The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1899-02-16

to dwelling, informing US that it was
a tavern. We reached it and asked
the sad and sour looking lady to cook
us something to eat. She replied she
couldn't do it if she would. Her nus
hand left for Chicago to procure llte's
necessaries the morning previous and
had not returned and that they had
consumed the last eatable of every
kind. Misery had company whether
we loved it or not. After batting my
faded horses | started for Sunderland'e
(Sunderlin's) now Waukegan) some
twenty miles or more south OF US, and
at about o'clock in the evening With
our child crying for food and weary,
faint companion, who perhaps occa
sionally limited that this was rather
forbidding route, even if it led to a
land of promise. Starting again in the
morning and vending our way near the
lake shore at dusk, dark and cloudy, /
found some three miles south of here
that must take staff in one hand
and the rein in the other and walk
beside the horses to guard against fall
ing over into the lake. The trouble
then as since was the lake was fore
closing it's mortgage upon the terra
frma bordering upon it and took very
little pains to consult the comfort or
safety of night travellers. On crossing
Jerome creek we discovered light
and directing our course by it in the
early hours of the evening we found
some few to welcome US to our new
home. The journey from our early
mountain home had consumed five
weeks, while now the distance from
the Green Mountains to Kenosha can
be traversed in forty eight hours.
"My brother in-law Charles Dur
keel, then absent strom home as a
member of the territorial legislature of
our territory, had raised frame and
with such siding as could be found had
sided up share of building. The
residue was supplied by blankets and
quilts. Our feather bed and our
prairie bedsteads were assigned to our
ladies and the children. The gentle
man who had accompanied us in our
journey and the writer took the hard
wood floor for some six weeks to await
the arrival of better cOnveniences' =
And thus it was that on Thursday,
October 25th, 1886, this family took up
their first abodes at Pike river, where
they remained until :. Southport, in
Wisconsin Territory, had become
Kenosha, in the state of Wisconsin and
until in 1868 Mrs. Deming, at prime
of lovely old age, was laid to rest, to be
followed in 1867 by her loving husband,
who had himself come to mellow full
ness of years.
There were four Of these Dana girls
who came from their Vermont home to
this west. One was the wife of Mr.
Deming, another the wife of Harvey
Durkee, another the wife of Rev. VIM.
Peck and the fourth the wife of Charles
Durkee. One beautiful summer day in
those early years Mrs. Charles Durkee
was walking with her sister, Mrs. Har
vey Durkee, upon a ridge south of
Jerome creek, and as the serenity and
beauty of the scene stole in upon them
she said: I" If [ should die in this
western country should like to be
buried here under the shade of these
oak trees with the birds singing above
my head and where those who may
perhaps stand by my grave could hear
the murmur and see the flash and blue
ness of that beautiful lake" Too soon,
alas, came the occasion to remember
her expressed wish, for in 1888 she was
laid to rest in what is now the Kenosha
cemetery.
After the arrival of these pioneers at
Pike River came period of weary and
impatient waiting for the schooner
which had been freighted with lumber
and which had "hoisted her sail for
the mouth of PikeNriVer or more liter
ally for the sand at it's mouth. Most
unfortunately for us the schooner en-
countered adverse winds that finally
drove our Inflated cargo of lumber
ashore and such was the wreck of YES
sci and cargo that it was abandoned to
insurers and we were left without one
whole board to supply our pressing
wants."
1t becomes easy for Us now to under
stand the intense anxiety of the early
settlers TO secure harbor facilities, and
we do not wonder that through Mr..
Charles Durkee, their member in Con-
gress, and by concerted movement
among the people every effort was made
to secure harbor by local self help
and by national aid. Incidents such
as this, related by Mr.. Deming, explain
that early anxiety. Not infrequently
vessels containing necessaries and con
veniences for this settlement might not
arrive until cold December.
"When the vessel arrived having on
board the furniture and effects of
| Judge Hale and myself and two stocks