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 5. Typed on onion paper.
Early Waupun: January 7, 1910 (Subj. Wild Life)
An Indian shot a deer on the corner of Main and Madison Streets. A man was threshing at our farm where Thurst. was. Mrs. Collins was going to our house and a man by the name of Davis entered the Mat Cole farm. Davis asked Thurst to let him shoot the deer which was near the barn. Thurst let him have the gun but he did not hit the deer. By that time the deer had gotten to the corner by Hoard's store [ed. note: Main & Madison] and the Indian who had followed the deer shot him. We had fenced our eighty acres where the prison stands and I was coming from field home and a flock of twenty deer was in the road. They came down Main Street ahead of me and appeared as tame as sheep. They jumped the fence and went out of sight.
R. Sargent lived in Alto in 1849. I used to hunt deer out near our farm. I saw twenty seven deer come within ten rods of our door. We used to chase the deer sometimes but usually we shot all we wanted from the house. I remember to have seen seven to twenty deer trooping along the ridge west of the Alto road. When they would come out of the shrubs on this ridge and take a look over the surrounding country by elevating their pretty heads, it was a sight I shall always remember as it was a golden opportunity to get one of it from our old flintlock guns. Sargent said he used to catch Horndace with hook and line.
Jan. 3, 1900 (subj. Town, surrounding towns)
The first cemetery was established in 1839. The school house was located there and it was the cemetery for several years. Uncle Joe Fairbanks was the teacher. The first person buried there was a child of Mr. Town [ed. note: also spelled Towne in other sources] who entered the land now owned by McCune. The Townes only stayed one or two years and when they went back my father took them back as far as Milwaukee.
There was no town at Fond du Lac, not even a store. In our going to Taycheedah to trade, we had to ford the streams as there were no bridges. The Fox Lake Road and Fond du Lac Road was a military road from Fort Winnebago at Portage to Fort Howard at Green Bay. My father made a contract for cutting hay for the Fort Winnebago and Portage, and I went to Portage with him. We started from here after breakfast Sunday morning. We took our guns as usual, and at Portage Grove (?) we ran into a flock of Prairie Chickens. We shot over fifty out of the flock. We then went on to see how the men were doing at haying out to Portage.