USA > Wisconsin > Columbia County > A history of Columbia County, Wisconsin : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests > Part 38
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"Thereupon Bartholomew roused the settlers to the number of about twenty-five and the next morning, when the sun was 'so high,' they
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appeared at the spot with horse and gun, but the Indians had left. Fearing they might again encamp near enough to continue their depre- dations, our cavalry followed their trail, and found them just striking their tents on Rowan's Creek in the town of De Korra. As the settlers approached the camping ground, they were discovered by two Indian hunters, apparently going out to bring in some game, who, seeing the fearful array and fearing more to follow, turned their ponies and rapidly returned. The pursuers halted and Bartholomew went forward to the camping ground and inquired if that were the 'Milwaukee woods.' The chief answered 'No;' whereupon he was informed he could have just five minutes in which to make his departure. At the expiration of the time named, the redskins were on the move. The pursuers followed at a respectful distance as far as Poynette, or where the village was subsequently located, and then returned to their homes. The Indians never reappeared to make further trouble."
The Bartholomews had other honors come to them during the first years of their residence in the town. For instance, Josephine Bartholo- mew came to her parents, G. M. and Catherine, on April 30, 1846; and she was the first white person born in Lodi.
ORGANIZATION OF THE TOWN
Pleasant Valley Precinet was organized in 1846, upon the creation of the county. It embraced the same territory as was included in the Town of Lodi, which was organized in January, 1849. On April 3d of that year the first election for town officers was held at the log school- house, about a quarter of a mile northeast of the Village of Lodi.
The voters were called to order by Isaac H. Palmer, upon whose motion George M. Bartholomew was chosen moderator and James O. Eaton, clerk. Marston C. Bartholomew was chosen chairman of the Board of Supervisors. There were thirty-seven votes cast for the three supervisors and the other town officers. The hotel of Freedom Simons, in the Village of Lodi, was chosen as the place for holding the next annual meeting, and $100 was voted to be raised by taxation to defray the expenses of the town for the coming year.
MATURED PUPIL WRITES OF FIRST SCHOOL
A little log schoolhouse was built in 1846 on Section 27, the pupils being in care of Miss Mary Yockey. More than a quarter of a century afterward, Mrs. S. J. Andrews (one of the scholars) thus speaks of this first school in the town, thus: "That primitive institution of learning,
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which contained no desk but a board fastened at a convenient height for the purpose against the wall, or rather logs; seats of the plainest kind with no backs, and a floor through the crevices of which snakes and mice often emerged to our delight, was situated upon the rise of ground then shaded by lofty wide-spreading oaks, near where Mrs. Bower's house now stands. And the boiling, bubbling springs at the foot of the hill; the leafy coverts so admirably arranged for miniature housekeeping, and other considerations, drew the round-eyed, wriggling pupils full many a time, from the sight of the not-too-vigilant schoolmistress, under cover of the weak subterfuge of 'studying in the shade.'
MILL DAM, OKEE
"I think I see them now, gay gamboliers in verdant summer bowers, their rippling laughs and gleeful shouts sounding strangely far-off and echolike adown the corridors of time. Play on blind-folded children, types of innocencey and thoughtlessness, for just before you on life's journey are tears and open graves, thorns that will tear your tender feet, and icy windstorms that may blast or cover with perpetual snow the fragile buds of promise in the gardens of your hearts. Or if your steps grow laggard from weariness, go in to your indulgent teacher and con your right-soon forgotten tasks. There are lessons for you in the future of distrust and indifference, which contact with a world without a heart must teach. They will be bitter ofttimes, and you cannot forget them though you would."
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VILLAGE OF OKEE
Okee, a station on the Chicago & North Western Railway a few miles northwest of Lodi, is located on Spring Creek, a tributary of the Wisconsin River about two miles from the parent stream. Its industries consist of a fair-sized flour and feed mill and a small distillery. It has a good general store, a district school and a Presbyterian Church. Serv- ices are held in the schoolhouse, as in the olden times. The banking facilities required by the farmers of the locality and the establishments of the village are obtained through Lodi.
EXPECTED LAKE
Okee is banking on the completion of the dam across the Wisconsin between a point opposite its site and Prairie du Sac, on the other side of the river in Sauk County. The back-water will form a body adjoining the station which is to be called Lake Okee, and the people of the locality expect the creation of a pretty summer resort, with all the implied trade and new life.
HISTORIC ITEMS
Okee is one of the oldest settlements in the county. Samuel Ring located at the water power in 1847 and built the first sawmill. It passed through a number of hands, and in 1858 T. S. Wells erected a more modern plant on the east side of the creek. He put in a planing mill and circular saws, and devoted the old mill to the grinding of feed. In 1869 Mr. Wells sold the mill power to John Brownrigg, who erected the present gristmill in 1875.
Seth Bailey settled in Okee in 1854, becoming joint owner in the saw- mill with Dr. Miller Blachley, and platted the village in 1858.
CHAPTER XXVIII
TOWN OF DE KORRA
ROWAN SETTLES AND OPENS HOTEL-PAPER SEATS OF JUSTICE-VILLAGE OF DE KORRA-FIRST GRIST MILL IN SOUTH-CENTRAL WISCONSIN- RAILROAD GO-BY A DEATH BLOW -- THE SPELLING OF DE KORRA ( ?) --- RAILROAD STATION OF HARTMAN.
A little cluster of buildings on the eastern banks of the Wisconsin River in the northwestern part of De Korra Township is the relic of Kentucky City, once the seat of justice of Portage County (before any courts were sitting within what is now Columbia County), and the predecessor of the Village of De Korra which was once quite flourishing -- as villages went in those days.
ROWAN SETTLES AND OPENS HOTEL
Both the village and town of De Korra are very important, however, in connection with the history of Columbia County. It was the northeast quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 34, in this township, that Wallace Rowan, generally accepted as the first settler of the county, entered as his homestead, on the 6th of June, 1836. He built thereon a union dwelling house and hotel, and, although lodgers were somewhat crowded and had neither private baths nor telephone service, Mr. and Mrs. Rowan made them all feel at home and gave them plenty to eat, which treatment they craved far more than the luxuries. Rowan's Hotel was on the outskirts of the present Village of Poynette, which was laid out by J. D. Doty in 1837.
Judge Doty also entered a part of Section 5, as well as Sections 7 and 8, adjoining the Wisconsin River in the northwestern part of the present town, about three weeks after Mr. Rowan had entered his land in the southeast. The able and enterprising judge was behind Kentucky City, Sections 5 and 6, in 1837.
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PAPER SEATS OF JUSTICE
Portage County was organized in December, 1836, and the seat of justice was established at Winnebago City, which had been platted two months before on the south shore of Swan Lake, about opposite the present grounds of the Country Club. On the 12th of January, 1838, the county seat was moved to Kentucky City, where it remained until 1844, when it was transferred to Plover, in the present County of Portage. As Portage County up to 1844 had remained attached to Dane County for judicial purposes, neither Winnebago City nor Kentucky City actu- ally became "seats of justice."
VILLAGE OF DE KORRA
In the fall of 1842, Thompson & Trimble, Ohio men, became owners of the greater part of Sections 5, 6, 7 and 8, including the site of the paper village of Kentucky City. They sent out J. W. Rhoads and Thomas C. Nelson, as their agents, to build a mill, lay out a village and establish a store at that locality.
The Village of De Korra was thus laid out, the plat being recorded January 7, 1843. Its site, that of Kentucky City, was considered ideal, on account of the fine landing at that point.
FIRST GRIST MILL IN SOUTH-CENTRAL WISCONSIN
The mill, a short distance outside the village limits, was completed that year, and was the pioneer industry of the kind in South-Central Wisconsin. In 1844 there was no grist mill at Madison, Baraboo, Portage, Wyocena or Columbus, and during the first years of its operation grists were brought from distances as far as thirty or forty miles north of Portage. The first grist, which was of corn, was ground for Thomas Robinson, of Caledonia, known for so many years as "Daddy" Robinson. Although it is possible to trace the history of this famous mill property, it is beyond our purpose, and those who still remember it and cling to its past, may find all the details in the old histories and musty files of newspapers.
RAILROAD GO-BY, A DEATH BLOW
For years the Village of De Korra was not only the center of a large milling trade, but an important distributing point for lumber, and a large area of country extending as far south as Madison was supplied
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thence. Quite a village sprung up around the landing, but the building of the Madison & Portage Railroad, several miles to the east in the early '70s, gave it the quietus.
THE SPELLING OF DE KORRA ( ?)
As to the spelling of the name, there have been innumerable disputes, and A. J. Turner has this to say: "This town was named after the famous Winnebago Chief of that name. The spelling of the name of it, as here given, is as it was finally adopted by the Board of County Com- missioners of Columbia County, although it was first spelled with one 'r.' It usually appears in the Wisconsin Historical Collections as 'DeKauray.' Perhaps the spelling is a matter of taste as the old chief never spelled his own name at all. It sometimes appears as 'Decorra,' 'Dekorrah,' 'Decorah,' 'DaKouray,' 'Dekora,' 'Decorri,' and if there is any other way in which it can be spelled it has probably been spelled that way, too. 'Dekorra,' however, was himself named 'DeCarrie' after Sebrevoir De Carrie, an officer in the French army who was mortally wounded at Quebec in 1760, and who had previously been a fur trader among the Winnebago Indians. The old chief was a reputed grandson of De Carrie, but that may admit of some question, for the Dekorras that still abide with us do not give much evidence of ancestors of high degree, although the old chief was worthy of the high esteem in which he was held by the whites. So it would seem that the 'Dekorra' of today, traced back to its origin, is 'De Carrie.' "
As our old friend remarks, "If there is any other way in which it can be spelled, it has probably been spelled that way, too;" for the reader of this history may remember that the author has adopted the spelling of De Korra. There is only one consensus of opinion, and that is that the name is a French derivation, and we therefore believe that the distinctive "De" should be retained, as it is in several of the county maps of today.
RAILROAD STATION OF HARTMAN
Hartman, a station on the southern division of the Chicago, Milwau- kee & St. Paul Railroad in the Town of De Korra north of Poynette, was named after Joseph Hartman, a blacksmith by trade, but a farmer by occupation during the later years of his life. In 1849 he came to Columbia County from Carroll County, Indiana, and settled on a farm in the southwest quarter of Section 10. Mr. Hartman was a justice of the peace for over thirty years and long postmaster at the station which was given his name when the Madison & Portage Railroad came through in 1871.
CHAPTER XXIX
TOWN OF COURTLAND (RANDOLPH)
RICH AND BEAUTIFUL PRAIRIE LAND-THE IRISH PIONEER-"CHESTNUT," SAYS PAT-OTHER ARRIVALS OF 1844-45-HORACE RUST-PIONEER HAPPENINGS-BECOMES COURTLAND TOWNSHIP-RANDOLPH (WEST WARD).
The Town of Courtland, in the northeastern part of the county and in the eastern tier of townships adjoining Dodge County, is one of the most prosperous parts of Columbia. The Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad passes through its northern sections. Located on that line are Cambria, a small portion of which extends into Randolph Township, and the Village of Randolph, whose West Ward only is in the Town of Courtland.
RICH AND BEAUTIFUL PRAIRIE LAND
Courtland is one of the fertile and beautiful prairie towns in the northeastern part of Columbia. Its largest tract of that nature is a continuation of the prairie region of Randolph, occupying the north- eastern portion of Courtland, then narrowing and extending in a south- westerly direction nearly across the town, and finally widening again toward the western line. Most of the town lies on the divide between the headwaters of the Rock and Wisconsin systems-the Middle branch of Duck Creek, a tributary of the latter heading in Courtland Township. Notwithstanding this physical fact, the surface is generally quite level with an altitude of about 350 feet. The divide is very gradual and the streams which drain the town are quite small. Everything about the region is peaceful and harmonious, and if the evidences were not visible, the visitor would instinctively say "Here is a fine dairy country." Such is truly the case.
Although the first settler of the town was an Irishman, the majority of its pioneers were Welshmen, and there is probably no village in the
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United States which stands so distinctively for that nationality, and which is so widely known in that connection as Cambria.
THE IRISH PIONEER
Patrick Chestnut, an Irish emigrant, came first, and after making his home in Pennsylvania migrated still westward into Wisconsin. On July 29, 1844, he located his claim upon Section 3, in the north of the present town. As an Irishman enjoys telling stories on his best friends, so do his friends reciprocate the compliment. So we shall tell the yarn with some grains of allowance which has to do with Chestnut.
"CHESTNUT," SAYS PAT
It is said that when Patrick came to this country he was so ignorant of backwoods life that he had never seen a tree felled. But one day he desired to cut down a tree; so he shouldered his ax and dashed into the high timber, trusting to his mother wit to be extricated alive. With confidence he attacked a forest monster, cutting completely around it at an equal distance, being faithfully assisted by his son. When well into the heart of the tree, he stepped back, took off his cap and scratched his head to consider the matter carefully. He did not dare to push the tree over, for fear of accident. It was already trembling and he did not dare to cut any further, as he did not know which way it would fall, seeing that he had given it an equal chance on all sides. So cautioning his son to leave the tree alone, he went several miles to a neighbor, who did the remainder of the cutting on one side and let the weight of the tree do the rest.
It may be Chestnut told the story on himself, but his Wisconsin friends always insisted that his Pennsylvania neighbors made it so warm for him by repeating the tale, in season and out, that he was forced to migrate. But when he arrived in Section 3, Town of Courtland, he was a seasoned pioneer, and soon erected a comfortable house on his claim. There he spent the remainder of his life, engaged in farming. From all accounts he was an industrious, old-style gentleman, and his demise (November, 1878), even in his ninetieth year, was much regretted by his neighbors who were all his friends.
OTHER ARRIVALS OF 1844-45
In the fall of 1844 J. Jess became Mr. Chestnut's associate, and in the summer of 1845 William Bump, James Buoy, Nathaniel Wilkins,
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Jonathan Moulton, Horace Rust and William Toby located. A short time afterward came a large colony of Welshmen and their families; and from that time on, for a number of years, the land was rapidly taken up by actual settlers.
HORACE RUST
Of the settlers mentioned as among the arrivals of 1845, Horace Rust became as well known as any. He was a Vermont man and a canal con- tractor, and was forty-seven years old when he located in Courtland. He had been living for the preceding two years with Doctor Mills, of Wal- worth County, Wisconsin, who was then a territorial senator.
In 1845, with his two sons, Henry and Mills, and a yoke of oxen, he entered Courtland, and built a log house into which he moved with his family in the following year. He used to relate that after finishing his house he and his sons started on their return to Walworth. At that time the old road to Columbus and Watertown made an extensive detour to the west and went to Otsego to avoid impassable swamps. The pil- grims took an early breakfast that morning, and the ox-line did not bring them to Otsego until late in the afternoon. Mr. Rust always spoke of his substantial dinner that day at W. B. Dyer's log tavern in Otsego as the best meal he ever ate in his life.
At an early day, Mr. Rust and Squire Topliff (long a resident of Columbus), were engaged for some time iu surveying, and they laid out the road between Columbus and Cambria. The former was appointed postmaster of the so-called Portage Prairie postoffice, situated on the old military road, with a weekly mail. Later the postoffice was moved to Centerville, three miles north of the present Cambria, in the Town of Randolph, and placed in charge of Squire M. W. Patton, the absorbent character of that region. When the town was organized in 1849, he was elected one of its supervisors ; also served as county treasurer and twice as postmaster of Cambria. Mr. Rust died in April, 1879-a hearty, good, useful man.
PIONEER HAPPENINGS
In the fall of 1846, was born the first white child in the Town of Courtland-Marshall, son of Nathan and Harriet Swain.
William Bump and Sarah Griffith contracted the first marriage in the summer of 1847.
The first school was taught by William S. Chestnut, in the spring of 1847. His dozen scholars met in an upper room of Jonathan Moulton's dwelling.
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BECOMES COURTLAND TOWNSHIP
In 1846, when the county was organized, the present Town of Court- land was Leroy Precinct; when the towns were created in 1849, the pre- cinet became Portage Prairie, and the house of Horace Rust was selected by the Board of County Commissioners as the place for holding the first election for town officers. On November 19, 1852, the name of the town was changed to Courtland.
RANDOLPH (WEST WARD)
The West Ward of the little Village of Randolph is situated in Colum- bia County, the remainder, containing the bulk of its population of 1,000, being in Dodge County. To be a little more accurate, about one-fifth of its people are with us. The first plat of the village was made December 2, 1857, principally on the farm of Abiel Stark, together with five acres held jointly by him and John Converse. In April, of that year, Mr. Con- verse had erected the first building on the present site of the village, using it as a dwelling.
The village was first given the name of Converseville. It was after- ward changed to Westford, after the Dodge County Township in which its eastern territory is situated. For the first thirteen years after it was platted the village was attached to the Town of Westford, but in the winter of 1869-70 the Legislature passed an act incorporating it under the name of Randolph, designating the portion in Section 1, Town of Court- land, Columbia County, as the West Ward. The first charter election was held March 8, 1870.
CHAPTER XXX
DEAD AND PAPER TOWNS
BAD CONDITIONS FOR BIG CITIES-CHAMPION TOWNSITE MAN-BALTI- MORE CITY-WISCONSINAPOLIS-CANAL TO STIR THE PORTAGE PEOPLE -EASTERNER LOOKING FOR WISCONSINAPOLIS-FIRST SETTLERS COME TO TOWN-THE VILLAGE OF NEWPORT-JOSEPH BAILEY AND JONATHAN BOWMAN, BACKERS-IN 1855 CONTAINED 1,500 PEOPLE-MAKING ALL SAFE AND SOUND -THE SLIP AND FALL-FOUNDERS MOVE TO KILBOURN -NEVER MORE THAN PORT "HOPE"-WISCONSIN CITY.
In every growing American community more enterprises miscarry than are born into stable life. Men's ambitions far outrun their means. They have seen wonders performed by others based on nothing more substantial than wind and tissue paper-so why should not the Fickle Goddess float their way ?
The bolder of these seekers after fortune do not rest with trials to plant private enterprises, but would be builders of cities. Columbia County has had its full share of these adventurers, as we have inti- mated heretofore and as we shall attempt to finally prove in this chap- ter. We shall open the story with a presentation of the most noted scenes of their birth-the Town of Pacific, and the shores of Swan Lake as a whole.
BAD CONDITIONS FOR BIG CITIES
The Town of Pacific is west of the center of Columbia County, hugging the great bend of the Wisconsin River and lying east and southeast of the City of Portage. The Fox River, which enters the town from the northeast through Swan Lake, flows west and northwest to Portage. The main stream of Duck Creek, a tributary of the Wisconsin, waters the central sections.
Pacific is decidedly a town of lowlands, and originally about half its territory was marsh land, and in times of floods from the Wisconsin,
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before the construction of the levees, was largely under water. Such con- ditions have retarded its settlement and progress.
Despite these drawbacks, which would seem obvious, no town in the ยท county has been the scene of so many grand schemes which never prog- ressed farther than paper, and most of them were proposed before a single settler had found a foothold on its soggy soil.
CHAMPION TOWNSITE MAN
The beautiful shores of Swan Lake furnished the most popular sites for these paper towns, each of which hoped to become the territorial capital. It might better be said that Mr. Larned B. Harkness, the cham- pion townsite man, hoped that lightning would strike somewhere among his cluster of cities in what are now the towns of Pacific and Wyocena. Ida was one of his creations, just within the present Town of Wyocena, on the north shore of the lake near its eastern end, while on the oppo- site side was his Winnebago City. The latter was one of the earliest of the paper cities to be recorded, the Brown County records showing that its plat was filed October 24, 1836.
BALTIMORE CITY
About this time Mr. Harkness also platted Baltimore City on Sec- tion 33, in the Town of Pacific near where Duck Creek empties into the Wisconsin River. Mr. Turner notices this third of the Harkness cities as follows: "The city never become densely occupied, MeEwen's little tavern, erected principally for the entertainment of the rivermen who tied up their rafts occasionally at the mouth of Duck Creek, having been the only building, I think, in the city, and that disappeared long ago. But the 'lone grave' that the wayfarer saw for many years, on the south side of the creek, near the roadway, to the east, surrounded by a palisade, still remains (although I think the piekets have disappeared) and John Hamilton is the sole tenant of Baltimore City. Hamilton was a Scotchman who entertained himself with his bag-pipe and gave eternal rest to the neighbors and found his own, away from home and kindred, under the little mound on the banks of Duck Creek. At the time of his death he had a small brickyard in the village of Kentucky City (De Korra) which was not far away."
WISCONSINAPOLIS
Wisconsinapolis was the name of even a more ambitious townsite on the north shore of Swan Lake, near its western end and located on Sec-
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tion 1, Town of Pacific, and Section 36, Town of Fort Winnebago. It was executed by C. MeDougall and Dr. Lyman Foot, the army surgeon of Fort Winnebago, and filed January 3, 1837. Wisconsinapolis joined . the military reservation on the west, and gave it the advantage of a sort of official air in the competition for the seat of the territorial gov- ernment. A public square was laid out near the middle of the plat 824x912 feet, and another a little to the east of the ponds adjacent to Stone Quarry Hill, Section 36. These little lakes were designated "good water." There does not appear to have been any conveyances of lots in this town plat, nor does it seem to have been ever formally vacated. "The journals of the Territorial Legislature, however, do show that when the location of the territorial capital was under consideration in the legis- lative Council in 1836, Wisconsinapolis received on one ballot six of the thirteen votes. This was probably more complimentary than in earnest, for Wisconsin City, in the Town of West Point, received a like vote, as did Portage; and a dozen other points were complimented in like manner on subsequent ballots, Madison being finally selected."
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