THE REPUBLICAN

February 4, 1887

A REMINISCENCE

Foundation of the Waupaca Spirit – Republican

It is just thirty-four years ago last November, when a stripling came on horseback into what is now the city of Waupaca.  An all days ride following a blazed trail through the forest and the distance from Meiklejohn’s was all that could be counted.  The woods at that time on the east, extended nearly to the river.  There were but few habitations, not more than five or six, a rickety sawmill, a worse dam, an unsubstantial bridge, almost interminable piles of pine logs, a chill evening air, a weary horse, a tired boy, an the picture of the eastern side of the river is complete.

            The sun peered redly over the brow of Mount Tom, and dispute the mastery with the gray twilight creeping on from the east but the contest was uneven, and the sun went down while the cold frost began to nip the grasses and the leaves.

            The bridge was crossed, not the one which Longfellow stood on at midnight and on which he held his musings while the clock struck twelve in the old gray tower, but a bridge that the earliest settlers had hastily constructed.  It stood where the present bridge stands below the Waupaca mills and in its way did good service.  Lord’s grist mill occupied the west side of the river several feet above where the present substantial structure stands while the dam which was built of poles and brush was still further up the stream.  It was a note-worthy fact that the half of the dam owned by the Messrs. Lord was always in the better repair.  The decrepitude of the dam on the saw mill side maintained an equilibrium with the decrepitude of the old saw mill and clung tenaciously to it to the last.  The grist mill was if I remember rightly the largest structure in the place and its floury look tallied well with the gray twilight and the gathering frost.  A steep hill up to an old shell of a barn built on the jutting rocks of the hillside and a double house with a quaint sign announcing the “Waupaca A. Vanduzee House,” thus:

terminated the journey.

            The old house is gone now, burned up, I believe, but in those closing days of 1853, it was the principal rendezvous for everything and everybody.  At just about the same day, a few days later, say about the middle of November there came among others, two men, brothers.  One brought his wife, a pale, quiet woman.  They with a dozen travelers were trying to keep the foot square stove in the dining room warm.  The men swung their arms, the women snuggled up together and gathered their shawls tightly around them; they said “Oh-h, bew-w-w”, the men went out and into the post office next door to get warm by talking with Captain Scott.  They talked about the newspaper that was expected to be born in the town and many were the guesses and the suggestions as to the name.  The Redfield brothers were of those who went to get warm.  They were very quiet and the greater part of the group id not know them.  The remarks and the criticisms were unique.  Some were complimentary, some were warning the young men to avoid a losing enterprise.

            I was a boy then of but twelve and the only person beside the Redfield’s who could set type.  I followed them in, for I liked them both and had been promised a chance to help whenever I wanted to.  One man, he shall be nameless for he was a good friend ot the paper afterward said, “I tell you, Captain, if them young men’s got a dollar, they’d better keep it.  They can’t sell fifty papers here a year.  There don’t nobody want to advertise, ‘cause we all know what every fellar’s got, and what’s the use of adverstisin’ just to give them fellar’s money?  Ef I knowed ‘em I’d tell ‘em to go to some bigger place and not come round here on the Injun lan’ an’ lose their last dollar.”

            Charlie Redfield heard it but maintained the stoical demeanor so characteristic of is nature, and also hear John M. Vaughn’s reply.  “I say Blank, if those young fellows have come out here to start a paper, it shows they’ve got grit.  I am going to put down three dollars for two papers and if I knew the young men I’d give it to them now.  They’ve got enterprise, and that’s what we want.”  “What ye goin’ to do with the other paper, John?”  asked Blank, and began to laugh in a quizzical way.  But the answer came quick, “Send it to my friends, just what every man in Waupaca ought to do,” and John M., he was a little man, strutted up and said:  “Here Captain Scott, take this three dollars and give it to those newspaper men, and when I come up here next week again, I’ll bring some more names and money too.”

            The effect was electric.  “Bully for John”  “Give the boys a lift”  “Where are they?”  “Let’s hunt ‘em up”  But the Captain had beckoned to the brothers and introduced them to the warming crowd.  It consisted of about twenty which was about all the place could hold.  Charlie Redfield made the speech.  It was very short, and very quiet.  He said as nearly as I can remember, “Gentlemen, we have come into the new country and propose to try our chances.  We have the dollar that was mentioned and we have the grit too.  We will put both into the paper.”

            Fifteen dollars were received in subscriptions then and there, and the WAUPACA SPIRIT was under way.

                                                                                    C. R. B.

                                                                                    (CHARLES ROLLIN BRAINARD)