FESSENDEN WEATHER

CodeRED Weather Warning

History of Wells County

 I have always been of an historic mind, and my articles published in the Wells County Free Press in 1916-17 were the beginning of this book.

In the year 1915, after many repeated requests from by boyhood friend, C.M. Brinton, then editor of the Free Press, that I write something for his paper on the early history of the Wells County as I knew and saw it when a boy there in the “Eighties.”  Realizing that time was fleeing and the old pioneers were passing down the valley one by one, and many of them were already resting in that house not made with hands- “Eternal in the Heavens” – and this debt to posterity unpaid, I consented to do so, even thought I knew that there were those who were older and more active in the business and social life of those days who should have done this.
 
However, I have found it a pleasure, even though much effort was required.
 
To verify my memory it has necessitated my writing of England, Scotland, Australia, Canada, and all over the United States –as, for example the sketch and photograph of Cortez Fessenden required many letters and some tow years to obtain.
 
To Posterity I submit these records of the pioneers who, with their adventurous spirits, blazed the first trail, and with their forethought and sturdy, undaunting natures, laid the foundations and made possible the Wells County of today, -blending, as they did, the Culture of the East, the Engergy of the North, the Hospitality of the South, and Vision of the West.
 
To my pioneer friends and neighbors, who have so kindly substantiated many facts and much data for me, I am truly grateful.  So lest
            “-Auld acquaintance be forgot,
            And never brought to min’
            We’ll tak’ a cup o’kindness yet
            For days of auld lang syne.”
 
Walter Earnest Spokesfield
January 1, 1928.
Copyrighted, 1929 by Walter E. Spokesfield.  All rights reserved.