Tamarack River Ghost: A Novel

15. Valley History

94 Valley History 15 Josh sat at his computer at Farm Country News, working on the second in a series of stories he’d planned about the Tamarack River Valley. His brief history of the valley had appeared in Farm Country News this week, with a couple of photos he had taken of the river and an overview shot of the valley itself. The Tamarack River Valley: A Brief History The Tamarack River defines the western boundary of Ames County in central Wisconsin. The river and the valley surrounding it were formed by the glacier that ground its way through this part of what eventually became Wisconsin. The glacier began retreating about 10,000 years ago, followed by the return of plants and animals, and eventually Native Americans who lived on these lands for many years. Although Wisconsin had become a state in 1848, this part of central Wisconsin remained Indian country until the U.S. government signed a treaty with the Menominee Indian Tribe that had lived on these lands for centuries. In 1851, government surveyors laid out the townships and created the section and quarter-section lines, before offering the land for sale. Since the area was settled, the Tamarack River Valley has seen many changes, although the river itself, flowing southeast toward Lake Winnebago, has remained a constant in the lives of the people who live and work in the valley. As one old timer said, “The Tamarack River is always the same but ever changing.” During the logging era in northern Wisconsin, from the mid-1850s to the early 1900s, the Tamarack River served as a “logger’s highway.” Each 95 Valley History spring, when the ice went out, the logging crews that had piled huge logs on the river’s banks during the winter dumped them into the river for their trip south to the sawmills in Oshkosh and Fond du Lac. Log drivers, daredevil loggers who rode the river south with the logs, accompanied the logs, keeping them in the current and breaking up logjams when they occurred. Injuries and even deaths were not uncommon during the spring log drives. In the spring of 1900, a logjam on the Tamarack took the life of Mortimer Dunn, a farmer in the valley during the summer months and a logger during the winter. A family gravesite contains a marker for Dunn, but his body was never found. Some local residents claim that Mortimer Dunn’s ghost still haunts the valley as it searches for his grave. Others say that the Tamarack River Ghost looks out for the valley and the mighty Tamarack River. Farmers, many of them immigrants from northern Europe, but some from upstate New York, first settled the valley. From the 1850s until the 1880s, the majority of these farmers grew wheat. But then, over a period of a few years, wheat yields declined because of disease and an insect called the chinch bug, which sucked the juices from the wheat plant. Most valley farmers then took up dairy farming. Many also raised hogs, sometimes a few sheep, occasionally some beef cattle, and small flocks of chickens that provided eggs and meat for the table, and a little extra money for groceries. They became diversified farmers, not depending solely on one enterprise for their income. The Depression years of the 1930s challenged the Tamarack Valley farmers. A few lost their farms because they couldn’t make mortgage payments. But most hunkered down and carried on. Cucumbers and green beans became popular cash crops for most of the valley farmers, especially those with large families. From planting to harvesting, both crops required considerable hand labor. From late July through August, valley farm kids could be seen in their cucumber and bean patches, earning enough money for school clothes and supplies, Christmas presents, and sometimes even enough for a new bike or a .22 rifle. The valley land was not rich, especially not as fertile as farmland in the southern counties of Wisconsin. But for several generations the 96 Valley History Tamarack River Valley supported the family farmers who lived there, raised families, and sent them to school. Electricity did not come to the Tamarack River Valley until after World War II. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, valley farmers also bought tractors and put their draft horses out to pasture, although they would not sell them. “Never can tell when a good...