A Standard History of Waupaca County, Wisconsin. An Authentic Narrative of the Past, with Particular Attention to the Modern Era in the Commercial, Industrial, Educational, Civic and Social Development.

              HISTORY OF WAUPACA COUNTY 541
Weyauwega. Mrs. Bennett is able to recall many interesting incidents of that memorable journey. Some of her recollections enable the people of modern times to reconstruct a picture of what Waupaca County was sixty-five years ago. The settlers at Weyauwega, she says, lived m.ostly in shanties, and there were probably not more than a dozen framed houses in the place. Two stores, one owned by Lorenzo Post, the other by Charley Gumear, and a small frame hotel, comprised the business center. There were no churches of any denomination, but the people met in a small log schoolhouse on the west side of Alill Street, near the site of the old jail, "No church bells to call us together, no trains to whistle as they went through, not much of anything to make life very pleasant for any one. Nothing but one unbroken wilderness clear through to White Lake except a small clearing on my father's farm. Still on and on through the great silent forest. We lived one year in the settlement and the following spring moved on the farm in Royalton. On that place the children grew up." The main road was not laid out at that time. The road used was about one quarter mile east, and there was no clearing between the Lilley house and town. Deer, wolves and some bear were plentiful, Mrs. Bennett has heard the wolves howl as they went through in droves in the early morning along the old road.
Mrs. Bennett contributes the following reminiscence of early times: "Aiy younger sister Clarissa, aged ten years, and myself aged thirteen, were sent to town for groceries one day. I was afraid to go with her, but did not tell any one of my fears on account of the wild animals. There was a large tree blown down about half way to town, and I watched it pretty close for I expected to see a big bear come out from behind the tree top. Sure enough the brush began to crackle, and my heart began to beat a little faster, and out came not bruin that I was looking for, but a great big deer walking very slowly with head held erect and his great antlers spread wide. Just behind him followed a nice big doe and in her wake a little fawn,
"A small foot bridge two planks wide just above the dam, and another plank bridge a short distance east, where they crossed with teams, were the only crossings. On the east bank of the river above the dam was a shanty occupied by Mr, and Mrs. Harrington. I spent three days with them at one time while Mr, Harrington and my brother Norman went hunting deer. My father came down every evening to see if they had returned. The third evening they came in without any game, I went home with them after dark, I was afraid to cross the river, but my father told me to hang on to his coat tail and he would take me across all right."
After the death of his first wife Aaron Lilley married again and later moved to Kansas, where he died. He cleared up his land in Royal¬ ton Township and during his entire active career was a farmer. Of his sons, Alfred enlisted February 18, 1864, in the Fourteenth Wisconsin Regiment, and died just one month later and wasx buried at Madison. Norman W. Lilley, another son of Aaron, whose death was only recently chronicled, had been a resident of Waupaca County sixty-five years.