Back Home by Chris Hardie
The early morning fog hung low in the valley as I stepped out the back door for an autumn morning walk down Claire Road.
As I headed north my morning thoughts drifted into the past. Our home – which was built by my great-grandparents George “Ray” and Hilda Hardie in 1925 – sits at the end of Claire Road, which is about one mile south from Jackson County HIghway C.
When my great-grandparents moved to the farm in October 1923, there were several gates across the road that marked the various property lines. The road was a rutted path through fields covered with sand burrs.
An 1877 plat map that hangs on the wall of the Jackson County Courthouse shows the farm was then owned by the Chicago, St. Paul and Minneapolis Railway, but today the nearest railroad is in Taylor, more than 10 miles away from the farm.
The federal government used land grants as a way to entice the building of railroads. The land grants originated from an 1856 act of Congress that gave the land to the railroad to help pay for the cost of building a railway from Tomah to Lake St. Croix. That became the West Wisconsin Railway.
The railway received alternating checkerboard sections of public land – usually six to 10 square miles of land for every mile completed. The West Wisconsin Railway fell into foreclosure and its assets were acquired by the Chicago, St. Paul and Minneapolis Railway Company in 1878. That company merged in 1881 to become the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway that eventually became the Chicago & Northwestern.
The land was eventually sold by the railroad to help raise money for operations. By 1901 a plat map shows the land that became the family farm was owned by John H. Johnson.
In 1937 the Franklin Town Board considered an application to lay out a highway that eventually became Claire Road. That application said that the road was to run on the southwest bank of Little Creek, which never happened as the road does not cross the creek.
My great grandparent’s youngest daughter Sara married Leland Clair in 1943 and the young couple moved to the farm in 1944. Over the years the road went from sand to gravel and was paved with cold mix in 1978. Ownership of the road was transferred to the town of Franklin before it was paved.
I have walked or ridden my bike on this road hundreds of times, heading 1.5 miles to the former Franklin Store or to visit my childhood best friend Merle Noren who lived in downtown Franklin. I passed the spot when I had a bike accident at the age of 11 or 12. My pant leg got stuck in the chain, sending me head over heels. I picked up my bent bike and walked the rest of the way home with chunks of gravel embedded in my bleeding skull.
I’m not certain what year our road was named. People speculate that someone added an extraneous “e” at the end of Clair and the result was a typo that lives in perpetuity. However, Aunt Sara once told me that the road was not named after her last name but was the first name of a neighbor. There was a Claire that lived nearby, but he didn’t live on Claire Road.
A Riverland Energy Cooperative power line runs along the road. One of the poles is still stamped with “REA Co-op” lettering, a nod to the Rural Electrification Administration, which helped to pay for the cost of running the line. The farm did not have electricity until the late 1940s.
Just below the road to the former town landfill – which has long since been closed – two deer with their reddish coats turning to winter gray were standing in the field. They had not yet noticed me walking. But they soon did and one snorted before they dashed across the creek, their white tails flashing. Further along I noticed several well-worn paths used by the deer to cross east to west across the road.
There are two small hills on the road. As I climbed the second, steeper one, I could feel the thermal currents as the temperature rose. Off to the right was a rocky ledge we called Pine Bluff, where generations carved their initials in the soft sandstone.
After following several turns in the road, I reached Highway C, where the mailbox for RFD 1 used to stand. I stopped by the blue sign that designates the route as Claire Road.
Lots of memories along this road and its destination at the end.
With hope, there will be many more.
I turned around and headed home.
