I, too, notice Mr. Dey’s propensity to make those talk who will. Sympathizing with him in trying to conduct a successful pioneer meeting, where the old settlers generally stay at home, or if present when requested to respond to their names, merely say no, or I have nothing to say. Our meetings here like many others, are just what we make them. It was with this feeling of meeting an emergency, that I deposited this little paper at the bottom of my pocket, saying, as I did so, my lamp is trimmed and ready if wanted.

I do not see how anyone that lived in times gone by, in the woods passed their time in labor, improving the wilds of Northern Wisconsin, that have not something worthy to tell. I told you last when here, I was but a child in 1848 when my parents in company with two uncles and two aunts, brothers and sisters of my mother, came to the northwestern part of Greenville to locate. Owing to a storm we were detained in our journey from Waukesha county, whither we came with ox teams. After the family were housed, the men went to Green Bay to enter the land which had previously been preempted. It was found that he was one day too late, as father’s quarter section had been taken, so he located his Mexican land warrant on the quarter next north of it in the adjoining town. Long shall I remember that journey of eleven days with ox teams. There was lots of fun for most of us, but there must have been many cares for those who were older. We usually stopped at hotels and sometimes at private houses. But the last night out we camped. Finding where we could get some hay for the stock, the men rolled some logs together, set them on fire that burned brightly all night. The covers were taken from the big wagons and tents made. This was a novelty to us. I remember aunts approaching the fire to cook supper with tin pans before their faces, and made short stays at that. When the supper was ready we ate it on our laps. It seemed so novel that it was a late hour when all was quiet. I remember wondering if the bears and wolves would come around there. We were assured by the men folks that no wild animal would come near such a fire. We were up early and ready to start by daylight. We had the promise of seeing our new home that day, as it was but eight miles away, but the worn out teams and having to cut roads as we went, hindered so much that it was after dark before we reached the desired goal. It was past the middle of November and was getting cold. We think now we must have all the fall in which to get ready for winter. But here we were let down in a little log house that was covered with shakes and a floor of oak splints some two inches thick and five or six inches wide and laid from sleeper to sleeper. Well you would have thought it was all sleepers that night if you could have seen the beds on the floor, there was no walking room left. It snowed that night and the wolves howled, but sleep was sweet, we were home. There was a fire place in one side, but no window, on mild days there was a piece of chinking that was taken out to admit light, but generally the fire made our light. After a few days they went to Bruce Mill, now Stephensville and got lumber to make an upper floor; a ladder was made and then we were fixed up for housekeeping. In this house the family lived consisting of eleven persons and of course kept every weary traveler that came along looking for a new home.

Among the number was a little fellow that came Jan. 6, 1849, and we named him Lewis A. Hardacker. He is remembered now as the first white child born in the town of Greenville. In my mother’s illness that winter she was attended by a physician named Fitch, doubtless some of you remember him, he afterward committed suicide. We have been told, but don’ know how true it is, that it was all on account of being “cut out” by one Samuel Ryan. This doctor was very small of stature, and I remember his sitting in an ordinary sized man’s chair with his elbows on the arms of the chair, he tried in vain to touch his finger tips together. A hard winter followed. The men folks made shingles and took them to Neenah to sell. ’Till toward spring the oxen had nothing to eat but marsh hay and browse gave out and five of the eight died. Then I remember my father and uncle, Isaac Wickware, went to Neenah, fourteen miles away, and brought home fifty pounds of flour apiece on their backs. That spring troughs were dug out and they made maple sugar and molasses, which was acceptable, for bread or Johnny cake with maple molasses on it was good. Our cow was of course let loose on Uncle Sam’s pasture and a generous part of the milk given to the calf that was tied up, to induce the cow to come home. What butter could be made was so impregnated with leeks that it was of little use.

Those long jaunts after the cattle I can remember how tired the men would be. Generally the way would be, to be all ready when the cows were milked and turned loose, to follow her if they could keep pace, she would take a bee line for the herd. In these journeys they always carried their rifle and now and then a deer or some other wild game would bring “good cheer”. Once in particular father came leading old Dime by the horn and on the ox’s back was a big buck deer lashed on with moose wood bark.

My mother’s great worry was that her boys might be lost in the woods and to look after them that they did not go out of sight of the clearing in their play and chase after squirrels and the like, I being older was detailed to look after them. This brought me out doors much of the time and participating in the sports I acquired an endurance of fatigue equal to my brother, something that has been a blessing to me all my life. Last summer I heard a mother say to her little girls who asked if they could go to the woods to play, “no it is so far and you might tear your shoes.” Thoughts went back to when we were children, when trees were at the very doors, the woods were our play ground and nature’s covering on our feet. How we would limp in to mother with bleeding toe or bruised heel, while she bound it up for us we would always hear the admonition, you must be more careful. Look well to your footsteps child! But mother we couldn’t help it, there is so much brush and stubs. You will find many obstacles in your path of life—look well to your footsteps.

As a sample of this endurance I will tell you of an event that took place when I was eleven years old. My father had bought a wagon of Nordman, his farm was south of New London on the Muckwa road. Father had given his note to him for $65. He had managed to get the money ready to pay for the wagon but was busy and asked me if I could not go there and take up his note, “Would you know it was my note if you saw it?” “Did you write it father?” “Yes.” “I would know your hand anywhere and can read it.” I who was at his elbow when he recorded minutes of town meetings, survey of roads in town blocks as clerk, did not have to be told how he wrote. I do not know the way I was never west of Hortonville. Then with pencil and paper he told me the way on the New London road. I would know that as Steffen lived there, the only farm house on the way, then a few miles would come to Deslies and McCombs, they lived on opposite sides of the road, then the Shepard place way down by a spring. This was the last house, but on about so far we would see two pine stumps, then five rods from that a solitary one, at this place strike due southwest and in a little while you would find the road that led to his place. It was arranged that I should start next morning, with my brother Henry, 8 years old, now Dr. Hardacker, of Hortonville, to accompany me. We had no trouble in finding the way—when we reached his place he was plowing in the field next to the road with his oxen. We told our errand and he accompanied us to the house. Mrs. Nordman made a hasty pudding for us and with a bowl of milk we were refreshed and started for home. Somehow the distance between Hortonville and our home seemed longer than usual. Never mistrusted what the reason was but felt quite promoted when mother said I did not have to wash the supper dishes nor Henry get in the night’s wood, for we were tired. Some eighteen miles we had traveled that day. This is but a small experience compared with the many the settlers went through in early times in this county. They have proved themselves heroic in battling with the forest’s enduring hardships and privations. Let us cherish their memory. I was thinking last Decoration Day as we saw the flags wave over the soldiers’ graves, should there not be some emblem to mark the graves of departed pioneers?

Mrs. E. A. Mills, a pioneer of Appleton and Outagamie county, died at her home, 763 Ida street, Saturday evening after an illness of some time. Elizabeth A. Hardacker Mills was born in Horton, Nova Scotia, December, 1839, and came to Outagamie county with her parents in 1848, settling in Ellington.

Following her marriage to Luther N. [sic] Mills in 1859 they made their home on a farm in Greenville, where she resided until moving to Appleton thirty years ago. The family consisted of eleven children of whom four, Dr. N. P. Mills and Miss Bessie D. Mills of this city, Mrs. Allette E. Baucus of Portsmouth, O., and Harry [sic] L. Mills, Greenville survive. Mr. Mills passed away thirty-three years ago.

Funeral services will be conducted by the Rev. Richard Evans, pastor of the Methodist church of Wausau, an intimate friend of the family, tomorrow afternoon at the house, burial to be made in the family lot of the Greenville cemetery.