REPUBLICAN POST

August 7, 1913

 

WHO IS THE OLDEST SETTLER?

 

Resident of Waupaca Came to Waupaca Town 64 Years Ago.

Married Four Years Later.

 

            Since the preparation for Homecoming was started, the question has arisen a number of times as to just what is included in “Waupaca.”  At one time it included at least all of the township as well as the village bearing that name.  A sort of tradition seems to join the two in interest as well as in name.  If that relation still held, no doubt Mrs. Mary Paine could lay claim to being one of the first settlers, if not the oldest resident of Waupaca, as she came to the Chandler settlement with her father, John Wilkes Chandler, in Waupaca township in June 1849.  It was her father’s house, 14 x 12 feet that afforded shelter for twenty-one people the night that Henry Hibbard and his mother and brother were too weary to finish their journey to Waupaca Falls, where Henry’s father had staked out a claim a few months before.  It was in that house that Mary Chandler became Mrs. Paine, four years later, hers being the third wedding in the settlement then known as Waupaca.  Mrs. Paine has been a resident of Waupaca town or city for more than sixty years, and naturally the little discussions provoked by the preparation for Homecoming have recalled many amusing incidents that happened in those early pioneer days.

            It was the father of Mrs. Ida Stinchfield, who lives just east of the city, who brought the first wheel vehicle across the Wolf River at Gills Landing.  A gentleman now living in this city though for more than fifty years a resident of Waupaca township was the first to carry mail from Waupaca on to Plover.  He was then eleven years of age.

            It is such stories and incidents as these with scores of others that have been woven into the almost infinite variety of subjects contained in the booklet entitled “Waupaca” that has been prepared by the Monday Night Club, the oldest club in this city, and is now in the hands of the printer.

            This booklet will be a most acceptable souvenir for the Homecoming. If you wish to learn the name of the woman who rode on a stone boat or drag hauled by a single ox from Gills Landing to her future home, buy a copy of the Homecoming souvenir booklet, “Waupaca.”

            The members of the Monday Night Club will have charge of the sale of the book during Homecoming Week.

            The Monday Night Club pledged an amount toward the purchase of the lot upon which is to be erected the new public library.  More funds will be needed with which to furnish the building when completed.  The Monday Night Club hopes through the sale of the booklet to contribute its mite towards a worthy cause.  Following is the preface of the booklet:  “The Monday Night Club in presenting this book to the public, has a two fold purpose – to preserve in permanent and convenient form some of the interesting events of the early history of the town, the growth of its local institutions and social organizations and by the sale of the book to procure funds to defray the Club’s obligation to the new library.

            “We trust these scenes and narrations may appeal to all those who have gone out from this, their old home, as well as to all who are interested in Waupaca.”