Edwin Ellis Incidents: Number IV
August 31, 2018
By Amorin Mello
Originally published in the July 14th, 1877, issue of The Ashland Press. Transcribed with permission from Ashland Narratives by K. Wallin and published in 2013 by Straddle Creek Co.
… continued from Number III.
EARLY RECOLLECTIONS OF ASHLAND.
“OF WHICH I WAS A PART.”
Number IV
My Dear Press: – In March 1855, Conrad and Adam Goeltz – then young men, came to Ashland. They were natives of Wittenberg, and Conrad had served six years in the Cavalry of that Kingdom; but liking freedom, he bade adieu to the King, his master, and came to the “Land of the Free.” They both cleared land near the town site, which they afterwards pre-empted, and bought from the U.S. Government. For several years both of them lived in Michigan, but upon the revival of Ashland they came back to their early home. Katy Goeltz, Conrad’s Daughter, was the first white child born in this town, in the fall of 1855. Henry Dretler, Mrs. Conrad Goeltz’s father, came early and bought a quarter section of land. He died here in 1858 and was buried near the present residence of Mr. Durfee.
In June 1855, Dr. Myron Tompkins (brother-in-law of Mr. Whittlsey) came to the bay in search of health. He had been driven from Illinois by ague and rheumatism. The climate cured the ague, and accidentally falling off from a raft in the bay – the severe shock cured the rheumatism. Being thus cured by our climate and water, he has ever since lived on the lake. He is a well-educated physician. At present he is the physician of the Silver Islet Mining Company, on the North Shore of the Lake.
I recall others who came in 1855; Andrew Scobie, now of Ontonagon, Thomas Danielson, Charles Day, (now farming on Fish Creek,) Joseph Webb, Bernard Hoppenjohn, Duncan Sinclair, Lawrence Farley, and Austin Corser. Farley died many years ago, but his widow, after years of absence, has again returned to Ashland. Austin Corser in the summer of 1855 began a farm on the east side of Fish Creek, about half a mile above the mouth. Remaining only two or three years, he went to Ontonagon and afterwards to Iron River – in a wild lonely glen – where in after years from 1873 to 1876. He sold his homestead on which the Scranton Mining Company was formed for a snug little fortune, on which he settled down on a farm near Waukegan, Illinois.
John Beck, also coming in the early days of Ashland. He pre-empted and lived upon the spot now laid out and occupied as our cemetery. His wife was the first adult person who died in this town. The remains of the house in which she died may be seen near the Ashland Lumber Company’s store. He was for many years an active explorer for minerals, was the originator of the Montreal River Copper Mining Company. Subsequently he discovered silver lodes on the North Shore, in Canada. He is now engaged in gold mining in California.
Albert C. Stuntz was also one of our early settlers. He is a brother of Geo. R. Stuntz, to whom reference has already been made. He was here engaged in practicing surveying and ran many hundred miles of township and section lines in this and neighboring counties. The townships embracing our Penoka Iron Range were subdivided by him in 1856 and ’57. He once represented this district in the Legislature. His old home is in ruins on the east bank of Bay City creek. Mrs. Stuntz, who endured much hardship and privation died here in 1862. Mr. S. at present lives at Monroe, in this State.
Geo. E. Stuntz. nephew of A.C. and great grandson of the old Hessian Soldier mentioned in a former chapter, also came to Ashland early. In connection with his uncle and on his own account he did a great deal in the subdivision of the lands on the South Shore of the Lake. Soon after the outbreak of our civil war he enlisted in defense of the Union – was severely wounded and died, as it is supposed, in consequence of his wounds.
~ Sarah Adah Ashe – Part IV – San Bernardino by Marta Tilley Belanger
Welton’s mill and Sibley’s farm were both located along the trail south from Ashland to the Penokee Mountains on the 1860 Geological Map of the Penokie Range by Charles Whittlesey.
~ Geology of Wisconsin. Survey of 1873-1879.
Volume III., 1880, Plate XX, page 214.
J. T. Welton and T.P. Sibley, though never living in Ashland, were yet closely identified with its early history. Mr. Welton came about 1850 to Bad River, where he was Government Farmer among the Indians. He was an ingenious mechanic, and could build a water mill. He was on the lookout for a mill site, and finally in 1854 discovered the falls on White River, six miles south of Ashland. It was an unfailing supply of water, with abundant head and fall, and the river was not subject to great rises. As a mill site it has few rivals. His resolution was quickly formed. The rising town on the bay would afford a ready market for all the lumber he could make. The mill should be built. He corresponded with his brother-in-law, Mr. Sibley, and he was eager to come and make his fortune in this new country; and in Nov. 1855, Mr. Sibley and his wife and one little daughter, about a year old, landed upon our shores. During the summer of 1855 Mr. Welton had built a log house at White River. It still stands, though in ruins. Thither late in Nov. 1855, the two families removed. The sisters were refined, cultivated and Christian ladies from the Western Reserve, in Ohio – a spot itself favored by counting among its early settlers some of the best families of New England, and which had been the new center in the west, whence have validated those influences which have tended to improve and elevate the moral and religious condition of the millions of this new empire. They were of Puritan stock. An unbroken wilderness was around them and their nearest neighbors were at Ashland, six miles away. No time was lost. The work of opening up a farm and building a mill was at once begun. They had little money and the labor must be done with their own hands. The casting for the mill must be brought a thousand miles – from Detroit. Nearly a year of toil had passed, when in October, 1856, a few days before the election of James Buchanan to the Presidency – all the able bodied men were invited to go the mill raising at White River. We went and the frame was up, but it was not until 1857 that they could set the mill running. They were greatly impeded for want of capital in cutting logs and floating down the logs to the mill and sawing a few thousand feet of lumber. But before anything could be realized from it they must either haul it over bad roads to Ashland (6 miles) or raft it down many miles to the Lake. But the river was full of jams and “flood wood” – enough to discourage puny men.
The panic of 1857 and resulting hard times put an end to all building at Ashland, and so their hopes of selling their lumber near home were blasted and after struggling vainly for some time longer, Mr. Welton was finally compelled to abandon his home, which he had labored so hard to establish. He found friends and employment in the copper mines of Michigan, and after somewhat improving his fortunes finally settled in south western Iowa, where he now resides.
In some subsequent chapter I will, with your leave, recur to Mrs. Sibley and the circumstances connected with her death.
Chequamegon History 