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 6. Typed on onion paper.
Early Waupun:
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.
We used to get out in the morning and shoot enough prairie chicken for three meals in twenty minutes without leaving the barn yard. Uncle Nate Newton went over to Beaver Dam after a hog. The hog jumped out onto the horses and the horses ran away and it was two months before we found his horse as there were no people to help us hunt.
The heavy timber over North of the river extended for one mile. There was openings. Dick D....(?), another boy and I got lost in the woods and thought we would never get out. The land east of Nick ....(?) storehouse was a little lake and we could see the snail shells were all along the shore. These places in town like the corner of Main and Watertown streets. A man by the name of Smith, a minister [ed. note: Rev. Samuel Smith, sometimes called "Father Smith" of the Methodist Episcopal Church], brought an old roan horse. He lived in an old log house fifteen feet square. I and two other boys instead of going to church went out to have some fun. We saw the horse tied and he got cast and in some way got his head under the water and got drowned. Back we went to tell the minister about it. He dismissed the church and helped us skin the horse. The son of this Smith built the house now occupied the Jack Morris house over sixty years ago. Charles Smith ran a store here after. Smith had a son-in-law by the name of Hooker who was the first blacksmith in the city. He came here before Smith. He and I was fishing one day with spears and with a jack and father claimed them and packed them for winter. Thurst and Hooker made one more trip. Hooker made a mistake and fell in. He did not get dried up until ten o'clock at night and then started afoot for Beaver Dam to see Miss Hooker.