A Guide To Old Wade House Historical Site

GUIDE TO

ADE HOUSE ..ORICAL SITE

A Guide To

Old Wade House Historical Site by David Paul Nord

Illustrations by Kathy Haaga

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~ 1946

Owned and Operated by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin

Nord, David Pau l A guide to Old Wade House historical site. 1. Greenbush, Wis. Old Wade House. 2. Greenbush, Wis. - History. 3. Country Life Wisconsin - Histo ry. 4. Wisconsin - History, Local. 5. Carriages and cam - Wisconsin Greenbush - History. I. Title.

F589.G712 167 977.5'68 ISBN 0-87020-169-7

Copyright

©

78-3677

1978 by

TH£ STATE H1sTOR1CAL Socm-rv OF W1sc0Ns1N

TABLE OF CONTENTS

l NTROOUCTION

1

PART ONE TAVE RNS A

·o TRAVELERS

3

PART TWO R UTS AND R OADS

25

PART THREE WAGONS AND WAINWRIGHTS

37

,,. INTRODUCTION " In America, and especially in the West, everybody travels." A European nobleman wrote these words in the late I 830's a fter an extended tour through what we now call the Midwest. This impression of universal mobility, though a bit too sweeping, was in those days fair ly accurate-and mobility has remained a national characteristic. Americans have been travelers and movers throughout their histor y. And when they have settled down, as farmers or craftsmen, businessmen or manufacturers, they oft en have been obsessed with moving the product of their labor into distant markets and with tapping distant sources of supply. Much of the story of America is the story of transportation. Wade House a1~l the Wesley W. Jung Carriage Museum ponray several important aspects of the history of overland transponation in Wisconsin. Wade House and the village of Greenbush, both offspring of a traveling society, grew up along one of the main-traveled a rteries in mid-nineteenth century Wisconsin- the Sheboygan-Fond du Lac road, now Highway 23. Today's W ade House represents the hundreds of inns and taverns that once dotted the roads and trails of Wisconsin. The Jung Carriage Museum shows another side of Wisconsin's mobile society-the carriage and wagon industry. From the beginnings of settlement in Wisconsin, men and goods

1

moved by wagon. The wainwright or wheelwright, who repaired old wagons a nd constructed new ones, was a valued citizen in nearl y every town and village. By the turn of the century, carriage and wagon making was a large-scale industry in Wisconsin, producing over I 00,000 vehicles annua lly. Today, Wade House no longer houses weary travelers, and the wagons and carriages have ceased to roll. The old highway inns died in the 1860's, '70's, and '80's with the coming of rapid, comfortable passenger travel by railroad. T he carriage and wagon industry died in the 1910's and 'I 920's with the coming of the motor car and truck. This booklet is a g uide to the history that Wade House and the Jung Museum represent. Part One, "Taverns a nd Travelers," begins with the story of Wade House, but also touches on the colorful history of travel and tavern life in other parts of Wisconsin before the Civil War. Part 'Two, " Ruts and Roads," focuses on the .Sheboygan- Fond du Lac road and other main-traveled roads in Wisconsin to sketch some of the history of road building and the tribulation of road travel in nineteenth-century Wisconsin. Part Three, "Wagons and Wainwrights," looks at the rise and fall of the carriage and wagon industry in Wisconsin , with special emphasis on the Jung Carriage Co. of Sheboygan and on the giant factories of R acine, Kenosha, and Stoughton, the leading centers of the industry in the state.

2

DOLPHIN 5TOVE

Part I

Taverns and Travelers Sylvanus Wade, 1844 Sylvanus Wade, .founder of Greenbush and builder of Wade House, was in several ways typical of the small-scale pioneer businessman and townsite promoter. When Wade settled with his wife and nine children on the banks of the Mullet River in April 1844, he was already a man of some means. H is wagons were loaded with material goods not usually associated wit h pioneer life-books and sketching sets, dress clothes and ch ina , an organ and sheet music. Unlike the pioneer fa rmer, Wade was not interested primarily in cheap agricultural land, though he did plan to do a little farming. He wanted strategic location and waterpower. He paid $150 for four acres and a "mill privilege" on the Mullet River at a time when farm land could be had in some places for ~1.25 an acre. As a skilled blacksmith and an ambitious businessman, Wade could have made a good living in the East. But like many others, he had a vision of greater success in the West. Far from

Sylvanus Wade

Betsy Wade

seeking escape from civilization, W ade sought to be a builder of civilization in this new land. Sylvanus Wade was born in North Adams, Massachusetts, on July 3, 1796, the great-great-grandson of Nicholas Wade, who a rrived in Massachusetts from England in 1632. As a young man, Sylvanus moved with his parents lo Bradford, Pennsylvania, where he practiced the blacksmith's trade and married Betsy Oakley of New Milford. In 1836, Sylvanus and Betsy a nd their growing family moved west to Joliet, Illinois. In 1841 , they came tO Wisconsin, settling first at Fort Atkinson. Then in the spring of 1844 they moved again- north to the wilderness site that was to become Greenbush.

Greenbush , 1844-1850

4

ln 1844, G reenbush was an excellent site for a settler of Wade's skills and ambitions. The place was virgin forest, and the W ades were the on ly settlers within fifteen miles. But its potential was clear. The location, midway between the budding cities of Sheboygan and Fond du Lac, was sure to a ttract travelers and commerce as the two cities grew and as the trail between them, designated a territorial road in 1838-39, developed into a genuine wagon highway after 1845. In addition, the mill site promised to make Wade's little community a local center for lumber and grist milling, two pioneer processing industries that would become increasingly important as more and more settlers moved into the area. Wade's vision of founding his own bustling little village in the wilderness was more foresight than dream, for it was based on economic reality. Yet in 1844, it required some faith as well as fores ight to believe in the future of Greenbush. It took the Wades two and a half days to trek the twenty-miles from Fond du Lac along a foot-trail trod mainly by Indians. At times they had to fell trees and cut brush to move their wagons through. Their first home was a log cabin located across the road from the present site of Wade House. Years later Mrs. Wade often told her children that the canopy of forest was so dense in those days that she "could hold in her apron all the stars she could see." The difference between the Fond du Lac area and the Wades' new wilderness home is symbolized by the fate of their dog. On their way through Fond du Lac, a farmer gave the W ades a large mastiff that had killed several of his sheep. A killer dog no longer had a place in developing farm country. But the big dog was not wild enough for Greenbush. H e was soon killed and eaten by a pack of gray wolves. Within a year after the Wades arrived, the road between f ond du Lac a nd Sheboygan was improved, and the T own (township) of Greenbush was organized. Wade had expanded his log house and had set up his smithy

GUTTERN UT HOUSE

Sheboygan and Fond du Lac in 1851 -52, business so picked up that the family could joke about having a customer in Lhe house for every plank in the road. Local legend has it that one night 200 people sought shelter at Wade House. As the Shebov.f!an 1VJercurv rt>m::irlr,.rl "\Af,,A~ ' · · on the banks of the Mullet River. Also in 1845, the Wades were joined by their eldest daughter JuJia and her carpenter husband Charles Robinson, who soon had a sawmill in operation on the Mullet. The place was named Green Bush (later Greenbush) after Greenbush, M assachusetts, where one of Sylvanus Wade's forbears operated a Wade House tavern in the seventeenth century. By 1848, Lhe Sheboygan Mercury could write that Greenbush "already begins to have the appearance of a business place." The surrounding lands had all been taken up for farming, the newspaper said, and the village had attracted blacksmiths, shoemakers, ehairmakers, and oLher craftsmen. Though no storekeepers had settled there yet, "Mr. Wade has for some months past kept a small stock of merchandise comprising the leading articles called for in a new country." By 1850, Greenbush was fl ourishing, with a population of 180. The telegraph had arrived from Fond du Lac, and the road was crowded with travelers. One resident recalled later that there was even "strong talk" of making Greenbush the county seat. In 1850, not surprisingly, the richest man in town was the first man in town, Sylvanus Wade who held real estate valued at $8,000. The early 1850's brought prosperity for Wade and the little village he had cul out of the wilderness.

5

f;wor of Glenbeulah, "a n isolated mill site surrounded by the raw wi lderness." T he resolution charged that the railroad company had promised to pass through Greenbush and thus was guilty of "a gross violation of that good faith that ought to characterize business transactions of this nature." But railroad companies were usually as much interested in land speculation as in transportation and often preferred to bypass established communities and to create their own. By choosing unpopulated Glenbeulah as the line's temporary western terminus, the company was able to buy a trnct of lana for a townsite and plat it into village lots, which then sold at a profit when the railroad connection boosted land values. Greenbush, on the other hand, was already settled. On March 29, 1860, the first train from Sheboygan steamed into Glenbeulah. Several years later a Fond du Lac newspaper commented that " the village of Greenbush is stricken with blight, owing lo the fact that the travel with teams from Sheboygan to Fond du Lac is almost entirely dispensed with, and to the building up of a rival town in Glenbeulah two miles away, where the railroad at present terminates." The line was extended to Fond du Lac in 1868, and Greenbush's hopes of growth and prosperity were lost. Three years later, on April 26, 1871, Sylvanus Wade died. Wade's youngest son Hollis and Hollis's son William continued to operate the inn until 1941, but the good years had passed. With a railroad link between

+++++-

RA ILROADS

,lAN K ROAO

ROUTE

Drawn from the map of Sheboygan Gormly in Historical Atlas of Wisconsin, 1878.

Sheboygan and Fond du Lac, the stagecoaches quit running and the guests quit coming . Decade a fter decade, the old house deteriorated. By 1950, the roof sagged, the foundation was crumbl ing, support beams were rotted. Inside, room partitions had been shifted or removed and the woodwork painted over many times. Butternut House was a lso run down. The distinctive porch pillars had been cut off, the widow's walk had been removed, and the roof sagged badly. As Wade House approached its second century, it seemed certain that it would not see its third.

Wade House: The Restoration T he restoration of W ade House was begun by Mary Dorst, who purchased the old building from the Wade famil y in 1941. She began the task of collecting Wade memorabilia, such as portraits, letters, bar bottles, furni ture, china a nd glassware, much of which had simply been stored away in the old house for decades. But the thoroughgoing restoration began in 1950 when the site was purchased by the Kohler Foundation of Kohler, Wisconsin. The restoration was planned and supervised by Ruth De Young Kohler of the Kohler Foundation, with the understanding that the State Historica l Society of Wisconsin and the State Conservation Commission would operate the site once it was restored. The property was conveyed to the state and Old Wade House State Park was dedicated June 6, 1953. The resloration work was painstaking. The crumbling foundation was replaced, bearing timbers were re-inforced, and the building was realigned. Tin sheeting was removed from the leaking roof, and the building was reroofed with cedar shakes. Inside, original room partitions were rebuilt, and layer u pon layer of paint was removed from the old pine woodwork. As much as possible, original materials were preserved and restored , and any new woodwork or iron work was made by hand. The bar, for example, was rebui lt with ha nd tools using rare butternut lumber located in Sheboygan Falls. T he Butternu t House was restored at the same time. Throughou t the restoration, sa reful attention was paid to old plans, photographs, and descri ptions in order to recreate the Wade House of the I 850's as precisely as possible. While the reconstruction proceeded, Mrs. Kohler concentrated on refurnishing the old inn, which contained mal},y Wade famil y furnishings at the time the Kohler Foundation acquired it. C hairs, beds, chests, and other wood pieces, several made by Charles Robinson, were repaired a nd refinish ed. Wallpaper was carefully reproduced from ·1840's patterns. Among the furni shings found in the house was a large collection of spatterware in the peafowl pattern, now a rare collector's item. There were also lamps, stoves, books, documents, a stagecoach horn, and many other items. Mrs. Kohler filled furnishing gaps from outside sources. The stove in the summer kitchen, for example, though originally from

9

.SUMMER KITC HEN

Wade House, had been sold many years before, but was tracked down by an antique dealer and returned. T he aim of Ruth De Young Kohler and others who worked to restore Wade H ouse was not to establish a monument to one man who operated one tavern in one small village. Ra ther, their aim was to preserve some of the history a nd spirit of the lire of the traveler , the wayside tavern, a nd the pioneer in mid-nineteenth-century Wisconsin. Wisconsin Travelers, 1850

10

In the United States at mid-nineteenth century, it sometimes seemed as though everyone was moving. In the decade after 1850, one American in four moved from one state to another. In some pioneer communities, few er than half the residents stayed on for a decade. Meanwhi le, European migration to America reached its first great nineteenth-century crest in the years 1847 to 1854. Between 1850 and 1860, more than 2.5 million immigrants arrived-more than in all the preceeding years since Independence. For a new state like Wisconsin, this meant astonishingly rapid population growth. When Wisconsin became a territory in 1836, the population was 11 ,683. By 1850, the population had jumped to 305,390- an increase of 2,514 per cent! Between 1850 and 1860, the population grew another 470,491 , the largest ten-year gain in Wisconsin until the 1950's. One observer wrote in 1850 that " the extent to which immigration to Wisconsin increases borders on the incredible; still since one sees it daily he is bound to

believe it. In Milwaukee alone ... hundreds land daily and move out upon the do-called highways, in various directions, to the interior." This mass movement of people and the related movement of more and more goods provided business for scores of taverns sprinkled a long the roads a nd trails of the settled areas of southern Wisconsin. T here were two broad classes of travelers who patronized pioneer taverns: migrants who passed through once and traveling men who visited with some regula rity. T he migrants ranged from sophisticated tourists to poor immigrant fami lies. Innkeepers often disliked catering to the very rich and the very poor. The rich demanded too much service, too much privacy, and too much deference. The poor sought to get by as cheaply as possible, sometimes by doing their own cooking to avoid paying for tavern meals. Nfany poor migrants, of course, could riot afford to stay at taverns at a ll. Tavernkeepers preferred traveling men who returned regula rly- wagoners, stock drovers, stage drivers, traveling salesmen and businessmen, circuit-riding lawyers and preachers, and the like. These men had some money to spend, and they were a recurrent source of news and sociability. Sometimes farmers patronized taverns on their way to and from the market cities, though cash-poor farmers usually slept in thei r wagons under the stars. Besides serving travelers, the tavern was also usually the socia l center, and sometimes the religious or political center, for the community. And some people simply lived at the local tavern, more or less permanently. Stagelines The main source of guests and revenue for many caverns in the l 840's and 1850's was the stageline. Which stageline was the first to operate in Wisconsin is uncen a in, but it may have been one begun in 1836 by Frink, Walker and Co. of Chicago running from Mineral Point to Galena, Illinois. By 1841 , stagecoaches operated by several companies regularly rolled across the territory along two main routes-from Green Bay to Minera l Point and from Milwaukee via Madison to Galena. The Milwa ukee to Galena stages left daily an.cl took three days to make the trip, foll owing an alternate rou te on alternate days. Feeder lines along these routes connectecl with most of the other important cities around the territory and with Chicago to the south. The other main stage company operating in Wisconsin was Davis and Moore, and for awhile this firm was combined with F rink, Walker and Co. By 1848, John Frink's company was running a daily stage between Sheboygan and Fond du Lac, leaving both places at 7 a.m. and arriving at their destinations sometime that evening. Along the way, passengers, drivers, and horses were served by a string of taverns by the J850's, including

11

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Stagecoach advertising flyer, courtesy of the Fond du Lac Public Library.

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Wade House and at least eight or nine others. On no line did stagecoaches stop at every little tavern along the way, but they often did stop r egularly at many of them. On the M ilwaukee to Fond du Lac run, for example, it was not uncommon for the stage to leave an overnight stop early enough in the morning so that breakfast could be eaten at another tavern along the line. In promoting a new Davis and Moore stageline in 1845, the Milwaukee Sentinel declared that "now comparatively good roads traverse the country in every direction, and the gay stagecoach, a miniature world within itself, freighted with stalwart manhood and feminine beauty, goes rolling along." Most stage passengers probably had a good laugh O\'.er that item. In reality, the roads were bad, the coaches were often cramped and uncomfortable, and sometimes they didn't even go rolling along. A traveler from Fort Atkinson described an early Wisconsin stagecoach ride: In it were four seats running crosswise, intended for eight persons, but more often twelve were squeezed inside. There were no springs under the coach; it was simply suspended by two leather straps, one on each side, extending from the front to the hind axles. When the front wheels dropped down into a hole, its occupants pitched ahead, when the hind wheels dropped down into a hole, we all pitched back; and so we kept it up day in and day out. I do not believe there was a rod in the whole distance, but some wheel was out of li ne, either in a hole, or climbing over a scone, stump, or root. Passengers learned to make the best of it. A traveler from Mineral Point to Madison in 1838 wrote, "We arrived in perfect safety, without any accident except a breakdown and an upset."

Wisconsin Taverns

Tavern was the usual designation in mid-nineteenth-century Wisconsin, though sometimes they were called inns, ordinaries, road houses, stopping places, hotels, or hostelries. All were places for lodging and feeding travelers. Ordinary, a common term in the seventeenth century, was never popular in Wisconsin. Inn had a n English sound so was not very popular after the Revolution and thus not widely used in Wisconsin. Hotel and house, which had a high-class ring, became more prevalent after 1840. When Wisconsin territory was organized in 1836, only places which provided lodging could offer liquor by the drink . Gradually, as laws were relaxed, places that offered liquor without lodging were called dram sh.ops, tippling houses, or groceries. Later in the nineteenth century, they came to be called saloqns. Sometimes they were called taverns, but tavern still usually meant an inn or hotel. Only after Prohibition ended in the 1930's, when saloon still seemed an evil-sounding word, did tavern come to mean just a drinking place, as it does today.

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KITCHE.N

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The earliest taverns in Wisconsin were merely people's own cabins, providing frontier hospitality. But as new towns and villages were found ed, the first building was often a tavern and was planned as a tavern from the start. In Sheboygan, for example, the townsite developers specifically arranged for the first building to be a tavern. In Fond du Lac, the first building was the Fond du Lac House, a double log cabin built in 1836. One of the first buildings in Madison was Eben Peck's tavern, later called the Madison House, built in 1837. The laying out of the new capital city had just begun when the Pecks arrived . Most of these early taverns were little more than log cabins, or sometimes two or more log cabins joined by enclosed hallways. Floors were often split logs (puncheons) laid flat side up; the doors might be blankets; and sometimes the gables of the sleeping lofts were completely open. But by the 1850's, many tavernkeepers around the state, including Sylvanus Wade, had constructed la rge, durable, often architecturally pleasing new buildings, usually in the G reek Revival style. One of the most attractive examples of tavern architecture in Wisconsin is the Robert Dunkel Inn at Brookfield, halfway between M ilwa ukee and Waukesha. Built in Greek Revival style, the Dunkel Inn has massive framing timbers of black walnut. Another famous tavern now restored and open to visitors is Hawks Inn at Delafield , on a n early Milwaukee-Watertown road. One of the most unusual tavern buildings in Wisconsin is the Milton House at Milton, built by

J oseph Goodrich in 1844. Part of Milton H ouse is hexagonal in shape and the enlire structure is made of grout or concrete, an early example of a building in lhat material. lt is now a historical museum. One of the first taverns in W isconsin was opened in Green Bay b)' John P. Arndt in 1825. Bur already by 1829, a map of the lead-mining region in southwestern Wisconsin was dotted with " digs" and "taverns." As migration from the lake communities to the interior increased in the 1840's, the southeastern counties came to have the highest concentra tions of taverns. Some of the main-traveled roads had a tavern every four miles or so. Waukesha County, just west of Milwaukee, had more taverns than any area of equal size. By 1850, according to the fede ral census, there were 588 innkeepers in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Innkeepers Many Wisconsin innkeepers in the 1850's were, like Sylvanus Wade, prominent men in their communities. The centrality of the tavern to pioneer society made it logical and easy for taverners to expand into livery or store keeping, real estate speculation , and politics. Wade was typical, dabbling in farming, blacksmithing, storekeeping, real estate, a nd politics. Quite a successful local politician, he served as postmaster, town chairman, councy board member, justice of the peace, and delegate to the convention that organized the state R epublican Party. But for an innkeeper, Sylvanus Wade's political activities were far from unique. In Waukesha County during the early years of statehood, fou rteen tavernkeepers were elected to the legislature. The tavernkeeper's generally high social status in the community frequently colored his attitudes toward his guests. Aristocratic European tourists regularly complained about insolent landlords and saucy landladies. One English tourist wrote that the western innkeeper "feels tha t he confers, rather than receives, a favor by the accommodation he affords." A visitor from Scotland declared that the American tavern proprietor was "the most rigorous and iron-hearted of despots .... He feeds them [the guests] in droves like cattle. He rings a bell and they come like dogs at their master's whistle.... His decrees are those of fate and the motto of his establishment is, 'Submit or starve.' " Of course, not all landlords were iron-willed despots, and not a ll were stolid community patriarchs. Some taverners, such as N elson P. Hawks of D elafield, were best known for their good food, free-flowing liquor, and lheir friendly, exuberant persona lities. Many a night Hawks stayed late in the barroom regaling his guests with jokes and stories. Much of' the nostalgia of old tavern days has its antecedents with landlords like H awks, whose main business was making his guests happy.

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Tavern Life: Lodging Tavern lodging in Wisconsin, especially in territorial times, was generally crowded and uncomfortable. Along main roads and in fast-growing towns and villages, innkeepers usually filled beds shoulder to shoulder , and even floors often had guests wall to wall. As late as the 1850's, few taverns could boast of private, one-bed bedrooms. The better taverns arranged their beds dormitory style in large rooms; the most primitive had few beds at all. A guest at a Mineral Point tavern in 1836 wrote that the first to retire "might do so under the grateful delusion that he was to enjoy the comforts of a good bed alone; but before morning, would be most likely to find himself sharing his comforts with as many bed-fellows as could possibly crowd themselves along side of him." When the beds were filled to capacity, travelers rolled themselves up in buffalo robes or blankets on the floors . In an early Madison hotel, floor-space was staked off by cracks in the floor. Sometimes a squeamish traveler could bargain with a tavern landlord for a bed of his own. But he still might have to resort to force or ruse to keep others out of it as the night progressed. When a late arrival tried to climb into the bed of a European traveler in Wisconsin in the 1830's, the European lied that he had already contaminated the bed with the itch. The

GUEST

ROOM

usurper politely assured the traveler that no harm was done since he had been suffering from the same malady for some time. The beds themselves were crude, sometimes in the early days just shakes laid over rough wooden frames. A popular improvement was the rope bed, and Wade House has several of these. The criss-crossed ropes formed a taut net on which a tick filled with corn husks, straw, or feathers served as mattress. In Wisconsin, ticks filled with grass, euphemistically dubbed "prairie feathers," were not uncommon. On the raw frontier, linens were seldom provided. In older areas the beds would probably have had sheets, but they were usually dirty, since laundering linerrs was a major undertaking. When a traveler complained about dirty linen, the landlady might reply that the sheets "had only been slept in by very genteel people." Bed bugs were so plentiful and so aggressive in some places that travelers wrote that they "found rest in getting up." Taverns also put up travelers' teams and stock, providing pasture, hay, water, and stable facilities. Some catered especially to cattle and hog drovers by providing large stock pens. In fact, living among the beasts, whether the travelers' or the landlord's, was sometimes a cause of complaint among guests. At Rowen's Tavern at Poynette in 1837, future governor James Duane Doty, sleeping in his buffalo robes on the lloor, was rolled over by a large hog that had wandered into the tavern to eat corn some teamsters had spilled. Thinking it was Mr. Rowen waking him for the day, Doty called out, "Landlord! Landlord! You must postpone my breakfast for some time as I have not yet got rested." Another guest at Rowen's Tavern, startled awake at dawn by loud crowing, discovered that the footrail of his bedstead was the roost for Rowen's chickens. In older, more settled areas conditions improved rapidly in the 1840's. By the 1850's, throughout the settled areas of Wisconsin, many taverns, like Wade House, were vigorously competing with each other on the basis of increased privacy, cleanliness, and comfort.

Tavern Life: Food Often it was tavern food that elicited the most vociferous complaints from travelers. If one did not like salt pork and bacon, he might well have faced starvation on the midwestern frontier. In 1837, G. W. Peatherstonhaugh, an English traveler, visited Peck's tavern in Madison hoping for a little fish or fresh meat, but none was to be had. "So," he said, "to the old business we went, of bolting square pieces of fat pork, an amusement I had so often indulged in, that I sometimes felt as if I ought to be ashamed to look a live pig in the face." Featherstonhaugh also complained about the coffee. " Whether it was acorns, or what it was puzzled me not a little," he said. "It certainly deserved to be thought tincture of myrrh." Though Mrs. Peck

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DINING ROOM

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indignantly denied that her coffee was ground acorns, frontier coffee was often made from toasted grains. The food problem was related to difficulties in preservation and transportation. Fat pork was the easiest meat to preserve by salting and smoking. Chickens were a popular food item, too, since they came in dinner-sized packages and could be "preserved" alive. When the Pecks came to Madison to open a tavern in 1837, they brought along barrels of pork, flour, crackers, dried fruit, and pickles, as well as a sack of coffee, a tub of butter, and jars of plums and cranberries. Apparently these supplies were exhausted by the time Featherstonhaugh a rrived and could not be replaced easily. In 1836, a traveler who stopped at Westfall's Tavern south of Green Bay found no food at all. The proprietor had left on foot for Green Bay, twenty-five miles away; to pick up a single back-pack of provisions. Even in the early days, a resourceful taverner could set a good table if he learned to hunt, to gather, and to garden. An Englishman who visited several taverns in Wisconsin in 1841 was amazed at the sumptuous fare of wild game, pigeon and bird stews; bread and butter; potatoes, turnips, onions, beets, and other vegetables; pumpkin and wild plum pies, cakes, and other delicacies. Many taverns also had corn meal johnnycakes, maple sugar, and nuts and berries of all kinds. But still quite often, even at the better taverns, vegetables were Jacking. A menu at the Milwaukee House in 1843 listed roast turkey, goose, duck, chicken, beef, veal; boiled corned beef, tongue, ham, turkey; and venison a la mode, chicken pie, bird pie, chicken

salad, and boiled fish. As more and more farms were developed and transportation was improved, lavernkeepers were able to provide better food and more variety. The dinner ritual at pioneer taverns was similar throughout the M idwest. Even in big city taverns, everyone a te a t set times at common tables. ln the early 1840's, the Milwaukee House dining room accommodated more than 100 persons at three long tables. When dinner was ready, a bell or gong was rung and the guests ran for the table. Fealherstonhaugh likened the rush of the crowd to a " pack of hounds or a drove of swine ... to their feed." Each diner left the table when finished, his place taken by another, if there were loo many guests for the first sitting. Conversation was sparse, with the diners eating as quickly as possible. A visitor descri bed dinner at a Chicago tavern in 1836 as "every man for himself, a nd none for his neighbor; hurrying, snatching, gulping, like famished wildcats; victuals disappearing as if by magic." Like the food itself, tavern table manners seemed to improve in the 1850's, as former pioneers sought to ta ke up or resume the ways of civilization.

Tavern Life: Drinking Whiskey was the favored drink in most taverns, drunk on all occasions and often in great quantities. One foreign visitor wrote: Americans can 6x nothing without a drink. If you meet, you drink; if you part, you drink; if you make acquain1ancc, you drin k; if you close a bargain, you drink; they quarrel in their drink, and they make it up with a drink. They drink because it is hot; they drink because it is cold. If successful in elections, they drink and rejoice; if not, they drink and swear.... Before Wade House went " dry" in the mid-1 860's, a tumbler of whiskey was customarily given to each stagecoach passenger at noon and midnight. Even for paying customers, the price was right: three cents a glass, cheap even in those days. Taverns might also have brandy and cider; some a lso offered beer, ale and wine, perhaps depending on the proprietor's ethnic background. In the early log taverns, the barroom was also the general lobby and lounging room and sometimes the dining room as well. Gradually, taverns established lobbies and ladies' parlors, simila r to the arrangement at Wade House. This left the barroom a male preserve for drinking, smoking, spitting, gambling, and other masculine diversions. Some taverns became little more than grog shops, offering minimal food and lodging. Most mid western states and territories sought to prevent this trend by requiring places to provide bed and board if they wanted to have retail liquor sales. Wisconsin

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TAP ROOM

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had such a law, but changed it in '1838-39 to allow for "groceries or dram shops," that is, places that only sold liquor and did not offer room and board. Some citizens, especially old stock Americans, believed that there was a rising tide of drunkenness in these years. In 1849, the Sons of Temperance claimed more than 3,000 members in Wisconsin, and a state law was passed that year (but repealed two years later) which made barkeepers personally responsible for any damage their drunken customers might do. Throughout the nineteenth century the temperance issue was always closely connected with ethnic and religious animosities. Some taverns, sucl1 as Joseph Goodrich's Milton House, were successful as temperance houses. Others were unable to maintain temperance standards, even if they tried. Caleb Wall's Milwaukee House in 1842 was not only a temperance house, but maintained a 10 p.m. curfew as well. But when Wall discovered half his guesl s climbing in windows after hours, he relaxed the curfew - and finally the temperance rule, loo. Soon, one observer wrote, the Milwaukee House "became the most notoriously jolly and reckless institution in town - the boarders doing just exactly as they pleased and the old building itself reeling night after night with the mad revelry of gay parties and gush ing music."

Tavern Life: Personal Hygiene Pioneer guests were frequently as dirty as pioneer taverns, and there was not much they could do about it. Before the 1850's, only the best hotels provided each room with a washstand, basin, water pitcher, and towel. Washing was usually done outside and involved little more than hands and face. Many taverns had no soap at a ll; some had only slimy, yellowish "soft soap." Towels were rare and if available, usually dirty. A classic tavern story has a patron complaining about a dirty towel and being told that "two hundred men have wiped on that towel and you are the first to complain." The communal sleeping and washing arrangements meant that many travelers never undressed, or at least never removed their undergarments. A complete bath was a traveler's dream that almost never came true. European travelers often complained about the inconvenient locations and the filthiness of tavern outhouses. They were also astonished by the custom at some raw frontier taverns of guests in loft bedrooms relieving themselves out the windows. Very early, however, the better places provided clean chamber pots. And by the 1850's, many taverns had convenient and sanitary toilets within or attached to the main tavern building. These were still almost always pit toilets, but they were a great improvement over what had gone before.

21

WA~HSTAND

BALLROOM

Tavern Life: Entertainment

22

In 1837, Alexander Pratt and a companion put in one night at a log tavern in Mineral Point. "Such a sight as presented itself to our view we never saw before or since," Prall later recalled. The lead miners had gathered for their usual Saturday-night-to- Monday-morning revel. In one corner was a faro bank, in another corner roulette, and in another a rollicking game of cards. One man was fiddling, and two others were dancing. And of course the whiskey flowed freely. In the room where Pratt and his friend were sent to sleep there was a drunk on the floor, whom the landlord politely dragged out. The next morning a card game was still in progress amid drunken bodies on the floor. Pratt said later that he slept in Mineral Point with a bowie knife in his belt and a pistol in each fist. This Mineral Point scene was probably fairly typical of early taverns in the lead mining districts. By comparison, the taverns of the southeastern counties were sedate, yet they also depended heavily on the same two forms of entertainment: drinking and gambling. Gambling usually meant card playing, and the games of choice were poker, faro , euchre, and many others. Dice, coins, and empty bottles also figured in games of chance. Travelers trying to sleep often complained about the all-night drinking and gambling and the attendant "swearing and loud vociferation." In the 1840's aqd 1850's, many taverns banned card playing altogether and in various ways tried to tone down the swearing and "skylarking. "

As taverns and the communities arou nd them became more established and "civilized," the entertainment became more refined. But the front ier exuberance was never quite lost. Dancing was by far the most popular diversion. The music was usually provided by a fiddler, often the landlord himself. Sylvanus Wade played the bass viol; a local lawyer played the violin. Mrs. Peck in Madison not only played the fiddle but conducted dancing classes nvice weekl y in winter. Square dances and contra dances were favori tes. After 1848, the polka, schottisch, and other steps arrived with the new wave of German immigration. Large new taverns such as Wade H ouse had separate ballrooms. Some of these places had independently suspended "spring floors" which pulsated to the beat of dancing feet. In smaller taverns, fol ks danced in the barroom or in a large communal bedroom, where beds were stacked out of the way. When a tavern held a ball or cotillion it was a major community event. These were usually scheduled for holidays and were advertised widely. The even ing frequently began about six o'clock with a sumptuous supper, often of turkey or roast pig accompanied by vegetables and pies and pastries of all sorts. T hen the dancing began to music provided by a small string band. At midnight the guests would be served a lap lunch of p ie, cake, or doughn uts, and tea or coffee. When supper was hot inclu ded, cold meats were usually

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Qrom1Jan12 of l.Qoursdf nn'b £.abn is Btspcctfulln Jnuiteb to ~tteni:l a

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ln uilalion lo a cotillon party al Wade Hoose.

23

served at midnight. T he dancing often continued until dawn, so that even the most inebriated guests could see themselves safely home. The cost of a ticket was often two dollars a couple, a pretty stiff price in those days. But a tavern ball was considered an extravagance worth the splurge. And besides, the two dollars also covered the cost of "horse to hay" for the night. Taverns a lso ser ved many other social fun ctions in the community. E lections, theatrical shows, church services, court, school, post offi ce business, governmental deliberations, and meetings of every sort were held at W ade House and at taverns all over Wisconsin. U ntil a community grew, the tavern was often the on ly building large enough for people to gather in. l n 1851 for instance, one of the initial meetings to draft plans for the Sheboygan and Fond du Lac plank road was held at Wade House; five years later, Greenbush's leading citizens gathered there to protest the rail road's decision to bypass their town. At Wade H ouse, as elsewhere, it was th e tavern which saw the community through its fi nest and its most tragic hours.

End of the Tavern Era When the railroad came, the roadside tavern was fin ished. The end cou ld come suddenly. W hen a railroad line opened, the freight wagons, stagecoaches, and most private vehicles could disappear almost overnight. for the state as a whole, however, the change was gradual. As the railroad network expanded, new feeder stagelines developed and these continued to be served by taverns. But as the growing railroad net drew tighter in the 1870's and l 880's, most of these stagelincs and taverns were abandoned, with, of course, some exceptions in isolated a reas. Even those taverns that lived on as local hotels and boarding houses were changed. W ith saloon and resta u ra nt increasingly separate establishments, the old tavern became a hollow shell.

24

..SPATTERWARE

TRAVEL ON A PLANK ROAD

-

Part 11

Ruts and Roads Fond du Lac to Sheboygan, 1845 Sylvanus Wade and his family foll owed an old, narrow Indian trail from Fond du Lac to the site of Greenbush in 1844. In places, they were forced to clear brush and trees to get their wagons through. This route from Fond du Lac to Sheboygan had been designated a territorial road five years before, but practically no improvements had been made. In 1845, the U.S. W ar Department established the route as a military road, but Congr ess appropriated only $3,000 for construction, which limited construction to clearing timber, ditching, building bridges and culverts, and laying corduroy (rows of small logs) across wet areas. Little or no surfacing was done. T his was an important road-the most direct link between the Fox River-Lake Winnebago area and Lake Michigan, and the logical route for settlers coming into this fertile hinterland and for farm products coming out. But it was almost always in deplorable condition, even after the 1845 improvements. "There were more stumps than road," one earl y settler !mer recalled. " I have seen worse roads, but they were among the Rocky and

25

Sierra Nevada mountains." The Green Bay Advocate was even more critical: The only ave nue we know of from "all Northern Wisconsin" to Sheboygan is famed far and wide among the worst of the bad 'uns. Those who have been doomed to make the passage from Fox River io that place, give dire accou nts of sad mishaps, of swamps where no soundings we re ever yet found - of rocks not laid down in an y chart, and among which a snake could n01 wi nd without getting a cracked head - and of wrecks of vehicles which sirew the tortuous channel.

Wisconsin Roads

26

The F ond du Lac-Sheboygan road was probably no worse than most Wisconsin roads in the mid-nineteenth century. Without any kind of surfacing, and often without proper grading or drainage, Wisconsin's common roads grew steadily worse as traffic increased. The federal government, the territorial government, and after 1848, the state government all took note of the situation and provided some organization for road building. But little was accomplished . Wisconsin achieved a comprehensive railroad network long before most roads were improved at all. At the beginning of the twentieth century, only 17 per cent of Wisconsin's roads had so much as a gravel surface. T he first major road project in Wisconsin was constructing the Military Road between G reen Bay and Prairie du Chien, authorized in 1832 while Wisconsin was slill part of Michigan Territory. T he road was to link Wisconsin 's three mi litary posts - Fort Crawford at Prairie du Chien, Fort Winnebago at Portage, and Fort Howard at Green Bay. After crossing the Wisconsin River near Prairie du Chien, the route followed the high ridge south of lhe river to the Blue Mounds area, turned north to the portage, eastward to Fond du Lac, fo llowed the eastern shore of Lake W innebago and the Fox River to G reen Bay. Highway 18 from Blue Mounds to Prairie du Chien follows this route along what is still called M ilitary Ridge. The work, do ne by soldiers stationed at the three forts , was completed in 183 7. On the western part of the road, rough bridges were built and the route was marked by two plowed furrows on the prairie. On the eastern part, bridges were buiJt a nd trees were felled. Stumps were hollowed out to catch rainwater to a id in rotting them, but for years the roadway through forested areas was dotted with foot-high stumps. Several other federal roads were laid out in Wisconsin territorial times, but meager Congressional appropriations only allowed for the most primitive improvements. T he most important of these roads was probably the Green Bay-Milwaukee-Chicago road, surveyed in 1835 and completed

•

some years later. In addition, several east-west routes were crudely begun, leadi ng out of Milwaukee, Racine, and Kenosha. Altogether Congress appropriated less than $75,000 for roads in Wisconsin Territory, most of it before 1840. But despite their primitiveness, these federal roads formed a heavily traveled network connecti ng military forts, areas of concentrated settlement, and river and lake shipping points. Meanwhile, Wisconsin Territory adopted procedures for the development of territorial roads. Wisconsin's approach was similar to that of older states and territories. Under a general 1839 law, the territorial government could plan routes, but financing or bui lding the roads was left to local government. About 300 territorial roads were authorized, and about 250 were laid out. The new state government in 1849 adopted a similar system. Each town (township) was divided into road districts headed by an elected overseer of highways. A seventy-five cent poll tax and a three-to-seven miU propeny tax were imposed for road improvement. Any man could choose to "work out" his tax, and most rural residents did. The initial rate was seventy-five cents for eight hours labor and another seventy-five cents for "every can , wagon, plow, scraper, yoke of oxen, or span of horses" a worker brought along. The amateur road district crews worked not only on state roads but on county and town roads, too. The state government in Wisconsin only began to provide fin ancial support for road construction in 191 'I. The "working out" system was notoriously inefficient and ineffective. The overseer of highways was usually elected for his leniency rather than for his engineering or leadership abilities. The road work was scheduled when convenient for the farmers not when the roads needed attention. The work was easy, and farmers often looked forward to it as a social event. One man recalled chat "if there was a mudhole to be filled up, they would cut some green brush, throw it into the hole, and scatter over it a few shovels of earth and lo! the road was fixed. " Another farmer found the task even easier. "We don't do much work on the roads," he said. "Our roads are natural ly good and we don 't purpose to disturb them much." Perils of Travel

On Wisconsin roads in the mid-nineteenth century, travel was slow, unpleasant, and sometimes dangerous. In the spring, the mud was often axle deep. ln the summer, the ruts were nearly as deep, and the thick dust was sometimes unbearable. Winter was frequen tly the best time to travel, when che ground was frozen and when snow allowed for smooth sledding. But the snow hid holes and stumps and sometimes hobbled horses. And a traveler could lose his life if he became stranded in the bitter Wisconstn cold .

27

Travelers constancly complained about the roads. An Englishman, traveling near Mineral Point in 1847, offered this account: T he jolting was terrific, sometimes a foot deep in fine sand, and then loose stones, as big as a bushel basket, then mud half way up to the axles, then logs of timber of any size you like. Still on we dashed a1 a furious rate, but the bridges, aye Lhe bridges. They get two huge trees 50 Lo 60 feet long, and lay across from bank to bank of creeks or small rivers. They lay small poles across, just to stop a horse's foo l from going thru, and that's all. They are truly corduroy, and you may think yourself lucky not to get a dozen of them in a day's journey. Even main-traveled roads were frightful. lo November 1848, the Watertown Chronicle reported that the road to tv1ilwaukee "from one end to the

other is lined with fragments of wagons, barrels of flour, boxes of goods, etc." A settler in Waukesha County said the roads there were "anywhere one chose lo travel" and "each traveler usually chose a new route, knowing thnt a change was necessarily an improvement. " In 1847, a traveler described the Sheboygan-Fond du Lac road as "abominable" - "stumps and roots alternate with stones so thickly sown that there is no room for the wheels to pass between them." Such roads also impeded commerce, and gradually farmers and businessmen, newspaper editors and town promoters rose up against them. In 1848, the Sheboygan Mercury echoed the sentiments of civic leaders in all the lakeshore cities: " Want of a good road leading into the interior is severely felt, not only by the business men of this place, but the farmers living back who have a surplus of 1heir produce on hand, which seeks a market at this port." Each lake city feared that if it did not do something fast, a rival city would. " If we will not bu ild good roads from our city into the interior," the Milwaukee Sentin el declarecl in 1848, "much of the trade which now seeks this mart, will be diverted to other points." The solution to the prbblcm-or so it seemed to Wisconsinites in the late 'I 840's - was the p lank road.

28

Plank Road Boom, 1846-1860 In the late 1840's a great enthusiasm for wooden plank roads swept the country. Milwaukee Mayor Byron Kilbourn, in his inaugural address in 1848, nicely summarized the kind of thinking behind the plank road boom:

No place in the Western eoumry, stands in so much need of Plank rod improvements as does Milwaukee. Surrounded as we are by a belt of timber land from ten to twenty miles in width between us and the prairies and open country, it is of the first imponance 10 all business men, both in town and country, that a good system of roads should be introduced lO facilitate the every da y intercourse thru this region. J\nd none has yet been devised which seems to meet so perfectly, the nature of the case, as Plank Roads. With a good system of Plank Roads extending in all directions into the interior, and a railroad to the Mississippi, the foundations or the prosperity of our city would be laid deep and strong.

The advocates of plank roads were extravagant in their praise. A New York expert on road building wrote in 1853 that the plank road was really more akin lo the railroad than lo the common or macadam road in its ability to reduce friction . He called plank roads the " farmers' railroads," a phrase adopted by plank road promoters all over the country. Unlike railroads, plank roads could be used by anyone - another great a dvantage. And unlike common roads, it was claimed, they were in good shape year around. Advocates also said plank roads could last up to twelve to fifteen years, and the cost of repair and renewal for plank roads should be lower than for macadam (broken stone) roads. The main selling point of plank roads, however, was low initial cost. Plank roads cost from about i I ,000 to $2,400 per mile, exclusive of earthwork and bridges. Where timber was plentiful, a plank road could be laid for one-third the cost of a macadam road and one-tenth the cost of a railroad. The belief that plank roads would give a community more for its money helped ·attract some scarce capital that otherwise would probably ha.ve gone to early railroads. Initial cheapness expla ins the quick spread of the plank road enthusiasm. A business review declared in 1851 that " in the whole history of interna l improvement there is scarcely anything to surpass the rapidity with which this system has developed itself. " The plank road idea seems to have originated in Russia in the early nineteenth century. The first plank road in North America was built in I 835-36 in Canada. In I 846, the first one in the United States was laid in New York from Syracuse to the foot of Oneida Lake. Quickly the boom was on. By 1853, plank road companies in New York alone had constructed more than 2,000 miles of roadway. From Maine to Alabama and Wisconsin to Texas many more thousand miles were laid. Plank roads were built by private companies and operated as toll roads in the hopes of making a profit. Few were long-distance routes. Most connected cities located near each other or linked market cities with their immediate farm hinterlands. In the East, many served as feeders to long-distance railroad lines.

29

ln general, plank roads were successful in opening up farm markets and enhancing rhe value of farm land by greatly reducing the cost of transportation. They were also successful in making travel by stagecoach fast and almost comfortable, since planking was the smoothest pavement used on country roads before the advent of concrete and asphalt pavements. l'l;mk roads proved unsatisfactory, however, for reascms that will be discussed later.

How to Build a Plank Road

By the early I 850's, engineers were generally agreed upon a "correct" doctrine of plank road construction. T he bible was W. M. Gillespie's A Manual of the Principles and Practice of Roadmaking. Gillespie said that the first princi ple of road making and especiall)' of plank road ma.king was proper grading. Since the drawing power of a horse is greatly reduced going up an incline, hills should be avoided, particular!)' in view of the smoothness of the plank surface. T he cross-section of the roadbed also had to be graded properly, raised above the level of the surrounding fields, with good ditches and culvens and sloping slightly from the middle to the outer edges- I in 16 on the unsurfaced side, and 1 in 32 on the planked side. T he road itself should be twenty feet wide, Gillespie said, bul only an eight-foot track needed to be planked. The other twelve-feet served as a continuous, unpaved turn-out track thilt was rolled or beaten to make it firm . The planked track generally was to be on the right half of the road coming into town for farm ers with loaded wagons; those returning light could do the turning out. On heavily traveled roads, 1.wo eight-foot planked tracks might be needed. Pine, oak, maple, or beech were good woods to use. Oak was probably best and was usually used where available, such as in Wisconsin.

Cross section of a plank rorid illustrates grading and pn.ntiun ing of slee/;ers an d planks.

30

To lay the planked track, two rows of long sleepers or stringers were fi rmly embedded, level with the earth, in trenches parallel to the flow of traffic and three to four feet apart so that a wagon's wheels would pass over

their outer edges. T hese sleepers were usually twelve- by three-inch timbers, twelve to twenty feet long, or were sets of six- by three-inch timbers. The planks, usually three inches chick and a foot wide, were laid at right angles across the rows of sleepers and flush with the earthen turl}-out track. T o avoid looseness and dry rot, no air space should be allowed under any of the planks. The ends of the planks should be staggered three or four inches every three planks or so to prevent a rut being form ed by wagons coming back onto the track from the turn-out section. The p lanks should not be spiked down but simply wedged tightly together. This way a few planks might fl oat our in wet weather, while if spiked the whole road could be floated a nd ruined. A good compromise was to spike, say, every fifth one. The last step was to coat the planked track with an in(;h of course sand or fine gravel. This grit would combine with the wood fibers and anima l droppings t0 forin a hard , protective surface which provided good traction for horses and oxen. "A nd thus," said Gillespie, " is formed a Plank Road."

Planks were to be staggered regularly to /Jrevent nits from

forming al

lite tum -oul.s.

Plank Roads in Wisconsin Plank roads seemed ideal for Wisconsin, where capital was scarce and wood was plentiful. W isconsin rode the wave of enthusiasm almost from the beginning. The first plank road company in Wisconsin was chartered in 1846 to run a short line westward from Milwa ukee. In 1848, while rechartering this company to allow it to extend its road to Watertown, the legislature created fifteen additional plank road companies, including the Milwaukee and Janesville, the Racine and Rock River, and the Southport (Kenosha) and Beloit. Wisconsin chartered 135 plank road and turnpike companies between 1846 and 1871-thirty-two of them in 1852, the height of the boom. Most never fully completed their proposed lines, and quite a few never even started construction. But by 1857, Wisconsin had more than 1,000 miles of plank roads in service.

3'1

T o a large extent, the drive for plank roads was sparked by r ivalry among the lake ports. Local promoters in Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, and Sheboygan feared that the first city to improve its tra nsportation lines would draw off all trade from the interior. And they all feared that a proposed railroad line from Illinois up the Rock River Valley to Fond du L ac would ensnare this fertile region into the orbit of the most ominous ri val of a ll, Chicago. The /\tl ilwaukee Sentinel warned its readers in 1848: " Rest assured much of our trade will slip from our fingers into the hands of our more enterprising neighbors unless something is done on our part very quickly." Milwaukee did act quickly. W ith in four years, the city had 150 miles of p lank roads radiating from it and had begun building a railroad to the Mississippi. As more and more plank road compa nies were chartered, the state passed a general incorporation law in 1858 that set maximum tolls of one cent per mile for one-animal vehicles, two cents for two-animal vehicles, one-half cent for each additional draft animal, and three-fourths cent for a horse and rider. Before 1858, tolls were sometimes higher; after 1858, they were sometimes lower than the maximum. T he law also set standards of road construction, imposed penalties for toll avoidance, and exempted from tolls anyone traveling to or from church services, funerals, town meetings, court sessions, or elections, and farmers going to and from work on their own land. Probably the most successful plank road in Wisconsin was the firstthe Milwaukee and Watertown road. Construction began in 1847 and was comp leted about four years later. As soon as the first few miles were opened to traffic, the tolls began to pour in. O n a single day in 1853, a man living along the route counted 360 teams moving east to Milwa ukee. The success of the W a tertown road inflated the hopes of plank road companies elsewhere. By the time most of the other roads were completed, however, the enthusiasm for plank roads was already waning. W ith one exception, none of the others was financially successful. The exception was the Sheboygan and Fond du Lac plank road.

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Sheboygan and Fond du Lac Plank Road

32

The Sheboygan and Fond du Lac Plank Road Company was incorporated in 1848. The road was built in 1851 -52. Much of the impetus for bu ilding the road came from the businessmen of Sheboygan, who feared that a proposed p lank road between Milwaukee and Fond du Lac would steal the trade from their hinterla nd. "A short time will decide whether we

P L/lNK RO/JD. MEETING. A11 pe~ns interested in the

construction of a Plank Road from Sheboygan t-0 Taycheedah and Fond du Lac, are requested to meet in the courtroom in Sheboy... ga~, on ThursdaJ, Nov. 29th, at l o'~IQCk P...M4~ fOi the purpose of .taking into consideration and

adoptin