Welles AM01
Waupaca Post
Old Rural
A.M. Welles,
Classmate of Hon. A.R. Potts Sixty Years Ago, Was His Guest Friday
The
Mr.
Welles had spent Friday night as the guest of Hon.
A.R. Potts at Rural and had made inquiry as to the whereabouts of many of the
schoolmate friendships he had made during the years from 1866 until the spring
of 1871 while his father, Rev. Benjamin Welles, was
pastor of the Presbyterian church at Rural. During those five years, five boys had been
associated more closely than ordinary schoolboy friends. Mr. Welles displayed a picture of the five boys, Andrew potts, Adelbert McCrossen, Sam Lawrence, Cal Morgan and Albert Welles. These five
boys were members of a Sunday school class taught by the late H.W. Shoemaker,
father of County Clerk L.F. Shoemaker of this city. Mr. Welles assured
us that there were few Sabbaths that these five boys were not all in their
places in that Sunday school class in the entire five years he resided at
Rural.
Mr.
Welles had preserved and displayed his first
teacher’s certificate issued by Justus Burnham, county superintendent of
schools for Waupaca county, dated April 2, 1869. At that time Welles
had not attained his sixteenth birthday and a letter accompanying the official
document suggested that the holder of the legal document be cautious and not
attempt too large or too difficult a school.
Acting
on this suggestion, young Welles waited until he had
passed his sixteenth birthday and late in the fall of 1869 he went to Perry’s
Mills and assisted in building a rude shanty in which early in January, 1870,
he began teaching the dozen or fifteen pupils in that joint school district
where the village of Marion now stands.
The owner of the first sawmill at that point was the father of the late
S.L. Perry, who started the publication of the Marion Advertiser twenty-four
years later, in 1894.
Mr.
Welles being engaged to teach in a joint school
district was compelled to take an examination in Shawano county
as well as in Waupaca county. One of the
conditions during the spring term was to keep school in the forenoon and
dismiss school at
Miss
Marie Chamberlain and L.F. Shoemaker were included in the list of acquaintances
of those early times when he was Albert Welles
attending school at Rural and the year at Waupaca high school. Both of these
former Rural residents were favored with a call by Mr.
Welles Saturday.
Mr.
Welles remarked that one of the imposing residences
at Rural today is the large white, square house facing Highway 22. He recalls that he and Adelbert
McCrossen hauled the lumber from a
sawmill north of Waupaca and unloaded it at a planning mill in this city
where the lumber was put through the dry kiln before being dressed. This was when the boys were at an age that
made it difficult to harness and bridle the horses which they drove and when
they flattered themselves that they were doing a full man’s job. The first occupant of Rural’s
largest residence, James A. McCrossen, removed to
Mr.
Welles left Saturday to spend a day at
On
this trip he drives a 1926 Buick with balloon tires and admitted that he enjoys
modern modes of travel as well as those of pioneer times when he rode the solid
tire high wheel bicycle and later the safety with solid rubber tires.
It is a rare treat to meet one who has so large an assortment of pictures and so much documentary evidence of his association with the pioneer residents of Waupaca county and by a person who looks and appears like a man under fifty. Mr. Welles attributes his health and vigor to his love for outdoor sports and exercise which helps to keep one youthful and healthy.