The McConkey Mystery

George Washington McConkey was born in 1830 in Ohio. He married Martha McCormick and they had three children. He enlisted as a volunteer at Van Buren, Arkansas during the Civil War. He was discharged in 1865 at Little Rock, Arkansas. He served in the 49th Illinois Cavalry and later 3 Battery Kansas L.A. and his occupation was wagon maker and millwright.

The mystery is why he came to Hayward to die and why he changed his name to McCormick. His granddaughter wrote to me on our Historical Society website and asked for help so I started digging. He was buried on Thanksgiving day and his obituary was in the December edition of the 1896 newspaper stating that this Civil War veteran was accorded full honors by the G.A.R. and the Sons of Veterans with Rev. L.W. Winslow officiating. He was buried in the Greenwood Cemetery but I have not located his grave. Ms. Menzel at the Springbrook Museum says that she thinks this man is standing in a ceremonial photograph of the G.A.R. and we may be able to copy it for his granddaughter.

In his obituary was written "The muffled drum, the funeral march, and we are again reminded of victory and defeat; death has conquered and the old veteran of many battles, of long and weary marches, has given up the fight, laid aside his armor and calmly rests in the sleep of death." Right after this very flowery and heartfelt paragraph is a story on "a home for feeble-minded opened up in Chippewa Falls. The next column was about the floods occurring on the Chippewa river and its tributaries. An ice gorge formed that was forty feet deep and four miles long and residents of Chippewa Falls and Eau Claire were considered in great peril. Flood waters rose twenty seven feet above the low water mark on December 3rd, 1896. I love reading old newspapers: we have a wonderful collection given to the Society by the Sawyer County Record and we also have a few very early editions of the Winter Gazette.

Radisson and Ojibwa were the topics address by another webpage correspondent in North Carolina. He writes that he remembers Indian teepees in a field behind the restaurant in Ojibwa and a shed with big logs, canoes and boats that was a sort of localized museum. Down highway 40 heading towards Winter and across the little park there once was a swinging bridge across the river leading to a resort on the west side of the river. Does anyone remember the Peterson family in Ojibwa or Radisson? His grandmother worked for Ben Faast in Chippewa Falls and in the Ojibwa office.

I have had a number of requests for information about logrolling or 'roleo' as it was known when it first was established as a spectator sport. We have a number of good photographs from the 40's through the 50's but if anyone has more pictures that they would like to donate we could enlarge and document that part of our history. I wondered if anyone has information about Ingeberg Katrine Museus (Straum). There was a son-in-law named Christ Gilbertson and a granddaughter Olianna (Amanda) who was born in 1897 in Hayward. If you have any information for the family you can contact me at the Museum - 634-8053.