Early Life

The early settlers in Juddville led hard lives. It was challenging to eke out an existence and the work was often physically demanding. Conveniences we take for granted today – furnaces, running water, refrigerators, and automobiles – were not available or too expensive back in those early days. But people made do, and through perseverance and a pioneering work ethic, survived and sometimes thrived.

Work

The men of the families arriving in Juddville in the latter 1800s worked as farmers, lumber jacks, fishermen, and merchants. Some men undertook two or more of these occupations at the same time. Women often were in charge of running the households, raising their children, and taking on other critical tasks that allowed their families to endure the challenges of the times. In the late 1800’s, the normal practice would be for the local school teacher to be a single woman from the surrounding area.

Lumber. Lumber and its shipping was the primary industry in Door County from about 1850 to 1890. The tree cutting required to produce the lumber was very difficult work. It was performed by landowners to clear their property for farming and by hired lumberjacks. The wood was often made into “marketables” as it was cut: shingles, planks, cord wood or other wood products to be sold or traded. (Source: Holand, Hjalmar R.. “History of Door County, Wisconsin, The County Beautiful, Vol. 1”.1917. p 84. http://genealogytrails.com/wis/door/history/history1917_chapter9.htm)

In Door County in 1880, there were at least sixty docks dedicated to shipping lumber, showing how important this industry was to the economy of the peninsula at that time. Some of these piers were over 1,000 feet in length.  (Source: Dannhausen Jr., Myles. “Clearing the Virgin Forests: Door County’s Logging Past”. Door County Living, May 1, 2005. https://doorcountypulse.com/clearing-the-virgin-forests/)

Wood was brought to the two Juddville piers (Minor & Blakefield and Lundberg & Settersten), and schooners, steam barges, and tug boats would come and transport it to places like Milwaukee, Chicago, Green Bay and Menominee, MI.

Fishing. Fishing was also a way to generate food and money for a family. Myron Stevens of Juddville, who eventually bought the Juddville general store with the Lundberg & Suttersten pier mentioned above from C.A. Lundberg, made his livelihood as a fisherman at different times throughout his life.

Here are some old newspaper items on fishing done in the waters around Juddville:

Food

Food was often generated by the farm families themselves. This would include milk, butter, eggs, meat, and vegetables produced on the farm. In the late 1800s, food could be bought or traded at C.A. Lundberg’s general store on the shoreline. People would sell or barter their farm produced items at the general store. The general store would in turn sell food, clothes and other needed supplies to the local residents. (Source: “C.A. Lundberg” print ad, Door County Advocate. 10/06/1894, p. 8. https://archive.co.door.wi.us/jsp/RcWebImageViewer.jsp?doc_id=ea91eb62-96e3-4ad5-b0c2-0fc095b362be/wsbd0000/20120910/00001687)

Water

Olaf Olsen, a longtime resident of Juddville, recalled that water was always a problem in Juddville. Even in the early 1900s, when he was a young man, there were no wells. Water for human consumption was brought in barrels to households from Juddville Bay. Local residents would sometimes lead their cattle down to the shore by Lundberg’s general store so that they could drink the water there. (Source: Smith, Linda Neeck. “Juddville: The Shadows of Our Yesteryear”. Door County Almanak – Farms, No. 4, The Dragonsbreath Press, Sister Bay, WI, 1987, p. 226.)

Some people may have used cisterns to collect rain water for human and animal consumption, but that water was not sanitary and probably unfit for human consumption.

Transportation

In the late 1800s, people would travel by wagons pulled by horse and oxen, by horseback, and by boat or ship. The roads were poor, so traveling overland could be a slow and uncomfortable experience. In the winter time, bob sleighs (wagons with runners) could be pulled over snow by horse or oxen. This type of winter transportation could be employed on roads or over a frozen Green Bay. In the late 1800s, there was a winter stage that brought passengers and mail over the ice between Menominee, MI and Sturgeon Bay on a regular basis. (Source: “Rottman and Spencer’s: Menominee and Sturgeon Bay: Winter Stage Line” print ad. Door County Advocate. March 3, 1887, p. 3. https://archive.co.door.wi.us/jsp/RcWebImageViewer.jsp?doc_id=ea91eb62-96e3-4ad5-b0c2-0fc095b362be/wsbd0000/20120910/00001291)

Otto Anderson – Early Settler

Otto Anderson was one of the early settlers in Juddville. He had come to the U.S. from Sweden in 1870. One of his four sisters who preceded him to the U.S. sent travel money to him only two years after arriving herself.

Once in this country, Otto worked various jobs, mostly on Illinois farms, before coming to Door County. Soon after his arrival on the peninsula, he bought 80 acres of land for $60 in Juddville. His property was surrounded on three sides by what today are Highway 42, Juddville Road and Quarterline Road. His first tax bill for the property was $6.

One of the first things that Otto had to do was prepare his land for farming. That involved clearing the land of trees, stumps and stones – incredibly arduous and time-consuming work.

Otto’s descendants indicated that there was a camp of Native Americans living on Otto’s farm land in his first year in Juddville who were described as good neighbors.

The first house built on Otto’s land was made of logs and was approximately 13ft x 20ft in size. All seventeen of the children that Otto’s wife Ida gave birth to were born in that original house. In 1903, the original log house was razed and and a new 11 room, frame house was constructed. Otto only lived eight more years in that new, large house before dying in 1911 at the age of 62.

Ida Anderson, Otto’s wife, came to the U.S. in 1875 when she was 16 years old. Her youngest, unnamed sibling died on the boat trip to America. Ida died in 1939 at the age of 80.

Otto donated one acre of his eighty acres for the Juddville school and one acre for Juddville’s Lutheran church.

(Source: Isaksson, Eric of Vetlanda, Sweden. “Meeting with Emigrants’ Descendants in USA – 1961 and 1973”. 1973 (document provided by Gary Schulze))

Olaf Olsen

For an excellent first person perspective on Juddville in the early 1900s, the website visitor is recommended to read the interview conducted by Linda Neeck Smith with lifelong Juddville resident, Olaf Olsen. The intervew is in the book, “Fish Creek Echoes”. (Source: Smith, Linda Neeck. “Interview with Olaf Olsen”. Fish Creek Echoes, edited by Virginia Kinsey and Edward Schreiber, published by John and Nancy Sargent, Spring 2000, pp. 130-147.)