The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1884-09-26
ADDRESS OF Hon. A. VAN WICK.


Mr.. PRESIDENT, AND LADIES AND GENTLE
MEN OF THE SOCIETY.
l am grateful for the honor your committee
have conferred upon me, in inviting lne Il
address you on this occasion.
I am sensible that I owe this privilege
rather to my long acquaintance and intimacy
with many who were pioneers in this county
than TO any rightful claim of being one o.
them myself.
1t is twenty four years this month sin e
first came to reside in this county. On the
partly unimproved farm in Paris which
then occupied l tried for few years some
thing of the life of an early settler. My
best title to your attention to-day, however
is that have listened to the off told tale o.
early settlement until, like the man in the
story, | feel that must have experienced il
myself.
1t is the nature of man in advancing years
to find pleasure in recalling the incidents and
achievements of his youth. We always like
to think and talk of that time when, in the
strength and promise Of our early manhood
we accomplished some form and measure Of
success.
Communities, like individuals, desire to
gather up and garner for the generations
which are to follow the traditions of their
origin and growth.
1t is fitting, then, that the early settlers OF
our county should have decided to meet an,
nually in this pleasant grove beside this
beautiful lake, amid many scenes of its early
settlement-to exchange once more fraternal
greetings, and talk with one another and
each others children of the days when, with
strong arm, they carved their homesteads
out of the unbroken prairie and helped to
build this noble state
1t ia now more than fifty years since many
of US who are assembled here first heard OF
the attractions Of Wisconsin. This was al
the close Of the Black Hawk war; The
battles of Pecatonica, Wisconsin Heights and
Bad Axe had forever terminated the rule oil
the Red men in Wisconsin.
1t was representedt to us through the press
and in private correspondence, that this was
region of surprising excellence Of climate
of marvellous fertility Of soil, where the great
staples could be successfully grown with
little labor, and of remarkable beauty. with
its wide and ever pleasing variety of grove
and lake and prairie.
These alluring words came to some of u:
in quiet, drowsy Eastern villages, where
there had been no growth for half century
or more, without enterprise or without pres
ent hope of progress to others on quiet ole
homesteads in New York and New England
on st ony or timber lands, with an eterna
round of stone picking and weed pulling ant
wood chopping, where life seemed hopelessly
slow and toilsome. TO men coming from
the old world the statement of cheap lands
of the free ballot, of exemption from militar,
conscriptions, made every state tractive
and naturally drew them wherever he nativ
migration tended, which was then directe,
to Wisconsin.
We all came with the hope Of improving
our fortunes, of easier conditions of labo
on prairie lands, of o finer climate, of ne,
adventures, of impressing on new soil on
own ideas of government and law and sucia
life
The REMOVAL.
A journey to Wisconsin in those DAYS
when there were no railroads west of Sehen
ectady. or at most Of Syracuse, New York
was an undertaking of some magnitude
Once decided to emigrate, we came by cana
and lake, by private conveyance, by stag
coach to st. Joseph, and thence across tn
lake, or by these white-topped wagons, which
with huge projections &c fore and aft wer
known in lower ATTITUDES as " prairie schoon
ers." slowly toiling day after day, anon,
the woods and stumps and through th
marshes and over the corduroy roads o
Western New York and Michigan
| After struggling through the sand bank
of New Buffalo and Michigan City, through
the great marshes and the mud holes in an(
around where Chicago now stands, ther,
was delightful sense of rest and satisfaction
in reaching the high rolling lands Of thi
slate. Kenosha was the gaze city and count,
through which very many of the early resi-
dents entered Wisconsin and the new North
west.
AT that time the groves CT Randall, Wheat
land and the entire western part of this ant
Racine counties had little underground
Beneath the overhanging branches, looking
through vistas of trees as though grand col
onades, charming glimpses were obtained O
long reaches of prairie and the many glisten
ing lakes, which inlay still with rich efTec
this portion of our county. Beyond, the
prairie rolled east in successive waves ofliv
ing green, dotted with little groves, until il
was lost in little intervales and sunny glades
among the larger pieces of woodland near
the lake. In summer il was broidered with
flowers of many hues. In autumn it was all
ablaze with red and yellow fowers-some
specimens of which lingering along our fences
remind US of the old profusion. An old
settler lately told me that +" il was impossible
for the mind of man to conceive Of ANYTHING
more beautiful than the country around the
lakes IN their original condition before spoil
ed by man." In contrast to this picture
we're many dreary scenes, in years of
drought, or after prairie fires, or when cover.
ed by {" the old fog late in the fall. or with
snowdrifts under the bleak winds of winter.
The solitude and silence Of the prairles
were sometimes oppressive. Several Indian
trails crossed the county, the most generally
travelled one being about six miles from the
lake, and running from point near Mil
waukee to the head of Lake Michigan. near
Chicago; others winding, for fishing pur-
poses apparently, along the O'Plaine (called
originally by the French Aux Plaines) and
Fox rivers, and in and around these little
lakes toward the larger one near Geneva.
These trails were about two feet wide, and
were often tracked several inches in depth.
On these the files of Indians on little ponies.
in squalid dress, mixture of savage and
white mans costumes, occasionally passing,
only made the solitude more painful. Ere.
quently, the land surveyors and men q pros
pecting' cheered the eye. suggesting hap
pier scenes and the promise of the future.