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Clark County Press, Neillsville, Wisconsin
August 8, 2012, Page 14 Contributed by "The Clark Co. Press" Transcribed by Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon. Index of "Oldies" Articles
Compiled by Dee Zimmerman
Clark County News |
July 1882
On July 4th, the Hon. W.
T. Price delivered the oration at Whitehall; C. Pope at Alma Center; B. F.
French at Thos. Reed’s and L. A. Doolittle at Maple Works.
•••••••••
Last night some unknown party borrowed a span of horses and
democrat wagon from the barn of Jones Tompkins and forgot to register, in
consequence of which papers were made out and placed in the hands of officers in
Greenwood who went in search of the missing team.
It was found by tracks that the team had passed through Greenwood. About
10 o’clock today, James Bryden discovered a horse feeding by the side of the
roadside a half of a mile this side of Hemlock Dam, with a halter on it, which
looked a little unusual, so he tracked it back from whence it came into the
woods. Some dozen rods farther, he found
its mate and the missing wagon. But the thieves, who could not stand the light
of day, had taken the harness from the team, fed them with corn and decamped
without leaving their address.
•••••••••
The wooden building, north of Mr. Hewett’s store, has been
secured by the new postmaster, Mr. Campbell.
It is to be used as the new post office site. It is fast being made to
assume a business like appearance.
•••••••••
The picnickers who were seen wending their way to Bacon’s
woods last Saturday afternoon reported a good time.
•••••••••
Harvesting in the Court House Park has commenced.
The grass has been cut and stacked.
•••••••••
C. C. Edwards has opened a barbershop in the O’Neill House, So
-
All who are weary,
Go sit in his chair, and while resting your body; he will cut
off your hair.
He will polish your chin,
He’ll powder your hair,
The while you be dreaming, in his easy chair.
•••••••••
Mr. Jacob Rossman has moved into his residence on Main Street
and we should judge by appearances that he proposes to take advantage of city
regulations and omit the fence, which never adds to the beauty of a building
lot, serves only to prevent it from being used as a pasture.
If all of our residents would abide by the city laws and not let cows
roam at large in our streets, then fences might be removed, and walks and
streets could be kept clean and smooth. The appearance of our city would than be
greatly improved.
•••••••••
Last Thursday, July 13, while Henry McGrath was hunting cattle
on Section 31, 28, 1-E, he was shot at twice by some unknown party.
It is evident that whoever fired the shots meant to kill, as the first
shot passed through his hat and the next passed through his arm.
It would seem that all the desperadoes are not in the Rocky Mountain
region.
•••••••••
On Saturday, Dr. W. C. Crandall, one of the solidest
businessmen of our city, sold his large and attractive drug store and his entire
stock in trade to Messrs. C. A. and H. J. Youmans.
We are informed that the consideration was $6,000, half cash and the
balance in three years. The cause of the unexpected move was the ill health of
the Doctor, and his anxiety to try the effects of a change of climate.
He has been in business here about eleven years and has been very popular
and prosperous. He has succeeded in
establishing a very lucrative trade and is getting a very snug and comfortable
home for him and family. Now very
much to their sorrow and his own chagrin, and to the sincere regret of the
entire community, he is compelled by the persistent and insidious encroachments
of disease to abandon his old and tried friends, and the scenes of his
prosperity and happiness for new scenes, new friends and new fields of labor.
He has not yet determined just where or when he will go, but he was
affected so favorably by the climate of Colorado, during his recent visit here,
that he thinks he will settle somewhere along the eastern slope of the Rocky
Mountain system, going as soon as he can put all his business affairs here in
order.
•••••••••
A new saw mill in Sherwood Forest will be in operation in a
few days; Mr. Seeley is getting things ready for business.
He will have a good rig for sawing all kinds of lumber. Those who need
lumber can go there and buy cheap for cash.
•••••••••
Mr. Barr, late of Greenwood, has a fine blacksmith shop
completed and in running order, now in Thorp.
•••••••••
One perfect diamond is worth more than many defective ones.
One truth well fixed in the mind and comprehended is better than many
half understood. A small
opportunity fully realized is better than a great one miss-improved.
Faithfulness lays up treasures in the heavens, which nothing can injure
and no one remove.
July 1952
The boards and timber of the Youmans house tell a story of the
olden days. As they come clattering down, in a cloud of plaster dust, they carry
the people of today back 75 years and more ago, when the pioneers were
transforming the forest into the beginnings of the Dairyland of today.
This old house on the farm now owned by C. A. Paulson, located
on Pleasant Ridge, in Section 19, Town of Grant, has long been known as the
Youmans house named for the lawyer who resided in it in the latter part of the
nineteenth century and who was probably its best known occupant. He came into
possession of it March 8, 1884. The deed of that date was drawn to him and to
his partner in the law, M. C. Ring.
But Mr. Youmans did not build the house.
That was the work of John S. Dore, who made the sale to him.
Mr. Dore has almost entirely faded from local memory.
His name does not appear in the county histories. The only person
remembering him, so far as The Press can find, is W. J. Marsh, of Neillsville,
who says he was a farmer, very tall, who, after selling to Mr. Youmans, went to
California.
Mr. Dore had big ideas.
The house he built was the largest and most ornate of any in Clark County
up to that day. An old volume on Clark County, running back to the Youmans days,
says that the house contained 14 rooms and that is consistent with present
evidence. Eight of the rooms were very large, and with the spacious halls and
stairway, took up the main rectangular portion of the building. That portion had
12-foot ceilings. The trim was
butternut. Dore had lived in the
house with only lath on the walls.
One of the first things Youmans did was to plaster the walls. The whole area was
surmounted by a large cupola, or observation tower, amply supplied with windows.
That cupola disappeared in later years, cut away because it trapped the
inclement weather and dumped it into the house.
Mrs. Casper Marty, whose connection with the property will be
explained later, was told years ago that Mr. Dore used this cupola, as an
observation post from which to watch his men at work.
That story may have some truth in it, for Mr. Dore owned 400 acres and
had needed to boss the job. But another possibility is that Mr. Dore, perhaps
with lines running back to New England, was affected by a style of architecture
then current. It was quite the
thing, in the nineteenth century to place a cupola on top of the more ambitious
houses. That custom doubtless started with the old sea captains of New England,
who used these high towers from which to watch the ships come and go.
Accustomed to the height of the bridge, the old captains were irked by
the ground view and provided a bridge upon the land. There, even in retirement,
provided themselves footing more to their liking. The influence of theses old
captains upon residential architecture may still be found in the old houses of
the east and of the mid-west. Mr.
Dore, in building a magnificent cupola, was in line with the best style of his
day.
Mrs. Marty is under the impression that Mr. Dore ran into some
financial difficulty and that impression is borne out by the records.
On June 30, 1883, he gave a deed to R. SW. Stafford on nearly all of his
holdings, one of the considerations being that Stafford would assume a mortgage
of $3,500 and would clear Mr. Dore’s homestead, upon which his large residence
stood.
It is entirely possible that Mr. Dore found the cost of the
14-room house a little extreme, even in those days of low costs. But the trouble
was not insurmountable. Within a
year he had placed himself in position to give clear title, to a quarter
section, including the land upon which the house stood.
Thereafter he faded from the local scene, with no spectacular impact upon
it, so far as W. J. Marsh can recall.
The exact date of the construction of the house cannot be
established, but it is possible to infer it with some degree of accuracy. It
certainly lied between 1871 and 1883, for Mr. Dore did not buy the place until
July 5, 1871, and it was his homestead on or before June 30, 1883.
He had bought the land from one, William Steelman, who is utterly beyond
the local reckoning. The Press has been able to find no local knowledge of him.
Mr. Marsh cannot recall having heard of him.
William A. Campman cannot remember coming upon his name in other realty
transactions.
The records show that it was Mr. Steelman, who secured the
original government patent. The date of that patent was February 20, 1857. The
patent was issued to the name of Franklin Pierce as president.
Mr. Steelman held the land until 1871, when he deeded to Dore. At that
time Steelman resided in Sutter, California, a name, which recalls the gold rush
of 1849. The inference was that he followed the crowd to the excitement in
California.
Mr. Youmans, the new owner, had resided in Neillsville.
He had married a daughter of B. F. French, the honorable pioneer.
He had resided with his bride in the French home, located on the site of
the Neillsville Library. There, on
October 18, 1884, was born their son, Guy C. Youmans.
C. A. Youmans moved to the farm and entered upon an ambitious program of
livestock breeding. He went into
Shorthorns and then Holsteins, importing registered cattle from the state of New
York. Then he shifted to horses,
bringing in registered English Stallions. Also he went into sheep, having a
large flock of Shropshire.
But C. A. Youmans was not a dirt farmer.
His chief interest was in law and in politics.
He was district attorney, county judge and state senator.
Eight years on the farm was enough.
Then he moved back to town.
Eventually, he turned the farm management over to his son, Guy, who had taken a
course in agriculture at the University and who put his education to work on the
farm. He stuck to it until 1913,
when he moved to town and devoted himself to handling livestock and real estate,
also interesting himself in a cooperative elevator in Neillsville.
In 1913, the Youmans place went into the hands of Charles
Altemus, who came up from Rock County.
His daughter, Emma had only recently married Casper Marty, and the young
people were looking for a start on a farm.
So they established themselves upon Mr. Altemus’ invitation, in the
southeast portion of the big house. There, on the first floor, they had three
rooms. After three years it was
arranged that the Marty’s should move from the site of the old home, to a
portion of a granary, which stood between the house and the barn.
This was taken some distance to the east, becoming their home for three
years, and is the eastern or lower section of their present residence. After
three more years, they moved a 2-story four-room part of the original Dore home
and joined it on the west, creating the Marty home as it now stands.
Mrs. Marty recalls that the house moving was done by the late Sherman
Gress, who used the old style winch, with power furnished by horses.
Mr. Altemus split up the 400 acres of the Youmans holdings. He
sold 40 acres to Rush Hake; transferred 131 acres to the Marty’s; sold 129 acres
to C. A. Paulson. Mrs. Altemus
moved to town and lived in what is now the Georgas Funeral Home.
His first wife died in an auto accident in 1925, and two years later he
married Elsie King, a former teacher.
He had moved to California in 1926, died in 1933.
It was he who removed the cupola from the old house.
The Ross Paulsons lived in the old house for about a decade,
and tried to do something with it. But it was badly run down and they were
elderly. Then the C. A. Paulsons succeeded them in possession and succeeded to
the problem of the ancient residence.
After living in it a few years, they concluded that the old place was
beyond them and that the way to fix it up was to tear it down.
It is an odd coincidence that too many persons connected with
this place have established themselves in California.
Mr. Steelman, the original owner, was there when he deeded to Mr. Dore.
Mr. Dore went there after he sold to Mr. Youmans. The Youmans-French
family established themselves there.
Mr. Altemus made his home there in latter years.
(The Dore-Youmans farm
was located about 1 ½ miles east of Neillsville, south side of Hwy 10, where
only the original barn remains. DZ)
John S. Dore built the above
large, ornate house on his Pleasant Ridge farm about 1875, losing the
property after 12 years as owner, selling to a local attorney, C. A.
Youmans, whose son, Guy Youmans, operated the farm for a number of
years. Next farm owners
were the Altemus family, who eventually split up the farm property,
selling off acreage plots to nearby farmers. A portion of the house was
moved a short distance east, as an addition to the Marty farm home, and
the remaining portion was purchased by the Paulson family, who
eventually tore it down in July of 1952. |
Corp. William Stabnow arrived here Friday after spending the
past year in Korea. The serviceman,
son of Mr. and Mrs. Carl Stabnow of Greenwood, will spend 30 days here with
family.
•••••••••
John Mrotek of Loyal Flying Eagles club won the county
championship in the tractor contest and will be representing Clark County at the
State Fair. John showed great skill
and accuracy in putting a tractor through its paces.
His competitors were boys who had son their way through local contests:
Rueben Garbisch of Granton, Robert Tichy of Loyal, Neil Broeren of Thorp and
Leland Mayenschein of Butler.
•••••••••
The following schools in the Town of Levis will open Aug. 25:
Meadow View with Mrs. Dale West as teacher; Dells Dam with Mrs. Hagen; and
Riverside with Mrs. Fred Palmer.
School buses will be operated by Fred Subke and Ted Janicki.
•••••••••
Among recent real estate transfers was the purchase of the
former Rev. Koehler residence, bordering Schuster Park, Neillsville. This
property has been purchased by Carl R. Wegner and Bernita Wasserburger, Clark
County nurse. The purchase was made
from Ada Koehler and Irene Koehler, heirs of the e state.
The residence will become the home of the young couple upon their
marriage, at a date later to be announced.
•••••••••
People who don’t take responsibility when young will never
have it when older.
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