Forgotten Brewery Caves - British Hollow Wisconsin

British Hollow was one of those very early places settled in Wisconsin. Back in fact before it even was Wisconsin.  The first permanent settlers seem to have arrived in 1832 when this pretty area near the Mississippi River was still part of Michigan Territory. 

The early settlers were Cornish and the place saw busy times in the lead mining era of the 1840's and 50's.  But after that things got pretty quiet.

So it seems odd that a couple of guys named Stephens and Mohrenburg decided to start a brewery there much later.  Official records say 1870 but some time in the 1860's seems more plausible.

In 1872 a man named Henry Macke bought it for $12,000, which was quite a sum back then. It went through another ownership change before going out of business around 1888.  But in its heyday it was a respectable sized brewery, producing 1000 barrels a year in the late 1870's.

Today all that remains is the heavily altered brew master's house and of course the brewery cave.  From the road you can just see it peeking out of the underbrush.  Look for it on the south side of British Hollow Road down in rural Grant County.

Tree Shaped Tombstones - Rest, Soldier, Rest.

Silver Lake Cemetery in Portage Wisconsin.  It had a few Tree Shaped tombstones. These two make an interesting pair.

James Forbes appears to have been a Civil War veteran.  The weathered bird on top of his monument looks a bit more martial than most.  Was it once a mighty eagle instead of the less militant dove one usually encounters?

 The personalized inscriptions on these stones are always interesting.  This one reads: "Rest, Soldier, rest.  Thy warfare o'er".

A nice bit of recognition for one of the boys in blue, marching to that last destination a quarter century after Appomattox. 

This next marker also has a GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) marker indicating his veteran status.  His is an odd monument, qualifying as "Tree Shaped" only on the basis of this delicate little branch on top.  The monument proper has interesting insets of colored stone around a central panel.

A panel that is blank, seemingly robbed of a metal plaque at some point.  What the story is and which soldier rests here remains an enigma.

Getting Testy....

I have a tendency - annoying to some - of often wondering how certain words came into existence, and how they relate to other similar sounding words. It usually comes up as a topic of conversation when I would have been better advised to be paying attention to something else.

This problem only gets worse "across languages".  Learning rudimentary Italian really opened the flood gates on this.

Consider the Italian for headache.  It is, should you ever need to know, "mal di testa".

Mal makes perfect sense.  Malaise, malware, malfeasance, mal de mer for sea sickness.  Mal is bad.

But testa.  Hmmmm.  Not an obvious connection there.  In Italian head is "capo".  So what's the deal?

In Latin "tessera" are small bits of stone or broken pottery.  They were used to make those spectacular mosaic floors.  The term for a broken bit of pottery apparently morphed to "testa" for pot.  It must at some intermediate point have designated one that was cracked or broken.  So "mal di testa" is a pain as if your head was a ceramic vessel that had been hit hard enough to crack it!

I suppose at one time or another most of us have been there, experienced that.

So the term appears to have nothing to do with "testes" for testicle, or with testify. The connection there was that in ancient Rome when you were called upon to tell the truth in court you had to, well, by grasping the appropriate area indicate that you were putting your manly reputation on the line.  What women were supposed to do in this circumstance is unclear.

In the late Roman world where this odd tesserae/testa mutation was happening there were by coincidence (or was it?) a type of vessel called a face pot.  I have excavated a few fragments over the years.  Intact they look like this:

These guys look pretty chipper, despite being in all probability burial urns for cremations.   

A potter up in northern England has been working to recreate ancient Roman vessels, even going to the trouble to build primitive Roman era kilns in which to fire them. One of my digging pals had the chance to help on this project.  Rather a nice assortment, some look happier than others...

Recently he posted an eerie picture of one of these being fired in the kiln:

Happy Halloween!

Forgotten Brewery Caves - Wisconsin's First!

To say which was the first brewery in Wisconsin you would first have to define brewery.  If you simply mean somebody making a bit of home brew, well, that will never be known for sure.  Was it a French fur trader morose in a land inimical to the Grape who tried his hand?  Or was it a British soldier at one of their outposts in Green Bay or Prarie du Chien, making a bit of ale with or without the knowledge of his sergeant?  We will never know.

But if you are looking for the first commercial brewery, the first one to actually make a product for sale to the public, you should go with John Phillips in Mineral Point.

An 1881 County history has the following to say about the establishment of the brewery...

"In 1835, the first manufacturing enterprise was begun in the place by John Phillips, who started a small brewery near Mineral Point mill, east of the end of High Street.  This establishment was continued for a good many years without a rival.  As to the merit of the beer manufactured or the method employed, tradition is silent, but probably it was brewed in common kettles, and was an indescribable tonic."

That seems a bit harsh.  Although I suppose the hard working lead miners out on the edge of the frontier may not have been very picky.

At this point in time by the way Mineral Point was not even in Wisconsin.  It was still part of Michigan Territory.

Phillips has an interesting story, which can be read in detail HERE.  Born in the Corwall region of England in 1800, he came to Mineral Point with several brothers in the mid 1830s.  A friendlier account of the brewery says that it produced a "very fine product".

The discovery of gold in California prompted many in the lead mining region to "Go West" including John Phillips.  He eventually ended up in Mariposa California running a hotel and tavern.  He died in California in 1862.

The Phillips brewery appears to have passed into the hands of a James Argall.  The location of the Argall brewery on an early map fits well with the description given for Phillip's establishment. 

Who actually dug the existing cave is unclear.  Phillips would have been primarily brewing ale, which did not demand the cold storage critical for lagers.  In fact, early 1870s ads for Argall's "Garden Brewery" say that Ales and Porters are constantly on hand, so perhaps the British product line was continued even into the era of lager popularity.  It would make sense given the large Cornish population of Mineral Point.  They did not all go to California after all.

The site today is behind a bunch of power transformers.  It should be OK to visit, no signs other than the obvious ones telling you not to touch electrical stuff.  The cave is in the steep hillside beyond Brewery Creek.  It is just south of where Doty Street (Hwy 39) crosses the creek.

It has a very nice doorway to let bats in but keep people out.  From the map above you get the sense that this cave came right off the back of the brewery building as it was set into the cliff face.

Are bat gates used enough that somebody manufactures them?  It seems more likely that this was a custom job.  

Bits of rusty metal from the original door frame.  Probably from the 1830s or 40s.

The cave proper is fairly standard.  Perhaps I was expecting too much, what with the ready availability of many skilled miners.  

My pending career as a toy bootlegger.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, in retirement I have become a student again.  In a seriously great deal, Wisconsin says that once you hit 60 tuition at both the university system and the technical college system is free.  Just a "thank you" for paying taxes all those years.

So I study course catalogs and if something interests me I sign up.

This fall I am doing just one class, an intro to mechanical design.  

It is interesting.  One of our early projects was to retro engineer a lego.  Get out the calipers, do careful measuring, draft it up in Solidworks and toss it on the 3D printer.

In this view it is hard to tell the original from the "knock off"

But the close up tells the tale.  Note the rougher surface on the example that was 3D printed.  Note also please that they fit together perfectly.

The Scary World of Richard Scarry

Richard Scarry books were old standbys when I was reading to my young children.  Yes, they can be a bit cluttered but they are visually appealing and I think the author had a good sense of how the child-mind operated.  But a few peculiar, in fact, disturbing little things can be seen in the early editions.  Jokes?  Ideas that used to be palatable and are no longer?

Below is a page from the 1963 copyrighted Best Word Book Ever.  This is from the 1980 printing that we read when my kids were little.  Now I read it to the grand kid.  I try not to point out some parts...

The little piglet seems unconcerned by the bacon in the case and the ham on the wall.....and hey, where did mom go?
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Note: The 1980 revision apparently was done to edit out a whole bunch of other stuff that was becoming problematic.  Harsh parental discipline, cliched gender roles, etc. So it is not as if the 1963 version was not gone over with a critical eye.....

Middle School Robotics - Progress Report Mid October

Machines are starting to come together.  Of course the more ambitious and/or less realistic ones still have a ways to go and not much time left.  Others are just adding flourishes and practicing their driving.

A returning student with a four wheel drive machine.  The blinding white blur in the middle is a super bright LED.

I had figured that the opportunity to 3D print parts might lead to some really creative stuff.  Oh well, blue skulls are a little creative.  The red stuff is sparkle-glitter duct tape.  It should look cool with all the LEDs and lasers that will be around this year.

Sometimes you just have to keep it basic.  The class is popular enough that there is a waiting list in case somebody drops out.  Half way through the class this happened.  I asked the kid at the top of the list if he was still interested.  He was.  With very short time available he has made good strides.  This is made out of some kind of mirror finish plastic.

Another machine built with that mirror finish stuff.  And lots of nails.  Atop it all is a very bright little laser.  The student is actually named something else so I don't get to ask "Just what do you think you're doing, Dave...."