Clark County Press, Neillsville, WI, December 19, 2018 Page 9

Harry Ferguson died on Saturday at his home in Minneapolis, with the remains being sent here to be buried in the local family cemetery lot. His death came as a shock to his friends.

Henry F. Ferguson was born in Neillsville on Dec. 26, 1854. He bore the distinction of being the second white child born in Neillsville. He was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Ferguson, with Samuel being the second white man to settle in Neillsville, and also was the first white man to take up land in Clark County. The son, therefore, came from pioneer stock, and he was known to all of the early settlers in the lower end of Clark County.

He grew up here, and when he arrived at young manhood, he took up railroading as a life’s vocation. For 34 years, he followed this occupation and at the time of his death was a passenger conductor on the main line of the Omaha Railroad. He will be known for his honesty, highest character, and integrity when he lived here.

Nr. Ferguson was married to Miss Alice Cornwell in this city on May 5, 1877. Six children were born to them, three of whom, with their mother, survive their father. The children are Anne Carol Ferguson Ogden of Freeport, Ill.; Elsie Grace Ferguson Regers of New Port, Wash.; Bernard Ferguson of New York City.

Mr. Ferguson was a member of the Masonic fraternity, holding membership at Merrillan, and on Monday, a large Masonic funeral was held in Minneapolis. The remains were brought to this city Tuesday afternoon with Masonic services being conducted at the cemetery by the Neillsville brethren.

Notice – To the party who took my plow from Korman & Ghent’s shop, will he kindly bring it back and save the prosecuting, Owner

Henry Naedler is expected home within a few days and well re-open his garage for the repair and storage of cars soon after his arrival.

George Trogner has a number of handmade library tables for sale. They make fine Christmas gifts. Mr. Trogner has been making a few of these tables every year for Christmas gifts and his supply is limited.

(My parents inherited the family library table, which had been made in the late 1800s. The black walnut table had an ink well and a wide slide-out drawer that held writing materials. An occasional polishing with a soft cloth and furniture oil revealed the beauty of the black walnut table. It was the only classic piece of furniture in our household. DZ)

H.S. Bicknell of Janesville, Wis., was a business caller at F. Hatton’s the first of the week. He intends to start extensive operations on his land near the cheese factory. He wants to cut one hundred cord of wood and logs, enough to build a set of buildings with the clearing forty or fifty acres. He has engaged F. Hatton to superintend the job. Mr. Bicknell says he is well pleased with the Janesville Settlement and the people here, they have done well during the time they have been here. He feels he has made no mistake when he gave the land that the cheese factory now stands.

Mr. Bicknell is a leading hardware dealer in Janesville, Wis., and owns quite a lot of land here that he wishes to improve.

The Globe Cheese Company held their annual meeting Dec. 4, for the purpose of electing officers. Other business was also transacted. The officers elected were F. Hatton, Pres.; B. Henchen, Vice Pres.; Erich Schoenherr, Sec.; Otto Steinberg, Treasurer; S.B. Flagg, Salesman. The cheese factory shows a good report for the year and all the shareholders and patrons are well pleased.

(That “Janesville Settlement” was started by early settlers who came to Clark County from Janesville. The settlement was centrally located around the CTH O and the 26th Road intersection. DZ)

The flu is raging with undiminished violence, and the present brand of weather does not offer any assistance in checking the epidemic.

Reports from all over the state indicate a very heavy death toll and neighborhood papers are filled with death notices due to the flu.

Neillsville is particularly fortunate in the small death rate due to the flu, and while there have been deaths here in the vicinity, the death rate seems to be unusually small compared to that of other communities.

Too much credit cannot be given to the doctors here for their heroic work. The five doctors of the city are working day and night to make the rounds of patients, and if ever a class of men deserve credit for unselfish and untiring work, the doctors of this city do.

For a short time, the brunt of the work fell upon the shoulders of Doctors Bradbury and Matheson, owing to the illness of Doctors Frank, Monk and Bachmann, as a result, the two doctors were working almost twenty-four hours a day. The work of all five of our doctors is worthy of the greatest praise and the few cases they have lost, speaks highly of their medical ability.

More than $8,000 worth of dried milk and dried eggs, contributed by farmers of Clark and Jackson County to the Badger Milk train this summer, has now reached their destination.

A release from CROP (Christian Rural Overseas Program) states that the food products from the Badger Milk train went to German, Poland, Italy, Japan, and Czechoslovakia. Clark County farmers contributed food products or money valued at a total of $3,184.32; Jackson County, $4,947.20. The state’s total was $179,600.42.

Two out of the 18 carloads making up the milk train were sent out of Neillsville on July 8. One was a car of dried eggs; one a car of dried milk, according the CROP report. Both were bound for Bremer, Germany. They were part of the cargo loaded aboard the S.S. Flying Enterprise, which set sail from New York on September 24.

Swan Song of the past Deer Hunting Season – Do you want something for nuthin? Available is a bright and shiny, latest model 1948 deer tag, never unpacked. We do not know what you can do with it, unless you hang it on your Christmas tree. It did not do us any good.

The transfer of ownership of the W.R.C. Hall in Neillsville into the hands of the Wilson-Heinz Post, No. 2241, Veterans of Foreign Wars, headed a list of property transfers in Clark County.

Title of the W.R.C. Hall was passed on to the F.V.W. post through its officers, Mrs. Maude Bollom, president, Marie White, secretary, and Sadie Strand, treasurer, upon majority of vote of membership.

The V.F.W. paid $2,500 cash for the property, located on South Court Street, between Fourth and Fifth streets, and the veterans organization also assumed for expenses incurred in repairs recently made on the building. The purchase also included all the furniture and furnishings that were in the building. The transfer was completed November 18.

The whole family will enjoy the cheerful notes of one of these birds. All of the young canaries are guaranteed to be singers.

(Many households had singing canaries before the invention of radios. A canary could provide music in the home if it didn’t have any musical instruments. DZ)

Oluf Olson Sr. has resigned as janitor of the Clark County Courthouse, a position he has held for the last 34 years.

His resignation was accepted Satruday by the county public property committee and is effective January 1, 1949. However, Mr. Olson has assured the committee he will remain on the job until a suitable successor has been secured and trained.

In the point of service Mr. Olson probably is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, courthouse janitor in the state. I has been heard that there is one older janitor, who is 81. Olson is 78.

“It will be a good deal like leaving home.” Mr. Olson commented following his resignation. And the courthouse in reality has been a second home for him in the last 34 years. He has kept the fires going and the walks cleaned, mowed, and raked the lawn, carried its mail, plus a good many other chores, for almost one-half of his life. He has started the days early and quit late.

Judge Schoengarth and Ben Frantz, the county judge, and the clerk of circuit court, are the only ones remaining who were there to greet Mr. Olson when he came down from Abbotsford in 1914 to take over the janitor’s job. At that time, Mr. Frantz was in the county judge’s office.

(During Olson’s years as courthouse janitor, he was the only one on the janitorial staff doing the cleaning of the building inside and out, plus the yard work, sidewalk maintenance and stacking the supply of firewood in the basement that fueled the wood-burning furnace that he tended. DZ)

Dr. Sarah Rosekrans left Neillsville Monday for Terre Haute, Ind., and is scheduled to sing at Christmas programs in both cities, after which she will join forces with Miss Sally Butler, who will return to Neillsville with her for the Christmas holidays. The two will arrive here early next week. Miss Laura Lee Rosekrans, who is attending school in Connecticut, will arrive here by train Friday to begin her Christmas holidays.

Paul Light, a Twin Cities newspaper columnist, tells a story about Priscilla Mike and her deer hunting experience, which escaped local notice.

He wrote: “Fourteen-year-old Priscilla Mike was probably the youngest hunter in the Wisconsin wood during the deer season. She’s a Winnebago Indian and is a popular student at Neillsville High School.

“Adult hunters of her tribe broke tradition by permitting Priscilla to go along on an expedition to shoot deer.

Three swamps in the Clark County area will help to bring a merry Christmas into 1,400 homes this year.

These swamps furnished 1,400 Christmas trees, which were sold commercially this year. These were in addition to several hundred other trees taken out locally from other portions of the county forest; but these are the ones that County Forester A.C. Covell knows and has a record of.

The trees were taken to Eau Claire, Chippewa Falls, Racine, Milwaukee and Chicago, there to be resold into homes to become decorated, lighted Christmas trees.

It is the largest number of trees taken from the county forest area commercially since the start of World War II, according to the county forester.

However, the schedule of prices set up by the state is in excess of the severance value. Trees up to five feet we sold for 25 cents per tree; so, the state will receive 10 cents; six to seven feet, 35 cents: and over seven feet, $1.

With heavy snow lacking hereabouts, the skating rink on O’Neill Creek pond, near Hewett Street, has been more popular than ever this winter. The city, with Mike O’Leary in charge has been keeping the pond in good shape this season, and the warming house has been kept comfortable for skaters. The result has been that the children, in larger numbers than heretofore have found recreation on the O’Neill Creek skating pond.

A peat fire smog last Saturday night caused the temporary closing of highways 73 and 95 south of Neillsville and remains a cold weather threat to travel safely in the area four to five miles south of Neillsville.

Traffic Officer Harry Frantz reported that the highways were blocked from Neillsville to Pittsville, last Saturday night because of a dense smog, which blanketed stretches of these highways during the cold weather of Christmas Eve.

The smog caused by a fire, which has been burning in about four acres of peat swamp on the old Henry Dahnert farm, four miles south of Neillsville, now occupied by Arlo Lawson. The fire has been burning for the last three or four weeks.

It was not until sub-zero temperatures of last weekend that the smog from this fire created a serious hazard to motor traffic.

This circa 1930 photo of Neillsville’s Hewett Street, looking north from the 4th street intersection and taken during the Christmas season, shows the decorating of that era. Seven or eight strings of white lights were hung over the street in each block. The Rotary Club members cut evergreen trees out of the Clark County Forest swamps. Then with help of the Boy Scouts, club members placed a tree in front of each store along Hewett Street. It was up to the store owners to decorate the trees. The stores were open for business every day an evening, except on Sunday.

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