1870s

The Bonniwell Bible comes home to Mequon

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 5 Comments

UPDATE, Nov. 30, 2022: The discussion of the William Bonniwell signatures and dates, below, is not correct. I have lined-through the incorrect paragraph and added the correct info in two new paragraphs below the original misinformation.

It may not look like much on the outside. It’s old. Not very big. Whole pages are missing, others are damaged. The binding is worn.

Bonniwell Bible, front cover. Photo credit: Kendalyne Gentile, 2022

But this modest book was—for over 300 years—the family Bible for Mequon’s pioneer Bonniwell family, their ancestors and descendants. And last month, the Bible’s most recent owner, Bonniwell descendant Kendalyne Gentile, generously gave the Bible and other Bonniwell family documents to the Jonathan Clark House Museum where they will form an important part of our permanent collection.

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RBOH: Chewing Gum

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins.

Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time looking through digitized historical newspapers, trying to fill in some of the missing pieces of the Clark House story. In the process, I’ve managed to discover some unique and important information about the Clarks, Turcks, Bonniwells and their neighbors. And I’ve also run into a lot of off-topic but fascinating tidbits about daily life in Wisconsin during the Clarks’ era, such as this random bit of history:

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Summer evening…

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins.

Hello, readers! Sorry for the long blog silence. I hope you are well.

It’s been a busy summer at my house, filled with the usual demands of job, summer garden chores, lots of behind-the-scenes history research and, alas, an unexpectedly large number of mundane but unavoidable tasks, most of which are now behind me.

I have a backlog of half-written posts to finish and share with you. In the meanwhile, I hope you enjoy this photo.

Cedar Creek, looking north from the Columbia Road bridge, Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Photo credit: Reed Perkins, July, 2022.

The view looks north along Cedar Creek from near the historic Cedarburg Mill, about two miles north of the Jonathan Clark House. Turn off the electric lights, and this is a view that the Clark family would have known well.

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The Bonniwells & Co. in California, 1849 & 1850

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 7 Comments

Our last two posts focused on the evidence we have that documents the Bonniwell family’s two-part trip west to the gold fields of California: by the Panama shortcut in 1849 and by the overland route in 1850. Today I’d like to focus on the members of Bonniwell company after the end of their westward voyage(s), and give you a sense of their experiences as newly-arrived prospectors in the California gold diggings through period drawings, lithographs, photographs, and a substantial excerpt from the Bonniwell Gold Rush diary.1

Currier & Ives. Gold mining in California. California, ca. 1871. New York: Published by Currier & Ives. Library of Congress. As always, click the images to open larger versions in new window.

This colorful Currier & Ives lithograph presents a somewhat idyllic view of “Gold Mining in California” as imagined in 1871 by a New York artist who, most likely, had never been west of the Alleghenies. On the one hand, the lithograph does give us an hint of the splendors of the Sierra Nevada, and some idea of the typical activities of California miners. But as we’ll see, life in gold country when the Bonniwell party arrived—in the early, frenzied days of 1849 and 1850—was much less bucolic.

“Working the bar”

Much of early California gold prospecting involved looking for smaller and larger bits of gold found within the loose alluvial soils and sediments of the rivers and dry riverbeds of the Sierra Nevada. In particular, the miners spent a lot of time “working the bar.” And no, my fellow Wisconsinites, this does not mean they were strenuously pub-crawling in El Dorado county, circa 1849-1850.

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Memorial Day, 2022

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

Lest We Forget

Our annual Memorial Day post, first published in 2020. This revised edition, originaly published in 2022, was inadvertently updated for the further-revised 2023 edition, making a few minor edits and adding new information about Evander B. Bonniwell’s service. So the original 2022 post is “gone” and I’m going to leave this revised-revised version of that post here for reference, in case it is bookmarked elsewhere on the blog or in a readers’ notes.

Graves of Unknown Union Soldiers, Memphis National Cemetery, photo by Clayton B. Fraser, (Library of Congress), public domain. Memphis National Cemetery is the final resting place of Mequon’s Watson Peter Woodworth, and almost 14,000 of his Union Army comrades.

Today is the day our nation officially observes Memorial Day. For many Americans, Memorial Day represents “the first day of summer,” and is traditionally celebrated with trips to the lake, picnics, parades, and sales on cars, appliances, and other consumer goods.

But for many of us, Memorial Day remains rooted in its origins as Decoration Day. The first national observance was in 1868, when retired general John A. Logan, commander and chief of the Grand Army of the Republic—the Union veterans’ organization—issued his General Order Number 11, designating May 30 as a memorial day “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.”

On this Memorial Day, let’s take a moment to remember what this day truly represents.

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Under the weather…

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

I’m feeling a bit under the weather today, so Clark House research will have to wait. Fortunately, I’ve had my shots, so it looks like the usual advice of bed rest, fluids, and such should be all I need. If not, perhaps a swig of a potion like Dr. C. V. Girard’s Ginger Brandy will do the trick.

Dr. C.Y. Girard’s ginger brandy, for sale here / lith. of Robertson, Seibert & Shearman, 93 Fulton St. New York. , ca. 1860. New York: Robertson, Seibert & Shearman, 93 Fulton St. Library of Congress. Click to open larger image in new window.

After all, it’s “A Certain Cure for Cholera Colic Cramps Dysentery, Chills & Fever” and “is a delightful and healthy beverage.” Ya can’t beat that!

Of course, if Dr. Girard’s Ginger Brandy doesn’t help, there were so many other elixirs to choose from during the pre-Pure Food and Drug Act era, such as…

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Time to mow…

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins.

Guess what I did instead of writing a new Clark House Historian post! Here’s a clue, from about this time last year (revised and expanded for 2022)…

Spring weather in southeastern Wisconsin is pretty hard to predict these days. Spring 2021 was awfully dry. This year, spring has been wetter overall—I think—but the days have zigzagged rapidly and unpredictably between chill and damp or hot and humid. It’s almost like we haven’t had a proper Midwestern spring at all. And yet, the grass around the Historian’s house has already gotten pretty tall and scruffy. So it was time to get out the mower and tidy up (some of) the yard.

Maurer, Louis, Artist. The climax mower, most complete and perfect mower in the world, the Corry Machine Co., Corry, Pen. / L. Maurer. United States, None. [NY: the Major & Knapp Eng., Mfg. & Lith. Co., between 1869 and 1872] Photograph. Library of Congress.

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Alfred Bonniwell documents – part 7: landowner, 1845

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

When the extended Bonniwell family arrived in Wisconsin Territory in May, 1839, youngest son Alfred T. Bonniwell was not quite two months past his 13th birthday, and his brother Walter was only two years older. Because of their youth, neither Alfred nor Walter were able join their mother and brothers as they purchased government land and established what became known as Mequon’s Bonniwell Settlement.1

That changed for Alfred on June 7, 1845, when his mother, Eleanor (Hills Bonniwell) Hyde, gave him the eastern 80 acres of her original federal land patent.

Hyde, Eleanor (grantor) to A. T. Bonniwell (grantee), deed for 80 acres, June 7, 1845. See note 2 for source and details. Click to open larger image in new window.

Alfred would buy and sell several other properties in the 1850s and ’60s, but he held on to this parcel until his death, fifty years later. Let’s see what he got…

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Organizing…

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins.

It’s been a week of constant organizing at my house. A useful and productive week, perhaps, spent sorting, reading, and filing paperwork, and updating the household accounts. But not much writing.

Of course, the need to sort, repair and organize is not limited to our era. I suspect the Clarks, Turcks, Bonniwells—and their neighbors—spent a good bit of time trying to catch up with their 19th-century chores, like this fellow…

Guy, Seymour Joseph (1824–1910), Utilizing a Spare Moment, oil on canvas, c. 1860-1870. Yale University Art Gallery, public domain (CC0 1.0). Click to open larger image in new window.

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