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While
visiting friends in Waupaca Co, three years ago last summer, we started
one morning to visit the man having charge of the poor farm, and
who was a friend of my father. The distance was about sixteen miles. We
arrived there before noon. The first sight that greeted out eyes was
foolish girl rolling from one end of the yard to the other. This girl was
twenty one years of age, and since she had always been foolish, could not
talk, but could hum a few tunes. I went out to the porch after dinner and
was greeted very cordially by a very short and thick set boy. On asking
his name he informed me that it was Napoleon Bonaparte, the conqueror of
the nations. This boy was twenty one years old, and had been foolish
since
the age of five. Both of these persons were inmates of the stone asylum
on the same farm. This boy's true name was Napoleon Bonaparte, and since
some one had told him that he was the conqueror of the nation, he always
included that in his name. Another inmate of the asylum was a Mr. Nelson,
the busiest man on the farm. He was as clean as he could be, and was
allowed many more privileges than some of the res. He imagined that he
had
a great many banks in various parts of the country. He would figure from
morning till night on his gains and his losses. He seemed to be a capital
hand at figures, and also to have a good education. He once ran away, and
went into the adjoining town to see about the bank. He would not come
back until told that Mr. Gardineer, the friend alluded to, was in trouble
and needed his help. Then he came in a hurry because he took the whole
responsibility of everything going on about the farm. Another man who was
in the poor-house was Johnnie Conklyn. He was a very cross and
disagreeable old gent and being badly crippled with rheumatism was
confined to his bed. He had a cane near his bed for some time, and when
every one was sound asleep he would take this cane and rasp on the floor
till all would be wide awake. This luxury was short lived as some one of
the much
disturbed sleepers hid the cane. This man according to his own accounts
used to be a great hunter in his early days. Just say "Johnny did you
ever
hunt wild turkeys, and you had a story of a wild turkey hunt as long as
you would listen. As the county furnishes tobacco and Johnny is a great
hand
to chew, he always kept his tobacco box by his side; but when Mr.
Gardineer would come upstairs where Johnnie was, he would have to give him
a chew out of his own box, as Johnnie said "It tastes so much better out
of your pouch" There was another man who was the poor house aristocrat.
He held himself above the rest, wore a stove pipe hat swallow tail coat
and carried a cane. He felt himself so much above the rest of the
paupers, that he
would not eat in the same room and finally to wind up his career,
committed suicide. A curious old lady, whose history was little know, was
kept in
the asylum. She had to have a couple of sticks large stones or better
still a couple of round squashes which she called her babies. She would
rock them back and forth and sing to them for an hour at a time.
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