Introduction

Wilder N. Schitt occupies an unusual place in the Archives. We know where his story eventually leads, but considerably less about the road that brought him there. As founder of Little Schitt’s Crossing, his importance is difficult to dispute. The circumstances, experiences, relationships, and occasional good fortune that put him in that particular swamp are considerably less cooperative.

This exhibit gathers what the Archives presently believe can reasonably be said about Wilder, along with those fragments, family accounts, and unresolved connections that may help explain the man without pretending to completely know him.

Related Archive Material: → Indiana Schitt Connections → Wagon Trail / Founding of Little Schitt’s Crossing

Prologue

Before there was Little Schitt’s Crossing, there was simply Wilder.

He appears to have spent a good portion of his early adult life learning how to make himself useful, how to recognize value where others might not, and how to move along when opportunity—or something resembling it—suggested he should.

Southwestern Indiana seems to have mattered. Parrot and Polly certainly mattered. The goats, for reasons still not entirely understood, apparently mattered too.

And then there was Calamity Cartwright. Hearing her name Wilder tended to clam up and look the other way …. but always seems to look BACK at her!

Miss Cartwright appears intermittently in Wilder’s later record with sufficient frequency to make her difficult to dismiss and insufficient consistency to explain precisely what she was doing there.

Family accounts suggest she pursued Wilder on and off for a considerable number of years.

Wilder appears to have noticed, nodded, grinned, snickered and occasionally looked fondly from afar…..

The goats appear to have taken considerably greater interest.

Exactly why Calamity, Wilder, and an improbable number of otherwise unrelated goats repeatedly found themselves involved in the same events remains unresolved.

The Calamity Cartwright record has not improved our understanding.

What follows is not intended to settle Wilder’s story.

It is simply our best attempt to understand how he got close enough to a Tennessee swamp to decide not to leave.

— Crock O. Schitt Historical Archives