Alto native, Medal of Honor
winner, writer and lecture
agent, James Pond, left,
and wife, right, with Samuel
Clemens and family, 1895
(courtesyKevin Dier-Zimmel)
| "Having spent my first Sabbath
at Waupun I next visited Ceresco, where a settlement had been made by the Wisconsin
Phalanx, a Fourierite Association. There was no direct route, as all previous travel had
taken a circuit to the west, thereby striking the trail from Watertown. But I deemed it
best to open a track at the outset across the country to the point of
destination...." |
| From Rev. W. G. Miller's Thirty
Years in the Itinerancy, 1845. |
|
Carter, George W. "The Booth War in Ripon," from
Proceedings of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1902.
Carter's firsthand account of the armed standoff between
Federal marshals and antislavery activists in Ripon in 1860.
Darling, Mason C. A Winter's Journey from
Milwaukee to Green Bay, from Wisconsin Historical Collections, 1857
Available through the Wisconsin Electronic
Reader project of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Library System and the State
Historical Society of Wisconsin.
Dart, Richard. "Settlement of Green Lake County,"
from Proceedings of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1909, pages 252-72.
Written with Samuel T. Kidder, former president of the Ripon
Historical Society, Dart's history discusses the early days in Green Lake County from 1840
to 1843 and includes lengthy passages discussing contact with members of the Winnebago
nation as well as biographical information about his father, Anson Dart, for whom the
current community of Green Lake was originally named.
Everest, Kate Asaphine. "How
Wisconsin Came by Its Large German Element," from Collections of the State
Historical Society of Wisconsin, Volume XII, 1892.
The article, available on the Library of Congress Web site, Pioneering the Upper Midwest: Books
from Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, ca. 1820-1910, is an early study based on the
University of Wisconsin doctoral dissertation of Kate Asaphine Everest, one of the
prominent early historians of German settlement in the midwest and a student of Frederick
Jackson Turner.
Levi, Kate Everest. "Geographical
Origin of German Immigration to Wisconsin," from Collections of the State
Historical Society of Wisconsin, Volume XIV, 1898.
The article, available on the Library of Congress Web site, Pioneering the Upper Midwest: Books
from Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, ca. 1820-1910, is a second study growing out
of the University of Wisconsin doctoral dissertation of Kate Asaphine Everest Levi, one of
the prominent early historians of German settlement in the midwest and a student of
Frederick Jackson Turner.
Mapes, D. P. An Account of the Early City of Ripon (1870), in The
History of Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, Chicago, Western Historical Company, 1880.
Mapes, the founder of the city of Ripon, describes the
origins and early years in the development of the city.
Merrill, Edward Huntington, D. D. John Scott Horner: A Biographical Sketch, in
the Proceedings of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin at Its Fifty-Third Annual
Meeting Held November 9, 1905, Madison: Published by the society, 1906.
Merrill's brief biography traces the career of Horner, one
of the co-founders with David Mapes of the city of Ripon, acting governor of the Michigan
Territory, and secretary of the Wisconsin Territory.
Miller, Rev. W. G., D. D. Thirty
Years in the Itinerancy, Milwaukee: I. L. Hauser & Co., 1875.
Miller's recollections, available on the Library of Congress
Web site, Pioneering the Upper
Midwest: Books from Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, ca. 1820-1910, of his travels
and efforts as a Methodist minister in western Fond du Lac County from 1845 to 1874. His
narrative touches on the residents and countryside around Ripon, Waupun, Brandon,
Oakfield, and Rosendale as well as the communities of Dartford (Green Lake) and Fox Lake.
Nohl, Friedrich. Trip Diary of
Friedrich Nohl, German Immigrant, 1849.
Nohl's personal narrative of his emigration from Germany to
Ripon, Wisconsin. The source is the genealogical compendium, Our Family Museum,
by James Nohl Churchyard, 1694 Santa Margarita Drive, Fallbrook, CA 92028-1639. It
is available only on this web site and has not been printed.
Pond, James Burton. from
"Eccentricities of Genius." 1900.
This selection on the University of Virginia electronic text
site, courtesy of Stephen Railton, is the journal account of Pond's 1895 journey across
North America, with Mark Twain, as manager of the first leg of Twain's world tour. Pond's photographs of the trip
are included; Pond's role in and publicity for the 1884-85 tour of Twain and George W.
Cable is also on the site, titled "Touring with Cable and
Huck"
Pond, James Burton. "First Question Answered," James
B. Pond, from Eccentricities of Genius, 1900.
Pond's autobiographical preface to his portraits of the men
and women he managed on the Lyceum circuit, mentioning his early abolitionist activities
and emphasizing his experiences with Mormonism in Utah.
Pond, James Burton. "Charles Sumner," James
B. Pond, from Eccentricities of Genius, 1900.
An autobiographical piece relating a disillusioning encounter
between the great albolitionist spokesman and Pond and his father, Willard Pond, in 1858
in Ripon, Wisconsin.
Pond, James Burton. "A Pioneer Boyhood. Recollections of the West
in the Forties," in The Century Magazine, October, 1899 (Vol. LVIII, No.
6, pp. 929-37).
Pond's narrative offers his recollections about his early
life in Lake County, Illinois and Alto Township, Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, in the
1840's and 1850's. Pond's family lived in the northeast corner of section 8 in the town of
Alto, two miles south of the village of Fairwater, 4 miles northwest of the current
village of Alto.
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