March 2009 Odd Wisconsin
On the evening of March 31, 1918, Prof. E.A. Schimler, a language instructor at Northland College, was kidnapped by a mob of masked men. They took him to a lonely spot outside Ashland, stripped him naked, roughed him up, covered his body with tar and feathers, and left him to fend for himself. Schimler limped back to his boarding house...
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Posted in Curiosities on March 26, 2009
As the deep snow departed from Wisconsin fields this month, its place was taken by another sure sign of spring: migrating sandhill cranes. Driving from Milwaukee to Madison one March day we spotted no fewer than 24 -- a flock of 12 circling over a meadow in Waukesha Co., another 8 crossing above the highway in Jefferson Co., and two...
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Posted in Animals on March 18, 2009
Eleazar Williams (1787-1858) is surely one of the oddest characters in Wisconsin history. He was born and raised among the Mohawk Indians and as a teenager attended the missionary school that would later become Dartmouth College. He became a Protestant missionary himself, and his intelligence and eloquence gave him entry into both Indian and white communities during the opening decades...
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Posted in Odd Lives on March 9, 2009
"In my boyhood days" recalled Augustin Grignon* in the summer of 1857, "there was an aged Chippewa woman named 0-cha-own. She was a great huntress, and spent each winter with her dogs in the woods the same as any Indian hunter, and was quite as successful in killing bear, raccoon and other game. Beside a gun,which I presume she used,...
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Posted in Odd Lives on March 5, 2009
Did You Know?
The Wisconsin Historical Museum is currently featuring Odd Wisconsin objects in the latest exhibit: Odd Wisconsin. And don't miss the Odd Wisconsin book by author Erika Janik published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press.
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