The Coming of the Joseph REED Family from Ohio to Wisconsin in 1845
Newspaper Article "Wisconsin Review" under dates of May 28, June 5 1913
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Submitter's Note: The obit of Emma Jane (Reed) Marsh is in the Faribault
Archives. This account was written by her cousin Elisha Rice Reed.  
Her family came to WI in 1845 and that is where she was born.  
In the attached story, Freeman Reed is her father.  

THE COMING OF THE JOSEPH REED FAMILY FROM OHIO TO WISCONSIN IN 1845 .

Or a tale of pioneer days in southern Wisconsin in the early forties.
Written by Elisha R. Reed, (Son of Joseph Reed) and printed in the
Evansville, "Wisconsin Review" under dates of May 28, and June 5th 1913.

In August 1845, a procession of five wagons, or Prairie Schooners, 
started from the town of Troy, Geauga County, Ohio, on a trip to what 
was then the Wild and Wooly West, or more definitely to southern Wisconsin.  
Of the team two were ox team and three were horse teams.  The personnel 
of the procession was made up as follows; Joseph Reed, known as Uncle 
Joe Reed with one yoke and wagon, containing himself and wife and three 
children, viz.; Phebe, aged 17, Elisha aged 9 and Louisa aged no years.  
The load of the wagon consisted of one feather bed, a few quilts, one 
rocking chair and two ancient straight-backed, splint-bottomed chairs.
James Snow, familiarly known as Uncle Jim Snow, with one span of horses 
and wagon containing himself and wife and six children, James Jr., 
Joseph, Sophia, Harrison, Mary and Luther and a very small amount of 
the house hold goods.
Another horse team was owned and driven by Nathaniel Olds, familiarly 
known as Uncle Nat Olds. Uncle Nat Olds and Uncle Jim Snow were brothers
-in-law hence the cognomen of Uncle. Uncle Nat Olds, lost his wife years 
before, and he had with him only one grown son, B.F. Olds and is known 
as Doc Olds. His Uncle Nat came to the rescue of Uncle Jim, and took 
some of his load.
Simeon Reed, son of Joseph Reed, with his wife and baby boy George, 
made up the load of the other horse team.  Simeon Reed's wife was a 
daughter of Uncle Jim Snow and those four families were virtually all 
one family, were all conveyed in the three wagons.  The fifth team was 
another ox team owned and driven by Amos James a neighbor who cast his 
lot with us. He had a wife and four children.
The cavalcade, caravan, menagerie or procession started early in August 
and was favored with fine weather, good roads and a prosperous journey. 
No accident or incident occurred to mar the pleasure of the trip that 
I can now recall to memory.  Not a single case of sickness, breakdown 
or stuck-in-the-mud that I can recall. God's blessing certainly attended 
us all the way. We slept in the wagons, under the wagons, around haystacks, 
in haymows, or any old place we could lay our heads was Home Sweet Home to us.	
After leaving Cleveland our course lay along the lakeshore for a long 
distance, sometimes very close to the water's edge.  There were no high 
banks that I remember but beautiful sandy beaches and in some
places small stones worn smooth and true and were very beautiful.  
I gathered up a large number of them and put them in the water, and kept 
some of them for several years.  The fine weather, the beautiful expanse 
of water and the smooth pebbly beaches were an enchantment to me from 
which I never have recovered and as to this day impressed with a great 
desire to again wander by that sea beat shore.  "Where oft in headless 
infant sport I gathered shells in days before."  Only there were no shells 
of any kind that I can remember.
There was one incident and a very important incident that occurred while 
crossing the state of Indiana.  We crossed the first and only railroad 
track that any of us had ever seen.  It was such a curiosity to us that 
after having crossed the track and were at a safe distance away from it 
we halted the team and everyone, men, woman and children, all went back 
to investigate the wonderful thing, and wondered how in the world they 
could make the wheels stay on the narrow rails.  I stood on the track 
between the rails and looked away at the converging rails and they seemed 
to come right together in the distance.  I had never seen the like of that 
before.  I stood and gaped in childish open-eyed wonder all unconscious 
that I was then and there getting my first lesson in perspective drawing 
that all parallel, receding lines terminate at point of sight.  While we 
wondered, worried, waited and wished, a train came thundering past like 
a streak of greased lightening, so to speak.  The look of wonder and 
amazement on every countenance, with eyes and mouth the widest up and 
down we would have made a picture to beat anything we ever put on canvas.  
We saw the monster fly past, saw the wheels whirling, but did not find 
out what prevented the wheels from running off the track, that remained 
a very mysterious mystery.
The only rain I can remember was while passing through Chicago.  Chicago 
was then in its infancy and had not as good roads as at present; in fact 
the road had not been worked at all.  It was simply the clear mud of the 
low ground, and it was raining at the time. The mud was thin and 
bottomless, but we got through it without getting stuck.
After crossing into Wisconsin, we came to a double log house and in 
front of it was a pole stuck in the ground and on top of the pole was 
a pair of elk's horns, and we learned that this was the Elkhorn Tavern.  
A village was after the war developed around the Tavern, and very 
naturally took the name of Elkhorn, from Elkhorn Tavern.
We came to East Troy, and I will now have to leave the people sitting 
in their wagons until I go back to Ohio and come back again. We now have 
been five weeks on the road. I had a married sister living with her 
husband, E. Nelson Wetherall, and two children, in Orleans County, New 
York.  They came to Ohio in the fall of 1844 stayed a few weeks and 
then with my sister Amanda, 18 years old, took shipping around the lakes 
of Milwaukee.  They had relatives living in the vicinity of Mukwonago 
in Walworth County and there they hastened to settle.
Now we have to go back to Ohio again.  My father had a brother Samuel 
living near us in Ohio.  He, with some others, came to Wisconsin in 
the spring of 1845; Uncle Sam settled in the western part of Rock County.  
That same spring, my father with two married sons, Freeman and Wiram, 
and a younger son Daniel aged 11 years, came to Wisconsin, around the 
lakes Freeman rented some land and went to farming in the town of Summit, 
Waukesha County.  Wiram settled in East Troy. Daniel stayed with Freeman, 
my brother-in-law, Wetherall, was a stone mason and plasterer and was all 
ready carving out a fortune in Mukwonago and all was happy.  Then my 
father left them and returned to Ohio and brought the rest of us as all 
ready related.
Then the caravansary, which we have escorted all the way from Ohio 
reached East Troy and Mukwonago, the procession was at once broken up. 
Amos James and his family Summit in Waukesha County, Uncle Jim Snow had 
two brothers living in Lowell, Dodge County, and thither they hastened.  
Uncle Nat Olds and my brother Otis and wife going with him.  My brother 
Simeon spent the winter, with the Wetheralls in Mukwonago, but following 
on to Rock County, in the spring. My father had followed his brother 
Samuel from Massachusetts to Orleans County, New York in 1813 and from 
Orleans County to Chautauqua County in 1826 and from Chautauqua County 
to Geauga County, Ohio.  
I must now follow him to Rock County, Wisconsin in 1845, Wisconsin was 
then a territory, so after a time he loaded the family into the wagon 
and started further west Freeman and Wiram following a year later.  
We cross the Rock River at Humes Bridge four miles above Janesville, 
and soon struck the old territorial stage road running from Janesville 
to Madison.  Ten miles further on we came to a fork in the road at Bell 
Tavern; one fork running southwest to Madison, and the other nearly due 
west to Exeter a lead mining and smelting town on the Sugar River and 
was called the Sugar River Road.  Roads were not numerous in those days 
and were designated by the name of the point of termination for instance 
there was the Madison Road, the Sugar River Road, the Mineral Point 
Road and the Galena Road. Going east all roads ran to Milwaukee. 
There were no roads running north and south, as there was little or no 
travel in those directions.  The Madison Road was primarily, for the 
purpose of hauling lead from the lead regions to
Milwaukee.  These roads were simply broadened out Indian trails and
meandered through the woods, over the hills and around the marshes 
without regard to points of the compass. The land had not been surveyed 
at that time and when it was surveyed and settled up the settlers found 
their farms cut in two by roads running where they did not want roads.  
Trouble followed by the settlers fencing up the roads.  Congress finally 
established the roads where they are, and called them territorial roads, 
after that no man dared to fence them up or to interfere with them in 
any way.  Now you now you will find them all over this western country 
running everywhere absolutely independent of section lines or towns, 
country or state boundary lines.  
A lead team consisted of from three to five yoke of oxen on one wagon.  
From three to six or eight wagons constituted a train.  They always 
traveled in trains for company, for safety and for mutual assistance.  
The first men to start the enterprise of hauling lead were men from 
Illinois; the people of Illinois called them Suckers.  Therefore the 
men who hauled lead were called Suckers as long as the enterprise lasted.  
At the time of which I write lead was the only product shipped from the 
territory; and these same Suckers brought all the merchandise from 
Milwaukee that was brought into the country. Loaded both ways, the 
Suckers made a pretty good thing out of it.
My brother Wiram and my cousin Andrew Nash hauled lead for a few years.
At the fork in the road aforesaid we kept to the left and followed a 
trail running to the southwest, a mile from there we left the trail 
and took to the woods at a point where the trail crossed what is now 
the town line between Union and Magnolia townships, although there 
was no Magnolia there them, and it was several years before the township 
of Magnolia was set off from the town of Union. I said we took to the 
woods but that is almost a misnomer for the woods consisted of burr 
oak openings, and they were very short and scrubby. Father had been 
there before he knew the way.  
One half mile due south from here we came to my Uncle Samuel Reed's 
domicile, a low double log house, shingled with prairie hay, and without 
a door, but there was a hole in which a door was afterwards hung.  
People living in large houses have no room to entertain friends, but 
those living in lowly huts have plenty of room and you are always 
welcome without money and without price. Uncle Sam had six in his family; 
father had seven for we had been reinforced by my sister Amanda
and my brother Daniel, before leaving Mukwonago, making the unlucky
thirteen.  Yet we had plenty of room for all.  Fortunately neither 
family had any considerable furniture to occupy space, and when we 
were all stretched out on the ground at night we occupied all the space 
here was in the cabin.
Uncle Sam had entered a forty (40 acres of land) adjoining him on the 
west a vacant forth and father converted his oxen and wagon into $50.00 
cash and started on foot and alone and entered the forty.  Although he 
fell in with plenty of lead teams going and coming, yet those teams 
never took passengers, so he had to walk all the way.  Those Suckers 
themselves never ride, all go a foot. 
Returning from Milwaukee he proceeded at once to cut logs for a house, 
although logs sixteen feet long were hard to find he would have built 
a larger house if he could have found longer logs. The logs were out 
and hauled and then came the snow, he scraped the snow off the ground 
and raised a house in the woods.  There was no road to guide him in the 
location of the house, but there was a section line on which he hoped 
a road would some day run.  
As for neighbors they were very distant on the Sugar River Road were 
several neighbors, on the Monroe three miles away, on the east ten 
miles away west of us three quarters of a mile were three or four 
neighbors. Our P.O. was Mt. Union six miles away.  Also a blacksmith 
shop and a couple of small stores. Evansville had not then been dreamed 
of.  
The house was raised and covered with shakes, shakes are split out of 
the best and straightest trees that can be found and are about six 
inches wide, three feet long and as thin as they can be split with 
safety.  After shaking the house, came chinking or daubing, which is 
done by driving split pieces of wood into the spaces between the logs 
and daubing it with mud to keep out the wintry winds.  
All this being accomplished, we moved in on Christmas day 1845.  But 
before we can even get something to eat in our new home, we must return 
again to Ohio for the last time on the saddest mission of all.
It will readily be seen that with all the human freight to be 
transported in the wagons there was very little room for household 
goods.  Nothing was brought in the wagons except what was needed to 
be used on the way.  So before starting everything was boxed up and 
taken to Cleveland and shipped around the lakes to Milwaukee on a 
steamboat.  But instead of shipping the goods on a steamboat as per 
contract, they were put on a schooner. The schooner was driven by a 
storm head first on a projecting sand-bar, thirty miles out from 
Cleveland, she was then washed by the high seas, filled with water 
and the stern sunk. She was afterwards raised and pumped out and towed 
back to Cleveland, by this time it was too late in the season to reship 
them as navigation was closed at the Straits of Mackinaw.  The boxes 
were taken to the warehouse and opened and partly dried.  They were 
then repacked but in repacking many things got in the wrong boxes, 
and in the spring they
were reshipped and at last arrived at Milwaukee.  Some of the people 
got their boxes but had to pay storage for the winter and for opening 
and drying, although they were not sufficiently dried to prevent their 
spoiling.
Those who did get their boxes decided that the expense of freight, 
storage and drying and hauling from Milwaukee was more than the goods 
were worth.  So father never went after his goods at all.
Of course the transportation company was liable for heavy damages, but 
none of those people had any money with which to prosecute and had to 
pocket their grievances and go to work and earn something to eat.  
So this Christmas night found us in our new log house without a door, 
window or floor.  One feather bed, one rocking chair and two split 
bottomed chairs, a basket of potatoes, some corn meal and a pail of 
water, that was spilled before we went to bed. Uncle Sam had some marsh 
hay we piled some of the hay in the corners and crouched down and went 
to sleep, after filling the stove with green burr oak wood.
The original design of this sketch was to give an account of the trip 
to Wisconsin only, but the opening up of farms and the development of 
the new country and the desperate struggle with poverty might make 
another interesting chapter, but I see no good stopping place, for 
the arduous struggle to maintain an earthly existence continued on 
long as life lasted.
The immigrants thus far mentioned were virtually only one family 
being connected by blood or matrimony, with the exception of the 
Amos James Family; they were with us but not of us. It is said that 
birds of a feather flock together, but Mr. James' family were of a 
different feather, they therefore went off and flocked by themselves, 
and were soon lost sight of.
Of the main flock there were 36 souls, all now have sunk into oblivion 
except the writer and his sister Louisa.  And we are living on borrowed 
time. Their descendents are numerous and are scattered to the four winds 
of heaven, all have struggled with poverty, more or less, none have risen 
to wealth or honor, and none have sunk to shame and dishonor.  Some are 
in Milwaukee, and the rest are scattered all over the northwest, from 
Milwaukee to the Pacific Coast, and from southwest Missouri to the 
British possessions.