Laura and The Big Woods in Wisconsin

Charles and Caroline Ingalls, Laura’s Pa and Ma, were both among the earliest pioneers in western Wi. Laura’s mother was born in Brook field, Wi., in 1839 and been the first non-Indian baby born in the area. Brook field is now a thickly populated suburb of Milwaukee. After  Caroline and Charles were married, they rented land in Concord area for a few years. Then they settled on land about seven miles from the river town of Pepin, founded in 1855. Pa built his family a little log cabin. Soon Mary was born in 1865, and then Laura in 1867.

The family farmed the land, and Pa traded, shopped and voted in town, and fished in Lake Pepin. The little house in the Wi., woods was the Ingalls home twice. Pa sold his land in 1868, and the following year he took his family to Ks. The buyer of the land defaulted on his payments, however, and the land reverted to Pa. In 171, the family returned to the Big Woods to live. They remained there until 1874,when they moved west to Mn. The second period of residence is what Laura recalled in Little House in the Big Woods.

Lansford and Laura Ingalls ( G’pa and G’ma) farmed land north of Little House near Pepin and Pierce County line. The site is not marked, and eventually the grandparents moved farther north to Webster. Their graves and those of other family members are in the Orange Cemetery near Webster, about 3 -4 hours from Pepin.

About 35 miles west of Milwaukee is an area closely associated with early lives of Caroline and Charles Ingalls. In 1860, Pa and Ma were married in the little town of Concord, and they spent the next three years in the vicinity. Laura’s grandmother Charlotte Quiner Holbrook is buried in Rome, Wi., along her husband Frederick Holbrook are marked with headstones from the 1880’s