Peshtigo

But there are some areas that have been particularly hard hit by PFAS contamination.

One of them is the Marinette and Peshtigo area where there was a fire training center and so there was a lot of firefighting foam that went on the ground and ultimately the seeped into the waters and that led to significant contamination of water in that area so we've worked for years to resolve that case and get accountability Ultimately, what we reached is an agreement here that both requires there to be continued remediation in a particular area, but then also provides funds that DNR is going to be able to use to help remediate PFAS in that area.

And so that will go towards the process of exactly what it's going towards is being worked out still.

But it'll likely go towards things like replacing wells so that there are deep water wells that are clean could go towards systems that clean up the water.

And they came at a time that was just after the Great Fire.

People call it the Peshtigo Fire, but it affected more than Peshtigo.

A lot of people were rebuilding after that fire.

There was a lot of death and a lot of homes destroyed.

For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Verla Vieira.

Sketch of the Great Fires in Wisconsin at Peshtigo, The Sugarbush, Menaconi, Williamsonville, and generally on the shores of green bay with thrilling and truthful incidents by eyewitnesses also a statement of relief funds contributed by frank tilton preface in presenting this work to the public we are aware that we are again opening to general notice the harrowing details of a calamity that has already impressed the minds of this nation with horror while it has aroused the generous impulses of noble hearts throughout the length and breadth of this land and not only that but it has stirred up the hearts of the dwellers beyond the seas and proved all civilized nations kindred in times of suffering the design of this book is to present in brief space and convenient form for preservation the prominent facts in regard to the terrible and unparalleled conflagrations that desolated the northeastern counties of wisconsin on the night of october eighth eighteen seventy one and in a few short hours swept from time into eternity more than a thousand men women and children rendered about four thousand people homeless and utterly destitute and afflicted hundreds of others with wounds to which the pangs of death were almost preferable we also present in this work numerous instances of heroism love and devotion worthy to be recorded for the emulation of the people of the world for all time to come we make no pretensions to an artistic work but aim to give a plain unvarnished tale it is no fancy sketch we have not drawn upon fiction but rely upon fact as still more marvellous Hoping that the public will accept this book with favor, and assuring our readers that the proceeds will be worthily bestowed and will furnish bread for some of the sufferers, we subscribe ourself, the author.

End of Preface CHAPTER I The northeastern

portion of the state of Wisconsin, comprising the counties of Brown, Oconto, Door, Kewanee, and Shawano, had begun within but a few years past to be reclaimed from a primeval wilderness, it is within the memory of many of the present dwellers here who have not yet passed middle age when nearly the whole region embraced in these present counties was an unbroken wilderness of timber with no highways unless a blazed road or trail could be called a highway no population but the original dusky sons of the forest or the hardy pioneer trapper or trader or the pious missionary while early in the history of the territory a military post was formed at green bay and a few pioneers gathered about it before the settlement of the southern portion of the territory now embraced in the state of wisconsin when immigration began to flock hither the prairie regions offered the readiest inducements to the husbandmen and the timbered region remained comparatively a wilderness but this northeastern portion of wisconsin held an immense resource of wealth in the very timber that delayed its settlement it was covered with vast tracts of pine as well as oak beech maple cedar and other valuable woods which were held in store by nature for use in the development of other sections as well as this the rapid growth of the northwest has created an immense demand for these products of the forest and mills and thriving settlements have sprung up as if by magic rapidly converting the pine into lumber and shingles the cedar into fence-posts and telegraph poles the oak into staves and utilizing all the woods making them instead of a curse the source of our wealth green bay a magnificent sheet of water running northwardly nearly parallel with lake michigan and separated from the lake by a long narrow peninsula of land comprising the county of dor and parts of kewanee and brown floats an immense fleet of vessels which carry the products of the adjacent country to market this peninsula varies from about thirty miles in width at its base to three or four miles at its northern end green bay is from five to thirty miles in width and an hundred miles long to its first outlet into lake michigan on the peninsula or eastern shore of the bay are several thriving settlements such as dixville in kewanee county and big sturgeon bay and little sturgeon bay in door county the nucleus of these settlements being sawmills and agricultural communities were gradually settling up the interior.

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On the west shore of Green Bay, numerous rivers and small streams empty into the bay, and at or near the mouth of each are large sawmills and other manufacturing establishments.

These rivers are the Big Suamico, Little Suamico, Oconto, Pensaki, Peshtigo, and Menominee, and in Michigan the Little Cedar, Bark River, Birch Creek, Ford River, and Escanaba River.

the timber cut on the upper waters of these streams is floated down to the mills and there manufactured for shipment some of these mills are immense institutions and give employment to large numbers of men the general character of the soil along the west shore of the bay is sandy and sterile from one to four miles back from the bay and is thickly timbered with evergreens but there are now and then considerable tracts of good sandy loam upon which are heavy growths of beech maple oak and other timber and the land is excellent for agricultural purposes there are also numerous tracts of marsh some of them timbered with cedar and tamarack and some bare and yielding large quantities of native cranberries back from the bay shore however the character of the soil is better and there is a fine agricultural country which is becoming rapidly settled up with a thriving and industrious population among the most thrifty of these fanning settlements were those in the vicinity of pestigo village and known as the sugar bushes the lower sugar-bush comprises the settlements extending westwardly from pestigo village for about seven miles on the road running southeastwardly to oconto and a branch striking westwardly from that near the village the upper sugar-bush settlement lay along the road running southwesterly from pestigo and known as the lake naquavay road between these two settlements was a road running southwesterly and the settlements upon it were called the middle sugar-bush these settlements consisted of about three hundred families we have been thus particular in describing the country that the scene of the fires may be better appreciated the eastern shore of the bay differed from the western more in the fact that it contained fewer villages the population being scattered upon farms the land is generally good and the timber being heavy the clearings have been accomplished at great expense of muscle and time by the hardy settlers most of them are of foreign birth belgians french danes bohemians etc who were beginning after years of patient hard toil to gather together some of the comforts of life in addition to the bare necessities which in their poverty they had been content with as pioneers their lives had indeed been lives of patient toil the first of these belgian colonists arrived here in eighteen fifty five fifty six and fifty seven and were absorbed into the almost unbroken woods and for a time lost sight of by the dwellers in the cities and villages but after they had erected their rude cabins they were soon heard from their daughters applied for and received employment as servants earning their own support in learning our language while fathers brothers and mothers were at work with a will taming the forests they cut down the timber cut it into bolts split out and shaved shingles by hand and brought them into the streets of green bay on rude carts by ox-teams and even with cows in some instances employing two or three days with one trip and living on the milk of the cows on the way such industry in patient endurance always meets with reward and their case was not an exception their ox-teams were superseded by horses they are now supplied with good houses and with agricultural implements and the products of their farms is an important item in the general product of this region chapter two the summer of eighteen seventy one will ever be a memorable one in northern wisconsin as indeed in many other localities it will be memorable throughout the united states for its shipwrecks for the losses by fire in every quarter for the crimes and the accidents that have cast shadows over nearly every day but especially have northern wisconsin and michigan to remember it for the unparalleled drought throughout those states and the consequent devastating fires that have left black unsightly scars upon their fair domain northern wisconsin as a rule is not subject to drought while in former years the earth in the central and southern portions of the state has been parched and vegetation blighted and withered the gentle showers of heaven have not failed to descend here and the harvest time has witnessed the gathering in of abundant crops of grain hay and all the products of the soil we had come to consider droughts very much in the light of penalties imposed by nature for the cutting down of the forests and considered ourselves with our vast extent of timber land comparatively secure we had needed no prophet to pray for rain for when the farmer began to look at his wilting crops and to think the rain was needed it usually came but the season of eighteen seventy one was an exception the winter preceding was comparatively without snow and this was the first calamity to the northern lumbermen as they were unable to secure their usual stock of logs an extremely wet spring was prophesied but the prophecy was not fulfilled there was no unusual amount of rain the months of april and may passed with their usual smiles and tears and june and july failed to bring a compensating amount of rain on the night of the eighth of july there was quite a smart shower but the thirsty land drank up the moisture and it left little trace the swamps which as we have before remarked are frequent in this portion of the state are usually covered with from one to two feet of water but so dry had they become that no water was visible and one could readily walk over the surface the want of water began to be keenly felt the northern extension of the c and n w railroad from fort howard to menominee was being built and in the location of railroad camps the most difficult thing was to find a site where water was plenty deep wells were unsuccessfully dug and in some cases wells were sunk to the depth of ten feet in the midst of the usually impassable swamps before water was found and then the supply was meagre and unsatisfactory many of the railroad hands laid down their implements and refused to work owing to the insufficiency and poor quality of the water and we saw water carried several miles out on the line of the road from pestigo to supply the hands The railroad embankments in the sand were like hot ash heaps, into which the feet would sink at every step, and the swamps that had been considered the greatest obstacle to the cheap construction of the road proved the best working ground.

I am not making this up.

I am a large man from Peshtigo, and I know silence.

I know when the lake is quiet because it is frozen solid and nobody is catching anything.

And that, Pack Nation, that is what is happening in the NFC North right now.

Let me tell you something, Pac Nation.

I am trying to enjoy September in Peshtigo.

Focus on my Green Bay Packers, what we are building.

But the NFC North, nothing.

The only thing burning is the competition's film, you jabroni.

It is like the snow in Peshtigo in January, right? Sometimes it is just a nice, steady, silent snowfall.

You do not need a blizzard every day for it to be doing its job.

Adding up, building a base.