Incidents and Anecdotes of Early Days and History of Business in the City and County of Fond Du Lac From Early Times to the Present, Personal Reminiscences, Remarkable Events, Election Results, Military History, Etc.

              FROM EARLY DAYS TO THE PRESENT 115
''They for a short time, were the only citizens of the town, but were soon followed by Mr. Botsford, Mr. Silvernail, Mr. Tanner and Mr. Hazen. The next year Mr. Hubbard, Mr. Ripley, Mr. Sykes and Mr. Westfall became their neighbors. There were no roads; Indian trails were the only thoroughfares, and the few settlers on many occasions, became acquainted with the hardships and privations of pioneer life. Provisions and groceries were only obtained at Green Bay, about seventy miles distant.
"Families were sometimes destitute of any kind of food, but potatoes, for four weeks in succession, and while the men were gone to Green Bay for provisions, women were frequently left entirely alone for three or four days and nights, surroundeed by wolves and Indians.
"Mrs. Westfall was once left, not only alone, but destitute of any kind of food, but such berries or roots as the woods afforded, for three days and nights; and to make her condition more unpleas¬ ant, her fire became extinct, she had no means of rekindling it, and thus surrounded by wolves, Indians and innumerable mosquitos, she passed the night in total darkness. Mr. Westfall and his wife endured many hardships and sufifered many privations; he was once lost in the woods forty-eight hours without food, in a severe rain storm; he finally reached his home with his clothes torn, his limbs swollen and lacerated, in a state of great exhaustion. He with his wife, endured the pinchings of poverty and misfortune, until January, 1847, when he was found frozen to death near what is now the village of Avoca, the first hamlet and postoffice in the town of Oakfield. When the railroad passed through Oakfield the site of the village was moved one mile west and called Oakfield. His widow was afterward married to Mr. Sherman Botsford, with whom she now lives, surrounded with all the comforts of life.
"Mr. John Wilkinson, who came into this town soon after his brothers Russell and Robert, was killed by the fall of a tree, about eighteen months after his arrival. He left a widow and four children. He had taken up forty acres of land, but had not paid for it. The neighbors, with that noble benevolence which is a peculiar character¬ istic of pioneers, in the midst of their own poverty and privations, raised the money, paid for the land and gave it to the bereaved family.
"Mr. Russell Wilkinson died suddenly of fever May 4th, 1847. His widow was afterward married to Mr. C. Tunison, with whom she now lives, on the same farm where they first lived in an Indian wig¬ wam, till Mr. Wilkinson built a log house."
Hon. H. D. Hitt was also one of the pioneers of the town of Oakfield and knows of the struggles of the settlers by experience. And he knows the lay of the land from Milwaukee to Fond du Lac, having passed over the country more than once on foot.
The Sylvester family also know of country hardships by bitter experience. Meeting with misfortune, three dollars was the total family capital on arrival at Milwaukee. This was pooled for imme¬ diate use and nine months of hard work enabled them to start for