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by
C. B. |
Life back in the 1830’s was very hard. The first farm family in Dunleith, now East Dubuque, was the Frentress family. Eleazer Frentress and his family, his wife Diademia and two small children, had moved by steamboat from Alton to the city of Galena. When they got there, there were less than six cabins, and nowhere for them to stay. There was a keelboat tied up, and they took shelter there. The keelboat was heading north, so Mr. Frentress and his family went north with it to Cassville, Wisconsin where they had heard of the discovery of lead. |
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| Mrs. Frentress was the first white woman to go into the wilds of Wisconsin. At this time, she was the mother of two small children, Thomas, aged four, and Lucy, two years old. It was very hard to take care of two little kids on a boat, where the kids could fall off and get hurt. She was very brave to face the constant threat of Indians with her two young children. They settled down to mining life a few miles from Cassville, in the town of Beetown, with a small group of other miners. | |
| On July 4th, 1827, there was an Indian scare, and the camp was quickly abandoned. The men of the camp had gone to Cassville. When they arrived there they found a keelboat in the river that had been attacked by the Winnebago Indians. One man had been killed, another one wounded, and the boat was full of bullet holes. The Beetown miners rushed back to the camp and prepared to leave for Galena. The women quickly packed whatever they could carry. The camp had fifteen people all together; two woman, two children, one injured man, and ten healthy men, but there were only two horses. The two women and one child were put on one of the horses. The injured man was on the other horse. They left at four o’clock in fear of an Indian attack. They traveled for about fifty to sixty miles in pitch dark. They had to stop in the darkness because of a windfall of fallen trees and very thick brush, and they couldn’t find a way out. They huddled together for the rest of the night listening for Indians all the time. Around twelve o’clock on July 5, 1827, they arrived safely at Galena. | |
| The Frentresses went to Peoria for a month, and when they came back to Galena, they went back to the mines at Beetown, where they stayed until they made some money. In 1828, Mr. Frentress sold out for $700. He spent his money on a team of horses, two cows, and he leased a farm on Fever River, about four miles above Galena. Eleazer Frentress had 320 acres in Dunleith, what is now East Dubuque. | |
| In the spring of 1832, Mr. Frentress turned over the first furrow of prairie sod. Later that same year, while Mr. Frentress was working in his field, information came that the Indians were reported to be marching to Galena and were threatening to kill every man, woman, and child there. His wife sent a runner to him with the message, and the family rushed to the safety of Galena. It was probably a good thing they went. Two other men, Boxley and Thompson, who had started a farm near Frentress Lake, were killed and scalped in the corn field they were planting at the time. Eleazer Frentress joined Captain Vosburgh’s Company until a peace was made with the Indians. | |
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He started to build a double log cabin. The cabin was built out of round logs. There was a hall between the two parts. |
| On September 7th, 1832, the goods of the family were packed and loaded into wagons and the journey to the new home started. The trackways for the wagons had to be dug out and the banks of rivers had to be dug away to make crossings. It took two days to make the trip of less than ten miles. In the afternoon of November 8th, the family moved into their new house, which had been built the year before. It was regarded as the grandest farm house of all in this region of the country and it was always open to everyone. The Frentresses had 13 children, although only six of them survived. They were the first farm family in East Dubuque. | |
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Bibliography History of Jo Daviess County. Chicago: H.F. Kett & Co., 1878. |
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