MENUWeekly Column
Each week a small segment of Vernon County history is published in the county papers.
For the week of 12/21/2025
by Kristen Parrott, curator
The Vernon County Museum and History Center will be closed the week of Christmas (Dec. 23-25) and the week of New Year’s (Dec. 30-Jan. 1). We will open again at 11AM on Tuesday, January 6, ready for a new year! Regular winter hours are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 11AM to 4PM, or by appointment. Call us at 608-637-7396 to make an appointment.
Thank you to everyone who supported us this year by buying sweepstakes tickets. This is an important annual fundraiser for us. The sweepstakes drawing was held on December 17, and congratulations are due to the winners: Khloe Frie of Winona, Duffy Hoffland of Viroqua, Steve Willis of Viroqua, Sharon Burchardt of Sparta, and Jan Sime of Readstown.
In November, the Vernon County Historical Society elected Board members for 2026, and the Board members have just chosen their officers. Here are the officers for next year: Dian Krause, president; Brian Ekern, vice president; Cindy Guist, secretary; Carl Lindquist, treasurer. And here are the directors: Kevin Alderson, Kim Cade, Eddy Nix, Nathan Popp, and Rondi Solverson. These board members are all volunteers who work hard to serve the whole county.
Thank you to Leila Holen, who went off the board this year, and welcome to new board member Nathan Popp. Nathan runs Popp Funeral and Cremation Services in Viroqua. He has a PhD in Art History, plus museum experience, so he is a great addition!
The Holiday History Tour 2025 is just a memory now. Thank you to everyone who participated, from those who decorated, baked cookies, cleaned, shoveled snow, provided music, greeted visitors, and so much more, to those who bought tickets and went on the tour. It was a bitterly cold day, but everyone still had a good time.
Happy Holidays!
The historic Sherry-Butt House in Viroqua, owned and operated by the Vernon County Historical Society, is decorated outside for the holidays.
For the week of 12/14/2025
by Kristen Parrott, curator
Working on an exhibit for the U.S. 250th recently, I chose a piece of sheet music just for the brightly-colored picture of the flag on the cover and for the title, “Hymn to Old Glory: The Star Spangled Flag of the Free”, thinking that this would be a background object. But then I saw that the words to the song were written by William Enoch Minshall. “Minshall” is a Vernon County name, and a little research revealed an interesting story.
William Enoch Minshall was born in Ohio in 1844 and moved to Viroqua with his family when he was 12. As a young man he worked as a typesetter and printer for the Northwestern Times newspaper, which was founded in 1856 and later became the Vernon County Censor.
Minshall served as a soldier throughout the Civil War, first in Company I of the 6th Wisconsin, a Vernon County company, enlisting in June of 1861. Other soldiers in the company included Earl Rogers and Francis Waller. He contracted typhoid fever, and was discharged in May of 1862 because of disability, but then re-enlisted a few weeks later, now in Company F of the 20th Wisconsin. Minshall fought in multiple battles during the war and suffered several injuries, including losing his left eye. He mustered out in July of 1865.
William married Emeline Rivenburgh of Sparta in 1867, shortly after the end of the Civil War. They moved to Chicago, where he worked for the Chicago Times newspaper. He eventually lost the vision in his other eye, and came to rely on his wife to be his “eyes”. But William continued to work, writing poetry and song lyrics, giving speeches and teaching elocution. He published the “Hymn to Old Glory” in 1915, the words recalling both Washington and Lincoln: “By Washington founded, by Lincoln safeguarded, We hail thee, Old Glory, flag of the free.”
Newspaper articles referred to Minshall as the “blind soldier”, the “blind veteran”, and the “blind vet of ‘61”, because of his Civil War experience. In earlier photographs, he sat turned to the left, so that his missing eye was not apparent. Possibly he got a glass eye when he was older, because he faces the camera in later photos.
Emeline died in Chicago in 1925. William then went to the soldiers’ home in Milwaukee where he died three months later. They are buried at Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago.
During the Civil War, Minshall had become friends with Rufus Dawes of Mauston, who was initially captain of Company K of the 6th Wisconsin, but rose through the ranks to become a lieutenant colonel for the whole regiment. Rufus’ son Charles Gates Dawes grew up to become Vice President of the United States in 1925, and Minshall’s obituaries mention his connection to the family. Charles Dawes won the Nobel Peace Prize later that same year, after Minshall’s death.
You can see William Minshall’s music on the second floor of the museum in a new exhibit about the U.S. 250th.
Lyrics to this music were written by William Minshall, a Viroqua pioneer.
The previous two articles: