The Baraboo news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1884-1911, 1905-07-12
OLD
GREENFIELD
DAYS.

was about the saddest observance
one ever finds the youth of the un-
fortunate, the suddenness of his
going while in glowing health,
and the sharp contrast between
the face of nature at that
season and the sorrow within, COM
bined to deepen the gloom. It was
a Methodist service. The hymn
was, ''The morning flowers dis
play their sweets and gay their
silken leaves unfold"
Still earlier was the death of the
little son of the poor old sawyer,
Harris, at the Garrisonvllle saw
mill. Abject poverty and destitut
ion were the cause of this. The
mill had stopped and of course the
sawyer's wages. They lived in a
shanty on the hill side, just as good
as mansion during the long brig ht
days of summer, but when the
north wind of winter came whistling
through the narrows with tooth
even sharper than Shakespeare
says will the waters warp, then the
little barefoot boy was in exile.
Shoes were too much of a luxury
for the depleted household treasury.
But ventures out on sunny days
brought on the inevitable cold that
deepened into fever. How faith
fully the good neighbors took turns
in watching over the little sufferer
during the long winter nights, and
fortunate if by great industry
sufficient warmth could be provided
for comfort. When the end came,
some chestnut boards from the mill
yard were fashioned into a modest
receptacle for the little form and in
this no one knows the spot on the
hillside where tender hands laid it
away for ever more. In those
days before the era of cemeteries,
secluded spots for burial were not
uncommon, like that of Jesse
Cammel, the old blacksmith just
opposite the home of Aunt Sarah
Wilkinson, smiling with flowers, on
the road to Portage. The good
Greenfield people always took death
so hard, [ think because they were
so much attached to one another.
When the wife of Allen Barstow
died in the bloom of early woman
hood, the whole town went into
mourning, and though in the early
springtime with roads almost I'M
pdssible, the funeral procession re-
quired quite an hour to pass on its
way to the burial at Baraboo.
But no account of old Greenfield
DAYS would be sufficient without
mention of one distinguished family,
| I mean the Wilkinsons. The per-
vasive influence of the men and
women alike remind one Of the his
toric family of Grachus in ancient
Rome, which by simple gentleness
of character in it's members was
sufficient to sweeten two centuries
of strife. Aaron Wilkinson was the
founder, a man so pious that he
would not have a lightning rod on
his buildings for fear of its defying
the Almighty. He was a whole
church in himself. He needed no
latter day aids such as meeting
houses. To him the groves were
Gods first temples. He dweIt as IN
the sigzt of him who art invisible.
What wonder that such apatriarch
should have had such offspring
They simply inherited their excel
lence.
Hunting and fishing were not un-
known in those days. The dam at
Jacksonville set back the waters OF
the Baraboo river so that the mouth
of almost every creek far above was
a good spearing pond for pickerel'
catfish, buffalo and suckers Pine
bluff furnished the fat pine toI
the torches, likewise the long pine
knots of decaYed trees dug from
it's outskirts. Many spring even
ing in the busy seeding time was
spent by the neighbors in this en-
trancing sport that banished "ea'
riness of labor and supplied the
families with the finnY delicasies'