USA > Wisconsin > Sauk County > The history of Sauk County, Wisconsin, containing an account of settlement, growth, development and resources biographical sketches the whole preceded by a history of Wisconsin > Part 67
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*Excerpts from the historical writings of S. A. Dwinnell.
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HISTORY OF SAUK COUNTY.
near the center of it. The village was named Adams, and this strange anomaly in names was presented to a stranger. The post office was Baraboo, the village was named Adams, the town was Brooklyn, while the only town in the county named Baraboo was what is now Reedsburg, with some adjacent territory. The County Commissioners had caused a village to be platted the previous summer, and in order to raise money to build a court house had sold a large num- ber of lots at public sale, at from $4 to $8 a lot. A court house, in size about 26x36 and two stories high, had been erected on the north side of the public square. Col. E. Sumner was pro- prietor of a small, unpainted, two-story hotel at the northeast corner of the public square, which forms a part of the present Western Hotel .* Col. James Maxwell had built a small store at the southeast corner of the park, since known as the " Corner Store." Besides these, there were a few board shanties occupied by families. The village site was covered with a sparse growth of small oaks.
Mr. Cochran had directed us to the house of Dr. Charles Cowles for entertainment and information. He then lived on Peck's Prairie, four miles down the river. We found him at home. We introduced ourselves, and, when he came out to care for our team he peered anxiously into our wagon, and, seeing a quantity of oats there, said : " I am glad you have brought prov- ender, for there is not a bushel to be bought in all this region." Dr. Cowles informed me that I would be expected to officiate at the funeral of a young man at the court house on the coming Sabbath. I spent Saturday in preparing a discourse and in assisting my friend in exploring the country. On Sabbath forenoon, we proceeded to the court house, which we found filled with some 200 people -- a very fine-appearing congregation for a new country-only one of whom, Col. Maxwell, had I ever seen before. Col. Alexander Crawford had charge of the funeral arrangements. The congregational singing was good. I informed the congregation that I was not a preacher, either lay or clerical, and was not much used to public speaking, but, in conse- quence of the illness of Brother Cochran, I had consented to try to officiate on that occasion. I addressed the people from James : "For what is your life ? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." The body was buried about forty rods northwest of the court house, where quite a large number of graves had already been made, and the whole entirely unprotected. In the afternoon, I gave a lecture in the court house, on temperance, in connection with Dr. Sewall's plates of the human stomach, which I had brought with me. Those plates showed the condition of the stomach in a healthy state, and also in the various stages of disease, from the moderate and the immoderate use of alcoholic liquors.
Monday, May 7, 1848, was spent in assisting my friend in selecting land on which to make a home, which we found about two miles northeast of the village and a short distance north of where the cemetery is now located. A large portion of the land in Sauk County was then open for entry, although it had been in the market two or three years. The principal set- tlements in the Baraboo Valley were on Peck's Prairie, below the village, and at Christiehood, named for a Scotchman who was a pioneer settler on a prairie some miles above the village, on the north side of the river. There were a few families on Webster's prairie, so named for the first settler there, and a few also on Babb's and Narrows Prairies. On Tuesday forenoon, we returned to the village of Baraboo, where the people had assembled at the first election for State officers, consisting of executive and legislative officers and Judges of the Circuit Court, which at first acted as Judges of the Supreme Court also. The grist-mill there was the only one in this valley, and the only one in the county except Leland's, on Honey Creek, two miles or so northwest of Sauk City. On Tuesday afternoon, we set out for the land office at Mineral Point, and spent the night at Prairie du Sac. The first settlement in the county had been made at that place in the years 1839 and 1840. Some men, having viewed the prairie from the high- lands on the south of the Wisconsin, swam across upon their horses, and made claims for farms at or near the sites of the present villages of Prairie du Sac and Sauk City. During two years, eight men settled there with families, together with four single men. Among the settlers of 1839 were two lawyers, Cyrus Leland, afterward a member of the Legislature, and James
*Destroyed by fire since the above was written.
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HISTORY OF SAUK COUNTY.
S. Alban, some time after a Circuit Judge of the Stevens Point Circuit, and Colonel of the Eighteenth Regiment of Infantry, who fell at Pittsburg Landing in April, 1862. Hans B. Crocker, who came during that year, opened the first store in the county in 1840, with a stock of $200 or $300 worth of goods. Among the settlers of 1840 was R. H. Davis, for many years Treasurer of the county, who taught the first school in the county in a framed room, 18x24, which stood on the present site of Sauk City. It was a private school of twenty pupils in the fall of 1841. The teacher was promised $20 per month for three months ; but a number of the bills of poor families were never paid. Berry Haney opened the first, public house in 1840, and, building a ferry-boat, combined, the business of innkeeper and ferryman. Maj. W. H. Clark, a lawyer, settled there in 1841, and, with the assistance of his wife, taught the second school, in 1842. The first regular preaching in the county was by Rev. P. W. Nicols, in 1842, at the log cabin of Jonathan Smith.
Among the settlers of 1840 was Augustus Haraszthy, an Hungarian Count, and his cousin, Charles Halasz, who were the pioneers of the German seltlement at Sauk City, and of all those of Sauk County. Among the settlers of 1840 was also a German by the name of Lueders, who some years after planted the pioneer vineyard of Wisconsin, on the steep bluff on the south side of the river, and at the time of his death, a few years ago, was the most extensive grape-grower in the State. Several of the single men dug a room into the river bank, and there for a season kept bachelor's hall, in the only dugout I ever heard of in Wisconsin. On Wednesday morn- ing, May 9, we crossed the river, and, after proceeding some miles through sparsely settled open- ings, we entered the valley of Black Earth Creek. It consisted of prairie from eighty rods to half a mile in width, with thin openings on each side as far as we could see. We soon discovered a peculiarity in the settlement which we had noticed nowhere else in the West. The houses were all built of logs, about 18x20 feet in size, and two stories high, in connection with each of which was a field of three or four acres, fenced and broken. We also noticed that many of the houses were unoccupied. At noon we stopped upon the banks of the creek to feed our team and ourselves. I suppose it was somewhere near where the village of Mazo Manie now stands. The current of the stream was quite rapid at that point. There came from a neighboring house two women to get water, of whom we inquired concerning the settlement. We found them to be good talkers and quite intelligent. They were disposed to give us all the information we sought. They informed us that some five or six years previous to that time a project had been formed among the operatives of a certain manufacturing city in England to form a colony and emigrate to the frontier of the United States to engage in farming. For this purpose, 200 men, with families, entered into a written compact, by which each was to put a certain sum of money into a common treasury and send out two men as agents to enter land, build houses, and fence and break a small field for each family before they came over. Each family was to have 80 acres of land, and the settlement to extend along the creek for the distance of twelve miles. Many of them had large, not to say wild, expectations. As one of the women remarked, they thought if they should only get upon a farm in America they should live on strawberries and cream. They seemed to imagine, that if they could only become the possessor of a farm, a house and field on the rich prairies of the great West, they would have all the fortune they needed for this life. Of the inconveniences and trials incident to settling in a new country, they knew nothing and anticipated nothing. When they found themselves from eight to twelve miles from a physician, a store, or any of the conveniences to which they had been accustomed in England, and engaged in a business of which they knew absolutely nothing, many of them became homesick and dis- couraged. One after another left for other places to find business by which they could sup- port their families, until one-half of them had deserted their homes. I think it was not true, however, that in the final result they regretted their emigration to the United States. At that time it seems that none of them had returned to the land of their birth.
On Tuesday, the 24th day of October. 1848, I set out from my home in Walworth County on my second journey to the Baraboo Valley. I had three passengers, all of whom, like myself, were looking for homes. I had unexpectedly and providentially come in possession of several
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HISTORY OF SAUK COUNTY. 453
land warrants, and came to find land upon which to locate them. Our journey was through the villages of Whitewater, Fort Atkinson, Aztalan, Lake Mills, Waterloo, Columbus, Fall River and Wyocena. We reached Portage on Thursday evening. On Friday forenoon, October 27, we visited Fort Winnebago. We crossed the Wisconsin River by ferry, owned and tended by a half-breed Frenchman *. At the landing on the south side was a wind grist-mill,t the first I had seen in the West. As the Wisconsin overflowed its banks, we found no settlers for three or four miles, after which our way was through openings, where we found an occasional dwelling and a small farm. In the afternoon we reached Baraboo, and put up with Col. Sumner, where we unexpectedly found a company of four who had arrived there the evening previous, from the same town in which we lived in Walworth County. Soon after we arrived, a heavy rain set in, which continued until 9 A. M. on Saturday. As we learned that a man by the name of David C. Reed was building a mill and founding a village on the river sixteen miles above, we resolved to proceed thither. After leaving Lyons, there was no house on the way except the board shanty of Thompson Shepherd, on Copper Creek. In what is now Reedsburg, we found the frame of a saw-mill, and five log shanties which stood in what is now Main street, just in front of where Reineke's hotel and Roper's eating-house now stands. The west shanty was occupied as a sleeping-room, with berths one above the other in steamboat style. It had an outside stone chimney so poorly made that much of the smoke found its way into the room and rendered its occupants quite uncomfortable. The second cabin was used as a storeroom, and the third, fourth and fifth, by the families of Powell, William McClung, the millwright, and Elder A. Lock. On Sunday morning, our company engaged Mr. Reed to go with them to look for land, on the plea of necessity that he could not leave his work to go on a week day. Mr. Reed inquired of me if I was going with them. I told him I was not ; that I was intending to come here to settle, and I was coming with clean hands, so I could reprove the people for Sabbath- breaking and other wrong-doing. He laughingly replied that they were not going to break the Sabbath, but only intended to bend it a little. I told the company that sooner than look for land on that day I would return home without any. I induced one man to remain with me. At the breakfast table I gave notice that, with the permission of Mr. Powell, I would give a lecture in that room in the evening. During the day, I took a stroll by myself, on the only road that led into the place from the north, crossing a part of what is now the Greenwood Ceme- tery. Near where Smith Devereaud now lives, the track turned west to the creek on which Reed and Powell had cut a quantity of hay during the summer, from which circum- stance the stream was named Hay Creek. Upon the rocks, under the pines, I sat down and prepared my lecture for the evening service. In the evening, twenty-nine persons assem- bled in Mr. Powell's cabin, when Elder A. Lock offered prayer and I gave a lecture upon law. I remarked that law was not arbitrary, as many supposed, but was founded in the nature of things ; that moral law was founded in the nature of inoral beings, and grew out of the relation they sustained to each other-angels with angels, men with men, and the whole with God, their maker. I then spoke of the Sabbath law, showed the necessity for rest one day in seven, and the reasonableness that men should obey it. I then presented the law which bound the citizen to the Government, and his duty to cast his vote for rulers who would sustain correct principles. This was just previous to the Presidential election at which Taylor was chosen President. I dwelt also upon the application of law in other matters. It is worthy of mention that not one of the five men who went out to look for land on that Sabbath settled in the county, although all professed to be searching land for that purpose: One of them, who was a Sabbath-keeper and sanctuary-goer at home, made a poor selection, and in the sale of it, some years after, com- mitted a State-prison offense.
Five of the eight men who reached Reedsburg on Saturday the 28th of October, 1848, went hunting land the next day, and one of the others let his horses go, with the agreement that
* At that date the ferry crossing the Wisconsin River at Portage was owned by William Armstrong, now a resident of Portage. The ferry was established half a century ago by the famous Pierre Pauquette, who was murdered by an Indian in October, 1834 .- ED.
+ Erected by Solomon Leach, who is still living in Portage, where he settled in 1839 .- ED.
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they should make a good selection for him. David C. Reed took them nearly ten miles from home before he showed them any vacant land. They made claims on three quarter-sections that day, two of them very good ones, the best of which I entered after all the others had obtained their lands. At that time there was not a family settled in the present towns of Westfield, Washington, Woodland or Winfield. I think there were three or four families near where the village of Ironton now is, and two or three near by, in the south of Lavalle. There were five on Babb's Prairie and five on Narrows Prairie, a small frish settlement, known as Sligo, in what is now Dellona. the Butterfield settlement in the north part of Excelsior, of about a dozen fami- lies. Christihood, near where Ebenezer Church now is, and a community on Seely Creek, now North Freedom. Of all the fifty families or so then living in the present ten towns in the north- west part of Sauk County, I think not more than five or six now (1876) remain, and some of them are depleted of a part of their numbers. Mr. Reed informed us that a fine, large prairie, surrounded with heavy timber, could be found to the south of Narrows Creek, near its head. Several of us made an ineffectual attempt to find it on Monday, and returned to the settlement on Narrows Prairie to spend the night. On Tuesday morning, four of our company, including myself, started out again with the determination to find the coveted prairie. After traveling several miles up the creek, we crossed to the south and struck into the timber to find a section line. The day was cloudy, and when we found a line and followed it to a section corner, we discovered that each one of us was completely turned about-north to us was south, and east was west. In this bewildered state we passed the rest of the day, tracing the section lines near the center of what is now the town of Washington. The country was covered for the most part with a fine growth of young oak timber, with small streams of water each half-mile. along some of which were strips of prairie. When night came, we kindled a fire by a large log, in front of which we built a bower, and, covering the ground with dry grass, which we pulled for the pur- pose, we slept comfortably till morning, although it snowed quite freely during the night. None of the company, except myself, were accustomed to the woods, and all gave up to me to pilot them out. Fortunately, I had with me a sectional map of Wisconsin-which on that day I would not have lost for $50-by means of which I discovered that the stream upon which we camped emptied into Narrows Creek. We resolved to follow it down, and had not gone far before we were delivered from our bewilderment, and the points of the compass were all right again, much to our satisfaction. We proceeded to the house of Mr. Pitts, near where the Parker Schoolhouse now stands, and, taking my team and buggy, which had been left there, we came directly to Reedsburg, which we reached at noon. After dinner, I informed. Mr. Reed of our inability to find the large prairie surrounded by heavy timber, of which he gave us such a glow- ing description before we set out on Monday morning. To our chagrin, he informed us that the prairie was in the valley of Narrows Creek, which at that time consisted of only a small piece of . open land. He had sent us upon a " wild-goose chase." He evidently feared that we were all of us a set of speculators, and wished us to locate our warrants as far from the village as possible. Mr. Reed was the only man in this part of the country who could give information as to vacant lands in this region. I said to him that I wished to hire his services for a day to show me land, and would pay him any price he should demand. Making very little objection on the score of his own business, he went with me. The first quarter-section he showed me as vacant was the one upon which I now live. He said that his millwright had claimed one eighty of it, and he had promised to enter it for him, but had been disappointed in respect to money to do it ; that if I would enter it and give him one forty, it would be satisfactory. This I promised to do. and at the same time told Mr. Reed that I should need a quarter-section of timber to go with it, and he gave me a descriptions of one adjoining his land on the south, which I entered. We traveled northeast over lands now owned by the Messrs. Sparks, Pelton, Montross and Charles Pelton, and I took descriptions of all the best locations on the route, none of which I entered, however, as there were more valuable ones to be found elsewhere. Soon after we set out, a severe northeast snow storm set in, which continued for thirty-six hours. In the course of the afternoon, Mr. Reed gave me an interesting account of his life, and remarked with special
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reference to the manner in which he had spent the preceding Sabbath, " I know far better than I do," he said ; " I was brought up by a Baptist minister, and well instructed by him and his wife. After I was married and they became superannuated, I took them home and cared for them as long as they lived. I know my duty better than I do it." How many of us are com- pelled to make the same acknowledgment !
On Thursday, November 2, we looked over land near Babb's Prairie to find a quarter- section to enter for Mrs. Pamelia Tator, then living at Delavan. The storm still continuing, and the bushes being covered with damp snow, we were nearly as wet as though we had been out in a rain-storm without an umbrella. I passed an uncomfortable night, but, fortunately, took no cold. The whole company, having made satisfactory selections, proceeded to Baraboo on Saturday, where we spent the Sabbath.
On the 26th of February, 1849, I set out on my second journey to Reedsburg for the pur- pose of entering land. On Friday, March 2, we arrived. Since our last visit, in November, the dam had been finished and the saw mill put in operation, although it was without roof or other covering. One family had been added to the population, that of Austin Seeley. He had put up the frame to the L part of what has since been known as " the old mill-house," and cov- ered it with green, rough boards. His family had recently removed from Delavan, and they were living in it. We obtained dinner here, but found the people quite short of provisions. In the afternoon we proceeded to Narrows Prairie, and found lodgings with William Pitts. On Saturday we spent the entire day selecting a quarter-section of land for myself, and were well paid for our labor. It was a mile or more north of where Loganville is now built, and consisted of rich prairie with a fine stream of water running through it, and sixty acres of heavy timber on one corner. It has been since converted into a farm, which for several years past has been owned and occupied by H. B. Dornick. On Sabbath, March 4, we rested, according to the commandment. On Monday we looked out a quarter-section, with a mill-site upon it, on Nar- rows Creek, for the young man who accompanied me, but he was cut down by death before he improved it. A mill was afterward built upon it by D. C. Sheldon. That was the day Zachary Taylor was inaugurated President of the United States. On Tuesday, March 6, I reviewed
my selections of lands on Copper Creek, examining the soil, which was not frozen, by boring through the snow with my staff. Stopping over night at Baraboo, we proceeded to Matt's Ferry the next day, only to find the river open and no man at home to set us across. There was a
family there, living in a part of a storehouse erected on the river bank. We traveled down to Sauk City and put up with Marcus Warren, a wealthy bachelor, and proprietor of the United States Hotel. During the evening, Augoston Haraszthy, the Hungarian Count, came in and spent an hour. He was a very intelligent man, of fine colloquial powers. I was much inter-
ested in his conversation. He, with his cousin, Charles Halasz, sailed from Hamburg in March, 1840, with the intention of settling in the territory of Florida, glowing accounts of which they had read in their native land, as a new-found Eden. Before leaving port they had pur- chased some of Maryatt's books of travels for the purpose of whiling away their time on ship- board. His description of the country between Green Bay and Prairie du Chien, together with the account given by some English fellow-passenger who had been at Mineral Point, of the beauties of Wisconsin, induced them to change their destination. Upon landing in New York, they pro- ceeded at once, by the way of the Erie Canal and the lakes, to Milwaukee. They purchased horses, employed a guide and interpreter, and explored the country until a satisfactory spot to settle, on Rock River, was found at the head of Lake Koshkonong. There they set to work vigorously to make improvements, until they lost nearly everything by the burning of their tem- porary dwelling. Desolate and half discouraged, they resolved to abandon their claim. Picking up what few " traps " they had saved from the fire, they proceeded by way of Madison to Prai- rie du Sac, where they arrived about the middle of July, 1840. They were enchanted with the beauty of the country and found it equal to the description given by Capt. Maryatt in his trav- els. The Count purchased a claim to lands on the river, below the village of Prairie du Sac, and the next season employed Charles O. Baxter to lay out a town, which was named Haraszthy.
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The name was afterward changed to the one it bears at present, Sauk City. In the spring of 1842, the Count returned to Hungary, and came back in the course of the summer with his wife and children, and with his father also, who was known as the " Old General," who was an excel- lent chemist. They soon drew around them a large German settlement, which spread to other parts of the county. The Count occasionally visited the Territorial Legislature when in session at Madison. On such occasions he dressed in the livery he was accustomed to wear on court occasions in Europe, deeming it an act of respect due a legislative body. He always attracted a good deal of notice. A few weeks after I saw him, the family removed overland to Califor- nia, where the " Old General " was appointed Assayer of the mint at San Francisco, and the Count received the appointment of Clerk. Charles Halasz, who recently died at Sauk City, had at various times been elected to town and county offices, which he satisfactorily filled.
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