By Delores
Zillmer Miller
One hundred and thirty five years ago
our ancestors came from overseas to seek their fortune. Settled in Central
Wisconsin, which was a wild land of
forests, trees and rocks. In their German/Prussian/Poland homeland,
they were peasants working for rich absentee landlords. Houses and barns
were built together, the cow herds provided the heat for the
house. Emigrant tickets were provided by relatives already in America.
Here they decided to become dairy farmers.
Four feet of frost every
winter forced boulders to the ground surface, which had to be picked
before the land could be cultivated. A contraption known as a stone boat,
4 feet wide,
twelve feet long, looped upwards in front and pulled by a good team of
horses. These peasant children walked over the acres hoisting
pebbles, rocks, stones, cobblestones and boulders.
Sometimes the horses spooked and ran away, scattering stones over freshly picked
soil.
In the early years of the twentieth
century, farmers decided to build barns. The barn was essential for storage and
livestock shelter. The good Lord had provided these rocks:
granite, basalt, quartzite, sandstone. Masons worked for a dollar a day,
building a stone wall, ten foot high, two feet deep, three feet in the
ground. Rocks weighed about thirty pounds, and for a 36x50 foot
barn, 4000 rocks were needed for the 272 feet total of
rocks. Filled with a sand concrete mortar, huge boulders made
the corner stones, chiseled the year. This took about six weeks,
crews slept in tents, housewives cooked and baked each day to feed the
crew. No one builds barns like this anymore, only in our memories the
lore and legends remain.
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