My father, Andrew Jackson Davison, was a pioneer settler of Kenosha County. He was born in Norwich, Chenango County, New York, November 13, 1814, the youngest of a family of six sons of George W. and Mary Carter Davison, originally from Connecticut. He was a man of high grade of intellect but with meagre schooling, having been obliged at an early age to earn his living by engaging in occupations which, to us, seem anything but light. He was always a reader, and having an excellent memory became a well-informed man. As a young man Andrew J. Davison worked during the winter seasons in Buffalo or elsewhere East at his trade, that of shoemaker; in summer he "followed the lakes" between Buffalo and Chicago. His brothers, William, John, and Cordillo of Buffalo were lake captains, as was also B. F. Davison, who lived in Chicago, at the western end of the traffic route. An item of family history often repeated and believed to be true is that William Davison's vessel was the first to carry a load of wheat from Chicago down the lakes. Lighters were used to transport the grain from shore to vessel. After experiencing great dangers and hardships, Andrew decided to give up sailing, and to engage in a less hazardous business,--that of farming in the West. Sometime in the spring or fall of 1839, he landed from his brother John's vessel in Chicago. He had read in eastern papers about Illinois and Wisconsin land and if, at the time, he was undecided as to whether Illinois or Wisconsin would be his future home, observations about Chicago soon settled this question. It was swampy and malarial there, and he used often to declare, when relating this experience, that with the money he carried for his prospective land purchase, he could have bought in the vicinity of Chicago much more land than he bought in Wisconsin. By means of a rowboat he was taken up the Chicago River through the swamp covering much of the site of the present great city, and was landed at a point from which a wagon road running northward could be easily reached. From the fall of 1836, a weekly stage had been running over the Milwaukee Road between Chicago and Milwaukee;1 but either this wasn't stage day, or the traveler preferred to walk. With a carpetbag in hand or on a stick over his shoulder, he was soon started toward his destination,--Milwaukee, and the Government Land Office there. On that long walk of over eighty miles, the first house seen was Peter Martin's tavern on the Town Line, afterward the Plank Road, three miles west of Southport. After dinner he pushed on to Ives' Grove in Racine County. A heavy rain came on and he was wet to the skin when he got to the tavern there. He never told the story of that journey without expressing gratitude to the tavern keepers, man and wife, for the hospitality shown for the loan of clothing while his own was being dried, for excellent food, and a comfortable bed. In the morning he continued his journey and reached Milwaukee early in the forenoon. At the Government Land Office he selected two quarter sections of land in Racine County, Kenosha County having not then been set off as a separate political unit. In making his selection, he probably had the help of the surveyors' descriptions, available for settlers.2 The reputation of this section of Wisconsin as one of the richest and most favored agricultural regions of the West, coupled with the government price of ten shillings ($1.25) an acre, had created a great demand for farms here. The young man sensed the situation and felt sure that delay would be dangerous to his interests. So he set out as soon as possible on his tramp of thirty miles or so for the inspection of the two pieces he had selected, his course lying in a southerly direction from Milwaukee. The first piece examined had the desired conditions: timber for fences and for buildings, some raw prairie land "needing only the service of a breaking team to turn the sod, in order to be ready for the seed; bur oak groves near open spaces as sites for homes, no clearing being needed." West of it was a wide stretch of marsh land, part of the Des Plaines River basin, into which this piece of land drained. He knew that this land was what he wanted. He was anxious to have the business clinched, and hurried back to Milwaukee, paid his $200, got his papers, and the northeast quarter of section 11 of the town of Paris became the property of Andrew J. Davison.3 And it was well that he acted promptly for as he left the Government Office, he passed another claimant for the same piece of land who had just arrived on horseback. This good piece of business completed, he started without delay for Buffalo, on a vessel that happened to be in Milwaukee harbor, shipping as "a hand before the mast"--a phrase that used to puzzle my young mind. He came back in the fall of that year and arranged with Hiram Ball, who kept a tavern at Kellogg's Corners and with whom he had stopped, to do the things required of new settlers by the rules of the Settlers' Association of Milwaukee. These rules specified that the claimant of a quarter section should have at least three acres plowed and under cultivation within the first six months, and at the end of a year have either a house built or an additional three acres plowed.4 Having paid Mr. Ball for the anticipated service, he went back to Buffalo to earn for his enterprise more money at his trade--a very useful trade at a time when all foot-gear was made by hand. His wages were eighteen shilling a week! When Andrew came back the next time, he found that nothing had been done of the work promised, so he determined to stay and attend to it himself. While a hired man was doing the plowing, he cut the trees and split the rails for a stake and rider fence. Whether this species of fence was the same as the zig-zag rail fence, I do not know. But the account of these early experiences always included the making of "the stake and rider fence" and impressed me as a special sort of achievement. Several seasons went by with the alternations of shoemaking and sailing, with trips up into the country to see his land while the vessel on which he worked was being unloaded and loaded at Chicago. But slow as progress was, Andrew's purpose to establish a home on his farm never weakened. Instead of that, it was quickened and strengthened; for a certain handsome, black-eyed young woman, whom he had met in Buffalo, and whom he hoped to win as his wife, had made it very plain to him that she would not marry a sailor. Her older sister, Mary, was the wife of Captain John Davison, Andrew's older brother, already mentioned, and Caroline had seen her sister and other sailors' wives walk the floor night after night, too anxious to sleep, when a bad storm imperiled the lives of their loved ones somewhere on the Great Lakes. She determined that that should not be her fate. So when Andrew came back to Wisconsin later, he was actuated by a new and absorbing purpose--that of preparing the logs for the construction of a house to which to bring the young woman who had promised to leave the comfortable, well-equipped home of her parents in Chautauqua County, New York, to share with him the life of a new settler in the distant West. The site selected for this house was near the south limit of the farm and today is that of the home of the present owner of that quarter section. On May 23, 1843, Andrew Jackson Davison and Caroline Garnsey Wagoner were married. Soon after this event, leaving his bride at her father's home, the groom came West to further the work of preparation for her arrival. In late summer she came by the Lakes and landed at Kenosha, then Southport. A pier had been constructed in 1842. Thus she escaped the experience of being transported ashore in a scow that had been kept at the harbor for landing goods and passengers. 5 For some reason her husband could not meet her, but a neighbor delegated to do this was there. Caroline came with considerable baggage. Her well-to-do father had equipped her with an abundant stock of household articles, among which were a number of warm, hand-spun-and-home-woven, blue-and-white or red-and-white plaid woolen blankets;--precious heirlooms, such as are left of them, of her children today. The boxes were placed in storage at Southport to await later transportation, and she, with trunk and bandbox started on her ten-mile ride across the prairie in an ox-drawn lumber wagon. That interesting trunk contained, among other things, three silk dresses, her last for many years! They followed a trail running northwesterly from Southport. She often told us children of that first ride. She couldn't see from the wagon over the top of the grass, and not a habitation came to view. We know that Somers had a number of homes by 1843, for since the first white man came in 1835, this township, located near the Lake and the port, had been settled rapidly; but the tall grass hid everything. A few years ago when searching through an old file of the Southport Telegraph for data pertaining to a question that then interested me, I found an article written by an early settler who came to Wisconsin the year before my father did. I copied this paragraph as it expressed what my father and mother probably saw then. The writer said: I first saw the prairies of Wisconsin in the Spring of 1838, and reveled among the flowers in youthful glee. I saw an immensity of acres, untilled and luxurious, with the wildest, tallest grass, only awaiting the arrival of the plow to make them what they have since become,--a certain source of wealth to thousands, and the grain fields of the world. I found the people few and scattered, but not so rude in their minds and habits as one might suppose, save an exceptional case. Carl Sandburg tells in The Prairie Years of the removal of the Lincoln family from Indiana to Macon County, Illinois, in 1829;6 and, although his account is characteristically embellished with fine imagery, it expresses in substance what my mother told us. Sandburg says: Grass stood up six and eight feet; men and horses and cattle were lost to sight in it; so tough were the grass-roots that timber could not get roothold in it; the grass seemed to be saying to the trees, 'You shall not cross'; turf and sky had a new way of saying, 'We are here--who are you?' to the ox-wagon gang hunting a new home. In 1843, my mother was one of the "ox-wagon gang" and was seeing the same conditions that Sandburg describes. For some reason there had been a delay in getting doors and windows for the new log house and for awhile blankets were put up to cover the openings. To the newcomer these seemed but slight protection when the terrifying howling of wolves was heard at night. Their nearest neighbor in 1843 was at Kellogg's Corners, two and a half miles away. Another story which she often told us, with never-lessening effect, was about an old Indian, who used to borrow father's gun. Once he came when father was away, and the young wife was terribly scared. She was afraid to refuse him the gun and powderhorn, for she didn't know what he might do after he got it. But nothing happened, and mother ceased to be alarmed by these visits. She told of a friendly exchange she was able to make, he bringing her game, and she giving him some salt pork, which he seemed to greatly prize. My elder brother was born in this log house, January 23, 1845. He was called Cordillo, a family name. On August 20, 1846, a daughter was born, and was named Ida. At the time of this writing, April, 1930, she is living, and will be frequently mentioned in these annals. Her remarkably clear and accurate memory of names, dates, and events has been a great help to the writer, born ten years later than she; in fact, the account of the early days in home and school is in substance hers. She remembers the plan of the first home. It stood some distance back from the road, on a slight rise of ground. The front of the house was east, and the one door and a window were on that side. These opened into the living room, which extended across the house, and had also a west window. Off of this room on the north was one bed room with a closet, also a pantry. The loft which was used as a sleeping room was reached by a ladder in the southeast corner of the living room. Under the large bed was a trundle-bed, pulled out at night, in which the children slept. Later, as the family increased, this bed accommodated four children, two at the head and two at the foot. This seems an appropriate place to tell of an event which, while it nearly deprived the family of this "mainstay" as she afterwards became, seems to have sufficient bearing upon the conditions of those early times to warrant its recital. In the summer of 1847, mother, in poor health and very homesick, went with her two babies to visit her old home, taking as usual the water route. She staid a year and then father, who had visited his family once or twice during this time, went East to bring her back. The return trip was made on a propeller bound for Chicago. It was a very rough passage and Ida, then about two years of age, was taken very sick. The parents, alarmed and anxious, persuaded the captain to put them ashore at Southport instead of carrying them on to Chicago. But the conditions for landing were bad. A strong east wind was blowing and the waves were high, which made the approach to the dock very dangerous. The passengers had to be ready to jump at just the right moment. Undoubtedly my father's sailing experience was very useful in this emergency. He jumped first with the older child in his arms. Mother handed the sick baby to a passenger to hold while she made her jump. This she did successfully. Just at that moment a great wave threatened to crash the steamer against the dock, and the order to back her was given. Imagine the horror of the mother when the boat began to move away, and the space widened over the water between her and the child. "Throw her" was father's peremptory order and over the dangerous space the bundle was tossed and safely caught in his arms. It was all over in less time than it has taken to tell it, but mother did not soon recover from the shock. She rarely alluded to it and then always with emotion. It was a dreadful memory. Father had rented the south eighty acres with the log house to a newly arrived immigrant from England. While mother was in the East, he prepared for the erection of a new frame house on the north eighty. Since it was not ready for occupancy at the time of her return, the family settled down at Southport and lived there until the spring of 1849. Father found ready employment, as he had the previous winter, with F. W. Lyman, who had the principal shoe shop in Southport. While they lived in Southport their third child was born, on August 29, 1848. He was named William Miller Wagoner, after mother's father. I will digress from my chronological recital to say that this son grown to manhood on the farm, determined to study medicine. He was handicapped by an inadequate education, but coming to Kenosha to live in 1868, he became the close friend of Dr. N. A. Pennoyer, then a young man. While William was earning and saving for his college course by working at the Simmons factory (then making cheese-boxes) Dr. Pennoyer directed his study and encouraged him in his purpose. William graduated from Hahnemann College, Chicago, in 1877, and practised medicine in the West and later in Chicago. He died in Kenosha, March 2, 1901, aged 52 years. Now to return to the family story. As soon as the frame house wa finished enough to be habitable, the family moved into it. A shop was located upstairs where father could carry on his work. There, winters and when farm work permitted, he made boots and shoes for the neighbors. Besides this, he took work from Mr. Lyman, walking the ten miles back and forth, bringing out the packs of boot-uppers for soling and finishing, and carrying back at the end of the week the finished articles. Before it meant much to me, the statement, "I used to bottom boot for Lyman" was familiar. At first those wishing to visit this shop had to walk through the kitchen to reach the stairway, and this was the cause of much work and worry to mother, when heavy boots brought mud to her clean floor. So later an outside stairway was built. The shop became the club house of the neighborhood. Grandfather Davison spent several winters with father, and had a bed room off the shop. He was very active and, although pat eighty years, was able to walk the ten miles to town with father. One article of furniture in the living room of the frame house seems to me to have been unique. It was a long settee with rockers, and served the two purposes of rocking-chair and cradle. There was a frame with spindles which could be adjusted at the front of the long seat, thus enclosing more than half its length, and leaving a space for sitting at the end. Thus a safe bed was made for the baby, who could be comfortably rocked by the one occupying the seat. This duty was assigned the older sister, who managed it by seizing with one hand a post of the front frame and with the other a back spindle of the settee,--a well-remembered performance of her very early childhood. As yet there was no barn at the farm. The only outbuilding father had, if it could be called a building, was a shed made of poles, which covered with straw, furnished some protection for his oxen and one cow. There was no granary. The summer of 1849 is noted for the great wheat crop throughout southern Wisconsin.7 A noted diary kept by the editor of the Southport Telegraph, Colonel Michael Frank, says of this wheat crop under date of August 11, 1849: ... "a vast quantity of wheat on the ground, the amount for market will be large." Two days later in this diary an item is recorded which seems to bear the relation to the one just cited of effect and cause. It is this: August 13, 1849, "Hutchinson's new warehouse near the steam mill about finished." Champion I. Hutchinson was one of the prominent business men of Southport arriving in the early forties. He had married the daughter of the Episcopal minister of the place and stood high in Southport society. C. I. Hutchinson & Company were mentioned in 1842. It was in connection with this warehouse and the builder of it, C. I. Hutchinson, that the most disgraceful event in the early history of Southport occurred. My father's account of it as recalled is this: In 1849, when there was such a great yield of wheat, few of the farmers had granaries, and were, therefore, ready to accept Mr. Hutchinson's proposition for storage in his new warehouse. Wagonload after wagonload was drawn to town; farmers from as far west as Walworth Country availed themselves of his offer. Receipts were given for the amount of grain delivered, and the pledge made that when navigation opened in the spring, the grain would be sold and the farmers paid the market price received. From now on the name Kenosha will be used instead of Southport, for on January 26, 1850, a bill was passed by the legislature creating Kenosha County from a part of Racine County; and on February 7, 1850, another bill was passed changing the name of the place to Kenosha and incorporating it as a city. There was great excitement over these events and much rejoicing. But Kenosha and all the near-by country was destined to become excited soon about another matter. Early in the spring of 1850 the word spread like wildfire from farm to farm that wheat from the Hutchinson warehouse was being loaded on to vessels.Farmers hastened to town to find the report true; their wheat was gone and gone also was Hutchinson with the money. Believing that the thief was secreted somewhere in Kenosha by his friends, it was with difficulty that a riot was averted. When we think that the grain entrusted to this man was the first real promise of return for all the hard labor of these farmers, that upon it rested plans for improved homes and increased comforts, and, further, that it was a time of great money shortage with interest rates exhorbitantly high, it is not difficult to imagine the effect of this disaster not only upon the losers, but on the reputation of Kenosha. Some of the farmers clung to the hope that although Hutchinson himself had fled to California, the Hutchinson firm could be held responsible for the money of which they had been defrauded, but after a lapse of time, the news came that this firm had failed, and then the storm really broke. It seems that after the first emptying of the warehouse, there had been stored there a quantity of wheat that a certain buyer had purchased and paid for. This grain the desperate farmers determined to have and rushed to town armed major of Kenosha, and therefore, actively engaged in quieting the riot. I quote again from the diary, under date of Saturday, April 6, 1850. He says: A riotous disturbance at the ware house this morning. I was called upon to suppress it. The excitement ... grew out of the late failure of C. I. Hutchinson, he having defrauded the farmer, etc. out of some 40,000 bushels of wheat left in store at his ware house. There being a quantity of wheat new in the ware house, belonging to different individuals, those who have lost wheat claim to it by force ... The "etc" in the phrase "he having defrauded the farmers, etc" is the diarist's; and the only explanation of it that I can think of is that a fuller account of the event had been printed in his paper, or that he did not want to repeat details here. Then follows an account in the diary of the events of that day, and of the following day, which was Sunday, April 7, 1850. He says: A man from Ohio ... had got a writ of replevin from the U. S. Court to take some 12,000 bu. wheat belonging to him and the Dep. U.S. Marshal... had come to execute the write. I found a crowd of some 2 or 300 in front of the ware house ... It was this that farmers determined should not be done. It seems to me very probable that many of these thought that they were being deceived again, and disbelieved the statement of its ownership by others. Colonel Frank records how at that early hour he explained to the mob the nature of the writ and "enjoined the obedience of law." He evidently thought that his effort was effective for he went home, and later to church. But things at the wharf didn't stop. He was called from meeting, he says, and found the warehouse crowd doubled in number. The marshal "had been obliged by the interference of the crowd to stop taking wheat." Colonel Frank partially satisfied the farmers by promising that the warehouse would be effectively closed against any more withdrawal of wheat by anybody. The place was barricaded at his orders but it availed little. The barricade was pulled down. The attackers were rendered still more desperate by the news that the United States marshal had sent to Milwaukee for a company of infantry to enforce the execution of the process. The diary says: "...there was much murmuring among the people," and the record for the day closes with this: "The excitement during the whole of this day has been the most extraordinary it was ever my lot to witness. The streets were full of people earnestly discussing." The next day, Monday, April 8, a mass meeting of the farmers was held in front of the Methodist Church, which stood on the site now occupied by the Dayton Hotel. "Strong apprehension of a serious outbreak anticipated." Walking with hickory canes coming into use for a day or two past," are sentences from that day's diary. April 9, "Excitement much diminished," he says. April 10, "Two companies of Milwaukee Infantry arrived ... to assist in enforcing the execution of the process in removing wheat from the ware house. There was a great crowd of people ..." April 11, "They [infantry] took the boat for Milwaukee about 31/2 p. m." Thus ended this historical episode of eighty years ago this month. The boat which had brought the soldiers on this unhappy errand and carried them back was commanded by Captain William Davison, of Buffalo, my uncle already mentioned. He happened to be in the harbor at Milwaukee, and his vessel was requisitioned by the government to transport the soldiers. The questions very naturally suggested are: "Was A. J. Davison one of the defrauded farmers?" and "Was he one of the mob?" The answer is "No" to both questions. Since the reasons for his escape tell the story of another way of taking care of grain than that of storing it in granaries or in warehouses, I will give an account of what is said to have been done at the Davison farm. With him, as with others, labor was rewarded in that summer of 1849 by the first large yield of wheat he had had. The threshing was done by a horse power, treadmill threshing machine. Without a granary, as I have said, father prepared, as best he could, to store his grain in the open. Whether or not he was solicited by Hutchinson's agent to use the Southport warehouse, I do not know. First, he removed the sod from a patch of ground near the house and tamped down the earth, making it as firm and smooth as possible. Upon this dirt floor the grain was poured as it came from the separator of the threshing machine. Around the finished heap he built a wall of rails and poles, calking the chinks with straw. A slanting roof covered it, the boards and poles of which supported a carefully constructed thatch of straw. His grain was secure for the winter, with little loss. Whether this method was used elsewhere, or whether it was the result of my father's ingenuity and self-reliance, I do not know. Perhaps this was the general procedure, and may be just what Colonel Frank meant when he wrote under date of August 11, 1849, as already quoted: "A vast quantity of wheat on the ground." But however that may have been, this is the story of how one farmer escaped the disaster that plunged so many of his neighbors into a state of discouragement bordering on despair, and caused Racine to be preferred for several years afterwards as a trading place. As soon after this summer as circumstances would permit, a granary was built. It immediately was tenanted by a newly arrived German family, for father found that hard labor had begun to tell on his health, and that it was necessary for him to have regular help. In the new frame house were born two daughters, Hannah Camp, named after the maternal grandmother, born January 20, 1851, and Caroline Garnsey, bearing mother's name, born July 17, 1853. The children now numbered five, and the two oldest ones had, in 1853, been going to school for three years. The new frame house was located on the north side of the farm nearly half a mile from the log house, and the distance to the new district school house was over a mile. In stormy weather the children were carried to and from school in the ox-drawn lumber wagon, but the distance was too great for them to walk even in pleasant weather. It is believed that when father built his new home, he expected that the school house would be located nearer, but it wasn't; and so, with characteristic regard for the best interests of his children, it was decided to shorten the distance between them and school. The frame house was moved across the farm and placed in front of the log house, which served as an ell to it. Today the log house is gone, but the frame house stands where it was then placed and is still occupied. My curiosity about the way things used to be done brought an account of this moving from Ida, then a child of eight years, who remembered it well, although not allowed to stay out of school to witness it. Knowing that their walk home that night would be a half-mile shorter she and Cordillo went to school that morning as usual. The story also furnishes an instance of the fine spirit of neighborliness of those early times. I trust that the details of this event will not be tiresome to my readers. The cellar had been dug at the new site, and the stones collected for the cellar wall and foundation. The half-mile course to be taken through the fields in the moving was cleared of hazel brush and other obstructions and was made as smooth as possible. Over this course the granary went first, father being able to move that with his ox team and that of a neighbor. To this a stove and some furniture were moved and the place made habitable for the family. When I asked why the old log house was not used, I was told that when the human tenant family had left it, there remained numerous other tenants to be gotten rid of later, which was effectively done. The frame house was prepared for the trip by having placed under its sides timbers smoothed and curved at the ends like huge sled runners. Word had gone out through the neighborhood that when the first good snow storm should arrive, father would like assistance in the moving. One night the snowfall came, and in the morning ox teams were steered, one after another, by their drivers into the Davison yard. It is said that thirty yokes assembled--perhaps it was thirty oxen. Anyhow, there were more than were needed. With a selected number attached to each of the two great runners, the even, steady start was made, and the house hauled the half-mile, without an accident. Mother used to wind up her account of it by saying: "And not a single crack in the plaster!" Many strong hands soon had the building placed on the posts prepared to support it, there to await the laying of the stone foundation. We sometimes learn, when reading of movings and barn raisings and such events, that a certain kind of refreshment was offered as an inducement and as an expression of appreciation, but to nothing of that sort could be attributed the popularity of this occasion. My father was a teetotaler. But after the work was done, all the men were invited to the granary, where there awaited them good hot coffee, and a table loaded with eatables--a feast that had taken mother and her competent German helper, Margaret Myers, all the day before to prepare. Old Jerry Slater is remembered a having said, "This is the better than whisky!" But I like to believe that it wa not wholly the reputation of the Davisons for generous feeds that brought the neighborly response. The times were characterized by the spirit of mutual helpfulness, and this was probably a reciprocal act for similar services that had been rendered them. But there were some things still to be desired in the new situation, the house was on post, and when strong winds blew, there was danger of it being upset. Ida recalls a time when the children were all taken from their bed in the middle of the night, bundled up and transported to the safe old log house to stay until the wind abated. In the spring of 1854, father was able to make a very advantageous sale of this property. A newly arrived German immigrant wanted it. He was Carl Kreucher, a high-class educated man who came from Hesse-Homburg, bringing a large family of children, some of them well grown. (The "oi" vowel sound in his same as he gave it, was very soon corrupted to "oo" and is so pronounced today.) At the time of this sale Ida was eight years old. She has a very clear remembrance of the event, and since certain circumstances connected with it seem to have more than a mere family interest, further details of the transaction are here given. It took place in the living room of the frame house. There was present a near neighbor, Obed Pease Hale, commonly called Squire Hale, who was the justice of the peace of the town. He was a settler from Ohio, a lawyer by training and profession, and had been called in to draw up the necessary papers. There was also Jacob Meyers, a German neighbor and good friend, who had settled in an adjoining district in Paris Township about the same time as my father, and whose knowledge of English qualified him to act as interpreter. Carl Kreucher brought gold coin to pay for the farm, the price agreed upon being $3,700. For this he got 160 acres of land, under cultivation for ten years, a new frame house, good for the times, with an old log house for an ell, an orchard beginning to bear, and corps all planted--the corn being up "so that the rows showed."8 It was the array of gold that impressed the onlooking children. Ida recalls the glistening piles arranged across the table. There were two fifty dollar pieces, eight sided and of greenish hue, which meant, so father told them, that they were of California gold. Most of the money was in twenty dollar pieces. This large amount of money was tied up in bags and then the anxiety of father and mother waxed great until it could be pu in the bank in Kenosha. When that evening the hired man reported that two strange men had come to him in the field and questioned him, their anxiety increased. They wanted to know about father's plans--when he intended going to town, and whether to Racine or Kenosha. It was decided that the ride to Kenosha should be made secretly in the night, and after midnight they started, the hired man going along. That morning the bank, very soon after opening, received that money. Father had told with the idea of going to a warmer climate. His strenuous work since boyhood, the strain and exposure of sailor's life, and the hardships of the Wisconsin winters had brought on a rheumatic condition for which he sought relief. He was then forty years old. He left mother and the children to live with the Hales and started east. It was a fully earned vacation that my father gave himself. First he visited his boyhood home in Chenango County, New York. He found few that he knew. If old friends had not been claimed by death, they had been caught up, as he had been, by the great westward migration and were scattered in various quarters. Next he went to southern Ohio, which had been his place of work for several winters. There, also, old friends had dispersed, and many left behind were shaking with the ague, the universal malady then of more southern sections. Then he went to Logansport, Indiana, where an old friend and schoolmate lived. He liked the looks of the land which was occupied by American settlers. But ague was prevalent here, also, and school houses were scarce. Educationally, they were not so far along in that part of Indiana as they were in southern Wisconsin, and with a man who was seeking a place in which to rear his family, this was an important consideration. The school in District No. 5, Paris, had been running successfully for three years, and Kenosha had had for five years a high school well known and of excellent repute. He came back to Wisconsin welcomed by neighbors and friends, and bought the "Willis Place," a farm of 160 acres adjoining the first farm on the south. In some respects it was a better farm than the first, for the orchard was bearing, and there was a good barn,--but the house! It was poorly built, unpainted, run down. I can easily imagine how my mother felt to move into a house like that, after having been the proud possessor of one of the best houses in the district. But there was one condition that helped to reconcile her, the children were a good half mile nearer school. In the "Willis house" as it was usually called, I, Mary Lemira, was born January 15, 1856, and Sarah Isabel, November 17, 1859. The family of seven children of Andrew J. and Caroline G. Davison is now all assembled. There comes to mind here a poem in that old reader used in my childhood: I remember, I remember the house where I was born, The little window where the sun came peeping in at morn. It had two rooms downstairs, a kitchen and a sitting room--both "living rooms." Attached to the kitchen was a lean-to, serving in the summer as a kitchen, and in the winter as a storeroom. Off the sitting room was a "bed sink" shut off by a curtain. The chamber above was all one room, unfinished. Between the studding the clapboards showed, and between the rafters could be seen the widely spaced boards, and the shingles over them. As soon as possible the house was made somewhat more habitable. Outside the clap-boards were put up-right boards, well battened. The north end of the open chamber was partitioned off, and the walls of the room thus made were sheeted with matched boards, and a place of greater comfort and privacy thus provided for the girls of the family. But I remember sleeping in the unfinished part, and of waking in the morning to find on bed and floor small drifts of snow that had sifted through the shingles during the night's blizzard. Those warm homespun woolen blankets had kept us comfortable, but leaving the warm bed and going down stairs to the kitchen to dress was a much dreaded performance. It was, however, one that consumed very little time, after woolen stockings had been pulled on under the warm bed clothes, and after mother's voice had taken on a certain well-understood quality. This house is still standing, the main part just as it was in 1854, when it came into the possession of the Davison family. Then it stood in the midst of a grove of large bur oaks--the pride of my father--which was kept intact as long as we lived there, but soon disappeared after the farm changed hands. (The farm was sold in 1868 to Theodore Frederick.) I remember the position of every one of those beautiful trees. Naturally a nature lover, and fond of trees, it is the bur oak that seems to have for me an especial interest. I believe that this is the effect of those childhood associations, another manifestation of which is the emotional response I feel to such poems as that of Lowell's "The Oak." What gnarled stretch, what depth of shade is his! There needs no crown to mark the forest's king; and all the rest of that beautiful appreciation of my beloved bur oak trees! From the lower horizontal branch of one of them--not low down, however,--hung the strong rope swing. It was no short, jerky pendulum. When the muscular arms of older brothers, pushing, and catching and pushing again, each time with the admonition "Hang on tight!" had sent me flying higher and higher, I experienced a sensation that must have been akin to that felt by an aviator of today. I remember the two trees that stood nearest the house, and quite close together, between which had been constructed the press for the making of cheese. My mother was an expert cheese maker, having been brought up on a Chautauqua County dairy farm. The product sometimes exceeded the family needs, and then the yellow, flat cylinders were taken to market with the butter and eggs. I remember well this cheese making, although the details of the process are supplied by my older sister who assisted in the work. The preparation of the rennet for curdling the milk was the first step in the process. From calves killed on the farm, the fourth stomach or rennet bag was saved. This was carefully washed and filled with salt. Salt was also put on the outside of it, and then it was hung up to dry. These dried membranes would last for years. When needed, mother would cut off a piece about the size of the palm of her hand and put it asoak in cold water. The size of father's herd of cows was such that it took the milk of one evening and of the following morning to make a cheese of the size desired. That former quantity, put in pans over night, was skimmed in the morning, since the cream was needed in the making of the family butter. To this was added all of the morning's milk, a large vat being used. Into this was poured a cupful of the rennet water. In half an hour the milk was curdled. Then with a big wooden knife the smooth soft mass was cut through one way and across, until its surface was marked into two-inch squares. Into the crevices made, the whey quickly gathered. This whey was carefully dipped off, and put on the stove to heat. When quite warm, it was poured back over the mass. Then hands were carefully put down into it to open passages so the warm whey could permeate the whole. Then another kettleful was heated and poured back, which was done several times, until the curd grew more and more firm and the entire mass was broken into pieces about the size of a hazel nut. Salt was applied and the whey drained off. Between the trees a bench was placed. In its plank top was a circular groove into which fitted the tin cheese hoop. Several small drainage grooves radiated from this circular one. After the hoop was in place, new muslin, clean and wet, was spread over the bottom of the receptacle and made to line it, the corners being brought over the top of the ring. The curd was then put in, and the first layer carefully pressed into the bottom so as to insure a regular edge for the cheese. Then the rest of the curd was poured in and pressed down. Two corners of the cheese cloth were spread over the top, then a circular block of wood that just fitted the hoop was put on top, and over it the other two corners of the cloth were spread. Other blocks were used to raise the height of these "toppers." A lever fastened to one of the trees was then brought across the blocks, and a kettle filled with stones was hung on the end of the lever. Under this pressure the whey was squeezed from the curd and flowed off through the radiating grooves. The product was a cheese about six inches thick which weighed sixteen or seventeen pounds. The removal of the cheese was an interesting event to us youngsters. Frequently the block didn't fit tight, and a margin was trimmed off which had escaped pressure through a chink. I recall the nimitable squeaky sound it made when I chewed these delectable bits! The well, with its oaken bucket and its nearby watering trough for the horses, was under the oak trees. We were fortunate in having a very remarkable echo between the house and the barn, and with it are associated other delightful experiences of those childhood days. Standing just outside the kitchen door facing the barn, we would startle the air with strange halooings, listening after each one for the echo, at first clear and loud, then less and less distinct and finally fading out. We loved to hear mother call from the house to father in the barn, and count the times we could hear echoed back the last syllable of "Andrew" sent out by her clear, carrying voice. Back of the house was the orchard bearing a variety of apples. There were harvest apples, the progress of which toward ripening was eagerly watched and waited for. They were yellow, sweet and of a delicate texture. I have many times searched the markets to find places like that early variety, but in vain. I wonder where the one who set the orchard got those trees. From that orchard came also an abundant supply of fall and winter apples. The harvesting and storing of the latter is a well remembered event. An incident which shows the beautiful neighborliness of the time will close this part of my story. As already related, Carl Kreucher brought a large family of children to America. One of the younger children, a boy of eight or ten years was sickly. His angelic face depicted suffering and foretold an early death. As is usual in such cases, the mother's heart was centered upon him, and she grieved unconsolably when little Jacob died. A man by the name of Gregory, who lived on a farm in the neighborhood, now known as the Biehn farm, made coffins. From him one was procured for the Kreucher child. It was a rough, bare pine box, and it can easily be imagined how the mother felt about putting the body of her beloved child into such a receptacle. It was at this time that my mother lent a hand. Calling to her assistance Mary Ann McNeil, the seamstress of the neighborhood, the two set to work to fix the board box and make it more suitable for its purpose. With pieces of an old white sheet, the inside of the coffin was lined, over a padding of cotton; a pillow was made and covered. Then from strips cut bias and fringed at the edges, soft box plaiting was made and put around the pillow and the inside edges of the box. The stricken mother saw her beautiful child laid away in a comfortable looking white bed. Her gratitude endured through the years. This neighborly act cemented the friendship of the two families. NOTES 1 A wagon road from Chicago had been opened in 1885 as far as Milwaukee. See Joseph Schafer, Four Wisconsin Counties, 64. 2 Ibid., 54. 3 The pre�mption receipt given A. J. Davison at Milwaukee at the time of purchase was No. 5476. The entry of this at Milwaukee bears the date of Sept, 28, 1889. The land patent was issued to A. J. Davison by the General Land Office in Washington under date of Mar. 3, 1848, signed by Pres. Tyler. It was received for record in Kenosha, June 9, 1854. 4 Summary of these rules given in Schafer, Four Wisconsin Counties, 69-70. 5 The first boat landed at this newly constructed pier on Apr. 20, 1842. Wallace Mygatt, "First Settlement of Kenosha," Wisconsin Historical Collections, iii, 395-420. 6 Carl Sandburg, Prairie Years,105. 7 The U.S. census of 1850 summarizes the crop produced for 1849. "It shows for that year a total wheat yield in Racine County of nearly a quarter of a million bushels, or an average per farm of 216 bushels. Kenosha's record was more striking. That county had an aggregate of 927 farms as compared with Racine's 947, and a wheat yield of over 800,000 bushels. This makes an average per farm of about 820 bushels." Schafer, four Wisconsin Counties, 128. 8 The records at Kenosha say: "Andrew J. Davison to Charles Kreucher, June 7, 1854. Recorded in Kenosha, June 10, 1854."

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