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     SUSA VILETTA HUMES STURTEVANT             -
-        Author-Gene Sturtevant, Oshkosh
                 Born May 9,1840.
    When requested to prepare a sketch of the life of
my mother, Susa Viletta Humes Sturtevant, I accepted
the task with delight, but now, as I am about to begin
the work, I pause, fearful that through a misguided mod-
esty, I fail in paying her the tribute she deserves and
which is due the splendid type of womanhood she is.
    Her early years were the pioneer days of Wisconsin.
She was a territorial resident. In the thirties her father,
Amos Humes, one of those hardy frontiersmen, always
in the vanguard of civilization, trapped through eastern
and southern Wisconsin, and pleased with natural
beauties and advantages of that part of the state which
is now Rock County, in the year 1842 brought his family
from New York State, making the trip overland in a cov-
ered wagon, and built him a log house, in which for
sometime he conducted a tavern, near the bank of Rock
River, where the bridge now called the Four Mile bridge,
north of the city of Janesville, is located. In the early
days it was called Humes Bridge. The road that crossed
the river here was the main highway from eastern points
to the lead region and farther west, and my mother's
childhood memories are of covered wagons, great herds
of cattle and flocks of sheep belonging to homeseekers
who were making their way west to settle in the new
country.
    At the time the family came to Wisconsin, my moth-
er was two years old, she having been born in Cuba,
New York, May 9, 1840, being the fifth child of Amos
Humes, granddaughter of Aaron Humes and greatgrand-
daughter of Robert Humes, both of the two last named
having served their country in the war of the Revolution;
and of Susan Ann Vreeland, whose ancestors came from
Holland to American in 1648. That my mother inherited
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