11 Comments

More powerful and telling research Jill. Thank you for sharing your journey into this much facetted history with us.

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Thank you for reading and spending time with me as I struggle to make sense of the past and what it means for our future. I think about my old house which had some cracks in the foundation and if I cared about it standing for another generation I need to mend it before I pass it on.

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Thank you for your truth telling family history Jill.

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thank you for reading!

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Ah, the timber industry. I grew up on cutover land and now live in one of Wisconsin's old Sawdust Cities, so this is a topic near to my mind. Have your explorations brought you to the topic of the Cornell lands?

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Because I lived in Ithaca, NY, for a couple decades I did happen to know about the Cornell lands. In 1862 Cornell University acquired a half-million acres in northern Wisconsin and when they eventually sold the timber rights it yielded a five-million dollar endowment.

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Yes! One of the most lucrative land deals in US history.

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I'm really drawn in by these. Remember the days of radio serials? A bit of a story read on a Sunday evening and continued the next, etc? Well I'm always eager to read the next of these, Jill! And the weaving in of you family history, a reminder that many of us, too, have an ancestral history that likely played a role in the atrocities of indigenous people and similar. We are linked. And not so pretty. This is really an honest narrative and it prompts some honest reflection and perhaps some history digging myself. Thank you

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Thanks, Stephanie, for your kind remarks. The days of radio serials? You betcha I remember. Today's version is on public radio. I love "Chapter a Day"!

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This is a difficult truth in history. I can no longer assume my great great grand parent’s 1850’s immigration dates to Wisconsin’s countryside is any more innocent in displacing thé indigenous people.

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Thanks for reading, Linda, and thinking about how it might apply to you and your understanding of your family history. Where did they emigrate from? What Wisconsin tribes had lived there before your great-grandparents arrived?

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