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Early
Pioneers Recall Their First Sight of Reedsburg
By William C. Schuette
Excerpted from
the book, Reedsburg Remembers 150 Years.
Imagine deserting
all you ever knew in the East, pulling up stakes, saying farewell to friends,
neighbors and relatives, and heading out to the unknown frontier. Countless
families did just that in the mid-nineteenth century, not knowing if they’d
ever see their loved-ones again. They headed west, some ending up in south
central Wisconsin, in what is known as the city of Reedsburg today. The
following is a small sample of some of their stories as recorded in old issues
of the Reedsburg papers.
Mildred (Barnes)
Carver spoke at the 1885 Old Settlers meeting of her family’s arrival in the
little hamlet of Reedsburg in the fall of 1850.
After seeing the
shanties, the mud and primitive conditions which greeted them, she said that
"...you can imagine my surprise when father told me this was Reedsburg and
where we were to live. I was quite young and of course knew nothing of frontier
life and was very homesick."
There was no
dwelling for the Barnes family so they lived in the wagon until a house could be
built. "Everybody was very kind to us," she said, "and the men
helped to put up our shanty and when it was ready for us to move into I really
thought it looked very nice...mother had brought with her a carpet and a good
many other little things that made our shanty look ever so cozy and
homelike—everybody came to see us."
Mildred recalled a
New Years’ Eve party that she attended shortly after their arrival. "That
New Years was one long to be remembered by me for I wore my first long dress
that evening. It was a pretty, bright calico, with three ruffles on it. And I
remember nearly all of the girls had new calico dresses that evening, for O.H.
Perry had brought on a large stock of dry goods...he had two dry goods boxes
full and when the girls saw those pretty, bright pieces they said they would
have new dresses for the New Year party. They were all made up very stylish,
with three ruffles, and we looked splendid, I know we did, for Col. Strong said
we did, and of course he knew right for he was our school teacher."
In a 1902 letter
to the Old Settlers’ Association, Louisa Meyers Young also recounted her
experiences upon arriving in Reedsburg.
"I remember
distinctly what a God forsaken place it was, we looked upon. Father, mother and
four children had come over land from Janesville; that was the only way we could
come in those days, such a long tiresome journey that our dresses ached from so
long sitting. We arrived at night, stopping at the old tavern. Mother wanted to
be brave, but having left a good home in Janesville, the contrast was great, and
she wept bitter tears for homesickness, when father did not see her.
"The only
respectable house had just been completed. Dr. Ramsey’s store, which is still
standing. I remember it so well, because it became necessary that I should have
a tooth pulled. The good doctor cut my gums all to pieces and pulled for two
hours, but the tooth remained.
"The few
people who lived there, put up shanties until they could build. We did the same
living in a two-roomed shanty while the house, a two story was building. My!
What good times we children had wading in the marsh and gathering ‘lilies of
the valley,’ and afterwards nearly shaking our teeth out with chills and
fever. We wonder now that any of us are left to tell the tale, sanitary
conditions did not trouble the early settlers.
"The Indians,
oh the Indians, how they frightened us, when mother saw any of them coming, she
would drop the curtains and barricade the doors, and then we would crawl under
the bed."
Another early
settler, Francis Dwinnell Elliott, in a letter to the Old Settlers’
Association in 1905, reminisced about the hard times her family also encountered
shortly after arriving in Reedsburg in 1851.
"One of our
greatest inconveniences was a lack of water. For many months we patronized Mr.
McClug’s well, where O.H. Perry afterward lived, a long half mile away. Water
was hauled in barrels for domestic use, and a yoke for the shoulders with ropes
to which pails could be attached, made the drinking problem a little easier of
solution. In the winter the snow banks helped in the good cause.
"Did you ever
try to condense enough snow to fill a big barrel with water? I vividly remember
the process. Mother first melted a kettle full which would be poured into the
bottom of the barrel, then the boys equipped with cap and mittens and a pail and
a dipper apiece, would begin to transfer the snow from the yard to the barrel;
back and forth, back and forth they would go. Soon the mittens would be damp and
discarded and Osgood coming in with blue hands would exclaim, ‘That’s
enough, ain’t it Ma, I’m most froze.’ And Eugene’s little patient voice
would pipe up, ‘Say Ma, it’s full now, ain’t it?’, and the pitying
mother looking into the cavernous depths of the receptacle would reply
‘That’ll do for you, your father can finish the rest, warm up now and run to
school.’"
Most who came to
settle in Reedsburg, remained. They overcame the hardships of the frontier and
advanced the quality of life for those who came afterward. At an Old Settlers’
meeting during the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the
founding of Reedsburg, Mrs. A.S. Brooks eulogized those early pioneers when she
said: "These... persons represent what was the life of the whole community.
May we so live and control the affairs of our city and vicinity, as to its
business, its morals and its patriotism, that when the last half of the circle
of the century shall have been completed, the then old settlers who may meet
shall record for us, that for them we have builded well."
They had indeed,
"builded" well, and Reedsburg is celebrating the 150th
anniversary of that foresight this year, during our Sesquicentennial.
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