In 1830, Michigan Territorial Governor Lewis Cass declared Wisconsin’s first Thanksgiving, more or less.
Back then, Wisconsin was just the western fringe of the massive Michigan Territory, which covered present-day Michigan, Wisconsin, and chunks of Minnesota and Illinois. Thanksgiving had actually been recognized there on November 25th every year since 1824, though census rolls counted fewer than 32,000 non-Native settlers across the whole territory. Actual Wisconsin statehood was still eighteen years away. (Wisconsin would not become a state until 1848).
Winter in the 1830s was something else entirely. Temperatures routinely plunged well below zero, regularly hitting 20 below or worse. Settlers didn’t just deal with the cold; their entire daily routine was built around surviving it.
They weren’t alone out here, either. Wisconsin in 1830 was home to established Native nations, including the Menominee, Ojibwe, Ho-Chunk, Sauk, Fox, and Potawatomi. Settlers and tribes traded and interacted daily, but tensions were climbing fast. The Black Hawk War would break out in just two years.
Native tribes had survived brutal Upper Midwest winters for generations, using snowshoes to travel and relying on winter camps and ice fishing. The newcomers, mostly French-Canadian traders, lead miners, and greenhorn settlers, were basically learning on the fly. Survival meant stockpiling calories and fuel during the brief warm months. Autumn was a scramble to preserve meat, dry whatever produce was on hand, and stack cord after cord of wood, with hunting and trapping filling in the gaps.
If you think it takes too long to get your subdivision plowed after a snowstorm, you wouldn’t have lasted five minutes back then. Roads were little more than rough trails cut through the timber. Once snow blanketed the landscape, travel meant horse-drawn sleighs, sleds, or your own two boots.
While the college kids are home this week complaining about slow Wi-Fi or Grandma cranking the thermostat to 78, remember that most 1830s settlers lived in drafty log cabins. Chinking only did so much to keep the wind out. Fireplaces and wood stoves ran constantly, pulling double duty for heat and cooking. Families huddled close to the hearth to stay warm, swap stories, and pass the dark winter nights. A tradition plenty of Wisconsin families still carry on, minus the drafty logs.
Daily life was stripped down to raw chores. The relatively few women in the territory spent endless hours cooking over open flames, sewing, and stretching provisions, while the men chopped firewood, tended livestock, and ran trap lines. If kids today think Thanksgiving break is too short, schooling back then was informal at best, squeezed in at home between daily survival tasks.
The Thanksgiving table looked pretty bleak by modern standards. Without fresh produce, meals revolved around root cellar staples: potatoes, grains, salted or smoked meat, and pickled vegetables. If anyone ate sweet potatoes, they definitely weren’t topped with marshmallows.
One upside to the deep freeze was the ice harvest. Settlers cut massive blocks of ice from frozen lakes and rivers, hauling them into sawdust-packed icehouses so they could keep food cold once summer rolled back around.
It wasn’t all misery, though. Folks broke up the cabin fever with sledding, tobogganing, and ice skating. Barn dances gave isolated neighbors a reason to get together, play a little fiddle music, and let off steam during the long, dark stretch of winter.
Long before Black Friday doorbusters and same-day delivery, winter meant total self-sufficiency. If a tool broke, you fixed it. If your clothes wore out, you mended them. You got by on your own skills, your neighbors, and whatever you managed to tuck away before the ground froze rock solid.
One thing is certain. While a few families might have enjoyed some wild game, maybe even a turkey, nobody was sitting down to a dish of green bean casserole topped with French’s crispy onions.
Between the sub-zero cold, the sparse diet, and the isolated trails, early Wisconsin settlers adapted, hung on, and eventually managed to cut the cord with Michigan. For that alone, we can give thanks.
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Originally published 11/22/2023
