Name/Title
Histories, Incidents and Descriptions of Early WaupunDescription
Incidents and Descriptions of Early Waupun. Told by George Newton (Jud) Wilcox, son of Seymour Wilcox (one of the first settlers in Waupun). Upper right corner written in pencil reads "Bertsch." Written by Horatio H. Hoard. Page 3.
Early Waupun: The first saw mill was put in about three years by Smith and Forest a little west of the stone mill. The first building was built in 1844 (the hotel). Part of it is the same building that stands on the B ...... (?) property. The first meat and flour we had we got from Green Bay in 1839 and paid $40 per barrel of pork and $20 per barrel for flour. We had to chop the flour out of the barrel as it had come by sail boats up the lakes from Buffalo. This hotel was opened January 1, 1845. We stayed there only one year and built a frame house a little south of the log house we had. We broke up the land with a plow twelve feet long and the mold board was made of wood. We drew the plow with eight yoke of oxen (sixteen oxen). We after years got a plow of steel. We were plowing from Main Street to H. H. Hoard's corner when my father was called away. I took the plow; I was eight years old and people came from miles to see so small a boy plow with such a wonderful plow.
Our farm began at Watertown Street and extended to the railroad. On the south, it began at Hoard's corner and ran just one mile. We took up this land from the government. Hugh Walker and John Ackerman were ...... (?) at the same time. We raised winter wheat for years, as no one know of spring wheat here.
We came here without any animals of any kind except a dog. We bought the first oxen of a man going past. After a few years droveries came through here with stock. About this time a man came through here with a flock of four hundred sheep. It came an early Winter and no food. He had to stop. Father bought them for a song and we were not prepared for them. But we went into Summer's grove just before snow, after it had frozen up, and cut the dead grass and tried to winter the sheep. We lost about half of them and my work that winter was to pick up the sheep every morning that had died during the night. I have since abstained from eating mutton.