Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1867-07-31
WATERFOWL TWENTY YEARS
AGO AND WATERFOWL TODAY.
correspondence Of the Sent mel.

oCo1No1nc HOCJ ouly 10
Perhaps no one ever travelled the old
plank road from Milwaukee to Water
town in search Of the beautiful, romantic
and picturesque, but found themselves
sadly disappointed. 1T least there are
but one or two places between this village
and Watertown that will excite any
very pleasant emotions in regard to the
route, and that only at certain seasons
just now those places are Of artistic
beauty, with golden green of wheat, blue
green of cat fields, deep green of the corn,
and the ripened rye, and the shorn mead
oW lands, all so interspersed yer the
broad rolling lands as to give very beau
tyful landscape picture, while almost
every farmer presents something to view
as an evidence of prosperity-a new house
in progress, Or additions to the old one;
a new barn or some other out-building; a
new reaper or some other new agricnltur-
al implement OF like character. Spring
crops are very promising, the wheat be-
ing yearly ali Canada Club, in Jefferson
county, slight show of chinch bug in
| some fields, also pretty good show of
| the potato bug in other places. Corn is
coming rapidly on, some Of it beginning
| to ''silk out"
TWenty-one years ago, weary and worn
and sick-and homes5ck too-wlth a long
journey of many hundred miles in bug
gy. [ first saw atertoWn, and then beg
ged hard to have my "lord and MASTER
turn back among civilized people, for it
did not seem possible that civilized PEG
pie could exist in such place.
Streets with high sounding Names but
filed with slaves and stones and stumps,
timber and tamarack poles, and saw logs,
emigrant wagons and other kinds Of vehi-
cles, rough, uncouth-looking men, I'M
kempt boys, Indians almost in state of
nudity, with here and there a woman
hurryipg by; bat the greatest curiosity
was the German emigrants, without any
knowledge Of our language, but with
wistful eyes peering into ones face as if
to find friends far away from their ma
tive land. [ could not look at them and
meet their eyes without feeling a greater
degree OF home woe in sympathy with
them. A town of ''sheboygens," or slab
shanties, with here and there a decent
looking dwelling house a medley of all
things Imaginable, chaos came aga;n, it
seemed. And then, 900, I found beneath
it all culture and refinement, to bring or
der out of confusion, and now that IN
couth place has become fourishing city,
growing still, and becoming more beauti.
ful every year, and more prosperous, its
streets clean and shaded, and sprinkled
daily; A real pleasure are those streets
to drive through now, and note the new
improvements which are being developed
every day-neW stores and shops and
dwellings Of graceful elegance, some of
them costly structures, the streets being
fenced up where the commons used to be
SO late as the past summer, and built up
lax substantial manner with small, vet
neat looking cottages, until one begins to
think the city lines Of boundary must be
extended, ere long, to accommodate its
growth. The wilderness Of blossoms is
in beauty now and the quaint dress of
the foreigner is gone, save now and then,
when a new addition is made to the DO
pulation by late arrivals, and all things
pertaining to the highest refinement have
representatives here. A genial hospitali-
ty that never wearies; sympathy un-
bounded, because it is of the hearts best
feelings, and well, it was my homo for
eighteen years, and it is going home to go
there; and when one has been taught, in
prosperity and adversely, in JOY aud in
sorrow, in sickness and in health, In life
and death, to know the people of place.
they know whereof they speak, when
speaking Of them. So everything co n
neeted with that city is a subject of deep
interest to me at all times, and I never
weary of the subject, and rejoice in its
prosperity, and sorrow in its adversely, if
it has any. N. G.