History of Reedsburg and the Upper Baraboo Valley, by Merton Edwin Krug, Publ. February 1929 by the author. Printed by Democrat Printing Company, Madison, Wis., Page 111-115

AFTER THE WAR

The financial depression which followed the Civil War was keenly felt by the residents of North Sauk County, but not so keenly as elsewhere in the land. At that time one of the leading industries in the State was the growing of hops, an industry which had its early beginnings in the town of Winfield, on the farm now owned by Mr. Will SKINNER. There, in the spring of 1852, were planted the first hop roots to sprout in Sauk County, and some say, in the State of Wisconsin. Down through the years, until 1867, hop raising grew in importance; and in that year the price soared so high that every grower began to dream of the crop of 1868 as the one out of which he would reap a fortune and retire.

STORY OF THE HOP INDUSTRY

Mr. Jesse COTTINGTON, propagator of the hop industry in the State of Wisconsin, was an Englishman, born in Sussex County, March 24, 1816, where his boyhood and youth were spent, and was a son of Robert and Sarah (WOODSHELL) COTTINGTON. At the age of eighteen, Jesse married Rebecca FORWARD, and in 1841 he brought his family to America. He had been raised among the famous hop gardens near London, and upon coming to this country, settled near Waterville, New York, cultivating for seven years the hop yard of Mr. PALMER, now known as the propagator of the Palmer Seedling, which gained considerable popularity during the hop period. In 1851 Mr. COTTINGTON migrated to Sauk County, spending the early part of the winter on a farm in the town of Westfield; then, in February 1852, he took possession of the farm now owned by Mr. SKINNER, where he established permanent residence. That spring Mr. COTTINGTON had a half acre's planting of roots shipped to him from the PALMER yards, via Milwaukee, and with his own team and a hand-made wagon, his son, the late Amos COTTINGTON of recent memory, drove to Milwaukee and brought the roots to his father's Winfield farm.

In 1853 COTTINGTONS harvested the first hop crop. They built a hopkiln of logs, size 12 by 12 feet, minus windows and without a stove to heat it. But by burning a pit of charcoal, fuel was procured with which the hops could be dried. As they had no press the first picking was stamped into a sack, the first crop yielding only 150 pounds. Mr. COTTINGTON found the soil here better adapted to the growth of hops than the soil of the East, and the hops grown here were of a choicer variety than those grown either in the gardens of England or in the Palmer yards.

Mr. COTTINGTON marketed his first crop at Columbus, Columbia Co., Wis., in the fall of 1853. Mr. and Mrs. COTTINGTON, with the bags of hops, accompanied Mrs. VAN CAMP, who had to go thither on business and was glad to have them as company. Her conveyance was one horse and a wagon. They received thirty cents per pound for their hops. So the net receipts for Sauk County's first crop of hops were forty-five dollars in gold. Earlier that season Harvey CANFIELD of Baraboo, through Mr. COTTINGTON, sent east for some roots, and in the same box, the latter had enough more shipped him to complete his yards. Through the Palmer yards Mr. COTTINGTON supplied roots to many of his neighbors, and thus was begun an industry that practically revolutionized agricultural interests in the state.

The price of hops rose steadily from the very first, until the Crash of 1868. To the grower a year of hops meant security and comforts. It was the stability of the price that enabled the pioneers to enjoy the comforts that came to them during the early years, that enabled them to build big frame houses, have fine clothes, pay for their farms, and accumulate quantities of money, to pass along to posterity. Yet to the generation of our parents hop picking is not of pleasant memory. It was hard work.

The Hop Crash of 1868 was brought about in this wise: Owing to the destruction of the crop in the State of New York, by the hop louse (Aphides), in the years of 1865, '66 and '67, the cultivation of the hop in and around Reedsburg (says the Sketch Book) became a perfect mania. All other branches of agriculture became entirely neglected, owing to the very high price of hops, caused by the failure of the crop in some eastern states for a series of years. It was no uncommon thing in 1866 or 1867 for a person, without capital, to purchase a farm for three or four thousand dollars, having four or five acres of hops on it, and from one year's crop, pay for the farm, and have a thousand dollars left over. The result of this state of affairs was that during the years 1865, '66 and '67, the expenses of living in Reedsburg were greater than in Milwaukee or Chicago. Common garden vegetables, butter and provisions generally, having to be carted into the place against the common laws of trade. The result of such an unnatural state of affairs could be nothing but a general financial crash. In 1868 that crash came.

After it was over it was very plain to the hop growers how it could have been averted. Lack of due caution and foresightedness on the part of the growers and merchants was responsible for the whole unfortunate situation. Owing to the failure of the crop in the East, the price raised from the study average of twenty cents to a fluctuating price ranging from forty-five to sixty cents per pound, attaining the latter figure in 1867.

Many farmers in and around Reedsburg realized a net profit of three thousand dollars from their crop. It was a common occurrence to see a farmer come into a store and throw down a thousand dollar bill and ask for change, with the same nonchalance, as in ordinary times is done with a ten dollar bill. Any man's credit was undoubted at the business houses, if he had three or four acres of hops. Thus it was that in the year 1867 two million dollars were scattered in and around Reedsburg.

THE CRASH

Everything was very lovely, continued the Sketch Book, and the anticipations of the people ran high for the year 1868. Nice houses were planned; fine carriages were bought, and a hundred magnificent "castles in the air" aroused in the imaginations of the people. It appeared the almost universal desire of the people was to have one more crop, make their fortunes and retire. Fifty cents was the coveted price, and anyone who intimated that a lower price might prevail, was not tolerated a moment. Some of the Reedsburg hop dealers visited New York, and other eastern cities, in July 1868, and after a careful review of the situation, on their return, advised caution on the part of merchants and growers, but so completely had the "wish been father to the thought" that the insane belief in permanent high prices had so bewitched the minds of the people, that they would listen to no advice or words of caution, but at once raised a clamor that the hop dealers were in league with outside purchasers and brewers, to keep them out of the market for the purpose of forcing down the prices. This notion had so long taken possession of the minds of the people, that at Loganville, to the south of Reedsburg, in the town of Westfield, indignation meets were held, and it was currently reported in Reedsburg, that said dealer who had given an opinion that hops might that year go down as low as twenty cents per pound, if they put in appearance at Loganville, would get the unkindly attention of the mob.

The State of Wisconsin harvested and sold only 100,000 bales of hops that year, at a price that ranged from four and one-half to five cents per pound, in contrast to the sixty cents of the previous year. It is said that Sauk County lost between two and three million dollars on that year's hop crop; many estimate it in all its ramifications at a much higher figure. Reedsburg and the surrounding country tributary to it, from having previous years occupied the very topmost pinnacle of success and prosperity, was at once precipitated into the midnight darkness of financial distress and bankruptcy.

From that time dates the permanent prosperity of the village. It is said that of all the merchants in Reedsburg, only Samuel RAMSEY and J. V. KELSEY survived the crash without being severely crippled financially. After the crash, the farmers who did not lose their property because of it, set about to re-establish their fortunes. Hop growing continued with the stability of price that it had known during the '50s and the Civil War, until 1866. Many of them grew well-to-do; and the new settlers who bought out the bankrupt growers paid for their farms; and general prosperity ensued.
Submitted by Carol