The Early Buildings of Historic Cooksville – Part I, by Larry Reed

The early buildings of the Village of Cooksville, constructed  in the 1840s and 1850s by the first settlers, were study and serviceable with just enough architectural detail to define their simple styles and to distinguish them as works of genuine merit recognizable today, almost 175 years later.  Restoration and rehabilitation efforts during the past 50 years have helped reveal those significant characteristics.

The mid-19^th century construction techniques and architectural designs were early American styles brought to the frontier from New England and New York, which in turn had come from the British Isles and Europe.  These building forms and styles were, of course, simplified and modified to meet the needs of the American frontier, including the Village of Cooksville established in the 1840s on the Wisconsin prairie in oak openings alongside the Badfish Creek.

The earliest style of village architecture, other than the utilitarian log cabin, was Greek Revival, a popular style inspired in America by Greece’s democratic revolution in the 1820s, which had created admiration for ancient Greek architecture with its columns and symmetrical formality. The style of Cooksville’s houses was a simplified “country” Greek Revival. Its distinctive symmetry and vaguely temple-like facades interpreted with flattened columns (pilasters), modest cornices and trim boards at the roof lines, and returned eaves and hooded doors and windows.  These elements are visible in the Van Vleck House, Newell House, Van Buren House and other early homes, which were invariably painted white to resemble the weathered bare-stones of ancient Greek temple ruins (but which actually originally had been painted very bright colors).

Van Vleck House, c. 1852

Van Buren House, c. 1848

The construction of Cooksville’s early residences and commercial buildings was simple, practical, and solid. Structurally they were post-and-beam or braced-frame construction with hand-hewn structural members and locally milled floor boards, trim, and exterior clapboards   Some houses were constructed of the famous locally-made Cooksville brick from the village’s two brickyards, with soft, sandy, light-colored mortar.

Cooksville bricks are a distinguishing feature of the architecture in the village and the area. The handsome vermilion-colored brick resulted from the local clay being baked for weeks with wood-burning fires, resulting in the special pink-orange color. One brickyard was located on the southern edge of the village operated by Hubbard Champney and later William Johnson, and the other was on the John Dow farm just west of the village.

Frequently, soft bricks that had not been suitably baked and hardened for exterior use were inserted as brick- nogging in the interior walls of some homes, for insulation and structural support.

Foundations were generally constructed of limestone cut from “quarry hill” north of Cooksville, and chimneys for the heating and cook stoves were made of Cooksville brick. (Only one original wood-burning fireplace was constructed inside a Cooksville home: it still functions in the Duncan House.)

Cooksville’s commercial buildings were most likely built in a “vernacular” style, which meant a simple local, functional design with few if any stylistic architectural details, such as the extant General Store. One exception was the village’s tavern and inn, Waucoma House, no longer standing. According to a simple sketch it was a Greek Revival building resembling other such stage-coach inns of that era. Like the residences, these commercial buildings were generally one or two-stories, well-proportioned, well-crafted, solid, simple and graceful. Unfortunately, most of the commercial buildings—the saw mill, the farm implement factory, the meat market, the “opera house,” Waucoma House, and several blacksmith shops—have been lost to fire or demolition. The existing General Store, Graves Blacksmith Shop, and the Cheese Factory represent three examples of functional commercial vernacular design, as do photographs of the lost buildings.

When the new Gothic Revival style of architecture became popular in America beginning in the mid- 19^th century, replacing Greek Revival, it too appeared in Cooksville. Gothic design featured steeper roofs, pointed-arch windows and hoods, decorative sawn-work in barge-boards and trim (“gingerbread”) at the roof line or on porches. Some of these elements can be seen in the Longbourne and Isaac Porter houses. Again, this Gothic style was simplified by the local self-trained Cooksville designers and carpenters who may have consulted popular architectural books of the time, such as A.J. Downing’s The Architecture of Country Houses (1853).

Longbourne House, c. 1854

Late 19^th century architectural styles also appeared in the village, here and there, in simplified form, such as Romanesque Revival, Queen Ann and other “picturesque” styles.  Some of these newer stylistic elements were incorporated in the design of the Cooksville Congregational Church (1879) and the Norwegian Lutheran Church (1897). They also influenced the exterior up-dating or “remodeling” of the exteriors of a few residences in the late 19^th century as the village tried to keep up-to-date, architecturally. Such elements as projecting bay-windows, decorative brackets, and fish-scale shingles in the gables can be seen, and in several instances the remodeling engulfed the older existing Greek Revival building as “modernization” took place.

William Porter House, c. 1855 and c. 1890

As time went by, these architectural efforts of the pioneers gained greater appreciation by later generations of family members, new-comers, architectural historians, historic preservationists and visitors.

[To be continued.]

Cooksville "Jots" - Life in the Village, by Larry Reed

Newspapers often published  weekly “gossipy” columns of so-called “jots,”  which were brief, newsy tid-bits about weddings, births, illnesses, funerals, visiting relatives, various parties, and a few tragedies. These columns were very popular in the late 19^th century and on into the 20^th.

The Cooksville jots are just that— bits and pieces of every-day village life , consisting of family events, homey aphorisms, brief glimpses of the lives and times of Cooksvillians written by local correspondents for local newspapers.

The Cooksville Archives has a number of newspaper clippings, sometimes pasted into scrapbooks or old ledgers, which contain these published writings by early “Cooksville columnists.”  For almost a hundred years, these local happenings— neighbors’ comings-and-goings, accidents to man or animal, and almost anything else newsworthy— got printed in the local newspapers, if the village’s columnist was made aware of them.

Here are a few of these Cooksville “jots” from the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, mostly undated and sometimes written by unidentified correspondents:

 “It is reported that a new charm will soon grace Brother Isaac’s smile. Take care of your hearts, girls,—for he evidently means business.” [1874]

“John Vanfleck [Van Vleck? Ed.] lost his best cow last Saturday. Too much clover the cause.” (1893)

“The new meat market is in full bloom… a fine steak was given free to all who came in the first day.”

“A Hop and Eat. The Masons of Cooksville, having completed their new Hall, purpose to have a Ball, St. John’s day, Dec. 27. The Evansville Band do the music, and E.T. Stonburner prepares the cuisane [sic] department. We can dance some to the music of the latter, when properly “mixed” with bivalves, the former has too many short crooks, for our “pedalihoes [sic].”  [1867. You had to be there, I guess, eating an oyster dinner, perhaps? Ed.]

“A man was considered conceited if he went about with his hat brim turned up in front.”

 “Put the wrong foot out of bed first when you get up in the morning and you will be cross all day.  Always get up with the right foot foremost.”

“A pleasant dinner party was held at J.A. Savage’s last Saturday. Among the items of talk, one was the discovery of counterfeit money in an old stump in Dow’s woods…”

“A good many cisterns are dry and people are getting ice from the pond to wash with. Some fall in and find two feet of mud under the ice.”

 “To cut the finger nails on Sunday morning is a sign that you will do something you are ashamed of before the week is out.”

“The funeral of Mrs. Towne was largely attended, Wednesday. The Coroner’s inquest decided that her death was accidental or caused by temporary insanity. Investigation showed that poverty was not the cause of the rash act, as was at first supposed.” [1879. She had jumped in the mill pond. Ed.]

Ralph Warner, “House Next Door” (photo c. 1918)

“Mr. [Ralph Lorenzo] Warner is settled in his new home, which he purchased because the old-fashioned fireplace appealed to his love of old things...  He loves everything that is old and is pleased to show his curios to interested friends.” (1912)

“If the bottom of your foot itches, you may know that you are to step on strange lands.”

“SIDELIGHTS ON THE FIDDLERS’ CONTEST. Jack Robertson, Cooksville, was the heavy prize winner. He ought to go into vaudeville; he can do more things with a violin than a Ford owner can do with a screw-driver…. That boy can play a fiddle in bed with a quilt over him better than most of them.”

Jack Robertson (1858-1930)

“Jack won five of the prizes [at a Fort Atkinson fiddlers’ contest], a beautiful card table, a fine clock, a pair of woolen blankets, a nice flour bin and a two-dollar piece of bacon.”

“Don’t make a friend a gift of a knife, for according to every authority versed in sign lore, if you do it will cut your friendship.”

“Blow out the candle and if the wick continues long to smolder, look for bad weather. If it goes out quickly the weather will be fair.”

Electa Savage (1845-1927)

“A great white cat, 16 years old, that hunts rabbits and other wild animals and birds, is the pet of Mrs. Electa Savage, residing at Cooksville… Last week the big cat brought in eight rabbits, a meadow mole, and several sparrows. She will tackle a ground-hog without hesitation, and more than one dog has met with disaster while encroaching on her territory.”

 “Four young men of Evansville pass’d through Cooksville Wednesday evening to attend the masquerade ball at Stoughton.” [1897]

“Something new... for this community, at least:  the frog farm that has been opened on the Lawrence farm near Cooksville…. A tank, 16x42 feet, and 6 feet deep, with a capacity for 40,000 dozen of frogs, has been made.” [1916]

“A meeting in the [Congregational] church basement last Friday was held to find out if it would be well to have the electric lights here from the Stebbinsville power. It was decided that the following would have their homes lighted: Joe Porter, Fred Miller, Ole Fursett, Lars Erickson, Bert and Chester Miller, and the church.” [1917]

“Four animals went to a circus—a duck, a pig, a frog and a skunk. All of them got in except one. The duck has a bill, the pig had four quarters and the frog had a greenback, but the skunk had only a ‘cent’.” [1926]

“The new basement of the Cooksville Lutheran Church… will be dedicated Sunday... The steeple, which was blown down in a severe storm in 1929, was rebuilt and a new bell installed.” [1930]

Cooksville Lutheran Church (photo c.1950)

“Cooksville Church Plans Annual Lutefisk Supper…. Sixteen hundred pounds of lutefisk has been ordered and 200 pounds of meat to make Norwegian meatballs. Several hundred pies, 1,400 lefse, rolls, cabbage salad, cranberries, and plenty of coffee are included in the menu…” [1956]

 “When a Jotter’s far too weary

For writing up what ‘might have been,’

How this jotter’s heart grows cherry [sic; cheery? Ed. ]

If some jots are handed in.”  [1874]

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[From the Cooksville Archives, courtesy of the many “weary Jotters” these “jots” were found in donated scrapbooks and in the local newspaper clippings donated to the Archives by Ruth Ann Montgomery, Evansville WI.  Larry Reed]

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The new Cooksville Guide Books are here!

 Come take a self-guided tour of the village, either from your armchair or on foot. The Guide contains beautiful full-color pictures of the historic homes and landmarks of the village, and is full of interesting facts about the area and the people who made it unique. Makes a great gift. On sale now at the Cooksville Country Store for $10.  Proceeds benefit the Cooksville Community Center.

The Cooks Settle Cooksville 175 Years Ago, PART TWO, by Larry Reed

The year 2015 marks the 175^th anniversary of the Cooks settling in northwestern Rock County, and 2017 will commemorate the 175^th anniversary of the official platting of their Village of Cooksville.

The Cook House (1842) today

The Cooks arrived in the Wisconsin Territory on June 25, 1840. The federal census taker that year counted noses at John Cook’s new little  log cabin, revealing the following living there: himself, a bachelor; his younger brother Daniel Cook; Daniel’s wife Elizabeth, and their young daughter Rhoda aged two. (Sometime after 1840 John Cook married his wife Nancy.)

Soon, in 1842, John Cook officially platted his village of Cooksville near the Bad Fish Creek. (The words eventually flowed together into “Badfish”; the creek was also known as “Waucoma” at the time.) Cook must have believed that the growing westward movement in America justified establishing an official settlement with building lots for sale, probably hoping to profit from the increased migration  from New England, New York and the British Isles to the newly opened land.

The Cooks Settle Cooksville 175 Years Ago: 1840-2015, PART ONE, by Larry Reed

The Cook House, built 1842, photo c.1930

In 2015 the Village of Cooksville celebrates its175^th anniversary of settlement by the Cook brothers, John and Daniel Cook.

The history of the Village begins on May 9, 1840, when John Cook, living in Ohio, purchased his Wisconsin land from the U.S. government that would become the Cooks’ village, and on June 25, 1840, John Cook, his brother Daniel, and friends arrived in their new land alongside the Bad Fish Creek.

And the year 2017 will mark the 175^th anniversary of the Cooks officially platting their Village of Cooksville on the new American frontier.

Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts

John Cook purchased his Wisconsin Territory land—officially described as the NW ¼ SW ¼ of Section 6, town 4, range 11 north in Rock County— directly from the U.S. government.  Shortly thereafter, on June 22, 1840, he invested in two more parcels of land: the SW ¼ SW ¼ Section 6 and the E ½ SW ¼ Section 6. Perhaps Cook knew that the land directly to the east of his new property had been purchased in 1837 from the U.S. government by the famous U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, Daniel Webster, and that Webster soon sold a portion of his land to his friend, Dr. John Porter of Massachusetts. And no doubt Cook thought living next to Webster and Porter was a good idea and a good investment.

Early Daguerreotypes, Tintypes and Ambrotypes in the Cooksville Archives, by Larry Reed.

 The Cooksville Archives contains examples of the first photographic techniques of the mid-19^th century—daguerreotypes and tintypes. Most are formal portraits of early settlers and their family members from the 1850s and 1860s; some are of friends; some are of Civil War soldiers from Wisconsin.

Daguerreotypes (images captured on light-sensitive chemicals applied to silvered copper plates), tintypes (on iron plates) and ambrotypes (on glass plates) were an exciting new invention and became popular in the mid-1800s, followed in the later 19^th century by photographic images exposed on chemically-treated paper cards. The latter were more portable, less expensive and very popular.

The earliest and most practical method of chemically capturing images was invented by the Frenchman, J. M. Daguerre about 1839 using copper plates coated with silver and treated with iodine vapor, then exposed, then treated with mercury vapors and finally with sulfuric acid, and washed clean in distilled water. This lengthy “daguerreotype” process permanently fixed the “light pictures” or photographs on the metal plates, which were then varnished or lacquered to protect the surface.

In the 1850s glass plates (ambrotypes) were used, but much more popular was the use of less bulky and less fragile plates of a cheap metal (“tintypes” of iron, never tin). Tintypes, invented about 1856, were very popular in America— inexpensive “black mirrors of the self.” Professional portrait photographers quickly set up their popular businesses in every city

Eventually coated paper cards and, in the late-19^th century, negative celluloid film of Eastman and Kodak replaced the more expensive, complicated wet-processed daguerreotypes and tintypes.

William Porter, c.1860

Unidentified boys (possibly Porters)

Three unidentified ladies posing

Capt. Chas. Taylor, Company H, 1st Wis. Heavy Artillery Regiment

The various early Cooksville photographs include portraits of members of the Porter family and a few other identified persons. But most are of unidentified men, women, children and a few babies, with many Civil War portraits, both tintypes and card-based, of military men identified as part of the 1st Wisconsin Heavy Artillery Regiment.

These early “tintype” or ferrotype photographs in the collection vary in size from small one-square inch to 2x4 inches and about 3x5 inches. Some of the photos have hand-applied color: touched-up pink cheeks and flesh-tones and a few gold-colored ear-rings.

The Cooksville Archives also contain a large number of glass-plate negatives from the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. The use of chemically-treated glass plates to capture negative images was another popular photographic technique, one considered especially effective and artistic.

Ralph L. Warner of Cooksville was responsible for a number of early photographs in the village, either taken by him or others, in the early 1900s. Some are artistic images captured on glass negatives and some are on celluloid negatives documenting his “House Next Door,” his antique collections, his gardens, and scenes of village life including friends and neighbors.

A Madison-based photographer, Eric Baillies, employs these old “tintype” processes to painstakingly create and capture images just as early photographers did 165 years ago. Eric came to Cooksville recently with his camera, chemicals and “developing tent” to make tintype portraits of a resident using the old technique.

The Cooksville Archives has a large collection of photographs from the 19^th and 20^th centuries donated for safe-keeping and for research, documenting the historic village and its people. More are always welcome. Contact Larry Reed to visit the Archives or to donate photographs —old or new, because the present soon becomes past history.

The "Pearl Craze": Pearling in the Badfish Creek, by Larry Reed

In the late 19^th century, everybody was wading in the local creeks and rivers in southern Wisconsin searching for pearls, even in the little Badfish Creek flowing past Cooksville.

The “Pearl Craze” had begun in August of 1889, when a pearl was discovered in a clam in the Sugar River, which flows through Brodhead, Wisconsin, and the result was a “pearl rush,” not unlike a gold rush. The headline in the local Brodhead weekly of August 8^, 1889, declared in large type-face: “PEARLS” EVERYBODY HUNTING THEM! One is Found That is Worth $100 BETTER THAN A GOLD MINE!

Searching shallow waters, scrapping through the muck of the area’s rivers and creeks was widespread as people dug up and eagerly cracked open what had once been useless clams. All were hoping to strike it rich by discovering a perfectly spherical or drop-shaped globe of shell material surrounding an irritant inside the mollusk.

The “pearl craze” spread throughout southern and western Wisconsin, from Cooksville’s little Badfish Creek to the mighty Mississippi River. The size and quality of the fresh-water pearls found inside the clams varied greatly, and colors ranged from lavender to pink to white and blue. Usually, small round pearls sold for a few dollars or so, but even a $10-pearl was worth about a week’s wages in the late-19^th century. Larger flawless spheres were much rarer than the more usual, small, irregular pearls and much more highly valued.

Some pearlers struck it rich with large, colorful spheres. A few people in the Brodhead area were able to build new homes with their findings; one even bought a new farm. A total of about $300,000 worth of pearls were collected in southern Wisconsin by the end of 1891, making pearl revenue one of the highest of all natural product revenues in the state.

Pearls of small, irregular sizes were found almost everywhere as the “pearl rush” continued for a few years. People searched the Badfish Creek, but unfortunately there are no records of successful “pearling” in the little creek. However, a few odd-shaped, iridescent, little “gems” may well have been found. 

But the “Pearl Craze” didn’t last very long.