Burning bush : including Many rivers to cross

144 Pages·1988·28.223 MB·English

by  Alice Judy Behrend

'Burning 'Busfi
Indutfing
Many !Rj.vers to Cross
'By .9llice Juay 'Belirena

'.Burning 'Busti
rndulin g
:Many 2?.jvers to Cross
'By .91.fice Jwfy 'Beh-rena
-Aff' l(igfi.ts %.served -
Pu6[isfied hy tfie Peshtigo 'Times
'l'esfr.tigo, 'Wisconsin 54157
'Rgp n'n t 2002
Whole Area
Oconto County
(until 1879)
Part I
Upper Sugar Bush
1854-1878 - 1926-1934
Note
Duri.ng the decade ?f 1927-1937. I heard accounts of the Austin Phillips
family s Sugar Bush Fire experiences from several of their elderlv children.
Austin and Martha Bosworth Phillips were my children's
great-great-grandparents.
I believe I have written the stories of Fire survivors essentially as I heard
them nearly 60 years ago. -
My personal comments or clarifications are in parentheses.
Preface
Contemplation of old records and maps has given me a new perspective
on life in the Upper Sugar Bush from 1850 to 1878. Jesse Leavenworth, a
lumberman from Milwaukee. came to Peshtigo in 1838 and bought tracts
of virgin pine up and down the river. The United States census shows he
had moved his wife and four children to the frontier town bv 1850. Bv then
he had built a second sawmill, this one was on the east side of the river
in Peshtigo. He also began selling land for farming purposes. Benjamin and
Olive Bosworth came from Massachusetts in 1854 and bought their farm
on the Four Corners Road ! Harmonyl from Leavenworth. Rural and village
population of Peshtigo that year was more than 600.
About that time. to get to pine timber on the west-to-east course of the
river a few miles north of town. as indicated by an early map. Leavenworth
must ha\'e constructed a freighting road north of Peshtigo up the east bank
of the river. It ran past Place's Rapids. around the big bend in the river,
and westward along the north bank to a spot this side of Mud Brook. There
he. or someone. erected a log bridge to carry wagons and sleighs south
across the river. This Upper Bush bridge connected with the present Town
Line Road and thence south three miles to Four Corners and the main tote
road leading to Peshtigo. From the Mud Brook Bridge an additional loop
of haul road ran westerlv. south of the river. and intersected with what we
know now as Leslie !load. A left-hand turn by teamsters brought them back
to Peshtigo.
Most of the land from County E through Harmony and the Homestead
District was high. fertile. and easily accessible. By 1B50 farming-minded
pioneers from '.\larit ime Canada. >It'\\. York. and the i\'ew England States
had heard about it. They soon came by canal boat and sailing ship. in
wagons. or on fool. :\!any bought land from .Jesse uawmrnrth who had
purchased it directly from the l'nited States.
Conditions for l'learing land were good. Huge maples. \\·hich the mills
did not use at the time. were felled and burned or left to rot in a fe\\. \·ears.
Building matl'riab nnd fuel \\·ere plentiful. Fine gardens. field crop's. and
orcharcb gn'w with ft>\\. \\C'Nb or cliseases. There \\·as a reach· local market
for surp!tis farrn products. :\lany farmers kept hired field ha rids and femaie
household \\Orkers. Substantial houses and barns \\·ere going up. There were
schools, but no church until 1878.
The Civil War slowed the Upper Bush down a little, then things began
to boom again. For six more years, except for the inevitable contagious
diseases, traumas, and accidents, the living was good. Traveling
nurserymen brought fruit trees and berry plants that grew and bore beyond
expectations. Women planted roses, clove pinks, and china asters and hung
white curtains at their windows. Young men. back in God's country after
an unspeakable war. raced their horses, swam in the river. and cleared land.
Then in 1871 a summer-long drought plagued all of the then Oconto Coun
ty. Hoping winter snows would insure good crops the following year. set
tlers continued to clear land with ax and fire. But one October night flam
ing cyclones swept away whole townships and the village of Peshtigo. The
loss of life and property is still incomprehensible.
In the spring of 1872 men and women. who'd not had the will to live and
farm burned out of them, returned lo the Sugar Bushes and started over
again. A hundred and fourteen years later fine farms are their monuments,
and their lilacs, daylilies. and bouncing Bet flourish along the roadsides.
2
Chapter One
Benjamin and Olive Bosworth and Kin
Our family, Clinton and Edna Judy and their six children. moved to the
present Dorothy Wood farm on Town Line Road in October, 1926. Sinee 1922
we had been coming the long way around to the Upper Bush from a prairie
in Illinois. In the interim we had lived on farms in Pike River, Middle In
let, and rural Peshtigo.
We'd been blessed with exceptionally good neighbors in each communi
ty where we'd lived in Marinette County. Now we again found the kindest
of friends. Before long, the Elton Francours. John Squiers, Sam Bairs, and
the Phillipses on our road called to welcome us, and others followed.
Our prairie-homesick mother liked the pleasant .'.'-forth Harmony coun
tryside. Here she could once more see a cornfield meet the sky like a line
drawn. We soon realized that was because, half a century before, great
winds. driving land clearing fires ahead of them, had leveled the Harmony
area.
We learned some of our older neighbors were survivors of the holocaust.
and that fascinated my brother Clark. Though farmsteads were well-kept
and prosperous again, to eyes and ears like his there remained a detectable
aura of sadness, a remembrance of so much lost. When I had a chance,
I mentioned this to our new teacher at Plumb School. Mrs. Trimble explain
ed our present fields and gardens were growing in fertile soil rebuilt. crop
by crop, by heartsick but hopeful survivors of the Fire. They had dared to
borrow money and start all over again.
The Storey, Bair, and Squier children on the west side of our road went
south to Harmony School. Norbert Wood and Francis Francour walked with
Clark. Howard, and me north and east to the school on the corner of Phillips
Road and E in the Town of Porterfield. On the way we caught up with the
Gerald Phillips and Amasa Utter children.
As the winter of 1926-1927 passed, our family sensed most Fire survivors
found it hard to relate their terrible experiences of more than half a cen
tury earlier. If prodded, some would tell in the fewest words possible:
''.My father saved his orphaned children in the mud of Bun-
dy Creek, but our neighbors died in their root cellar."
Or. ";vry oldest brother got us children to the river, but our
mother fell behind with the baby in her arms. We found
them in the potato field."
Or, "Father had gone up north to work in the woods.
Somehow, Mother harnessed the scared-wild team and got
them to plow a deep furrow in the meadow. Two of my little
sisters were on fire when Mother pulled the furrow over us.
We were saved, though we had to stay in the field hospital at
the Place farm till Father found us."
We knew the stories were true, but it was hard for Clark and me to com
prehend the incineration of hundreds of farms and people and thousands
of domestic animals and wildlife. We Judys learned of only a few families
who stayed in their houses the night of October 8, 1871 and lived. One was
3
an ~mpey family. I recently had a letter from a Mr. Joseph Empey of
Niagara, recalling that fact. Also. people had been saved in the green
lumber ell of the!\. 8. Phillips-Squier house where we lived, but nine others
died in a well jusl across the road from lhe same house.
Almost as soon as the snow melted and a car could be put on the road
again. a Dodge sedan drove in our yard. It was dark. and the cows had been
milked. a good nighl for friends to visit. Mr. Gerald Phillips had phoned
ahead and asked if he could bring his father. :\Ir. Ben Phillips, over to get
acquainted. Sarah and young Ben Phillips had told Clark and me their
grandfather \\'aS one of the few who would talk at length about the Fire.
We children a\\'aited the men's arrival with keen expectancy. though \\'e
knew we should be careful to keep in the background.
\\'e only had dim kerosene lamps. but :\lama made sure the chimneys
were shining and the wicks properly trimmed. Invited warmly into the old
farmhouse. the Phillips men hung their coats on the long coathook board
attached to the east kitchen wall.
Dad asked the neat, clean-shaven men if they would like to sit at the table.
That seemed to suit the older i\lr. Phillips. Though the room was warm,
he stepped first to the wood-burning cookstove and ran his hands abm·e it
before he sealed himself at the long table. His son. Mr. Gerald Phillips, and
Dad arranged themselves around a corner on either side of him.
Clark. Howard. Julia. and I sat in the shado\.vs on a plank bench near
the washstand and roller towel. We already knew ;\lr. Ben Phillips and his
family had saved themselves from the Peshtigo Fire by fleeing across fiery
fields and lying in the mud of a brook. Would he tell about that?
Our father, Clinton Judy, and his guests made small farming talk for
several minutes. Then the older Mr. Phillips, a fine-looking elderly man,
skillfully turned the conversation to homesteading in the 1850's. We children
were happy -hearing stories of olden times was the best entertainment we
knew.
Mr. Phillips said his grandparents had bought a tract of land near Har·
mony in 1854. It was located on the Peshtigo Road. The Bosworths had come
from Massachusetts by stage, canal boat. and lakes schooner. Clark said
later. ·Td like to make a trip exactly like the Bosworths did."
Sugar and a pitcher of Guernsey cream were already on the table when
Dad rose quietly and set cups of freshly ground and brewed coffee before
our guests and himself.
I suppose the dimness of our lamps helped bring memories back to ::vrr.
Phillips. He began tentatively. ··There's a whole lot more to tell. if you're
in a mood to hear it."
"We sure are." Dad said. "So far. we'\'e just heard bits and pieces of local
his tor\'. ..
As our senior neighbor sipped his coffee. he seemed to be arranging a
sequence in his mind. ··The folks who came to Harmony before the Ci\·il
War found the best land a body'd want to see," he started out. ··settlers were
pulling in off the main roads almost every clay in the spring of the year.
They'd stop their wagons. hold pieces of paper in their hands, and step out
eighty acres of big maples and cleadfalls. Except for firewood and maple
sugar. those trees were worthless at first. Then the Peshtigo Company built
the biggest woodenware factory in the world and bought the close-by maple."
"How did the first farmers clear their land with those big trees in their
way?" Dad wanted to know.
Gerald Phillips. a little younger than Dad, leaned back in his chair and
4
waited for his father to continue. "Getting rid of that virgin maple was a
problem. Homesteaders cut them down and dragged them into piles for
burning. They mostly used oxen for that. I saw many a bird's-eye maple
go up in smoke. I guess people didn't know better. They were contending
with a thousand years of trees growing. They had to burn in order to get
a plow in the soil, the leaves and mulch were so thick. When it was finally
plowed, that was the prettiest land. There's no feeling in the world like set
ting your plowshare in virgin soil and seeing it roll. In the eighties I cleared
land about the same way on the place where we live now."
With our baby brother Wilber sleeping over her shoulder, Mama came
into the kitchen and set a warm sour cream cake. cut and ready to serve.
on the table. I jumped up and put a fork, a napkin. and a dessert plate in
front of each of the men. !The cake cannot be duplicated today without farm
sour cream and fresh eggs. J
Mr. Phillips looked up after he had tasted the cake and praised :\lama.
··Mrs. Judy. I haven't eaten the likes of this since I was a boy." <Clark and
I knew that meant before the Fire. when many farmers had such an abun-
dance, they hardly knew what lo eat. l ·
After everyone. including the children. had finished their cake . .\1ama
laid Wilber in his spindled cradle and sat in her rocker by the window fac
ing the road.
Mr. Phillips resumed his story. "In spite of many boys going off to war,
there was a Jot of land clearing in the 'GO's. A man sees a fine farm taking
shape right before his eyes. he can work like an ox. I've seen farmers lay
ing up rail fences by moonlight."
"I reckon that was a good time to be starting out," our 39-year-old father
commented.
"It was," our guest replied. "The ones of us who lived then could almost
see the Sugar Bushes, Upper. :Vliddle, and L<>wer. grow. A lot of Germans
had immigrated to the Lower Bush. Almost every farmer was fire-clearing
fields of high land. There was so much smoke. when it was foggy or damp,
it was hard to breathe. But we were prospering and beginning to buy the
finer things of life." (I knew he referred to reed organs. imported silks and
laces, buggies, and Indiana horses to take them to the stores in Marinette
in no time at all.l
Our storyteller was visibly tiring. "Please get a fresh bucket of water
from the pump," Dad said to Clark. "We'll have a cold drink."
When Clark came with the water. Mr. Phillips sighed as he refreshed
himself. When he took up his account, there was a note of sadness in his
voice. "Then it started. The winter of '70~1 was a snow failure. It was con
venient for us at the time, but we didn't know what it would cost us. We
had very little rain in April and May. barely enough to let us work the land
and plant seeds. Then we waited and worried about our garden and hay
crop. My father, Austin Phillips, had nearly a hundred head of horses and
cows he kept to sell to settlers; but everyone was holding back from buy
ing what they couldn't feed. Heavy dews kept the garden and field crops
alive, but they were spindly."
"How did you feed your stock?" Dad asked the question foremost in a
farmer's mind.
"We bought grain and hay shipped to Peshtigo Harbor from Manitowoc.
Sometimes the skies would cloud up and give us high hopes. ll would rain
just enough to make spats in the dust. then ii would stop. and the burning
sun would come out. Right after the Fourth of July there was a good rain.
but it disappeared in the dust like sand down a rat hole. It hardly perked
up the shriveled plants at all."
l\'lr. Phillips' son Gerald was bending forward. about to rise. We knew he
was signaling his father it was time to go home and come back another day.
The older man ignored this mo\·e. He had much more to say. though he
was obvious!\· tired. His tone intensified. and we children shivered with em
path~" "The iast half of August." he went on. "al night you could see a red
glo\\' on the horizon after the sun had set. Il \\·as caused by a hundred scat
tered fires.
"The Chicago and l\orthwestern was building a right-of-way up from
Green Bay for our first railroad. Pa told Ma she and Grandma Bosworth
could go back lo Massachusetts and see Aunt Esther as soon as it was
finished.
"But the railroad crews let fires run loose in the swamps, and the peat
burned for months afterward. We all suffe rcd from the continual smoke.
but it was hardest on children and old folks. September came. The smoke
was getting worse. Some preacher feller got excited and warned the end
of the world \.Vas near. That was too bad, for it kept some families from
trying to save themselves when the wind and fire came."
A tremor ran through the speaker's body. His son stood and said firmly.
··Pa. it's lime to go home now. We'll come another time."
Mr. Ben Phillips pushed back his chair and rose stiffly.
"We could come Sunday afternoon from next." Gerald suggested.
"\Ve sure wish vou would." Dad said. He had also risen. Mama came from
her rocker and reinforced the im·itation.
The men left. Clark. Howard. Julia. and I went up the bare wood stairs
to our beds. Clark and I had read every book sent lo Plumb School in big
boxes from the State Library. but Mr. Phillips' story was more spellbind
ing than any of them.
Clark said. "I hope he doesn't get sick or anything before he comes back."
My imagination shied a little from what might be told by :Vlr. Phillips
on his nexl visit, bul I knew we'd never hear it again.
Almost two weeks later, the Phillips men returned lo our house on a Sun
day afternoon, and we waited eagerly for Mr. Ben lo resume his memories.
I doubt if many children feel that way today. but we would rather hear good
stories about pioneer days than play baseball. Young Ben Phillips, the son
of Gerald Phillips and Lena Armstrong Phillips. came along to play with
Howard. They set up a checkerboard on a low walnut commode by a kit
chen window. Julia was reading nearby. Robert and Roberta. age three.
were playing with Tinker Toys in the li\·ing room.
The two men and our father again seated themseh·es at the han·est-sized
table. In the interval between their visits. Oad had bought a new oilcloth
table cover from J. H. Stibbe's store in Peshtigo. :'-Jew table oilcloths always
delighted us. the distinctively pleasant smell would last for weeks. ;\fr. John
Squier and his wife Althea had come and papered the room ceiling and the
walls above the wainscoting. Mama had ordered :l!l cent white scrim cur·
tains from Sears. I had scrubbed the bare maple floor with Fels Naptha
soap and spread some of .\frs. Mae Weaver's hancl-loomed rugs. We were
ready for guests and an afternoon I would remember vividly for these near
ly sixty years.
After mutual inquiries about the health and welfare of both households
and the current progress of field \\'Ork. we all sensed J\1lr. Phillips wished
to be about his storytelling. Recently. I hm·e \nmdered if he hoped. some
day. Clark would write down what \\·as bt•ing told. ('lark wa:; only elen'n.