WAUPACA COUNTY POST

May 9, 1957

Winfield Scott Diary Reports 6 Houses on City Site in 1850

An excerpt from the diary of one of Waupaca’s early pioneer residents provides a glimpse of life in the 1850 community of Waupaca.

Winfield Scott, grandfather of Allen Scott (of Scott Abstract Co.) recorded these impressions following his arrival in Waupaca to join his father David Scott:

"On the first day of June, 1850, myself and family left Buffalo on the staunch steamer Hendrick Hudson for Milwaukee and after a few days … landed at Milwaukee …".

The diary continues: "On the fifteenth of June I started with a man and team heavily loaded with household goods for Waupaca. After one week of varied experiences, I reached the log house then standing near the present residence of Mr. Veysey," Scott said that the present site would be near the Conservation League grounds.

"I could get no further with horses. Starting on foot I found my way across the south branch of the Waupaca river (Crystal river near Cary Manufacturing Co. on Churchill street). I soon came in sight of four homes located near the present fair grounds (near Crystal Greenhouse on Churchill street occupied respectively by William G. Cooper, S.F. Ware and Joseph and William Hibbard."

"THE HOUSES were not what you would call palaces," Scott wrote, "all built of logs and that of Mr. Cooper made the most pretentious, having a room that slanted two ways, while the others had only a shanty roof."

"Passing these habitations, I finally came in sight of Waupaca Falls (present dam site on Mill Street) and in crossing the ground now used and occupied by the court house (located at Bargain Center on Mill St.) I saw standing in the river the most beautiful of all wild animals, an American deer, as unconcerned as possible. He allowed me time to have a good look before he bounded away in the thickets."

"The present site of the City of Waupaca was occupied at the time by four buildings heretofore mentioned and two others. One occupied by E.C. Sessions (one of the original settlers) and the other by Silas Miller. My father (David Scott) also had a unique log residence just over the hill by the river (next to Ground Observer cabin at the end of Main street).

-O-

"I FOUND these inhabitants all busy in some way. Mr. Miller was at work framing a saw mill (near present Fisher-Fallgatter Milling Co. on Oborn st.) and the balance were busy putting in small patches of crops."

"I arrived the twentieth of June and found my father at a breaking team at work near where my house stands and I took hold lustily and helped plant on the sod corn, potatoes and some buck wheat and the season being quite wet, most of the crops ripened."

Concluding, Scott said, "During my stay I helped in the course, raise the saw mill, cut the first crop of hay on Sessions Prairie (near Sheridan)."

With the final incompleted sentence, "I saw on coming to church at the E.C. Sessions house one Sunday morning a …" the passage ends. The rest has been either lost or destroyed, said Allen Scott.