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Isaac Usher's Memories of Clark Co., WI Transcribed by Todd Braun.
OUR EARLY HISTORY Newspaper article: From the Greenwood, WI Gleaner. Date: March 2 1907 Ellis B. Usher, Veteran Journalist, adds a few things. Pine Logs 1 3-4 to thousand Interesting letter of Isaac L. Usher about the dense forest wilderness in ’56, and of life close to nature in a little log cabin. It is with the greatest pleasure that the Gleaner publishes this week the following from the pen of one of Wisconsin’s most eminent, versatile and veteran journalists, Ellis B. Usher, formerly of La Crosse, now of Milwaukee. The letter is not only intensely interesting, and valuable as an historical record of Clark county, but also doubly so for its influence, coming as it does at the dawn of an awakening for a more simple American life- a truer life, closer to nature, such as our sturdy, whole-souled forefathers lived. In explanation of Mr. Usher’s "town 26" which correctly spearking (speaking) should be township 27, Harry Mead states that at that time the country up this way above Neillsville was always spoken of as "twenty-six," just as we, ourselves, now speak of the people of the "Twenty-six road," meaning that locality. He also explains that all mail then came to Neillsville, and that "Weston’s Rapids" is about two miles above Neillsville. The Hemlock dam is about four miles above Greenwood. Mr. Usher’s letter, which is dated, Wells Building, Milwauking (Milwaukee), Wis., March 13, 1907, is as follows: "Editor Gleaner, Greenwood, Wis: A friend of mine has sent me a copy of your paper of March 7th, with the article, "Scene of Big Battle," marked. The Mr. Z.W. Chase mentioned, like many another pioneer who trusts to memory without verification, knows, as Josh Billings would have put it, a lot of ‘things that aint so’. "My father, Isaac L. Usher, went to Clark county in December, 1855, as the agent of the late C.C. Washburn, and with my mother and myself (I was then a very small boy), remained there until the spring of 1856, when we followed ‘the drive’ to Onalaska, La Crosse county, and settled there. During the winter of 1855-6 my father had two camps, one (as I was told by Henry Meyers of Neillsville, three years ago) near the Hemlock dam, the other a few miles away. Meyers was on the ground in 1855, and could locate both sites. The camp furthest away from the river was run by James and Samuel KcKinley, later of West Salem, and across the road from that, our only neighbor, we spent the winter in the log cabin. "I have a letter, written from that cabin by my father to one of his sisters in Maine. It is dated ‘Town 26 Range 2 West, Jan’y 8th, 1856,’ and says we were living in a ‘a little log cabin 16 ft. long by 14 wide, built shed fashion, of rough logs, with the cracks stopped up with mud. The door is made like a stable door, with a wooden latch and the string always bangs outside. The floor has only three sleepers under it, so that when we walk across it, every thing shakes. When the table is set we have to circulate very carefully. Our furniture consists of one pine table, three feet long by two wide; one old cooking stove, one stump, left sticking up through the floor and cut off for a seat. (It was later used for a meat block.) One nail keg with a board on it, and one chair, my own handiwork. It is a masterpiece in its own way. The first corner of our cabin contains a barrel of water; the second is occupied for a wood shed; the third by a bed’ and the fourth for a pantry. We commenced housekeeping with a teakettle, spider, sex tin plates; three knives and forks, and one cup. We had no wash dish, so I cut one out of a stick of wood. We have since added two tin basins, a tea pot, some cups and saucers, and one or two tin dipper’s. We live on the fat of the land, which means, what we can get. We have no butter, but plenty of molasses. We have venison, pork, pheasants, and other nice things, dried peaches, apples, etc. " ‘This country is quite a business place in the winter. The loggers are driving about in all directions. The roads are all winter roads, cut through the timber, just wide enough to let a sled pass. It is almost impossible to get in here with a team in the summer. It is a dense forest for miles and miles, without a settler. The growth is as various as in Maine; oak, maple, hickory, birch, butternut, and towering above them all, but towering only to be cut down in its greenness and glory, is the grand old pine. Tell Dr. B------ that we will put in here, this winter, six millions, that will survey about two and a half logs to the thousand feet. I surveyed about one hundred thousand the other day that averaged about one and three fourths logs to the thousand.’ "These extracts will give a glimpse of early Clark county. My mother, who had never before roughed it, always said that was the pleasantest winter of her life. She loved the forest. Our household goods had been left a La Crosse, except wearing apparel and a few bed cloths. "My father superinteded two camps, and scaled the logs, that winter. Mail was then addressed to Clark C. H.(courthouse) Clark Co. Wis. ‘Weston’s Rapids,’ headquarters of the late Samuel Weston, ("Old Sock,") who logged for the Coburns of Maine, was an important point, above Neillsville, at that time. "Mr. Chase’s "Thomas’ Whitee should be Levi Withee, now of La Crosse. ‘Tom was a nickname he got early, as the minstrel man would say, because ‘that wasn’t his name.’ ‘Adoniron Withee, Later G.C. Hixon’s partner, two of whose sons own farms in Clark county, was Niran Haskell Withee. He was a brother of Levi. He served in the Assembly from Clark county in 1879-80. By carelessness his name has come to be printed in the Blue Book as ‘Nathan.’ "Williams T. Price was not a ‘day laborer.’ In 1855 he was practicing law in Black River Fals (Falls), and I have heard my father describe hime as wearing a silk hat in which he carried his papers. ‘James Molbin’ may, perhaps, be James Malbon, afterward of La Crosse." |
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