Old Cooksville Cookbooks: Cake Recipes and Cancer Cures by Larry Reed

The Village of Cooksville was a busy village of cooks, appropriately enough.  It produced a number of cookbooks over the past 160 years, including one with a recipe for a “cancer ointment.” 

Hand-written cancer ointment recipe

It may not have been a true “cure” for cancer, but one old, handwritten Cooksville recipe book contains a “receipt for making cancer ointment,” as well as other recipes for concocting  medicines and some for the more usual cakes, cookies and sausages.

This old, small, slender (18 pages) cook book does not have a title and is not identified as to ownership or writer. It appears to have been written in the early or mid-19^th century by an unknown hand in ink with a neat, old-fashioned script. (An occasional old-fashioned “f” letter is used instead of an “s-shape” for the first “s” when a double “ss” is required, as in “fs,” which indicates a late-18^th century- or early 19^th century penmanship-schooled writer.)

“The Old Cooksville Recipe Book” (its new name now) contains about fourteen medicinal recipes and a similar number of cake, pudding, gingerbread, sausage, syrup, current wine and cordial “receipts.” In addition to the “cancer ointment receipt,” the old book contains formulas to treat such illnesses as dropsy, dysentery, coughs, colds, itches, piles and tape worms.  Their ingredients include various roots, leaves, berries, flowers and barks, as well as the occasional sulfur, turpentine and pumpkin seeds.

The old dessert recipes include Delicate cake, Pound cake, Mrs. Pecks Cake (perhaps this is from Rosaline Peck, Madison’s first innkeeper in the late 1830s), Bakers gingerbread, Tea cake, Temperance Cake, Cider cake, Caroline cake, and a couple of nut cakes, ginger nuts, as well as a Rice Plumb (sic) Pudding.  Some measurements are in “gills” and some are in “the size of a hen’s egg.”

The cancer ointment recipe is interesting because it contains various tree barks (white pine, elder, elm, hemlock, red dogwood) as ingredients, two of which are now associated with the treatment of some cancers, namely, the pine bark and the red dogwood (ozier) species bark.  The “receipt” in the booklet for making the cancer ointment is as follows:

            “Take of red Ozier, Stinking Elder, Hemlock Boughs, White pine bark, two quarts each.    Boil them together until the strength is gotten out, then strain it. Put to this Mutton tallow, honey, bees-wax, the marrow of a hog’s jaw and fresh Butter of each the size of a hen’s egg. Simmer it moderately over a slow fire until it becomes an ointment.”

This probably should not be tried at home. But, then again, why not?

Another early Cooksville cookbook is the “Eliza Longbourne Cookbook” begun in 1857. Longbourne (1812-1868) passed it on to Electa Johnson Savage (1845-1927), who gave it to her son Paul Savage (1876-1951); it was passed on to Chester Holway and Marvin Raney in 1947; then to Beth Armstrong who was living in the Longbourne House in 1952; and in 1973 to the new occupants of the Longbourne House, Hank Bova and Maurice Gras. The cookbook contains mostly cake and dessert recipes (including a “Pork cake”), along with a few pickle, salad and sausage recipes and two recipes for pickled smoked hams.

Mrs. D. Lincoln’s cook book

Another cookbook found in the village—actually a famous, published cookbook titled “Mrs. Lincoln’s Boston Cook Book,” by Mrs. D.A. Lincoln, 1889, a how-to-cook book with recipes— was originally owned by Mrs. J. W. Sales, probably of Janesville, and she may have passed it on to Cora Atwood in Cooksville. The last ten blank pages of the printed book have been filled with more than 50 hand-written recipes of various kinds from friends, including one for “Scotch Woodcock” (chopped hard-boiled eggs in cream sauce on toast). 

 Cooksville Mothers’ Club Cook Book 

In 1951, the Cooksville Mother’s Club compiled its own book, “Cookbook: Favorite Recipes,” with 94 pages of recipes for cakes and candies and other desserts, as well as casseroles, pickles and jellies, vegetables and salads, and “Norwegian Foods,” along with many “helpful hints” for homemakers. An opening essay, written by Mrs. Lillian Porter, is entitled, “Cooksville: Community of Culinary Culture.” One intriguing “Sandwich Hint” is an “Orange - Cream Cheese - Peanut Butter” spread containing those three ingredients.

Cooksville Lutheran cookbook

The Cooksville Lutheran Church also published a cookbook of its “Lutheran Favorites” in 1981, mostly of cakes and cookies and other sweets, but with a number of favorite soups, salads and “main dishes.”  “Ralph Warner’s Chocolate Cake,” no doubt served in his “House Next Door” dining room in the early 20^th century, is included. The Lutheran Church has continued to publish cookbooks about every ten years.

In 1991, Bonnie Keehn published her cookbook titled “Bonnie-Best Farm Cooking.” It is named after an old and unique apple variety discovered by her family on the Keehn farm east of Cooksville. The tree has been propagated and is sold as the “Bonnie-Best “apple tree. The cookbook contains 195 pages of family recipes, including those for Bonnie’s famous apple pie and crust. (Her hint for a flaky crust on the bottom is to brush it with melted butter, then sprinkle with corn flake crumbs, before adding the sliced apples.)

Undoubtedly, there are other personal village cookbooks, full of Cooksville family recipes (or “receipts”), sitting on back shelves or stored in attic boxes, waiting to see the light of somebody’s kitchen again. Some no doubt are used now and then.

These old cookbooks reveal the tastes of the times and the foods prepared, preserved and eaten— and the many, many desserts devoured. They are an illuminating and sometimes tempting record of the nourishing breakfasts, lunches and dinners through more than 160 years in and near the little—and always hungry and well-fed— Village of Cooksville.

Spring Concerts in Stoughton & Cooksville

The Stoughton Chamber Singers & the Bel Canto String Ensemble 

under the direction of John Beutel present

 Music and the Human Experience

Friday, June 7, at 7:30 p.m. at the Stoughton Opera House

Wednesday, June 12, at 7:00 p.m. at the Cooksville restored church. 

The theme for the concert is the connection of music in our everyday lives.The music reflects the power and influence of music over humans through the ages.We think you will enjoy the variety of music in this unique concert.

Tickets are $5

All students have free admission.

Tickets for the Stoughton Opera House performance are available at the McGlynn Pharmacy on Main Street in Stoughton. Tickets may also be obtained from members of the Chamber Singers, or purchased at the door prior to the performance. Tickets for the Cooksville concert will be available at the church door.

The concert opens with a tribute to the power of music,featuring "Let Their Celestial Concerts All Unite" by Handel, and the madrigal "Music Thou Most Noble Art" by Johann Jeep.  The longstanding spiritual aspects and influence of music will be represented in "Adoro Te Devote", a 13th century plainsong with a text by St. Thomas Aquinas; "Locus Iste" by Anton Bruckner;  and "Praise His Holy Name," a gospel hymn by Keith Hampton.

In the final part of the concert, the Singers present two songs from Africa that represent the power of song in revolution and the power of song describing everyday events; several folk songs; “Requiem for the Masses” a war protest songof the 1960's performed by the rock group The Association; Hoagy Carmichael's ballad "Skylark"; and a medley of Beatles songs.

During the Singers' intermission, the newly named Bel Canto String Ensemble, composed of Stoughton Area string players, will perform "Andante Festivo" by Jean Sibelius, originally commissioned in Finland for the 25th Anniversary of the founding of a sawmill and later revised to be performed at the wedding of the composer's niece. (A radio recording of this piece in the 1930's is the only recorded instance of Sibelius conducting his  own music!) The string ensemble will also perform three movements from Gustav Holst's "St. Paul Suite", composed in honor of his students while Holst taught at St. Paul School in England.   

Settling New Land near Cooksville—and Claim Jumping! PART TWO by Larry Reed

McCarthy House 1975

The McCarthy family of Porter Township related an incident involving “claim jumping” in the early days of land settlement near Cooksville. It begins with a question: Can a man on foot beat a horse-drawn buggy in a race from the Town of Porter to Milwaukee, a distance of nearly a hundred miles? The answer is “yes,” if the country is new, without many roads and with rivers to cross—and with a very determined pioneer on foot.

That happened in 1843, and the race was won by Dennis J. McCarthy who had settled on land just east of Cooksville near Caledonia Springs but had not yet formally claimed or registered it. 

The cause of the” race” was an incidence of “claim jumping.” In 1843, McCarthy settled in Section 9 of the Porter Township intending to establish his residency on his claim—and to be the first individual to ever own that piece of government land— but he had not yet filed the necessary papers with the U.S. Land Office.  Before he could file the papers for the land, McCarthy heard that a Mr. Lyons from the nearby Town of Dunkirk intended to jump McCarthy’s claim by traveling to Milwaukee in his carriage the next day to file papers. McCarthy immediately set out on foot for the Milwaukee Land Office himself. He did not have a horse available. The race was on.

Settling New Land near Cooksville—and Claim Jumping! PART ONE by Larry Reed

Several stories that describe the trials and tribulations of settling the newly-opened land in the Cooksville area of Wisconsin —and settling the disputes—were told by Joseph K.P. Porter and the McCarthy family. The stories reveal the rough-and-tumble land “rush” that sometimes occurred in southern Wisconsin in the early1840s.

Before government surveys were completed in the 1830s and for years afterward, land “ownership” on the new western Territorial frontier was often determined by a messy “border law”— basically a “first-come, first-served” informal set of “rules” for the squatters or early settlers. The earliest arrivals “enforced” their (illegal) land claims by “registering” them by simply carving their names on posts erected at the corners of the land they had measured off by pacing the boundaries on foot. And then later the claimants would appear at government land sales with some of their friends and fellow squatters armed with weapons to ensure that rich land speculators and other richer new-comers did not out-bid these earlier and poorer pioneer settlers.

Of course, some land speculators (such as Cooksville’s famous Senator Daniel Webster) and serious-minded settlers (such as Daniel Cook) bought their land as soon after the U.S. Government opened the land for sale in 1837 and registered it as soon as feasible. Their claims were settled early.

Joseph Porter, in his reminiscences as an “old settler” printed in the Evansville Badger newspaper of April 6, 1895, describes some of these disputatious events. His uncle, Dr. John Porter, had purchased land near Cooksville in 1842 from the famous Massachusetts, Senator Daniel Webster, a land speculator, who had bought it from the U.S. government in 1837 when it first went on sale. Joseph Porter, Dr. Porter’s  young nephew, was instrumental in helping transform the newly-purchased land into a potential settlement that he had platted as the Village of Waucoma in 1846, next to the Cook brothers’ little village of Cooksville.

Eliza and Joseph Porter

Cooksville Community Center 2013 Calendar of Events with some annual Cooksville Lutheran Church events

Clean Up Day at the Center,                           

 Saturday, May 4, 9:00 – 12:00 a.m.

Come join the crew to shine up the Center for a new season. We will tackle both the interior and exterior part of the Center. Bring a rag, sponge and bucket, broom and dustpan. We will sweep up the bugs, mop floors, clean bathrooms and kitchen, and wipe flat surfaces.  We will also clean the basement. Treats will be served. Location:  Cooksville Community Center.

      

Stoughton Chamber Singers Concert                     

Wednesday, June 12, 7:00 p.m.

The Stoughton Chamber Singers under the direction of John Beutel have chosen "Music and the Human Experience" as the title for their June performance.  The concert program will include music that is representative of how every day lives are connected to music.  Many composers will be represented: G. F. Handel, Johannes Jeep, John Blow, a 13th century plainsong, a Bruckner motet, a gospel hymn, two African songs of Famine and Freedom, several folk songs, and music by the Association "Requiem for the Masses": "Skylark", a ballad by Hoagy Carmichael; a Lennon/McCartney Beatles Medley; and the rousing "Up The Ladder To The Roof." Admission is $5 per person. Location: Cooksville Church at the corner of Highways 138 and 59. A reception will follow at the Community Center, two blocks east on Hwy 59.

Independence Day Family Potluck Picnic with music               

 July 4, 12:30 p.m.

Come and socialize with friends and neighbors, and eat a communal meal about 12:30 p.m. on the Commons. Bring a dish to pass and your own plate, silverware and liquid refreshments to this annual event. Cooksville native, Jeanne Julseth-Heinrich, an accomplished accordion player, will begin entertaining about 1:15 p.m at the Center. Some members plan to kick up their heels and dance! Location:  Cooksville Commons and the air-conditioned Community Center, in case of rain and/or extreme heat.

SPECIAL:  Christmas in Summer                         

Saturday, August 10, 4:00 p.m.

Former student Jeanne Julseth-Heinrich will orchestrate and direct a Christmas party from her memories as a student at the one room Cooksville Schoolhouse. There will be roles for children and adults to perform in skits, recitations, singing, a short Christmas play, and perhaps a visit by Santa Claus. Christmas is being scheduled in August as the Center does not have heat or water in winter. This could be the first event for a summer theater at the Cooksville Community Center. Please notify Jeanne of your interest in participating in the event: jeannesingsalto@gmail.com Location: Cooksville Community Center. 

Cooksville Lutheran Church Fall Festival      

 Tentative: Sunday, Sept. 8, 11 a.m.

Activities will begin directly after the worship service: arts & crafts, collectibles, antiques, produce, fall mums, Silent Auction, and more. Home cooked meal prepared by church members to begin serving at noon. Sponsored by and proceeds to benefit Cooksville Lutheran Church. Watch newspapers and church bulletin for specific details re. date/time.

Cooksville Community Center Annual Meeting    

 Monday, September 23, 7 p.m.

Learn what has happened this year and what is on the agenda for the future at this annual event.  This is your opportunity to voice your opinions about the Center. We want your input to help us manage the Center. Location:  Cooksville Community Center.

“Remembering Cigar Eddie”                                

 Sunday, October 6, 11:30 a.m.

The Center has decided to organize another memorial service for one of its patriarchs, Eddie Julseth, who died two years ago. October is the month of Eddie ‘s birthday. This will be a potluck with story telling. He loved apples so consider bringing an apple-based dish to supplement your main dish. Plates, silverware and drinks will be provided. The event is sponsored by the Cooksville Community Center and the Cooksville Lutheran Church. Location: handicapped accessible Cooksville Lutheran Church by the Cemetery.  

Annual Halloween Party                                     

Saturday, October 19, 6:30 p.m.

Join us for our annual Halloween tradition. There will be games and activities for kids and a bonfire for adults.  Bring your own beverages and a snack or dessert to share. Flashlights are strongly encouraged for all -- the Commons and schoolyard can get very dark, especially around Halloween!  You are also welcome to get into the Halloween spirit by helping to decorate for the Center at 12:00 noon on the same day. Location:  Cooksville Community Center.  

 

Cooksville Lutheran Church Harvest Dinner            

Tentative date: November 10, 12:00 – 3:00 p.m. 

Enjoy a home cooked Thanksgiving meal prepared and served by members of the Cooksville Lutheran Church. Proceeds from the event will benefit the church.  Location: Cooksville Lutheran Church.

The Historic Cooksville Cheese Factory by Larry Reed

The prize-winning Cooksville Cheese Factory was established in 1875 adjacent to the village on the present State Highway 59 (then called “Union Road”), just to the west of William Porter’s farm. The multi-talented Cooksville resident Benjamin Hoxie bought the land that was part of the large Dow farm and erected the small building, obtained the necessary apparatus, and began manufacturing and selling cheese on May 10, 1875.

Hoxie had tested the interest in the Cooksville area for a cheese cooperative business with meetings in the schoolhouse and by canvassing the community in March of 1875. The results were favorable with many “patrons” willing to send their milk to the new factory.

 

Hoxie House etching 1873

Hoxie was, among other things, a very active architect, carpenter and builder of a number of houses and structures in Cooksville, including the Cooksville Congregational Church, as well as buildings and churches elsewhere in the area. He was also a maker of bee hives and butter churns and had a keen interest in agriculture and horticulture.

The Evansville Review reported on Hoxie’s venture into cheese-making as follows: “Cooksville Cheese Factory. This Institution commenced operation Monday morning with even better prospects than what it was expected it would have. The building is 18 x 28, two stories high, with an ell 20 x 26 one-story high.  The main building is provided with a fine basement which can be kept at good temperature for curing cheese at any season, when the weather is not suitable for the two upper rooms. The building is well made—closely boarded, papered and sided, which gives a substantial effect, and preserves a more uniform temperature for the business.  The pumping is done by hand; but the heating is done with steam apparatus.”

To ensure “a perfectly fine flavored cheese, the factory’s walls were double-thick and plastered, and the basement had stone walls and ‘cemented’ floors, with every precaution taken to have an even temperature in the curing rooms.” Probably a well-cured “English” cheddar cheese was produced or perhaps the new Wisconsin brick, or maybe a purely local variation.

George H. Kemp, an Englishman and “a gentleman who has worked at the business a year or two…thoroughly experienced…will have charge of the business.” The newspaper continued:  “A meeting of the patrons was held at the Factory Saturday and resulted in the election of the following officers. Harrison Stebbins, President; J. T. Dow, Secretary and Treasurer; B. S. Hoxie, salesman; W. M. Porter, Isaac Wright, Josiah Sperry, Associates. B. S. Hoxie, Proprietor.” The farmers’ cheese cooperative was up and running.

Benjamin Hoxie (1827-1901)

 The Cheese Factory initially received about 3,000 pounds of milk each day, and samples of the cheese were ready to be distributed locally in June. Over 200 wooden cheese boxes were made in Evansville and delivered to the factory in August, and business increased rapidly.  Near the end of October, the factory closed for the season, the patrons were paid off, and the remaining cheese was moved from the factory to the cellar of William Porter’s nearby farmhouse.

The next year, after hauling in many loads of wood in March (“A big wood pile at the cheese factory, means business again this summer…”),  the Cheese Factory opened for the season on May 1, 1876, having been “overhauled  and put in thorough trim for business, and looks as neat as a maid’s parlor,” the Evansville newspaper reported.  “There is certainly not a neater looking, or more thoroughly appointed cheese factory, for its size, in the State than the Cooksville factory.” 

The first shipment of cheese was sent to St. Paul, Minnesota, where the local St. Paul Press newspaper gave “the Cooksville cheese a marked notice, for its excellent qualities.” Later in the summer, a Montreal, Canada, cheese buyer shopping in the area gave “especial praise of the curing rooms of the Cooksville factory—being so cool that July cheese are about as mild in flavor as ordinary August cheeses are,” according to the Evansville paper. “Wisconsin butter and cheese stands as high in the market as any made at the east.” The cheese did “not become old and hard.”

The factory was now using about 4,170 pounds of milk a day. In an experiment with the milk at the factory, it was discovered that it took 26 ¼ pounds of milk to make one pound of butter, and with the cost of milk at 90 cents per hundred pounds, it put the cost to produce butter at about 24 cents a pound.  Cheese was selling at about 7 cents per pound; more could be produced; and cheese could safely be shipped long distances without refrigeration.

In 1877, the little Cooksville Cheese Factory won second prize at the Wisconsin State Fair—but only after a tie vote that was settled by the toss of a penny, giving the top prize to a Sheboygan factory.  The prize was won competing with over twenty other more established factories from throughout the state.

The Cheese Factory flourished for the next few years, with cheese shipped to such places as Chicago, New York, and Lawrence, Massachusetts. Wisconsin was becoming famous as a quality cheese producing state, and the new Cooksville factory was contributing to the state’s early prominence in the growing agricultural enterprise of cheese-making.

In 1878, Hoxie added another vat and during the year used 1,189,081 pounds of milk to make 114,242 pounds of cheese.  At the beginning of 1879, the cheese factory closed out its entire lot of last season’s cheese at 7½ cents per pound, and at the end of that season, cheese was selling at ten cents a pound. Mr. Kemp, the cheese-maker, called one of his products “Young America” cheese, each of which weighed about eight pounds.

 But by 1880, although there were favorable prospects for a good supply of milk and efforts to ensure that “the reputation will be maintained” were favorable (“Wisconsin cheese is commanding a better price in New York’s market than New York cheese”), some of the cheese-makers—as well as some of the dairy farmers—began moving west to the Dakotas.  George W. Kemp leased the factory from Hoxie for the season, and although he had to temporarily close it down in mid-season for lack of milk, the local newspaper reported that he intended “to buy the cream and fresh butter from the farmers as soon as suitable arrangements can be made for regular delivery.”  Business declined; there was greater competition for milk from other local cheese makers. At the end of 1880, Kemp married Mary, the daughter of Hoxie, but that didn’t help his business prospects.

In January 1881, Hoxie placed the Cooksville Cheese Factory up for sale.  “He will also sell his house and lot in connection with the same, if desired,” reported the Evansville Review.   By the next year, the cheese factory was “used as a dwelling house by two families.”  Larger cheese-making operations elsewhere diminished the supply of milk. Hoxie, it seems, was headed for retirement, as was his cheese factory.

“The Dakota fever has broken out afresh,” reported the Evansville Enterprise, and cheese-maker George Kemp (who had been making cheese in Lodi by 1882) and Frank Newman left Cooksville to visit the “beautiful land” of Dakota, the new Western Frontier.

The Dakota Territory had been established in 1861, and the federal Homestead Act of 1862 (160 acres of free land if you remained for five years) made farming prospects there rather appealing.  The Black Hill Gold Rush of the mid-1870s made Dakota even more appealing to the adventurous.  But what ensured a more massive exodus of people to the new Western frontier of Dakota was the completion of the Chicago and North Western Railroad and the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad in 1880 to the Dakota Territory.

 Early in 1883, Kemp and Newman went for another visit to Dakota, this time joined by several other Cooksvillians.  By the middle of 1883, the Stoughton Hub newspaper reported that the wives of Kemp and Newman “expect to ship their household goods to Dakota this week, for the ‘boys’ write they have the shanties ready…”

A rumor was reported, both in 1883 and 1884, that the Cooksville cheese factory might be started up again, either for cheese or as a creamery.  The Stoughton Hub hoped “the farmers will look to their interests and be ready for their patronage. Dairying will pay and must be the measure of our success in Wisconsin.”  But in March 1884, Hoxie sold all his cheese fixtures to a Mr. Fish of Lone Rock in Richland County.

The Hub also reported on April 3, 1884, that “Mr. B. S. Hoxie has sold his house and lot in the village to Julius Savage, and has taken a temporary residence in his factory building until he decides for a change of location or business. He will sell his fruit farm of fifteen acres, with the building, which can be made into a fine residence at a trifling expense.”  Hoxie retired to Evansville in 1884, and in 1886 he sold the cheese factory building, but he kept his hand in his design business and in his horticultural interests.

Hoxie had been very active in the Wisconsin State Horticultural Society for many years, and in 1893 he managed the Society’s exhibit at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Many years later, Hoxie’s unusual apples from his fruit farm behind the cheese factory would be re-discovered and re-cultivated. Apples and cheese must have been an especially tasty combination for him.

Today, the prize-winning Cooksville cheese factory has become a simple residence and survives                                  as one of Cooksville’s historic structures.

The Cooksville Cheese Factory

ORGANIZED SOCIAL LIFE: COOKSVILLE’S CLUBS by Larry Reed

Formally organized groups and clubs abounded in 19^th century America, even in the Village of Cooksville. These organizations provided entertainment, amusement and sometimes intellectual stimulation for the residents in this small, isolated village by-passed by the railroad — “the town that time forgot.” 

Wilder Newell, c.1880, farmer

The Cooksville Debating Society spoke out on a number of subjects. For instance, on February 27, 1860, the debate at the schoolhouse by six local men was on the subject, “Secret Organizations are contrary to the spirit of Free Government,” which was decided in the negative. Another debate on March 5, 1860, was on the subject, “Woman’s Rights should be identical with Man’s”; six men and women debated, but the records do not indicate which side prevailed. The debate still goes on in some circles.

Dinner party: Margaret Rice, daughter and dressmaker, Anna Belle, and friends, c.1890

On February 16, 1864, the Stoughton Reporter announced, “The young ladies of Cooksville have a ‘Grand Leap Year Party’ [planned] at the Masonic Hall in that place, Friday evening. The tickets read ‘yourself and gentleman are respectfully invited.’ Room managers, Ellen Galt, Stella Savage, Melvina Howard, and Electa Johnson. Music by Love’s Band. Tickets 25ȼ.”

The Masonic Hall above the General Store was the scene of many such social gatherings, as was the Schoolhouse and the new Cooksville Congregational Church and its basement. Van Vleck’s Hall (the Opera House) on the second floor of the meat market was another venue for certain events, but the record of its use is sparse, except for the Kickapoo Indian Medicine Troupe—which was performing there when the Opera House burned down in 1893.

Fred Miller, farmer, Evansville hotel owner, c.1895

The Cooksville Dramatic Club was a very active cultural institution.  Its first productions, presented at the schoolhouse on Saturday evening, January 25, 1873, were “Miriam’s Crime,” a “glowing comedy,” and “The Irish Tutor,” a “laughable farce,” according to the handbill. Performances began promptly at “7½” and admission was 15 cents, 10 cents for children. So well-received were the plays that the Club had new “scenery painted in Evansville, which will aid in rendering their life-like plays more real still,” and took the productions on the road to Eagle School (Porter Township), and to Stoughton and Fulton. “Down by the Sea” was performed at the Cooksville Congregational Church in 1882, at which “Anderson’s Band will furnish the orchestra music and also for a dance which is to follow at Masonic Hall,” all this after an oyster supper in the church basement. The newspaper reported that the event and “social hop” dance raised “over 60 dollars… towards the church debt.”  Other plays performed were “The Irish Tutor,” “Lost in London” and “Nevada, or the Lost Mine,” which were taken on the road to Stoughton, Brooklyn and the Stebbensville Church. A very busy group of local thespians.

Myrtle Dow, actress, Buenos Aires, London, c.1895

In early 1881, the Cooksville Glee Club gave an entertainment in the new Congregational Church that consisted of “a concert of vocal and instrumental music to conclude with that inimitable play ‘Cool as a Cucumber!’” Later in 1881, the Glee Club, assisted by Porter’s Orchestra Band, presented another concert which concluded “with that mirth-provoking play: “Who is Who? or, All in the Fog.” Most of the funds raised by the ticket sales went to pay for the furnishing in the new church built in 1879, the first and only religious structure in the village for almost 20 years.

The Jolly Club of Cooksville (about which little is known, unfortunately) gave “a rousing New Year’s Party at the Masonic Hall” in early 1886, with about thirty couples in attendance at its first dance. The Evansville newspaper reported it was “a very pleasant party” and also announced that there would be another dance party in February at the Hall and that “arrangements are in progress for the laying of a new canvass so the ladies can wear their Cinderella slippers. Music by the Albion Band, four pieces.” (Rough wooden floorboards with splinters may have been a problem for the dancers.)

Avis, teacher, and brother Paul Savage, farmer, c.1900

In November 1893, the Kickapoo Indian Medicine Troupe arrived in Cooksville for a three-week stay at the Cooksville Opera House, otherwise known as Van Vleck’s Hall, located on the second floor above Van Patten’s and Newkirk’s meat market on the corner of Main and Dane streets. Led by Dr. Red Wolf, the Medicine Troupe performed a series of lectures and entertainments, with “a crowd of small boys are on hand every time,” according to the Evansville Enterprise newspaper.  Dr. Red Wolf had a large display of “old and rare coins, medicines, paraphernalia, etc.” as well as musical instruments used by himself and his two assistants.  Unfortunately, a fire broke out on December 5, 1893, and the Cooksville Opera House and Meat Market burned to the ground. Not one article of Dr, Red Wolf’s paraphernalia was rescued from the devastating fire.

Joseph B. Porter, farmer, c.1884

Beginning in 1901 and for fifty years, Old Settlers Reunions were formally organized and took place on the Public Square in June of every year, weather permitting. (Previously in the late 19^th century “Pioneer Reunions” had taken place now and then.) In addition to the picnic food—“tables decorated with choice flowers and fruits, and loaded with the most delectable achievements of the culinary art” —the Old Settlers Reunions featured entertainments with fond reminiscences shared by the descendents of the old pioneers and with tributes to those who had passed on. Poetry was composed for the occasion and recited, and short plays (such as “Grandmother’s Story” and “Why the Cannon Wasn’t Fired”) depicting Cooksville events were performed.  Music was an important element in the festivities. Jack Robertson provided his award-winning fiddle music as well as tricks with his violin in the 1930s; the Cooksville Lutheran Quartette and the Janesville Male Quartette sang; Webster Johnson played his bagpipes; Eloise Eager played the violin; June Porter sang vocal solos; and a Drum Corps composed of men from the Town of Porter, Evansville and Janesville got feet tapping with their rousing rendition of “Marching Through Georgia.” By the 1950s, the descendents of the 19^th century pioneer settlers had mostly marched on to other locales, and the Reunions ceased.

Later, in the mid-20^th century, the Cooksville Mothers’ Club and the Cooksville Community Center continued the tradition of providing the village with social events, educational programs, and organized activities, in the old Schoolhouse and in the old Congregational Church, as well as in the Cooksville Lutheran Church, which had been constructed in 1897.

Anna Graves, teacher, c.1888

All in all, the Cooksville community embraced their pleasures, enjoyed their leisure, and had a good time. In fact, in 1885 the Evansville Enterprise newspaper concluded that, “The Cooksville people seem to enjoy themselves about the best of any community we know…they have had some delightful gatherings where all joined together as one family without any jealousies or hard feelings, and no scandals or brawls have their starting place there. As a progressive, literary, talented people we think they are above the average.”

[These bits of Cooksville life and history—and many more— are found in the diaries, written memoires, newspaper clippings, letters, personal interviews and stories told to me, all of which are contained in the Cooksville Archives. The Archives is available to interested persons. Donations of photographs, clippings, anecdotes, family histories, etc., are welcomed. Contact Larry Reed, (608) 873-5066 or email lreed@chorus.net.]