The Taverns of Old Chippewa Falls, Part Two - Mother Fossler

Part one of our exploration of early Chippewa Falls taverns was fairly upbeat.  Peter Rosseau came to the area as an adventurous young man, became the leading figure of his little community of French Town, married, had a bunch of kids.  Yes, things were rough in the early days.  And French Town was fated to decline and vanish, but that was after his passing.

Our next story is, like Rosseau's, fragmentary.  And interesting.  But also less happy.  Pioneer life was hard.  Making a living running a bar/hotel (now it would be the hospitality industry!) has never been an easy path.  It certainly was not for "Mother Fossler".

In advance, apologies for the numerous spellings of her name.  That's just how it is with German names in the 19th century.  We have tough sledding ahead to make sense of this one folks, so lets dive in.... 

It's pretty certain that in the 1850's it would be hard to find a home, store or boarding house where you couldn't get a drink of whiskey!  But as to the first actual saloons, an interesting starting point is a sort of letter to the editor from 1913 that is simply signed AN OLD TIMER.*  In it he - probably not a she given the topic - has a lot to say on the topic of saloons.  In an article about Chippewa Falls that is mostly encouraging churches, businesses and construction of a nice public library he says:  "By the number and character of plague spots, it is growing better, for when I first knew it as a village of a few hundred inhabitants, there was but two saloons, Old Mother Fosslers and Mose Heberts...."

Hebert, or Old Moses, we've met before, but this was my first clue about an early saloon run by a woman.

She was then married to a man named Andrew, who appears on the muster list of the 1st Wisconsin Regiment as either Fosler or Foster.  His point of enlistment was Chippewa Falls, and it is known that Mrs. Fossler was one of the women of the community who sewed a flag for the home town company.  They carried it through entire conflict, and it was returned home tattered but proud in 1865.  

Andrew Fosler probably came back sooner, as he is recorded as being discharged due to disability in November of 1862.  But he now becomes peripheral to our main story.

Because curiously almost every subsequent reference to the Foslers I can find is centered on her.  For instance, in 1867 "Mother Fosler's" barn burned down, with arson suspected.  Mr. F. is not mentioned.

Best I can determine the Foslers moved to Chippewa Falls in 1855, making them very early settlers indeed.  They appear to have lived "at the foot of River Street", putting them well out of the orderly community centered around the saw mill and company store.  Indeed, it seems likely they lived just across the river from the dubious hamlet of French Town, and conveniently next to the ferry that went there.  This area was also called "Comstock Landing".  

But that seems to have been a bit later.  Thomas McBean, the go to source for history of the early town, had a few things to say in 1897.  He mentions that "Old Fosler" had lived in one of the boarding houses near the Falls called "Battle Row", which burned in 1857.  He then says that "..his relic still lives in the lower end of town."  Battle Row, by the way, is said to have gotten its name from the ongoing squabbles of its female inhabitants!

One very odd feature of this situation is that at some point after Andrew Fossler vanished from the scene he was replaced by a man often called John Fossler, but whose actual name was Klinsch.  Supposedly little was known about him other than that he came here from Luxembourg in 1855.  That's the same year as Mother Fossler. Did she remarry a fellow early settler after Andrew left her?  And when did the actual saloon get started?  Perhaps after the fire in '57 that made them relocate?  John seems to have been associated with it from an early date.  From his obituary comes this memorable passage...

This sure sounds like the pre-Civil war era, so I assume "Mother Fossler's" establishment was on south River Street.  Actually it is very close to my home, and I walk my dog past it almost every day.  The area has been much altered by flood control measures and road work, so there is realistically no prospect of pin pointing its location.

I think this is the spot, that lone building at the bottom of the hill.  This is from an 1886 Birdseye view.  It shows a two story structure all by itself.  River street no longer goes there due to a re-routing of the railroad tracks.  That outbuilding behind might be the "little shack" referred to above.  It was a sad and lonely place by the late 1880's.  Literally on the other side of the tracks, and not far from a swamp that was used as the city dump.  The flat spot on the river bank is where the ferry used to run.  It had been discontinued years earlier as bridges were built.

The same spot today....  Ironically the colorful stuff on the left is a mural depicting early Chippewa Falls history.  The high school kids who did this had no idea how historic this spot actually was.

So what to make of the two "Mr. Foslers"?  In the 1860 census we find Andrew, his wife (her name was Catherine by the way) and their son William living in Chippewa Falls.  Occupation, "keeps boarding house".  So that fits.  Husband and wife were from Baden, Germany.  I can't find a John Klinsch, or anything like that name, but to be fair the copies are hard to read, and I'm getting used to this crew being sneaky with names!

John "Fosler" dropped dead in the street in 1895.  He had been little noticed in the paper before that, other than being arrested for what sounds like public drunkenness.  My difficulty finding him in 1860 census suggests a bit of confusion on the part of the later writers, who might have mixed him up with Andrew Fosler.  I've had no luck so far in tracking down Andrew, who I suspect may have reverted to the alternate name Foster that sometimes is listed.  There is a fellow of that name and about the right age who lived in Menomonie, so maybe that's him.

Catherine Fosler got a brief bit of publicity in 1893, when it was reported that she was destitute and near death in her unheated shack.  Neighbors later denied this and the sheriff confirmed that she had been seen as usual, about town with her bucket of beer.  In one of these exchanges some rather harsh things were said:

Ouch.

Although I have yet to find an obit, Catherine Fosler apparently died in 1896.  Old Settlers usually got a bit more grace from the later citizens of Chippewa Falls, but her dubious marital status, her penchant for drinking, and general lack of success in the world were apparently held against her.  Well, as it says above, let her sufferings - of which she had quite a few, cover her faults.  Which were probably also numerous.

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* OLD TIMER may well have been Thomas McBean.  It's not as if there were that many people still alive at this point who had seen Chippewa Falls in the mid '50's, and McBean did like to write letters to the newpaper...