Another Googling success

[Erato]

You just never know what you're going to find with Google.  Today I turned up a report of a kayak trip on Chapman Creek which flows through Chapman's Marsh and into Buffalo Lake (a wide meander of the Fox River) just north of Endeavor, Wisconsin.  Chapman Creek and the marsh were presumably named after gg-grandpa B.H. Chapman whose farm was just to the south on the high ground above the marsh.  He settled there in 1849.  The creek is now essentially a highly modified drainage ditch.  Nevertheless, the report has a lengthy description, numerous photos and a video, so it gives an idea of what the marshland was like in the old days.

As an added bonus, the trip ended at the boat landing in Endeavor - the only close-up photos I've ever seen of the actual landing.  In the 1880s-1890s, the landing property was owned by Ann Brown, the wife of B.H. Chapman's son Cecil Chapman.  This was important because Cecil was my g-grandfather's brother-in-law, and the family connection gave him ready access to the only landing along this stretch of the Fox River.  This was essential for his lumber business.

Moral of story - keep Googling.

https://www.wisconsinrivertrips.com/segments/chapman-creek

[Top-of-the-hill]

  Amazing what you find googling. Some years ago I was following a branch of the family in America, and found a lot about them, including Lake Byron in South Dakota, named after Byron Pay. He enlisted for the Civil War aged about 16, and was awarded a medal, but not until many years later. The story is that he was rather disgusted at the late arrival of the medal, and threw it in the lake!

[Erato]

I also came across an excellent lecture by a University of Wisconsin geography professor on the landscape, glacial origins and social history of the so-called 'sand counties' of central Wisconsin. Marquette County is part of this region, and my ancestors may have made a mistake by choosing to settle there as it is characterized by relatively poor, sandy soils.  Despite that drawback, they made a go of it and there are still some descendants farming there to this day, including the original Chapman farm which has been in the family for 175 years and is currently owned by a third cousin.

https://watch.sdpb.org/video/university-place-legacy-ice-age-winds-forest-and-prairie/

[MollyC]

When studying English townships which had enclosures of commons in the 18th century, it is noticable how commons coincided with the geological map, whether having light sandy soil with little humus, or heavy clays with the poorest drainage.  The least cultivatable areas had been left as common and used in other ways for centuries.  Our ancestors had an instinctive feel for the land without the help of the Geological Survey.  Fortunately we have a very varied landscape.