USA > Wisconsin > Rock County > Rock County, Wisconsin; a new history of its cities, villages, towns, citizens and varied interests, from the earliest times, up to date, Vol. I > Part 6
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47
-
52
HISTORY OF ROCK COUNTY
The first survey for the Milwaukee & Mississippi railroad car- ried the line between the old site of Carramana, as we under- stand, and what is now ealled Indian Ford. The exaetions of the land owners, however, were regarded as exorbitant by the railroad company, and a new line was surveyed leaving Carra- mana some miles to the southwest and going north by the way of Edgerton. Had Carramana gotten the railroad, and with the fine water power on Catfish and Rock rivers, it would in all prob- ability have grown into an important place. But Carramana got neither railroad nor water power, and in a few years it passed away with the other boom towns of those times, and even its name now seems to be unknown to the people in the township in which it was located.
John A. Fletcher purchased of the United States government on February 21, 1839, the east half of the southeast quarter of seetion 23 in what is now the town of Johnstown. Shortly after his purchase of this land he concluded that it would make a good townsite. No map of the place is on record, and it does not ap- pear even to have been named. The good Squire Fletcher had just driven his last stakes when a land hunter eame by, who said he was from Milwaukee, and was looking up some desirable traet that had not yet been entered; then he added, "It must be very siekly around here?" "No, it ain't," said Mr. Fletcher ; "it's the healthiest country in the United States. What makes you ask such a fool question as that ?" "Well," the man replied, "I only ask because I see you are laying out a thundering big burying ground."
The most pretentious of the forgotten places of Rock county was Wisconsin City, platted by John Inman, Josiah Breese, Ed- ward Shepard, James E. Seymour and John H. Hardenburgh, May 24, 1836, on the south part of section 34 in the town of Janesville, and section 3, and part of fractional lot in section 2, in the town of Rock, on the west side of Rock river.
Early in the spring of 1837 Dr. James Heath located East Wisconsin City on the east bank of Roek river, and opposite Wis- consin City. No plat was ever made of this place, and the city consisted of a frame house sixteen feet square in which Dr. Heath lived with his family and kept a country store and a tavern of the old-fashioned type, with entertainment for man and beast. In addition to being a physician Dr. Heath was a farmer, store-
53
THE FORGOTTEN PLACES
keeper and landlord, and he must also have been a man of cheer- ful disposition and of infinite humor, as evidenced by his bestow- ing the name of East Wisconsin City upon his humble little shack which served as home, store, tavern and office.
Wisconsin City as laid out contained 209 blocks, with reser- vations for six churches, a market-place, a college, an academy and three common schools. Part of the plat now lies within the limits of the south end of the city of Janesville, and the remain- ing part is just outside of and adjoining the city limits on the southwest. There are limestone quarries upon the site of Wis- consin City, and the remainder of it is used for agricultural pur- poses. A portion of the land is a part of what is usually called "the old Search farm," the scene of the murder of the aged Henry Search and his wife about twenty years ago; a brutal crime, the perpetrator of which has never been discovered.
On July 7, 1836, Edward Shepard sold a one-twelfth interest in eighty-one of the 209 blocks in Wisconsin City to Maurice Wakeman for $6,666.54, and on the following day he sold another one-twelfth interest in the same blocks to Addison Dougherty for $6,666.66. On November 29, 1836, he sold interests in certain other tracts to Peter Cannon for $10,000. Many smaller sales were made before the boom came to an end, and then in 1845 parts of that city were sold for taxes, and under these sales and those of a few succeeding years, with some conveyances made by the proprietors and their grantees, and for very moderate prices, the various blocks in the pretentious city passed into farming lands, with here and there a limestone quarry; and where the six churches should be lifting their spires towards the sky, and the youth of the Rock River valley should be drinking from the founts of learning in the college, the academy and the three common schools, the farmer tills the soil and the quarry- man blasts the rock with which we build out streets.
A quarter of a mile south of Wisconsin City, on fractional lots 2 and 3 of section 10, and on the east half of the east half of section 9 in the town of Rock, William Payne laid out the vil- lage of Newburgh. The date of the plat of this village is not shown upon the map, but it was evidently some time in 1836. The village contained 140 blocks and a public square, but with no other reservations. Possibly Mr. Payne figured out that he would waste no land, as his village was but a quarter of a mile
54
HISTORY OF ROCK COUNTY
from the six churches, the college, the academy and the three common schools of Wisconsin City, and his people would have but a little way to go for either religious or secular education.
On February 25, 1837, Mr. Payne sold Newburgh to William B. Lamb for $20,000, taking back from Lamb a mortgage for $7,000 to secure the payment of part of the purchase money. Between March 29, 1837, and August 5, 1837, parts of the village were sold to the amount of $95,200, and it is highly probable that in Newburgh, as in the other places mentioned herein, other sales may have been made, but the conveyances have never been recorded. It appears that Lamb did not pay his mortgage, and it was subsequently foreclosed and the entire tract bought in by Payne for $1,352. The sheriff's deed to him is dated October 21, 1843. The tract upon which the townsite of Newburgh was laid out afterwards became the farm of the late William Gunn and was owned by him at the time of his death.
Half a mile down Rock river, south of Newburgh, and within sound of the promised bells of the six churches of Wisconsin City, and of the class yells of the students whom it was hoped would some day fill the various educational institutions in that seat of learning, there was laid out in an early day, in 1836, a place called the town of Kushkanong, upon the northwest fractional quarter of section 22, fractional lots 3 and 4 of section 15, and the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter of section 21, in the town of Rock. The name upon the map is "Kushkanong," but in some of the few conveyances of lots made in 1836 and 1837 the name is spelled "Kuskanong" and "Koshkanong." The name is from the Winnebago, and means "the lake where we live." Doubtless the proprietors took the name from that of Lake Koshkanong, in the northern part of the county.
Neither the date of the plat nor the names of the proprietors appear upon the map, but an earlier history of Rock county states that Kushkanong was surveyed by Kinzie, Hunter and Booby. All the lands within the limits of the town of Kushkanong were purchased at government entry by Robert A. Kinzie in the month of March, 1836. Neither Hunter nor Booby appear in the rec- ords. The records do show, however, that parties other than Kinzie had some equitable interests in the land, but neither the names of such parties nor the nature of their equities appear.
The town of Kushkanong was divided into seventy-five blocks,
55
THE FORGOTTEN PLACES
with a reservation twenty rods square for "state purposes" and another of equal size for "county purposes," and there was also a market square, and a proposed bridge erossing Roek river at the foot of Market street. Neither Carramana, Wisconsin City nor Newburgh, all laid out upon the west bank of the river, seemed to have aspired to a bridge.
Upon the map of the town is the following unsigned interest- ing note of the surveyor, which we give verbatim; the map is badly defaced, and we have indicated such parts as are illegible :
"To the Proprietors of the Town of Kushkanong: In obedi- ence to your directions I have made a survey of your town. The loc ......... one. It is beautifully situated on the west bank of the river, where the bank is from eight to twelve feet in height, and gradually recedes to the back of the town, presenting a mod- erately enelined plain at the east and southeast. It is at. . .
.. which will render it a most convenient stopping place for the water transactions on the river. The river to the place and higher up is navigable for steamboats. . above are extensive groves of fine timber which can be readily rafted to and will in all future time supply the wood material for building. Stone of a good quality and lime are abundance in the vicinity. The surface of the ground upon which the town is located is dry. Neither is there any marshes or stag- nant water in the surrounding country to poison the air with noxious effluvia. Considering it is on a right line from the mouth of Rock river point on Lake Michigan and the nearest bend of the Mississippi to said lake, it must, I think, soon become the most interesting site on the river on which it is located."
The first session of the territorial legislature of Wisconsin was held in Belmont, in what is now Iowa county, in the fall of 1836. The territory of Wisconsin then comprised what is now Wiscon- sin, Iowa, Minnesota and a part of the Dakotas. The legislature was then composed of the council and the house, corresponding to the senate and the assembly of the present day. On Novem- ber 11, 1836, a bill was introduced in the council to locate and establish the seat of the territorial government. This motion was referred to the council as a committee of the whole, which held two sessions that day and devoted all of the following day to the consideration of the bill. On November 14 the further
56
HISTORY OF ROCK COUNTY
consideration of the bill was postponed one week. During that week there was lobbying as keen as that of later days, and either history or tradition tells us that the pockets of the solons of that first session of the legislature were filled with deeds to desirable lots in each place begging for the location of the territorial cap- ital. No doubt Mr. Booby, of the town of Kushkanong, was there doing his best.
The committee of the whole finally reported in favor of Madi- son as the location of the territorial capital, and the matter being before the council on the 23d day of November, a motion was made to strike out Madison and insert Fond du Lac in the bill. This motion was lost by a vote of 6 to 7. A motion was next made to substitute Dubuque for Madison. This motion was lost by a vote of 5 to 8. Successive motions were then made to strike out Madison and insert the names of the following places, viz. : Portage, Helena, Milwaukee, Racine, Belmont, Mineral Point, Platteville, Astor, Cassville, Belleview, Kushkanong, Wisconsin- apolis, Peru and Wisconsin City, each of these motions being lost by a vote of 6 to 7 in favor of Madison. In the house the name of Kushkanong does not appear to have been considered. Madi- son, having received a majority of the votes in both council and house, became the seat of government of the territory of Wiscon- sin. Of the places voted for Dubuque and Peru were in what is now Iowa. The Wisconsin City that entered the arena was not the seat of learning upon Rock river, but was another paper town on the Wisconsin river in what is now Iowa county. Astor was a boom town that has gone the way of all the others, and with it Wisconsinapolis, a paper town near Portage.
With its failure to get the territorial capital the town of Kush- kanong ended its brief but hopeful existence. A few lots were sold, and then in December, 1836, Kinzie made a deed of the town site to one James L. Thompson in trust for parties, not named, who held equities in the place. The equities seem to have been considered of small value, for the tract was shortly after sold as a farm for $600; and from the seventy-five blocks and the sites reserved for "state purposes" and for "county purposes" the husbandman has ever since gathered his crops; but the proposed bridge has never spanned Rock river.
The close of the year 1837 saw the end of the boom in Rock county speculative towns, villages and cities, and with the col-
57
THE FORGOTTEN PLACES
lapse of that boom they passed out of sight forever. It is not yet seventy-five years, only a little measure of time, sinee the earliest settler, looking across the broad sweep of the Rock River valley, said, "Here I will make my home," yet in those few years these places have been forgotten. Very few of the present in- habitants of Rock county can point out their sites and very few know even their names. Those old towns, those forgotten places, have left no traces of their existence except the time-worn maps and the records of the few conveyances in the office of the register of deeds, and even their names can only be found by searchers after curious things in the archives of the county; and where those forgotten places were once laid out in blocks and streets and pretentious reservations the bobolink sings in the meadow in the summer time, and the autumn winds chant their songs of the coming winter in the fields of rustling corn; and "there labor sows and reaps its sure reward, and peace and plenty walk amid the glow and perfume of full garners."
From the north line of Rock county near the south end of Lake Koshkonong to the state line at Beloit there extends along Rock river an almost continuous line of Indian mounds and Indian villages and camp sites. Some are found in other parts of the county on the prairies and about the smaller lakes, but the greater number are along the river banks. These, too, are for- gotten places, some belonging to the unknown and remote past, others to a period that touched shoulders perhaps with the days of the early pioneer, but all the work of a people that have long since passed away. Of the forgotten places of which we have already written no trace remains, not even a broken hearthstone or a fallen wall; while in the old village and camp sites of the people who occupied the land before the coming of the white man there are always to be found the stone weapons and tools, the ornaments and amulets, the broken pottery, the ancient workshops and the ealeined stones of the fireplaces of the ancient people.
Lake Koshkonong, the lower end of which projects a little more than a mile into the north end of the town of Milton, has a shore line of about thirty miles. The shores of this lake are singularly rich in Indian mounds and village sites, with old gar- dens, threshing pits and kitehen middens. In 1906 H. L. Skav-
58
HISTORY OF ROCK COUNTY
lem, of Janesville, and Professor A. B. Stout, now of Madison, surveyed and mapped the mounds, and their work shows 480 mounds along the lake shore, fifty of which are effigies. The nature of the lake shore is such that but a small part of it is cul- tivated, the greater part of it being used as pasture land, and from this fact the mounds are well preserved except as to the damage done to them by relic hunters. Forty-eight of these mounds, in five groups, are in the town of Milton in Rock county. The largest single group on the lake shore is called the Koshko- nong group, containing seventy-five mounds, in Jefferson county on the west side of the lake. On the west shore in section 6 of the town of Milton is the site of a Fox village, and upon Bing- ham's point on the east shore is the site of a Pottawatomie vil- lage. Farther north on the Carcajou point on the west shore of the lake is the site of a large Winnebago village that was occu- pied by that part of the tribe under the leadership of the chief, White Crow, as late as the time of the Black Hawk War. These village sites are doubtless very old. During the last fifty years they have been constantly searched for relics of the people who once lived upon them, and great quantities of such relics have been found, ranging from stone implements to the rude iron axes of the early French traders; but each year's plowing and each heavy railfall brings more and more of them to light.
In Vol. 5 of the "Wisconsin Archaeologist," in an article pre- pared by Charles S. Brown, secretary of the Wisconsin Archæo- logical Society, on Wisconsin antiquities, is the following list of mounds in Rock county, beginning at the north line of the town of Milton and extending to the south line of the town of Beloit :
In the town of Porter, two miles above Fulton on section 11, a group of eight mounds, and another group one mile above Fulton.
In the town of Fulton, a group of oblong and conical mounds on the west side of the river at Indian ford; a group of the same character near the above on the east side of the Rock river; an oval enclosure in the village of Fulton; some conical mounds north of and near the village; and a series of mounds north and west of and near the mouth of Catfish river. These last named" were upon the site of Carramana. The list also notes a village site at Indian ford.
In the town of Milton three groups are noted at and near the
59
THE FORGOTTEN PLACES
foot of Lake Koshkonong, and also the Fox village site at the foot of the lake; and a reference is made to a number of mounds that had formerly existed about the small lakes in the vicinity of the village of Milton.
In the town of Rock, a group between the Chicago & North- western railroad and Bass creek in the village of Afton.
In the town of Beloit, several groups on the east side of the river four miles north of the city of Beloit, on the west half of section 1; three groups on the bluffs and bottom lands on sections 13 and 24; several effigy mounds two miles north of Beloit; a group on the Weirick farm two miles north of Beloit; a group of conical, effigy and other mounds on the Adams property at the north city limits; another called the Eaton group about one- half mile north of Beloit College; a group on the bank of Turtle creek in the southeast quarter of section 36; and the large and beautiful group of conical, oval and effigy mounds on the Beloit College grounds, the largest in Rock county with the exception of the Afton group described later herein.
There is also noted a village site at Beloit, which is taken to be, from the best procurable data, that of Carramana, the Walk- ing Turtle, who was prominent as a Winnebago chief in the early history of Wisconsin.
In the town of Turtle, effigies on the bluff near the state line on section 31; another group of effigies and conical mounds on the southwest quarter of the same section; another group on the notheast corner of section 30; a group near the schoolhouse on the east side of Turtle creek; and a mound on the bank of the creek four miles north of the city of Beloit.
The zealous work of Mr. Brown having inspired the members of the Archeological Society in this vicinity to a greater activ- ity, we are able to add a number of sites of mounds, villages and camps to the list prepared by him.
There has been reported to the writer by a responsible person a location of three tumuli on the Hubbell farm on section 30 of the town of Fulton, and a number of flint implements have been gathered in the immediate vicinity. This location is a mile south of the mouth of the Catfish river and is on the west bank of Rock river.
The next point of interest is on fractional lot 3 of section 9 of the town of Janesville, where, upon breaking eleven acres of
60
HISTORY OF ROCK COUNTY
land for the first time last spring, the evidences of a village site were brought to light. A visit to this locality showed the site of a workshop and two campfires indicated by the circles of cal- cined stones. The writer has procured from this locality a large number of broken chert spear and arrow heads, one stone ax and 110 knives, spear heads and arrow heads that are intact. These implements are made of a variety of differently colored cherts, with some hornstone, chalcedony, quartzites, and one arrow head of agate, a material not found in this part of the country.
In the southeast quarter of section 15 of the town of Janes- ville so many stone implements have been found as to indicate the existence of either a camp or village site, and one mile south in the north part of section 23 is a similar locality. These tracts have both yielded in past years large numbers of stone relics, the finest of the quartzites in the writer's collection having been found upon section 23.
On the high sand bluff overlooking Spring brook in the city of Janesville there were until recently two mounds, one a circu- lar mound, the other an effigy. A cement block manufacturing company is now cutting away the bluff for use in its business, and last spring the effigy was destroyed. On the south side of East- ern avenue. in the northwest quarter of section 1 of the town of Rock, are three tumuli that have been cut down badly by the plow. West of the tumuli is a well-preserved garden site, the little hillocks standing as erect as if they had been made yester- day instead of a century ago. And along Western avenue, on the north side of the bend of Rock river, in the south part of Janesville, the writer believes there was once an Indian village, his belief being founded upon the number and character of the stone implements found in that locality. As all that section of the city has been built up for many years, no other evidence can now be procured; but in past years the yield of implements was large and the character of them, both as to material and work- manship, generally very fine. The writer has a large number of spear and arrow heads and several axes from this ground, gath- ered years ago by an excellent old Irishman who had brought with him from the old country an unshakable belief in the "elf stones," and who to the day of his death held fast to his faith in the mysterious qualities of the shapen flints showered from the clouds by the little people of the air.
61
THE FORGOTTEN PLACES
South of the city of Janesville there are several small tumuli on section 3, some on section 22, and some on seetion 35 of the town of Rock, and a large group that is now known as the Afton group on section 28. There is also a large village site on section 19, upon the farm formerly owned by Simon Antisdell. Many flint implements and quantities of broken pottery have been found upon this tract, and it affords the evidence peculiar to such locations in the burned stones of the old fireplaces. In the southwest corner of this tract is a prehistoric workshop upon a slight mound or elevation. When the writer visited this place some years ago he found great quantities of workshop chippings and fragments of chert, and he was so fortunate also as to find several good specimens of chert arrow heads, and one very deli- cate implement of the kind usually but erroneously classed as per- forators or drills.
One very unusual oblong mound is on the farm of Nels Chrispenson on section 14 of the town of Newark. The mound is unusual in this particular, that it is the only one in the town- ship, that it is far away from any stream, that there are no simi- lar structures nearer than Afton or Beloit, that with the excep- tion of those in the town of Porter there are no other mounds in the western part of the county, and that there is no evidence of Indian occupation nearer than a possible camp site on section 19 of the same town, five miles away. The Chrispenson mound is about five feet high and about sixty feet long on its longer axis. It was excavated some twenty years ago and four skeletons were found in it. Since that time it has not been disturbed.
Some mounds have been reported from the towns of Avon, Janesville, Turtle and Porter that are not included in the fore- going lists, but the reports are indefinite and no opportunity has yet been had to verify them.
The Afton group lies in section 28 of the town of Rock, at the west end of the bridge across Rock river, upon land owned by W. J. Miller. We first learned of these mounds some sixteen years ago from a young man who said he had dug into a mound near the bridge and that there was "nothing in it." In January, 1893, with H. L. Skavlem, the writer made an examination of the village site on section 19 in the town of Rock, and we then crossed the hill to hunt up the young man's mound. The ground was then covered with an impenetrable thicket, into which one
62
HISTORY OF ROCK COUNTY
could neither see nor push, and all that we could find were two small ridges not far from the highway, that we concluded were windfalls, covered by an accumulation of earth and sod. We gave no further attention to this locality until May, 1907, when we found the thicket cleared away and some of the large trees cut down, and the twenty acres upon which the mounds are lo- cated turned into pasture, except that three of the mounds and portions of three others lie outside the pasture fence upon open tilled ground.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.