University Place

The Making of Pioneer Wisconsin

– Today we are pleased to introduce Michael Stevens as part of the Wisconsin Historical Museum’s History Sandwiched In lecture series. The opinions expressed today are those of the presenter and are not necessarily those of the Wisconsin Historical Society or the museum’s employees. Michael Stevens is Wisconsin’s State Historian Emeritus. He worked for the Wisconsin Historical Society from 1987 to 2013. He has published 15 books and more than 30 articles on a variety of historical subjects. His most recent book, “The Making of Pioneer Wisconsin: Voices of Our Early Settlers” was published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press. A Milwaukee native and now living in Fitchburg, Stevens earned his PhD in American History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Although retired, he continues to research and write history and is involved in historical and educational activities at the local, state and national level. So here today to discuss the lives of Wisconsin’s early pioneers, please join me in welcoming Michael Stevens, (audience applauds)

– Thank you Katie, and thank you all of you who show an interest in the past. When people ask me why I do this kind of history, I usually try to come up with something noble and understanding, an insight, but I really like reading other people’s mail, that’s really (audience laughs) the truth, and I suspect you do, too, and that’s one of the things I want to share with you today. There were two ideas that drove the creation of this book. People have been moving for a millennia to find new homes. It’s as old as humanity itself, and I’ve been interested in understanding the personal side of those decisions to make those moves. So I don’t deal with the larger economic and sociological issues. Lots of scholars have– did that. But Wisconsin seemed to be a good place to study that phenomena because between mid-1830s and 1850s, between a half million and three quarters of a million people moved into this place we call Wisconsin. Some of them we traditionally call pioneers. Some we call immigrants. Actually, they all were pioneers, because they were making a new society, a new place here, new homes. And some of them came from Europe, probably nearly half of them, little more than half came from other states. Some of them were Native Americans moving into Wisconsin, more on that later.

What they had in common is they all had to make that decision to move. Why did they do that? They had to find a way to move. They had to adjust to a new place, and then they had to create new institutions. And what I wanted to do here is illustrate that personal experience of what it was like to move and start over by ordinary folks. The second reason is driven by my belief that one of the best ways to understand history is through the words of the men and women, and sometimes children who actually experienced that, and that’s what I’ve done in this book, selected about 30 to 40 people who underwent that process, provided brief excerpts of their own words of what it was like and interspersed with my commentary. Reading the words of men and women who lived through an event, we better understand the past, because they didn’t know how the story would turn out. We do, they didn’t. In addition, this story is a timeless and universal one. They become alive rather than the cardboard figures, those pictures you see in daguerreotypes of everyone not smiling– Well they couldn’t, because they had to hold still for those. But what did it feel like to move from home, find a new place? How did you adapt? How do you find a spouse in a new land? How do you experience weddings and childbirth and sickness and loneliness in new surrounding? We know how their stories turned out, but they didn’t. We meet Norwegians and Germans and Danes and Swiss and English. And while it’s not surprising to find conflicts, more often than not we find a similar experience, and that’s one of the things that’s emphasized here. In the book we meet an excited bride describing her wedding, a young man delighted by the abundance of food, a rural wife struggling with loneliness.

We hear pioneers who believe that moving to Wisconsin was one of the best things they ever did, and others who thought it was one of the worst things they ever did. There’s a voice of a teenage girl who kept a diary on a wagon moving west to Wisconsin. We don’t often hear about children. The voice of a 27-year-old black man from Milwaukee talking about sweet freedom living in the North, and a Brothertown Indian woman abandoned by her husband and trying to make a living. So at the core of this book is learning about what people in a pivotal era felt like. From the perspective Wisconsin’s Native American population, it really didn’t matter who was coming in, it was going to be disruptive, and it was. The settlement took place at immense cost to the state’s Indian population. In 1830, the native population of Wisconsin outnumbered the non-native population. Fast-forward 20 years, the white population outnumbered that population by 50 to one, immense, immense change. There was a Ho-Chunk speaker named Hoowanneka who’s included in the prologue, and he was old enough to remember the French, and then the British, and then the Americans. And he talked about interactions with the French, how they sang and danced with us, and the English had treaties and traded with us. And then finally what he calls the bluecoats came, saw the land and wanted it all. And he asked the negotiators, “Do you want our country? You have plenty of land, do you want our country?” Unfortunately for him, the answer was yes.

But at the same time we remember there are other Native American nations that were immigrants to Wisconsin who were pioneers in their own right, and we have examples of their voice in here, too. The Oneida, the Stockbridge, the Brothertown Nations all were immigrants to Wisconsin in the 1820s and settled here and came from someplace else and as such underwent similar processes. What I’d like to do in the little time we have here is introduce to you some of my favorite people that I got to meet by reading their mail. (audience laughs) One of my favorites was a farmer and musician named Christian Traugott Ficker. By his name, you can guess he was a German. He was a musician and a farmer. He couldn’t make a living as a musician in Wisconsin, and settled in the Mequon area. And I like to think of him as kind of as the Dear Abby or Ask Amy or Miss Manners of 1840s Wisconsin. He wrote a guidebook for people living in Germany on how to come to Wisconsin called, “A Friendly Advisor for All Who Would Emigrate to America and Particularly to Wisconsin.” He’s kind of a Google Maps of his day because he answered questions of, well, “Where’s the best place to catch a ship to America?” And once you come to America, “Where’s the best way to move west?” You know, you should go here.

This is cheaper, but this is a better way. He offered advice as who should come. He noted which skills were important. One of the things he said is if you’re a lawyer, there’s plenty of work. I mean if you’re a doctor there’s plenty of work. But he was also blunt. He says if you’re a lawyer, unless you can use an ax, better to remain in Germany. (audience laughs) Three pieces of his advice stand out. The first was don’t be proud He said, “Don’t imagine that when you step upon American soil the people will marvel at you as such an extraordinary worker, such a knowing artist, so great a scholar, over you and your work, your art to artistry, the fruits of your learning. There are plenty of extraordinary men here. Don’t be vain or puffed up. You’re going to make yourself a laughing stock. Learn, and in time you’ll do all right.” Good advice even today.

The second was be sensible. Stop being a German and be an American. We’re going to meet others who have a different point of view later, but that was his point. He says people who sit around thinking about well this is how it was in the old country, and this is how it’s here, overlook the good things that are happening here. Ole Munch Raeder, a Norwegian legal scholar, took a different view. He says, “Yes, let the immigrants become Americans, but that doesn’t prevent them from remaining Norwegians for a long time to come.” So, differing points of view. The third point of advice that Ficker offered was know what you’re talking about before you open your mouth. Again, a very good piece of advice. (audience laughs) “Learn about America, get your affairs arranged before you’re writing home about America.” You know, a great advice giver. So what did pioneers talk about among themselves? Well, they’re a lot like us. What do we talk about, the weather, right?

Ficker called Wisconsin weather, “summer heat is oppressive,” sounds familiar, “winter cold, pretty severe, the weather’s extraordinarily changeable, and the fall is glorious and beautiful.” Very much the Wisconsin we know. Some Norwegians complained thunderstorms and other phenomena were so violent that they had to hide in the cellar. Many Wisconsin residents tried to put a positive spin, because they wanted other people to move here. There was this guy in Mineral Point in 1839. It had snowed in late October, four inches of snow on the ground, and he’s trying to figure out a way to put some spin on this to say, “This is good, come to Wisconsin, we have a wonderful climate.” Oh, by the way, we’ve got four inches of snow. This guy could be in public relations. So he says, “Our winters, though perhaps somewhat colder, are much more pleasant and healthy than in places like Southern Illinois and Ohio where they don’t have that. The air is clear and bracing. We have none of their half-cold, half-warm, wet, disagreeable slushy weather. We never hear of people dying of consumption, seldom hear of complaints of coughs and colds. Come to Wisconsin.” I love that. (audience laughs)

What else do we like to talk about? We like to talk about food, right? In the old days, at least when we got food on airplanes, we’d complain about airplane food, right? Now we’re happy if we get any. But for those coming from Europe, one of the consistent themes was complaining about shipboard food, consistently. Doesn’t matter where you came from. For example, Gerhardt Kramer’s from Germany, settles in Manitowoc County. “Our food was very poor, poor coffee, poor pork, stinking beef, not good.” John Ramus from the Netherlands settled in Milwaukee, “Potatoes became worse each day. The drinking water is brackish. Everybody is tired of peas and beans.” Matthew Durst, lives in Swiss, settles in New Glarus. “The meat is all packed in barrels and so salted that we have to wash it many times, then parboil it, then throw the water away until it’s fresher. And even then, it was hardly edible. The hardtack is sufficient, but it’s not human food, if the pigs that are kept on ship refuse to eat it.” (audience laughs) “And there’s this kind of dark brown color inside and out, so it requires a hammer to break it into pieces. Flour was gritty with sand, potatoes black, bad, bad-smelling, rotten, not fit for pigs.” Bring your own food when you come to America if you were worried about your health. (audience laughs)

But once they got to America, there was this amazement at abundance. Again, another consistent theme. A guy named George Fromader moved from Bavaria to Jefferson. He was astonished at the abundance of food. He wrote back here in America, “One eats meat every day, sometimes twice. Morning and evenings, we have coffee. The Americans have meat on the table three times a day and many kinds of vegetables which we don’t even know of in Germany.” Or John Friedrich Deidrichs, another settler from Germany to Manitowoc. And he also talks about the abundance, but he uses humor to talk about maybe some of the monotony. And I can imagine the smile on his face writing this. He’s talking about the schedule on the farm, and you ate your main meal midday, and you come into the house, and says, “Mother has white beans with bacon, or bean soup with bacon, or rice soup with bacon, (audience laughs) or barley soup with bacon,” (audience laughs) or flour dumplings with…? All: bacon. – “Which last combination we usually also have for Sunday dinner. Then in the evening, we go back out in the fields. In the evenings we come back in, and we’re treated to black coffee, dry bread and bacon,” I love that. You know, I imagine he’s laughing.

The decision to move was sometimes described as a fever or an itch. Henry Seymour Eggleston, who came from Vermont to New York and gradually stopped and worked in different states, Michigan, trying to raise money to go further west. And he’s writing to his wife. He wasn’t planning initially to move to Wisconsin, but he says, “I got to thinking about Wisconsin, and the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to see it. Went to the shop, couldn’t wait ’til Monday, got my pay, headed out.” He’s also one of the first people to use the term badger. He sees some relatives, and they had a little infant, and he says, “Oh, met the little badger here,” you know. (audience laughs) For children, the trip was exciting, and it’s very rare to get a children’s account, but we’re lucky. Sarah Foote, a teenager who moved to Rush Lake in Winnebago County, and she kept a diary of the trip. And you know, for teenagers, it’s a lot about the food and about the, you know, what’s going to happen next, and some of the monotony and the like. But then she arrives, and so she says, “Here we are, ready to begin life in the woods.” Sounds a little like Laura Ingalls Wilder, doesn’t it? Adults, less of an excitement.

Charles Minton Baker, an attorney, came west from Vermont also and then took, by wagon, and took a Great Lakes steamer, found the trip less exciting. He notes that on the ship, “There was crying and scolding and snoring and groaning, and it’s a scene I do not wish soon to experience again.” And he didn’t, he stayed out in the West. One other thing we tend to forget about that experience is young people look for a mate. And there was a gender imbalance in early Wisconsin. Mostly men moving west. There were eight males for every five females. John Hodgson from Yorkshire, England wrote back, what did he write back about? “Girls are very scarce here.” (audience laughs) “There are all these bachelors around. Tell them I could be very much at home if I could have a missus around. A man is free here, and there are several rich widows, but I am the poorest man in the territory. You might bring a flock of lassies over with you.” (audience laughs) One of the things that often gets overlooked is the women’s experience, and that’s one of the things again, we’ve tried to emphasize here. Veronica Kerler Frank, 24 years old, wrote a letter. She’s from Bavaria, married a fellow German merchant, August Frank, and she had been engaged three weeks and then married, and she describes the wedding. And, she sounds like a young modern bride. She has the giddiness of a newlywed. I’m sure, it would be interesting 10 years later. She’s all excited she gets to get up early and make breakfast for her husband at seven, and then she goes back three hours later to prepare dinner, and then she goes back at five to make supper, and this is just all wonderful. (audience laughs)

There’s also a sad side to this: loneliness and separation. Health care in the 19th century was primitive compared to what we have today, even far more primitive. Florantha Sproat, a New Englander living in the Lake Superior region lost a child in birth and wrote had there been a skillful physician in hand, they might have saved our child; my heart yearns for my babe. Others suffered loneliness, what we would call depression. Elizabeth Therese Baird, Green Bay area, married at age 14, didn’t speak English, spoke French. She says, “I couldn’t have conversations with my neighbors. I would have done it in French, but I didn’t. My life is very solitary. My husband would mount his horse directly after breakfast. I wouldn’t see him again until evening. I shed many tears. You can’t imagine how very lonely I feel. I am now at liberty to give way to my feelings. I want to see you so today that I do not know what to do. I know you will feel sorry to hear I am in such low spirits. I have the blues most horribly.” What do you think? Very early use of that language. My favorite woman was Rachel. Actually it’s not my only favorite woman, my favorite person in the whole book, a woman named Racheline Wood Bass. And she’s 28 years old. She moved basically on her own from Vermont to Platteville. And her exuberance comes through. She was a school teacher, and I think the feelings if any of you have been school teachers, you would relate to her.

It’s the last day, she’s writing to her sister, and it’s the last day of school. She’s done teaching for the semester. “You cannot imagine my joy which I experienced the succeeding day. I felt as my shackles were off. I’m free as a bird.” (audience laughs) But what’s even cuter than that is the next day she sees one of her students, and suddenly she says, “Oh, I’m missing them already.” (audience laughs) These are people with the same feelings and emotions that we have. Oh, and she also mentioned how good it felt to be paid. She got a paycheck. But Racheline also expresses the feeling of loneliness, and she tries to convince her sister Mary to move to Wisconsin. Her sister’s living back in Vermont, and she uses persuasion, admonishment, guilt, anger, and she begins her letter, 1840, “No one should read this letter if Sis is not in town. Send this directly to Mary, now be honest.” So she tells her she’s engaged to be married. Her sister probably won’t like her new husband, but that really doesn’t matter, and would you come out here? You can live with us. I can find you a job. I’ll give up my teaching job for you. Well her sister finally writes and says she can’t come. “It’s too far from Vermont to Wisconsin.” She’d be among strangers. “I don’t have time to prepare.” Racheline is very annoyed by this. She says, “I had today a little cry on getting your letter.” Says, “First of all, it’s just as far from Wisconsin to Vermont as it is from Vermont to Wisconsin, no farther. You say you have no one here.” Who am I, you know, I’m here. (audience laughs)

And finally, packing, you don’t need to pack. You know, we’ve got stores and things here to do that. “Your reasons are null and void.” (audience laughs) Adapting to a new language was important. About half of the immigrants to Wisconsin didn’t speak English when they arrived. And that was an issue. John Kerler, Greenfield, Wisconsin says, “When you make the decision about moving, consider the language. English is spoken in court, trading.” It’s hard, and that Milwaukee is the only place he’s found so far where the German language is widely spoken, where “you find inns and beer and billiards and bowling alleys, and if you value this, come to Wisconsin” Others, Norwegians, commented on the common phenomena of younger generations wanting to learn English. Some of these Norwegians didn’t like this. The kids want to learn English. He notes how Norwegian farm girls quickly learn to speak English. He points out their English is quite correct, but as soon as they start speaking their mother tongue it sounds broad and clumsy. No matter how much patriotic love you profess to feel, you can’t deny that this feeling of harmony is broken. Likewise, Norwegian boys, once they get skills are kind of reluctant to admit they’re Norwegian. And so you have this conflict between pride in the old country in the first generation and the feelings of the second generation or third generation wanting to fit in.

They also had expectations. We, those of us, which I think is most of us who are descendants of immigrants are descendants of the success stories, those who decided to stay. One German says, “I’m a farmer. I have 80 acres and livestock consisting of a dog and cat.” (audience laughs) Isn’t that nice? “Is it really good in America? I can give you the answer, yes, it really is good here. Whoever’s faint-hearted and cannot conform better not come. But I can hand on heart declare that I thank the Lord I’m here and regret I didn’t come sooner.” Others kind of took a middle ground. Again, John Kerler, on the plus side you’ve got freedom, you’ve got income, you have the sky and earth, but you have a strange language, they speak English here, many low-class and rough people, and not as much civilization as we have. Anders and Johan Vig, Norwegians, 1841, they first were dissatisfied when they arrived, hard to find a job, disease, but says, “Pretty soon we were happy to be here, and they haven’t found anybody among the Norwegians who wanted to up except for Yorgensen, who against the wish of his wife set his mind to go on back, a most peculiar decision.” And some thought it was the worst decision they ever made. John Bjorland from Milwaukee said, “People are sick here. It’s too hot. I don’t like the snakes. There are too many woods and swamps. Taxes are too high, wages are too low. I do not advise any of my relatives to come to America. If you could see the conditions of Norwegians in America at present, you would be frightened. If almighty God gives us health and money, we want to go back to Norway. No Norseman is ever going to be happy here. Do not think of coming to America.”

So, it was varied. Once you were in America, you had to build a new society. And as a result, you had to create new laws. And one of the things that strikes me is that even in those political debates, we find a lot of similarities on the emotional side. Liquor laws was a big– were a big issue. There was a proposal in the legislature around 1850 to ban the manufacture and sale of alcohol. The Germans did not like this idea very much. The Germans petitioned and said, “Martin Luther said to drink beer.” And you know, that this is a good thing. Others opposed it. One of the most interesting were some– it was a mixture of Germans and native-born Americans in Muskego in Southeastern Wisconsin. And I thought they had the most ingenious argument against it. They said they heard that there’s this proposed law. And if you banned beer, the problem is people will start drinking water. We’d have this water drinking class coming here. If too many people drank water, they would drain Lake Muskego. (audience laughs)

If Lake Muskego was drained, it would kill the fish. We have a biblical responsibility to care for creation. Fishing is guaranteed by Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence. Fish tastes better when cooked in beer. (audience laughs) Plus, if that’s not enough to convince you, if we drain all the water, we’re not going to have any manufacturing because we use water power, that’s bad. We’re not going to have any need for river improvements. There are no lucrative offices to appoint. If there’s no lucrative offices to appoint, who’s going to pay the kickbacks to the legislature? (audience laughs) If you pay no kickbacks to the legislature, then we’re going to have to raise taxes. So instead of passing this law banning alcohol, instead we should pass a law against the adulteration of good liquor. (audience laughs) The… It was a small black population in Wisconsin, but those who were here, the legislation dealing with blacks was important. 1840, when only 185 black people in the state. By 1850, only 635, but you had people who were active in their own freedom. And there was a small convention of blacks in Milwaukee in 1850 when the Fugitive Slave Law was passed. Wisconsin was one of those states that opposed it. But you had remarkably, a remarkably young entrepreneurial group. You had Louis Johnson, who was among, at 33, was one of the older ones, he was a barber. Or Joseph Barquet, who was a mason, 27 years old. Henry Clark, 35, he was the owner of the Pioneer Hair Dressing Salon. I love that name, isn’t that a great name for that? Martin Smith worked as a whitewasher.

These men pledged to put their lives on the line for their fellows, for freedom. Joseph Barquet, “We are Americans by birth. A blush of shame comes to my cheek when I think that the land of our nativity refuses us our protection.” And many of them went on, Joseph Barquet, for instance, eventually became a sergeant in the 54th Massachusetts, which was immortalized in the film Glory, and gained fame for their assault in Battery Wagner. People at this time knew that they were living in a time of historic change. They were awed by the changes that took place in their own lifetime. And one of my favorite pieces, and one which we end the book with was called the Wisconsin Character. And I was struck by how similar that Wisconsin Character in 1839 is similar to what we think of the Wisconsin Character today. He thought hard work, self-reliance, and a public spirit were critical. People had thought for themselves, had a freedom and independence in mind, hard work, a public spirit. And I love this phrase, “There is a more friendly, neighborly feeling prevailing in Wisconsin,” that sense.

And the writer goes on, and this sounds remarkably modern, but says, he doesn’t use the word diversity, but he says, “That’s what gives Wisconsin its character.” And if I can quote here, “The settler here finds acquaintances of people from all the Northern states and from many foreign countries. And people have been engaged in a variety of occupations, different than his own. Thus he acquires a great variety of new ideas, and he’s much more liberal in his opinions and views of life.” Some things actually don’t change much, do they, that kind of recognition there. So summing up, the Wisconsin pioneers experienced moving to a new place, getting married or starting a new job. All of these, or many of these, can call up familiar emotions in ourselves. And while some of their values and assumptions are different than ours, by hearing about their triumphs and defeats, and their joy and their anxieties, I think we come to understand a little more about our own lives. These aren’t stern, dour people whose images are frozen in time, but rather we’re meeting, through their words, people who have strong emotions and feelings, who face similar challenges in a time of change. That exuberance and excitement of the pioneers, as well as discouragement and loneliness at times aren’t unfamiliar to us. And as we build our own lives and communities, I think we can take some comfort knowing that others have walked similar paths. Thank you very much. (audience applauds)