USA > Wisconsin > Columbia County > A history of Columbia County, Wisconsin : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests > Part 37
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REMARKABLE FRIENDSHIP
"The friendship between these three pioneers was so firmly cemented during these hours of trial, that death alone severed it. These three men were born inside of one year, and Mr. Carr, who died in Linden, Idaho, December 2, 1894, aged seventy-seven years, ten months and eleven days, preceded Mr. Adams just three months and fifteen days, the latter dying March 17, 1895.
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FARMING UNDER DIFFICULTIES
"Mr. Carr was remarried to Mary Crocker of Binghampton, New York, the summer of 1846, and continued to reside on the farm. He walked from his home to Green Bay, the nearest land office at that time, to secure his deed, paying $1.25 per acre for 160 acres. At that time there were only three houses in Columbus. He brought besides the apple seeds in his pockets, five slips of Balm of Gilead trees in his trunk. These grew and from the buds was made a salve which was extensively used by the neighbors for healing wounds as cuts, scratches, etc., and many were the slips taken from these trees, to various parts of the prai- rie. Milwaukee was their nearest market, and Mr. Carr often told of taking a load of grain there with an ox team, and it would not bring enough to buy a barrel of salt.
AN OPINIONATED APPLICANT
"Before the days of county superintendent of schools, the school board of which Mr. Carr was chairman had to examine the applicants, grant certificates, etc., and I remember many amusing incidents. One young lady insisted that in giving the vowel sounds, e preceding o had the soft sound, and that the abbreviation Co. should be pronounced as So, and No. for number was pronounced No. Elinor Carr, a sister, was one of the first school teachers.
PUBLIC SERVICE OF CARR AND ADAMS
"Mr. Carr was the first justice of peace in Fall River, and held that office consecutively until he resigned when he sold his farm and removed to Columbia in 1863. He was also instrumental in organizing Columbia County, and was the first county clerk. He and Mr. Adams, with one horse and ox, laid out the county road. One would ride a while, then the other. They also located the county seat at Portage. It was through the instrumentality of Mr. Carr that Mr. Adams secured the position of county superintendent of schools, also that of trustee of the Insane Asylum, a position he held for thirty-six (36) consecutive years.
STORY HE TOLD ON BROTHER SAGE
"One of the many amusing anecdotes Mr. Carr always enjoyed relat- ing was in connection with Captain Sage, a neighbor. Mr. Sage was rather a devout person, and seldom did any work on Sunday. When he Vol I -24
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digging the cellar for his new house he was quite anxious to rush it along. One Sunday morning, Mr. Carr, as was often his custom, was walking around his fences, when near Mr. Sage's place (their lands joined), he heard a noise and carefully stepping near he saw the Cap- tain digging busily. He stepped behind a tree and in a sepulchral voice said, 'Remember the Sabbath day to keep it Holy!' Captain Sage stopped, listened, looked around and seeing no one, got out of the cellar, carefully wiped his shovel, went to his house and labored no more that day.
"Much more might be written of those early days, but other more gifted pens can more fully do justice to those brave and hardy Pioneers who have done so much to make our noble state what it is today."
BENJAMIN SAGE, THE VICTIM
Benjamin Sage was among the first half dozen to settle within the present limits of Fountain Prairie and, although not especially promi- nent in the public affairs of the town, was always considered one of its best citizens. At his death in August, 1871, the Columbus Democrat says : "Benjamin Sage died at his residence in Fountain Prairie on Tuesday last of apoplexy. He was sixty-seven years old and was among the pioneer settlers of Columbia County. Twenty-eight years ago this autumn he came to this county and selected his farm and future home. There was only one family living in the present township of Fountain Prairie. It was necessary at that time to go to Green Bay to purchase, as the land office was then situated there. This journey he made on foot. The intervening country was then inhabited by Indians only. Roads and hotels at that period were, of course, not among the con- veniences found by travelers. John Brown had selected an eighty ad- joining the prospective farm of the Captain. With a single exception, these claims were the first two made in the township. These two pioneers made the journey to Green Bay together. The friendship formed during that trip was as lasting as life. Either could have adopted as his own the words of David lamenting for Jonathan: 'Very pleasant hast thou been unto me; thy love to me was wonderful, passing that of a woman.' He has resided at the same location ever since. He was a good citizen, order-loving, public spirited and a democrat of the old school."
VILLAGE OF FALL RIVER
Fall River, the only village in the Town of Fountain Prairie, is located on Crawfish River, a tributary of the Rock, and has the advan-
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tage of a good water power. It was incorporated as a village in 1903, and is a leading station on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad. The largest industries of the village are the Fall River Canning Com- pany and the Fall River Mills, the former being one of the largest plants of the kind in the country. The chief products of the mill, which is a three-story building on the north branch of the river near the east end of the village, are buckwheat and graham flour and coarse feed. Wheat flour is handled at wholesale.
Fall River has also a creamery, a bank and a house which does a good business in lumber and building materials, as well as several stores. Its school is graded and efficient, and the Methodists and Baptists have societies to meet the religious needs of the community.
A. A. BRAYTON, FIRST SETTLER
Fall River was founded before the Town of Fountain Prairie, in which it is situated. A. A. Brayton is credited with its fatherhood. In 1837 he moved with his father's family to Wisconsin, and in the following year settled at Aztalan, where he kept a small variety store.
In 1846 Mr. Brayton purchased the southwest quarter of Section 26, Township 11, Range 12, in what is now the Town of Fountain Prairie. He drew up a plan of the village, proceeded to erect a sawmill and opened a store. The sawmill he continued to operate for six years, and in 1850 erected a large gristmill. Not long after Mr. Brayton disposed of his interest in the latter-which was the origin of the Fall River Mills, before mentioned.
POSTOFFICE IN 1847
One of the first things attended to by Mr. Brayton was to petition the Government to establish a postoffice at this point, which was done early in 1847. The founder of the village had no competitor for the postmastership.
THE VILLAGE SCHOOLS
In 1850 a schoolhouse was built in the village, the district being designated as No. 1. By 1856 the house was found to be too small to accommodate the number of pupils in the district, so another was added in that year. Other improvements in both accommodations and edu- cational system have since been made, so that the Union School of the present Fall River meets with every reasonable requirement.
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To the original plat of Fall River, made by Mr. Brayton in 1846, Eli Grout made a small addition. On the completion of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad in 1864, S. L. Batchelder made a second addition in the vicinity of the depot. Previous to 1880 many streets and blocks of land had been vacated, reducing materially the original plat.
METHODIST AND BAPTIST CHURCHES
The Methodists and Baptists have societies at Fall River. The former organized as early as 1844, the locality at that time being connected with the old Aztalan circuit. It was almost entirely an organization of Smiths-Clark (at whose log house the meeting was held), Martha, Sarah and Rev. E. J. Smith-and Mrs. Aaron E. Houghton. A log schoolhouse was erected soon after, and the meetings transferred to it. As the population of the village increased, the society was moved thither. In 1855 a church edifice was erected for the use of the Methodists, and in 1875 was rebuilt and enlarged.
In 1847 a Baptist society was formed at Fall River, and in March, 1867, became legally organized as "The First Regular Baptist Church and Society." A church edifice was erected in 1869. The present society is in charge of Rev. Thomas W. Gales, who also serves the Baptists of Rio and Otsego.
EARLY TIMES IN VILLAGE AND TOWN
In reviewing the old times of the village and the town, an early settler says: "In 1845 A. A. Brayton entered the land for the mill- site and the village of Fall River, where he built a sawmill in 1846 which furnished all the sawed lumber that was used in the construction of hundreds of log houses in this region. White oak boards were con- sidered good finishing lumber in 1846. Brayton opened the first store in town in the fall of 1846, using a slab shanty for his store. This year (1846) was known to the early settlers as the sickly season. Fever and ague and chills were very prevalent. In many neighborhoods there were not well ones enough to care for the sick, and some left the country because of its unhealthfulness.
"The town lying in the forks of the Crawfish, which is skirted with timber, was a favorite hunting and fishing ground for the Indian. Then it was right in his pathway from the Rock River to the Portage between the Fox and Wisconsin, and deep trails were worn across the prairie where for many a long year the savage had led his squaw and his pony. For several years after the first settlement the Indian was wont
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to visit these old hunting and fishing grounds; but he was not the Indian of song and story-only a miserable, thieving, begging, cowardly specimen of humanity. Deer and the prairie hen were the principal game that the early settler found, and they were very abundant. Many a family subsisted almost entirely for weeks together upon food obtained by hunting and fishing."
CHAPTER XXV
OTSEGO TOWNSHIP (DOYLESTOWN)
PRESENT VILLAGE OF DOYLESTOWN-WAYNE B. DYER WAS FIRST SETTLER -VILLAGE OF OTSEGO-LAND OWNERS OF THE PRESENT DOYLESTOWN -TOWN OF OTSEGO ORGANIZED-PLAT OF DOYLESTOWN RECORDED- FIRST IMPROVEMENTS-A BOOM-COLUMBUS TOO SWIFT-SCHOOLS AND CHURCHES.
Doylestown is an incorporated village in Otsego Township, south- eastern part of the county, and is a station on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad. It is in the prairie region and the center of a good agricultural and dairy district.
PRESENT VILLAGE OF DOYLESTOWN
As potatoes are so readily raised in the country roundabout, Doyles- town has three warehouses to accommodate growers and shippers. It has the second largest creamery in the county, its plant being only exceeded in output by the Lodi creamery. The Doylestown concern turns out over 250,000 pounds of hutter yearly. The village has a number of general retail stores, and is in the line of advancement among the villages of the county.
A good graded school and Lutheran and Catholic churches supply the educational and religious needs of the community, while the Modern Woodmen of America and the Catholic Order of Foresters add to the sociability of the place.
WAYNE B. DYER WAS FIRST SETTLER
Wayne B. Dyer, who was the second settler in what is now the Town of Fountain Prairie, remained in that section of the county only eight
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or nine months, and in May, 1844, came to the present Town of Otsego. He located on Section 22 and erected a log house in which to live and entertain the weary traveler; since, of settlers, he was the first.
VILLAGE OF OTSEGO
Being on the direct route between Milwaukee and Stevens Point, Mr. Dyer prevailed upon quite a number to settle around his hostelry, so that by December, 1847, the postoffice of Otsego was established, named after the New York village. Other hotels than that conducted by Mr. Dyer were built and patronized, and the village attained a fair degree of prosperity until 1864, when the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad was completed to Doylestown, two miles north.
LAND OWNERS OF THE PRESENT DOYLESTOWN
In 1848 Orin Kincaid entered a tract of land about ten miles west of Columbus, not far from the present station and Village of Doyles- town. This was the first entry in the vicinity, and Daniel James was the first who settled adjacent to the site of the village. In 1849-50, Damon C. Starr and Eason Starr purchased land on which was after- ward platted the Village of Doylestown.
TOWN OF OTSEGO ORGANIZED
At a meeting of the county commissioners held in January, 1849, all of Township 11, Range 11, was organized into a town to which was given the name of Otsego, as many of the early settlers came from that section of the Empire State. Orin Kincaid was the first chairman of the town board and held the position for a number of successive years.
PLAT OF DOYLESTOWN RECORDED
For about ten years there was much rivalry between the Village of Otsego and the little settlement further north, promoted by Mr. Kin- caid, the Starrs and others. The coming of the railroad in 1864 left no doubt as to which was to survive. In March of the following year Lemuel H. Doyle purchased of Damon C. Starr 120 acres in the south- eastern quarter of Section 11 and of Eason Starr 115 acres in the northeastern quarter of Section 14, with the express purpose of locating
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a village thereon. On the 26th of August, 1865, Alfred Topliff, county surveyor, completed and recorded the plat of the Village of Doylestown, in which is perpetuated the name of its founder.
FIRST IMPROVEMENTS
David Metcalf, a former resident of Columbus, erected a store in the sunumer of 1865, being the first in the village. He conducted it for about four months, or until it was burned. From that time until 1868 no improvements were made in the place, and in January of that year only four families resided in Doylestown.
A BOOM
Mr. Doyle, who had stood by his child, determined that it should have a start, and made a public offer to give a lot free to anyone who would build thereon. His offer was so acceptable that during the year about thirty houses were erected. Eaton & Canfield built during the Doylestown boom a $2,500 elevator, with a storage capacity of 15,000 bushels. Mr. Eaton died shortly afterward, and the elevator was burned in July, 1876.
COLUMBUS TOO SWIFT
Besides the hard luck which seemed to follow Doylestown, the village was too near Columbus, which had been incorporated before Mr. Doyle's child had been platted. Columbus had already a fine start in the race and Doylestown, although it made a game fight for a time, eventually fell far behind.
SCHOOLS AND CHURCHES
The first schoolhouse built near where the village was laid out was completed in 1859. In 1869 a larger and better house was erected. The first teacher in the new schoolhouse was Miss Emma L. Holmes. Doyles- town is now in Joint School District No. 6.
In the year when the village was platted (1865) the Catholics organ- ized a society, which is still in existence. The Methodists also had an early organization, and the Protestant Episcopals established a church in 1877; but, as stated, the Lutheran Church, of a much later date, is the only religious body to share the local field with the Catholics.
CHAPTER XXVI
ARLINGTON (TOWN AND VILLAGE)
LEADER IN AGRICULTURE-CLARK M. YOUNG, FIRST TOWNSMAN-EVOLU- TION OF ARLINGTON TOWNSHIP-FIRST SCHOOLS-PIONEERS OF RE- LIGION-THE FIRST OF THE VILLAGE-IMPORTANT 1871-BRISK, PLEASANT VILLAGE OF ARLINGTON.
Arlington, which is in the southern tier of townships, is at the top of the watershed and has an average altitude of 500 feet. In the north- ern row of sections the high ground breaks down abruptly 200 feet toward the headwaters of Rowan's Creek. With this exception, its land is generally a rolling prairie of fertile soil and rich grasses.
LEADER IN AGRICULTURE
The Town of Arlington is therefore finely adapted to both agriculture and live stock; and this is no haphazard statement, since the county assessor himself gives the figures to prove that it is first, among the towns of the county, in the acreage devoted to corn and oats, and second and third, to barley and grasses. Arlington has also made a specialty of the raising of swine and is second only to West Point in that industry. Altogether there is no better agricultural town in Columbia County than Arlington. Its only village was named after it.
CLARK M. YOUNG, FIRST TOWNSMAN
The Town of Arlington was settled more than thirty years before the village, its first permanent resident being Clark M. Young, who located on Section 1 (in the extreme northeast of the township) in the spring of 1838. For six years he had the field to himself. J. Pratt came in 1844, and from that year until 1850 the leading settlers were N. Van Winter, Nathan Hazen, William A. McIntosh, Fred Starr, Hugh McFarlane, Jeremy Bradley, Mark Meadowcraft, John Franklin, Usual
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Youngs, George Bradley, A. P. Smith, Isaac N. Brown, H. N. Joy, Thomas Rassou, Samuel D. Drake, Ambrose Powers and Henry Hill.
EVOLUTION OF ARLINGTON TOWNSHIP
Upon the organization of the county in 1846, the east half of Town- ship 10, Range 9, was included in the Lowville Precinct, and the west half with other adjoining territory became the Pleasant Valley Precinct. In 1849 the east half of this township, together with Township 10, Range 10, and the south half of Township 11, Range 10, was organized into a town to be known as Lowville; the west half, with Township 10, Range 8, and fractional part of Township 10, Range 7, was at the same time organized under the name of Lodi. In 1850 the east half, with Township 10, Range 10, was organized as Kossuth; the west half being unchanged.
In 1855 all of this township, except Sections 6, 7, 18, 19, 30 and 31, was organized into the Town of Arlington. For many years the effort was made to have these sections restored to the town. The courts were appealed to, but could give no redress. The Legislature was then asked to pass a special act for this purpose. Although this was refused, the state body authorized the county board of supervisors to adjust the matter. With this authority, the board passed a resolution permitting the change, provided the town would assume the proportionate amount of the Town of Lodi to the west, which would be collected from the owners of the sections named. This was accordingly done, and the Town of Arlington assumed its present bounds.
FIRST SCHOOLS
Usual Youngs, mentioned as among the early settlers, taught the first school in the town in the summer of 1847. During the succeeding spring a log schoolhouse was built on Section 1, and in the fall of that year (1848) Miss Sarah Richardson taught the first term of school therein.
The first school in the central part of the town was on Section 22, and was taught by Miss Caroline A. Foster in 1854.
PIONEERS OF RELIGION
Rev. Henry Maynard, the Methodist itinerant, preached the first sermon in the Town of Arlington in the summer of 1845. Clark M. Young, the pioneer, threw open his log house for the purpose. No church
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was formed until 1854, when Rev. T. Lewis, a Presbyterian minister of Lodi, preached at the house of A. P. Smith.
THE FIRST OF THE VILLAGE
The population of the town increased slowly; in fact, it received no stimulus until 1870, when the Madison & Portage Railroad was built through its eastern sections. At that time a station was located on Section 13, to provide the farmers with facilities for the shipment of grain and stock; that was the commencement of the Village of Arlington.
IMPORTANT 1871
In 1871 Mrs. Sarah Pierce and David Bullen platted the village upon the section named, the former owning the land on the north side of the main street and the latter the land upon the south side. During the summer of that year Winslow Bullen built the first house within the village limits, George McMillan opening a store in the lower story and the upper floor being occupied as a dwelling. About the same time the railway station was completed; the village was considered a fixed fact.
In this, important 1871, John McMillan also erected Arlington's first hotel and continued to conduct it for a score or more of years.
Charles and George Ginther did not open the first blacksmith shop until 1875, the former erecting the first building used exclusively as a dwelling house. George married Miss Nellie Shanks in December of the following year, and they were the first couple to become thus noted.
BRISK, PLEASANT VILLAGE OF ARLINGTON
The Village of Arlington is the banking and trading center of a productive agricultural section; has a grain elevater, a farm imple- ment depot, a lumber yard and a number of substantial business houses. The oldest of its business establishments is the prosperous house of G. McMillan & Son. Its founder and senior proprietor is the George McMillan noted in the sketch of the village as its first merchant. He was also its second postmaster, and he and his son, Gabriel McMillan, have held down that office for nearly forty years. The firm of G. Mc- Millan & Son was formed in 1898, and deal in general merchandise, lumber, cement and coal.
G. McMillan, Sr., is also president of the Arlington State Bank, which was opened in 1910 and carries average deposits of $100,000.
The village has a good public school and a Lutheran Evangelical Church, and is altogether a brisk, pleasant rural community.
CHAPTER XXVII
TOWN OF LODI (OKEE)
A PRETTY, HEALTHFUL TOWN-GEORGE M. AND MARSTON C. BARTHOLO- MEW-REV. HENRY MAYNARD AND WIFE-A HUNT FOR "MILWAUKEE WOODS"-ORGANIZATION OF THE TOWN -- MATURED PUPIL WRITES OF FIRST SCHOOL-VILLAGE OF OKEE-EXPECTED LAKE-HISTORIC ITEMS.
The Town of Lodi in the southwestern part of the county has a rather broken and picturesque surface, with only small tracts of marshy land along Spring Creek. It is skirted south and east by the edges of the high limestone country, which send out ragged projecting points. This is noticeable on the approaches to the Village of Lodi from the east, which really border on the impressive. North and west of this lime- stone edge the general surface is from 200 to 300 feet lower; but the lowlands include a number of tablelands, which reach the altitude of 500 or 600 feet attained by the limestone country to the south and east. Considerable areas of prairie ocenr in Southern and Eastern Lodi. The principal stream is Spring Creek, which heads in Dane County, over the southern line, traverses the town from southeast to northwest with a fall of sixty feet, and empties into the Wisconsin River at the extreme northwest corner of West Point.
A PRETTY, HEALTHFUL TOWN
From this general description, the reader will infer that Lodi is a pretty, healthful town in which to reside. If it were not, its first settlers would not have been the Bartholomews. Why? Listen, as they say in the old-fashioned fairy stories; though this is but a plain, unvarnished tale.
GEORGE M. AND MARSTON C. BARTHOLOMEW
"In the spring of 1844," says an anthorized account of their coming, "G. M. Bartholomew, then a citizen of Illinois, being advised by his
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physician to seek a better climate than that state afforded, visited Lodi Valley and determined that either here or in Portage Prairie he would in the future reside. Returning to Illinois, his description of Lodi Valley so charmed his brother, Marston C. Bartholomew, that the latter also determined to emigrate; therefore, in the early spring of 1845 he bade farewell to his family and sought out the 'land of promise.' He arrived here in March, located a claim and erected, with the aid of a friendly Indian, his cabin upon the east half of the southwest quarter of Section 22. George M., the brother, came back in April, 1845, and selected the southeast quarter of Section 22.
REV. HENRY MAYNARD AND WIFE
"In May of the same year Rev. Henry Maynard settled upon Section 21. Mr. Maynard brought his family with him, his wife being the first white woman in the valley. In September the two Bartholomews brought out their families, and in December following James McCloud came and settled upon Section 27. These four were all the settlers in this town during that year."
These first settlers of the Town of Lodi established their homes just northwest of the present village, which was founded by Isaac H. Palmer on Section 27 in 1846.
A HUNT FOR "MILWAUKEE WOODS"
"When the first settlers came, in 1845, they found about two hundred Indians encamped on the creek near where the village of Lodi was after- ward located. These were mostly Winnebagoes; a few were Brother- towns. During that season they were peaceable and friendly, and in the fall they all disappeared. In 1847 they came back to the number of about eighty, with their chief, and encamped on the creek below where the Bartholomews had settled. They soon began to show their natural propensities, and the property of the settlers occasionally disappeared. G. M. Bartholomew returned to his home, after an absence of a few days, and found the Indians had stolen a part of his hogs. He went to the chief and complained. The chief denied, but the complainant in- sisted and resolutely told Mr. Chief that he could have till the next morning when the sun was 'so high' (telling him how high, by pointing) to be off. The chief promised to be off at once and to go to the 'Milwaukee woods.'
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