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The Great Indian Scare
if true, that the soldiers would reach Cedarburg before the Indians came. Just
then a cry went up in the streets that the Tndians were only two miles away,
an4 had set fire to the Catholic church. Farm people, who were now fleeing into
9edarburg, had seen great clouds of smoke. Many frcon Cedarburg now started
for Milwaukee, and we decided that if our neighbors left, we would go with
them in their wagon.
"We learned that several babies had been born prematurely on the flight
to Milwaukee. Two thousand wagons filled the streets of that city, and the
friendly Indians living there had fled. The entire day of September 4 (my
wife's birthday), was filled with terror. To add to the misery of the refugees,
rain fell in torrents. No one had seen any unfriendly Indians, yet the inhab-
itants of five or six counties were fleeing before them.
"On the morning of September 5, two companies of soldiers came from
Milwaukee. They were given the best accommodations Cedarburg had to offer.
Two were quartered with us--a 57-year-old man with a long white beard, who
was a doctor of philosophy named Franz Joseph Felsecker from Bamberg, Germany,
and 4 young man, Peter Divorschek, from Neuhaus, Austria. In the afternoon I
called on a sick man who had been left helpless and alone when everyone in
his family had fled to Milwaukee. People are now beginning to return to their
homes."
The next day the soldiers marched back from their "Battle of Fort Cedar-
burg," which was evidently more a battle of the beer mug according to some
other Accounts, and the hospitality of Cedarburg remained unsung. By this
time a good portion of the state of Wisconsin was crowded into Milwaukee, with
the exception of the Indian residents of the area, who had had their own
private "Groat White Scare" and had disappeared into the bushes.