Outagamie County, WI - "Greenville Developed From a Shanty" ************************************************************* USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net ************************************************************* Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives Subject: newspaper article "Greenville Developed From a Shanty" Submitted by: county coordinator EMAIL: jmmarasch@aol.com Date Submitted: 15 March 2000 Source: New London Press newspaper article from Bicentennial issue, undated. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Greenville Developed From A Shanty by LeonaMech The Town of Greenville marks its official beginning from March 31, 1850, after Seymour Howe and Isaac Wickware went to Green Bay to file for its organization. However, its settlement began when John and Mathew Culbertson arrived April 7,1848, to build Greenville's pioneer log shanty. Francis Perry made the first land entry, April 17, 1847, but there is no record of his ever settling in the town. The first entry for settlement was made by Seth J. Perry, one of Greenville's earliest pioneers on Dec. 22, of the same year. He had located in Walworth County in 1839, and did not settle in Greenville until ten years later, in 1849, on the land he bought two years earlier. His brother Miles brought his family to their homestead in 1849 too. The elder Culbertson emigrated to Indiana in 1822 from Campeltown, Scotland, and met his future wife, Margaret Reid, on board ship. After rearing a family, he came to Wisconsin to procure farms for his children. John and Mathew made their journey to Wisconsin in stages - first by steamboat, then canal boat, a railroad trip to the end of the line, then stagecoach, boat, and finally on foot. They walked from Sheboygan to Green Bay, where the father purchased land for his four sons and himself at the Government Land Office, April 14,1848. After four more days of walking, they arrived at their property. Matt immediately started to build his cabin, while his father started walking back to Sheboygan for their baggage, marking trees along his route, so he could find his way back. Matthew had borrowed an axe from a French settler, St. Marie, but had to return it, so he hiked 100 miles to buy an axe with which to hew trees for his home. He walked to Neenah, and found the supply was gone, then went on to Oshkosh, no luck, and finally found one for sale in Fond du Lac. The father came back, but after several weeks returned to Indiana. Matt followed seven months later (in November). The next spring, 1849, Matt and his brother James moved with team and wagon to their Greenville home, where they were joined by John, Jr., in 1850, and Alexander, in 1855. Their father came in 1858 with his daughters Margaret and Nancy, after his wife had died. In 1851 Matt married Hannah Otis, whose parents settled in the town of Dale in 1849. Thier home was a little cabin, 12 x 14, with a roof of puncheons. It had a fireplace, the chimney being built of sticks and mud. At first there was no window, but later a small one was built. The rude door creaked on wooden hinges, all made by the pioneer himself. Puncheons were laid on pins in the logs for shelves, and his gun 'game overtaker' was held by two hooks. This piece of artillery made the difference between scanty and well-stocked larder. Matt's son, Henry, was one of Greenville's best known citizens. He was a State Senator, master of the Grange, and author of "Culbertson's Pioneer Story" and "History of the Northwest." The Culbertsons were soon followed by Edmund Hafner in June, 1848. He stopped a week at Neenah while he and his sons cut a way into Greenville where he bought land. There were six sons and two daughters in his family, but his house offered shelter, and was a home for new settlers coming into town. Alva McCrary, Seymour Howe, and Isaac Wickware, with two sisters, and the James Hardacker family, all settled in 1848, shortly after the Culbertsons. The McCrary's came by ox team from Ohio, and in November James and Isaac Wickware, arrived with their sisters, The Hardackers had previously built a cabin in the summer. Mrs. Hardacker was also a sister of the Wickwares, and until the first spring lived with them, where Louis Hardacker, the first white boy in Greenville was born on January 6,1849. That year Seth Perry brought his family from Walworth county to the farm be had purchased two years previous, while Miles Perry and his wife settled nearby. They came from Ostego county, New York, by canal and lake, bringing an ox team and wagon. They built a shanty 18 x 24 feet, and had to borrow a broad-axe to dress the timbers. Mr. Perry walked six miles, returning the ax at night, and was chased by drunken Indians and squaws. Mrs. Perry's first callers were 14 Indian and squaws, who appeared at her cabin one Sunday morning, walked in, and seated themselves on the floor. Once an Indian asked for a knife, which was loaned him. In a short time he returned it, bringing also a nice quarter of venison. Mrs. Perry's eldest daughter, Sylvina Perry Culbertson, was born October 12, 1850, and was the first white girl born in Greenville. James Welbey entered a claim in 1848 and arrived with his family the following April. He started the first tannery to tan deer skins. -- his 4-1/2 year old boy, in the spring of 1853, strayed into the woods and was lost, and though a $300. reward was offered for finding him, and several hundred persons hunted, he was not found. But three months later a child's body was found in a skunk hole by Mr. Norton, and identified as that of the lost boy, and was given burial. Elder Keval preached the funeral sermon. Julius Perrot and wife came from Milwaukee in May, 1849, by ox-team. They sowed an acre and a quarter to wheat and reaped 700 bundles, which they threshed with flails and winnowed with hand fans, yielding 30 bushels. Mrs. Perrott underbrushed 12 acres of timber, and nights packed many thousand shingles. Much of their timber was maple and in the spring of 1854, they made 2,800 pounds of sugar. John Jacquot came with the Perrots, bringing his bride. That year, 1849, also brought Clark and Boswell Wood. Simeon and Lorenzo E. Darling, James Thompson, and Charles Breitrick, the first German to settle there. The Darlings lived together the first winter. Avery Grant and A. Calkins came together in 1849 or 1850, with a yoke of three- year old steers, an old wagon, and six cents in cash. They were on the road ten days from Milwaukee, and experienced the usual privations. Grant built a log cabin, and they lived a number of weeks on corn bread for breakfast, mush for dinner, and cornbread, with molasses, for supper. They had one pan of flour, and loaned half, not knowing where the next was coming from. Seymour Howe entered land in 1848. He was entertaining travelers early as 1849. His tavern was the first in Greenville, and the first side of the "Openings". Wilder Patch came in the spring of 1850, chopped and burned the brush off three acres and planted corn among the logs; began to build a house, but needed more money, so took a job working for John R. Rynders, on July 4 until Sept. 10, meanwhile living on what $5 would buy. Julius F. Mory came that same year (1950), his family following from Germany three years later. Other new settlers that year included James Wilson, Joseph Randall, William Bucholz, Patrick Liepke, William Pindrelles, Solomon and Henry Glass, J. Nye, Hume Lathrop, Francis and Luther B. Mills. On March 12, 1850, the territory was created a separate town of Brown County, and 19 votes were polled at the first meeting of the town, when pioneers met at the home of Seymour Howe on April 2, 1850 and the town was organized. About half of the town area had been sold to pioneers. (Although Outagamie County begins officially with the date February 17, 1851, its township history goes back to 1843, six years before Wisconsin became a state.) Greenville and Hortonia townships organized in 1850 - all the land from the Fox to the Wolf, except a tiny bit apparently overlooked, was surveyed in 1843. The part of the county north and west of the Wolf was not surveyed until 1853, since the Menominees did not sell this land until 1848, About 1851, John and Ludwig Bleick, With their parents, made the trip from Milwaukee with a yoke of oxen and wagon, carrying their household goods. Not a tree had been cut on their land, when the family arrived. They immediately built a small log cabin, reefed with split basswood. That winter supplies were hard to obtain, the settlers had to go with their ox teams to Green Bay to get flour and pork, though once John succeeded in getting 50 pounds of flour at Little Chute, when he was a boy of 16. He carried the flour on his back more than 12 miles. George W. Born and family, together with his parents, arrived in 1851. A clearing had to be made on their wooded land before they could build a house, so it was not until 1853 before they resided in it. This house, a frame structure, stood on the road from the southern counties to the pine woods, and was large enough to afford accomodations for travelers. Among others who were in Greenville in early 1851 were Leonard Dunkle, John (cont. on page 12)