Exploring America State by State

Author Archives: Mike Sonnenberg

Enger Tower

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Standing on a hill overlooking Duluth, Minnesota is a 80 foot tall stone tower that looks out over the city and the harbor. In 1920, an anonymous donor gave $50,000 to the city of Duluth to purchase land called Grand Mountain to build a park. Eventually people figured out that it was Bert Enger, an immigrant and local businessman, that donated the money. He operated a successful furniture store in Duluth’s West End. The park was named Enger park in honor of his generous donation.

Bert died in 1931, leaving two-thirds of his estate to the City of Duluth and the Enger Park area. He specified that the development should include a lookout tower surrounded by beautified grounds and footpaths. The tower was built in Bert’s memory and dedicated in 1939 by Crown Prince Olav of Norway and his wife Princess Martha.

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The Dubuque Shot Tower

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This tall tower stands near the Mississippi River in an industrial part of Dubuque, Iowa. The region had several lead mines and the tower was used for making shot for guns. The lead was heated until molten liquid and then poured from the top of the tower through perforated metal. as the lead fell through the air it was shaped into spears and cooled and then landed in a pool of water where the shot was then collected.

The Dubuque shot tower was constructed in 1856 and stands 120 feet tall. the first seven stories are made from Galena Dolemite stone and the upper stories are made from red brick. The tower operated during the Civil War making shot. With more efficient ways of making lead shot the tower was sold to Standard Lumber Company and was then used as a fire watchtower. In 1911, the tower’s interior staircase was destroyed by a fire and it sat abandoned for decades. It was saved from decay by a non-profit organization and has been undergoing repairs and restoration.

It stands as a reminder of early manufacturing and an ingenious way of making lead shot as long as you are not the person carrying the led to the top of the stairs.

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The Resting Place of Johnny Appleseed

Posted on by Posted in Indiana, People Leave a comment

Growing up in the Midwest, I remember the tall tales of colorful people such as Paul Bunyan, John Henry and Johnny Appleseed. I am not sure if all of them are based on real people, but Johnny Appleseed was the nickname of a real person. Born in Massachusetts in 1774, John Chapman moved to western Pennsylvania when he was a teenager. A few years later, his father and his siblings moved to the Ohio Territory, where Chapman worked on his father’s farm. He started an apprenticeship at a nearby apple orchard that began his journey of growing apple trees.

Chapman traveled around the region, helping people plant and grow apple trees. They were not the apples that most people are familiar with today. They were smaller bitter sour apples used in the making of hard cider. Because of the lack of fresh water, hard cider was safer to drink and was less likely to contain bacteria and diseases. The fact that a person could get drunk from it also helped in its popularity. Having apples to make cider was more of a necessity to survive the harsh conditions of the unsettled Midwest. John Chapman was well liked for his kindness and generosity, giving out seeds and helping people plant them. He acquired the nickname of Johnny Appleseed as he traveled around from homestead to homestead. Chapman traveled throughout the Midwest during his lifetime.

In 1834, he came to the Fort Wayne area and purchased land along the Maumee River for a nursery. While he was visiting a friend in Fort Wayne, he became ill and died in 1845. The exact date of his death is not certain, and a stone that is believed to mark his grave is located in a small park near the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum. Up on a small hill with two apple trees and a wrought iron fence is a memorial where people leave apples in his memory. The Johnny Appleseed Festival is held at the park every year on the third weekend in September.

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Squire’s Castle

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What looks like a medieval stone castle stands in the North Chagrin Reservation, which is part of the Cleveland, Ohio Metroparks. It was built as a gatehouse for a mansion that was never constructed. I can only imagine how large and opulent the mansion would have been considering how ornate the gate house was.

Feargus B. Squire was an executive with the Standard Oil Company and former mayor of Wickliffe, Ohio. Around 1890, he purchased about five hundred acres of land east of Cleveland. He planned to build a large English style country estate, and in 1895 he had this stone gatehouse constructed. Taking three years to build, the walls were quarried from local sandstone, and the building originally had three floors. Having difficulty in finding labor for the remote location at the time, Squire gave up building a mansion on the site. He used the gatehouse as a cottage, but his wife did not like staying there. The gatehouse-turned-cottage did not have electricity, natural gas, running water, or sewer. I can see why his wife, being accustomed to the modern conveniences of Cleveland, did not enjoy living in the cottage.

Squire rarely used the cottage, and he sold it and the property to developers in 1922. Shortly afterwards, the developers went bankrupt and the Cleveland Park Board purchased the property in 1925. The old gate house was vandalized over the years, and the structure was renovated in 1995. The upper floors were removed and the basement filled in. It was not what it used to be, but at least a portion of it was saved for park visitors to enjoy.

A false legend has it that Squire’s wife fell down the stairs and died in the old gatehouse. They say her spirit haunts the structure, but that is not true because she died at their family home in Wickliffe, Ohio in 1927.

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The Haunted Mansion of Michigan

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This large second empire home stands surrounded by farmland in Michigan’s Thumb. The massive, ornate home was built in 1876 by John G. Bruce. He owned the Bruce and Webster General Merchants with his brother-in-law. Burnside Township was originally Allison Township, but the name was changed in 1866 to honor Ambrose E. Burnside, a union general in the Civil War. John G. Bruce was the postmaster for 16 years in Burnside. Most of the town was destroyed by a fire in 1881, but the mansion and general store were spared from the flames. In 1894 Bruce lost the general store to a fire, and rebuilt it with a brick building.

Bruce eventually sold the home to Cynthia Smith who died in the house from a fever in 1921. Cynthia’s son sold the house, and it changed owners a few times. It was eventually purchased by John Walker in 1926. Rumor has it, he was driving his automobile when he hit a pedestrian. Terrified at what he had done, he took the body back to the mansion and buried it somewhere on the estate. Some say the ghost of the victim, others say guilt, caused Walker to lose his fortune and he hanged himself in the mansion’s tower. It is said to be haunted; I am not sure about that, but it is a beautiful old house. It’s kind of spooky with the ghostly light green paint, and it seems like an odd location for such an ornate mansion that I would expect to be in a large city and not standing among the farm fields.

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Rose Hill Cemetery

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Macon Georgia is south if Atlanta and sits in the middle of the Peach State. Rose Hill Cemetery was created in 1840 and is located along the Ocmulgee River north of downtown. It has many old and historic tombstones along its rolling hills and is the final resting place for Duane and Gregg Allman. In there younger years the cemetery was a hangout and inspiration for some of their songs.

The cemetery is also home to a large veterans section with over six hundred Confederate soldiers laid to rest.

There is also a small section with nine graves all for the Woolfolk family. In 1887, Richard Woolfolk, his wife Mattie, their six children and their Aunt were killed in their house while they were sleeping. Richard’s 27 year old son from a previous marriage was the only one to escape alive, Or so he claimed. After finding his blood soaked cloths hidden in a well police figured out that it was Tom who murdered his family with an axe. It is the larges mass murder in Georgia without the use of a gun.

If you enjoy visiting old cemeteries Rose Hill is full of history and a popular destination of fans of the Allman Brothers Band.

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The Schenck Mansion

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The small town of Vevay sits along the Ohio River between Louisville, Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio. The beautiful little river town has a historic downtown surrounded by average midwestern homes. The one home that stands out is an enormous second empire style brick mansion that stands on a hillside overlooking the community of Vevay. The home known as the Schenck Mansion was built in 1874 by Benjamin Franklin Schenck, the son of the “Hay King” Ulysses Schenck.

In the early 1800s, many Europeans came to the Ohio River Valley in the hopes of starting a new life in the United States. Many Swiss families came to the area around Vevay, and the county was given the name Switzerland County. In 1817, Ulysses Schenck emigrated from Switzerland to Vevay and set up a mercantile business selling goods to local farmers. Realizing there was money to be made in transporting hay downriver, he purchased a steamboat to ship the feed grown by local farmers. As business grew along with his wealth, he became known as the Hay King. With the money gained from his father’s business, Benjamin Schenk built his grand home on the hillside overlooking the town. Tragically, he died two years after construction began in 1874 and was never able to live in the completed home. His widow and children lived in the home a few years before moving away. The house on the hill sat empty for decades until the family donated the home to the Indiana Baptist Convention in 1923.

The mansion was given back to the family in 1928 and then sold to the Wiseman family in 1945. The home had changed owners several times over the decades, and the upper floors had been divided up into apartments. In the late 90s, Jerry and Lisa Fisher purchased the home and renovated it into a bed and breakfast. The new owners fixed up the old mansion, bringing it back to the grandeur it once had when it was originally built. In 2020, the home was sold to tattoo artist Kat Von D, who starred on the TV show LA Ink. She is using it as a private residence. There are rumors of the home being haunted. One of the stories claims that the land that the mansion was built on originally had a home on it that burned down. The owners of the home were trapped inside and burned up with the house, and their spirits still roam the property. The fact that Benjamin Schenck died before the home was completed also lends one to believe his spirit still haunts the home he constructed. I am not sure any of it is true, but it is a beautiful historic house along the Ohio River.

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Mother Jones

Posted on by Posted in Illinois, People Leave a comment

Mount Olive, Illinois is about fifty miles south of Springfield. It is where you will find the Union Mine Cemetery. There you will see a large stone monument flanked by the statues of miners holding a pickaxe and a sledgehammer. The monument is for Mary G. Harris Jones also known as “Mother Jones.”

Mary was born sometime in the 1830s in Ireland. Her exact birth date has been lost to history. Because of the Great Potato Famine she emigrated to Canada when she was a teenager and studied to become a teacher. In 1861 she moved to Memphis, Tennessee and married George E. Jones, a member and organizer of the National Union of Iron Moulders. Six years later, her husband and their four children all died of yellow fever.

Distraught from the death of her family she moved to Chicago and opened a dressmaking shop. A few years later the Great Fire of 1871 destroyed her shop and home. It was during the rebuilding of Chicago that Mary Jones became active in the labor movement and helped in organizing strikes for fair wages. She believed a man should make enough money that his wife could stay home and raise their children. I know that statement is sexist in today’s standards, but it was a big leap back forward back then.

She became a member of the United Mine Workers and helped organize strikes across the nation. She was arrested several times and in one court case in West Virginia an attorney representing a mining company claimed she was “the most dangerous woman in America”. At the age of 60 she took on the persona of Mother Jones and fought for the rights of poor working Americans. In 1903, Jones organized children who were working in mills and mines to participate in her famous “March of the Mill Children ” where they marched from Pennsylvania to President Theodore Roosevelt’s summer home on Long Island.

Mother Jones was a prolific and influential speaker and worked with the unions into her 90s. She died on November 30, 1930 at her friend’s home in Silver Springs, Maryland. She was laid to rest in the Union Miners Cemetery in Mount Olive near the miners who died in the 1898 Battle of Virden, a riot that occurred as part of a union strike.

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What in the Sam Hill

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You have probably heard the phrase ” What in the Sam Hill ” It is a euphemism for what in the hell or other possible curse words. Interestingly, Sam Hill was a real person who lived in Michigan. The exact origin of the saying is unknown, but a possible theory is for Samuel W. Hill who was a surveyor in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  Hill was a geologist, surveyor, and mining engineer in the Keweenaw Peninsula area. He was well respected in copper country for his skills and kindness in helping the community.  Hill was also known to use foul language and when stories were told about him his name was used in place of curse words and that his how his name supposedly became a euphemism for swear words.

Hill was twice elected to the state legislature, and retired to this house in Marshall, Michigan in 1875 where he died in 1889. The home is now used as a doctors office. A historical marker for Sam Hill stands next to it and gives a little info about the man, but does not mention his propensity for swearing.

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A Cemetery, A Witch and an Oak Tree

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The shadow town of Chesterville, Illinois sits near Arcola in the heart of Amish country. Near the Kaskaskia River you will find the Chesterville Cemetery. Legend has it the old cemetery is where a young witch was buried. A large oak tree grows over a gravesite and marks the location of the grave. 

Legend has it that over a century ago a teenage girl rebelled against her Amish upbringing and spoke out against the treatment of women in her community. Because she had the audacity to question her religion she was shunned by the community and deemed a witch. The young woman went missing and then her body was discovered in a field and the cause of her death was unknown. Her body was laid to rest in the town cemetery and an iron fence was placed around it. An oak tree was planted over her grave to keep her spirit from escaping. Over the decades the tree grew and has now grown over the fence. 

Exactly how true the story is, I am not sure, but it is interesting to see how the tree has consumed the fence. I prefer not to think of it as a tale of sadness but one of hope that as we pass on our spirit and story continues to grow and spread like the tree over the gravesite. I have visited a lot of gravesites in my travels, but I was moved by the enormous size and beauty of the oak tree. I must not be the only one who visited the gravesite since there had been several artificial flowers placed on the fence and her grave. 

A wooden sign with the words Frauke Yoder has been added to the fence. The German translation for frauke means “little girl” in English. Yoder is a common surname in Amish Country.

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