Early Days in Baraboo History: Tradition And Trail Breakers
by Ruth M. Southard
Reprinted from the August 1, 1934 Baraboo News Republic.

In 1844, only the river was Baraboo. The north side of the river was called "Adams". When the town was organized in 1847--1848, it was named Baraboo. The south side was called "Lower Baraboo". It has been "under the hill" almost from the first.

"While Wisconsin was still a territory and a wilderness, Abe Wood came as the first permanent resident of Baraboo, the exact date not being recorded, but it was about 1839. Water power and quick riches drew Abe Wood to the Baraboo rapids. " He was a powerfully built man, rough and profane, impulsively ready to divide his last crust and equally ready to pick a quarrel. It was only the accident of his being the first settler that made him prominent in Baraboo's history.

In 1840, Wallace Rowan arrived. These first settlers made a claim to the land where the Island Woolen Mill now stands for the purpose of building a sawmill. They built the first dam an the Baraboo River just north of where the woolen mill is now located. Part of the Wood and Rowan dam may still be visible at low water. The race is still visible below the south-west comer of Ochsner park

Wallace Rowan brought with him his wife and three daughters. One daughter, Araminta, married James LaMar, also an early settler. The union of these two young pioneers gives us a bit of interesting local history, for as the years rolled onward, it was revealed that they were the grandparents of Clifford M. LaMar and Mrs Wayne Newell of Baraboo, Wis.

Abe Wood built a log cabin, 12 by 12 feet on the bank of the Baraboo River. Mr. H. E. Cole, former president of the Sauk County Historical Society, was instrumental in having a bronze tablet placed to mark the spot which reads:

"On this site in 1839, first permanent house was erected by Abraham Wood, who, with Wallace Rowan built nearby in 1840 the first sawmill and dam on the Baraboo River. Placed by the Sauk County Historical Society, June 14, 1926."

This tablet is one of many which will survive the years for future generations and will also perpetuate the name of one who worked so unselfishly and faithfully in the interest of Sauk County history, Mr. H.E. Cole.

Abe Wood died September, 1855, aged sixty years. The cabin he built was the beginning of Baraboo. Levi Moore was a close follower of Wallace Rowan, locating in 1840. A wheelwright and ship builder by trade, he operated a sawmill in the early days of Baraboo. Part of his land was known as Moore's Addition, bounded on the south and west by the Baraboo River, on the east by Center Street and on the north by 8th Avenue. Once a wild and picturesque tract, it is now intersected by paved and busy thoroughfares lined on each side by attractive, modem homes. It was platted in 1859. The home place on 2nd Avenue has never been out of the family. Levi Moore was the father of Mrs. Charles H. Williams and Valoo V. Moore and grandfather of Mrs. Oscar Doppler.

Eben Peck with his wife, Rosaline and two children, Victoria and Victor, also came in 1840. Mrs Peck, who was well entrenched in the early history of Baraboo, was described by Levi Moore as: "Our lawyer, doctor and particular friend of the people - and never told a lie." She herself is quoted as saying: "There were no deaths in Baraboo until the doctors came. "Mrs. Peck was the first white woman in Madison as well as Baraboo. Her daughter, Victoria, was the first white child born in Madison.

Indians were numerous and a nuisance for their thieving and begging but the fact that Abe Wood's wife was a Winnebago chief's daughter with authority over the Winnebago tribe, prevented in Sauk County the depredations and tragedies that troubled other localities - although there were several serio?comic Indian scares.

The first wedding in Baraboo took place in November, 1884, when Chauncey Brown's daughter, Martha, was united in marriage to Erastus Langdon by Justice of the Piece, Lorin Cowles. While the guests were still assembled, news came of the election of President Polk, which took place two weeks earlier. No telegraph facilities, no railroads, no telephones, nor wireless, nor airplanes those days to bring news quickly. All these conveniences came later in one life span of ninety four years. To wind up the exciting events of that first wedding, there was an eclipse of the moon that night. Erastus Langdon was an uncle of H.C. and E.J. Langdon of Baraboo.

In 1844, Baraboo had no licenses nor saloons. After the death of a man who drank himself to death , alone and privately, nearly everyone signed the pledge. It is a noble list of names for a little village.

The story of the first funeral held in Baraboo is told in a letter written by my mother's youngest sister when she was fourteen years old. Baraboo was her home with Great Grandmother Crandall from 1846 until her marriage in 1851. The letter follows:

"Saturday, the l8th of December, 1848. A funeral was held over the corpse of George W. Brown, a friend of the poor, a loved and respected member of society. He is lamented by a large circle of brothers and sisters, a father and mother. He was a single man but expected (reports say) to be married the night he was killed. His poor Maria is at most frantic with grief . He was owner of the sawmill and in putting up an addition, a bent fell, killing him almost instantly He never spoke again although he breathed for almost two hours. He was very rich, some say worth two thousand dollars ($2,000), but we do not know. The funeral was held at the new court house, the first that was ever held in it. The text was this: 'Truly as the Lord liveth and thy soul liveth, there is but a step between me and death.' He was followed to the grave by nearly two hundred people. His was the first interment in the village burying ground.
Huldah Van Valken Burgh, 1848"

When Mr. Cole saw this letter, he began a search for the first burying ground, as it was not until 1855 that the present cemetery was located and named. There is a note, however, which says: "In the early days of the Baptist church, a burial place was purchased. The land formerly belonged to Ira S. Angle whose mother, a member of the church, was the first to be buried there. Her name was "Mercy". So the cemetery was called "Mount Mercy." It was located on Cheek's Hill. Bodies whatever buried, on farms or in private burying grounds, were moved to the present cemetery after 1855. In connection with the location of the first burying ground, there was some correspondence on the subject with Mr. Cole, his letters follow:

Dear Miss Southard,

I have always understood that the earliest cemetery here (Baraboo) was on the ridge east of where the Hills once lived - at Indian Ford - north of Ochsner park, all a field now. There was a cemetery about where Mrs. M. A. Warren now resides - later they selected a place on Cheek's Hill. George Brown was, no doubt, buried in one of these places - but which? When I see Ed. Alexander, I'll ask him. Wallace Rowan and Judge Cowles were buried in the Ruggles' field. The bodies were never moved, Valoo V. Moore may know, I'll ask him also.

Sincerely, H.E. Cole 

Dear Miss Southard,

I met Ed. Alexander and spoke to him about Brown's burial place. He thinks he was buried first in the Ruggles' field, north of Ochsner park, and later was moved to the present burial place. He thinks the Brown lot is south of the Warren monument, across the driveway, Ed. Alexander thinks the parents are also buried in the lot - Mr. and Mrs. Chauncey Brown. Better look it up in the cemetery when the dandelions bloom again. 
As ever, H.E. Cole 

Dear Miss Southard,

You will find the Brown monument in the cemetery. There are several inscriptions on the stone. Am not sure , but think George, Edwin and William are all buried in the lot. Will look again when there.

Sincerely yours, H.E. Cole

In June, 1844, a school meeting was held, with a committee composed of Wallace Rowan, Lewis Bronson and William H. Canfield. They were appointed to select a site for a district schoolhouse. This building stood for many years after its service as a schoolhouse ended, or until 1849. It served as court room, town hall and general meeting house, as well as schoolhouse. The logs of this building were left in the rough. The roof was made of slabs taken from Levi Moore's mill. The cracks were filled with battens. The size was about 12 by 14 feet A small blackboard, about 5 by 2 1/2 feet made by James Webster, was put up.

The furnishings were mainly benches made of slabs sawed on one side, rough bark on the other and arranged along the sides of the room in haphazard fashion. The teacher had no desk. Heat was supplied by a fireplace with outside chimney of rough stone. The first teacher Iwas E.M. Hart from Massachusetts. The subjects taught the first year were reading, writing and spelling. The next year, grammar and arithmetic were added. The books were anything and everything. Fortunate was the pupil who had any, said David Reynolds, one of the first pupils. David Reynolds married one of Wallace Rowan's daughters. He helped to build the first schoolhouse on what is now Seventh Avenue.

Oxen were used more than horses in the early days - conditions demanded their greater strength and endurance and they were more quickly raised and put to work. Locomotion by ox-team was the slowest mode of traveling known in America. A man could walk faster but it was necessary to walk beside a yoke of oxen to guide and travel the one hundred miles to them. It took days with a load to Milwaukee, the nearest source of barter and supply.


In 1850 and later, merchandise of all kinds came direct from Philadelphia, Boston and New York to Milwaukee, there being no wholesale house in Chicago for some years after. "Teaming" was one of the early industries.

In the olden time when Wisconsin was putting on the dignity of statehood, a young man with eighty acres of land and an ox-team considered himself well-to-do. It wasn't an unheard of thing for him to call on a pleasant afternoon and take his sweetheart out for a ride. As oxen had no bridles, they had to be governed by word of mouth and crack of the whip. The whip was essential. It had a snap on the end, not so much for punishment as for moral suasion. "Whoa, Haw. Gee!" and their names: Star, Buck or Bill, was the extent of the oxen's knowledge of the English language. As the driver was on foot and fully occupied with urging on his steeds, love-making must have been extremely limited at such times. Often four oxen-a double yoke, were used for heavy loads. The wagons or carts were heavy and clumsy looking to match.

In 1846, so many settlers came that there was not shelter for them at all. The housing problem was so acute, people were uncomfortably crowded together. Among those who came in 1846, were my great grandfather and grandmother Crandall, about a dozen great aunts and uncles and their families. There is a family tradition that five of the Crandall families spent a winter in the old log schoolhouse of two rooms! D.P. Crandall took shelter in the sawmill for awhile. There is also word that Miss Maria Crandall taught school in the old log schoolhouse. The records do not explain if it was at the same time it was occupied by five families. To the average person it would look impossible, but there seems to be no limit to the resources of those sturdy pioneers.

A sawmill on the south shore of the Baraboo River was at the time kept running night and day to provide lumber for the much needed buildings. D.P. Crandall was known to work forty-eight hours at a stretch without sleep to keep the mill at top speed so houses could be built for the homeless. Log houses were called huts. Those built of rough slabs were shanties. Three of the Crandall houses are still standing. The one at the head of Broadway was built by Eber Crandall, second postmaster of Baraboo. The old homestead on the Portage road was built for my great grandfather, Simeon Crandall by his son, Simeon, Jr., in 1848. It is now the property of the Misses Huntington, having changed hands once. The house now the home of M.C. Crandall, was built by his grandfather, D.P. Crandall in 1858. All three houses were built on government land entered in 1845 in Mineral Point.
Dr. Samuel Crandall who came with the others in 1846, built his house on what is now Water Street, "under the hill". He devoted himself to the practice of medicine almost at once. He was one of the old time doctors who carried their medicines in saddlebags on the back of a faithful horse through wind and weather. His practice took him one hundred miles into the Pinery where only blazed trees marked the trail. He rode when rain and sleet froze on horse and rider alike, when blinding storms made it almost impossible to follow the trail. Sub-zero weather was only one of the dangers he faced. His life ended at forty years. His diploma and saddlebags were presented to the Sauk County Historical Society. (Note: The saddlebags are on display in the Pioneer Room.)

The D.P. Crandall house built in 1858, now the home of M.C. Crandall, has sheltered members of the Crandall family for seventy-five years-a hospitable home. (Note: The Crandall home used to stand where St. Paul's Lutheran Church stands on 8th Street in Baraboo.) Its latch string was out for friend or relative alike. Those in trouble or in need found peace and security within its walls.
Many school boys and girls trod the road to knowledge from its doors and took widely divergent paths out into the busy world. The house knew youth and gaiety. It knew marriage and death and the tragedy of wars. It has known a full life. If walls could speak, what a story they could tell. In 1934, only two are left in Baraboo to represent a once large clan and they are of the fourth generation-M.C. Crandall and Ruth Southard.

In 1850, there was a population of 250. In ten years, it had increased to 1,100.
Dr. Charles Cowles was the first physician who located in Baraboo Valley. He came here in May, 1846. Dr. Cowles was in the prime of life, full of vigor and had a practice which extended many miles. On one occasion at sundown, January 3, 1847, he was called to go sixty-four miles to visit a lumberman taken with pleura-pneumonia. On an Indian pony, he rode that distance by four o'clock the next morning without dismounting and the thermometer registered 26 degrees below zero; such a feat demonstrated a degree of physical endurance seldom seen in our time. He excelled in quick diagnosis, arriving at quick conclusions and was remarkably accurate as a rule.

Under the head Musical I find the following: "Dr. Charles Cowles might be called with propriety, the father of music in this and other parts of Sauk County. He taught singing school in the village of Baraboo and neighborhood some twenty years, and many who might now be called old singers received their first lesson from him."

Dr. Cowles bought two lots for seven dollars and built a house where Mrs. John Griggs now lives on Sixth Avenue and Broadway.

Dr. B.F. Mills, the last of the steadily thinning ranks of the pioneer doctors, made Baraboo his permanent home in 1850. After sixty years of medical practice, he was so much a part of Baraboo that his personality is still like a living presence, while Dr. Mills' drugstore and Dr. Mills' home place are well known landmarks to the present generation.

The first and last of our pioneer family doctors! Brave they were with no thought of self when a call came. I would like to mention each one of those old-time heroic men, but space forbids; they were outstanding in their service to their community, in their relation to local history and in their unblemished character.
Ed Marsh came in 1849. In 1855, he opened a photograph and ambrotype gallery. After his return from the Civil War, Mr. Marsh built the first hotel at Devil's Lake-The Minnewauken House. This hotel was later enlarged; the porches and rustic railings added and rechristened The Cliff House. I visited there while the Warners and Thompsons were residents. The work was being done by Tom Thompson who was an architect from England. He was also artistic and a genius. The finished building nestling at the foot of the cliff with the rocks and pines for a background, the peerless, unspoiled lake in the foreground was like a bit of Swiss scenery transplanted to Wisconsin. But man has marred and commercialized it. Some day, we hope, someone with vision and love of beauty in his heart will rise up and restore Devil's Lake to its primitive beauty with its former peace and quiet, when visitors who love rare things will gaze with awe and wonder upon masterpiece and those for revenue only will be conspicuous by their absence.

In 1850, the first Methodist church in Baraboo and Baraboo Valley was erected. The Sauk county Historical Society placed a bronze tablet to mark the spot near the corner of Broadway and Fifth Avenue in 19 14. When I was seven years old, I attended my first School in the basement of the old Methodist church. As I remember, the building stood on a high knoll, or so it seemed to my short legs. The ground sloped to the rear to permit large double doors such as are used on a garage these days. I recall we entered through a vacant room before entering the schoolroom I was wearing to school a greyish, brownish, wool delaine dress made with a low neck and short puffed sleeves. I wore over this a black silk sacque to protect my bare skin from tan. It was not the mode to look like an Indian in my young days. There were plenty of original ones. I tore one of the sleeves of my dress some how and so no one would know it was town, I tucked it under. "How did you tear your sleeve?" my mother asked. "I don't know." I replied. Mother punished me not for tearing my sleeve but for what she thought was an untruth. I have always been truthful, whether from that time on or whether I truly did not know - is lost in the mists of the long ago. This is everything I can remember about my first school in the basement of the Methodist church.

My next school saw me proudly marching to the head of a long spelling class when I out-spelled the others or in "spelling the school down". Promotion simply took me from downstairs to upstairs where the big girls of eleven and twelve in their fancied superiority had aroused my envy. Pupils were graded by reader - upstairs was fifth reader.

The earliest building in Baraboo where the Methodists held their meetings was built of slabs with a saw-dust floor, according to an early churchgoer. In this building, Miss Maria Train, later Mrs. C.C. Remington, held her first school. She was driven from Milwaukee with horse and buggy, the trip taking three or four days, stopping at some friendly place for the night when darkness overtook them,


Years later, when the population permitted district schools, teachers were paid eight dollars per month, six fifty, even as low as one dollar per week and boarded 'round. Teachers mostly had long distances to walk and fortunate was the teacher quartered near the school, for in addition to wading through deep snow in winter, they were required to build their own fires from green wood furnished by the district. Unseasoned green wood full of sap sizzled and stewed. It took the patience of Job plus an armful of kindling to get such a fire started. Plenty of woe was the portion of the teacher who was short of kindling and plenty of tears were caused by the smoke of a balky stove.

Girls of fifteen, sixteen and seventeen taught the young ideas their three R's. Often the girl teacher had to study hard to keep just a jump ahead of a more advanced pupil. Boys until twenty-one were kept at home to help with the farm work. Men grown, winter was their schooling time and some unruly ones paid "high jinks" even to turning the teacher out of school. In such a case, a man was hired for the princely sum of fifteen dollars a month.

My aunt, Ruth Van ValkenBurgh, later Mrs. Lewis Warner, my mother's sister, told me storybook tales of her pioneer school teaching days. Her skirts, long and full over hoops, frozen from deep snow or slush would not thaw all day in a schoolroom. She had the courage to punish big boys, subdue them and gain their loyalty. She knew all the miseries of boarding 'round in log cabins of one room and a loft - homes of many children.

Part of my aunt's equipment was a tin wash basin and her own soap and towels. The family used homemade soft soap, strong with lye. Water froze in her room at night. There was no privacy, no comforts. One of the sleeping problems was solved by the trundle bed where numerous small progeny were stored for the night. This low bed was trundled into partial obscurity by day under the higher bed in the main room. Necessity was its mother and gave origin to the descriptive expression trundle-bed truck used for small children for some years after. Some of those beds required steps from which one plunged into smothering feather beds and between warm homespun woolen sheets. In the loft where other members of the family were quartered slept teacher with various children for bedfellows. How different are conditions today! Hats off the unsung pioneer teacher who broke the trail !

My aunt's teaching career ended in 1866 in a graded school of two teachers. Jenkin Lloyd Jones paid a fine tribute to two teachers when he wrote: "As a bashful, rustic boy, two sizes too small for companionship, I remember Miss VanValkenBurgh very well. She and Miss Sarah Joiner represented in that countryside the high-toned, cultured class, much respected and looked up to. My elder brothers and sisters were better acquainted with her than I was, but in the fifties
and early sixties, the above were names to conjure by in that country-side."

In 1847, the first post office was established. It was located under the hill on what is now Water Street. Seth P. Angle was the first postmaster.

In 1851 the ol' swimmin' hole where the boys of that day sported, was located on the north bank of the river exactly where a group of Ringling circus buildings later stood. Not one mentioned of those your swimmers is left. Body maple wood was sold in Baraboo for $1.00 per cord, the rest destroyed. Now few wood lots are left.

In the early days there was a flour mill, several saw mills, planing mills, sash, door and blind factory, a chair factory and other industries on the north and south shore of the Baraboo river. The first Sauk County courthouse was located in Prairie du Sac. There were not enough voters in Baraboo at that time and Prairie du Sac made a better offer than Sauk City.

In early days, doctors compounded their own medicines. Every doctor and druggist had as part of his equipment, a heavy iron mortar and pestle in which to prepare medicine. All that was needed for a sign for either was a mortar and pestle.

In 1856 the first fair by the Sauk County Agricultural Society was held in the old courthouse. It was an indoor fair and the exhibits were very small.

In pioneer days, the home was a factory were everything was manufactured. Wool was sheared from the sheep, washed, carded, spun, dyed, woven and made into garments for the whole family and families were large in those days. Sewing machines were unknown and sewing was done by hand. Stockings, socks and mittens were knit by the busy fingers of the women; even little girls knit their own stockings. The moment a woman sat down, she picked up her knitting.

There was no fruit for years. Canning was unknown for many more years. When fruit was finally raised in the Baraboo valley, pickles and preserves were made after treasured recipes. Tallow candles first dipped, a slow process, then poured into molds, provided all the light.

There were no newspapers, no magazines, few books. Letters were few and far between. Postage was 25¢ on a letter. Men made and mended tools, sowed grain by hand as there was no machinery to lighten the labor of men and women. Butter and cheese was part of the woman's work. A shoemaker came to the house once a year to make boots and shoes for the family but there were many bare feet in the summer time.

Pioneer women braided wheat straw and sewed it into hats for their men. They braided the finest straw into hats for their daughters. Sunbonnets were worn universally. These women, many of them, came from comfortable homes down east, New England or New York State. Some brought with them a silk drew and string of gold beads which served for all gala occasions. Silk was pure and lasted a lifetime - was often handed clown to descendants who treasured them and called them quaint. Old poke bonnets and ruffled dresses are perpetuated in every picture, story and song. Is there anything beautiful or quaint to perpetuate in the modern view of one's spine or the bare knees of a short period ago?

In the early winter days, women wore shawls and warm hoods beautifully quilted. Men also wore shawls, large, double gray ones. Overcoats appeared with tailors and prosperity. Large shawl pins connected with a chain were used to pin them securely in place.

Quilting was an art. Piecing quilts and exchanging pieces was one of the highlights of uneventful days. Quilting bees were a social function with a banquet from the larder of that day in which pie was conspicuous and here the husbands were honored guests. Specimens of the quilters' art from that day to this are treasured by the fortunate possessor.

How those wor-hardened fingers could take such tiny stitches so close together and provide such exquisite results with so little room and time and conveniences is one of the unsolved mysteries.

The young pioneers probably got more real fun out of their spelling and husking bees, their singing schools, skating and horseback riding than the modern youngsters, out of their automobile trips. Sleigh-rides were fun, too, with a long wagon box perched on bobsleds, clean straw packed in, covered with blankets and a hilarious singing crowd of boys and girls aboard, bound for some hospitable home where refreshments might have been only popcorn or it might have been a taffy-pull. Prancing steeds and jingling bells were a happy accompaniment. They were rare and simple pleasures, but they lingered long in one's memory.