The Cooksville area of southern Wisconsin attracted many immigrants
from the British Isles as well as from New England and New York when land was first
opened for sale by the U.S. government in the 1830s and 1840s. Fortunately for
us today, some of these settlers (and their children) wrote about their early experiences.
In 1920, Charles A. Smart (1858-1936) wrote about his
experiences growing up in a pioneering family from Scotland on a farm near
Cooksville. He wrote fondly and with great detail about his parents and his childhood in the family's log cabin. A copy of his memoire was recently shared by his descendants and is
now in the Cooksville Archives.
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| Charles Smart (1858-1936) |
Here are a few excerpts from Judge Smart’s remembrance of life near Cooksville in the mid-19th century. (Charles went on to become a prominent lawyer
and jurist in Kansas.)
“The brief
story that I am about to relate is not written because of anything eventful or
out of the ordinary, but because it is believed that as the years go by, it may
be interesting to those who live then. I am persuaded that this may be true
because of the fact that I would be glad indeed if I could go back more than
two generations and ascertain anything touching my ancestors, but as they were
all humble people, very little can be found except perhaps the old church
records of Scotland where I might find the names, but they would be names only.
“Robert
Smart, my father's grandfather, was born about 1743… in Scotland. My father assured me that 1743 was about the
date of his birth. He died about 1838, and was buried in the parish of
Monemeal, Scotland. He is said to have
been a very strong man, both in mind and body. I never learned his occupation,
except he was a land owner. When quite a young man, he married Jennett Scott,
in Auchtermuchty, in Fifeshire. Of this
union there were born three children, Jennett, David and Andrew. Andrew [Charles’ grandfather], the second son
was born in 1796 in Fifeshire, Scotland…
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| Andrew Smart (1796-1880) |
“In 1823
Andrew married Ellen Taylor… Andrew Smart owned a small farm [and to him] and Ellen his wife were
born five children who grew to manhood and womanhood, and one other who died in
infancy. Robert Smart, the oldest son, was my father, born at Auchtermuchty in
Fifeshire, on November 18th, 1824….
“Robert
Smart [1824-1903], my father, was
married to Euphemia McArthur, my mother, at Edinburgh, Scotland, May 2, 1847,
and lived in Glasgow, Scotland, until 1849. To this union were born nine
children, eight of whom are still living [in
1920]. Their names and date and
place of births are as follows: Andrew
J., July 9 1848, Perth, Scotland;
Elizabeth, August 6, 1849, Perth, Scotland; Frank R. July 4, 1852,
Janesville, Wisconsin; James H., June
15, 1855, Edgerton, Wisconsin; Charles A. January 5, 1858, Edgerton, Wisconsin;
Ellen Taylor, October 19, 1860, Edgerton, Wisconsin; Arthur Hodge, April 1,
1863, Edgerton, Wisconsin; Winfield S., 1868, Edgerton, Wisconsin; Effie Hoy,
December 7, 1870, Edgerton, Wisconsin….
 |
Helen Drummond Smart (1811-1886) tombstone,
second wife of Andrew, Cooksville Cemetery
|
“It may be
interesting to note how my grandfather Andrew Smart came to leave Scotland and
locate in the new State of Wisconsin. It came about in this way. He was a
landowner, and that made his name on any financial obligation worth par. In the
village of Auchtermuchty a man the name of John White was a cloth manufacturer,
employing several people to do weaving…White was a dishonest man, and got into
difficulty with his creditors I conclude, and was arrested under some
proceedings under the laws of that country for imprisoning men of that
character…. [H]e was released upon a bond signed by my grandfather Andrew
Smart, and he at once bade adieu to the hills and heather of his native land,
and located in Wisconsin. My grandfather had to sell his farm to pay this
obligation, and concluded that he would take his children, all then unmarried
except my father, and follow this man White to the United States and endeavor
to collect.
“About ten
days before my grandfather was to leave Scotland with his family, my father
visited him and concluded that the old gentleman was not equal to the task, and
he at once made up his mind that he would accompany his father to the new land,
which he did, leaving my mother with her sister in the old country. This was in
the spring of 1849, and they landed at Janesville, Wisconsin, then a small
village, in Rock County.
“My
grandfather purchased a small farm about nine miles west of Edgerton,
Wisconsin, near the little village of Cooksville, where he lived the remainder
of his days. He never collected the obligation from Mr. White, although for many
years they were neighbors…
“In the
early spring of 1850, my mother with her two children, one about 20 months old,
and the other about 7, left Scotland on a sailing vessel for New York. She was
seven weeks on the Atlantic Ocean. Arriving in New York, she made her way by
rail, canal and lake boats, to Milwaukee, 65 miles from Janesville. It will be
remembered there was neither railroad nor stagecoach, nor any other regular
method of passenger conveyance between Milwaukee and Janesville at that time.
The country was new. The roads were mere trails cut through the woods. There
was no telegraphic or other means of communication, so it was quite impossible
for my father to know when she would arrive in Milwaukee. The best she could do
was to employ a teamster who had drawn grain from Janesville to Milwaukee and
was engaged in taking merchandise back on his return trip, and with him she
secured transportation, crude as it was, between these two points. It took them
about two days to make the trip. My father had erected a small house in the
little village of Janesville where he and my mother at once commenced their new
home in the new land.
“I have
omitted to state that my father was a carpenter and builder of high order, and
about the time that my mother arrived, together with Robert Hodge, the husband
of his sister, opened a small wagon shop in Janesville that has since grown to
be the Janesville Carriage Works. My father remained in that business until
1855, when he purchased the farm of 80 acres, five miles west of Edgerton,
Wisconsin, where I was born [half-way to
Cooksville].
“Neither he
nor my mother had any knowledge of farming. While his father had owned a small
farm in Scotland, I do not understand that he ever worked upon it, and this venture at farming was indeed a
dreary undertaking. This little eighty-acre tract was reached by a winding
trail through the heavy timber, 15 miles from Janesville. There were
practically no improvements on the farm except a little log cabin built in the
midst of heavy timber by the side of a little lake.
“There was
no way of knowing just where the public highways would be located, and when a
public highway was located, it proved to be about a quarter of a mile away from
this cabin. It was fifteen years before my mother returned to Janesville. All
of the children except the oldest three were born on this farm. The farm was a
poor one, and my father was a poor farmer. The net result of this combination
was the direst poverty. The family lived in this log cabin until about 1868,
when my father purchased another eighty acres of land, upon which there were
some frame buildings that he moved to the site of the old log cabin, and made
out of them a reasonably comfortable house. The long years spent in clearing up
his farm, by clearing, I mean grubbing out timber and breaking up the ground,
entailed great hardships.
“My father
was never out of debt until he left and sold that farm. I can well remember of
hearing the word ‘mortgage’ long years before I had the slightest conception of
what it was. I only knew that it was a thing that consumed that net proceeds of
the poor farm in the fall. My father never would have been able to retain the
farm had it not been for the fact that his services were in demand as a
carpenter, though wages were small. Both
before and after the great fire in Chicago [1871],
he spent many months in that city as a contractor, leaving my mother at home
with the children on the farm. She often said later in life, that she never
could think of any one moving onto a farm, without a shutter.
“It may be
interesting to those who read this little story, to have explained a little
more in detail, the log cabin in which we lived. It was a very crude structure,
about 20 feet square, built of rough logs of different lengths. That is to say,
at the corners on the outside the logs would protrude some three feet, some
four, leaving a very convenient stairway for the boys to climb to the
loft. The roof was made of what they
call in the back woods of Wisconsin, shakes, which were imitation shingles,
split out of rough timber. The floors, both the lower and upper one, were of
rough boards. The chamber, or rather the garret, was reached at one time I
remember, by a crude ladder, but when the ladder gave way by reason of the
assaults upon it by a crowd of healthy, vigorous boys, it was never replaced,
and those of us who used the garret as sleeping quarters, reached that
apartment by climbing the logs, and we became experts. Of course my mother
couldn't get up there, and so we boys were the only clamber [sic] maids that ever visited
that particular locality. There was but one door and no porch. There were three
windows, as I remember, and screens were unknown at the time, even in houses of
greater pretensions. On extra special occasions, when the meals were spread,
some one of the children was delegated to stand by the table with a small
branch of tree and ‘shoo’ the flies.
“Depressing
as the situation was, our lives in the log cabin were not entirely without fun.
One incident will suffice. Some kind neighbor gave to one of the boys a little
lamb. It was the first of its kind that we ever had, and it was a great pet. We
named it Nellie, and Nellie grew with the same rapidity that the boys did, and
we shared each other’s joys and sorrows. When Nellie was about a year old, my
father commenced to talk about shearing her. We boys had no knowledge of just
what that meant, or what the operation would be. Neither did Nellie. And I am
persuaded that my father was about as ignorant touching the situation as we
were. But the time came when Nellie was to be shorn, and my father undertook
the job about sundown one summer night. He undertook to do the work with a pair
of dull scissors, and instead of keeping the fleeces as a unit, as is the
custom with sheep shearers, he took each separate lock when clipped and laid it
aside.
“Poor Nellie
was forced into some diverse and sundry positions during the hours that were
consumed in de-fleecing her. Sometimes she would sit upright and make a bold
attempt to assume an appearance of contentment. Then again she would be placed
prone upon her back with a child holding each foot, while my father proceeded
to pluck the wool, more after the style of picking a chicken than shearing a
sheep... I don't know just how long this process continued, because one by one
the children grew sleepy and retired. Now to retire frequently meant to curl up
in one corner on the floor and go to sleep….
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| Robert
(1824-1903) and Euphemia (1825-1915) Smart |
“My mother…Euphemia
McArthur Smart… Her early life illy fitted her for the hardships she encountered
in the new land. Although her parents were poor people in Scotland, she was
tenderly reared…. I well remember as a boy, of thinking as I observed my mother
from day to day, and more especially on Sundays, that I could observe in her
demeanor a longing to return to the hills of Scotland, and to the place where
as a girl she had been tenderly and happily reared, and as I have grown older,
I believe my thoughts of her were correct, although as the years passed by and
old age commenced to creep over her, she frequently said that she had no desire
to return to Scotland. I have never quite understood why she did not keep up a
correspondence with her people there. My father frequently wrote letters to her
people and received letters from them, but I don't remember of my mother
writing to them at all. This is the more strange to me when I reflect that in
her later years, even after she had passed the eighty mark, she was a
voluminous writer, and had the ability to concentrate. That is, to say much in
few words….”
#
# #
[A copy of Judge Charles
Smart’s story of his youth is available in the Cooksville Archives, as is a
brief biography of the Judge’s later life. Both were edited and updated by
Kenneth C. Bower in 2010, and were recently given by Arielle Olson to the
Archives. Thanks to Arielle for sharing this story. Excerpts are printed here
with permission. Edited by Larry Reed.]
