Nelson Ferguson:
A Sketch of a Wisconsin Pioneer
Introduction
Nelson Ferguson was born July of 1831 in Kingston,
Upper Canada. In 1831 the providence
of Ontario had not yet been
created, so the location today is called Kingston,
Ontario, Canada.
He was born to Henry Ferguson and Lovina Winchell and was their oldest
child. Nelson’s younger brothers William and John were also born to Henry
and Lovina while they lived in Kingston.
It is possible his sister Amarilla was also born in Kingston
as information regarding her birth is still unknown.
Sometime about 1838 his mother Lovina passes away. It is about this time
the family also moves back to New York
State, where Nelson’s father Henry
had been born. The family settles in the Town of Hermon
in St. Lawrence County, New York. The town had just opened to settlement
and one finds several family members moving there around this time
period. This includes Nelson’s grandparents.
Nelson’s father Henry had been born in the Town of Western,
Oneida County, New York
in 1808 to Ambrose and Nancy Ferguson. It is not known what Nelson’s
grandmother Nancy’s maiden name was or what her origins were. It looks as
if his grandfather Ambrose was born in New York
State to Peter and Mary of Half
Moon, Saratoga County, New York.
This would make Ambrose of Dutch and Scotch Irish descent. Peter was a 2nd
Lieutenant in the New York Militia, 3rd Company of the 12th
Regiment during the Revolutionary War.
There is little known about Nelson’s mother Lovina Winchell other than her
name. She may have died as the result of child birth to what would have
been her fourth child or complications from this birth. What makes this a
possibility is she passed around the same time Henry’s daughter Amarilla was
born. Other then the period of the events shows this could be a
possibility; there is no evidence to say this was indeed what happened or if
Amarilla was the daughter of Lovina or Henry’s second wife.
Now Nelson would eventually get a step mom as his father would get remarried to
a woman who we only know as Margaret. At this time in history it was very
common for a man with young children who would lose a wife to get remarried
relatively quickly by today’s standards. This was done so the young
children could have a mother to take care of them. It was almost unheard
of for a man to raise children as a single parent. It is unknown
what Margaret’s maiden name was. It was likely she was the mother of the
three youngest of Henry’s children; Robert, George and Mary. The three
youngest were all born in the Town of Hermon
in St. Lawrence County, New York.
Nelson’s father would settle the family in town of Hermon
and take up farming. The family still lived there come 1850 with all the
adult children still at home working on their parent’s farm, as is indicated in
the census of that year. It was the fall of 1854 that Nelson would find
himself headed west as an early Wisconsin Pioneer with his family. The
area they settled just west of Auroraville in Warren
Township, Waushara
County, Wisconsin in the fall
of 1854 according to land records. The exact location where the first Ferguson
farm in Wisconsin was can be
found using land records.
It was here in Warren
that on January 1st of 1856 that Nelson Ferguson was married to
neighbor girl Christina Morse. She was
the daughter of Anthony and Eliza (Desautels) Morse. Like the Ferguson
family, the Morse family had arrived in Warren
about the same time in 1854. The exact
location where the Morse farm was located is not known, as the land records no
longer exist to show the farm’s location.
We do know that the Morse family was in Warren
in late 1854 because there are records for Christina’s older sister Mary who was
married to John Mason (no relation to Rev. John Bucklin Mason) on Christmas of
1854 in Warren.
Coming To Wisconsin
The Ferguson family would travel
with several other families and relatives from New York
to settle in Central Wisconsin. Their proximity to
the great lakes makes it the likely route in which the family traveled to Wisconsin.
There were steam ships making this journey bringing settlers to Wisconsin
since the 1830’s. At the time the family made the trip to Wisconsin,
there were about a dozen steamers traversing the Great Lakes.
One route was from Buffalo, New York
to Fort Howard/Green Bay, Wisconsin.
The trip on average took six to eight days covering over eight hundred miles
across the Great Lakes. From Fort
Howard they could have taken a
smaller steamship to Omro, a couple miles to the east of where they would
settle.
Nelson would come with and help farm as his parents set up homestead in the
Town of Warren, Waushara
County, Wisconsin. Having
an older child would have been a lot of help for a family trying to make it on
the frontier. There were many hardships on the frontier, with clearing
the land being probably the hardest part of homesteading. The slow
process of stump removal often hindered the ability to get a successful crop
during the first year of homesteading. On average the second year of a
homestead farm produced almost twice the yield of crops as they had that first
year.
As for homes and barns being built, this was not as hard as one may think.
Usually when something was needed to be built, neighbors would gather and build
it in about three days. In many ways the Amish continue this tradition
today. The structures were usually made up of logs and other rough cut
timber with chimneys of stone or brick, depending on what was available.
Later as time and money permitted there would be improvements made to the
structures. This usually consisted of replacing the logs with stone or
brick and dimensional cut lumber. Very often they added onto the original
structure using these better materials incorporating the original as part of a
larger home.
Land at that time was relatively inexpensive. The counties had been
surveyed and were divided into townships that were approximately thirty six
square miles, which was divided into thirty six sections of one square mile/six
hundred and forty acres. Each section was divided into quarters of
consisting of one hundred and sixty acres that then were further divided into
four sections of forty acres. It was in forty acre increments that
homesteaders purchased or claimed the land in most cases. The exception
was if there was a river or lake located within the property which could make
it less then forty acres. The maximum a settler could purchase was also
restricted to one hundred and sixty acres.
Their farm was forty acres and situated to the south of Willow Creek and the
Hamilton Mill Post Office. This was two miles west of Auroraville and two
miles east of present day Redgranite. Any family member who has ever
driven along the stretch of Wisconsin Highway 21 between Omro and Redgranite
unknowingly has driven right past what was the first Ferguson
farm in Wisconsin, which can be
seen from Highway 21 today. The property is to the north of Hwy 21 with
eastern border of the property runs along 29th
Lane, which crosses 21. There are trees that
line the road making it easy to see exactly where the farm was because these
trees are the only ones in the entire area.
Now about a half of a mile directly to the north was Nelson’s brother William’s
farm. William was married by this time and had a forty acre farm as
well. This was not the only relative that Nelson had nearby. His
Uncle Peter Ferguson (one of Henry’s older brothers) came with his family and
settled in Omro a few miles to the East. It is unsure if Peter came to
settle in Wisconsin at the same
time as his younger brother Henry did. If they did not both come at the
same time their arrivals in the area are very close in timing. Peter can be found buried in a cemetery in
Omro. There were likely many more relatives that came at this time which
currently are not known about. It is
thought that possibly two other siblings had also come to Wisconsin to stay a
brief time before heading west as land on the great plains opened to
settlement.
The family did not stay long in the Town of Warren
it was just over five years that they called Warren
home, yet one could not say the stay was uneventful. The biggest thing of
course was his and Christina’s wedding on January 1st of 1856.
It is here on Nelson’s Marriage Certificate at this time which helps to give
some interesting information found nowhere else. Without this document,
all that would be known is that he had been born somewhere in Canada
(he has a Canadian birth certificate with it only listing July of 1831, his
name and nothing else). It is on his Wedding Certificate that for the
first and only time we know where he was born. Hit lists Kingston,
Upper Canada as his place of birth.
This document is also how we know who his parents were for sure. Without
this document all one has is circumstantial evidence that Henry was Nelson’s
father. We also would have not known
that Nelson’s mother was Lovina Winchell.
This document also gives some surprising information. Nelson was twenty
four years of age when he married Christina. There is nothing surprising
for him being that age. The age of his new bride Christina is what is
most surprising. All that’s known is she was born sometime in 1841.
Unless she was born on January 1st, she was still fourteen years old
when they got married. Even at that time in history, that would have been
considered very young to marry. Though it was more common on the frontier
such as Wisconsin, then it was
back east. The rough life of a pioneer child at that time in history made
them have to grow up a lot faster then they do today.
Starting a Family
On April 10th of 1856 that Nelson’s father Henry received the Land
Patent for the forty acres in Warren. After receiving this Henry would sell the
farm in Warren eventually. By the 1860 census, Nelson and Christina had
moved and set up homestead in Grand Marsh, Township
of Lincoln in Adams
County, Wisconsin. It is
likely they followed their families as both sets of parents were their
neighbors in Grand Marsh. The three farms were to the Northeast of town out
where today County Highways M and G intersect in the Township
of Lincoln.
Nelson and Christina had their first two daughters by this time. Ellen
was born about 1857 with Mary being born the following year. However
their stay in Grand Marsh would be a brief one, as by 1865 they had moved on
once again. Alice was born
about 1863 and it is unsure if she was born before or after they left Grand
Marsh.
However, it was in Grand Marsh that the Ferguson
and Morse families became closer yet as a second set of children were
wed. Nelson’s younger sister Mary weds Christina’s older brother Andrew
on Christmas of 1860. Mary and Andrew would eventually head west like
both of their parents did. They settled the Minneapolis St. Paul area and
many of Mary and Andrew’s descendants today still call the area around the Twin
Cities home.
It was in Plainfield,
Waushara County, Wisconsin
that Nelson and Christina came to call home by the 1865 census. It was
here in 1865 Christina and Nelson had Lester, their fourth child and first
boy. Depending on where Alice
was born this was either the first or second child while homesteading in Plainfield.
This was followed the next year with son Clinton being born in Plainfield
in 1866 and with Henry eventually being born to Christina and Nelson there in
1869.
The area around Plainfield had
plenty of land for settling, but as Nelson and the other settlers to the area
all quickly found out rather quick was that the soil was poor at the very
best. The soil was almost entirely sand. Nelson’s farm in both
Grand Marsh and Plainfield were
typical sand farms. The soil was made up mostly of sand and lacked when
it came to the nutrients needed for growing good crops. The sandy soil
made the farms even more susceptible to drought. This combination made it
even harder for homesteaders and the reason why many farms eventually
failed. The reason for the sandy and poor soils of central Wisconsin
was this area once was the lake bottom of “Glacial Lake Wisconsin”. A
sand farm a few miles to the south would be made famous by the book “A Sand County
Almanac” written by Aldo Leopold.
This made subsisting and raising a family from just
farming very hard if not impossible. Many who settled in and around Plainfield
would take on a second calling to ensure their families success. Those
who did not were usually the ones who failed. Nelson would start up a
wagon shop on the Main Street
of West Plainfield. The wagon shop still stands
today but the family’s house is gone, a newer house has since replaced
it. The shop is on the North West
corner of Hwy 73 and 3rd Drive,
just west of Interstate 39. Other trades
that Nelson was said to take on was that of a copper smith and even was said to
try his hand with a grist mill. It is
unsure if he actually did try these things and if he did, how successful he was
with those ventures. The wagon shop is
the only thing one finds there is evidence for him partaking in and having some
kind of success with
Nelson’s father had still lived on their farm in Lincoln
Township, Adams
County, Wisconsin as late as
the 1875 census and would eventually head west to settle in Royalton, Morrison
County, Minnesota. This
is where Nelson’s Father Henry is buried in 1885. The Morse family
continued westward into Minnesota
and later the Dakotas. It is uncertain when they
struck out for Minnesota.
Christina’s father Anthony would eventually settle and be buried in Lake
County, South Dakota and would
pass away on March 14th of 1891. It is unknown when or where
Christina’s mother Eliza would pass away and be buried.
By the 1870 census we find Nelson and Christina still homesteading in Plainfield.
It was sometime around 1873 that tragedy struck Nelson and his young
family. For reasons that are not known today, Christina passes
away. Today one can only speculate when she passed away and why.
Now this was a hard time for those who lived on the frontier. One always
had to worry about diseases and getting sick. Many pioneers never got
better and died.
Pioneers also had to worry about an accident while working on the homestead
such as getting kicked by a horse, falling under a moving wagon or taking a bad
fall for example. Even if it was something that did not kill them right
away, it could eventually bring on death. An example of this was a family
had their home catch fire during a winter storm. Every family member made
it out safely and unharmed. Surviving the fire just fine, half the family
would die sub coming to the weather during their journey to the nearest
neighbor. Life on a frontier homestead during this time was a hard one
and very often it could prove to be deadly as well.
One can also say it was even harder for the woman during this time
period. If those things were not enough, a woman could die during or from
childbirth. Research also reveals there is another lesser known, but
almost as common killer for woman of this time period. It was dying from
being burned to death. This happened when the woman’s clothes would catch
fire while cooking or chores that required a proximity to fire in the
home. It was a deadly combination of the clothes that woman had to wear,
the combustibility of these clothes and working constantly with fire in areas
that provided little safety for them.
Now the exact reason for Christina passing away remains a mystery today.
Was she in an accident of some sort? Were there some complications from a
pregnancy? Or was it the world wide flu epidemic of 1873 that took her
life? The flu epidemic happened at the approximate time of her passing,
but the coinciding time frame may just be a coincidence. What we do know
is that Christina was laid to rest in Plainfield
Cemetery. There is no marker
today to show today where she was laid to rest. Either the stone was
removed or she had a wooden cross that over time decayed away. It was not
uncommon for people at this time to have a wooden cross. Many could not
afford to have a stone marker. Today the easiest way to locate where
she’s laid to rest is from a Lilac that grows on the family’s plat in the
cemetery today.
Nelson’s Second Marriage
Nelson would get remarried again to Margaret Wheelock of Plainfield.
She was born in New York before
coming to Waushara County, Wisconsin
with her family. Margaret was likely staying with her older brother Orin
in Plainfield before she was wed to
Nelson. Now, once again Nelson would get married to a much younger woman.
Margaret was twenty years younger than Nelson was. His oldest daughter
was only six years younger then her new step mother. Nelson would come to
have one child with Margaret, a son named Orin. He was likely either
named after his uncle or that Orin or it was a family name used often such as
Henry was in Nelson’s family.
Now when the year 1880 roles around; Nelson and his family are listed as living
in the Township of Pine Grove, Portage County Wisconsin. Nelson had moved
to a farm that was a couple miles north of the wagon shop. Nelson would
continue to operate his shop, but was looking for better land to farm.
The new farm was eighty acres and can be found today on the South West corners
of Central Sands and Gravel Roads. The house also stood on this corner of
the property. It is here that he would call home for the next twenty or
so years. This makes Pine Grove the place in which Nelson lived the
longest in, as he was still in Pine Grove for the turn of the century as he is
listed as a resident as late as the 1900 census.
Some of Nelson’s children stayed in Pine Grove; got married and started their
own families during this time period. Alice
would be wed to Calvin Rogers. Lester would be wed to Laura Culbertson
and with Mary being wed to David Haskins as well as Judge Meade after David
passes away. Both Alice’s and Lester’s families lived on farms in Pine
Grove by the 1900 census. Mary’s husband David Haskins was a teacher for
the area at this time. Mary and David Haskins would eventually move to Washington
State. Clinton
was also wed by this time to Anna Hursh, and they had already set out to
homestead in the Iron River
area of Bayfield County, Wisconsin
in 1892.
By 1895 Nelson’s eldest son Lester was running the farm in Pine Grove.
Nelson and Margaret were planning on settling in Iron
River where Clinton
settled three years earlier. They would take the train back and forth
between Pine Grove and Iron River.
For the next five to six years Nelson and Margaret were spending part of the
time clearing the land on the Iron River
farm and wintering and spending time with Lester and his family in Pine
Grove. Eventually this would lead to Nelson permanently settling in Iron
River by 1901. Alice and
Calvin Rogers would move their family to Iron
River as well. Lester and
Laura would move to Iron River
around 1904.
Today we can see what Nelson looked like when he was living in Pine
Grove. Photography did not become widely available or used till the later
part of Nelson’s life. The process was much harder then it is today and
more expensive back then as well. For this reason not many photos were
taken. It is likely that it was in Pine Grove where Nelson had one of the
two known photos taken of him that we have copies of today. It was said
this photo was taken in 1892. The photo with all of Nelson’s children in
was likely taken during this time period as well. The pictures being
taken coinciding with Clinton
leaving for Iron River,
and it was very possible that it was when all of Nelson’s children were all
together for the very last time.
There are no known photographs of Nelson’s wives Christina or Margaret.
This is also the case for his father Henry. They may have been
photographed at some point in history with the existence of the photo being
unknown to most descendents today. A picture may be lost in some old
attic waiting to be discovered. The photograph may not have survived,
perhaps being destroyed at some point in history. It may be in possession
with a family member who has lost contact with other descendants in the century
or more since the photo may have been taken. It was said that Nelson’s
grandfather, Ambrose Ferguson had his picture taken before his passing, in
which the whereabouts of this photograph today are unknown.
The Final Move
For the first time in Nelson’s life, he called one town home for over two
decades. Pine Grove would not however be the last place though.
There was one more move left in him. Sometime after the 1900 census
Nelson and Margaret would move permanently to Iron
River, Bayfield
County, Wisconsin. It was
on November 12th of 1900 that Nelson would receive the land in Iron
River from the Homestead Act making
the land officially his.
Nelson had received one hundred and fifty six acres just north of town on under
the Homestead Act. The Iron River
flows and winds through the farm there. The families of Alice and Lester
would also follow their father to Iron
River. It is here one could
say the family put down some roots as today over one hundred years later, Iron
River continues to be called home by some of Nelson’s descendants.
Nelson’s children Alice and Lester would live the rest of their lives in Iron
River. Clinton
would move on to settle in Minnesota
with his family.
On June 8th of1909 Nelson would pass away making Iron
River his final home as well as
final resting place. He would be laid to rest in Iron
River City Cemetery,
a place where some of his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren have
also since been laid to rest there.
