DENOON LAKE
WAUKESHA COUNTY, WISCONSIN
INTRODUCTION
In 1994, when I went to visit the Denunes of Granville, Ohio (John B. and John Baughmann Denune and their families), they put me on the scent of a lake by the name of Denoon.
"I saw it on a map once," said John B. "I know it's pretty small. And it's just outside of Milwaukee."
A couple of weeks later, thanks to a particularly helpful roadmap, Wanderlust carried me off US-41, and onto a route which went through Muskego, WI. Just southwest of Muskego, I happened across a little, silvery lake with boaters and skiers and sunbathers and picnickers, and dotted all around with vacation homes. Lake Denoon, they called it. So said the signs.
I cruised down Denoon Road, which is practically in the lake, until I came to Denoon Beach, where the admission is $3 per person for the day. . . and where no one had the slightest idea where the lake got its name.
I tooled back down the path whence I'd come, trusting that some of the local color at Uncle Thirsty's Saloon (formerly "The Denoon Saloon") might have some hint as to the wherefore and the why of the nomenclature. The barmaid and one unusually affable fellow were more than prepared to engage me in conversation about Chicago sporting franchises, but their information as to the history of the body of water was left wanting.
Next, I went to the Muskego Police station, where, because it was Sunday and crime seemed to be taking a holiday in Wisconsin, the dispatcher was willing to put me in touch by telephone with the president of the Muskego Historical Society, Mrs. Agnes Posbrig.
Curiously enough, her first words to me were, "Denoon. . . Mr. Denoon, are you a Norwegian?" She asked me if I was inquiring about the history of Norway, Wisconsin, a tiny village near the lake.
"No," I said, "my name is Scottish, and I know that one of the branches of my family in this country settled in Minnesota in the 1800s, so I thought the lake might be named for one of them."
"Well, I know that the man who named Lake Denoon was a Norwegian, a publisher. His mother was Scottish, though. As I remember it, he named the lake in memory of her.
"I'm not at the Society office today, but tomorrow when I'm there, I'll look up the history and send it to you."
So, I gave her my address, and what she sent follows — a poignant, but heroic, tale. It is reprinted with the permission of Mrs. Posbrig, who wrote it some years ago, as part of an essay on "the New World Colony," a settlement of Norwegian families in what is now Waukesha County, Wisconsin:
THE DENOON SETTLEMENT
by Agnes Posbrig (reproduced with permission of the author)
In 1845, James Denoon Reymert came to this country from Forsund, Norway. He was 24 years of age and previous to his arrival here he had studied law and business in Scotland. His natural abilities and knowledge of the English language quickly made him a leader in the New World Colony. In about a year he was married to Caspara Hansen, daughter of a dancing master who had recently come to the colony and lived on what is now the Posbrig farm.
In 1847, Reymert founded and began publishing the first Norwegian newspaper in a small print shop on Lake Denoon. The paper was called Nordlyset (Northern Light). The first issue was published July 29, 1847. It was a four page paper, with three columns and measured eight by eleven inches. It had a circulation of 200. This was the first Norwegian [language] paper to be published in America. A picture of the American flag headed the editorial column. The motto of the paper, "Freedom and Equality," was later expanded to "Free Land, free speech, free labor and free men." The first issue even contained a translation of a portion of the Declaration of Independence. Eric Anderson Rude, a compositor loaned by a Chicago newspaper taught the art of typesetting to Ole Heg, Even Skovstad and Ole Torgeson. Reymert continued to publish the paper until May of 1850, when he sold it to Knud Langeland, who changed the name to Democraten and moved it to Racine.
Reymert was close friends with Søren Bache, one of Muskego's first settlers, who had large holdings in the area. It is believed that Bache was the backer for most of Reymert's enterprises. One day after returning from hunting, Bache stopped at a friend's house to pass the time of day. As he was entering the cabin, the trigger of his gun caught on the doorlatch and the gun fired, killing the neighbor's young wife. That same year, grief-stricken over the tragedy, he gave Reymert power of attorney over all his holdings and returned to his native land.
From the first time Reymert set foot on the shores of Lake Denoon, which was called Silver Lake at the time, he dreamt of building a city and naming it after his mother, a Scotch woman named Jessie Sinclair Denoon. In 1850 he named his new town and the lake on whose banks it stood, Denoon.
The new town of Denoon grew rapidly, no doubt with the help of Søren Bache's money. The first two-boiler sawmill in America was built on the southeastern-most corner of the lake. Reymert also built a two-story hotel, a soda factory, a tannery, and blacksmith shop. In this same period he established the Denoon Post Office. The farm on which he lived in 1852 embraced about 3,500 acres and was stocked with 2,000 sheep, 20 horses and 100 head of cattle. He employed over one hundred workers in his prospering town at this time.
Just as everything was going smoothly in the Town of Denoon, new immigrants to the town brought with them the plague (cholera). Pestilence raged; death took victims every hour; all transient persons fled. Reymert was the only active organizer in the panic; his wife was in confinement with their last born son and there was no escape for him. He improvised a hospital. The contagion continued to spread. There was but one doctor (Dr. Squirls) but he soon fell prey to the disease. Reymert quickly mounted his horse and raced to Milwaukee for medicine and help. Upon his arrival he met Dr. Lissner, who had just arrived from Norway. Reymert bought the doctor a horse and filled their saddlebags with medicine and returned to the settlement. In three days the doctor was in his grave. In that week Reymert buried 110 victims of the plague. On one night, while his wife and child were fast asleep, Reymert went to the neighbor's house whose family had all been taken by the plague. The father had fled; the grandmother was sick and unable to comprehend the situation; two young children were asleep; and the mother was drawing near her end. Within half an hour the mother died. Reymert went to the mill, but found not a soul in sight. With great haste, he shouldered a casket to the plank road and loaded it on a wagon and drew it by hand to the house where he lifted the body into it. He then enlisted the aid of the trusty gravedigger and the grandmother and buried the young woman's body before sunrise. He returned to his home without his wife discovering his absence.
The Town of Denoon was practically wiped out and little remains today of that dynamic settlement.
Reymert left the area and was active in Wisconsin government. He was appointed receiver for the United States land office at Hudson, Wisconsin, where he moved. He was nominated for the western district congressional seat, but lost in a heated campaign. He moved to New York in 1861 to practice law and became a successful attorney. In 1873, he went to Chile (South America) where he was in business for a couple of years. Then in the 80's he turned up in Arizona, where with a son he took up mining, started a small paper and was appointed a judge by President Cleveland. He died in Los Angeles in 1896.
|
|
Excerpt from The Diary of Søren Bache, 1839-1847
1
December 26 [1847].
Two or three days ago a Norwegian from LaSalle County, Illinois, came here to solicit subscriptions with the intention of starting a Norwegian newspaper for his countrymen in America. He seemed to be a Whig. . .
March 22 [1847].
Since there has been much discussion on this winter about starting a newspaper among the Norwegians out here, J. D. Reymert2 and I undertook to visit the settlements farther west to discover what their attitude would be. . .
NOTES
1. James Denoon Reymert was born in Farsund, Norway, in 1821. He came to America in 1842 after a stay of five years in Scotland, his mother's native land. There he learned English and studied law. In 1844 he settled in Muskego where three years later he became editor of Nordlyset, the first Norwegian newspaper in the Middle West. Soon he launched into politics and was elected a member of the second Wisconsin constitutional convention in 1847 and a member of the state legislature in 1849. He also held other public trusts, but was defeated when he ran for Congress in 1860. During these years he erected sawmills, built plank roads, acquired 3500 acres of land, and tried to found a town named "Denoon," but this venture was frustrated by cholera. In 1861 Reymert opened a law office in New York City and shortly afterward organized Hercules Mutual Life Assurance Society of the US. Because of failing health he went to Chili in the early 1870's. He acquired several thousand acres of land there and became manager of a big estate. In 1876, however, he returned to the US by way of California and settled for a while in Arizona Territory. There he opened a law office, edited Pinal Drill, and organized the Reymert Silver Mines. Later he moved to Alhambra County, California, where he died in 1896. Return.
2. Translated and edited by Clarence A. Clawsen and Andreas Elviken. Northfield, MN:Norwegian-American Historical Association. 1951. pp. 210, 212 (in the collection of the Newberry Library, Chicago, IL). Return.
|
EPILOGUE
There is a wonderful irony in this article I published in 1995. That is
the fact that I now live in Burlington, Wisconsin, only about 15 miles
from Denoon Lake.
When I was interviewing at the church where I now have my ministry, the
first opportunity my wife Corinne and I could take, we went to Denoon Lake
and discovered that Uncle Thirsty's is now a very busy, traditional, Italian restaurant,
Demarinis' Denoon Saloon.
Every once in a while, somebody asks me whether I'm related to the
Denoons of Denoon Lake.
— David Denoon
For more about James Denoon Reymert, click here. |
