THE OLIN ALBUM

THE OLIN ALBUM -1893-

Published by Chauncey C. Olin

pg 131

                             Dartford, Wis., Sept. 29, 1892

"C. C. Olin, Indianapolis, Ind.:

     "Dear Sir--You asked me to give you some recollections of my grandfather, Caleb Olin.  You are aware that I only knew him as a boy from twelve to fifteen years of age.  Grandfather emigrated from Vermont in the latter part of 1814 to Canton, St. Lawrence county, New York, bringing with him his whole family, consisting of ten children, having left one daughter in Vermont.  He took up a farm in the then wilderness, and settled his family around him so that they could hear his dinner-horn, and thence commenced the struggle of making a home--an undertaking of some magnitude.  It required a large amount of pluck and force of character to succeed, which he happily possessed to a very large degree.  He was a Hercules in size and strength, weighing about three hundred pounds, and having the courage to make it all act in an emergency.  One of the incidents which he used to relate to us boys may suffice at this time.  He was resting a few minutes after dinner, and, hearing his pigs cry out, stepped to the door and saw that a bear had taken one of them and was walking off with it.  He started in pursuit, and, coming up to it, kicked it.  The bear turned on him, and he caught him by the hair and kicked him so severely that the bear tried to get away from him.  He threw himself on to the bear and forced him down and riddled him from end to end.  Grandfather served entirely through the Revolutionary War, and was well stored with incidents of the struggle.  There was nothing, perhaps, that he so cordially hated as a Tory, and would always use cuss words when speaking of them.  He used to tell us many things about Washington and General Greene, who was his hero, and would say that General Greene was the only man in the army that could lift as much as he could.  Grandfather always dressed in the old colonial style and tolerate no other.

                      Respectfuly yours,

                      L. D. Owen

pg 194

DEACON JUSTIN OLIN

     Died, in the village of Dartford November 18, 1865, Deacon Justin Olin in the seventy-seventh year of his age.  He was born in Shaftsbury, Vermont, April 11, 1788.  In the year 1812 he removed to St. Lawrence county, New York, just in time to go with his brothers, Thomas D. and Joseph Olin, to Ogdensburg to help drive Red Coats (British) back across the River St. Lawrence to their hiding places. 
After the war he purchased a farm in what was then called the Olin settlement; labored hard upon said farm for twenty-one years and raised a large family.  In the year 1833 he removed to the State of Ohio, where he remained six years.  In the year 1839 he came to the territory of Wisconsin and had, in common with others, the hardships and privations incident to the settlement of a new country.  He had lived for the last sixteen years in the village of Dartford, where he will be missed by a large circle of friends and relations.  As a Christian he leaves a bright record.  He was sixty years a member of the Baptist Church and about forty years officiated as deacon; he was a working, active Christian, living to do good.  The death of such a man seems a public calamity.  It is taking a veteran soldier from the ranks while facing the foe.  "He being dead yet speaketh;" "His works follow him."  His prayers and Godly life will remain heard after his tongue is silent in the grave.  For a few months previous to his death he was confined to his room and in a measure deprived of his mental faculties.  When one of his sons, who lives at a distance, was bidding him farewell a short time before his death, he remarked to him, "Father, I may never see you again."  "Well," exclaimed the old man, "take Christ with you."  A very excellent discourse was preached at the Methodist Church by Rev. Mr. Work, of Ripon.  Among the mourners who followed him to the grave was his aged companion, who survives him.  

pg 197

ISABEL OLIN-BARRETT

     Isabel Olin-Barrett, daughter of L. D. Olin, was born in the town of Brooklyn, Green Lake county, Wisconsin, October 15, 1850, and grew up to womanhood in the village of Dartford, attending the village schools, where she graduated a very good scholar.  She then attended Ripon College for a time, and thus prepared herself for teaching, which she followed for some years.

     She was married to Oscar Barrett [half brother of Ezra Whiting, father of Dorothy W. Morris], November 17, 1872, and after a few years moved to Dakota, where she endured the privations incident to a border life, in building a home and getting under cultivation a farm.  As they were about to realize their hopes, she was cut down by that terrible scourge, diphtheria, leaving her husband and eight children--from one to eighteen years of age--to mourn the loss of a gentle and loving mother and an affectionate wife.  She died December 23, 1890.

     Mrs. Barrett was a Charming woman, full of sunshine and grace, and drew the hearts of all toward her that came under her influence.  A Christian in the best sense of the word, she labored most incessantly to carry the blessings of the gospel to her neighbors and their children, and with her husband, instituted Sunday-school, and gathered them in and taught them those precious sayings of Christ that make men better and wiser.  Well, she made good use of time and talent in life, and has left a record for duties well done, and a life full of usefulness to family and friends.

pg V

     When I came here [near Milwaukee] the Indians had a trail running from the northeast to the southwest, just south of Mineral Rock Spring, and it had been used so long that an indentation of some eighteen inches in the ground had been reached in several places.  Pioneers in a new country, if they are at all observing, know that Indians always travel in single file and in the same place for an indefinite length of time.

pg VIII

     From the year 1841 to 1844 and 1845, there was good deal of depression in real estate, as speculation had run high since 1836.  A good deal of depression was caused by the currency of the country, which was of a very doubtful character.  The Western and Southern states seemed to vie with each other in seeing which could issue the most wildcat currency, as it was called in those days.  In fact, the currency was so worthless, that it could only be passed in the state where it was issued, without a fearful discount.  I remember going to New York in 1841, and I had to change money several times on the way, as there were not through tickets in those days by steamboats or railroads.  On my arrival in New York, I could not even pay a hotel bill with Wisconsin money, without standing a shave of twenty-five per cent.  The only reliable currency we had in those days in Wisconsin, was the Wisconsin fire and Marine Insurance Company bank bills.  This bank was owned and controlled then by George Smith, of Chicago, and Alexander Mitchell, of Milwaukee.  They issued thousands of bills, and a large share of the people of Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa said, "We shall wake up some morning and find the bills of this corporation worthless."  They had several runs on their bank, but they were always ready and willing to redeem their bills in coin when it was asked for.  I remember at one time there was quite a formidable mob gathered in from of their bank in Milwaukee, because they could not get their money changed quite as fast as they wished.  In fact, I suppose the officers were a little slow sometimes, as their supply of gold generally came from Chicago, and there being no railroad in those days, they had to depend upon steamboats, which were very slow as compared with railroads.  But every bill-holder got his money, and no man, woman or child could say that they ever lost a dollar by holding this money.  In time Mr. Mitchell became the sole owner of this bank, and it has always since taken a very high rank as a safe moneyed institution of the Northwest.

     I was present at an annual dinner of the Old settlers' Club in Milwaukee, on Washington's birthday, in 1878, at which time Mr. Mitchell gave a history of the currency, banks and bankers of Wisconsin, from the time he landed in Milwaukee.  It was the most amusing as well as instructive speech of the occasion, showing how the greatest banking institution of the West was begun, and its progress up to the present time.  It had become a settled conviction in the minds of of the people that the bills of this bank would always be good, and every banking institutions had gone to the wall with a loss to the bill holders of a large proportion of what they were supposed to be worth.  After all this depreciation and fluctuation in the currency and real estate, our general prosperity was apparent.  We had a splendid soil and plenty of willing hands to cultivate it, and as immigration was constantly on the increase, we became a very prosperous community. * * *

XIII

     It was called a hard winter in the West, as snow began to fall November 15, 1842, and we saw the ground only once from that time until April 15, 1843.  Feed for the stock became scarce and high; hay bringing twenty-five dollars per ton, and very little could be had at that price.  They way we kept our stock alive was to drive them to the timber lands, and cut the timber down, and they lived on what we called "browse."  But most of the stock came out all right, and as soon as the early grass appeared they picked up very fast and by June they were in prime condition again.

     At about this time the subject of human slavery began to agitate the public mind in every part of the country.  I remember well our first vote cast on the subject, which was at the local election in Prairieville, in 1840.  At first there were only two votes cast; one by James A. Rossman, and the other by myself, but after that time we were by no means alone.  The votes came thick and fast, and we were known as the worst "Abolition hole" in the territory of Wisconsin.  No doubt we were rightly named, for our neighborhood was filled up to the brim with the most radical class of abolitionists, in both religion and politics, that ever came together in one community.  All the church records of those days show that a strict watch was kept over the members, and that discipline and excommunication of all delinquents was a very common part of church business.  Profanity, Sabbath-breaking, drinking, dishonesty and the neglect of church ordinances were dealt with as they deserved.  Nor did horse racing, dancing and attending the circus find any tolerance.  By a resolution of the church it was decided that "going to the post-office on Sunday was an ordinary business transaction, and as such should be considered as a violation of God's command to keep the Sabbath holy."  Another resolution decided that "all secret societies were inconsistent with the religion of Christ." and therefore they would not receive any person who was a member of such societies.  Another resolution and preamble read as follows, and was adopted after a full discussion, and by a vote in which the yeas and nays were put on record, vigorously denouncing slavery and declaring that, "We will not admit to our pulpits or communion, or have any Christian fellowship with any person or persons who practice, uphold or justify this gross system of iniquity."  It was impossible that a church so uncompromising and wide awake should not be early moved to act on the subject which was in due time to involve the nation.

     Anti-slavery principles were being established throughout the territory.  I remember well at a meeting in Madison, Wisconsin, Mr. Codding was addressing a large and enthusiastic meeting in the State Assembly Chamber, when, after speaking about twenty minutes, he was assaulted with rotten eggs, one striking him directly in the face, and others bespattering his clothes in several places.  Mr. Codding stopped for a minute in order to clean off the egg, when a man by the name of John W. Smith--and a democrat at that--arose and denounced the outrage as being the work of the slums of the town and encouraged by the pro-slavery element in Madison.  Mr. smith spoke in very strong terms of the freedom of speech in Madison, and said that mob violence and rotten eggs were not good argument, even in putting down anti-slavery in Wisconsin.  Finally the press of both Democrats and Republicans came to the rescue and denounced the outrage as unworthy of a free people.  Mr. Codding, however, before proceeding with his address, requested me to sing an anti-slavery song entitled. "The Man for Me," taken from George W. Clark's anti-slavery songs, which we generally used throughout the North in all large gatherings of the friends of the slave, which is as follows:

        THE MAN FOR ME.

"Oh, he is not the man for me

  Who buys or sells a slave,

Nor he who will not set him free,

  But sends him to his grave;

But he whose noble heart beats warm

  For all mens' life and liberty,

Who loves alike each human form,

  Oh, that's the man for me.

"He's not a all the man for me

  Who sells a man for gain,

Who bends the pliant servile knee

  To slavery's God of shame;

But he whose God-like form erect,

  Proclaims that all alike are free

To think and speak, and vote and act.

  Oh, that's the man for me.

"Be sure he's not the man for me

  Whose spirit will succumb,

When men endowed with liberty

  Lie bleeding, bound and dumb;

But he whose faithful words of might

  Ring through the land from shore to sea,

For man's eternal equal right,

  Oh, that's the man for me.

"No, no, he's not the man for me

  Whose voice o'er hill and plain

Breaks forth for glorious liberty,

  But binds himself the chain.

The mightiest of the noble band,

  Who prays and toils the world to free,

With head and heart, and voice and vote,

  Oh, that's the man for me."

     After the song, Mr. smith congratulated me upon the turn things had taken in the meeting, and said that the song had calmed the troubled waters, and no doubt this scene would be the last that would be witnessed in Madison.  After order had been restored, Mr. Codding proceeded with his speech, and such a raking-down as the old pro-slavery party got was not only amusing, but very entertaining.  At the close of Mr. Codding's address the cry came from all parts of the house, "Another song, another Anti-slavery Song."  As I had become considerably aroused, I gave them the song entitled "The Vision."  The incident is supposed to have taken place in the "Nether World," Purporting to be a conversation between the departed ghost of a southern slave-holding clergyman and the devil.

                   A VISION

"At dead of night when others sleep,

  Near hell I took my station,

And from that dungeon dark and deep

  O'er heard this conversation:

'Hail Prince of darkness, ever hail,

  Adored by each infernal,

I came among your gang to wail,

  To taste the death eternal.'

"'Where are you from?' the Fiend demands,

  'What makes you look so frantic,

Are you from Carolina's strand,

  Just west of the Atlantic;

Are you that man of blood and birth,

  Devoid of human feeling;

The wretch I saw when last on earth,

  In human cattle dealing?'

"'Whose soul with blood and rapine stained,

  With deeds of crime to dark it,

Who drove God's image starved and chained,

  To sell like beasts in market?

Who tore the infant from the breast,

  That you might sell its mother;

Whose craving mind could never rest

  'Till you had sold a brother?

"'Who gave the sacrament to those

  Whose chains and handcuffs rattle;

Whose backs soon after felt the blows

  More heavy than thy cattle?'

'I'm from the south,' the Ghost replies,

  'And I was there a teacher;

Saw men in chains, with laughing eyes,

  I was a southern preacher.

"'In tasselled pulpits, gay and fine,

  I strove to please the tyrants;

To prove that slavery is divine,

  And what the Scripture warrants.

And when I saw the horrid sight

  Of slaves by torture dying,

And told their masters all was right,

  I knew that I was lying.

"'I knew all this, and who can doubt

  I felt a sad misgiving?

But still I knew if I spoke out,

  That I should lose my living.

They made me fat, they paid me well

  To preach down abolition.

I slept; I died; I awoke in hell.

  How altered my condition!

"'I now am in a sea of fire,

  Whose fury ever rages.

I am a slave and can't get free,

  Through everlasting ages.

Yes, when the sun and moon shall fade,

  And fire the rock dissever,

I must sink down beneath the shade,

  And feel God's wrath forever.'

"Our ghost stood trembling all the while.

  He saw the thing transpiring.

With soul aghast and visage sad,

  'All hope was now retiring.'

The demon cried, on vengeance bent,

  'I say, in haste retire,

And you shall have a negro sent

  To attend and punch the fire.'"

     This meeting in Madison was a great success, giving me quite a large addition to the subscription list of the American Freeman.  On the next day, we took our departure to fill other engagements made before our returning to Waukesha, Mr. Codding was comparatively a stranger in the State, but in every place he made a good impression, and almost in every instance he made converts.  After a three weeks' trip throughout the State, we returned home feeling that the anti-slavery cause was in a prosperous condition in that section of the Union.

     In 1844 we had a very exciting time in Wisconsin defending the poor fugitive slaves, and keeping them from being returned to their cruel masters' hands.  But be it to the credit of the anti-slavery men and women of Wisconsin, there never was a fugitive slave returned to his master from the Territory or State of Wisconsin.  We used to have glorious times in foiling the machinations of the slave-holders and their sympathizers.  The slave, Caroline Quarrells, came into our state direct from St. Louis.  She was almost white, but that was no bar for her pursuers.  It only spurred them on to greater vigilance, as she was a very valuable piece of property for them to have, as far as dollars and cents was concerned.  Caroline left St. Louis in the daytime and came on a steamboat to Alton, Illinois.  From there she came directly to Milwaukee by stage coach.  She was so white that no one ever suspected that she was a slave girl.  On her arrival in Milwaukee she was directed to one Titball, a barber, and a colored man at that.  But soon after Caroline arrived there her pursuers came also, and about the first man they met was this Titball.  He was asked as to Caroline's whereabouts, as it was presumed he would know all about it.  But he kept shady until the slave hunters offered him $100 to produce her, which was agreed upon.  But as there is "many a slip between the cup and the lip," it got out among the anti-slavery advocates that there was a fugitive in town and that her master was there in close pursuit, so something must be done at once.  Titball had a colored boy that could be trusted, and he knew that the girl was at Titball's house.  The boy was approached by the ant-slavery people and asked if he knew where she was.  He at once said he knew just where she was, and that Titball had told him to conceal her.  He was asked if he would go with them to see the girl.  He said he would.  The girl was pointed out and removed to other quarters just in time, as Titball had agreed to place her in the hands of her master for $100.  But the game had taken wing and flown.  Titball lost his $100 and the master a slave girl worth to him $2,000.  Caroline was moved to the west side of Milwaukee river and kept for a day or two, quite near the street, in a hogshead turned upside down.  But it was thought best to remove her to Waukesha, where the anti-slavery people knew she would be safe. * * * 

pg. LIII to pg. LXXV

THE MEMORABLE YEAR OF 1854

     In 1854 * * * the arrest and imprisonment of Joshua Glover, the fugitive slave that had escaped in St. Louis.  * * *  the name of Sherman M. Booth * * *