While vacationing along the Great Mississippi River Road a couple of weeks ago, my family and I were able to supplement our trip with a little bit of family history. We were in the area of La Crosse, Wisconsin and with the help of the innkeeper at the bed and breakfast where we were staying, we found directions to the site of historic Oehler's Mill which was built in the 1850's and t on the site of an old logging camp where my husband's ancestors, Isaac Newton and his brother Joseph Goodale, lived and worked for a short period of time. It was a bit difficult to find because the directions were minimal and the place is not marked; in fact, we passed the site at first and a few miles down the road we asked two different people if they knew where the mill was located before we found it.
A little background history why Isaac and Joseph worked at the logging camp is explained below:
Nauvoo, Illinois, where the main body of the LDS (Mormon)
church was located, witnessed rapid growth due to the increasing numbers of
converts during the early 1840s. This
growth produced a high demand for building materials for homes and for the
building of the Nauvoo Temple. In order
to meet the demands of lumber, Joseph Smith commissioned Lyman Wight, one of
the apostles of the LDS church, and George Miller, the presiding bishop of the
church, to organize the Black River Pine Company. This lumbering operation consisted of four
sawmills and a dozen logging camps located in a vast tract of pine trees near the
Black River in Clark County, Wisconsin.
The Mormon employees of the pine company were the first to settle the
area in 1841 when the first company of men was sent from Nauvoo. Isaac worked in the pineries in 1844 at the
request of the Prophet Joseph Smith, while Joseph worked there sometime during
its operation between the years 1841-1845. (Source:
Joseph and Isaac would have lived in a shanty in a
logging camp along with anywhere from 25 to 100 men. Their job duties may have included one or all
of the following: a chopper, those who cut down the trees, a skidder, those who
prepared the logs for being transported, or a crew member with a teamster,
those who hauled loads of logs down the Black River. Logging
was done during the fall and winter; and, when winter snows melted, the logs
were released in the river and a crew of men would follow the floating logs
down the river, where they eventually were taken to Nauvoo. The work
was hard and a loyalty was produced between some of the laborers and their
leader, Lyman Wight.
A majority of Wight’s following were members
of the Black River Pine Company who, by 1844, had established themselves in
Mormon Coulee (LaCrosse), Wisconsin. Two of his followers were Joseph and his wife Elvira Kay Goodale while his brother Isaac
Goodale, along with the majority of LDS church members, returned to Nauvoo.
It was only a small segment in the life of these two Goodale brothers but because we were in the area, it was fun to take the time out of our vacation schedule and locate the site and take a picture. It gave us an idea of what the area may have looked like, although nearly 180 years have passed since the time they were there working for the logging company.
A few years ago, while vacationing in Indiana, we drove through the small town of Medora, Indiana where many of my ancestors, the Hunsakers and the Weddells lived in the time period of the 1830's and later. There we located the site of the home of one of them as well as taking a good jaunt around the little country cemetery and locating graves. Again, visiting this site added a little dimension to my family history.
So think about fitting in a little family history next time you take a trip and explore where your ancestors lived and worked! It will make you feel a connection to them.
