New Recording 8

This recording discusses the historical battle over the county seat of Wapaka, Wisconsin in the mid-1800s, known as the Double Barrel County. The conflict involved power struggles, legal disputes, and contentious votes between East and West Wapaka. The feud lasted for years, involving imprisonments, disciplinary actions, and even physical altercations. Ultimately, the debate was settled in 1860, but the desire to relocate the county seat resurfaced periodically over the years. The narrative portrays the complex and human nature of the individuals involved in the historical events, highlighting their pride, selfishness, courage, and community spirit. The conflicts of the past reflect the enduring qualities of human nature across generations. Okay, this is recording number one for the podcast for Public History. This is just going to be a run-through, so there's no pressure. We will do another take, so don't panic. We had a double set of officers in the county. It was called the Double Barrel County. When a deed would be recorded in Muckwa, they would take it to Wapaka and have it recorded there. James Smiley, 1884. The year is 1852. The newly apportioned county of Wapaka, Wisconsin, is little more than a collection of settler towns separated by miles of thickets, windfalls, and swamps. It is through these swamps that a band of 12 men from the western portion of Wapaka County traipse single file. Their destination is Muckwa, where the first official vote for county officers is to be held. They'll have to hurry to make it on time. George W. Taggart, among the first settlers to the place now called Wapaka, describes the events surrounding the first vote taken in Wapaka County. After we got together, the first proceeding was to organize a caucus to make nominations for town and county officers. Mr. Davis and his party made serious objection to such proceedings for the reason that they had already selected several of the candidates, but they were willing that we should name the persons to fill out the rest of the ticket. This was not satisfactory to us, and having a majority of more than two or one, we assumed the right to dictate the whole matter and make tickets to suit ourselves. In the end, they managed to prevent the nomination of William Davis and James Smiley, both of Muckwa, to the offices of Chairman of the Board of Supervisors and Register of Deeds, respectively. In response to this, Taggart recalled that Mr. Davis, at whose door the voting was being held, disappeared with the legal pamphlet and statute paper, preventing any consultation on the legality of the proceedings. There was no great excitement, but the whole board of inspectors rose to their feet and, leaving the ballot boxes in charge of the clerks, walked into the store, followed by 10 or a dozen men. The chairman, as spokesman, promptly informed Mr. Davis that it might be conducive to the safety of himself and his premises to produce the pamphlet law. After looking the crowd over, he went quietly behind the counter, took the book from under a bale of goods, and handed it over. This was the first, but it would not be the last, contentious vote that was taken in the county. Resolved, that in the opinion of this board, the votes cast in the several towns of this county, at the late election for county officers in said county, for the permanent location of the county seat of said county, were in accordance with the provisions of the act setting off and organizing the county of Wapaka, and for other purposes, that said vote was in all respects according to law, that by the said vote the county seat of Wapaka County is permanently located in the village of Wapaka, and that the action of the board in ordering the sheriff, clerk of the court, and clerk of the board of supervisors to hold their offices at said village, and the circuit and county courts to be held also at said village, is based upon the belief that such vote was legal and that Wapaka is the county seat of Wapaka County. In April 1853, the provision of the legislation called for a vote to be taken to elect the county justice officers. Along with the ballots for judge, attorneys, clerks, and coroner, there was included a vote on the new locations of the county seat. The return ballots showed 114 votes for Wapaka, 51 for Makwa, 14 for Centerville, and one pragmatic vote for the center of the county. The men of Makwa were not pleased with the results of this, and Dana Dewey recounts a brief scuffle following the vote. The men of Makwa were, of course, much provoked that they had lost the county seat, and they went so far as to threaten that we would not be allowed to eat at the first table at dinner. We had beaten them once and were determined not to be cheated out of our dinner in that style. As soon as the landlord's motions indicated that the dinner was ready, we made break for the tables and again came out ahead. Ten days later, at a special meeting of the county board of supervisors in the then village of Wapaka, a vote was taken to move the offices of various county officers, including the sheriff, register of deeds, clerk of the court, and clerk of the board of supervisors, all to the village of Wapaka. This motion was carried three to one, with representatives from Wailiga and Makwa being the only dissenting votes. It seemed the village of Wapaka had sealed the victory, and to the western towns this outcome has been upheld from that moment on. But this consensus was far from unanimous, and in the annual election held in November of that same year in Makwa, a vote was taken that declared Makwa the official county seat. This board then passed a series of resolutions concerning the vote taken in April by the western Wapaka county board. Resolved that the vote taken for the permanent permanent location of the county seat at the general election last pass was illegal, as no point had been designated by the legislature to be voted for, and no notice given to the different towns in said county that such vote would be taken at that time. That Makwa is the county seat, and that all county officers for Wapaka county are hereby notified and required to hold their offices at said place. That all action taken by the board of supervisors at their meeting at Wapaka on the 15th day of April 1853 concerning the removal of the county seat from Makwa to Wapaka was hasty and without due consideration, and that all acts and resolves passed at that meeting relative to the removal of said county seat to Wapaka are hereby rescinded. The first shots of the double barrel county had been fired. The war over county seat had begun. For the next seven years, shots were exchanged over the invisible line separating east and west Wapaka. After the initial vote taken by western Wapaka, James Smiley was imprisoned for 10 days in the Portage County Jail for refusing to surrender county documents to the western Wapaka county board. In 1854, western Wapaka resident Mellon Chamberlain was brought under formal discipline and removed from his office as clerk of the board by the eastern Wapaka county board after refusing to call the board to order at their annual meeting. Champions of eastern Wapaka included the larger-than-life James Smiley, future state assemblyman Louis Bastado, and respected soldier-turned-lawyer Olaf Dreutzer. Western Wapaka was represented by equally impressive figures such as E.C. Sessions, one of the first settlers of Wapaka, James Jones, a respected businessman, and the Honorable Judge S.F. Ware. The towns in the middle of the county often played both sides of this debate in an effort to gain some leverage in county affairs or, in the case of Ogdensburg, to gain the advantage and take the county seat for herself. One Ogdensburg native recounts one of the votes taken at Ogden's door in 1854. At that time, Ogdensburg had just separated from the newly formed Iola and Scandinavia, and as such, many of the men present were Norwegians and Swedes who spoke no English. As the men gave their names, Charlie would write them as they were pronounced. The clerk being a German, you can imagine how the names read. No one could tell whether such persons lived in town or not. The county question was before the house, and we voted strong for the no. We favored Wyawiga and voted for her candidates. The representatives of Wapaka who attended the election were offended, raised a row, and were expelled from the room. The hostilities came to a head in the fall of 1855 when the boards of East and West Wapaka met simultaneously. Western Wapaka reconfirmed Mellon Chamberlain as the rightful clerk of the board, despite being removed from this position by the Eastern County Board for failure of duty after refusing to call their meeting to order. They also reasserted the validity of the 1853 vote, which named Wapaka as the county seat. Eastern Wapaka, at the same time, declared Wyawiga the lawful county seat by canvassed vote. The board adjourned to Wyawiga, and this seemed to be the beginning of the end of the hostilities. In 1856, a ceasefire was finally called. Clerks of both boards were called to resign and surrender their books, and in 1860 the board of supervisors met together in Wapaka, putting an end to the decade-long debate. Even after the matter seemed settled and the county board adjourned to Wapaka at last, the issue remained bubbling just under the surface for the good people of the county, and when the opportunity came to induce the seat away from Wapaka in the 1880s with the building of a new courthouse, several towns raised up bids to build new court buildings in their towns. Manawa, Royalton, and New London all briefly vied for the seat, but these were resolutely shut down, and the last recorded effort to remove the county seat from Wapaka was in 1914. The squabbles of 150 years ago can seem petty to us today. Perhaps it is even shocking to think our ancestors capable of the sort of name-calling and dirty dealing that we have explored here. It can be our tendency today to think of our ancestors as static sepia images in a gilded frame. We imagine them as characters in stiff collars and formal greetings who went through life with quiet dignity. The truth is, humans haven't changed much in the last 200 years. The men of the 1850s and 60s were much like the men and women of today. They were proud, selfish, courageous, quarrelsome, and altruistic. They were people. People who were proud of their communities and who had grand dreams for their futures. People who were willing to go to great lengths to secure the future well-being of their families, friends, and neighbors. And though for a time their weaker natures got the better of them, in the end the good of the people won out and they put their differences aside for the better of the whole. My many thanks to Tracy Barrett of the Wapaka County Historical Society for her help in finding sources for this project. Thanks also to Dr. Corey Holla who encouraged me to pursue this project and supported me along the way. And eternal thanks to my parents Peter and Michelle who instilled in me a love of history and storytelling. This project is far from a complete recounting of the early days of Wapaka County. My hope in creating this is that it will inform and inspire future Wapaka historians to learn about and love the people and place they come from. With my greatest respect and affection, Madeline.