The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1911-09-07
A VISIT TO MEEME.
Editor Pilot:

| The writer lately spent aSunday WIS.,
iting his old home in the town of
Meeme. Time and the ruthless hand
of man have so changed the aspects of
nature that one familiar with the coun-
try in its primal state would scarcely
place to fields, woods to waving grain,
purling brooks that like silver thread
were won't to wind their ways through
the shade of sequestered valleys, have
dried up and disappeared, the swamps
of the early days wherein nevis and
Shiny things dwelt, have been cleared
up and titled until now they are valu-
able parts of cultivated farms; and
many pond wherein water stood the
whole year, are all gone, the clearing
of the woods allowing the hot rays of
the sun to sap their feeders ana cut off
| the supply that gave them life; even
| the lone cedars which standing close
fringed the lake shores and whose
bending boughs dipped into the laving
waters of the lakes, have been all cut
down and the shores that looked lovely
| in evergreen, are now ''bleak and bar
ren," despoiled by the commercial
hand of man seeking a livelihood,
where, nature in its beauty, never in
| tended he should cultivate or destroy.
The beautiful island in Pigeon Lake
was not sacred from the scathing hand
of man, and | was told some Michigan
| University students, some living in
your county, few years ago camped
CT the island and built night fires
against lordly pine which stood in
| the center thereof and towerd high
above his fellows until the island foli-
age looked like we'll kept hedge, un-
til ''the grand old pine" laid PROSTATE
and lone. Now, there is gaping
| opening in the center of the island
down which the hot sun pours, and
which ruins this gem of nature set in
the center of the limpid waters of this
beautiful lake. How thoughtless, not
to use harsher term, such conduct by
such men is. Did the island belong to
private parties they would not dare be
guilty of such vandalism.
The old winding roads through
woods, shortcuts" have all been done
away with. you must now in all cases,
go around the square mile to section
corners, and travel long, dusty high.
ways, where years ago diagonal roads
reached the same points by half the
distance or less. The Indian trails
from one body of water to another,
the COW paths through the woods,
winding around hills so as to avoid
climbing, and yet leading "home,' are
now mere memories to the boys, now
men, whose boyhood was spent amongst
these once familiar scenes, and who
are saddened because they are but
memories of a happy past. Cattle are
not now, as of yore, sought at eve in
the woods, the searcher listening for
the well known sound of their bells,
but are driven up from fenced pastures
on the farms instead. Machinery and
horses do the work now which in olden
times was done by hand and made farm
work, long, laborious and tiresome
The young men of today are beginning
| la = hot fop 70 &c he
dependent and best life in the world
and that well-fenced, titled and stock.
ed farm is one of the best paying in.
vestments in the world. The owner oi
such farm is more independent than
king, and never need bend a cring-
ing knee to any lord or master. Young
man, cling to your farm as you would
to gold mine.
The highways are Strengthened,
lands fenced which were wild and seem
ingly untillable, dwellings have sprung
up at many places where we imagined
human being could not live, and
standing on high hill one can see for
miles on all sides farm buildings dot
ting the country, a picturesque panora-
| ma to the sight The old houses which
| once well knew and oft sheltered me,
have been torn down, enlarged, or
changed around, and their surround
| ings so altered that one would scarcely
recognize the old places; and sigh for
those early days and the once familiar
| faces of their then owners, now gone
| forever as tenants of Goods acre.
was the only tribute felt like paying
to the Improvements | saw in the old
land marks of the long ago. Even the
old frame school house in district No.
3, is changed north and south, and
fenced off from the rest of the world,
as if too sacred to be touched by the
rest of earth, another sign of the ex-
clusiveness of the commercial spirit OF
the age; and which is rather sapping
than strengthening rugged, honest, in.
telligent manhood, and good citizen
ship. In the early days amongst the
pioneers of Meeme, every man was an
equal, the hand of manly friendship
and almost prohigate hospitality was
extended to every wayfarer and he felt
at home, though stranger in strange
land, and partook of the cheerful,
given bounty of those country peasan
try, who asked no pay save the salts
faction of knowing that they had re