Not Teaching by the Test

Sunday, September 14, 2014

In 1873, if you were interested in becoming a rural school teacher, you need only show up on the appointed date and time with a sharp pencil to take a test to qualify. 

The earliest schools were usually arrangements whereby several families hired a teacher to educate their children.  When the kids in other nearby families started attending, the next year it might become a public school. 

Before 1907, there was no provision to train teachers for the rural schools of Door or Kewaunee County.  Citizens recognized that prosperity would come with good public institutions of learning.  And, because half of all Kewaunee County teachers came directly out of Algoma and Kewaunee High Schools with no additional preparation to teach, the community was prompted to act by a serious shortage of teachers.  A teacher training program was sorely needed and the Door County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution to establish a school. 

Algoma, being the most centrally located city of Door and Kewaunee counties was chosen as the location for the new County Training School.  The fact that Algoma also had railroad service, which was the only dependable means of transportation at the time, was also a contributing factor in the decision.

 Class of 1908-1909

The teacher training school opened on August 31, 1908 with 52 students admitted; nine were turned away.  It was held in the second floor of the west and south wings of the oldest part of Algoma High School.  Tuition was free to residents of Door and Kewaunee counties.

Once upon a time people believed that educating rural children in “the three Rs”--reading, writing, and arithmetic--should prepare students for a single purpose, namely, to make farming their life’s work.  To fulfill this objective, the county training school was expected to prepare high school graduates to become efficient teachers in rural elementary schools.

Work in the first year of training was “academic” focusing on reading, writing, arithmetic, language, and spelling.  Professional skills were acquired by those who attended the training school for a second year.  Subjects in the second year included instruction on the theory of teaching and school management.  Student teachers received ten weeks of practice teaching at the public schools.  Second year academic subjects included topics such as Geography; Algebra; American History; Grammar and Composition; and Literature.  Additionally, the rural teacher needed to understand rural life so the curriculum included study in Agriculture.        

A couple years after the school opened, Door and Kewaunee Counties purchased a lot on the corner of Fremont and Fourth Street as a new site.  An existing building on the lot was previously a Baptist Church and then a hotel.  It was remodeled for the 1912-1913 school year.

The County Training School became the County Rural Normal School in 1923 and then the County Normal School from 1927 to 1954.  (In 1938, the classroom building was destroyed by fire and a new Door Kewaunee Normal School was built in 1940.)  The term “Normal” referred to a school that was usually state supported that offered a professional course for the training of teachers.

School Dormitory

Before 1925, women students who required room and board were housed in a building next to the training school.  In 1924, plans were drawn for a new $30,000 school dormitory for women students for occupancy beginning in the fall of 1925.  With rooms that could be decorated to suit the students’ tastes, the building also had a dining room and lounge.  It was described as “Not ostentatious, but charming…” with a beautiful, natural setting on Fremont Street.  Mrs. Lillian (Arle) McDonald was named the first house matron of the Door Kewaunee Normal School.  Her role was one of friend and mentor to the women students, administrator, and perhaps disciplinarian, as needed.

As time went on, it was recognized that the art of teaching required more preparation than the Normal School offered in a one or two year program.  The state reduced support for normal schools and, as of 1961, graduates of county colleges were required to obtain four year degrees within seven years after graduating from a two year course. 

Ultimately, the Wisconsin Legislature determined that no certificate or license to teach in any public school could be issued unless the applicant possessed a bachelor’s degree with professional training as required by the state superintendent. 

Beginning in 1955 and through 1972, the training school was called the County Teachers College.  When the 1971-1973 Wisconsin Budget Bill eliminated all state support for county colleges, the school closed.  In May 1972, the school property and textbooks were liquidated and teachers in training were steered to attend four year schools which would qualify them to get city school teaching jobs. 

Today, public school teaching in Wisconsin requires a minimum of a bachelor’s degree, appropriate certification in the subject matter, and continuing education to recertify to keep a teaching license.  Many educators acquire a master’s or doctorate degree to keep their skills at a level that provides them the knowledge and ability to not only teach the curriculum but to:  effectively manage classrooms in an environment of constantly changing technology, differentiate instruction to meet the various learning style preferences of students, support children with a wide range of cognitive and emotional special needs, prepare students for an endless variety of eventual careers paths, and coach sports or facilitate a myriad of extracurricular school activities. 

We should truly appreciate our children’s teachers.  They do so much more than show up to take a test--or, to teach to one.   

 Photos from "Algoma Record-Herald" and "Monograph of Door Kewaunee County Teachers College" available at Kewaunee County Historical Society Research Center.

A Mother's Labor Day

Saturday, September 6, 2014

“Labor Day” takes on a whole different meaning when talking about the day a mother gives birth.  Over time, a medical approach to labor and delivery has developed which has dramatically changed the natural process of pregnancy and childbirth.    

  

In the pioneer days of Kewaunee County, women attended to the birth needs of expectant mothers.  Although medical schools proliferated in the east coast states after the War of 1812, there were few doctors in early Ahnepee and it was considered indecent by some for men to attend to women.  Childbirth was often faced with fear of death for both mother and child.

With the arrival of trained doctors, there was a shift among the urban middle class from using midwives to using doctors to attend to delivery.  However, that was not the norm for the rural poor of Kewaunee County. 

While midwives had been perfecting their craft and observing sanitation for hundreds of years, physicians unwittingly sometimes perpetuated deadly childbed fever.  Lack of hand washing between medical procedures was a leading cause of maternal death before Louis Pasteur identified the Germ Theory of Disease which called to light that bacteria and lack of sanitation were the main cause of puerperal fever.

       

By the late 1800s physicians were becoming more integrated into society and prejudice against the intelligence and capability of women was used to defame midwifery.  Midwives were not organized or in a position of power.  Doctors didn’t earn a lot of money but midwives made even less and were not considered professionals.  As a result, doctors began to take over about 50% of the nation’s births by 1900 and midwives were relegated to caring for women who could not afford a doctor.

Obstetric anesthesia became available around 1914.  Women sought to reduce childbirth pain.  Ether had been used as early as 1848 in Boston, but many women still suffered through the pains of childbirth.  Receiving chloroform during labor and delivery had become a status symbol long before, after it was used by England’s Queen Victoria.  In 1914, upper-class women in the eastern U.S. formed Twilight Sleep Societies.  The practice of Twilight Sleep, which involved using a combination of morphine for pain relief and scopolamine, an amnesiac which caused women to have no memories of giving birth, became a symbol of medical progress.  Ankle and wrist restraints were part of the process to keep women from injuring themselves under the influence of Twilight Sleep.    Only later were the negative effects for mother and baby publicized.

    

By 1920, midwives were still attending 20-40 percent of all births in many cities, sometimes practicing illegally where laws were passed to limit or eliminate their use.  Less than 5% of women gave birth in hospitals before that time. 

    

During the 1920s, doctors were being trained to aggressively treat women during the so-called pathologic process of childbirth.  Doctors took active control over labor and delivery.  Specialist obstetricians sedated women at labor’s onset, gave ether during the pushing stage, cut an episiotomy, delivered with forceps, then extracted the placenta, and gave medications for uterus contraction and episiotomy repair.  Between 1915 and 1929, infant mortality from birth injuries increased 40-50 percent.  These active interventions came to be routine by the 1930s when the American Board of Obstetricians and Gynecology was created.  To some degree American obstetrics is still under this medical paradigm but, fortunately, many people now question practices that have no medical necessity. 

    

Between 1921 and 1939, 30-50% of women (and 75% of urban women) gave birth in hospitals with the remaining women receiving home delivery care from midwives or doctors. 

Dr. Herbert V. Foshion

The transition of home to hospital birthing can be illustrated by the medical practice of Algoma’s doctor Herbert V. Foshion.  Dr. Foshion earned his Bachelor of Medicine degree after WW I and returned to Algoma to practice.  He and his wife Pearl were a home birthing team.

The couple made childbirth delivery visits throughout the county.  Pearl assisted by washing the newborn baby with cotton swabs and olive oil and later in Ivory soap while the doctor attended to the mother.  Mrs. Foshion filled out the birth certificate and cared for the newborn’s siblings.  Dr. Foshion charged $10 for a home delivery in the 1930s.   

Dr. Foshion recognized the need for a local hospital and established a small 10-bed operation—the first hospital in Algoma.  It essentially eliminated home visits for births among his patients.  After that time, most women were attracted to hospital birth which could help provide a more pain free experience than at home. 

Algoma Hospital

The 1950s gave rise to many developments in childbirth. By then, 88% of births occurred in hospitals.  The American College of Nurse Midwives was formed in the mid-1950s as was the La Leche League, the breastfeeding support organization.  Dr. Fernand Lamaze’s findings about childbirth preparation and pain management during labor and delivery were introduced to American women in the late 1950s.

Treating pregnancy and delivery as a medical condition rather than a normal life process has continued to evolve to create high levels of pricey physician intervention and even pricier hospital services.  Consider the number of women who undergo ultrasound exams to create sonograms today, the non-medically necessary cesarean deliveries performed, and the frequency of induced labor versus just a few decades ago.  The existence of medical insurance and availability of medical care, hospitals and their expensive medical equipment, medical malpractice liability costs for doctors, in addition to patient demand for services, all contribute to the current state of high intensity pregnancy and delivery care.      

Childbirth has not always been viewed as a peaceful experience but years of successful and failed practices have hopefully provided wisdom to the practitioners and helped eliminate the fear of labor and delivery for moms to be.  Yet, there is still work to be done to make Labor Day the best, natural, and safest experience possible for mothers and their babies.          

Circus Man

Monday, August 25, 2014

Andy McDonald was a showman.  He made his living as an Ahnepee storekeeper for a few years but show business was his true calling.  Local newspaper advertisements list Andy, in 1870, in the Ahnepee Dramatic Club, acting in plays at the Opera House.  As the troupe manager, Andy often performed on stage as one of his favorite characters.  

Andrew McDonald had big dreams.  He left home and the Ahnepee stage and moved to Chicago.  Andy McDonald ran away to join the circus. 

One of Andrew’s earliest forays into the world of the circus was a job as traveling agent for “Yankee” Robinson’s midwest circus.  Fayette Loadwick “Yankee” Robinson’s circus had a forty horse “Golden Swan Chariot”.  Robinson rode astride a speckled horse carrying a gold-headed cane in a mile long procession.  Robinson’s circus had a camel and a small elephant that showed “great agility” and some twenty cages in its menagerie.  During the circus season, in Chicago, huge crowds would fill the circus tents on the Lake Shore at Randolf Street. 

In the 1870s, the circus was by far the most popular form of entertainment in America.  “P. T.”  Phineas Taylor Barnum and James Anthony Bailey, ringmaster, were the best known names in the circus world.  Barnum was actually a museum owner and never owned a circus of his own.  He worked with many co-owners and marketed and produced the most popular circuses. 

Barnum was persuaded by a man named Dan Costello to use Barnum’s name for Costello’s circus.  Costello (or Castello) had earned a reputation as a dancing clown and was at one time a partner of Yankee Robinson.  Barnum and Costello formed a traveling combination show that was part museum, part animal exhibition, and part human oddities show (later known as the sideshow).  Andy McDonald became assistant manager of Barnum and Costello’s Great Combination Show.   

In 1871, the “Green Bay Advocate” newspaper mentioned that Andrew McDonald had been hired to travel in advance of Barnum’s Great Show.  He was to make arrangements for its advertising and movement.

     

As the advance man, Andy McDonald would come to town before the circus to distribute billboards and other advertising, to hang banners, and to publicize the show.  He would check on contracts, arrange for feed for the circus animals, and confirm all of the other details of running an involved operation like a circus. 

In addition to promoting the circuses, Andrew managed his own act.  An article from 1879 described the exciting races Andy McDonald held at the state fair in Minnesota.  Andrew ran Roman chariots.  As a charioteer, he had two chariots drawn by four black and four white horses described as Kentucky racers.  A lady drove one of the spirited teams and a man the other.  The horses were so wild that they could not be driven on ordinary roads.  Several men had to hold them until they were brought on the track and the drivers were placed in the chariots.  The horses ran a half-mile dash in 57 seconds. 

Andy was a circus man through the 1870s and 1880s.  He eventually left the demanding life of the circus.  In June of 1900, at age 64, then a carriage blacksmith, Andy lived with Addie, his wife of 31 years, in Chicago.  He died in 1903.

Both Robinson and Costello’s circuses went belly up as did so many others.  Barnum joined Bailey’s Great Show which ultimately merged with Ringling Bros. of Baraboo, Wisconsin to form the most enduring circus of the 20th century--Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus.  

Ah-ne-pe: The Gray Wolf

Sunday, August 17, 2014

“My grandfather, the old Ne-po-nek, told me this story.”  

As Ke-toose began to speak, a circle formed.  Che-naub, Paw-co-wau-pee, No-chunka, and Quetek squatted around the blazing campfire on the sandy beach, near the mouth of the river, at the edge of the great lake.  Ke-toose, chieftain of the Pottawottamie, drew up his ragged blanket and crouched by the flickering flames.  The women sat in the shadows.  Everyone listened as he told them about the gray wolf, Ah-ne-pe.

It happened long before the days of the white man, Ke-toose said.  “There were many wolves in those days but none like the big gray wolf, Ah-ne-pe.  He fed upon women and children.  If a Pottawottamie girl strayed into the forest when we made our camps here, she never returned.  If a child played in the bushes when we came to this river, he never more came back…  Even our hunters sometimes came staggering back…clothing torn…blood running from red wounds.  They had seen the great gray wolf; it had come upon them like a rushing wind from the thicket or pounced upon them like a spirit in the darkness and their arrows were broken reeds and their axes refused to do their work.”  Surely the gray wolf was an evil spirit.  Fear came over the people; red deer and black bear deserted the forests.

 

Far to the south lived a mighty Pottawottamie man, Sha-hoka.  Swift of foot, sure of eye, and strong of arm, Sha-hoka was a keen hunter.  Sha-hoka was a young man and had no wife, just an empty wigwam.  Although many love sticks had been thrown at him, he made no sign to take a wife, until one day, while walking in the birch woods, he met a maiden.  His heart became soft.

 

He went to the chief of her tribe, Os-a-ma-kee, and said, “Give me this maiden to wife.”

  

Os-a-ma-kee laughed.  “Does the wolf’s daughter mate with the rabbit?  Does the eaglet take to husband the catbird?”  The chief challenged Sha-hoka’s strength and manliness.  “Go and kill Ah-ne-pe, the gray wolf,” the chief sneered and he walked away.

 

Sha-hoka, though he was a great hunter, was angry and afraid.  He had heard of the big gray wolf and wanted to hunt him but he was love sick for the maiden and hurt by the chief’s words.  He lay like a sick man by his campfire. 

One day the maiden stole into his lodge and said to him, “Go and kill Ah-ne-pee, the gray wolf.”  She fled back to her village.

Sha-hoka sprang to his feet.  He would kill this Ah-ne-pee, this eater of women and children and slayer of men, and the maiden shall be his wife.

Sha-hoka made a strong bow of wood from the ash tree.  He made the strings from the rawhide of a red deer he had shot in the light of the full moon.  An arrow maker filled Sha-hoka’s quiver.  The medicine man made him a big medicine that would make his heart bold and his arm strong.  Sha-hoka set off for the land of Ah-ne-pe, the gray wolf.

 

The forests teemed with bear and deer, but Sha-hoka paid them no mind.  He hastened on.  When he reached the land of Ah-ne-pee, except for the whispering of the wind in the pines and the lap of the waves on the lake, there was only stillness.  Through the maple, beech, and birch, he moved with caution until he came to the silently flowing river.  Here he made his campfire.

 

For many days he watched and waited with the patience of a great hunter.  But a strange fear began to overcome him:  fear of the dark, fear of loneliness, fear of the deserted forest, and fear of the wolf.
   

One night, when sleep would not come, he heard in the distance the long howl of the wolf.  It was like nothing else Sha-hoka had ever heard.  The great baying cry was repeated for many nights. 

Finally, one day, near a huge thicket of dead leaves, a huge gray beast jumped up and ran away.  With a hunter’s cry, Sha-hoka set out after it.  Through the forest they ran, through limbs that tore Sha-hoka’s hair and bruised his body, and scratched his hands and feet.  He pursued the gray monster.

 

The gray wolf ran toward the river.  Sha-hoka shouted, “Ho, Ah-ne-pe, you have not the mind of a man.  You are but a cowardly wolf with the spirit of a rabbit.” 

The gray wolf turned around, snarled, and rushed the hunter with its red eyes and horrible gleaming teeth.  It came with great leaps and bounds, back arched with bristling hair.

Sha-hoka stood still.  He seized his axe as the demon beast sprang on him.  He struck with his axe and seized the wolf by the neck.  They struggled—the wolf biting and tearing--in a mad embrace.

Many hours later, Sha-hoka awoke.  The sun had gone down, the woods were dark, and he lay with his head upon a gray, lifeless mass.  Ah-ne-pe was dead.

Sha-hoka returned to the land of the maiden and threw the head of the wolf at the feet of the chief.   “Here is the head of Ah-ne-pe; Sha-hoka, the Pottawottamie hunter, gives it to you.”

Sha-hoka took the hand of the chief’s daughter and led her back to the land of Ah-ne-pe.  When they found the den of the great gray beast, they built their lodge home.

With Ah-ne-pe dead, the red deer returned, the bear found their old lairs, the squirrels chattered again, and the birds sang once more.

“This is the story of Ah-ne-pe, the great gray wolf, told me, the old Ke-toose, by my grandfather, the old Ne-po-nek.”

This story is adapted from the writing of George Wing.  As the legend goes, Ne-po-nek passed the story to his son, Chief Ah-kee-waysee, and grandson, Chief Ke-toose (who died in 1869 at about age 110).  Ke-toose passed it to his son, Neen-gaho-sum, and to Ketoose’s grandson, Simon Kahquados.  Kahquados shared it with his friend, George Wing.  Wing recorded many stories of Indian lore of Kewaunee County. 

The Origin of Shanty Days

Sunday, August 3, 2014

Boat at shanty (photo used with permission of Wendell Wilke) 

It rained on Toot’s parade.  That is to say, it rained--a real gully washer--right in the middle of the inaugural Shanty Days parade in 1987 when Algoma, posthumously, honored Francis “Toot” Wenniger.  It rained the next year too when Shanty Days honored another prominent local fisherman, Art Dettman.

Shanty Days was begun as a business venture to bring tourism to Algoma and celebrate Algoma’s best asset, Lake Michigan.  Toot Wenniger, the first Shanty Days honoree, was a commercial fisherman.  Art Dettman, who was honored the second year, was a pioneer in sport and charter fishing.  Both were fitting subjects to be recognized at a festival billed as “A Celebration of the Lake”.  Wenniger, it was said, was the “Personification of the Spirit of the Lake”.  Dettman was the “Fishing Mayor”.

 

In addition to a 150 unit parade, the Shanty Days festivities included lake-related activities like a trout pond for young fishermen.  There was a World Championship Smelt Cleaning Contest with the name of the winner to be submitted to the Guinness World Book.  A boat show featured antique, futuristic, modified, and home built boats.  There was a sport show with taxidermists and tackle.  The U.S. Coast Guard demonstrated air and sea rescues.

    

A favorite part of the celebration was the fish dinner.  Commercial fisherman of Kewaunee and Door counties donated 100 pounds of fish each for a combined plate of whitefish, smelt, and perch offering 6-8 butterflies at $3 per plate.

 

Music and dancing of all kinds were featured--polka, folk, jazz, bagpipe, the Algoma Community Band, and a barbershop quartet.  There was a sock hop.  Johnny and the Stingrays played 50s and 60s favorites.  There was wrist wrestling, an art show, a 10K and 5K run, and a farmers market.  A tremendous fireworks display capped off the family friendly festival.

Honoring Wenniger and Dettman in particular those first two years of the festival was intimately linked to the personal investments these two characters had in fishing and Algoma.  While both shared a love of the lake, they were very different fishermen.

       

After Toot Wenniger--who earned his nicknamed as a young child--married in 1932, he began fishing full-time.  By several accounts he was a unique, kind man.  He once cut his boat in two and added a piece in the middle to make it longer.  He ran a 150’ dock, a shed, two boats, and a fertilizer plant.  In retirement, he continued to run a boat and oversee his fertilizer business.  Toot claimed he was a conservationist because he fished when there were some fish and did other things when there weren’t.  He passionately disagreed with DNR fishing control measures.  Toot Wenniger was part of the fishing industry on Lake Michigan for over 50 years.

    

When Art Dettman began dating the assistant lighthouse keeper’s daughter, Caroline Braemer, he became interested in fishing.  Arthur Dettman was mayor of Algoma for four terms from 1964-72.  As mayor, Dettman worked collaboratively with the DNR.  He championed a project to get the DNR to plant coho salmon.  He promoted sport fishing by giving game reports.  After Dettman took then Wisconsin Governor Warren Knowles out on the lake on a charter excursion, the governor proclaimed that Algoma was the “Salmon and Trout Capital of Wisconsin”. 

  

Art Dettman's fish shanty

“Shanty Days”, the event’s fitting name, is derived from the prevalence of fish shanties that once lined the river.  According to the book “Commercial Development of Algoma, Wisconsin”, as early as 1851, when Orrin Warner and John Hughes built a little hut on the north side of the river, fishermen had been building sheds, shanties, and net drying racks at the river’s edge.

   

A prime example of those shanties remains on the north side of the Ahnapee River.  Art Dettman’s shanty was built in 1935.  He leased the property from the Algoma Fuel Company.  The Dettman fish shanty is on the National Register of Historic Places and is one of the only remaining shanties left on Lake Michigan.  His fishing tug, the “Caroline”, was built by Peterson Boat Builders of Sturgeon Bay.  

     

For more information read “The Real Shanty Days in Algoma, WI:  Commercial Fishing at its Best, Vol. II,” compiled and printed by Wendell Wilke.  The book provides amazing photos and details of the history of the early days of fishing at Algoma.

 

Perhaps it will rain again this year during Shanty Days.  Let’s hope it holds off until after the parade and fireworks. 

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.