“Tracing of family histories provides glimpse into hardships of pioneers” from the June 24, 1976 Door County Advocate
By GRACE KEITH SAMUELSON
Tracing of family histories provides glimpse into hardships of pioneers
By GRACE KEITH SAMUELSON
Pride is a funny thing. While we are in no way responsible for our ancestors we can be very proud of them and grateful that because of them we were born Americans.
Now in this bicentennial year of 1976 we know that at some time all Americans were immigrants, coming to the New World to settle in a nation whose founders declared all men created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights — life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
And in this pursuit our ancestors came, some early, some late. And, as myriad drops of water gather, form rivulets, streams, rivers, lakes, and then to the mighty ocean, so our ancestors’ course joined that of our immigrants, and generations of Americans were born.
Over two hundred years ago one of my ancestors, David McKinley, emigrated to this country. He was born in 1755 in Scotland. During the Revolution he served in Captain Reed’s company. His wife was Scottish, too.
After the war he moved to Crawford County, Ohio, then part of the Northwest Territory. He died in 1840. David had two sons: William, who was born in 1807, and who was to become the father of President William McKinley, and James, born in 1783, who was my great-great grandfather.
James settled in York County, Penn. His son, Peter McKinley, married Ellen Vossburg who was born in 1819, in Canada. (Her mother was Effie Norwood, a “Yankee.” They lived in Fairport, Ohio, but when Peter’s business partner failed he got as payment a trading post at Beaver Island, Mich.
With his wife Ellen, three daughters, Sarah, 10, Effie, 8, and Mary 5, they came to beautiful Beaver Island by sailing vessel in 1848. It had a lovely harbor, much fine timber, and beautiful scenery. Fishing here was the best, and the island abounded in game.
There were many tribes of Indians living there — Chippewas, who became friendly with the white people on the island, and traded furs for supplies and food. They also earned money during the summer and fall gathering berries.
There were wild strawberries, raspberries, huckleberries and cranberries. They were paid one dollar for a wooden pail full. There was a cooper on the island who made barrels and pails. Fish was shipped in barrels or kegs on the sailing vessels, and Beaver Island was a place of much activity.
The Indian children were very friendly with the whites, teaching them their games, bringing the girls bouquets of wild flowers which they handed over on the points of their spears. They were very adept with these spears in fishing: — standing upright in their birch bark canoes, they flashed the spear through the water and it came up every time with fish impaled on it.
They showed their fondness to the three girls, especially to Effie, whose red-gold ringlets fascinated them. Mary, the youngest girl, was terrified of some of the Indians, especially when dressed in warrior style, and she would scream when she heard them coming. Sarah, the eldest, kept a record of life on the island and she wrote that these were the happiest years of their lives. Indian women were very proficient in bead work. Their moccasins were trimmed with beautiful patterned bead work and they used porcupine quills, which they dyed with natural barks and roots, to decorate their leggings, and costumes. There were many beautiful Indian maidens.
The [abinoojiiyensag, babies] were carried on their backs, and Sarah says she could not recall ever hearing an Indian baby cry. The women had sweet, musical voices, and were very neat in keeping their wigwams. They made lovely woven mats for the floors. The [ikwewag, women] had the heaviest part of the work to do, and they were the ones who did the lugging for the [ininiwag, men]. Their chief was Peaine, who was devoted to Peter McKinley and his family and who saved their lives in later years.
In the summer the steamboats brought the mail to Beaver Island about every two weeks, and in the winter French or [mixed-race Indian-French] brought mail from the mainland over the ice with dog-teams. The islanders stocked up with supplies for the winter before navigation closed.
But this pleasant life was not to last, for terror and violence came to the island. In 1849 James Jesse Strang brought a small colony of Mormons to Beaver Island, established himself as “King” and proceeded to take over there. It should be rioted that this group was an offshoot of the followers of Joseph Smith, the original Mormon prophet, and the Brigham Young colony who made their way on to Salt Lake City.
This man Strang, a lawyer, founded his own Kingdom there bringing many converts from outlying territories to his ways. He acquired four wives and his elders and apostles did likewise.
His flock pillaged homes and property, stole fish ready for shipping, even murdered some inhabitants; others were driven off the island. Peter McKinley stayed on as long as he dared to try to protect his property. His wife took the girls back to Ohio so they could attend school there.
Sarah McKinley recounts in her letters how the Indian Chief’s brothers, Wa-ton-a-saw, and An-den-e-mx came with him, stayed on the island for two weeks to protect the family, and before leaving had a conference with Strang and his men. She recalls that the Mormons were told that all dealings with her father had been in honesty and that, “if a hair on his head was injured by this outlaw Mormon band the Indians would come and exterminate them from the face of the earth.” Peace reigned for awhile, then worse depredations began. Peter McKinley was driven from the Island; went to Mackinac with his family.
In time Strang was shot by two of his own men. He was taken back to Voiree, where his first and legal wife cared for him till he died. The Mormon colony were later driven off the island. A museum on Beaver Island has on display pictures, artifacts and history of Strang and his followers.
While the family lived in Mackinac Island Peter McKinley served two terms in the Michigan legislature at Lansing. In 1854 an outbreak of cholera took the life of Ellen McKinley. When the family went back to Beaver island again only two apple trees stood where their house had been. A lighthouse was built then and Peter was appointed Keeper of the Light in 1859.
A year later, however, he became paralyzed, and his daughters Effie and Mary kept the light for nine years. Sarah married Herbert Livingston and they later moved to St. Louis. Effie married Capt. Nathaniel Kirtland. They later moved to Egg Harbor, Wis.
The youngest girl, Mary Eliza, met James Elwood Keith, a soldier who had marched with Sherman to the sea and who was then stationed at Fort Mackinac. He was born in Manchester, Io., March 18, 1846. They were married in Iowa Apr. 27, 1868. So from the stream of immigrants they merged to form a wider stream, on its way to destiny.
From this union two children were born; my father, Burton James Keith — in Guthrie, Iowa, July 17, 1869, Grace Adele Keith, Dec. 25, 1873, at Egg Harbor.
When Burt Keith was about six he went to live with his Aunt Effie and Uncle Nathaniel Kirtland. Their home was high on the Egg Harbor hill, overlooking the dock, where, when he was twelve, he started to help load cordwood for the steamboats. At seventeen he had been sailing for some time and was then the youngest sailboat captain on the lakes. But his course took him over to Jacksonport one day and there he met “Tollie” (Mary Tollerton) Bagnall and a romance was begun.
Tollie was the oldest child of John Tollerton Bagnall, a timber cruiser at Jacksonport and thereabouts. John was born in Canada Aug. 6, 1839, the fifth child of George Bagnall who had emigrated to Frampton, Quebec, from Dunleary, Ireland, in 1835.
In the early 1860’s John left Canada and went to the States. In Chicago he was robbed of his money and his gold watch. He got a job as roustabout on a Goodrich boat coming up to Baileys Harbor. From there he walked to Jacksonport as there were other Canadians he knew working there.
In 1869 he went back to Canada to visit and returned to Jacksonport in January of 1870 with a bride, Eliza Rutherford. She was born in [Omagh, County Tyrone,] Ireland, and when she was five years old her parents brought her to St. Malachie, Canada. In later years she told of that crossing; six weeks in a sailboat. Her wedding dress was purple:—“second mourning” since her mother had died six months before.
True pioneer living was their lot. They moved about often because of his work. Log cabins, chinked with moss. Primitive means of cooking, hand made furniture. They didn’t miss the “conveniences” since no one else had them. There were few neighbors and many wild animals about so game was easily provided. Berries grew wild and those that weren’t eaten or made into pies Eliza preserved in stone jars sealed with a clean cloth dipped in wax. Using a dug-out canoe they paddled up Logan’s creek each night for water for cooking and washing. A spring provided their drinking water.
Then in November of 1870 Eliza’s first baby was due. No doctor or mid-wife in the village so a month before that time Eliza walked to Sturgeon Bay to be near a doctor. John followed after, shortly, with an oxen team, and the belongings they would need for that time. She could not possibly ride an ox-cart in her condition.
Halfway to Sturgeon Bay she stopped awhile to rest at the Ash home just east of where the Valmy church stands today. Here she rested an hour, was refreshed with tea, and the young daughter, who was later to become Mrs. William Bassford, walked a “piece” with her and carried her bundle.
Mary Tollerton Bagnall was born Nov. 13, 1870 and her early life was quite eventful. In the summer of 1871 the little family moved to Peshtigo where John worked again as a timber cruiser and where they were able to get milk for the baby. Then on Oct. 8, 1871 that terrible holocaust, the Peshtigo Fire, destroyed the town, the exact night of the Great Chicago fire.
Almost twelve hundred lives were lost at Peshtigo and small fires broke out all through the southern part of Door county, with a loss of life at Williamsonville of all but 17 of their settlers. At Peshtigo John Bagnall helped bury the unidentified dead in a mass grave, made coffins for many and helped clear away the debris. But the terrible sights were too much for him. When this work was done the family moved back to Door county. They located a farmer with a cow at Baileys Harbor and Tollie’s milk supply was assured.
There were nine children born to Eliza and John, seven of whom lived: Mary, Harry, Rutherford, Samuel, Truman, Nellie and Eva. Familiar names of their neighbors were the Robinsons, seven Bagnall families, Charles and John Reynolds, the Smiths, Wilsons, James Langemak, father of Jim and Arnold, who taught the school and later the “institute” training for teachers, Sarah and Mary McQuaide. One of her best friends, Sarah Kingston, later became the wife of Rev. Jameson, Episcopal minister. When Tollie was 19 she went to teach school in Nasewaupee. She taught there for two years. The first year she received all of $28 a month. The second year her salary was $30 a month. Her father spent four years in lumber camps at Maple Ridge, Mich., and it was there that she and Burt Keith were married Jan. 30, 1893.
She said that after the ceremony they crossed the bay on the ice, blankets and soapstones to keep them warm, but the wind sharp and stinging. As they neared Egg Harbor every whistle in the town began to blow in welcome. Burt worked at Thorpe’s store till it burned down, then at Washburn’s Sawyer store and when the Bank of Sturgeon Bay established a branch at Sawyer he served as manager for forty years.
McKinley avenue, Sawyer, 1913
The course of the streams moved on; branched out. John Bagnall died in 1897 and Eliza stayed on in their Jacksonport home on the shores of Lake Michigan, with other old settlers. She died in 1903. The town of Jacksonport grew from an isolated wilderness to a village with thriving industries. The pioneers induced others to settle there and each nationality seemed to find the sort of atmosphere they were used to in the Old World — Irish, Scots, English, German.
The Burt Keiths, lived in Sturgeon Bay, had four daughters: Vera in 1900, Verna in 1902, Grace in 1904 and Marian in 1910. Burt died in 1949, Tollie in 1955 at almost 85. The girls’ marriages brought a new dimension of nationalities to the family — Vera, Verna, and Grace to Norwegians; Marian to Bohemian and Scottish extraction. And their children found mates of such varied extraction that they all proved Wisconsin to be a melting pot. The streams widen, gather others; becomes a Mainstream.
C. R. Brook took this view of the east side of Sturgeon Bay in 1905.
The branch that merged from the North country — Norway — harks back to Samuel Swenson, born in Christiania, Norway 1780. He died in Norway in 1850. His wife, Johanna Swenson, born 1796, died in Sturgeon Bay in 1880, having come here with her son, Svend Anton Samuelson in 1854.
As was the Scandinavian custom Svend (son of Samuel) was known as Svend Samuelson. He was born in Christiania in 1825. His wife Hannah, was born in Norway in 1842 and they were married in Manitowoc in 1864.
Svend was Liberty town clerk for 11 years. Although there were many other Norwegians who settled in that part of the state few could read or write in English. Sven had learned both before coming to this country and a practice book of his shows the amount of improvement in both the wording and in his beautiful penmanship. He served with Col. Heg’s 15th Wis. Infantry during the Civil War, participated in battles in Perryville and Chattanooga and was commissioned as second lieutenant. Also served as Assemblyman from Manitowoc county in 1871.
In 1873 the family moved to Sturgeon Bay where many other Norwegians had settled. Sven bought 80 acres of farmland south of the bay on the Clay Banks road. There were seven girls and five boys born to them; two of the girls dying. The youngest, Delia Amanda, born in 1883, died of diphtheria and was buried in the family cemetery. Of the five boys, Albert Samuel (born 1869) was Stanley’s father. Svend died in 1891 while Hannah lived until 1926.
Albert Samuelson farmed and worked in the lumber woods when he was young; then was in the lighthouse service outside Chicago, conducting a lighthouse exhibit at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893. Later he operated a restaurant in Chicago for 22 years. He married Hilma Theodora Thompson (Dora) in 1900. They had eight children, four boys of whom lived Stanley, James, Albert Jr., and Roger. Albert Samuelson was in the hay business with Forland, then operated a cherry and apple orchard for many years. He was a trustee of the Moravian church and served as alderman for twenty years. He died in 1944.
An approach strip for the Cherryland airport is cleared from woods bordering Park rd. in Nasewaupee. Right-ot-way was purchased from Leroy Liebe.
His wife Dora also came of Norwegian stock. Dora’s grandfather, Thomas Olsen Helle, came to Manitowoc county from Valdres, Norway in 1846. With his brother, Stefan Olsen “Kubakke” Helle (Kubakke being the name of the town in Norway from which Stefan came) they made three trips back to Norway, recruiting many immigrants to this country.
On the third trip in 1852 aboard the steamer Atlantic, with about 800 Norwegians and other immigrants, their ship was rammed by the Ogdensburg in Lake Erie. Over half of the people were lost; among them Stefen’s mother.
Ole Helle built the first log cabin in Valders without nails: two-way dove-tailed corners fitted so they required no mortar — a two-story cabin. This was recently moved to Historical Village by the Manitowoc Historical Society.
Stefan was born in 1818 and died in 1892. Thomas Olson Helle was born 1811, married Kari Olson who was born in 1810. There were six children. Of them Ole Thompson Helle was to later become Dora’s father. He was born in 1841. His first wife, Olive Thiedemanson, was born in 1843. They had nine children, two dying.
Olive died in 1880, and Ole (who had Americanized his name to Ole Thompson) married Ida Kristianson. They had four children; two lived. Of his first family, Hilma Theodora married Albert Samuelson in Manitowoc in 1900. Their children and grandchildren found a new course to the Mainstream. “Americans all, our varied sources flow into mainstream on and on, and those who come after will be builders; this melting-pot of freedom seeking souls, whose love of God and country has placed us here, where waters merge. We return to meet our source — eternal and unbound.”
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive
[Four racial or ethnic related terms are changed. Ojibwe pronounciations for three terms are given. They are from https://www.mahnomen.k12.mn.us/page/basic-ojibwe-words-and-phrases, which also shows how to pronounce them. Also, the location in Ireland is changed to reflect the place Samuelson appears to be referring to. The original and uncensored version is available from the Door County Library Newspaper Archive.]
Articles by Grace Samuelson
https://doorcounty.substack.com/t/grace-samuelson