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Hardship was common among the farm pioneers
who immigrated to the Town of Stettin from Ger-
many.
They had "their trials, their hardships, their suf-
ferings, their privations and, for many years, the
coarsest of fare and garments," it was reported.
But the worst days of anxiety and fear, amounting
almost to desperation, were experienced when sick-
ness laid its paralyzing hand on a member of the
family and the others had to see the suffering with-
out the ability to alleviate the pain.
In those days, there were no physicians within
many miles and no roads to reach help.
If the work of men was hard, the life of the
pioneer women was harder still. They were real
helpmates, assisting in clearing and piling of under-
brush, sawing logs, handspiking them together and
burning them, helping in planting and harvesting,
and often taking the little children out in the field
wrapped in comforters and attending their wants
during pauses in the field work.
Cattle roamed freely in those days. In fact, all
the domestic animals were running at large, picking
their food in the woods. After cattle food, such as
hay and straw, had given out in the spring, the cattle
browsed on the young shoots of the fresh cut trees.
This isn't exactly prescribed for milking cows, one
observer noted, but it kept the cows alive.
Men and women wore home spun clothing, color-
ed by boiling it in the bark of hemlock or butter-
nut shell.
The Town of Stettin had a touch of the Indian
scare which swept over the State of Wisconsin,
when thousands of farmers fled to the larger cities.
This scare followed the Sioux War in Minnesota,
which began with the terrible massacre of the people
of New Ulm in the summer of 1862.
An incident near the Village of Wausau caused

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-- Other 6jJardships
some friction between Indians and whites. A white
woman claimed she had been assaulted by the son
of a Chippewa chief while picking berries near the
Wisconsin River.
A meeting was held in Ringle's Hall in Wausau
and while debate was on, a man, out of breath, ran
into the hall shouting, "They are coming down the
river in canoes. I have seen their lights."
The men stampeded for their homes to arm them-
selves. They returned with guns, axes, pitchforks
and one had a scythe. When they checked the river,
they found the Indians in two bark canoes, spear-
ing fish and using lights, of course.
One group of six men lived all one winter on
one ox which had died from sickness and whose
frozen carcass furnished their meals. They had
some peas also, but no flour. Potatoes were a rarity.
One barrel of cooked and mashed potatoes was
brought all the way from Belvidere, Ill. They were
"hailed with delight," according to reports. Salt
pork furnished the standard meal and everybody
was reported to be happy when there was plenty
of it.
The men just didn't have the time to go hunting,
but they did resort to fishing to help out the monoto-
nous menu. There were then no trout in the creeks,
but they never looked for any, as catfish weighing
15 pounds were more in popular favor than would
have been the finest trout, reports one old-timer.
It was fortunate that the Town of Stettin was
settled after 1842, for this was a terrible winter and
many Indians perished of hunger. One of the
chiefs, Mayig (the otter), who had a large family,
killed his squaw and he and the children subsisted
on her remains, it is reported.
The wretched Indians, in their begging expedi-
tions into Big Bull Falls, had to be driven off with
clubs, it is said.

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