Annals of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, 1835-1897 : an authentic account of the first discovery and settlement of the city of Lake Geneva and its vicinity and of its development, growth and progress to the present time : with sketches of the lives of prominent early settlers

Preface

In the year 1860 the writer of these annals, with a view to preserve for future reference an authentic account of the early history of the Village of Geneva and its settlers, prepared a few brief articles upon that subject, which were published in the Geneva Lake Mirror, a small but spicy weekly newspaper then being published here by George S. Utter, under the editorship of John T. Wentworth. Those articles traced the rise and progress of the village from its first settlement in 1836 up to that date, touching incidentally upon those of the town of Geneva, of which it was the geographical as well as business center. That town at first comprised the four governmental townships in the southeast corner of Walworth County. Some account was also given of the lives and characters of men who were prominent among us in early days. The facts upon which those sketches were based were derived from original sources; — from statements made to me by early settlers then living; — from my own recollections and experiences, and from public records. To gather them and prepare them for publication cost me much time and almost incredible labor; but though the work was crowded upon by other pressing engagements, I believe that no then ascertainable fact worth preserving was omitted, and no material error crept in to mar its reliability.

At the solicitation of friends I was induced, in 1875, to revise and enlarge those sketches, adding such new facts as I had been able to discover, and bringing the history down to the date of publication of the little volume (now out of print), styled the “History of Geneva.” At the latter date the scope of the work had expanded so as to embrace all the border land surrounding the beautiful lake at whose outlet lay the village of that name.

PREFACE.

That village sprung up with a vigorous youth, and having contended with unyielding persistence against serious obstacles, had attained a hopeful victory over them, giving it an outlook upon a more popular and prosperous career as a resort for summer rest and refreshment.

To add the most important incidents of the years intervening between 1875 and the present time is an undertaking which has for me many attractions, and promises to be rather a pasttime for leisure hours, — a labor of love for future generations, — than a heavy task to which I must apply the failing energies of my old age.

I claim no peculiar fitness or skill for the preparation of such a work, but no other settler of the early days seems inclined to undertake it, and I hope that my efforts to make it a faithful record of every public or private event of sufficient consequence to interest the people of the village or its successor the city of Lake Geneva, or of the country bordering on its lake, will meet with a reasonable measure of approval by my readers. James Simmons.

January 1, 1897.

AND ITS VICINITY.

Chapter I

The hardy pioneers who first ventured into this almost unknown wilderness and laid the foundations of the village of Geneva, — -cleared off the heavy forests which covered its site, and turned the waters of its charming lake into channels of useful industry, were many of them living among us when the materials for these sketches were first collected, but have since passed away, and are now almost forgotten. With them has been forever lost the memory of many incidents of their pioneer life, not perhaps particularly romantic or thrilling in themselves, yet of great interest to those who succeed them and enjoy the fruits of their labors and sacrifices.

Very few of the present generation have any adequate idea of what it was to be a pioneer of Wisconsin. It is less than sixty years since the richness and fertility of its soil, the variety and beauty of its scenery, the number and attractiveness of its rivers and inland lakes, the wealth of its forests and mines, the abundance of its fish and game, and the purity and healthfulness of its air began to be generally known to the people of the states lying eastward of Lake Michigan.

In spite of almost incredible dangers and hardships, the devoted Jesuit fathers had laid the foundations of their religious missions within our northern borders nearly two centuries before other settlements began. Claude Allouez located his mission at La Pointe in August 1665.

Hunters and Indian traders had indeed established posts for the exchange of manufactured goods for furs at several points at an early day, and soldiers engaged in pursuing the hostile savages had traversed some of its prairies and penetrated some of its forests, but the accounts given by them to the public were meager and unsatisfactory.

Doubtless these had some influence in turning the tide of immigration this way, but the great moving causes were the financial crisis through which the country was passing in 1836' and 1837; — the difficulty experienced by many of making a living or of acquiring a reasonable degree of comfort or wealth in the older settled portions of our land, and the hope that, by the endurance of some hardships and the application of industiy and economy to new and unexhausted lands, the men of small means might secure to themselves and their families good homes and a sure subsistence.

No railroads had then penetrated these western wilds. Scarcely had they crossed the c astern half of the state of New York. A few sidewheel steamboats navigated the great lakes, outstripping in speed the vessels that depended upon the fickle wind for propulsion, but sailing vessels were the principal means of conveyance by water. Many, very many of the pioneers left the far east, — New England, New York and Pennsylvania,^—in slow-moving, springless wagons, covered with canvas, and heavily loaded with household goods and provisions for their journey. These were surmounted by the wife and children of the driver, who marched beside his team, and after leaving the well settled portions of the country bore his ax on his shoulder, ready to cut his way through thickets, or provide logs or brush with which to fill boggy places, or levers to lift his wheels from the mire. Such impediments, instead of disheartening these emigrants only spurred them on to greater exertions to reach the goal which hope had set before them.

Camping out at the road side wherever night overtook them, from necessity and not from choice or for the sake of variety and change, as in the case of those who, at the present day, spend their summers around our lake, was their daily experience. Heat and cold, dust and mud must be alternately encountered, and their only shelter from the rain was the thin wagon cover. Often, as the emigrant approached the borders

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of civilization, for miles upon miles, his way was through forests having but a narrow track cleared for the passage of vehicles, and that was worn into ruts by continuous use. Cabins of settlers were for the first five years few and far apirt. Food became scarce and poor, all luxuries having been exhausted or abandoned. He arrived here weary and worn by his long journey, and now must he set about to find the right place to settle his family and rear his home. Often he must devote weeks or even months to that pursuit, and meantime his family must make a shift to live on such food as the woods and waters could supply, — sometimes to approach very near to the line of starvation. If he came by water, he must spend one or two weeks upon the lakes, tossed and sickened by their stormy winds and mountainous billows; — be taken to the shore upon a lighter, — and there be left to wait for transportation to the interior.

Many spent their last dollar of money in getting here, and they found here very few opportunities for earning anything to recruit their purses or satisfy their hunger. Starvation actually stared them in the face and, but for the fellow feeling which prevailed among the settlers, many would have perished. But each knew the condition of the others, and was ready and willing to divide his last crust with the neighbor more needy than himself. After the second year food became more abundant.

To these hardships must be added the discomfort of the houses with which in their poverty and their haste they were obliged to content themselves. Kude log huts were they, of but one story and generally but one room ; constructed often without nails or glass, and without the aid of any tools except an ax, a saw, a hammer and an auger. The floor was either the native earth, or made of shakes, — thin planks split by ax from oaken logs, — and the roofs were covered with shakes of like character held in place by small logs laid across them. The cellars were but holes in the ground without walls. Lhe chimneys, if any, were constructed of sticks built up cob-house fashion and plastered with clayey mud. Perhaps years might pass before the rude huts could be exchanged for better houses, such as the settlers had been accustomed to in their old homes.

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To obtain flour many of them must go long distances to mill or market on horse back. To get their plows repaired or sharpened, they must carry them many miles on their own broad shoulders.

Night and day they were attended and annoyed by clouds of flies and mosquitos. And yet this was not all. Who can tell, — who can measure the heart aches which attended the first breaking away from the early homes, — the home-sickness which at times attacked those who had enjoyed the social, the educational, and the religious privileges and advantages of the cultivated east, but who found here no old friends or kin, — no nearness of neighbors, good or bad, — no society like that which they had left behind them, and no schools or churches.

The inspiration of hope buoyed them up, otherwise they must have yielded to despair, and failed to accomplish the task imposed upon them by Providence of creating here a paradise out of the wild, — a great and noble state out of an unbounded waste.

Chapter II

It has occurred in the first settlement of many other places in the west, the rights usually conceded to first discoverers or occupants before the government of the United States ottered its new lands for sale, were claimed by two parties, whose stories do not exactly agree as to the facts upon which their claims are founded. Those differences, so far as material, will be noticed in the course of these sketches, while the main facts recorded here may be relied upon as correct and undisputed.

The Village of Geneva was originally located on fractional section 36, in township 2 north of range 17 east of the fourth principal meridian of United States surveys, being in the southeast corner of that township, six miles north from the southern boundary of Wisconsin. It is therefore very nearly on the line of forty-two degrees and forty minutes north latitude. It is about thirty-two miles directly west from the shore of Lake Michigan, at Kenosha,— thirty -eight miles southwest from

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Racine, — forty-four miles southwest from Milwaukee, and sixty-three miles in a direct line north-west from Chicago.

The original village plot covered about four hundred and sixty-one acres of land, but its area has been from time to time enlarged, until the present boundaries of the city embrace thirteen hundred and ninety-seven acres of land. Add to this number live hundred and twenty -three acres of water, over which the city has complete control, and we have a total of nineteen hundred acres, — ample room for the reception of the thousands who, just beginning to appreciate the attractions which center here, are flocking to it as a summer resort, or seeking here a permanent home. Lying around the foot of Geneva Lake, it embraces within its boundaries two valuable water powers, not yet fully developed, but capable of moving a large amount of machinery. These w7ere no doubt the most powerful attractions which led here the first uneducated, yet hardy and enterprising settler, and they are still justly regarded as great natural sources contributing to our present and assuring our future and permanent prosperity and material progrses.

The beauty of this location is not surpassed, if equalled, by that of any other city or village in the state. The land north and west of the outlet of the lake, slightly undulating, but ascending almost imperceptibly as it stretches back from the lake until, at a distance of nearly a mile from the shore it reaches the foot of a high hill, formerly covered by a native growth of heavy timber, and still fringed with trees, seems designed by nature for the site of a pleasant, healthy and prosperous city. A range of hills on the west, originally clothed with tall and stately trees, but now almost denuded of their covering, guards the valley below from the severe and cutting winds which sweep over the prairies lying to the north and west. An interval of low, but scarcely to be called marshy land, some three or four hundred feet in width, separates the eastern and south eastern^jfnpm the other portions of the city. Through it meanders, partly in its ancient channel, the stream or creek issuing from the lake, its volume being now limited by the demands and necessities of the nearest mills below, vThich draw

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their supplies through an artificial raceway further to the north. After passing these mills, the waters again occupy their natural channel, and assuming the name of White River, pass in a northeasterly direction until they reach the Fox River at Burlington, and join its search for the Illinois, the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico.

East of this intervale runs another range of hills, stretching south-westerly and terminating in those bold bluffs on the lake shore, so captivating to the wearied dwellers in the cities of the plain. But the lake, with its high wooded banks, jutting points, and winding shores;- — its crystal waters now rippling gently and sparkling like gems as the light breezes kiss its surface,— now lying calm, clear and glassy as a mirror, reflecting images of beauty under the light of its summer sun, and presenting to each tree on its shore and to each passing cloud its glorified counter-part in the blue depths below; — its crested waves now dashing wildly upon the pebbly beach at the command of an autumn wind, — is a never failing source of emotions of the beautiful and the sublime, and of itself sufficient to enchain to this spot the true lover of nature and fix here his habitation. It casts its spell, not alone upon the cultivated man, who can analyze his emotions and give them expression in glowing words, but also upon the wild, untutored borderer, who builds his rough cabin on its banks, and afterward clings to it as by instinct, refusing to part with, yet unable to give a reason for his attachment to it.

A pioneer but recently deceased, who spent his early life in the vicinity of the charming lakes of Western New York, and who in June 1830 first viewed our lake from the southern shore, described the scene as one of enchanting beauty, far surpassing anything met with in his previous experience. Before him spread the broad lake, with a bold promontory on the east and a gently sloping shore on the west, enclosing the ample bay around which our city has grown up. At his right lay the long sandy beach, through which a sluggish stream then, as now, found its way to join its kindred waters, and at his left stretched a long expanse broken in outline by deep indentations and

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wooded points shooting out successively further and further until they formed a narrow strait and hid the deeper hays beyond, scarce disclosing the holder b'u'fs at the western extremity of the lake.

All was then in its native wildness. The yellow leaves of a prostrate tree on the northern shore alone indicated the presence of a destructive civilization. The rich wild grass, nourished by the ashes of the yearly burnings, and intermingled with flowers of many varieties and countless numbers, carpeted the ground. Trees covered the uplands. The ragged burr oaks hid their ugliness in new suits of fresh green leaves, and the gnarly black and glistening white oaks, the black walnuts, butternuts and basswoods vied with each other in richness of foliage and skyward aspirations. Beneath them opened long vistas, unobstructed by brushwood or smaller timber, suggesting deeper shades and more retired nooks beyond the range of vision. The air, pure and balmy, was tilled with sweetness .from the flowering crab apple and wild plum trees. Can we wonder that he was so charmed with the scenery that he at once determined to make this his home, and that forty years residence here did not dim the memory of that supreme moment, nor abate his attachment for the lake and its surroundings.

The bay about which the city of Lake Geneva, is located is something like one mile in diameter in each direction and opens at Ihe south into the broad lake, giving us a waterscape of about three miles, bounded on that shore by gently rising hills dotted here and there with charming villas, farm buildings and orchards, and fields covered with growing crops, or shaded by groves of young and thrifty forest trees. Beyond the point which bounds the bay on the southwest, the lake extends in a westerly direction and, narrowing to a strait of half a mile in width and then again expanding and sending out a deep bay, known as Williams Bay, to the northward, within hailing distance of a sister lake, called Como or Duck lake, it finally terminates (or heads, for in this description we have proceeded from tin* foot upward), just beneath the bluffs which constitute the boundary of Big Foot Prairie, at the rising village of Fontana.

io

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The level of the lake is 308 feet above that of Lake Michigan. In shape it somewhat resembles a human leg and foot, and possibly from that resemblance, but more likely from the name of the old chief of the Pottawatamie Indians who inhabited its shores, it was formerly called Bigfoot, or Bigfoot’s lake. Its Indian name has, in less than sixty years, become so lost that it is practically impossible now to ascertain it. About the year 18(50, Seth K. Warren, son of the old pioneer millwright R. W. Warren, who came here in 1830, informed me that in his early years he became quite; familiar with the Indians and their language, and that they called it “Kish-wau-keToe,” signifying 4 'Clear Water,” but C. A. Noyes, Senior, who came the same year, thought the name was “Tish-qua-kwoe-a-toe.” In 1879, Mr. Warren had an interview with M. B. Beaubien, the head man of the Pottawatamies in Kansas. Mr. Beaubien knew nothing of the old chief Bigfoot, or of this lake, except what he had learned through the wife of Major Kinzie, the United States Indian agent at Chicago, but he suggested that the Indians usually named lakes from some conspicuous land marks on their shores, and that as Cedars were once numerous on the bluffy banks of the lake, they very likely called it “Kish-wauk-keak,” meaning “Land of cedars,” and Mr. Warren thought it quite possible he might have mistaken the last syllable.

Rev. Edward P. Wheeler, son of an early missionary to the Chippewa Indians of Lake Superior, who so well understands their language, which is almost identical with that of the Pottawatamies, that he can preach to them in it, tells me that the Chippewa words “Gee-zhich-qua walk” signify “The place of continuous gr >wth of cedar,” and the words “Gee-zihig-waugid dug-gah,” signify "Daylight has the water,” and that, as the Indians are accustomed to contract their names in speaking, the former might easily have become by contraction first “Gzichqua-walk,” and then in sound, “Kish-wau-kfeak,” and the latter have become 44Gzig-wau-gid-dagh,” and then in sound, “Kish-wau-ke-toe.”

Mrs. Kinzie in her account of her visit to the village of the old chief in 1832, gives the name of the lake as “Bigfoot,” and

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so it was called when John Brink surveyed the township lines around the lake in 1835. Struck by its exceeding beauty, and reminded by it of Seneca Lake, near Geneva, N. Y., which was familiar to him in his youthful days, and thinking that it deserved a better name than Bigfoot, he entered it on his minutes as Geneva Lake, and it has ever since borne that name. His instructions from the Surveyor General’s office required him to give Ihe Indian names of lakes and rivers, and when lie made his returns he was called to account for this departure, but he gave his reasons and his action was finally approved.

Chapter III

The authentic history of Geneva (under that name) dates back no fuither than 1835. Doubtless it had its place and potential existence from the earliest ages, and its antecedent history, if known or capable of being traced by an attentive student of the past, might be full of interest to us of the present day. But time and space forbids our indulging in mere speculations on the subject. Geology points us to its substrata of sands many feet in thickness, covered by coarse gravel, and that again by a soil having the appearance of marly clay (but in fact, as proved by chemical analysis, composed almost wholly of silica as finely comminuted as the finest flour), interspersed with scattering boulders, as its records of the past, but does not tell us when, or by what ancient seas or floating ice-bergs they were deposited, nor when these hilltops appeared, nor when the waters of the lake, covering all the low lands at the head and foot and on either side, burst the barrier hills at the north east, and dug out the channel through which they still flow onward. Neither has history or science interpreted for us the hieroglyphic mounds which the first settlers found here as elsewhere in the state. These point back to a remote antiquity, far back even of the traditions of the Indian tribes who then occupied the country, — and tell us of the existence of an earlier and more civilized race. When or where that race had its origin, — what was its history, — or when it passed away, we do not know nor

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can we conjecture. Even these monuments will soon be lost to memory ms well as to sight, since the greater part of them have already disappeared before the plow and spade of a relentless civilization. The key to unlock their mystery may however be discovered by some future Champollion, and, to give some humble aid to his labors, if for no other good purpose, I will presume upon the kind indulgence of my readers in writing a few words descriptive of some remarkable mounds which I found here intact in the year 1843, and speculative as to their significance and their connection with other aboriginal remains found in other parts of the state.

A large mound in the form of a turtle or lizard was then to be seen near the junction of Main and Lake streets in Geneva village, upon open land adjoining the west end of Block 32. Lying on its belly, with its head toward the lake, its legs spread out on either side, and its tail extended toward the north, it was from fifty to sixty feet in length and ten to twelve feet in width. Clear in its outlines, and rising some two or three feet in its center above the natural surface of the ground surrounding-, it bore upon its back the witness of its age, — viz: the stump of a large oak tree whose concentric rings kept the tally of many a passing year. A little further west, opposite the present residence of A. E. Tyler at lot 12, block 23, another lizard of much larger size stretched his brawny limbs and formidable tail completely across Main street. Several others of similar shape, but differing in size, might be discovered by a careful observer on the western shore of the bay, covered and almost concealed by the heavy forest. These were attended by still others of smaller size and less remarkable shape. Within a few years I have searched for these mounds, but can find no traces of them.

Mr. S. K. Warren wrote me in 1879, that he once counted the grains or layers of wood on the stump of a tree cut for lumber from the top of one of these animal mounds, and found there were nearly one hundred. He remembered two mounds, connected together and extending in a direct line for about one hundred and fifty feet. They formed a perfect figure resembling a panther, with its legs, feet, neck and head, and a long

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slim tail. This mound was about six feet in height. He did not tell me where it was located, nor did I ever hear of it from any other source, but such mounds have been discovered in several places in this state.

On the farm formerly owned by Warren Beckwith, some seven or eight miles west from this city, near the road leading to Delavan, there was a mound some eighty or ninety feet in length, and shaped like a bow strung for use, with an arrow ready to be discharged southwardly toward Geneva Lake. One large circular mound, some twenty feet in diameter and five feet in height stood at the right of the bow, and several smaller ones near by. There was also near it a circular place paved with cobblestones, all of which were cracked as if by water thrown on them when hot. Probably this was a hearth for council fires or an altar for sacrifice. But those interesting remains have also been defaced by plow and spade until nearly all traces of them have disappeared. On the low ground about thirty rods away, and underneath a tree of about six inches in diameter, whose outer bark concealed the plain and undecayed hack of a sharp cutting instrument, Mr. Beckwith found broken pieces of pottery, evidently of great age and exhibiting considerable skill and taste in their manufacture, far exceeding that which any of the Indian tribes were known to possess. In many of these mounds were found numerous articles manufactured for use or ornament by the same or some other aboriginal race.

Mounds similar in character, but of various forms and sizes; some of them straight, some cruciform and some in the forms of different animals, or birds, and even of men, were at that early day found in various parts of the state. Those in animal forms were formerly supposed to be peculiar to this and neighboring states, but have since been found to be more widely distributed.

Those found here were usually upon fertile lands, and around streams and lakes, seldom if ever upon barren hill tops. The materials for their construction differed from the surrounding soil, and were evidently brought from a distance. Many of them were, no doubt, used as burial places by the race which

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constructed them, as when opened they have been found to contain human bones in a state of extreme decay, together with implements of stone, and pieces of broken pottery glazed on both sides* Sometimes, and yet very seldom, were they used for that purpose by the Indians who lived here in the first half of this century; and when they did use them the modern grave was readily distinguishable from the ancient. They looked upon these vestiges of a departed race with as much curiosity as we ourselves do, and had not even a tradition as to their origin or the fate of their builders. To that same race may, no doubt, be attributed the fortifications and brick pavements found at Aztalan in Jefferson county, and elsewhere.

From the few relics which these aborigines have left behind them we may perhaps justly infer that they were not a mere barbarous race, like the Indians who succeeded them, contented with the absolute necessaries of a meager life, but that, possessing greater knowledge, they had higher wants and necessities, and boih the will and the ability to supply them. That they were a settled people, depending in some measure upon agriculture for their subsistence, also appears probable; and that they were not left entirely undisturbed in their possessions, but were obliged to provide means for their own defense against the incursions of a hostile race, by whom they were perhaps at last defeated and driven from the land is very evident. The large trees upon the summits of their mounds and earth-works point far back into the unknown past, but give us no accurate data by which to fix the time of their construction.

The mounds representing animal forms have given rise to much speculation. It can hardly be supposed that they are without significance, — the work of mere erratic fancy ; but whether, as some have maintained, they indicated the symbolic names of the beings their builders worshipped, or of the great men whose banes rested beneath them ; or whether they represented the heraldic badge or banner, — the totem of the tribe which constructed them, or of its chief, we can only conjecture. The long mounds, not representing animals, are believed by some archaeologists to have been screens behind which hunters