Journalists Tell Cooksville’s Story: Here’s an Article from 1929

Journalists have been writing stories about the historic Village of Cooksville and its people for many decades—actually, during the past 19^th, 20^th and 21^st centuries. In newspapers and magazines, in feature articles and gossip columns (and occasionally in books), writers have been drawn to the charming little “Town that Time Forgot” and to the “Wee Bit of New England in Wisconsin.” 

Or in the case of a 1929 story in The Milwaukee Journal, “The Town Daniel Webster Once Owned,” with the subtitle “Philosophizing Blacksmith Is the Only Citizen of Cooksville, Wis., Without Artistic Inclinations and Even His Practicality Weakens at Times.”

This year, 2017, Cooksville celebrates 175 years since its birth in 1842, years filled with typical events of  settlement and growth---and then, in Cooksville's case, decline and then re-discovery, recognition and re-birth. The journalists’ views over the years provide snapshots at various times in the village’s history, including the fact that the famous Senator Daniel Webster first owned much of Cooksville in 1837, buying the promising new land from the U.S. government when it went on sale for the first time in history.

The following are excerpts from that lengthy Milwaukee Journal feature article of September 22, 1929, in which the writer, who had no byline, was interviewing Jack Robertson (1858-1930), the village blacksmith and popular fiddle-player. Four large photographs accompanied the full-page article. Excerpts follow:

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Everybody on Webster St. is either literary or artistic except Jack Robertson. And he is a fiddling blacksmith…. Cooksville is not the unimaginative collection of stores, tumbled down houses and brand new bungalows…. Instead it is picture in red brick, the quaintest village in Wisconsin…. Its houses, including Jack Robertson’s blacksmith shop, all front a village green.… so that, after the mellowing of three-quarters of a century, they seem to rise as naturally from the earth as the giant elms and maples and oaks near their front doors. The bricks were burned in a kiln nearby…..

Everybody has a flower garden, except Jack Robertson. Beside the converted stable that forms his shop and living quarters, is a field of tobacco.

Jack Robertson's Blacksmith Shop

The gardens of the literary folks are things of beauty. Narrow walks divide beds of flowers that seem to be looking at you instead of you looking at them. Hollyhocks and giant phlox and cosmos stare you straight in the eye like a western sheriff.

The writers are in their houses tapping away on typewriters. The poet [Arthur Kramer. ed.]  is in front of an upper window where the white curtain blows in and out. The artistic lady [Dorothy Kramer, ed.] is weaving a rug.

Dorothy Kramer (1900-1962), weaver and potter

Jack Robertson sits in a swing in front of his blacksmith shop, one arm around a rope.

Ask him if he has lived in Cooksville all his life. “Not yet, he replies.”

“My father,” he continues, “was a Scotsman who farmed it out east of here and later bought out the village store.”….. You glance upward to a weather vane balanced by a fan. “Now you are looking at some of my work,” says the blacksmith. “I cut those figures out of sheet steel….They’re just figures. That one on top of the shop, though, is a man sitting on a fish’s back.”

It is just a man riding a fish. It was made in his spare time and no doubt because the blacksmith wanted to show his literary and artistic neighbors that he too could create something useless originating in an esthetic urge. When your neighbors are writing poetry, you don’t want to devote all of your time to wagon tongues and plow blades.

“I used to own the house next door,” the blacksmith continues, pointing to the red brick home of the poet. He lowers his voice. “I don’t know what he is writing,” he whispers, “but whenever I hear him tapping away, I know he is figuring out something.”

“Everybody’s stuck on Cooksville,” he continues. “They like to ride out in their automobiles and so they come here to look over Ralph Warner’s place and Cooksville. They all go crazy over the park; they call it a ‘village green,’ or a ‘common.’” The blacksmith snickers. “It’s full of weeds.”

Susan Porter  (1859-1939)

Next to the poet lives Miss Susan Porter, the historian, the old settlers’ club, the voice of oldtime Cooksville…..familiar with every bit of history and tradition connected with the little town ….[and] the great Daniel Webster….

Senator Daniel Webster (1782-1852)

Miss Porter tells you that Mr. Webster sold the site of Cooksville to his family physician, Dr. John Porter, [who] in turn, resold to his brother, Dr. Isaac Porter, who deserves to have his name placed high in the list of Wisconsin pioneers, in spite of the fact that he only lived in the state three days. For when a case of smallpox made its appearance on the Great Lakes steamer bound for Milwaukee, Dr. Porter cared for the patient…. he hardly reached what today is Cooksville before he fell sick with the disease. In three days he was dead. This was in 1854. His sons were Cooksville pioneers….

In an early plat the town was not called “Cooksville,” but “Waucoma,” taking its name from the little river on which it is situated. In those early days the town fully expected that “the railroad was to go through,” an anticipation that never became a reality. And Waucoma, later become Cooksville, for years thereafter led a dull existence like some pretty country girl whose city lover hurried off after the first kiss….until the automobile came to summon Cooksville….to a giddy middle age.

Ralph Warner, at the door of his "House Next Door"

Without it you would never have Ralph Warner’s tea room.... Some 18 years ago, Mr. Warner, an artist and a collector, while a guest at Miss Porter’s home, became fascinated with the house next to her home….. and ever since it has been known as “The House Next Door”….. he gave up teaching art to devote all of his time to entertaining the automobilists who come to The House Next Door. 

Occasionally, Mr. Warner, moved by the spirit of the past that possesses Cooksville, dons a long coat and beaver hat to greet his guests…. land’s sakes, look at the automobiles today——two big shining cars in front of Mr. Warner’s right now——ladies in flowered chiffon walking in the garden, others chatting in the parlor, tea brewing——.

Jack Robertson, blacksmith and fiddler (1858-1930)

And the blacksmith swinging away. “Say,” he calls, “I forgot to tell you. Alec Richardson down the street here——he don’t write——he sells bonds in Madison.”

*** End of the 1929 Article ***

[Sadly, the following year, Jack Robertson committed suicide by shotgun. From the Cooksville Archives. Larry Reed, ed.]

Isaac Hoxie’s Cooksville Cemetery Story: “The Home of the Dead”

Isaac A. Hoxie (1825-1903)

Isaac Hoxie (1825-1903) wrote an article about his visit to the Cooksville Cemetery while attending the “Old Folks picnic” in the summer of 1901 in Cooksville. (The Old Folks or Old Settlers’ Reunions would continue for another fifty years.)

Hoxie’s article is a touching remembrance of his family and friends who once settled, lived, died and were buried in the Cooksville cemetery.

Hoxie had come to Cooksville with his parents from Maine in 1846, along with his five sisters and brothers including Benjamin, who would become Cooksville’s prominent architect, builder, carpenter and one of Wisconsin’s important horticulturists.

Benjamin Hoxie House, built c.1852

 Isaac helped his brother Benjamin in their thriving door, sash and shutter manufacturing business in Cooksville in the 1840s-50s, which provided the new settlers in the area with the needed doors, windows and “blinds” for their new homes and commercial buildings.  Later, Isaac went into the newspaper business, establishing and operating a number of local newspapers including Evansville’s first newspaper, the Citizen, in 1866, and later the Evansville Review, as well as the Oconomowoc Local and the Deerfield Enterprise. Eventually, Isaac operated a clothing store and owned several buildings in Evansville.

Hoxie's printing press: oldest in Wisconsin

While in the newspaper business in Evansville, Isaac Hoxie operated the oldest printing press in Wisconsin, a Ramage Printing Press manufactured in Philadelphia in 1851-54. The press, previously used by others in the state, was donated by his son Wilbur to the Wisconsin Historical Society in the 1880s, where it remains. 

After Isaac visited the Cooksville Cemetery that day in 1901, he wrote his article entitled, The Home of the Dead, describing his visit and his thoughts. Here are some of his words:

“While attending the Old Folk’s picnic in Cooksville….I visited the old cemetery where were buried the kindred and loved ones of my family, and noticed the many changes that time has wrought in the years since I made [Cooksville] my home in 1846. Then I was only a boy in my minority. The cemetery was neither located nor platted [then], but the early death of a Mr. Hammond from the state of Maine, who coming west to visit friends, met death early, making it necessary that some suitable location should be made …One after another dropping away still no location was made and graves were dug just the same but with little regard to order... and it was not until Dr. Porter died that a cemetery was permanently located and the ground properly laid out [in 1861].

“It was to the southeastern corner under embowering pines and matted foliage my attention was particularly directed. Here I found an unpretentious slab bearing the chiseled name of my father, Allen Hoxie, who died February 26, 1862, aged 65 years, with this further beautiful inscription: ‘My faith is knowledge now.’ The next grave was that of my mother who died some years later, and bore the simple inscription ‘Our Mother’—Olivia Hoxie, wife of Allen Hoxie, died Sept. 8, 1876, aged 79 years…

Allen Hoxie (1797-1876) tombstone

“Nearly hidden by soughing [moaning] pines and creeping vines were the remains of her [his wife] who plighted her troth, came west, and bore life’s burdens with me from April 14, 1852 to May 22, 1896,—44 short and happy years. We began our new life in Cooksville, and it was fitting that her remains should here find a resting place. She is gone! no longer shrinks from the winter’s winds, or lift[s] her calm, pure forehead to summer’s kisses. But as the ashes of the oak is no epitaph to tell what flock it has sheltered, the dust of her grave is speechless, yet her noble deeds and Christian life are ever bright upon the silent tablet of memory….

“As I stood by the graves of the departed ones, on this beautiful autumn I could scarcely refrain a tear while looking back through the vista of fifty-five years—beautiful years, when I made Cooksville my home, silently exclaiming what marvelous changes God has wrought….

“But I must hasten away to the banqueting hall, for the little village is already astir with teams and gaily dressed people to pay homage to months and years long gone bye.

“In song and story this little nook in the northwestern portion of Rock county has ever borne an honorable record. From its founders, John Cook, the Porter family and a host of others who made our representative hall and temple of justice fervid with eloquence, have lived and whose remains find a resting place here.”  [signed] I. A. Hoxie.

*   *   *

[This clipping from an unidentified newspaper, probably the Evansville Review, is part of the Cooksville Archives. The Cooksville Cemetery, the Isaac Hoxie House, and the Benjamin Hoxie House are part of the Cooksville Historic District.  The Cooksville Archives welcomes donations of papers, photographs, objects, etc., related to Cooksville’s history. Larry Reed.]

Historic Cooksville Trust Board Chair Receives State Historic Preservation Award for 2015

The Historic Cooksville Trust’s chairman, Larry Reed, has been recognized by the Wisconsin Historical Society for his many years of historic preservation volunteer work in the Village of Cooksville, Rock County. The 2015 award was presented to Reed by Ellsworth Brown, Director of the Wisconsin Historical Society, after approval by the Board of Curators of the Society.

Reed was cited for his “Founding in 1999 of the Historic Cooksville Trust and for Longtime Dedication to the Preservation and Appreciation of Cooksville.” He has spent decades of work helping to preserve the historic Village of Cooksville where he has lived for over 40 years.

Ellsworth Brown, left, Director of the Wisconsin Historical Society, presents the Society’s State Historic Preservation Award certificate to Larry Reed, chair of the Historic Cooksville Trust, and longtime Cooksville preservationist and historian.

The charitable Historic Cooksville Trust with its ten-member Board of Directors has successfully initiated or assisted about a dozen local preservation projects in the Cooksville Historic District in the small Rock County community and has received donations totaling over $200,000 so far. The Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and expanded in 1980.

The mission of the Trust is to help the Cooksville community preserve, conserve, celebrate and enjoy its unique and valuable historical, cultural and natural heritage by assisting with funding building rehabilitations and restorations as well as education and publication projects in the village.

The small village, which is known by many as  “A Wee Bit of New England in Wisconsin” and as “The Town that Time Forgot” because a railroad never came to the community,, was founded 175 years ago by the Cook brothers.

Reed says that preservation in the village really began early, when Ralph Lorenzo Warner arrived in 1911. Warner restored his 1848 home, the “House Next Door” to which he invited visitors to experience his historic house and gardens and enjoy refreshments at lunches, dinners and teas. Local, state and national media applauded his innovative work and brought attention to his special preservation efforts.

According to Reed, “Warner’s project opened people’s hearts and minds to the benefits of preserving and enjoying 19^th century Wisconsin life, using historic buildings, historic gardens, and his collection of antiques. Besides receiving wide attention for his accomplishments, he inspired others to do the same, such as his friend Edgar Hellum’s preservation work in Mineral Point in the 1930s where he and Bob Neal created the Pendarvis complex.”

Cooksville has about 35 historic nineteenth century buildings and sites, including the state’s oldest operating general store, two churches, a schoolhouse, a public square, and locally-made brick and frame houses. Settled in 1840, the village was platted in 1842 by the Cook brothers, and soon a second village named Waucoma was established next to it in 1846 by the Porter brothers on land first owned by the famous U.S. Senator Daniel Webster. Cooksville was once suggested as the site of an old world Wisconsin outdoor museum because it was a well-preserved, early “wee bit of New England in Wisconsin.”

The Historic Cooksville Trust, which Reed heads up, is a non-profit, non-membership organization designed to raise funds and assist various preservation and conservation projects in or near Cooksville in the Town of Porter. Tours of the historic district are available, and community events take place in the historic Schoolhouse, which now serves as the Cooksville Community Center.

The Trust has also established the Cooksville Archives to collect and preserve documents, photographs, artifacts and other materials related to the history of Cooksville, and it welcomes such donations.  The Archives are available to the public.

The Cooksville Country Store has available a publication titled “Historic Cooksville: A Guide.”

For more information about the village of the Historic Cooksville Trust, Reed welcomes inquiries and can be contacted at (608) 873-5066.

Historic Cooksville Trust Celebrates 15th Anniversary

Historic Cooksville Trust brochure

The Historic Cooksville Trust, Inc., founded in 1999, is celebrating 15 years of assisting historic preservation in the Village of Cooksville and the surroundings area.

The Trust was incorporated as a private, non-profit, tax-exempt charitable organization in Wisconsin under federal IRS Code 501(c) (3) as a non-membership organization with a goal of preserving and conserving the historic heritage of Cooksville.

To carry out its mission, the Historic Cooksville Trust seeks donations of private funds, property, and historic easements. Donations to the Trust are tax deductible. Recently, three acres of nearby farmland and a historic house in Cooksville were donated to the Trust, in addition to funding for various preservation projects. The Trust also collects and maintains important archival materials (photographs and documents) and historical and cultural artifacts (paintings, furniture, books, pottery, etc.) that relate to the history and culture of the Cooksville community. 

Lutheran Church steeple project, 2004

The Graves Blacksmith Shop

So far the Trust has assisted nine preservation projects with grants of funds totaling about $60,000. The major projects have included assistance with rehabilitating the historic Blackman-Woodbury House, assistance with the re-construction of the Graves Blacksmith Shop, assistance with the restoration of the Cooksville Lutheran Church steeple, assistance to the Cooksville Community Center roof replacement project, and the funding for the installation of water and a rest-room for the first time in the history of the Cooksville General Store.

Other projects that received financial assistance from the Trust include the Community Center’s “Carving on the Commons” event, the Preserve Our Rural Landscape Celebration, and the Research and Letter Compilation for Opposition to the Cell Tower project. Also funded have been various educational materials, brochures and newsletters for the Trust.

Cooksville General Store, 2010

At present, the Historic Cooksville Trust has a 12-member Board of Directors with an additional six Honorary Board Members and an ex-officio legal counsel. The present Board members are Vicki Ballweg, Bob Degner, Steve Ehle, Lynne Eich, Will Fellows, Carl Franseen, Dennis Kittleson, Mary Kohlman, Rick Mackie, Mike McConville, Larry Reed and Nancy Remley. Honorary members include Greg Armstrong, Ellsworth Brown, Jim Danky, Katie Ryan, Patrick Ryan and Shirley Wilde. The Trust’s counsel is Marney Hoefer of Stafford Rosenbaum LLP.

The Trust offers information about the history of Cooksville and its early settlement, as well as preservation advice to persons about the state and federal income tax credits available for rehabilitating historic buildings and about standards for the treatment of historic buildings and sites. The Trust also offers group tours of Historic Cooksville upon request.

The Cooksville Historic District, in the “Town that Time Forgot,” consists of about 35 historic and architectural buildings, structures and sites within the village. In addition, eight historic properties are located within a two-mile radius outside the village. These properties were listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and 1980. The Cooksville Historic District is also locally designated under Town of Porter zoning.

[For more information, contact Larry Reed at (608) 873-5066.]