Bill and Julie Sorrel, along with children Joseph, Kim and Susan, have given a unique piece of local history to the Hoard Historical Museum in Fort Atkinson.
The artifact, an 1809 Prussian-made bayonet, was found by Bill on their farm in Cold Spring in 1982 while he was removing a fallen tree along Whitewater Creek.
The metal bayonet, 22 inches in length, is slim with a point on one end and a circular piece on the other end to allow it to be placed on the tip of a musket.
Uncertain of exactly what they had found, Julie Sorrel brought the bayonet to the Hoard Historical Museum for help with identifying it. She was in luck, for on that day in 1982, Crawford Thayer, a well-known local expert on the Black Hawk War, was easily able to identify their find.
Julie recalled: “Crawford was sitting in the museum talking with other people. I showed them what we had found and that I didn’t know exactly was it was.
“Crawford said, ‘That’s a bayonet from the Black Hawk War and since you found it where you did, it was lost on July 7, 1832.’ I was shocked that he could be so specific.”
Thayer could give such a specific answer because he wrote the book on the Black Hawk War. In fact, he wrote three books on the Black Hawk War: “Hunting A Shadow,” “The Battle of Wisconsin Heights” and “Massacre at Bad Axe.” All three are available for sale in the museum’s gift shop.
His trilogy uses official correspondence and memoirs to trace the war in a day-to-day format, with Thayer editing the information for clarity and further details.
The section on July 7, 1832, quotes John Allen Wakefield, writing his history of the war two years after it happened, noting that on July 7, 1832, near the community of Cold Spring, Wisconsin: “General Atkinson took up the line of march, still up the river, and made shift to cross one branch of this dismal stream, White Water (sic); but it was with much difficulty as many a horse mired down, and threw his rider into the water, where he and his gun were literally buried in mud and water …”
Further reports of the date from other sources all have the same theme: they were in the vicinity of Cold Spring, became caught in the swamps around the Bark River and Whitewater Creek, and lost large amounts of gear and supplies.
The Sorrel family farm was outside of Cold Spring along Whitewater Creek. Thayer simply lined up the location of where the item was found and the most reasonable explanation for how a pre-Civil War bayonet ended up along the riverbank.
The Sorrel family, proud of what they had found and its importance to local and national history, treasured the bayonet for years. In 2020, Bill and Julie Sorrel sold the farm and, as part of relocating, gave the bayonet to the Hoard Historical Museum.
“We are always honored to be entrusted with a piece of our history,” museum director Merrilee Lee said. “The Sorrel family’s gift of the bayonet tells so many stories: the story of the Black Hawk War, the story of the average people caught up in the fight, and the story of Bill finding it in the mud, exactly 150 years after it was lost. The museum will add this bayonet to the Lincoln Era Library exhibit to expand the local story of the Black Hawk War.”
Lee continued: “The Sorrel family is excited to share their delight at giving this item to the museum.”
To celebrate their gift, the Sorrel family will host an open house from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Friday, August 13. The open house is free to attend and the family will provide light refreshments.
The open house will be held at the Hoard Historical Museum, 401 Whitewater Ave., Fort Atkinson, WI 53538.
The Sorrel family has donated a bayonet, found in 1982 on their farm in Cold Spring, to the Hoard Historical Museum. It is believed to have been lost on July 7, 1832, when Gen. Henry Atkinson’s forces were pursuing Black Hawk and his band through what today is Jefferson County. Three days later, Abraham Lincoln, a member of the Illinois Militia, was sent home. This marker is located in Cold Spring.
The metal bayonet, pictured, is 22 inches in length, slim with a point on one end and a circular piece on the other end to allow it to be placed on the tip of a musket. The artifact was found on a farm in Cold Spring along Whitewater Creek. Photo courtesy of the Hoard Historical Museum.
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