door,
when seizing the heavy iron latch she pulled it wide open, sending Mr.
Indian into the middle of the room; she then pushed the door back
against the wall and set a chair against it. The Indian stood still for
a minute, then uttered a grunt and took himself off, probably thinking
she was too dangerous a person for him to attempt to bully.
The Indians used to offer for sale venison, fish, and maple sugar, but
the line was always drawn on the latter, for it was commonly reported
that they strained the sap through their blankets. And you should have
seen their blankets! About 1846 a company of civilized Oneidas, some of
whom my father had known in the East, camped near by and manufactured a
large number of handsome and serviceable baskets. From wild berries they
would make dyes that never faded, and print them on the baskets with
stamps cut from potatoes. Some of their designs were quite artistic. A
small basket and a rattle which they gave my year-old sister showed
their good will.
I soon learned to have no fear of the tribesmen, although sometimes a
fleet of fifty canoes would be in sight at once, passing down the river
to Koshkonong; but the first Germans who came to our parts nearly scared
the life out of me. Their heavy beards, long coats, broad-visored caps,
and arm-long pipes, made me certain that nothing less than a fat boy of
five would satisfy their appetites; and whenever they appeared I would
hunt my mother. They had bought a considerable tract of land about five
miles from our place, and always wanted to know of us the road thither.
The result was just such a "jabber match" as could be expected where
neither side knew the other's tongue; but by pointing and motioning my
mother was always able to direct them. Sometimes they wished to come in
and make tea or coffee on our stove, and eat the luncheon of bread and
meat that they had brought across the water. They would then always urge
their food upon me, so I came to like their black bread very much and
soon revised my first estimate of their character. All those people cut
fine farms out of the heavy timber and died rich.
The first settlers were mostly Americans, from New York and New England;
but before leaving the old farm we used to hear of English, Irish,
Dutch, Norwegian, and Welsh settlements. The latter people enveloped and
overflowed our own particular community and came to form a good portion
of the population.
Besides the numerous nationalities on this front edge of advancing
settlement, there were people of many and diverse individualities--the
uneasy, the unlucky, the adventurous, the men without money but full of
hope, the natural hunters, the trappers, the lovers of woods and
solitudes, and occasionally one who had left his country for his
country's good; all these classes were represented. But on the whole the
frontier's people were an honest, kindly, generous class, ready to help
in trouble or need of any kind.
If there was sickness, watchers by the bedside and harvesters in the
field were promptly forthcoming. If a new house or barn was to be
raised, every available man came. If a cow was mired, and such was often
the case, her owner easily got all the help he wanted. Husking and
logging and quilting bees were common, and in the autumn there were bees
for candle-dipping, when the family supply of candles would be made for
a year; and all such events would of course be followed by a supper, and
perhaps a frolic. Visits among the women folk were all-day affairs; if
the husbands were invited, it would be of an evening, and the call then
would last till midnight with a supper at ten. There was a word of
comfort and good cheer in those forest homes. I doubt if any child in
modern palaces enjoys happier hours than were mine on winter evenings,
when I rested on the broad stone hearth in front of the big fireplace,
with its blazing four-foot log, the dog on one side and the cat on the
other, while my father told stories that had to be repeated as the stock
ran out, and I was gradually lulled to sleep by the soft thunder of my
mother's spinning wheel. What could be more luxurious for any youngster?
I remember that when I was about six I saw my first apple. Half of it
came to me, and I absorbed it as if to the manor born. What a revelation
it was to a lad who could be satisfied with choke-cherries and crab
apples! In those times, when a visitor called it was common to bring out
a dish of well-washed turnips, with plate and case knife, and he could
slice them up or scrape them as he chose.
The woods abounded in wild fruits, which the women made the most of for
the winter season. Berries, grapes, plums, and crab apples were all
utilized. The latter were especially delicious for preserves. The boy
who ate them raw off the tree could not get his face back into line the
same day; but he would eat them. However, pumpkins were our main
reliance for present and future pies and sauce; such pumpkins do not
grow now in these latter days. There were two sugar bushes on our place,
and a good supply of maple sugar was put up every spring. Many other
dainties were added to our regular menu, and a boy with such a cook for
a mother as I had, needed no sympathy from any one the whole world
round.
The river was three hundred feet wide opposite our house, and about two
feet deep, so teams could be driven across at ordinary stages, but foot
passengers depended on our boat, a large "dugout." I remember how
beautiful it was, when first scooped out from a huge basswood log,
clean, white, and sweet-smelling. Strangers and neighbors alike would
call across, "Bring over the boat;" and if they were going from our side
they would take it over and leave the job of hollering to us. At five
years of age I could pole it around very nicely.
One day, when I was first trusted to go in the boat alone, a stranger
called over, and as my father was busy, he told me to go after him. The
man expressed much wonderment, and some hesitancy to trusting himself to
the skill and strength of a bare-footed boy of five; but I assured him I
was a veteran at the business. He finally got in very gingerly, and sat
down flat on the bottom. All the way over he kept wondering at and
praising my work until I was ready to melt with mingled embarrassment
and delight. At the shore he asked me unctuously how much he should pay.
"Oh, nothing," I said. "But let me pay you. I'd be glad to," said he.
"Oh, no, we never take pay," I replied, and dug my toes into the sand,
not knowing how to get out of the scrape, yet well pleased at his high
estimate of my service. All the time he was plunging down first into one
pocket of his barn-door trousers and then the other, till at last he
fished out an old "bungtown" cent, which with much graciousness and
pomposity he pressed upon me, until my feeble refusals were overcome. I
took the coin and scampered away so fast that I must have been invisible
in the dust I raised. Showing it to my father, I was told that I ought
not to have taken it; but I explained how helpless I had been, and
repeated word for word what the man had said, and, unintentionally,
somewhat copied his tone and manner. The twinkle in my father's eye
showed that he understood. That copper was my first-earned money; if it
had only been put out at compound interest, I ought, if the
mathematicians are right, to be now living in _otium cum dignitate_,[2]
perhaps.
[Footnote 2: _Otium cum dignitate_ is a Latin expression meaning _ease
with dignity_.]
[Illustration: HE FISHED OUT AN OLD BUNGTOWN CENT]
Steve Peck was one of the most notable of the marked characters above
hinted at. He was a roistering blade, who captained all the harumscarums
of the section. Peck was a surveyor and had helped at the laying out of
Milwaukee. Many were the stories told of his escapades, but space will
not permit of their rehearsal here. He had selected a choice piece of
land and built a good house; then he induced the daughter of an Aberdeen
ex-merchant of aristocratic family but broken fortune, who had sought a
new chance in the wilds of Wisconsin, to share them with him. But wife
and children could not hold him to a settled life, and he sold out one
day to a German immigrant, gave his wife a few dollars and disappeared,
not to be seen or heard of in those parts again.
Another character was a man named Needham, who also was somewhat of a
mystery. The women considered that he had been "crossed in love." He
affected a sombre style, rather imitating the manners and habits of the
Indians. His cabin was near the river, and he was a constant hunter.
Many times when playing by the shore I would become conscious of a
strange, noiseless presence, and looking up would see Needham paddling
by, swift and silent. It always gave me the shudders and sent me to the
house. One day, on coming home from school, I saw a great platter of red
meat on the table. I asked who had killed the beef; it was a practice to
share the meat with the neighbors, whenever a large animal was killed,
taking pay in kind. I was told it was not beef, and being unable to
guess was at last informed that it was bear meat, which Mr. Needham had
left. As he had killed the animal near where I hunted the cows every
night, the news gave me a sensation.
Uncle Ben Piper, the only gray-haired man in the community, kept tavern
and was an oracle on nearly all subjects. He was also postmaster, and a
wash-stand drawer served as post office. It cost twenty-five cents in
those times to pass a letter between Wisconsin and the East. Postage did
not have to be prepaid, and I have known my father to go several days
before he could raise the requisite cash to redeem a letter which he had
heard awaited him in the wash-stand drawer, for Uncle Ben was not
allowed to accept farm produce or even bank script for postage.
An Englishman named Pease, who lived near us, had "wheels." He thought
the Free Masons and the women were in league to end his life. Every
night he ranged his gun and farm tools beside his bed, to help ward off
the attack that he constantly expected. Nothing could induce him to eat
any food that a woman had prepared. In changing "work" with my father,
which often occurred, he would bring his own luncheon and eat it by the
fire during mealtime. But after my sister was born, he refused to enter
the house; he told the neighbors that "women were getting too thick up
at Coe's." Pease had nicknames for all the settlers but one, and while
very polite to their faces, he always applied his nicknames in their
absence.
A man named Rugg lost caste with his neighbors because he dug and used a
potato pit in an Indian mound from which he had thrown out a large
number of human bones. Some of the bones were of gigantic size.
There were many good hunters among the settlers; the Smith brothers
scorned to shoot a bird or squirrel except through the head. If there
were sickness in the family of any neighbor, the Smiths saw that
partridges, quail, or pigeons, properly shot, were supplied. Another
Smith was a bee hunter, and a very successful one, too. Those were the
days when the beautiful passenger pigeons at times seemed to fill the
woods and the sky. Deer were very abundant; I have seen them eating hay
with my father's cows; and in the spring and fall seasons the river was
covered with wild ducks and geese.
Two events in my seventh year left a strong impression upon me. The
first was an address by a colored man named Lewis Washington, a runaway
slave, who had a natural gift of oratory and made many speeches in this
state. I was so curious to see a genuine black man that I got too close
to him when he was in the convulsion of putting on his overcoat, and
caught a considerable thump. No harm was done, but he apologized very
earnestly. I have read that his campaigning of the state was quite
effective.
The other occurrence was the visit to Watertown of Herr Dreisbach with
his famous menagerie. Our indulgent father took my brother and myself
and a neighbor's daughter to see the "great instructive exhibition." It
took our ox-team three hours to make the seven miles, and the elephant's
footprints by the bridges, and other impedimenta of the great show,
which we passed, carried our excitement, which had been cruelly growing
for three weeks, well-nigh up to an exploding climax. I was told not to
lose my ticket, or I could not get in; and when the ticket taker seized
hold of it, I held on until he finally yelled angrily, "Let go, you
little cuss!" whereupon my father came to his rescue. The show on the
whole was very satisfactory, except for the color of Columbus, the fine
old elephant, which for some reason, probably from the show bills on the
barns, I had expected to be of a greenish tint. I also had supposed that
the lion would drag his chariot at least half a mile, with the driver in
heroic pose, instead of merely two cars' length. Herr Dreisbach
afterwards showed on Rock Prairie, in the open country, a few miles east
of Janesville. People came from great distances to attend, even from as
far as Baraboo, sometimes camping out two nights each way.
Our first public edifice was a log schoolhouse about twenty feet square.
It was on the opposite side of the river, nearly a mile distant, but I
began to attend school before I was fully five years old. One of the
things I remember of one of my early teachers most distinctly is, that
she used to hang a five-franc piece, tied with blue ribbon, around the
neck of the scholar who had "left off at the head." I was occasionally
favored, but my mother's satisfaction was greatly modified by her fear
that I would lose the coin while taking it back the next day.
The teachers probably could not have passed a normal school examination,
but they could do what our graduates now cannot do--that is, make and
mend a quill pen. Those were all the pens we had, and many a time have I
chased our geese to get a new quill. The teachers patiently guided our
wobbling ideas from the alphabet to cube root. The lessons over, we were
told to "toe the crack," and "make obeisance," and were then put through
our paces in the field of general knowledge. I still remember, from
their drilling, the country, territory, county, and town in which we
lived; that James K. Polk was president, that George M. Dallas was
vice-president, and that Henry Dodge was governor. What ancient history
that now seems!
[Illustration: CHASING THE GEESE TO GET A NEW QUILL]
Near the school lived a family named Babcock, with four well-grown boys.
One of them used often to come over at noon to see one of the teachers.
One noon, on running to the schoolroom after something that I wanted, I
was horrified to see my loved teacher struggling to prevent the young
fellow from kissing her. I felt very sorry for her, and on going home
promptly reported the outrage to my mother. She evidently did not
approve, but did not make as much of a demonstration over it as I had
expected. I doubt now, if the teacher was as greatly in need of my
sympathy as I then thought. The Babcocks all went to the war, as I am
told, and one of them became colonel of his regiment. He came home to be
fatally and mysteriously shot one night on his way to his room in
Chicago; the why and how were never revealed.
The winter after I was six years old I went to a school taught by a fine
young man named Martin Piper, a relative of Uncle Ben's. The next summer
he enlisted in the Mexican War with another of our young neighbors, John
Bradshaw. I saw the volunteers from Watertown filling two wagons that
carried them to Milwaukee, and I could not keep the tears back, for I
feared I should never see John and Martin again. And so it was; they
both perished at Vera Cruz.
My last winter's school was taught by my father. I remember that we used
to cross the river, which only froze along the edges, on cakes of ice
which he would cut out and pole across. The school closed in the spring
with an "exhibition," consisting of declamations, dialogues, a little
"play," and a spelling contest. The whole countryside was there, and
about thirty of us youngsters were put up in the attic, which was
floored over with loose boards, to make room for our elders. The only
light we had was what percolated up through the cracks, and all that we
could see of the exhibition was through them. As we hustled around,
sampling them to see where we could see best, we made a good deal of
disturbance.
The best place, next the chimney, we were driven back from, for repeated
burning had weakened the support. (The beam next to the chimney used to
catch fire nearly every day, and we younger ones used to watch it and
report to the teacher, who would calmly throw a dipper of water up and
put the fire out for the time being.) A fat woman sat under the
dangerous place that evening, and made a great outcry if we came near to
enjoy the desirable outlook--stout people always seem fearful that
something will fall on them. I remember also that her little girl, a
pretty creature in curls and a pink dress, spoke "Mary had a little
lamb," by having it "lined out" to her.
Our schoolhouse was so set in a noble grove of oaks, elms and maples
with a heavy undergrowth, that we could not be seen from the road.
Nearly every day droves of cattle went by, and we used to run up through
the thicket to see them. It must have been an odd sight to the drovers
to see a dozen or more little half-scared faces peering out of the
brush, and no building in sight. They would often give us a noisy
salute, whereupon we would scamper back, telling of our narrow escape
from dangerous beasts and men.
The presidential election in the fall of 1848 aroused a good deal of
interest, for Wisconsin had now become a state, and citizens could vote
for national candidates. I was in Jonathan Piper's store one evening,
with my father, when about a dozen men were present. A political
discussion sprang up and grew hot, and finally a division was called
for. Two or three voted for Zachary Taylor, the Whig candidate; one for
Lewis Cass, the Democrat; and the rest for Martin Van Buren, Free
Soiler. The State went with the lone voter, for Cass carried it by a
small plurality.
Good health was the rule among the hardworking, plain-living pioneers,
but plowing up the soil released the poison which nature seemed to have
put there on guard, and every one at one time or another came down with
the "shakes." However, the potent influence of sunshine, quinine, and
cholagogue speedily won their way, and in a few years malaria had become
a mere reminiscence.
In November, 1848, my parents moved to Beaver Dam, and thus our life in
the Rock River country came to an end. The splendid primeval forest has
now gone, and even before we left much of it had been converted into log
heaps and burned. Every night scores of fires would gleam out where the
finest hardwood logs, worth now a king's ransom, were turned into smoke
and ashes. Even the mills which that grand pioneer, Andrew Hardgrave,
had built in 1844, to the great rejoicing of all the people, are gone,
and the river flows on over its smooth limestone floor, unvexed as of
old. But fine brick buildings have taken the place of the old log
structures, and land brings at least twenty times as much per acre as
then. Who can argue against that?