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The
Ingalls Connection Descendants
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Recollections of Susan Fairbank Whiting (Mrs.
Newell Whiting) Part 2: The Wisconsin Years When we got to where the Whitings were (Johnstown?) we were a tired and dirty lot I presume. There was three families of the Whitings, so we divided up. Uncle Amos folks stopped at Uncle Ellis Whiting's. I think Celinda, Aunt Mary and Dorothy Ross stopped at Anderson's, and our folks with the four younger ones went to grandpa. I was asleep in the wagon when we got there and Uncle Amos carried me in the house so they told me. Their house consisted of one room and a chamber all in one room. I don't know how long we stayed there probably not very long but we stayed that night, for the next morning your father put a bell on one of his steers and it made him so crazy that it took your father all the forenoon to catch him. Your father was just a boy 15 years old but he and Uncle Joel Whiting were running a breaking team. The next I remember we were living in a two room log house that belonged to an old bachelor by the name of Hudson, we got to the Whitings the 22nd day of June. Father put in some garden after we moved into the house. I don't remember all but we had cabbage and turnips and beans and probably other things. Uncle Amos' folks did not stop long in Johnstown but went to Waupun in a little while. Uncle Fletcher and Uncle Joe came the same year but they came by water. Father sold his horses to Uncle Isaac or traded for oxen. We had been in Wisconsin only about four weeks when mother took her bed. She was very poorly when we started west, but she thought the journey might do her good. She lived till the 25th of October then passed on. I remember the man that owned the house where we lived, got married and wanted his house. Mother was not able to sit up at all and father didn't know what to do. He was telling Uncle Ellis Whiting who lived near what a fix he was in. Uncle Ellis says I'll tell you what to do. Just bring your family right down here and stay as long as your wife lives, for they knew she couldn't live but a short time. Well father done so, there were six children of us, and five of Uncle Ellis family that made 15 in all. Their house had one room below with two beds in it with a chamber all in on room. We went up on a ladder to get to it. I think mother lived about two weeks after we moved. I remember very distinctly the night she passed away. I slept up stairs and Uncle Ellis came up and asked me if I didn't want to get up and see mother. I got up and dressed and went down. She was most gone. Father stood at the head of the bed with my youngest sister in his arms. She was a little past two years old. Mother motioned for father to hold her down so she could kiss her, that is all I can remember distinctly. After mother was laid away we stayed at Uncle Ellis. Uncle Hugh Ritter came out to the funeral and Aunt Mary went home with him. He lived at Racine. She stayed till next summer. Sister Jane went to Anderson Whiting's and stayed till the next summer, so there were only four of us. Uncle Isaac's mother died about the time mother did, and he heard father wanted a place to live so he came over to see father. The result was we went there and stayed till spring, then moved to Waupun. During the winter Uncle Isaac sold his place and he and father went up to Waupun to see the country and visit father's brothers. I remember Aunt Celinda made a fuss because I studied my geography so much and father put it up on a high shelf so I couldn't get it. There was no schools and I had no books except my geography. It makes me pity myself even at this late day (after 64 years). Well we moved to Waupun in April 1845. I think it was about the 12th. We had two yokes of oxen and some cows. It took us full two days to make the journey as the going was bad. We went to Uncle Fletcher's and stayed till father got his shanty built. He broke up some ground the first season and planted some corn. I don't remember as we had anything else. Our shanty had one small window, a fire place for a cupboard. Father bore some holes in the logs and drove some pins in and laid boards across. Then we made a table. We brought our beds and chairs, a few of them. Our household goods came by water so they were in Waupun before we were. We did not bring much, just things we had to have. We lived in the shanty till the spring of 1846. Then we moved into the old log house. I think you might remember it Montie. It stood there long after the frame house was built after we moved out of the shanty. Aunt Celinda lived there; she was married in September 1846. My younger sister Lovicia died the same month, 3 years old. I went to Uncle Joe's to stay soon after we came from the south as we called Johnstown, and stayed there most of the time till the next winter. Then I went home to keep house for father. Uncle Joe's folks lived in such a place; Uncle Joe put up a log house during the summer. Along in August their third child was born. I was sent over after Aunt Rilla Whiting. She had bread in the oven so I had to stay and take care of it, and in taking it out of the oven, I pulled it on my arm and burned it terribly, then took cold in it and I had an awful arm and had to carry it with my hand on my head. Aunt Hannah was sick in bed, Uncle Joe was away to work and I had the work to do. Three children and a sick woman to take care of, poor Aunt Hannah would lay and cry and the baby cried all the time. That was the summer of 1846, so you see I was nothing but a child myself. Father let Uncle Joe have the use of his cows. Generally father would milk his and I would go up to father's for the milk. Uncle Joe lived right across from the blacksmith shop where we turn from the Fond du Lac on the Oshkosh road where Jim Hilbert used to live. Soon after we came to Waupun, Uncle Fletcher sold 20 acres of his farm to Mr. Hiler. They moved right in with Uncle Fletcher folks. Mrs. Hiler was an awful woman. I remember one day I was at the house and there came an awful thunder storm. Aunt Achsah got her children on the bed with me. We were scared so we dare not peep, but not so Mrs. Hiler. The rain began to come down through the roof and she tramped up and down swearing a blue streak. We expecting every minute she would be struck dead for her blasphemy; it was the first Mrs. Hiler, she left years before you were born. I remember Louise Fairbank and I were at Rock River one day and there came a great lot of Indians. There were as many as 40 to 50. We expected to get took, but they didn't trouble us. There was one squaw that had blue eyes and red hair. Our folks said in all probability she was a child they had stolen. It was nothing uncommon to see Indians in those days. I remember a party of Indians left some maple sugar at father's for some reason and we young ones got into it and ate lots of it before father knew of it, and when they came for it father told them about it and wanted to pay for it, but they wouldn't take pay. Father was always good to them. We used to go up chamber on a ladder and if we were alone and saw Indians coming we would go up the ladder and pull it up after us after fastening the door. For sometime we had to draw our water from a spring down back of Uncle Fletcher's. I don't know whether you was ever there or not. I haven't been there in 50 years. There used to be an Indian trail across the lower end of Hiler's farm but I presume it doesn't show now. Grandpa preempted his land, and in a year he had the privilege of proving up, as they called it and paying for it. He paid one dollar and a quarter an acre for it and now it's worth one hundred. Uncle Mason and his wife and Uncle Sorril lived with us about six weeks. I think in the spring of 1846 Uncle Mason took [illegible] of land over Rock River way and he had to put up something to live in so they stayed with us till he could get ready but they went back south then moved up to St. Marie. Uncle Isaac built a shanty on his farm where Aunt Celinda lives now in the spring of 1846 and I think he built the wing part of Aunt Celinda's house in 58 your father built it. I did not have the chance to go to school only two winters after we came west that was in 1847-48. The first winter Mr. Mason taught, the next Philo Sheldon, A. J. Sheldons's younger brother. We had a log school house. The desks were back of the seats and consisted of plank laid on pins stuck in the logs. When we wanted to use the desks we had to swing our feet right over the seat. The seats were plank with pins driven in for legs. We used to have meeting in the school house. We used to have spelling schools in the evening at private houses. A lot of us would pile on a sled drawn by oxen. Sometimes the sled would have a box on it but more often there would be just boards with a little hay and quilts to put over us. We never had rubbers on our shoes or anything else to make us comfortable. Many a time I have waked up in the morning and found the bed covering frozen, our breath would moisten the covers and then they would freeze. People had to go to Watertown to get grinding done. We couldn't buy flour in those days. Anyway they did not. It took usually three days or more to go to mill, the neighbors would take turns in going to mill and when they got a grist they would divide as long as it lasted, sometimes we would get pretty short before they would start out with another load of grain, like as not there wouldn't be five pounds of flour in the neighborhood before the new grist came. We didn’t quite starve to death. There was no fruit except wild fruit till well into the fifties. There was lots of wild strawberries, gooseberries, some plums and wild crabapples. People who came from the east generally brought a good supply of dried fruit and they would divide with those who had none. If people had pork, potatoes and bread, then with a little butter they were thankful. The first year or two we had a long box on the north side of the house that we kept milk in. It was one we brought our bedsteads in. Father fastened it up, I don't know how, to the logs and we had a drop (?) cover to keep some of the dirt out but there was plenty got in as it was. We didn't have any screens for years, not even mosquito bars. When I think of the discomfort of those days I wonder how people lived at all. I remember Mary had bilious fever one summer, she was sick in one bed; there were two beds in the room and we had to cook, eat and sleep in the same room. I think that was in the summer of 1844. Doctor Butterfield attended her. I well remember the first time I had the ague; I was all alone in the house, we had some fire in the fireplace. I began to feel cold and my scalp began to raise, so I thought I would build up a good fire and get warm, but before I got the fire built I shook so hard I had to give it up and hold myself together. By and by father came in and got me into bed. Then the fever took me and I was crazy as a loon for a while. After the fever passed off I was all right till the next day, then it came on again. I had the ague for three weeks. Then I think father got some quinine for me and broke it up. Nearly all the people had it, but no one in our family except Aunt Mary and I. We used to go across the marsh over to Uncle Isaac's, we would go down the road as far as Hiler's, then cut across. One day Uncle Isaac, Aunt Celinda and I were going across just west of Hiler's house, you know the neck of the marsh comes nearly to the house. Well, we were going along and began to see lots of snakes, it was in the spring and the old grass was dry so Isaac set fire to it and we went along over to see his shanty. When we came back the fire was out and in burning the grass it burned up the awfulest lot of snakes, great bunches of them all twisted in together. I never saw such a sight. I remember the day I was 14, Uncle Seryl was 21. We were at Uncle Isaac's and we went down to Uncle Daniel Whiting's to a spelling school. He lived across the road from Snores, the house is gone. Uncle Daniel died in 1849. You must remember Aunt Rilla Whiting, she was his wife, they were good people. The first time I saw your father was at their house at a spelling school. It was that winter too. The first fellow that ever went home with me was Uncle Dorris and it was from a spelling school at Uncle Daniel's and it must have been that winter, for the fourth of July 1847 I went to Beaver Dam to a celebration with your father. There was a whole wagon load went, but they are nearly all gone. Of the load I don't know as there is only one besides myself left. Oh, the changes time has made. The next year we went to Fond du Lac and Lyman Town drove the team; I remember we had roast pig for dinner. I suppose we had something else but I don't remember what. Talcott Hillyer and Hepsy Bly, later his wife, were there, and I think George W. Bly and Harmony Judd were there. They were the parents of Manton Bly. I remember one Sunday about that time I went up to Mr. Judds to a meeting and after service, Harmony took a lot of us out in her flower garden. It was a wonderful treat to me for I always loved flowers. It was the first time I ever saw Portulaca and she had such quantities of them. The Judds owned the place that Ethan Whiting owns now. They were better off than most of the people around. There were several boys, but only one girl. The first quilting I ever attended was at Mr. Woodlands. They lived at Zelnor's Mills, owned the mills. There was a family by the name of Nims used to own the farm. One time they had a very sick child and my cousin Rosanna Fairbank and I went one night to take care of it and in the night we heard a hen squawk, so we thought we would investigate a little. We found the hen on the trundle bed with some young children. We left it where we found it. I was just a little girl, my cousin was four years older. When I think of the privations that people had to put up with in those days I wonder they didn't all die, that little fellow got well in spite of the discomfort of flies, mosquitoes, filth and all. When the Sheldons came into the neighborhood which was in 1848 or 1847 it was an event. There were four daughters and two sons. The older ones were very well educated for those times. They came from Ohio. There was one girl a little older than I and I used to go home with her and stay over night, what a treat it was. Mrs. Sheldon was so nice and motherly. The younger son taught the last school that I attended the winter of 1848 and 1849. I had no mother and it seemed so good to go where there was a mother in the house. I did not go very often as I had to do the work at home till Aunt Mary was married which was the 28 of December 1848. Then they lived at father's. Aunt Mary used to work out most of the time, would come home once in a while and do some sewing for herself and the family, but I had the housework to do just the same. The first flower garden I had was in the corner of the fence across the road from the house, we had plenty of wild flowers always, they were beautiful too; there used to be a great deal more snow than now. I remember the day Aunt Mary was married. They went to Fond du Lac with a cutter. I think they must have found plenty of snow, I went to school in the afternoon and the snow was knee deep. There was a track through, but it was not packed at all. Your father went to school with me. He was at the wedding. I don't remember as there was anyone else beside our own family. I remember the 22 of March 1848. It was my cousin Louise Fairbank's birthday, your Uncle Amos and Seryl. Louise and I walked up to Willow Creek from Uncle Isaac's. I don't remember how we all come to be there but think the boys boarded there and Louise and I were visiting there. We were all four born in March, Seryl and myself on the 12rh, Louise on the 23, and Uncle Amos on the 24th. Oh the changes, all passed on but me and I am waiting till the Lord has a place for me. People used to have bees for paring pumpkins for drying. They would cut them in rings, and hang them on poles in the kitchen till they were dry and have it for pies in winter. I can't say I fancied it much but we were glad to get anything to make pies of in the winter. One time I think it was in the winter of 1847, Charley Holmes, Augusta's brother came home with me from meeting, or spelling school. I don’t remember which. When we got to the door I invited him in, but he declined, so I went in and I think I had gotten my things off when who should open the door and walk in but Charley, that took us all down. We had lots of fun over the way he came swinging in on the door. Aunt Mary thought she had a good joke on me but I didn't care in the least. The fun of it was, my cousin Rosanna Fairbank lived in our shanty, and she had a beau too and her beau went in when he was invited but mine went in afterward because he didn't want to go home alone. He told us all about it but they had the laugh on me all the same. I used to go to Aunt Augusta's home a great deal, there was a house full of girls and boys and we always had lots of fun. They are all gone now. Mrs. North's father was the youngest son. Mrs. Billinger's father was the oldest son. Mrs. Hayes' father was next to the youngest son. There were three or four sisters younger than he. Uncle Seryl married Augusta Holmes as you probably remember. They were married the same year we were, later in the season, I believe in November. Your father and I were the only ones of the Whiting family present I think, I really can't remember. The first winter that we were married we lived in Uncle Amos' house, the Nate McCray house at Willow Creek. As you know we were married in August and we lived at Uncle Joe till late in the fall. Uncle Joe and your father run a threshing machine, were away all the week so I stayed with Aunt Hannah. As I said we lived in Uncle Amos's house, your father took his farm or a part of it. I don't just remember how it was but I know he had a big field of wheat and it looked as though we would get a big harvest. Just before it was ready to cut rust struck it, and we did not get a bushel. That was a set back to us I tell you. The next summer we went to my father's to keep house for him or to be with the girls, Aunt Jane and Aunt Rilla while father went east. That was when he brought the old lady home. Our father went to Sheboygan after them. He said he always regretted that he did not upset the old 85 lady in Sheboygan woods but they got home all right. That fall your father and Uncle Joe threshed. In the meantime your father had taken up forty acres of land over on the school section, and after they got through threshing he built a log house on it. We had a bed and some chairs and your father made a table. We had a stove and dishes, that was the winter of 1850. Our house had just one room with a bed in it, there were curtains around the bed. There was a low chamber, where we would set away things if we had anything to set away. We had a straw bed up there on the floor so if we had company we had a place for them to sleep. This seems to you as thought we were poverty stricken but we did not feel that way because almost everyone had to live that way. If we could get groceries and pay for them we had them, otherwise we went without, mostly went without, but we enjoyed life as much as ever we did. We were young and looking forward to something better. The winter of 1850 your father took a job of Uncle Isaac to split rails down near the Zoelner mills. I think he got 75¢ a hundred and board himself. I'm not sure about the price, but I know your father would get up and have breakfast and take his dinner in a pail and start so as to get down to his work by daylight. It must have been three or four miles. I don't remember how long he worked there but it was till he got his job done. He would bury his dinner in the snow to keep it from freezing. He didn't get home till after dark then probably had to chop wood to last the next day. Of course the wood was green, and covered with snow for no one had a woodshed. We had to bake it in the oven to burn it at all. Your father sold his horses in the fall so he did not have them to take care of. He had a yoke of oxen and a few chickens, so we did not have many chores to do. I think we had a cow but she did not give milk, so we left her at Uncle Isaac's till spring. The first fall after we were married, one day your father was in the field husking corn. I dressed up in his clothes and went up where he was, he did not know me. I made him believe I was his brother Sewell, or tried to, but I had to give myself away. Only thing your mother was just a little past 16 at that time. The winter of 1850 Uncle Seyrl lived on grandpa Whiting's old place. We've pointed the place out to you as we drove past it several times. Uncle Mason and grandpa Whiting had moved to St. Marie on Fox River the spring of 1851. Father sold his claim to Ithamar Town (?) and we moved to St. Marie. There was a big boom on there, they were going to have a big town in no time, but the bottom dropped out in a little while. Your father built a small house and we moved into it before it was lathed or plastered, they had to use board lathe, then split it. I don't know as you ever saw any. I helped father to lath the house. It was where you were born. There was a family just across the street from us who had a little girl. She couldn’t walk but would creep over to our house right through the dust. Their name was Hill. We were as poor as church mice, so was most everyone, so we did not mind. After the bottom dropped out of the boom your father made up his mind that he would get away as soon as possible. I think Uncle Isaac sent word to him to come down and build him a house. Anyway we came down to Willow Creek and lived in a little house of Tim Crane's, it is gone now. There is a decent house in the same place now. Uncle Amos lived near us; I remember we got our butter of Uncle Amos folks and had to hang it in the well to keep it cool. You were about six months old when we left St. Marie. Uncle Sewell came to Waupun sometime in the fall, and in the early spring he came up to St. Marie to make a visit. I don’t remember how long he was there but he came to Waupun with us and stayed a few days, then went back to his Aunt Aldrich. We did not see him again till 1871 when he and Aunt Helen came to visit us. We lived at Willow Creek till the spring of 1854 and then moved to Waupun where we have lived ever since. I used to gather mustard for greens where Mrs. Beach's house now stands and Forest Mound Cemetery was covered with all sorts of bush. I have picked wild gooseberries there many times. We had to range the woods to get anything in the way of fruit. There was none grown and very little shipped in, and we had no money to buy so it was use wild fruit or go without. I remember while we lived up on Fox River, one Sunday there was a load of us went to Mount Tom to hunt rattlesnakes. I don't remember who went but we killed four, and were satisfied to leave the rest. Your father built the house opposite Mr. Wilcox's in 1855, I don't remember how long we lived there, not very long. There were no windows or doors when we moved in, but the Pebbles wanted their house so we got out. Well your father set the partitions, put in the windows and doors, and we lathed it evenings, when he got it ready to plaster, you and I went out to Uncle Isaac's and stayed a few days, and he and another man plastered it. I have forgotten his name. It was awful cold weather and they had to keep fire so the plaster wouldn't freeze. You can imagine what a job it was. When we got home everything was damp and did not get dried out for weeks. Our bed tick were all moldy underneath. We lived through it but it was by the skin of our teeth as we had colds all winter but we were in our own house. That winter I made a rag carpet so when spring came we fixed up some. We had one descent size room, two tiny bedrooms, a little pantry with a trap door to go down cellar. That summer father built Uncle Taylor's house, the Roberts place now. The winter of 1856 Uncle Alonzo and Aunt Jane lived with us Jennie was a baby and a squallier too. I think we sold the house that winter as we lived together over the Huston Grocery Store. It was on the corner were the Star Saloon now stands. I don't remember what year the railroad came into Waupun but there was a general time of rejoicing. I remember Uncle Ellis Fairbank and his wife were at our house (we lived in the wing to the Kyse House) and Uncle took you and I up to see the cars come in. When we came back his horses got scared at something and came near upsetting us. There was a family lived next door to us that we got milk of. They were well off but he wouldn't give her any money for the church and she wouldn't let me come for the milk fearing the old man would get hold of the money. She said it was the Lords money so when the old man was out of the way she would throw something against the house to let me know the coast was clear and I would get milk. Fred Doney lived with them. He was their son-in-law, his first wife's parents. The winter after you was two years old you was playing with some popcorn. I was getting dinner and you came to me and said something. I thought you wanted a cookie so gave you one. You didn't talk very plain but shook your head and pointed to your ear and said corn. I looked and saw you had a kernel in your ear. I tried to get it out but couldn't and just then your father came to dinner. He went for Dr. Butterfield. He tried to wash it out then got another doctor. They tried to get it till they made your ear bleed. Then we told them to wait, or your father did. Dr. Butterfield said it must have been washed out but I know better. Well every little while the corn would work down so I could see it but couldn't get it. After three years your father got some fine brass wire and made a loop so at last I was able to get the loop under the kernel and got it out. The doctor would hardly believe me when I show it to him. Well your father went to Kansas in fifty eight. We went out to Uncle Ike's and stayed while he was gone, then came back to [blank] and lived in a little house on the corner where the Joe Wilks house now stands. Cornelius Wells lived on the other corner where J. H. Brinkerhoff lives now. Old dad Carington lived in the little old house next to the Saffield place. There was a lumber yard on the corner where the Saffield house stands. Mr. Hobkirk on the corner where the Hinkley house now stands. Uncle George Babcock owned the Hillver place. The George T. Wheeler place was owned by Dr. Brown's widow Eugene and Girty Brown's mother. I think the Carpenter house was built soon after we came to town and I think your father built it but I am not sure. The Baldwin house or a part of it has stood there as far back as I can remember. The McFarland place is an old standby and Uncle Sam Amidon place next to it but they were not built till after we came to Waupun. Your father built the Hoard Store directly after he came back from Kansas for Lou Dodge. He lived in a little house that stood where the Butterfield house now stands. Dr. Butterfield lived where the Coon Undertaking Establishment is now. Dr. Look lived on the corner where the National Hotel is. Mr. Starkeather lived in the house on the hill when we first came to town. Both died there and the children were born there. The old Baptist Church was built before we came to town and the old Congregational that was all the churches there were. The old Methodist Church was built very soon after. There was an Irishman by the name of Mike Splane owned and lived on the corner where the Episcopal Church is. Ravillo Dodge and his mother lived where the R. W. Wells house now stands. Mr. Drumond owned the Sam Chamberlain house. I think Ed Hilllyer lived there when we first came to town. I think Henry was born there. Your father built the house up by the shops about fifty-nine or sixty, don't remember exactly. You remember when they used to drill opposite the house Mr. McMullen, Mrs. C. C. Warrens grandfather kept store on the corner where Scots now is as you probably remember. Your Uncle Seryl died I think in the fall of 61 but am not sure. It was 60 or 61 your father was at Princeton buying cattle at the time and went up to Plover to the funeral. He was buried at Plover. I don't know where Aunt Augusta was buried. She never wrote me after she was married the second time. She had a son by her second husband. I don't think I can remember anything else that would interest you and I presume a good deal of this will be anything but interesting. I don’t remember what year we sold the house up by the shops but think it was in 65 or 66. You remember all about that. Introduction
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