The Grand Army of the Republic

Monday, July 28, 2014

GAR Grave Marker

Anyone who has walked among the graves in an old cemetery may have come across the brass star medallion of the GAR—the Grand Army of the Republic—on a soldier’s final resting place.  The Grand Army of the Republic represented a brotherhood that was formed in battle that remained a fraternal brotherhood after the Civil War.  The organization left a lasting effect still felt today.

   

When Union soldiers, like Michael McDonald, came home to Ahnapee, they didn’t forget the camaraderie shared with their fellow soldiers during the hardships of the war.  After they mustered out, they often banded together.  In the spring of 1866, Michael captained the first regularly organized militia company perfected in Kewaunee County.  Comprised of veterans of the Civil War, it numbered about 60 men.  Their uniforms consisted of bright red flannel shirts with black trousers and the company, according to one story, "made quite a natty appearance … upon the streets for drill."  Veterans, who were bonded like brothers by their Civil War experiences held reunions for many years after the war.  They also banded together to join local GAR posts.

1885 Soldiers' Re-Union of Kewaunee, Door,
Manitowoc, and Brown County Union Civil War Veterans
Michael McDonald is in center front with cane
(from the Record-Herald newspaper )

The Grand Army of the Republic organization was founded in Decatur, Illinois on April 6, 1866, a year after the close of the war.  Wisconsin posts were among the first to be formed.  Honorably discharged Union veterans of the Army, Navy, Marine Corp, or the Revenue Cutter Service who served between April 12, 1861 and April 9, 1865 were eligible for membership.

The GAR was formed at three levels:  National, Department (state), and Post (local).  The organization’s objectives were “fraternity, charity, and loyalty”.  The brotherhood of comrades fulfilled the goal of fraternity.  They held annual Encampments which were multi-day events including formal dinners and memorial activities.  Events involved camping out, singing war songs, and telling soldiers’ stories.  Perhaps these events also provided psychological benefits with soldiers helping each other heal after the war.  Charity came in the form of founding soldiers’ homes including the Wisconsin Veterans Home at King, doing relief work, and driving veterans’ pension legislation.  Ultimately, a strong Republican political block was formed in the GAR.  It carried significant voting clout.

GAR Membership Badge

The posts used rituals and induction ceremonies that were similar to those of the Freemasonry (Masons) including the secret white and black ball voting system.  In the case of the GAR, more than one black ball was required to deny membership—for a prospective member to be “blackballed”.  The same rituals were later adopted by the successor organization, the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, which was formed in 1881 for which there were hereditary qualifications for membership.  Others interested in joining the SUVCW, who were not related to a Union Civil War veteran, could apply to become an Associate Member.

The GAR was a men’s organization but, in 1897, it did admit one woman.  Sarah Emma Edmonds had served in the 2^nd Michigan Infantry from May 1861 until April 1863 disguised as a man named Franklin Thompson.  Edmonds was only a GAR member for a brief time however as she died the same year.

Posts were named for deceased persons and existed throughout Wisconsin and the U.S.  The John M. Reed Post #155 was formed in Kewaunee.  In Ahnapee, J. Anderegg Post #242 was named after Joseph Anderegg, an early settler, a carpenter, and the first clerk of Wolf.  Anderegg was a well-respected local businessman.  In Manitowoc, the H. M. Walker Post #18 was formed; in Sturgeon Bay there was another, the H. S. Schulyer Post #226.

Yours Very Truly, George W. Wing
Grand Army of the Republic

 At the height of its popularity, by 1890, nearly 500,000 Union Civil War veterans were members of the GAR.  The final Encampment was held in Indianapolis in 1949.  The GAR dissolved when the last member, Albert Woolson, died in 1956 at age 109 but successor groups including the Sons of Union Veterans, Auxiliary to the Sons, Woman’s Relief Corps, Daughters of Union Veterans, and Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic carry on the traditions of the GAR.  More information about these organizations is available online at suvcw.org.

    

Among the lasting acts of the GAR was General Order #11.  It called for a Decoration Day—a day of remembrance to be held each May 30.  It was the origin of Memorial Day. 

Centennial Independence Day Celebrations

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Ahnapee was festooned with bunting and flags and appeared ready for a grand celebration.  But, the local newspaper proclaimed July 4, 1876 would be more of a “sizzle and fizzle” than a “kaBOOM”.  The celebration of the nation’s 100 year anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, it seemed, was met with apathy by Ahnapee’s  town folk.

While Philadelphia held a stupendous Independence Day celebration as part of the first World’s Fair in the U. S. at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition, plans in Ahnapee were far more sedate.  “We could have had a respectable celebration if our citizens had been willing to have expended a little money,” the local newspaper declared.  But Ahnapee residents weren’t alone in their concern about spending to put on an Independence Day celebration, there were many people in Philadelphia who were alarmed about the expense of the Centennial Exposition, too.

The significance of the 100^th anniversary was not entirely overlooked in Ahnapee.  Boedecker, Stransky and Co. promised to do their part to contribute to the BOOM.  They procured a cannon from Sheboygan for the festivities.

The night before, Ahnapee’s string band had played at a ball at Weilep’s (now the Stebbins Hotel).

For the July 4^th  celebration, Wenzel Wenniger hired the Ahnapee Brass Band to play at a picnic at his Willhelmshoeh (Wilhelmshöhe) on Wenniger Heights, the hill on the north side of the Ahnapee River.  Wenniger’s new shooting gallery and bowling alley had just opened.  He offered shooting for prizes in the afternoon with a Grand Ball to wind up the evening.  The event was largely attended.

It was observed that quite a number of strangers came to town from the country on Independence Day and that many people listened to Father Rhode and D.W. McLeod, Esq. speak at the Centennial Party near the school house.

The First Baptist Church held a Centennial Dinner which was proclaimed a success.

It turned out to be a fairly typical 4^th of July celebration in Ahnapee.  It was common at the time in Kewaunee County for Independence Day celebrations to include a reading of the Declaration of Independence in English and German.  Presentations and orations were made by local dignitaries.  Often a picnic and baseball games were part of the day’s schedule of events.  A celebratory flag raising was usually a part of the festivities.  Dancing and music at a ball were a given.

A report from Philadelphia described the amazing event that transpired there on Independence Day 1876.  At the Fairmount Park grounds, the main exhibition building enclosed 21.5 acres making it the largest building in the world.  In all, more than 200 buildings had been erected on the Philadelphia event grounds to house the displays and operations of the event.

On display was the right arm and torch of Bartholdi’s statue of “Liberty”.  For 50 cents one could climb a ladder on the colossal hand and torch to the balcony.  Proceeds went to pay for the pedestal for the statue.

Also on display were Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone, Remington’s Typographic Machine (typewriter), and Heinz Ketchup as well as curiosities such as a full-sized Liberty Bell made of soap.  There were hot-air balloon ascensions and fireworks.

 

Over the course of the entire anniversary event that year, 10 million people including President Ulysses S. Grant and his wife visited the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition.  That figure was equivalent to 20% of the U.S. population at the time.

In Ahnapee, the 4^th of July might have “passed quietly” in the opinion of the local newspaper but the town celebrated the 100^th year after the signing of the Declaration of Independence in a grand, not over-the-top, fashion.

Jane McDonald, Proprietor of the Union House

Monday, June 16, 2014

     Jane Nelson McDonald Lovell Redden was a modern day woman living in a primitive place.  She was a pioneer businesswoman who understood the value of advertising and that when it came to real estate it was all about “location, location, location.”    

     Right off the lake, near the river was a prime spot for a hotel in Wolf River.  Where the Northeastern Mutual Insurance Company office building sits today on the west side of First Street, just south of Steele Street in Algoma, was once the location of the Union House.  According to M. T. Parker in his “Historical Sketch of the Town of Ahnapee” (1873), the hotel was originally called the Lovell House.  It was the first building on First Street and among the first few framed buildings erected in Wolf River.  It was also the first hotel to feature a sign.  It became a principal hotel in the young town.  

     Jane, the proprietor, was born in October, 1810 in Ireland.  She immigrated to America in 1829.  Her eight children were born in New York, except for the youngest daughter.  The widow of Patrick McDonald, she came with her family first to Racine, Wisconsin and then with her second husband, John Lovell, to Wolf River in 1856.  There they purchased the building and she ran the hotel--a boarding house and tavern. 

     There was a great need for boarding in the newly developing area.  Settlers were relocating to Wolf River to establish homesteads.  Many came from southern Wisconsin cities and counties on the lake.  Land that had cost just a dollar an acre around 1851 was selling for five times that much by 1860.  Harvesting the timber created jobs that brought woodsmen to the area. 

     It was said that Jane ran a strict boarding house.  She was a devout member of the Church of England and was described as a woman of “vigorous mind and personality, with a strong Scotch-Irish brogue.”  

     Jane needed to run a tight ship.  When sailors came off the lake to work in the woods and boarded at the Union House, she kept control of any ruffians who were too fond of the grog.  George Wing said that if they wanted to know who the boss was, all they had to do was to “start something.”  Jane McDonald would put them in their place. 

     Eventually the hotel building was used as her residence only.  At one point around 1873, Jane planned to put up a new sign and reopen the business.    

The arrow points to the Union House.
Graphic courtesy of Algoma Library from the Cox/Nell House Histories Collection.

     Jane must have been a spunky lady all her life.  She was divorced from John Lovell and remarried in 1880 at age 70 to Patrick Redden, age 37, a stonemason.  The local newspaper mentioned that “Although the report that they were married was not credited at first, it is nevertheless true.”

     She attempted to sell the building in 1883 but there were no takers.  Then, fire broke out in the upper story of the building in June, 1884.  The fire department had the blaze under control in 15 minutes.  The building was gutted by fire and water, but not a total loss.  Jane continued to occupy it after the fire. 

     By 1916, when the building was razed, it was unoccupied, an eye sore, and a fire trap.  But it had served the pioneer businesswoman, its matron, well as her home and business for 45 years until her death at age 90 in the summer of 1901.

Did Jean Nicollet Land at Kewaunee?

Monday, June 9, 2014

   According to a founder of the Kewaunee County Historical Society, it is debatable whether Jean Nicollet de Belleborne, (Jean Nicolet) landed at Red Banks while searching for a western sea to China. 

   George W. Wing was skeptical of the claim that Nicollet reached Red Banks, near Green Bay, on a voyage to meet the People of the Sea.  Wing was not alone in questioning the accuracy of various aspects of the legend of Nicollet’s voyage.

   Nicollet was born in France around 1598.  A Roman Catholic and friend of Samuel de Champlain (the founder of New France at Quebec), Nicollet immigrated to Canada in 1618 to work as an Indian agent and clerk.  He lived among Algonquin people to learn their language and set up fur trading for a French company.  Jean Nicollet became proficient as an interpreter and mediator.

   Nicollet was chosen by Champlain to lead an expedition.  Exactly where Nicollet traveled is unknown as no personal account exists.  Only through a series of reports called Jesuit Relations, filed by missionaries, was anything known of Nicollet’s exploration.  Six years after the voyage, in 1642, the same year that Nicollet drowned on the St. Lawrence River, a Jesuit priest named Father Vimont wrote a brief description of Nicollet’s travels.

   Various assumptions were made about the purpose of Nicollet’s expedition:  to locate a fabled Northwest Passage to China; to secure land for New France or; to establish missions.  The real purpose, as written by Vimont, was to meet with the People of the Sea to negotiate a peace agreement with the Huron Indians believing that friendly relations would help further the fur trade.

   It is generally accepted and corroborated by research conducted by a Canadian named Benjamin Sulte from church registers and other documents that the voyage occurred in 1634 making Nicollet the first European to explore what would become Wisconsin.

   Upon arriving at his destination, Nicollet wore robes of bright damask and carried thunder in his hands--two pistols--which frightened and amazed the Indians and commanded their respect.

   More than 200 years later, around 1852, the secretary of the Wisconsin Historical Society identified the Winnebago Indians to be the People of the Sea.  This formed the basis for claiming that Nicolet landed in the Red Banks area.  Wing contended that this identification was inaccurate.  Wing wrote, “Nowhere in Vimont’s story or in any other story has Nicollet stated that the people he came among were Masoutin (Masouten or Winnabago).”  Wing stated that the people Nicollet was in search of were those who lived on the shores of the Great Lake (Lake Michigan), the Pottawottamie (Potawatomi), not the Winnebago.  The Winnebago lived in the interior of Wisconsin or in very small numbers at Red Banks.

   Potentially, languages may have confused the issue of identification.  The word Poutouatami (Potawatomi) was sometimes abbreviated to the word Poux and confused with the word Puant, meaning Winnebago.  Wing believed that where Nicollet landed and whom he encountered could have been confused by misinterpreting the language.

   Wing reasoned that knowledge of Indian canoe travel supported his theory about where Nicollet landed.  From the Ottawa River, Nicollet canoed to Michilimackinac at the northern end of Lake Michigan and traveled with his Huron Indian guides south along the western shore of Lake Michigan.  Wing wrote, in “frail craft, made of birch bark, light and difficult of navigation on disturbed waters…they never ventured in open water at much more than a stone’s throw from the shore,…”  That means moving from island to island and then to the mainland of the Door Peninsula, the longest distance between shores would not have exceeded six miles.  If they had crossed to the west shores of Green Bay it “would have meant a voyage of thirty miles in almost open water--an unthinkable proposition to an Indian canoeman."

   Then, Wing explained, traveling two days journey on the shore of Lake Michigan, about sixty miles from their landing place, they came to the center of the Pottawottamie village, “Ke-wau-nee-yak”—Kewaunee—where Nicollet encountered natives in great numbers.

   Future French explorers continued a relationship with the Pottawottamie.  When Frenchman Pierre Radisson came after Nicollet, it was by invitation of the Pottawottami and just 24 years after Nicollet’s voyage.  This, Wing contended, demonstrates that the Pottawottami were travelers to Huron country. 

   Radisson wrote that while meeting with the Pottawottami, they went together to visit the Winnebago and that Winnebago Indians had never seen men with beards or guns before.  Wing reasoned that if Nicollet had encountered 4,000-5,000 of the Winnebago tribe just 24 years before and had feasted with them and had appeared to them in a bright China robe with thunder in his hands and traveled among them, it most likely would have been known to these Winnebago Indians.

   Wing further asserted that Frenchmen Father Jean Claude Allouez who followed Nicollet in 1669 and Father Jacques Marquette in 1673 both fostered relationships with the Pottawottami.  Allouez and Marquette were followed by La Salle and Hennepin in 1679 who found the Pottawottami on the entire western lakeshore.

   Publius V. Lawson, a historian and first mayor of Menasha, who studied Nicollet’s voyage thoroughly and wrote prolifically on history of the Fox River Valley, stated that it was the Pottawottami that were first seen in 1634 by Nicollet and that the tribe became masters of the fur trade traffic on the shores of Lake Michigan.

   Essentially, Wing’s argument was that neither Green Bay nor Red Banks was ever a center of Pottawottamie habitation but the lakeshore was their settlement in great numbers and had been for six hundred years.  So, he deduced, it was likely that Nicollet landed on the shore of Lake Michigan, not at Red Banks in Green Bay.

   Wing conceded that Nicollet may have voyaged some distance up the Fox River at some point afterwards.  A part of the story says Nicollet may have traveled up the Fox River to a beaver feast on Doty Island at the outlet of Lake Winnebago.  But, Vimont's brief description doesn't say if Nicolet explored any further up the Fox River.    

   George W. Wing reasoned that being able to talk in the Algonquin language, Nicollet could have learned from the Pottawottami, an Algonquin tribe, about territory south on the Fox River.  It was not likely Nicollet could have learned from the Winnebago who spoke a Siouxian dialect few white men ever mastered.

   Vimont wrote, “After the peace was concluded…(Nicollet) returned to the Hurons.”  Because Nicollet did no further exploration on that voyage and no written documentation remains, perhaps we can never know if George W. Wing was correct and the Jean Nicollet statue should rightfully stand at Kewaunee.

The Squire

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

They called him “Squire” Elliott.

 

As “Squire” is a title given not only to men of noble birth or knights but to one who is a justice of the peace or other local dignitary, the moniker fits.

Honorable George W. Elliott was an early pioneer of Wisconsin and Ahnapee.  A native of New York, he came to Green Bay in 1839.

 

Early in life, he was a civil engineer.  He surveyed public roads, including the route from his home in Martinsburg, New York to Albany, and forest lands.

    

In Wisconsin, he surveyed timberland owned by lumbermen like Philetus Sawyer (U.S. Senator from Wisconsin).  James D. Doty (Territorial Governor of Wisconsin) enlisted G. W. Elliott to survey the grounds where the Wisconsin State Capital now stands and other land Doty owned in what is now Kewaunee County.

It was on a surveying trip to Wolf River that George W. Elliott became enamored with the area.  He decided to relocate to Wolf River, later Ahnapee, now Algoma.

George W. Elliott served his adopted community well.  He was elected the first county surveyor.  He represented the county in the Wisconsin State Legislature--the war legislature of 1861. 

He was a justice of the peace for 57 years.  In his day, this magistrate dispensed justice for ordinary transactions of life.  He did not need a law degree or to pass a bar exam.  George W. Elliott was not an attorney.

He didn’t need to be an attorney because he had a tome like Joshua Waterman’s book (revised, corrected, and improved by Thomas W. Waterman, counsellor at law, 1853), “Wisconsin and Iowa Justice, Being a Treatise on theCivil and Criminal Jurisdiction of Justices of the Peace, Written Expressly forthe States of Wisconsin and Iowa, Containing Directions and Practical Forms for Every Case Which Can Arrive Before a Justice”.

 

Such a book thoroughly outlined the roles and duties of his justice of the peace position.  But, Squire Elliott possessed the ability to process facts, to arrive at an impartial conclusion, and to communicate well orally and in writing.  These were the skills that made him a fine magistrate.

      

George W. Elliott was elected to the position.  He took an oath of office.  In addition to promising to hand over any fees he collected from fines levied, he promised he would “faithfully and impartially, without fear, favor, fraud, or oppression, discharge all other duties now or hereafter required of his office by law.”

 

As justice of the peace he would hear cases involving misdemeanors and petty crimes, trespass for injuries to persons or property, and perform civil marriage ceremonies.  One published historical account of Wolf River and Ahnapee states that Squire Elliott “married nearly all who mated here in the early days and presided over most of the early litigations while his tireless energies were put forth to running lines for the new settlers”.

     

It was performing marriages that clearly gave Justice of the Peace Elliott the most satisfaction.  He said that he believed he had officiated at more than one thousand weddings.

Like today, in the second half of the 19^th century in Wisconsin, there were a few rules to be considered for a couple wishing to be married:  consanguinity (relation by blood), affinity (relation by marriage), incapacity (idiocy or lunacy), and consent (free will to enter into the marriage contract).

 

One could not be nearer blood kin than first cousins.  (Today, usually first cousins can marry if both are sterilized or the woman is age 55 or older.)  Regarding other relationships, while it was lawful for a man to marry his deceased wife’s sister, it was considered improper and immoral.

Secondly, parties could not have a former wife or husband living unless the former marriage was dissolved.  However, a marriage bond would be considered dissolved if one of the parties was sentenced to life imprisonment in jail, prison, or a house of corrections.

    

Prior to the ceremony, the justice of the peace would ask at least one of the parties, under oath, a version of the following questions:  1) Are you related or connected by blood or marriage with whom you propose to join in wedlock? 2)  Have you ever been married?  3)  Is there any legal impediment to the union?  4)  Any good reason you two should not be joined together in lawful wedlock?  5)  Do you give your free, willing, and unconstrained assent to this proposed marriage contract?

 

In those days, every groom was required to be 18 years of age or older, every bride at least 15 years old to be capable of contracting marriage, if they were otherwise competent.  Parental permission was required for men under age 21 and women under 18.  (Today, parental consent is required for a bride or groom who is at least age 16 or 17.)  Some states allowed marriage with parental consent for females younger than 15 years of age. 

  

If the justice of the peace found everything to be on the up and up, there was no particular form to the ceremony except that the parties solemnly declared, in the presence of the magistrate and at least two attending witnesses besides the justice of the peace, that they take each other as husband and wife.

 

Considering his personality, one could easily envision George W. Elliott performing the marriage ceremony.  He had an old fashioned, elegant “courtly” greeting and was a familiar character in Ahnapee.  He was known as a genial, kind gentleman with a good sense of humor.  He was old school.

The title justice of the peace, too, is old.  The term dates back to 1361 and the time of England’s King Edward III.  The title magistrate is from the 16^th century, and more recently in English government was sometimes termed squirearchy.

Squire George W. Elliott was not born to wealth or privilege, but he was privileged to serve others as justice of the peace for over a half century of his life.

  

Lady Ellen

Monday, May 19, 2014

Her bones lie forgotten today, but in her heyday Lady Ellen was known in nearly every port town north of Chicago.

Others like her went by the name of Iris, Laura, and Hattie, but only Lady Ellen called Ahnapee home.

Lady Ellen hailed from Ahnapee.  She ran with the likes of one-armed John McDonald and William Henry.   Together they were adventurous and traveled to places called Bloodsucker Bay and Death’s Door.

She was often seen in Manitowoc, Two Rivers, Jacksonport, Sheboygan, Kewaunee, Racine, Milwaukee, Menominee, and Chicago.  She got around.

People said Lady Ellen was fast.  She was.  She could run in excess of 15 miles per hour.

She was easy to live with, not high maintenance.  She was also light and wore a sleek bow.

Some called her dumpy, but practical.  It’s true; she was shallow, stable.  She had a large flat-bottom and was broad.  Although she didn’t waddle, she moved as gracefully as a duck.  She fit easily in small places.

She could carry a great load with no complaint.  She didn’t mind hard work.  Lady Ellen hauled anything—flour, plaster, furniture, coal, siding, doors, or tiles.  She carried shingles for Hall and Co., barrels of fish or apples, wheat, salt, hay, potatoes or iron, drugs for the pharmacy or store fixtures.  She carried all kinds of wood—bark, cord wood, hardwood, cedar posts, hemlock lumber, and piles.  She delivered a boiler for the Ahnapee Veneer & Seating Co., beer casks, cheese boxes for Paul Gablowsky and Co., and lots of stone.  And, Christmas trees.

If the weather was rough, she preferred to stay home.  She avoided being caught in a squall but when she was, Lady Ellen usually made it home unharmed.  Her men kept her safe and she reciprocated.

But, Sheboygan proved a dangerous place for Lady Ellen.  She was cut by ice one winter.  Another time she got in a tussle with Wannette, was hit on her right side, and was down for 11 days until she recovered.

In Sturgeon Bay, she was struck at the pier and had to limp home.  Another time she was hit by lightning in Ahnapee.

Each December, Lady Ellen came home to Ahnapee to rest until the next April when she got dressed up and went back to work.

Lady Ellen was all business.  However, she would not work for low pay.  In 1894, business was slow and she had more down time than desired.

Yet, she had to keep up appearances.  As she grew older, she grew bigger.  Occasionally, she went in for a makeover.  Her rear was extended and she got a lift.

With age, her upkeep had to be done more liberally.  By 1897, she didn’t look like herself anymore.  Finally, she broke down and, by 1900, drifted into obscurity.

Resting place of Lady Ellen in Ahnapee River

   
The scow schooner Lady Ellen lays buried in the river at Algoma.  Her final resting place is the north side of the Ahnapee River, west of the 2^nd St. bridge.   When the river is low, you can still see remnants of her hull from the shore.  
 

Lady Ellen in the ice at Ahnapee

Loyalty: Two Sides to Every Story

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

There are always two (or more) sides to every story.

Recently I wrote two articles of opposing perspectives about WWI.  One was written for my The County Times newspaper column and is based on the war experience and life of a WWI American soldier from Algoma named Quiren Groessl.

I wrote the other story by request for the Kewaunee County Historical Society Historical Notes newsletter as an alternative viewpoint to an article the publisher had written about anti-German sentiment in Kewaunee County during WWI.

Although it is not directly related to this story, for the purposes of my family history blog, I want to note that my family had soldiers on both sides of the war.  My great grandfather, Georg Scheitzach, served in the German military from 1902 in a train battalion through 1918 as a non-commissioned officer, a captain in a squadron in the German army reserves.  My great uncle Cyril Tracy was an American soldier, a private from a small town in northern Wisconsin.

Here are two perspectives.

Remember When

Corporal Quiren “Squeegee” M. Groessl earned the nickname “Big Boy” on the WWI battlefield in France when he took on three German soldiers at once and lived to tell about it.  Groessl returned home to Algoma a war hero, but more importantly--after time and reflection--found himself to be a much wiser man than when he entered the service.     

Quiren Groessl

Groessl of the Fighting Fifth of Door County and Algoma, 28^th Infantry came home disabled by a German soldier’s bayonet.  After he was captured by three Germans who were marching him to their line, he made up his mind that he might just as well be dead as spend the rest of the war studying German. 

At an opportune moment, as shells from the American line screamed overhead, Groessl pretended to fall and, with a trench knife he had hidden in his pants, struck the man on his left in the neck.  He grabbed that soldier’s weapon and hit the man on the right in the face with the butt of the rifle.  The man behind him stuck him with a bayonet, cutting Groessl across his back, then made a guttural noise and fell over backward, dead. 

Groessl crawled across no man’s land to reach his own company.  A French doctor operated and stitched him up and Corporal Groessl was sent to a hospital in France to recover from severe nerve damage, paralysis, and loss of the use of his right arm.  Later, he was shipped to an American hospital.

Back in the U.S., no one came to visit soldiers recovering in the hospital; they were virtually ignored.  When released, Groessl was taken to rallies to speak to encourage people to buy war bonds.  He found himself telling lies to parents of soldiers who asked if he knew their sons.  Although he knew none of the soldiers, he said, “Yes, they were well when I last saw them.”    

   

Quiren Groessl stepped off the train upon his return to Algoma to the sound of a band, school children, his family, the mayor of Algoma, and people waving and shouting.   

Newspapers claimed that “Big Boy” Groessl was eager to get back into the fight.  Before he had even recovered, they wrote that Soldier Groessl was ready to take another crack at “Fritz”.

Just settled at home, he was again sought to get people to buy war bonds.  The Liberty Loan Committee from Kewaunee encouraged him to speak at a meeting to a capacity crowd.  He was also asked to visit an influential German farmer to convince the farmer to buy bonds so others would follow suit. 

The committee members with him soon got to the point with the farmer and began using threats, telling the farmer he would be run out of the county and that his home and barn would be burned to the ground.  Groessl was ashamed that he had gone with them and disgusted by the extortion and blackmail.  It was the last visit or speech he made.   

For the rest of his long life, Groessl had time to reflect on his war experience and how it impacted him and the community he lived in. 

Quiren Groessl’s diary describes how America’s entry into the war changed everything in Kewaunee County.  At first anti-German sentiment was not too noticeable, “but gradually like a cancer it grew insidiously from a whisper here, and a subtle remark there.  A name spoken of derisively…  Before much longer many more people of German ancestry were automatically suspect… And as time went on, the few grew in numbers.”

Groessl learned that in times of war there were those who considered themselves 100% American--the super-patriots who became suspicious of everyone else.  They could do no wrong but believed that everyone else could. 

To the super-patriots, it didn’t matter that Groessl’s German father had lived a decent life and raised a good family in the U.S. or that Groessl had voluntarily enlisted in the U.S. Army.  He, an American, had been summoned to the courthouse to be questioned about his citizenship and loyalty to his country. 

The press stirred sentiment with statements like “The German machine-made soldier is inferior to the young, virile, resourceful American.”  The papers helped create a pro-American, anti-German mentality.

Groessl wrote in his pre-war diary that the Algoma community was “made up of all nationalities, blending together, inter-marrying and working and playing together to make a better life for all.”  What could turn a man who was the son of a German immigrant father and German relatives and friends into one ready to take on the Germans?  Propaganda. 

“Squeegee” realized that he and his fellow soldiers were like babes in the woods.  “We came over to France to fight a war that we knew nothing about.” 

He and his buddies saw their friends shot and blown away.  They grew hardened.  He wrote, “I honestly didn’t know that any human being could see and experience these things and come away from a war in his right mind.”  They lived in constant fear of death and weren’t sure how much more they could take. 

Their eyes were opened.  They had been exposed to bands playing, flags flying, and precision marching at home.  Brightly colored posters showing victorious armies were part of the propaganda to appeal to American youth.  He wrote that it had been aimed at the younger generation who, because of their youth, inexperience, and gullibility, had not been made mistrustful of the half-truths being fed to them.  “Wars were started by old men and fought by young men,” he concluded.

He had been conditioned to do what men had done before him--to fight a war and perhaps be maimed or die for those who would not try to settle arguments or problems by open discussion but instead by secret treaties. 

Quiren M. Groessl married, became a prominent local citizen, and raised a family.  He adjusted to life with pain and spent many hours in a radio room making more than 20,000 amateur radio contacts and friends in other parts of the world.    He died in August, 1983 at age 87.    


And another perspective...

Loyalty Efforts in Kewaunee County During World War I

As a follow-up to Jerry Abitz’ article, “Anti-German Sentiment in World War I” in the April, 2014 issue of Historical Notes (Vol XXVI, No. 2), this column presents an alternative perspective. 

Stories of savage inhumanities committed by the Huns and threats by Germany to sink American merchant ships filled American newspapers.  Then, a German U-boat sunk the RMS Lusitania killing 1128 people; 128 American lives were lost. 

Meanwhile, a large number of native born and German-born people sympathized with and were extending financial aid to Germany.  Pro-Germans in Kewaunee County had, very enthusiastically, shown sympathy for Germany up until the time the U.S. declared war.  The declaration of war did not cool their ardor for the Kaiser.  They were sullen and outspoken.  Their leaders--mainly among the Lutheran priesthood--were perpetuating support for Germany. 

Pro-German people were so outspoken in the summer of 1917 that some loyal men realized something must be done to curb them.  The Wisconsin Loyalty Legion was organized in Milwaukee.  A local group, the Abraham Lincoln Chapter No. 5, was started in Kewaunee.

Soon, the chapter had over 100 members and arranged a meeting at the Bohemian Opera House.  The building was packed and pro-Germanism received its first setback.  More chapters were organized.  Influential local people like judges and attorneys went into the county to speak at meetings.  This effort built enthusiasm and the Loyalty Legion rose to over 3,000 members.   

Super-patriots were proud they were able to keep disloyal people in line and to reduce pro-German fervor.  They were doing their part to fight the war from the home front.  They were able to get a German banker sent to Fort Oglethorpe for making seditious utterances and to oust another man who did not serve robustly enough on the County Council of Defense.  They proudly created a secret system to keep many disloyal men and women in line.   

Supporters of Germany were costing the U. S. war effort.  The county had not filled its quota for the first Liberty Loan--bonds sold to finance the war.  So, a speakers bureau created publicity and held public meetings.  As a result of their efforts, the 2^nd Liberty Loan bond sale was 200% over goal.    

Patriotic editors needed to spur the spirit of loyalty so the Kewaunee County Press, from its first publication in June, 1918 until the close of the war, featured editorials loyal to the government and anti-German.  

     

Patriotism and loyalty to the United States were critical to building the confidence of soldiers, their families, and the community.  Young men could not be sent to war confused about their loyalty.  Almost weekly, drafted men, including sons of German mothers and fathers, were leaving for the camps.  Court house corridors were crowded with anxious young men and their families, many of them trying to evade the draft or get service deferments.  To assure the safety of the public and troops, those potentially sympathetic to Germany needed to be called in to be questioned about their loyalties.      

It was important that everyone get on board to support the U.S. war effort.  Young men were encouraged to not only serve when called, but to volunteer, young women to write “Dear Soldier” letters and to do Red Cross work.  Everyone was asked to conserve food.  Splintered loyalism did not demonstrate shared sacrifice toward a common cause.          

  

It was everyone’s duty to wholeheartedly support America’s war effort.  “Pro-Germanism” could not be allowed to fester.    

Article Notes:

Food conservation restrictions during WWI per George W. Wing:   One pound of sugar could be purchased per week.  Flour could only be sold if an equal amount of substitutes like cornmeal or oat flour were purchased.  Conservation required three meatless days a week and two wheatless days. 

There were four issues of Liberty Loan bonds during WWI.  The fifth and last was called a Victory Liberty Loan.  (source:  Google.com) 

Article Sources:

Groessl, Quiren M., “Big Boy” A Diary of World War I, American soldier from Algoma, voluntarily enlisted, was the son of a German born father.  Groessl wrote that he and others were called into the Court House to be questioned about their loyalty.  He also referred to local people who were hyper patriotic as “super-patriots”.  Groessl was recruited to speak at war bond rallies after he returned home a war hero having been severely injured when captured by German soldiers in France.    

 

Wing, George W., Memoirs of George W. Wing, “The World’s War”, pgs. 41-48, Personal accounts of his life and family.  A patriotic local attorney and judge, Wing shared his sentiments about the need to quell pro-Germanism in Kewaunee County during WWI and activities he participated in toward that goal.  

Pvt. Cyril J. Tracy (seated center)

        

Evergreen Cemetery Wausaukee, WI

Our Lady of Good Help

Thursday, May 1, 2014

Bernadette saw the lady.  So did Adele.

A year after a beautiful lady in a white dress appeared to 14 year-old Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes, France, a lady--clothed in white with a yellow sash--appeared to Adele Brise in October, 1859, in the woods of Robinsonville, Wisconsin.  

  

The lady appeared to Adele three times.  The first vision came to her when she was walking to church one Sunday.  In a blinding light, the apparition appeared between a maple and a hemlock tree.  Adele was paralyzed with fear. 

She told her mother what she saw.  Her mother thought that perhaps a departed relative was asking for prayers. 

The next Sunday, fearful, Adele was accompanied by her sister and a friend.  Adele, deathly pale, screamed and fell to her knees in fright when the lady appeared to her again in the same place.  The companions saw nothing of the apparition.

Adele went to confession to the missionary of the Order of the Fathers of the Holy Cross and told him about the apparition.  He told her to ask the lady, “In the name of God, who are you and what do you wish of me?”

Once again with companions, Adele was in the woods when the lady appeared to her the third time.  Adele dropped to her knees and slowly asked the question.  Again, only Adele saw the apparition who told her, “I am the Queen of Heaven.”  The lady admonished Adele.  She told Adele to teach the children and pray for those who were falling away from religion, whose children had no knowledge of the mysteries of the faith.

 

Adele’s family had come to America from Belgium.  It is believed that Adele aspired to become a nun even before they lived in Wisconsin.  After her experience with the visions of the lady, Adele went from home to home and village to village to teach children the faith and sing hymns with them.  She taught children simple prayers and catechism in preparation for their First Communion.

Shrine at the Apparition Site

A neighbor donated land at the spot of the visions.  Adele’s father, Joseph Brise, built a 10’ X 12’ log chapel at the apparition site.  There was a second chapel built at the same location and the third is the chapel that stands at the site today. 

Chapel 

As was the case after Bernadette’s experience, originally, clergy declared Adele’s accounts of the Marian apparitions to be myths.  Adele was refused church sacraments; excommunication was threatened. 

Bernadette became a nun and ultimately a saint.  Adele became a lay preacher and a teacher.  Adele founded a secular third order community called the Sisters of Good Help and ran a school. 

School

The prominent miracle at the chapel happened on October 8, 1871 during the Peshtigo fire.  On the same day, the more widely known Chicago fire destroyed four square miles and killed 250 people.  That night, the fire at Peshtigo caused over 1,500 deaths—the most deaths by fire in U.S. history.  It raged with a fire so intense it was described as having the power of a hydrogen bomb.  It spread throughout part of Upper Michigan and northeast Wisconsin including southern Door and northern Brown and Kewaunee counties in an area the size of the state of Delaware.  Fire burned Robinsonville, the location of Adele’s chapel, and obliterated the town of Brussels.   

Eyewitness survivors said that Adele and neighbors who had fled to the chapel for protection that night carried the statue of Mary in procession around the grounds and prayed the rosary on their knees.  Houses and fences in the neighborhood burned with the exception of the school, chapel, and fence surrounding the six acres of land.  All inside the fence had been spared.

A path of about eight to 10 feet around the enclosure “now shone out like an emerald island amid a sea of ashes,” according to Fr. Peter Pernin, the missionary priest who wrote about the Peshtigo fire and the chapel at Robinsonville in his memoir, The Finger of God was There. 

Since then, others have professed miracles at the site and have left their wheelchairs, canes, leg braces, and crutches at the chapel as proof they have been cured.   

  

Grave of Adele Brise

Sister Marie Adele Joseph Brisse died July 5, 1896 at age 66 and is buried on the chapel property.  On December 8, 2010, the site where she experienced the Marian apparitions received official church recognition.  Bishop David Ricken of the Catholic Church declared the apparitions as worthy of belief making the site the only one in the United States to receive church approval.    

On August 15 each year, the bishop holds a mass at the chapel.  It attracts a very large attendance, many coming from across the country to participate and join in a procession on the grounds.     

A Walk to Mary event will be held on Saturday, May 3 with a 21 mile pilgrimage from St. Norbert Abbey in De Pere to the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help in Robinsonville (now Champion, WI). 

Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt has invited Pope Francis to hold mass at Lambeau Field and to take a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help in the fall of 2015.  Pope Francis has not confirmed a visit—yet.    Perhaps Divine Intervention is needed to make a papal visit to Green Bay happen but people are also encouraged to show their support for the mayor’s plan on his website at www.popetogreenbay.com . 

Photos are of the small shrine on the property.

Reminiscences of a Pioneer Woman

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

In 1836, her parents loaded their household belongings and their little family consisting of Mother, Father, baby brother David, and herself into a covered emigrant wagon and set out on the long overland journey to the far distant wilds of Wisconsin.  Thus begins the story of Kewaunee County settler Mary Elliott Wing in her memoir, “Reminiscences of a Pioneer Woman”.    

Mary’s parents, George and Juliana Elliott, were inspired to move their family from Lewis County in New York to the “Green Bay region”—as the area was then known--in large part because of George’s sister Pamelia’s glowing letters.  Mary’s Aunt Pamelia had come to the territory earlier with the James D. Doty family and Pamelia lived with Mr. and Mrs. Doty.  The Dotys were friends and neighbors of the Elliotts in New York state.  Also, as a land surveyor, Mary’s father’s skill was in demand in the newly opening territory of Wisconsin.  
    
Mary was very young when the family set off--just three years old--but she vividly remembered that it was “peach time”.  She could distinctly recall the sight and smell of the large, ripe peaches hanging on the trees in places along the journey.  Their overland travel with a number of families in the caravan—all neighbors in New York--took them through Canada. 

Their journey was not completed that year.  When they arrived in Clinton, Michigan, Mary’s mother fell ill and they could not go on.  The illness was prolonged and winter came.  Father George got a job at a store.  One thing led to another and travel was delayed for three years.  The family resumed their journey in 1839, coming to Green Bay by steamer on the lakes. 

It was at Mackinaw that they first saw Indians in the territory.  The family lived in Green Bay for about a year.  Mary recalled the place as a collection of small houses near the river.  They lived in one and her Uncle Lewis Crofoot and his family lived nearby.  Fort Howard was occupied by soldiers as a military post and the banks of the river were lined with Indian wigwams.

George W. Elliott

Mary attended school for the first time in Green Bay and her sister Frances (who later became Mrs. De Wayne Stebbins) was born in Green Bay in October, 1840.

The next spring the family moved up the Fox River to Cokelo*, now Kaukauna.  The trip was made on pole boats navigated by Indians.  There her father and Uncle Lewis Crofoot operated a small sawmill on the island in the river. 

They lived in Cokelo according to Mary during one summer and then moved on to the southern end of Lake Winnebago.  Again the Indians transported the family in their boats up the river and lake to their new home in Taycheedah. 

At that time, even though there were only a few houses in the village when they arrived, Taycheedah was an important place in Wisconsin.  James D. Doty, who was a judge, land speculator, and active in politics, had established a dairy farm in Taycheedah.  Doty had also purchased land in what would become the city of Madison hoping that Madison would become the capital, replacing Belmont, which was the temporary capital.  Mary’s father had assisted in surveying the land in Madison that Doty intended for the capital. 

James D. Doty

President John Tyler made James D. Doty Wisconsin Territory’s governor in 1841.  Duties took Governor Doty from his dairy farm so Mary’s father purchased the governor’s farm.  The Dotys were frequent visitors at the Elliott home—often coming from Madison to stay for weeks at a time. 

The settlers of Taycheedah were cultured in the rugged wilderness according to Mary.  She wrote, “In all the north-west, at that time, there was no social coterie to be compared to this one.  Their children were taught French, music and art, by private tutors.  They frequently gave hunting and other parties on an extensive scale.  …in every way (they) added a charm and wholesomeness to society that had never been known in a new country…”    Governor Nathaniel P. Tallmadge, who succeeded Doty as territorial governor, was their neighbor to the south.  A mile to the north lived Judge Stow, the first chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. 

Mary’s family lived on the Doty farm for three or four years.  Then her father built a hewed-timber house northeast of the village and the family moved there.  During their time in Taycheedah, the Elliotts experienced numerous encounters with Indians as the agency for territorial Indian affairs was located about 60 miles to the southwest (Portage, Wisconsin).  Mary wrote that her mother was absolutely terrified of Indians. 

At Taycheedah, the Elliott family grew with the addition of brothers Charles, Park, and Irving, and baby sister Ella who was born in 1849.  Then, Mary’s mother died in 1850.  Her father, who had built a sawmill, lost it in a fire.  He decided to relocate the family to the village of Gravesville in Calumet County. 

Mary Elliott Wing

In Gravesville, Mary’s father built another sawmill.  As the eldest daughter, Mary kept her widowed father’s home.  It was in Gravesville that Mary met and married her husband, Rufus Wing, in 1855.  Mary and Rufus lived with her family until she and Rufus bought a 30 acre tract of land in Chilton and built a home.

In the fall of 1855, after Mary’s marriage, her father made a trip to Wolf River in Kewaunee County to do some surveying for James Doty.  Mary’s father liked the country so he purchased some property there and returned to Gravesville for the winter. 

In the spring, he set out again for Wolf River.  Both of these trips were made on foot because there were no roads into the area then and the only means of transportation were by lake or foot trails.  Her father walked the beach from Two Rivers, forded the river at Kewaunee, and stopped for the night at a frontier hotel run by an old man named Blackwell.    

By September, 1858, Mary’s father had built a new house in Wolf River.  He urged Mary and Rufus to move their little family, which now included baby boy George W. Wing, to Wolf River.  They were convinced.  That same fall they traveled with their household goods overland to Manitowoc and took the old steamer “Ogontz” to Wolf River.

That’s how Mary’s family came to live in Kewaunee County.  Her remembrances of pioneer life in early Wisconsin paint a vivid picture of the experiences of the first settlers of the territory.      

*  The Kaukauna website says the name was Okaukalin, Okaukanna, or Caucaulin pronounced "Cock-o-lin".  Cokelo is the name Mary used for Kaukauna in her memoir.

Photo of James D. Doty from Wiki.