First Living Cemetery Event Evergreen Cemetery

Going down rabbit holes of late and I began the task of trying to find my book that I wrote about James Dow Sperry. I finally found it so I am celebrating whether anyone else likes it or not. To start off, here is my picture from the event advertising and as a bonus to those who want to ignore it all, my talk that I gave at the event!

My name is James Dow Sperry. My fame is American Trapper and a Menomonie Pioneer as you can see. I was born December 22, 1825 in Claremont, Sullivan County, New Hampshire and died a lonely but well-respected man on October 10, 1893 in Turtle Lake, Barron County, Wisconsin where I was known as the ‘Hermit of Barron County’.

I hope that you all will be so kind as to pardon me as I am a bit weary. I have travelled a good day’s ride by horseback to get here for today. You see, though my marker is here, I am not buried here. As such, I am one of the mysteries of this beautiful cemetery. Now if you Ladies present would please do me the courtesy of staying back a bit behind the Gentlemen… . Well, it is not as though I am afraid of you, it is but that I believe that I was once scorned in love and since then I have avoided all women even unto my own seeming peril.

I am the third of eight children born to Bela Jarvis Sperry and Matilda Dow. These past 119 years have dulled my memory and there is much I cannot tell. I left home at the age of 16 and worked as a lumberman in the Adirondack Mountains where I became a member of an Indian tribe. My brother Daniel came to work with me and shortly thereafter was killed by a falling tree. I travelled back to Connecticut to visit my mother and then came here to Menomonie in 1853. Rumors have it that I was visited by my brother Nathaniel but when it came time for him to leave, I hid from him for several weeks until he left me for dead.

I lived and worked for the Knapp, Stout and Co., Company lumber operations in Prairie Farm until my fellow laborers began bringing their wives to live with them. I moved across the river, upstream where I found a cave that served as a fine home for several years. The wagon trail later built too near my humble dwelling caused me to move into an abandoned logging camp in the Town of Vance Creek until civilizations march chased me further north near Morrison’s Dam at the foot of Lower Turtle Lake. Here is where I met my maker, alone but held dear in the hearts of all who knew me.

Amongst my personal effects were a bible and some medical books that I carried with me. From the bible I had ripped all the pages referencing women. My medical books were well read and worn. I left a good sum of money and Mr. Louis Smith Tainter handled my estate for my heirs and my brother Anson made certain that I had a Christian burial on the John Solberg property northwest of Prairie Farm in Independent Cemetery.

So that all would know his pride, my youngest sibling, Anson, a well respected and accomplished man, returned almost 15 years after my death and had the kindness to remember me. Here in this fine and prominent location he had this memorial stone placed. The final mystery that lives today is that my real contribution is unwritten and as such unknown.

Patrick Thibado for the Living Cemetery project, 2012.