Be on the Lookout!

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Be on the lookout.  Two important pieces of Kewaunee County’s commemoration of the past have gone missing.

Two Heritage signs have disappeared.  The signs are historical markers that were erected by the Kewaunee County Historical Society (KCHS) to educate us about and to honor the county’s past.

Creating the signs was a project of the Historical Society’s Heritage Sign Committee headed by board member Donna Urban.  Over 30 signs were posted throughout the county about people and places of the county’s days gone by.  The signs highlight a variety of topics ranging from factories to a fire, Father Marquette to ferry service, farms to a financial institution.  The Heritage signs were produced locally and each sign includes an historical photo and explanation of the significance of the location in Kewaunee County history. 

Canning Factories Heritage Sign

The signs look like this example which is located on the east side (the lake side) of Knutson Hall on Lake Street in Algoma.  It marks the former location of canning factories.  The sign explains that canneries were located in Kewaunee and Algoma that processed local farm crops and provided jobs.  Built at the end of the 19^th century, the canneries fell into decline after World War I due to competition from Green Bay plants.

Now two of these signs are missing.  The first one, about brickyards, was posted near the Algoma Chamber of Commerce building on the lakefront (State Road 42).  It explains that most of Algoma’s buildings before the great fire of 1871 were made of wood.  After the fire, local brickyards produced materials to build safer buildings.   

Location where the Railroads sign belongs

The other missing sign marked railroads of Kewaunee County.  In 2001, it was placed on Cedar Corners Road (County Road M) at the intersection with the Ahnapee Trail, north of Algoma.  This sign commemorates the importance of the railroad which tied the county with Sturgeon Bay, Green Bay and points beyond.  It explains that, no longer used by the railroad, the old rail right-of-ways were repurposed as hiking and biking trails. 

The missing railroad sign reads: “As people moved inland, away from navigable waterways, railroads provided the vital transportation link for freight and passengers before the arrival of motor vehicles.  Rail service reached Kewaunee County when the Kewaunee, Green Bay and Western Railroad was completed to Kewaunee in the fall of 1891.  The inauguration of carferry service across Lake Michigan the following year completed the east-west railroad link across the Upper Midwest. 

Edward Decker, a prominent county businessman who had extensive holdings in the Casco area, advanced most of the money needed to connect Ahnapee (Algoma) to Green Bay by way of Casco Junction.  Work on the Ahnapee and Western was completed in the fall of 1892.  Two years later, rail service was extended to Sturgeon Bay by way of Forestville and Maplewood. 

The railroad stimulated the lumber industry, which had moved inland to the Casco area.  With readily available transportation, business was flourishing.  Later cash crops—hay, peas, apples and cherries—were transported to market. 

By the 1920s, rail transportation was starting to be affected by competition from the trucking industry.  The Depression further cut into profits.  Freight shipments were declining, mail contracts were lost and passenger service was coming to an end. 

The segment from Algoma to Sturgeon Bay was abandoned in the late 1960s.  Various attempts, such as a passenger excursion train between Algoma and Casco Junction, were made to help the railroad survive, but eventually rail service was virtually abandoned in the county. 

Today, while trains no longer travel this railroad right-of-way, this century-old route now serves as a year-round recreational trail.” 

A website, Wisconsin Historical Markers, provides photos of most of the Kewaunee County historical signs as well as place descriptions and some latitude and longitude coordinates to help searchers, including geocachers, locate the KCHS Heritage markers.

To help publicize the markers and encourage driving tours to view the signs and locations throughout the county, the KCHS Research Center also offers a brochure with a map and detailed information.  

Kewaunee County Historical Society member Judy Srnka said the two signs went missing about a year ago.  Having checked with the city of Algoma, the KCHS is still unable to locate the signs.  Anyone with information about the location of a missing sign is asked to contact the Kewaunee County Historical Society at (92O) 388-0369 or stop at the Research Center at 217 Ellis Street in Kewaunee. 

It would be nice to get these records of the past back where they belong.

The Kewaunee Fire and the Wing Law Library

Friday, February 13, 2015

One night, long ago, thirty buildings burned to the ground in downtown Kewaunee. 

The fire started on May 19, 1898 in Ignatz Gunter’s hotel barn behind the Wing law office. 

Kewaunee County Historical Society Heritage sign

An area bounded by Kilbourn, Harrison, Milwaukee and Main Streets was heavily damaged.  Aided by a strong northeast wind, two blocks of businesses were turned to ash in a matter of minutes.  Destroyed in the fire were: the Ganter Hotel; the law office; Charles Metzner Clothing; a barber shop; Klemish Saloon; Gotstein Millinery; and the Putman and Dillon Meat Market. 

All was not a total loss; some buildings did survive including: Bach, Kieweg and Poser Store; Commercial Hotel; Bitzan Saloon; Mashak’s Hardware Store and the Bank of Kewaunee.

Attorney George W. Wing was particularly devastated by the loss.  He had been in law practice previously with his father, Rufus L. Wing, in Kewaunee and was, in 1898, in partnership with Charles Wattawa since 1894.  Wing’s stone block, which was built in 1892 at a cost of $5,000, was entirely destroyed.  With it went his library and his most valuable papers.  He had especially valued the law library because it had been his father’s.  Among its contents were many books from the library of his grandmother Wing’s relative, General B. J. “Jeff” Sweet of Camp Douglas fame.  Nearly 700 volumes were destroyed. Also burned in the fire was his certificate to practice law.

Attorney George W. Wing

 

According to G.W. Wing’s personal diary, after the fire, undaunted, he immediately moved into Grimmer’s block nearby and the next day ordered a new library.

Although Wing was disturbed by the loss, not everyone considered the fire to have been a terrible thing.  A newspaper article soon after said “Kewaunee business men are beginning to realize that the recent fire which destroyed a considerable section of the business part of that city may in the long run prove to be one of the best things that has ever happened for the place.”

Shortly after the fire, nearly $60,000 in cash was paid out by insurance companies.  It was noted that while a few of the lost buildings were good looking, substantial structures, most of them were old wooden buildings “worth just enough to prevent their owners from tearing them down.”  In some cases, the real estate, along with the insurance proceeds, was worth more than the entire property before the fire. 

It turned out that these statements were prophetic.  Within a few decades, the old was replaced with new brick and stone buildings and business was booming in the City of Kewaunee. 

In fact, at least until the Great Depression of the 1930s negated much of Kewaunee’s business boom following the fire of 1898, the blaze was actually a “blessing in disguise.” 

The Strange, Sad Story of Dr. John Oliver Taylor

Monday, January 5, 2015

After tea one Saturday evening in mid-August 1872, Lizzie Taylor sat reading when her husband, Dr. John Oliver Taylor, rose from his chair, picked up a small vial, tipped it to his lips and ended his life. 

Before he expired, he took off his coat and boots and, laying down on the bed, said to his wife:  “Lizzie, if you want to find any statement you’ll find it in the—in the—“  He died before he finished the sentence.  

Lizzie had noticed that John had placed something to his mouth but paid no attention to him doing so.  She believed it was a bottle of liquor that she knew he had stashed in the room. 

He had seemed much more cheerful on the day that he finally succumbed to depression.  There was nothing in his speech or behavior to raise suspicion of his intention to kill himself with an ounce of deadly hydrogen cyanide poison at the age of 33.  He left a letter he had written weeks earlier for his wife.  There was no inquest into his death.  

John Oliver Taylor was an Englishman, born in 1838.  Before taking his own life that summer evening in Kewaunee, the city likely knew little of the factual background of the man.  

   

According to an article in the Kewaunee newspaper a few days after his death, it was believed that Dr. Taylor was a graduate of King's College in London and that he received his medical degree in Edinburgh.  However, John Oliver Taylor did not qualify as a doctor in Edinburgh nor did he attend King's College in London.  Perhaps he believed no one would or could check his credentials at that time. 

Taylor actually began his medical training in Ceylon and Calcutta at the age of 19 in 1857.  Based on an article in the Medical Times and Gazette Medical News, John Oliver Taylor passed his examination in the Science and Practice of Medicine and received a Certificate to Practice as a general practitioner, not a surgeon, in June 1862 in Ceylon. 

Dr. Taylor married Elizabeth “Lizzie” Marks a year later, in June 1863 at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Calcutta. 

It is unlikely that people in Kewaunee knew that Dr. Taylor had been sentenced to six years penal servitude in India for forgery.   An October 1863 Indian newsletter called Allen’s Indian Mail published an article about the curious case of the Englishman Taylor who had “mixed in the best society of Calcutta.” 

Dr. John Oliver Taylor had learned of an account at the Bank of Bengal that belonged to a mariner pilot also named John Taylor.  Dr. Taylor boldly went to the bank, told them he was formerly a pilot and now a doctor, and wrote checks on the other man’s bank account.  Naturally the crime was discovered and Dr. Taylor was arrested.  He was tried in the High Court of Calcutta and found guilty.  Dr. Taylor was condemned to six years of penal servitude which, for a European in India, was nearly equal to capital punishment.      

William H. Upham
Photo from Wikipedia

Dr. Taylor, it was said, served for a number of years with the British Army in India.  If so, he did not serve his full jail sentence--maybe none of his sentence--because he and his family arrived in Boston on August 15, 1867.  He became a surgeon for the U.S. Army.  

While serving in the U. S. Army for two years, he met Lt. William H. Upham who was later the 18^th governor of Wisconsin.  Through the efforts of Lt. Upham, in the fall of 1869, Dr. Taylor and his family came to live in Kewaunee where Taylor’s knowledge of his profession was generally accepted.  

Unfortunately, Dr. Taylor became addicted to opium and liquor.  He resolved to rid himself of the habits but to no avail.  The addiction and depression led to his self-inflicted demise.    

Dr. Taylor was buried in the Kewaunee Public Cemetery which is likely Riverview Cemetery.  His wife and four small children were left to mourn his untimely death.

Sir Edward Thornton
from Vanity Fair Magazine

His family was returned to England at the expense of the British government through the efforts of British Minister to the United States Sir Edward Thornton. 

What became of Dr. Taylor’s widow and children?  After returning to England, the family lived in Lewisham, Kent according to the England census of 1881.  His widow, Elizabeth, became a “School Mistress.”  She remarried in 1882 to her cousin, Francis MacDonald Swallow, who was also a doctor.  Elizabeth died in 1922 in Buckinghamshire, England according to family records.       

Both of Dr. Taylor’s daughters—Evelyn and Ida Lizzie—died in England, unmarried.    

Taylor’s first son, Charles, had witnessed Dr. Taylor’s suicide at three or four years of age.  What became of Charles is unknown; he could not be traced after the 1881 England census.    

Taylor’s second son was named Donald.  Donald’s first wife died in childbirth in 1904 in England.  Donald disappeared, leaving a three year-old son and five year-old daughter.  Records indicate that Donald remarried in 1905 but did not return for his children and was never seen by the family again.

Dr. Taylor’s real life story is one that qualifies as stranger than fiction.

Anyone with more information about Dr. Taylor or his family is asked to contact Shirley VerBruggen at sverbruggen@new.rr.com.  John Oliver Taylor’s descendants are very interested to learn more about him.