November 2007 Odd Wisconsin
This happened especially fast for Wisconsin pioneer Joseph Crelie, who was exhibited to spectators in 1864 as being 139 years old. Crelie came to Wisconsin in 1792, one of the early settlers in Prairie du Chien. He worked as a voyageur in the fur trade for two decades, doing the heavy lifting on canoe trips throughout the wilderness of...
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Posted in Odd Lives on November 27, 2007
Were the airline ticket counter staff unfriendly? Security officers rude? Put them in perpective with this memoir of an 1843 voyage down the Great Lakes in a steamship commanded by a fire-breathing captain. The writer was a teenager when his family left upstate New York in the fall of 1843. It took 20 hours to be towed 40 miles along...
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Posted in Bizarre Events on November 25, 2007
This week, elementary school classrooms across the nation are decorated with paper cutouts of turkeys and autumn leaves. In some places kids still dress up as ersatz Pilgrims and Indians to re-enact a fictional feast about which few details survive (we gave all the slender evidence for the first Thanksgiving in this previous entry). Thanksgiving nevertheless became the universal celebration...
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Posted in Curiosities on November 19, 2007
Last night's debate among the Democratic presidential candidates in Las Vegas was a far cry from the most famous political argument in American history. That was the series of debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas (1813-1861) held in 1858 to discuss whether or not slavery should be expanded into the new territories of the U.S. Instead of brief...
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Posted in Curiosities on November 15, 2007
After yesterday's one-sided victory, the Packers' astonishing 2007 season can no longer be chalked up simply to good luck. With Brett Favre surrounded by youthful talent and breaking a new record in almost every game, they're more fun to watch than they have been in years. Where did it all begin? And how did we get here? It all began...
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Posted in on November 11, 2007
Until well into the 20th century, grieving was a more frequent experience than it is today. During the 19th century, many families lost at least one child at an early age, and the children who made it to adulthood typically lived only about half as long as most Americans do now. Remembering the departed led to a practice that may...
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Posted in Curiosities on November 8, 2007
Nov. 3rd marks a tragic anniversary. On that day in 1804, the Fox and Sauk Indians were swindled out of 50 million acres of land in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois. Their later attempt to recover it ended in the bloodiest massacre perpetrated on Wisconsin soil. In August of 1804, a Sauk warrior killed a white squatter about 40 miles...
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Posted in Curiosities on November 1, 2007
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