Peter Woodhouse

Peter Woodhouse

     Peter Woodhouse lived a colorful life that many chose to write about.  He mined coal in Pennsylvania; lead and zinc in Wisconsin.  During the Gold Rush he went west was shipwrecked in Mexico, and near starvation by the time he reached California.  He returned to Wisconsin with gold, financial security, and a desire to settle down and marry.  Peter and Rachel were wed following a nineteen day courtship and farmed in the Beetown area.  They moved to Bloomington in order to better educate their children.  There he purchased and operated a saloon with gambling facilities in the rear.  He later sold the saloon in order to purchase the Woodhouse and Bartley Bank which he directed with the assistance of his son and brother-in-law until his death.

     Peter seems to have had an adventuresome spirit and enjoyed tasting many of life's experiences.  Yet at his core was a solid man with a strong love for his family.

     At the age of 74, Peter took on the challenge of writing his autobiography, probably a difficult undertaking for someone with little formal education.  His story is an example of the spirit and philosophy of the people that settled this country.  The following consists of excerpts from his writings:

            The incidence of my life is written by request.  Every man has a history__the great majority remains unwritten.  Few men are supremely happy, forever  reaching after something that continually eludes their grasp.  So they pass through life.  The end comes, and with a trembling hand he writes failure.  "Lend me your attention whilest I relate a story of life's vain regrets and sigh at lost opportunities".    

            I was born in the Parish of Stratfordshire, England on Sep. 11, 1824.  My earliest recollections were at the age of four.  At this time my father left his family and went to America.  My mother was left for two years with eight children, the oldest being seventeen, and the youngest two.  My father was a man of limited education, of strong prejudices, and an ungovernable temper.  He ruled with sheer force of habit.  His will right or not must be obeyed.  There was never a very strong bond of affection between father and his offspring, but he had some good impulses.  He looked beyond his present surroundings.  In his present condition in England it was a life of servitude__a hopeless task to rise above it either for himself or for his family.  Hence the departure from the home of his birth.  We all felt grateful for the means he employed to bring us to the land of the free and the home of the brave.    

            Our mother, by nature was the opposite of our father, kind and sometimes over indulgent.  She was the angel of our home, ever willing to sacrifice her comforts and enjoyment for the good of her children.  Affection between mother and children was the strongest of character.    

            Father arrived in America in Philadelphia.   Pottsville, Pennsylvania, at that time was the center of the great anthracite coal belt and at this place he obtained steady employment.   His whole life had been spent in coal mining.  The Pottsville coal belt was worked entirely above water level while the English mines were worked at from 1000_2000 feet.  Fire damp explosions were frequent, and many lost their lives and were maimed for life.    

            In the summer of 1830 our mother packed our effects, and we bid adieu to old England.  On arriving at Liverpool we took passage on a sailing vessel, "The Brig Edgar".  We had to endure a voyage of three months.  Our father met us in beautiful New York.  We were transferred  to a boat bound for Philadelphia, and up the canal to Pottsville.  All the male members of our family were old enough, and found employment at good wages.    

            The work in the mines was hard and dangerous, yet the people seemed to be the best content, and happiest people in the world.  We were extremely glad that we had severed our connection with the mother country.  Reports of fortunes being made in the mining regions of Wisconsin induced father and a friend to depart to his new territory in the spring of 1834.  In June, 1837 the family packed our effects and turned our faces to the star of empire that westward wends its way, and in due time without accident we landed in Wisconsin in the thrifty little village of Cassville.  There were many fine veins of mineral opened in and around Snake Hollow.  Father and the boys found no difficulty getting steady employment.  A little distance from our home lived an English family by the name of Lyons.  They had a family of four lovely girls, and a boy.  I used to have many romps with the girls, and our mothers were fast friends, but I will have more to say about that family later.    

            We bought our flour and pork by the barrel and as long as we had the means  could buy anything in abundance.  I will put here on record the hardest years of our lives in Wisconsin (1839_40).  In the fall of the year we were thrown out of employment.  During the time we had worked by the month, and laid up considerable amount of money over living expenses.  At the close of navigation, provisions went for a very high price.  Flour commanded twenty five dollars a barrel, and everything else in the food line corresponded with the price of flour.  Our funds disappeared rapidly, and we had nothing coming in.  The ground was frozen to a depth of three to four feet making prospecting very difficult.    

            In the spring of 1843 father and I formed a partnership for a summer campaign.  We decided to work the Old Bee Lead Mine for the second time.  We found a considerable amount of ore at about forty feet.  Mineral at that time was about fourteen dollars per thousand pounds.  We raised in all about fifty thousand pounds realizing a sum of money which we divided between father and myself.  A brother of Dan Perrin came along and offered me a broken up forty acres for my share in the mine and I was glad to oblige him.  In the winter of 1844 (now 20 years of age) I took formal possession of my claim, and built a substantial log cabin and later a house.  Father and I prospered going over the ridge on the east side of the Old Bee Lead.  The Old Bee Company had not sunk the hole deep enough so we went 3 feet deeper and struck it rich.  This was a dawn of a brighter day, and meant much to my future.  It turned out large quantities of mineral which we sold for twenty dollars per thousand.   

     About 1849 reports of rich gold mines in California were recorded, and people were wild to get there.  It was decided in the spring of 1850 that we should fit a party for journey over the plains.  The party consisted of Father, Lev, Mark, and John Clegg.  In the summer of 1850 a terrible scourge of cholera broke out in Beetown.  Many died in a few hours after feeling the symptoms of the disease.  The dark shadow of death spread over the town, and it was a question whether anyone would escape.  It died out as suddenly as it had stolen in on them, but many of our old friends had disappeared forever.  In the fall of 1851 the California expedition returned home.  They had made some money, but not a large amount.  However I was satisfied and made immediate prepared to strike out for myself.    

            The following information was taken from an article written about Peter Woodhouse in the "Wisconsin Magazine of History" in the summer of 1959:     

            Peter headed for California on February 5, 1852 with brother John and traveled to New York City and then on to Central America.  Here they obtained passage on a steamship which was wrecked on a deserted spot on the Mexican coast.  From here they obtained passage on another schooner that took 61 days to get to San Francisco.  They landed there famished and broke.  They met a man from Beetown who was running a dry goods store who loaned them twenty five dollars at 2% per month.      

            Peter was in partnership with a number of mining operations while in California.  He sold out in the fall of 1857 to return to Beetown.  He now had the funds to develop his 108_acre farm, and the substance to aspire and marry into the Lyons family in Potosi.    

            Peter's courtship of Rachel Lyons who was then twenty five years of age was a whirl_wind affair.  A formal call on the Lyons family was followed by a proposal of marriage two weeks later.  They were married within five days.  Peter now age thirty_three seemed ready to send down permanent roots. 

      He was content no more than eight years.  In 1865 Peter moved to Bloomington.  Here Peter began at the age of forty_one an entirely new life as a saloon keeper with gambling facilities in the rear.  In this business he prospered for more than a decade. 

            In 1883 he purchased the private banking house of Humphrey and Clark and started anew with his son_in_law Patrick Bartley, and controlled it until his death in 1913.  In January, 1890 the bank

had a capital of $10,000 with  over $51,000 in deposit, and $52,000 on loan, mostly to local businessmen and farmers.    

            From his autobiography Peter writes:  "Our lives have not been all sunshine.  Our skies not always cloudless.  Sickness, deep grief, and death has entered our home, and torn from us those we loved.  The two little babes that were first taken from us tarried with us so short a time that we had not learned to love them as we would have done had they lived, but the saddest event of our lives was when we were forced  to part with our sweet little angel Bessie, the pride of our home.  I never knew what real sorrow was up to that time.  The light of my life seemed to have gone out, and I felt that I  could give my life if that darling child could live.

            In the Lancaster Wisconsin issue of The Teller written June 9, 1910 Peter is quoted as follows: 

"I conclude I ought to write of my experiences that the generations who have since come upon the stage would know something of pioneer

life, the dangers, and hardships that had to be endured in settling and making a new home in a new, wild and unsettled country."    

     "We came to Wisconsin to

better our condition in life, to stay and grow up with the country, ever hoping and striving for something better."      

            Peter passed away June 10, 1913 at his home in Bloomington. The following is taken from Peter Woodhouse's Obituary:

            Mr. Woodhouse was a progressive and public spirited citizen, at all time in sympathy

with anything that went towards the betterment of the community, and took great delight in all modern improvements.  In his politics he was a republican without guile, having cast his first vote with the Whig party, and he naturally went to that Party's successor, the

Republican Party.  He was extremely liberal and charitable in his religious view, believing in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.  Socially he was a perfect gentleman, strictly temperate, a model of kindness and amiability in his everyday intercourse with his neighbors and fellow citizens.  His whole being detested impurity of life in thought, word and action, and yet his denunciations were seldom heard.  Charity for all was the rule of life with him.  He was a stranger to selfishness and always tried to see how much he could do for

those he loved.

            Peter was laid to rest in the Bloomington Cemetery at the foot of

the statue he had erected for their beloved daughter Bessie.