Mr. and Mrs. Peter Muhm

From The Antigo (Wisconsin) Daily Journal - 25 May 1933

Mr. and Mrs. Peter Muhm and their two children came into the woods of northern Wisconsin in March 1879, making the trip from Appleton with a yoke of oxen belonging to Mr. Menting. Their household goods consisted of a bed, two chairs, a rocker, a stove, and their bedding. Their first home was a log cabin. With no roads, the only way they had of finding their way through the woods was by blazes on trees. They were first made with an ax by a man who used a compass to guide him. Each succeeding year the trail was remarked with new blazes to keep the marks bright.

The nearest doctor was at Clintonville. People nursed their own sick the best they knew how.

For five years Mr. and Mrs. Muhm farmed with only a grub hoe, pitchfork, and hoe. Grain and hay were carried from the field to the barn on the pitchfork. Sometime after beginning their clearing, a cow and a few chickens were bought, and with other additions, little by little, they soon had a prosperous little farm. At the beginning fish, wild game, and deer afforded the only meat the family had. Mr. Muhm had shot 99 deer before he sold his farm in 1902 and went to Portland, Oregon. As a pioneer he built many of the first houses and barns in the county, and also made coffins for the dead.

Three years after moving to Portland, Mr. Muhm died as the result of a fall he suffered when a scaffold collapsed. Mrs. Muhm continued to live there for sixteen years, then returned here to make her home with her daughters, Mrs. Joe Narlow, and Mrs. Fred Van Atter. Another daughter, Mrs. Peter Van Price lives in Port Washington; a son Edward in San Francisco, and an older son, George, in Portland, Oregon.

Mrs. Muhm is 81 years of age and now lives in Mattoon. She is still active and in fairly good health.