Histories: Trempealeau Co. Historical Accounts:
"History of Trempealeau County Wisconsin, 1917":
Chapter 10:
The County in 1871
-As transcribed from pages 159 - 162
At
the close of school in March, 1871, I knew little of Trempealeau County
personally, outside of Trempealeau Village, Galesville and the
Prairie. The county was generally spoken of as the Tamarack, the
Openings, Caledonia, Black River, Decorah Prairie, Hardy Creek, Beaver
Creek, French Creek, Lake Cooley, Over the Pass, Holcomb Cooley, Over
the Ridge, Square Bluff, American Valley, Travis Valley, Chimney Rock,
Elk Creek, Bruce Valley, and the Beef River Valley. The county
was localized in these terms, but the territory was not definite, as
each overlapped the others nearby. The postoffices, as I recall
them, were Trempealeau, Galesville, Ettrick, Arcadia, Pigeon Falls,
Chimney Rock, Osseo, and Hamlin. The natural objects in the
county were Trempealeau Mountain, Trempealeau Lake, Trempealeau Bluffs,
Decorah Peak, Whistler Pass, Barn Bluff, Square Bluff and Chimney
Rock. They no doubt will remain a monument to the Almighty power
to whom all nature responds.
I had then been no farther north than the one trip to Arcadia Christmas
Eve, but I knew of Caledonia as the home of Donald and Alex McGilvray,
Joshua Rhodes, Charles Holmes, D. D. Chappell, Pussy Williams, John
Bohrnstedt, Christian Schmidt, Thomas Hayter, John Arntz, William
Suttie, Frank Bender, Ira Ramsden, John Hess, R. C. Towner, John
Towner, Gilbert Gibbs, Al Gibbs, William Post, Moses Ladd, Charles
Pickering, J. C. Polyblank, C. C. Bigelow and Mr. Beardsley.
Over the Pass - Dodge, not then organized, as the home of Mat Brom, R.
Baumgartner, Charles Keith, Jake Schaffner, Joe Pellowski, Paul
Rudneck, J. L. Sanderson, Joseph Utter, Frank Rushka, John Wier, Andrew
Losinski, John Wicke, Peter Pellowski and Charles Cleveland.
Ettrick as the home of Iver Pederson, C. G. Beach, Robert Cance, Con Lynch, Maurice Casey and James McCarthy.
Burnside as the home of George H. Markham, A. A. Markham, Giles Cripps,
Martin W. Borst, Lee Hutchins, William Russell, D. C. Cilley, John
Haakenson and James Reid.
Arcadia as the home of Dr. I. A. Briggs, N. D. Comstock, Collins
Bishop, Gay T. Storm, D. C. Dewey, John D. Lewis, H. B. Merchant,
Douglas Arnold, Jerry O'Brien, James Gaveney, David Massuere, Daniel
Bigham, John Bigham, Thomas Simpson, Carl Ernst, George Webb, Isaac
Newcomb, D. L. Holcomb, Frank Zeller, Carl Zeller, Phillip and Henry
Hartman, William Bohman, Christian and John Haines, J. W. Ducker, Henry
Pierce, J. B. Gorton, Joseph Kellogg, Louis and Simon Wojczik, Andrew
Pietrick, Ole O. Peterson, Joseph Stahoski, William Robertson, George
Dewey, Henry Dewey, Sidney Conant, Alexander Bautch, Ole A. Hegg, John
Wool, Nic, Casper and Peter Meyers, Emory M. Stanford, Thomas Busby,
Jonathan Busby, Ira Penny, John Truman, Herman Tracy, Dr. G. N.
Hidershide, Dan English, A. F. Hensel, Frank Pellowski, John Tuschner,
P. H. Varney, Charles Mercer, J. H. Gleason, P. Tucker, Peter Case and
William Arnold.
Lincoln as the home of Thomas Lake, David Wade, Henry Stratton, Henry
Freeman, F. W. Ingalls, Moses B. Ingalls, David Wood, Alvah Wood, G. M.
Follette and Mr. Irving.
Preston as the home of Henry Lake, James McKivergin, Gullick Olsen and Henry Carpenter.
hale as the home of M. J. Warner, David Maloney, Robert Warner, Silas Parker, D. S. Watson and Charles Wagoner.
Pigeon as the home of Peter Ekern, J. D. Olds, George Olds and H. A. Fremstad.
Albion as the home of D. J. Odell, M. B. Gibson, R. P. Goddard, Ed. Borwell, Henry Teeple, A. D. Wingad and Mr. Englesby.
Sumner and Beef River Valley as the home of R. C. Field, J. L.
Linderman, Ed. Matchette, Charles Shores, V. A. Gates, William Henry,
Otto Langerfield, W. F. Carter, Alex. and John Tracy, W. H. Thomas, P.
B. Williams, D. J. Lyon, Ben Webster, James Rice, Dennis Lawler, D. L.
Remington, Thomas Cox, V. W. Campbell, James King, Hezekia Hyslop,
Scott Hotchkiss, Elias Gay, F. Fuller, John Lovesey, William Lindsay,
James McIntyre, Henry Gilbert, John Carter, William Boyd, Zeb, John and
Cosle Jones, James W. Grant and William Tomlinson and Robert Bowers.
There are other names which deserve mention and a place on this list
that do not come to my memory after forty-one years of active busy life
of responsibilities and cares. I trust no person or family will
feel disappointed or slighted in the omission of names from these
lists. There has been no wish or purpose to leave any name off
these lists; and if names are not correctly spelled such errors were
unintentional and unavoidable. To prepare such lists after a long
span of years is not an easy task.
A the time of which I write, Whistler Pass, a fall or dent in the bluff
above the farm of James Field, over which the highway was built from
the Prairie and the Tamarack Valley into the Trempealeau Valley, now in
the town of Dodge, was a term of frequent mention, and much of the
travel from the western part of the territory over the ridge was on
that highway. The Pass attracted my attention through curiosity,
no doubt, and led me to make an early visit to it. From Martin's
Corners the Pass was plainly seen to the north. Whistler Pass
remains, but has lost much of its frequent mention, and of its early
notoriety.
Many Winnebago Indians were then camped and lived much of the year
along the river above Trempealeau Village, and one village near
Trempealeau Lake was said to number 800 or more people, a portion of
whom were of mixed blood. Several "half-breed" families lived in
Trempealeau Village, the men generally being strong, fine-looking
fellows, the most distinguished among them being Antoine Grignon, and
some of his descendants, with those of the Bibault family, have been
and are residents of the county, and on the whole have been good
citizens. Thede Booher was styled "The Big Indian," a name
generally applied to him about the county to the time of his decease.
Trempealeau Village, in the fall of 1870, was a thriving, busy place,
its streets and market-places full of teams, and its business places
full to overflowing with country people, farmers who came to market
produce and purchase farm and home supplies. They came from
Decorah Prairie and beyond Black River; from the head of Beaver Creek
Valley nearly to Black River Falls; from the head of the Trempealeau
Valley nearly to Merrilan; from Pigeon Creek northeast into Jackson
County; from the Elk Creek valleys and over the ridge in Beef River
Valley; they came from Chimney Rock Valley, and the Traverse Valley
away out in the Mondovi country. Many came to the Trempealeau
market 30, 40 50 and 60 miles. Before this I had not seen so busy
a mart, emporium, entrepot, or place of traffic as was the beautiful
village of Trempealeau nestling at the foot of Trempealeau Bluffs, and
fronting on the Mississippi River, with its teeming activity of soil
products and human freight carried by the then wonderful Mississippi
River steamers, with skow bottom, and of ponderous width.
The most frequently mentioned as wealthy people in the county, as I
recall, were Ben Healy, John Rhodes, W. A. Johnston, Isaac Clark,
Wilson Davis, George H. Markham, and R. C. Field. The most
popular politicians in the county, that is, the most likely to be
elected when candidates for office, were N. D. Comstock, A. A. Arnold
and A. W. Newman. The most noted horsemen were Moses King and Lee
Hutchins. The wittiest lawyer was Frank Utter. Among the
jolliest men were Ralph Martin, Pussy Williams, Marvin Babbit, Sr.,
Thomas Sutcliff, Jimmy Field and Henry Teeple. The most popular
man with the women was Gay T. Storm. The most frequently
mentioned clergymen were James Squier and D. O. Van Slyke. The
most powerful men were Jack McCarthy, Aaron Kribs and John
Bugbee. The only brewer was Jacob Melchoir; the leading miller
was Wilson Davis, and the best known butcher was Bill Blume. The
noted Indians were old Chief Black Hawk and "Big Indian," Thede
Booher. The most skillful blacksmith was J. B. Ingalls, while the
greatest threshers were Jim Merwin and Ike Wright. The leading
saloonkeeper was Pete Eichman, and the most dead-sure rifle shot was
Bob Nibs. The great mule-driver was Philo Beard, the best known
stage-driver was Jerry Webber. It is my impression the most noted
singers were the Grignon sisters. Others, no doubt, deserve
mention, but memory fails me.
Some of the pioneer women of Trempealeau County had been delicately
reared, most of them had known the comforts of life, all had left
associations which were dear to them. The sundering of these ties
was not easy, nor was it a condition to be sought. It is but
natural that they were strongly attached to their old homes, friends
and comforts. Ties of kindred and friendship were to be broken;
comfortable homes left behind; friends of a lifetime to be parted with,
when with their husbands they set their faces westward for a new life
and new homes, they knew not where. All beyond the city of
Buffalo was then the West, Detroit was in the West, and Chicago and
Milwaukee were in the far West. In many instances they knew it
must be among strangers, and that privations, and even extreme dangers,
were to be met and mastered - at least endured. These pioneer
women shared in all the toils of weary journeys, in sunshine and in
storm, ever westward. They did not grumble of the coarse fare and
humble, oftentimes rude, accommodations of wagon and roadside; the
canal-boat and the open stage, the log tavern, and at times the
open-air bivouac. These women were always the brave members of
the family or the party. Often late in autumn, or in the early
spring, not infrequently in the cold storms, the discouraging sleet and
mist and the complaining chilly winds, they went bravely on to the very
outposts of civilization, over long, lonely and far-reaching prairies,
the gloomy forests, dismal roads, often mere trails beset with stumps,
quagmire, and where no sight of civilization or human habitation was to
be seen, except the wigwam and hut of the then dangerous savage.
They traveled largely through a country without settlers or any
evidence of civilization, at times even making roads upon which to
travel.
Can we picture the trials that came to their brave hearts, in hours of
bitterness and loneliness, thus removed from the homes and kindred they
had left behind - remembrances which must have risen up before them
often and often, and how extremely bitter must have been those
recollections, and yet, through their tears which must have silently
flowed, they stood brave sentinels to their little ones who clung to
them for comforting words and care. A word picture fails to give
the full facts. Such feelings were natural and nurtured in their
hears; yet they bore these and other burdens as bravely as did the
renowned "mothers of ancient Sparta." Who will, I ask, who can
pay these pioneer women of the West, and of Trempealeau County, the
full measure of praise they so richly deserve?
The many sports and pleasures for the pioneer man, such as hunting the
deer, the wolf, the wild fowls and other game; the sport of fishing,
and the pleasure of roaming at will, all suitable to the rougher nature
and coarser tastes of men were denied to these women, who with their
children were shut up in log cabins or rude huts, often without floors,
doors or windows, - often filled with smoke and into which the chill of
winter whistled, and the stars at night looked down upon those faithful
women and mothers and their sleeping children; often with no furniture
except the rudest kind, and without kitchen utensils save kettle and
frying-pan, and almost totally destitute of crockery, - seldom even
with tinware, they made their dearest condition of life, the home,
possible and a positive fact. For weeks, for months and even for
years in a continued struggle without modern-day conveniences and
helps, they struggled and they won; and these pioneer women helped make
Trempealeau County what it is today.
(By Stephen Richmond.)