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 9. Typed on onion paper.
Early Waupun:
January 4, 1910 (con't)
Black squirrels were so thick we could see a dog on every tree. Reefsnyder wen tto the Duer farm one afternoon to hunt squirrels and came back after supper with a Democrat wagon full of squirrels. They did not stop to count them.
The pigeons (Passenger pigeons) and black squirrels disappeared all at once.
When I went to Milwaukee once, somewhere down the road we stopped two fellows who had two hog racks with slats across and they were full of pigeons they were taking to Milwaukee. They were caught in a net by the hundreds. This net was a square net twenty feet long, twelve feet wide, made of bed cord. We baited it with wheat. When they were eating, the net would be sprung so as to cover the pigeons. They would try to get out and stick their heads through the meshes of the net and could not get their heads out. We used to roll the net back and pick the pigeons out as fast as came to them. I got thirteen dozen one time. Where all these millions of pigeons all went at once, no one can tell that I know of.
Asey (Aseh?) Sheldon one time sent I and Jerry Murphy to cut whips on Martin Chamberlain's house. Jerry Murphy did the cutting. We took his new knife but in cutting the whips we lost his knife, and I found it in the spring and went on horseback up to Cataragus to give him his knife.
Jan. 11, 1910 (Subj. Building, Maple Syrup)
We used to go over the Winnebago Marsh (afterwards called the Horicon Lake, now called Horicon Marsh) after timbers for building barns and houses. We used to start at four o'clock in the morning and try to get back before dark. I remember drawing wood from over the marsh. I had a load of three cords of basswood. The ice was covered with shell ice and I was on top of the load and one of the runners cut through it and I was tipped over and I was under the load.
One day Al Carter, myself, and two girls started in a boat to go to a sugaring off across the marsh. We went over in fine shape, had a fine time eating maple wax and hot syrup. They filled our boat with maple sugar free of cost to us and we started home. The wind came up and we were several hours on the marsh. When we got to the shore our boat was half full of water and our maple sugar was all melted. We did not feel the loss very much as maple sugar was worth only four cents a pound.