THE WAUPACA COUNTY POST

March 14, 1991

 

WHEN THEN WAS NOW

By Wayne A. Guyant

 

            George Allen was born February 25, 1820 in Sturbridge, Mass.  His parents were Timothy and Theresa Marsh Allen, who were members of the Puritan families who were of the stock that settled in Massachusetts when it was a Bay Colony. Ethan Allen of colonial fame was a member of one of the branches of the family, and General T. S. Allen, who was a hero in the Civil War, was also connected with them in their ancestral origin.

            When George was six years of age, his parents moved to Madison County, NY, were he grew to manhood.  In 1846 he came to Dane County, Wisconsin, before it became a state, and in the following years he returned to Madison County, NY, where he was married to Miss Julia Richmond.  She was a granddaughter of Atzar (Abrezer) Richmond, a veteran of the Revolutionary War.

            George Allen and his new bride returned to Wisconsin and to the Township of Vinland, Winnebago County.  It was here that their only child, a son, Merrick Timothy Allen, was born on August 15, 1850.  The little family remained there until the spring of 1856, when they moved to their new home in Section 6, Township of Dayton, Waupaca County.

            George Allen enlisted in Company A, 8^th Infantry, Wisconsin Volunteers, on September 13, 1861. He served a year with his regiment, and about two years on hospital duty, was discharged on account of disability.  He returned to his family and took up farming once more. He remained in charge of the farm until 1880, when he moved to Waupaca to live. Merrick T. Allen grew up working on the farm and was now ready to take over.

            I have viewed the microfilm of the diary of the day-by-day events of the life of George Allen that was sent to me by Marion J. Thomas, who is a great-granddaughter of George Allen and lives in California.  This diary was kept on a daily basis from 1874 through 1892.

            I will start with the May 19, 1874 entry.

            George Allen started his basement for a new barn.  Sometime later an entry said that he barn had been completed and was being painted as well as was the hop house.  (In the history of northern Wisconsin, it states that the Allens had the largest hop house in the county, it being 30x56, and well-equipped.)

            An August 1874 entry indicated that they started picking and drying hops:  September 15, hauled 12 bales of hops to Waupaca; September 22, 1875, went to the Portage County Fair; July 31, 1875, the bees swarmed for the third time, and in November 1875, he put up a windmill.

            Most of ht daily entries were farm life related. It seems as if hop growing was his main enterprise in his first years of farming. The diary tells of hop growing from 1874 through 1879.  It tells of his going to Ogdensburg and buying hop poles, hauling hop poles, setting hop poles, setting out hops, and tying hops.  He mentions corn planting, cultivating, harvesting and husking the corn in the hop house.  Other crops mentioned were potatoes, wheat, oats and buckwheat.         

            In the winter months it tells of cutting and sawing wood by hand, burning the brush and taking the grain to the grist mill to be ground into feed for the cattle.

            There were many growing hops in those early years.  My grandfather grew hops on his farm, less than a mile from the Allen farm.

            It seems that ice and disease started to take their toll on the hops and it no longer was profitable to grow hops.  More barns were built and more and more cattle and livestock were being kept by area farmers.  George Allen was one of them.  In his diary he talked of cattle, sheep and hogs in his farm operation.

            Most all of the dates in his diary told about the weather.  There were mentions of neighbors and friends who came to see them, as well as their return visits.  Many pages were not legible, too faint to read.  Some of the writing was hard to decipher because of the spelling. The microfilm was put together by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.

            George Allen retired in 1880, and his son, Merrick, took control.

            Merrick T. Allen was married on March 29, 1871 to Jennie Collins and they had five children:  Arvin D., Carrie D., George W., Fay, and Julia.  During his active years in farming he was a fancier of the Holstein breed of dairy cattle.  It is not clear just who set out the apple orchard, that long has outlasted its usefulness, which is located as part of the campgrounds in the Hartman Creek State Park.

            Asa D. (Apple Tree) Barnes, located in Waupaca, had established the Artic Nursery about 1885.  It would seem reasonable to assume that Merrick T. Allen set out this orchard from stock purchased from Barnes. John Windfeldt leased this orchard for many years before it became the property of the state of Wisconsin.

            As milk production began to increase, the farmers had to have a place to sell their milk, so a group of farmers formed the Spring Hill Creamery Cooperative. The association was organized on February 24, 1903, with the purpose of building a creamery, located at or near Section 6 in the township of Dayton. Merrick T. Allen sold them one and one-quarter acres of land, dated February 27, 1903.  After nearly two decades the creamery ceased to operate and was purchased by John J. Windfeldt on April 1, 1921.

            To better explain the location of the Spring Hill Creamery, I would direct you straight through the main entrance of the Hartman Creek State Park, proceeding straight south to the “T” in the road, turn right, and there on your right, on the south bank of the creek stood the creamery and a house.  Before the state closed the road that continued on, it went up past the old Munger place which later became the John J. Windfeldt place.  Continuing on, this road came out on County Trunk D, in Portage County.  The Gary Grants live at this intersection today. This was the main shortcut to the Wisconsin Veterans Home for people coming from the south and west.

            George Allen, the father, died at his home on Fulton Street in Waupaca in 1901, and his wife, Julia, died in 1911.  After the death of George Allen, his son, Merrick T. Allen left the farm in charge of his son, George W. Allen, and moved to Waupaca to live with his mother on Fulton Street.  This left George W. Allen, the third generation in charge of the Spring Hill Farm, but it was not until 1925 that he came in full ownership.

            From the time George W. Allen first took control of the farm he started to convert the dairy farm into a fish ranch.  During the 1920s, he cleared the swamps and built dams to regulate the water.  In 1930 he built the dam that regulates the flow of water out of the east lake.

            Besides investing most of his earning and inheritance into this development, George W. became a serious student of trout propagation.  He was a graduate of the University of Wisconsin and was a former instructor at the North Dakota Agricultural College, at Fargo, ND.

            On January 24, 1927, John J. Windfeldt gave George W. Allen a land lease on the abandoned Spring Hill Creamery and he converted it into a fish hatchery.  When the fingerlings were three to four months old, they were transplanted to ponds which would provide them a natural habitat.  At first the annual yield was estimated at 300,000.  In January 1936 the plantings totaled 3.5 million.

            These were in the Depression years and time were tough. In 1935, after borrowing from various private individuals, he faced foreclosure; 247 acres reverted to the state of Wisconsin, and the WPA crews began setting it out with the wonderful pines that we all can enjoy today. It is only a few minutes’ drive to Waupaca for supplies.

            Merrick T. Allen died at his home in Waupaca on October 15, 1928 and his wife, th former Jennie Collins, died at the home of her son, George W. Allen, in Stevens Point in 1962, and is buried with his parents on Lot 590 in the Waupaca cemetery.  George W. was born in 1878 and died in Stevens Point in 1962, and is buried with his wife, Mary, in St. Joseph’s Catholic Cemetery in Stevens Point.

            George W. Allen had two sons:  George F. of Stevens Point and Walter M. of Kalispell, MT.  Walter M. Allen followed in the footsteps of his father and became a fish culturist during the ‘30s and ‘40s.  He worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and, from 1949 until his retirement in 1968, he was superintendent of the Fisheries for the state of Montana.

            The Spring Hill Farm was the foundation of the Hartman Creek State park, as other holdings were added onto it in later years.

            In a June 24, 1976 paper, there was a large article that there was a movement on to rename the Hartman State Park to Allen Creek State Park, or possibly Spring Hill State park.  The article was written by George F. Allen and Walter M. Allen, sons of the late George W. Allen.  They listed a good many reasons why the name should be changed, but I don’t believe it has ever been pursued farther.