Biography:  Andrew McELDOWNEY, LaCrosse Co., Wisconsin

Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archivesby Alice Linsey-Fluegge [Alicelinzy@aol.com] USGenWeb NOTICE:  In keeping with our policy of providing free genealogy information on the Internet, data may be freely used by non-commercialentities, as long as this message remains on all copied material.These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profitor presentation by other organizations.Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposesother than as stated above, must contact the submitter or the listedUSGenWeb archivist.-------------------------------------------------------------------------Biography of Andrew McEldowneyAndrew McEldowney was born in County Tyrone, Ireland in 1800.  At an early age he emmigrated to the US and later settled in Crawford Co., Pa.There he met and married Mary Cunningham, who was born and raised in Crawford Co., Pa..  There they raised their nine children until 1851, when they moved to Lafayette Co., Wi. and then later to LaCrosse Valley,Wi..  This was not your run of the mill move.  It was filled with privations and hardships.  The journey of the McEldowney's consisted of having to travel throught unbroken forests, crossing the Wisconsin river swollen by June rains, the danger from prowling bands of Indians, with theforest trails haunted by wild animals and rattlesnakes.  After crossing the Wisconsin river the family journeyed to Viroqua before they found another white inhabitant and from there to LaCrosse before findinganother.  The McEldowney family was among the 1st settlers in the town ofNeshonoc later called Hamilton and now known as West Salem.  In Nehosnoc he ran a tavern and entertained passengers traveling over the stage routebetween Portage and LaCrosse.  One of the most vivid memories of his son Andrew McEldowney, Jr., who was 14 when they came to the area, "People talk about this being a wilderness, " he said, "why it was a perfect garden!  The bluffs, now fairly well covered with timber were at that timebare of trees, but on the North side, was a heavy growth of timber.  The occasional fires had kept the under brush down so that the forest was like a great park. The prairie where West Salem now stands was level as a floor,and brilliant with prairie flowers. The fact that the little home was a log hut with neither windows or doors did not seem to count."  He relatesthat as his father was making a door for the house out of pieces of plankwhich he had obtained,  two strangers came along and stopped to talk to him.  A young woman had died the day before a little further up the valley,and there was no coffin in which to bury her.  My father,  who was something of a carpenter, immediatly went to work to transform the door into a plain coffin, which the men took away with them, and the cabin remained without a door until more lumber could be obtained.Of the nine children Andrew and Mary McEldowney had, four sons and fivedaughters, three of the sons went on to be prominent farmers in West Salemand the daughters married and settled down to family life.  In Septemberof 1867 Mary McEldowney died and in January of 1879 Andrew McEldowney, Sr. died.  Mr McEldowney and the other courageous settlers of the LaCrosseValley in Wisconsin have been imortalized in the stories of Hamlin Garland, the famous writer from West Salem.SOURCE:"Memoirs of LaCrosse County"Benjamin F. Bryant, EditorMadison, WisconsinWestern Historical Association 1907.