Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1906-1908, 1907-03-22
A SNOW BLOCKADE
Of 26 YEARS AGO
BY HANS HEINRICH. VETERAN
HAT MAN.
An Interesting Renaissance OF
the Great Snow Blockade Which
Has Been Revived of Late
Scene Laid in WdtertOWn--
Business SuSpened.

III SlE HOtel lODDys VI III lilS SiiohlhS
car, or at the table, and they have no
other subject to talk about, The "Ho
tel'' is brought up and discussed In
different ways. 1t seems to lay near
the heart of every trayelIngman this
question of, how good the Great utopia
is or how poor meal the Grand HOOD
lum serves. But this time when a
bunch OF drummers were sitting around
a stove in the little town of Spook-
vile, the subject was ''The Snow
Blockade of 1881. =" Never since that
time, was there such a fall of snow in
Wisconsin and it may be of interest
to some readers to see what some of
he boys had to say on the subject:
Snow? Talking about snow,
eh:' said Dan LongteIIow. the CT
gar man. Boys, you don't know
what snow is You should have been
with me in Green Bay in March 1881,
then you could talk about snow. We
were showed in for whole week.
The snow was pileo up to the sec
ond stories No papers, no trains,
no mail for nearly a week.
Fifty of US boys were at the
Beaumont over Sunday. We noti
fled minister of church that we
would come in a body. Seats were
reserved for US, and, tell you what
boys, | was proud of our crowd when
we marched two abreast up the aisle.
When the deacons came around with
the box each of US dropped IN a sill
yer dollar; they had to hold the box
with both hands. But | suppose the
minister and deacons smiled at the
dollars and would like to see such a
fine lot of drummers come to church
every Sunday"
"Well | too know something about
that snow" said Peter Puffer, the
vete ran groceryman. / was showed
in at Portage for nearly week.
There must have been about 80 OF
the boys, and do you know what we
did in order to xiii time? We played
theater. We practised a day or
two, advertised an assorted program
and had big audience We
made quite a little money which we
spent in wine and cigars. Ell. Not
by long shot. We gave it to the
poor. -
q was showed in at New Holstein
at the same time" said Hans Christian,
the veteran shoeman of Milwaukee.
eve were quite a bunch of MIlwau
kee boys, among them my three friends
l. S. the hardwareman, II. K. the
d1ugman and w ?. the clothingman.
We four were chums and in order to
kill time we played "skat. We
waited one day-two days-but no
train On the third day we decided
to telegraph to our firms to let them
know where we were. But how could
we get to the depot? 1t is over a
mile from the town and not a team had
been able to come through the snow.
But telegraph we must. Telephones
were unknown in those days, therefore
we decided that one of our quartette
should try to make his way to the
depot. We drew cuts as to who
should GO. S was the lucky-or I'M
lucky one as will directly be seen
who had to take the kilograms to the
depot. He WAS somewhat heavy
built. stout man with good sized
q
did not seem to enjoy the outlook very
much, but like good fellow. he took
the kilograms, his cuat, cap and nit
tens and was ready to 70.
"Then K. suggested that snow shoes
would be the proper thing. A II agreed,
and an old barrel was knocked to pieces
holes were bored into two of the saves
and with some pieces of washline
the snow shoes were soon fastened to
SIS feet Then with long washline
pole as a support in his hand he
marched off. We all looked after HIM
as long as we could see him; it looked
as 1t he went along quite nicely. Then
we went back to our skat again. The
snow was several tee6 deep, but the
sun shining on top, melting it little,
and freezing again, had made quite a
hard surface An hour had passed
but s. had not returned an hour and
half, but no sign of him. | began
to feel uneasy. | could not play any
longer. | volunteered to go after
him. but assure you, boys, 1t was
the hardest trip | ever made in my
life. and only with the help of the
pole which luckily | had taken along
[ was able to make slow progress.
q had made about half way to
the depot when | saw in the distance
long pole, which was shaking back
and forth, and then | heard cry
.help, help but did not see any
thing. When | came nearer | saw it
was our frieno S. who lay helplessly
in the snow with one leg deep in the
snow and the other one on top of 1t.
The ropes of one o. the snow shoes
became loose and in trying to faster
it, his foot slipped out of it aud suns
deep INTO the snow; he tried to loosen
the ropes but the more he worked the
deeper he sank into the snow.
'tWhen he saw me he commenced