.Ira Robinson Isham 1810-1906 (Picture 1896)

 

Claims to Be Oldest Living Resident of State

Ira Isham of Sawyer County, Came to Wisconsin Early 
- First Sheriff of Chippewa County

     Ira Isham, Sawyer County, proudly claims the distinction of having been a resident of Wisconsin longer than any other white man now living, at least in the northern half of the state.
     His career has been an extraordinary one. He was born in Vermont in the year 1810, ninety-six years ago, but came to Chippewa Falls with his father, who was an Indian trader, when a child.  On their way west the Isham family rode on the first the first passenger train operated in America, over the old Boston and Maine Railroad, about the year 1830.  The train was drawn by horses, and they traveled at the then marvelous rate of seventy-five miles a day.
     At the age of twenty-eight Mr. Isham married Paf.ki.ink, a quarter-blood Chippewa woman, with whom he lived for fifty-seven years, until her death last spring.  As the off spring of this marriage there were thirteen children, eleven of whom are yet living; ninety-two grandchildren and eighteen great-grandchildren.  Of the grandchildren forty-seven are living and forty-five are dead.
     Mr. Isham was the first sheriff of Chippewa County, which then embraced a great portion of Northern Wisconsin.  In this capacity he had many encounters and narrow escapes from the lawless element, which then pervaded the region.  On one occasion he fought and captured three desperados who were armed with a scythe, a pitchfork and a rifle respectively, after desperately wounding one of their number.  It was during his incumbency of the sheriff office that he made the acquaintance of General Winfield Scott and Col. Jefferson Davis, later president of the Southern Confederacy, but at the time an officer in the United States Army, and then engaged in the work building Fort Prairie du Chein.
     The venerable gentleman now lives on his farm near the village of Court de Oreilles, where he does his own work with neatness and expedition that would do credit to a man many years his junior.

--Transcribed from: Chippewa Falls Independent - dated October 29,1905

--Also transcribed from a later edition of the Chippewa Falls Independent:

"THE ISHAM FAMILY"

An Interesting Story and a Correction That Will Help Future Historians

Editor Independent. Dear Sir:

I wish to make a little correction to an article in your Sunday issue of the 23rd. It alludes to an early day friend of mine and read as follows:

"Ira Isham was among the early residents of Chippewa Falls, and known to many old timers. He was an Indian and raised a large family." which is correct, all but that "he was an Indian".

Ira was a thorough full-blooded Yankee, born in the state of Vermont. and came to Menomonie, Wis., in 1847, and the to Chippewa Falls, where he worked in the sawmill for H.S. Allen and became one of the best saw filers in the big mill, and like all the early settlers,married an Indian wife, and lived in a small house built in the rear of the present Dick Kunsman saloon, and raised a family of thirteen children. He was a great deer hunter and rifle shot, and was the deputy sheriff who shot and wounded and captured Donaldson and put him in the company's root house (there being no jail then) -- we were all good citizens in those days). Donaldson had shot and killed Spee Sheep, a half breed, the day before in Pete Rousseau's Saloon over in Frenchtown. The root house was built of logs with a wooden door of planks. That night Donaldson cut his way out of the door and escaped, and was never heard of after that.

Ira was a small man, but one the strongest men I ever saw. The winter of 1857   I was clerking for H.S. Allen & Co. He came for a barrel of flour. I went with him to the warehouse to get it (the company's store was over by the mill). He rolled the barrel out and I asked him how he was going to get it home., it weighing over 200 lbs. Why! i am going to carry it. With that he threw it up on his shoulder and away he went.

The last time I saw Ira was at Hayward, Wis., in 1896. he was at the depot to wave goodbye to some of his grand and great-grandchildren who were going to the Indian School at Tomah. As the train moved by we were standing on the platform together and from the platform and windows of the cars as they passed came the farewells and good-bye grandpa, good-bye grandpa. I was surprised and remarked to him, "Ira, it looks as if the whole train load belongs to you. He laugher (sic) and said "I guess so". I asked him how many grand and great-grandchildren he had. He replied, forty-two grand and eighty-three great-grandchildren.

THOS. McBEAN