| Notes |
- JOHN HARDY, the owner of one of Ellington township's excellent tracts of farming land, is a representative agriculturist of this township. He is a son of Owen Hardy, who was born in 1813, in County Louth, Ireland, and came to the United States in 1842, settling first in Vermont, where he resided for seven years. He came to Outagamie county, Wisconsin, in 1849, settling in Ellington township, where he homesteaded 160 acres in the woods, the nearest postoffice at that time being at Green Bay, thirty miles northeast. Mr. Hardy experienced all of the hardships and privations incident to pioneer life, but eventually cleared up his farm and put it under cultivation, and he continued to operate here until his death, April 15, 1891. Mr. Hardy married Katherine Newcomb, in New York City, she having been born within one-half mile of Mr. Hardy's home in Ireland, and she died at the age of sixty-three years, October 23, 1878. John Hardy was one of three children, and was born August 10, 1851, the first white child born in Ellington township. He received some education in the district school of his neighborhood, but most of his learning was gained in the school of hard work, starting to do his full share of the labor on the farm as soon as he was old enough to reach the plow handles. In 1888 when his father's health failed, Mr. Hardy took over the management of the home place, and three years later, at his father's death he became owner of the property. On April 30, 1877, Mr. Hardy was married to Anne Ringrose, daughter of Morris Ringrose and his wife Anne, natives of Ireland who came to the United States and settled in Appleton, where both died, the father April 13, 1882, and the mother December 21, 1904. Mrs. Hardy was born October 10, 1855. Mr. and Mrs. Hardy have had twelve children: Katherine, John, Mary, Morris, James, Anne and Margaretta, twins, Nellie and Edward, also twins, Thomas, Genevieve and Frances. Mrs. Hardy is a member of the Catholic Church at Stephensville. For six years Mr. Hardy served as a member of the town school board of Ellington town.
- John Hardy Was First White Child Born in Town of Ellington
By W. F. Winsey
To be the first white child born in the town of Ellington, to have been cared for by Indians for their teepees, have a family of 12 children, all grown up and healthy, to have lived 73 years or all his life on the farm on which he was born and to be one of the two oldest living pioneers in the town, is a rare record. Such an honor can crown the life history of only one man in Outagamie co. and that man is John Hardy.
Owen Hardy, the father of John, came from a farm near the Bennington battlefield in 1849 to found a new home for his wife and himself in the wilds of Wisconsin.
The party traveled west on the old Erie canal to Buffalo and from that city to Milwaukee on the lakes. On his arrival to enter land, the elder Mr. Hardy left his wife in Milwaukee and continued his journey on foot to Green Bay where the land office was located. After settling the land question, he walked back to Milwaukee to get his wife. Together they then traveled to Appleton by ox team.
Built Log Hut
Shortly after reaching Appleton, Hardy in company with four other men set out to locate the land and to build a hut thereon. As they had no tools but axes and no team, they were forced to roll the logs from the stumps to position for the home. Each time during the building operations that they exhausted their food supply, they returned to Appleton for a new supply. Before the building process began, William Haffner, the surveyor of the party, was an invaluable aid to Hardy in locating the claim.
As Hardy arrived on his farm in the month of June, the season was too far spent to admit of clearing land and planting crops. As a sawmill had been build the year before in Stephensville by a Mr. Stephens, Hardy applied at the mill for work.
The pine boards sawed in this mill were floated in small rafts down Bear creek to the Wolf river where larger rafts were made of the. These larger rafts were steered down the Wolf river and through Lakes Poygan and Butte des Morts and the Fox river to Oshkosh. The rafts were constructed by piling the boards on parallel timbers in the water. From Oshkosh the men having charge of the rafts returned to the mill by rowboat. Mr. Hardy while connected with the mill was rafting.
Cleared Land
When the first winter drew near, Hardy left the sawmill and began clearing his land for crops the next spring. As he was green at such work he did not get on rapidly at first. The sawmill sent men and teams to the Hardy farm to help move logs and plant the first crop.
The first farm products that Hardy had to sell were marsh hay, potatoes, and oats. His first farm money came from these sources. The lumber company bought everything on the farm that Hardy had to sell. Five years passed, however, before Hardy had much land cleared and much farm produce to share.
While Hardy was clearing his land teams were passing his farm over a tote road that extended from Green Bay through the Indian reservation, Freedom and Stephensville, to Stevens Point. The teams were drawing supplies to the sawmills and settlers along the road. As there were no bridges over the streams, travel in winter over this road was more popular than in summer. One hundred pounds of white fish was delivered by these teams to settlers for $2.50 a hundred pounds. Mail carriers also passed over this road and delivered supplies by sleigh in winter and on horseback in summer. The mail carriers invariably passed the right with the Hardys as did the teamsters.
Mrs. Hardy made clothing for her family from dry goods brought from Green Bay, but underwear and stockings were made from wool produced on the farm.
Born in 1851
John Hardy, the antecedents of whose birth may be found in the above account, made his entry into Ellington on the Hardy farm in 1851. When he first noticed the dawn and for ten years thereafter, ten families of Indians lived on the Hardy farm in teepees not over ten rods from the shanty. In very cold weather as many of these Indians as could be accommodated, rolled up in blankets and stretched out on the floor of the Hardy shanty for the night.
When the Indians were short-handed as often was the case, the Hardys furnished them with provisions. As the Indians fished and hunted for a living, they kept the Hardys supplied with fish and venison.
Big Indian John was the head of one of the families mentioned. When the Hardys were away from the farm or working in the woods or fields, a daughter of big John took care of the Hardy youngsters in the teepees or in the Hardy Shanty.
Indians Helpful
Big John was the last Indian to move his teepee from the destruction wrought by the axe of the white man on and about the Hardy farm. Gone but not forgotten or forgetting, Big John returned on a visit annually for many years. Finally as is the case with all whites as well as Indians, those visits ceased altogether. Whether John is so incapacitated that he cannot repeat his visits or has gone to join all good Indians in the happy hunting grounds, John Hardy does not profess to know. However that may be, Big John dropped suddenly out of sight and John Hardy has heard nothing more of him.
Although there were always tempting hogs, sheep and cattle and other movable property about the Hardy farm, nothing was ever missed or damaged while the Indians lived on the Hardy farm. The Indians had no property of any kind themselves except tents issued to them by the government but they always respected the property rights of their white friends.
In these early days, there was nothing but a trail from the Hardy farm to Mackville but from Mackville to Appleton there was a road for teams. A Catholic church had been built at Mackville but there was no church either at Greenville or Stephensville. So the Hardy home for years was used for religious services, a priest going out at call or stated times from Appleton.
Few There in 1849
John Hardy says that when his father arrived in Ellington, there were only 25 settlers there, except the crow of the sawmill. Settlers came rapidly in 1849. Some of them, when they discovered the hardships to be endured in the new country and the swarms of pestiferous mosquitoes infesting the woods and brush to be fought, returned as quickly as they came. Their places were soon filled by other settlers who acquired the land abandoned, on tax titles. As one settler would invite ten others back home to come on, the town of Ellington filled up very quickly.
The town government of Ellington was probably organized by John R. Rynders who left the town of Ellington. Chautauqua Co, N. Y. and settled in 1847 on the farm near Hortonville now occupied by Alvin Schmidt. On account of the water power and the sawmill located there, Mr. Rynders soon left his Hortonville farm, bought all the land on the west side of the street in Stephensville and opened up a little store. He it was who named the town after the one he left in New York state and Mr. Stephens named the village. Mr. Rynders moved his family to Stephensville in 1854.
It was John Rynders who, John Hardy and others say, organized the town government of Ellington and was the town government, clerk, treasurer, assessor and justice of peace with no opposition, for years.
The Hardys lived ten years in their log shanty and in 1860 they built the house now occupied by John Hardy and his son's family.
John Hardy was united in marriage to Anna Ringross at the age of 26 years. From this union, seven girls and five boys, all now living, were born. The mother died four years ago.
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1851 - 1924 (73 years)
