James Dow Sperry Part 1

The mystery presents itself!

Chapter One

High atop the hill overlooking the rest of Evergreen Cemetery stands a granite stone engraved with the name Sperry. The face of the stone is marked: James Dow Sperry, 1825-1893, An American Trapper, A Menomonie Pioneer. So begins the mystery of Mr. Sperry, long ago forgotten in the annals of history and an unknown to the modern day residents.

August 24, 2008 an article written by local historian, John Russel, brought this mystery to the public attention. While doing some research, Joan Keller, head of the Dunn County Genealogical Society, came across an obituary for James Dow Sperry. The October 20, 1893 issue of the Barron County Shield read:

Turtle Lake Barron County Shield

DIED: - October 10th, 1893, James Sperry, aged 68 years, of dropsy. Buried Oct 12th from the Dahl’s schoolhouse, Rev. Brierly, officiating. So passes away that unique character of Northwestern Wisconsin, known as the hermit of Barron County. 40 years ago a young man of good education a disappointment in love so embittered him that he literally “took to the woods” residing as a hermit in the neighborhood, where he died, ever after. Social to all men who visited him, women was his abomination. He never could be induced to visit town; his hair and beard grew untrimmed, his clothing was rags, but he impressed all who came in contact with the strength of his mental powers. Three years ago, a younger brother Isaac hunted him up, visited him, tried in vain to get him to give up his lonely life. He managed to get to his brother’s funeral, however, and had the melancholy satisfaction of seeing that he had a Christian burial. He was followed to the grave by almost the entire neighborhood, showing that, eccentric though he was, he had a place in the hearts of his neighbors.

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The article written by John Russel cited Barron County Historical Society member Clarice Jensen who told of a source that claimed James Sperry was originally from southern Minnesota and had come, with his brothers, to the Knapp Stout and Company camp in Prairie Farm to hunt deer. When the time came to return home, they could not find James. They stayed several weeks to look for him but finally gave up, thinking he was dead. J. H. ‘Andy’ Helland, a local historian died in 1976, but left a few notes about Mr. Sperry including a tale that James hid in the woods until his brothers left for home. James settled in Prairie Farm until “…Knapp Stout employees started to bring their wives to Prairie Farm, so James moved his home to a cave in a sandstone cliff about river miles up [on the west side of] Turtle Creek in Section 1-T32-R13, in the Township of Prairie Farm, where he lived for several years.” It may have been that the wagon trail built near his cave caused him to move to “…an abandoned logging camp in Section 1-T32-R14, Town of Vance Creek. Later Sperry moved up Turtle Creek to its outlet on Lower Turtle Lake, setting up his modest hut in a Knapp Stout & Co. camp, Section 2 – Town of Turtle Lake, [near] the Morrison Dam” at the foot of the lake where he remained until his death in 1893.

John Russel surmised that James Sperry and his brothers must have passed through the ‘Menomonie Mills’ on their way to Prairie Farm since the stage coach road from Menomonie was the only way to get to that part of Barron County. His path through Menomonie may have been the only connection qualifying him as a “Menomonie Pioneer”. When James was taken ill and dying, he sent word to George Scott, manager of the Knapp Stout & Co. store in Prairie Farm, asking him to notify Knapp Stout & Co. in Menomonie to notify his relatives out east that he was dying. He sent along his snowshoes which he wanted Mr. Scott to have.” Those snowshoes are on display at Barron County’s Jerome Hall at the Pioneer Village Museum at Cameron. Mr. Russel continues: “We are aware of Sperry’s memorial stone at Evergreen Cemetery in Menomonie, but according to the late Mr. Helland, ‘his body is believed to be buried in the Arland Cemetery.’ When his personal belongings were checked they found medical books which caused people to think he was either a medical student or a doctor. They also found a well worn bible which had many pages removed. They checked with other bibles and learned that the missing pages were all references to women.”

This was as far as the research was able to carry anyone toward the solution of this mysterious “Hermit of Barron County”. That is until Helen Manley, relative of several Menomonie pioneers, read the article and recognized the name from earlier research on the Sperry family from New Haven, Connecticut. She continued the research and with the assistance of Joan Keller (Dunn County Genealogical Society) further pursued this deepening mystery. In October of 2008, Helen Manley, in response to the Russel article, wrote the following article:

JAMES DOW SPERRY THE HERMIT OF BARRON COUNTY

Researched and Written by Helen M. Manley

In late August of 2008, an article written by John Russel appeared in the Dunn County News under the heading “Who Was James Dow Sperry?” The article went on to say that this man lived as a recluse in various areas of Barron & Dunn counties and ended his days on the outskirts of Turtle Lake in an abandoned lumber camp near Morrison’s dam. It seems that when he knew he was dying, he asked that his family “back east” be contacted. As I read on it was this small clue and his surname SPERRY that made me wonder if he had any connection to the founding Puritan SPERRY family of New Haven, Connecticut. I knew of this Puritan family from previous New England research. As I read I became more and more curious to see if I could find who James Dow Sperry really was.

The article quoted local stories about him, the major one being that he had had a disappointment with a young lady in his youth that turned him against women. Among his personal effects was a bible that had every page mentioning women torn out of it. It would appear that he did have psychological problems. Those who knew him said that he was educated because medical textbooks were found leading some to believe that he had either been a doctor or a medical student.

No matter how hard some people try to just disappear from the world, they usually at some time or other leave a paper trail and in this instance it was a probate record. Jo Keller of the Dunn Co. Genealogical Society kindly sent me a deposition from the probate record that was written by his brother. The deposition contained the names of his brother and two sisters and the fact that the brother was living in Dodge County, Minnesota. There also was an obituary that wrongly stated he had a brother Isaac. He did not have a brother Isaac. Here is his story.

JAMES DOW SPERRY was born in Claremont, Sullivan County New Hampshire December 22, 1825 and died October 11, 1893 in Turtle Lake, Barron County, Wisconsin. He was the third of eight children born to BELA JARVIS SPERRY and MATILDA DOW who were married in Newport, New Hampshire in 1820. The children were:

Martha Sperry Bury 1821-1895

Benjamin Franklin Sperry 1824-1852

James Dow Sperry 1825-1893

Sophronia Sperry Pierce 1827-1898

Daniel Straw Sperry 1829-1853

Bela Jarvis Sperry II 1831-1858

Nathaniel Dow Sperry 1834- before 1893

Anson Martin Sperry 1836-1916

Note that three of the sons were deceased by 1858, Benjamin, Daniel and Bela II leaving only Nathaniel, Anson and James. Like many New England towns, Claremont, located on the Connecticut River was a textile mill town and the U.S. census of 1850 reports Daniel as being a factory worker.

Their father, BELA JARVIS SPERRY (1795-1861) born in Manchester, Bennington County, Vermont was a shoemaker in Claremont, New Hampshire, the son of DANIEL SPERRY (1769) of New Haven, Connecticut. Bela’s 5th great grandfather RICHARD SPERRY (1605) was the PILGRIM emigrant and progenitor of the Sperry family in America and one of the founding fathers of New Haven, Connecticut. He came from Thurleigh Parish, Bedfordshire, England between 1634-1637 to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, bought land from the local Indians and founded a new, safe haven from religious prosecution they had known in England, hence New Haven, Connecticut. Richard eventually was given large land grants and even today there are parks and streets in New Haven named SPERRY.

Richard Sperry’s story makes very good reading. The family in England was very involved with the Puritan movement from the late 16th Century to the time of Oliver Cromwell. Two of the judges who had condemned Charles I to death managed to escape England in 1660 after the Restoration of Charles’ son, Charles II to the throne. They got to New England and found their way to New Haven where they lived in a small cave and were sheltered and fed for many months by Richard Sperry. The punishment had they been caught by Charles II men who were sent to find them was death by hanging and the body then quartered. It also would not have gone well for those harboring them. The area where they hid was and still is known as Judges Cave. The two after a safe period, absorbed themselves into the community and their descendents are in the area to this day.

I began my search by first gathering stories mentioned in the article and then trying to match them to actual records that I found. I employed Federal Census, State and Territorial Records, Civil War records and Pension records just to name a few sources.

I found very little on James but quite a bit on Nathaniel and Anson. Anson was listed as a schoolteacher in Claremont in 1860. Both Nathaniel and James disappear from the Federal census of 1850, which may pinpoint when James left New Hampshire. James Sperry appears on the 1830 and 1840 records and then completely disappears from any records. Rumor has it that he may have been from Southern Minnesota and there was some basis to this as a story circulated that his brothers came to Prairie Farm to go deer hunting with him and he ran from them and hid in the woods until they left. I did find evidence that his brother Nathaniel was in Minnesota in the late 1850’s as he was living in Rockford, Wright County Minnesota in 1861 when he volunteered for the Minnesota Volunteer 1st Regiment, the first volunteer regiment of the Civil War. Nathaniel was wounded between 1861 and 1862 and went on disability pension in 1863. He is later listed on Minnesota Territorial Census in the 1870’s and 80’s as living in Greenwood Township, Hennepin County that would today be Minnitrista in the Lake Minnetonka area. There is a remote possibility that Nathaniel and James might have come to Minnesota or Wisconsin territory in the 1850’s but I found no records that would prove this.

Anson Sperry joined the Union Army and was commissioned as a Sanitary Commissioner and worked for the American Red Cross during and after the Civil War. He married in 1868 and was living in Claremont with his wife and first child. He was in Cambridge, Massachusetts from late 1870 to 1872 where his second child was born.

I have reason to believe that he was attending Harvard University. Cambridge is only some one hundred miles from Claremont. I also gave thought to the premise that James might have attended Harvard as a medical student perhaps between 1845 to 1850 when he disappears from any record. He would have been 20 to 25 years of age.

Anson then moved with his family in late 1872 to WASIOJA, DODGE COUNTY, MINNESOTA where his third child was born.

From 1874 to 1876 he and his family spent time in Washington D.C. where two daughters were born. I am assuming here that he may have been called back to work for the American Red Cross. However he is listed on the 1875 Minnesota Territorial Census so the time in Washington D.C. was temporary. The family returned to Wasioja, Dodge County, Minnesota where his remaining five children were born and where he remained as a schoolteacher. For those of you familiar with the area, this little village is near Mantorville, Minnesota and the famous Hubbell House restaurant, not far from Rochester. Anson Martin Sperry lived with his daughter Grace after he was widowed. He died in St. James, Minnesota in 1916.

My reason for elaborating on both Anson and Nathaniel Sperry is to establish a timeline for the events mentioned in the newspaper article on James. The deer hunting party and meeting with James, their brother near Prairie Farm could not have taken place before the 1870’s when both brothers were in Minnesota. There is mention that his brother Isaac looked him up but as previously mentioned, James Sperry had no brother Isaac. I believe it to have been either Anson or Nathaniel.

JAMES DOW SPERRY left an estate of $3200 and it went to his remaining heirs, Anson and his two sisters, Martha and Sophronia. For reasons unknown to us, Louis Smith Tainter was appointed executor of the estate and we believe that it may have been Louis Tainter who put the monument to James in Evergreen Cemetery near the Tainter plots or he donated the plot to the family. James Dow Sperry is not buried here, however and is believed to be buried in Barron County.

So with some genealogical and historical digging, I was able to establish who James Dow Sperry was and it was very satisfying to this writer to know that he was somebody and came from such a distinguished first family of America. We now know who he was but the mystery remains as to what hurt or Trauma happened to him in his youth that turned him into what he chose to become.

Helen M. Manley

Member of the Dunn County Genealogical Society

Great great granddaughter of Levi Vance of Vanceburg, WI

Great granddaughter of Peter Perrault

Granddaughter of James Smith Manley - -Menomonie Pioneers

October, 2008