USA > Wisconsin > Washington County > Washington County, Wisconsin : past and present > Part 3
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
escaped the tongs of the joke-smiths. The bull's eye was hit by a legislator who claimed to represent the territory east of Ozaukee, consequently Lake Michigan, by rising and in a demosthenic appeal claiming equal rights for all fishes. The assembly was of the opinion that the champion of the fishes' rights should be soaked in cider. Whereupon they adjourned.
Town Erin .- As the name suggests, the first settlers of this town- ship were Irish-they were Catholics from the Emerald Isle. Michael Lynch on November 27, 1841, was the first one to take up Government land. In the following two years the valleys fairly resounded with the efforts of the Ryans, Quinns, Daleys, Fitzgeralds, Welches, Donohues, Murphys, McCormicks, Gallaghers, McLaugh- lins and others of distinctly Gaelic lineage to create a home in that most hilly portion of the county. German names among the first settlers are rare exceptions. By 1846 the last patch of arable land was taken. The town was well settled before the first tree was felled in the town of Hartford. Town Erin was incorporated on Jan. 16, 1846. On April 6, 1846, the first town meeting was held in the home of Patrick Toland. At the election of the town officers seventy-four votes were polled. The first mass was said in the home of Barney Conwell by Rev. Kundig. The priest had come on foot-per pedes apostolorum-from Prairieville (now Waukesha). Soon afterwards at Monches, a tiny hamlet of the town, a little log church was built, and in it gathered for years the pious settlers of the town, devoted to the Church of Rome. In 1857 at Thompson's postoffice the second Catholic church, a frame structure, was erected. Politically, Town Erin was from the very beginning of its existence the stronghold of the Democratic party in Washington county. Until 1859 nobody who was not a Democrat could poll a vote. Lincoln in 1860 was the first one to effect a breach in that solid phalanx. He got one vote. But the election officers thought that it certainly must have been a mistake, and-threw it out. Since then the Re- publican party slowly gained ground. In the next few elections that solitary Republican vote regularly reappeared. There is the following story to it: An Irishman after landing in New York was taken violently sick, and was taken up and nursed in the home of a compatriot. When he had recovered, he wanted to pay for the shelter and good care he had received, but his benefactor would not take any money, instead, he made his ward promise to vote at the polls no other ticket save the Republican. This Irishman settled in the town, and he kept his promise faithfully.
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
Town Farmington .- On February 11, 1847, the Legislature pro- ceeded to prune the town of West Bend and declare the northeastern portion a new township with the name of Clarence. In the year following this name was changed to Farmington-a fitting appella- tion, for farming is the occupation of most every inhabitant. The first settlers were Amasa P. Curtis and Elijah Westover, both of whom took up land on Oct. 14, 1845. November 22, of the same year, William Smith became their neighbor. When the year slipped away, the wilderness had not attracted any more than these lonely three. More pioneers came in the following year, and the names of Wescott, Schwinn, Bolton, Detmering and others appear in the records-names that are interwoven with the days of old and ring true to this very day. About two months after the creation of the town, on April 6, 1847, the first town meeting and the election of officers were held in the home of Thomas Bailey. Thirty-five votes were cast. Fifteen dollars were allowed for schools. At a special meeting on Oct. 2, 1847, it was decided to levy taxes to the amount of $200 to build a bridge across the Milwaukee river. Soon afterwards the project was dropped. It was thought too much of a burden for most of the settlers who had little or no means beyond what they needed to sustain life. Still they managed to build a log schoolhouse in the same fall and called it the "Washington Union School." In the same year a Methodist minister held the first service in the log shanty of Sylvester Danforth. The Methodists organized the first congregation in the town. The first sawmill was built by Delos Wescott on Stony creek. The first physician was the aforesaid Sylvester Danforth. The first log house was built by Jonathan Danforth who was the first postmaster. In 1859 the German Methodists followed their English brethren in founding a congregation. The first church built was that of the St. Peter's Catholic congregation which with forty-two members was organized in 1846. In 1859 the St. John's Catholic congregation was formed. In 1861 the German Evangelicals united in St. Martin's congregation, and two years later they built a church. In 1857 a number of German lovers of ideality founded the Farming- ton Humanitaetsverin with A. W. Demuth as president, Fitz Hueb- ner as secretary, and Wilhelm Kletzsch as treasurer. The society flourished for many years and possessed a library of about 400 Ger- man volumes. In 1862 the Farmington Turnverein was organized.
Town Germantown .- Of all townships in the county Germantown was the first to be settled. As its name tells, the old pioneers were almost all Germans. They came by the way of Milwaukee where
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
they had learned of the new country just opened for settlement. They had come to America to conquer the wild and cultivate the soil. In Town Mequon, adjoining to the east, many Germans had already settled, and the neighborhood of compatriots encouraged the new- comers to push into the wild to the west. The first settler of Town Germantown was therefore the first settler of Washington county of the present day. This first settler was a German, Anton D. Wis- ner. His name appears first in the records. On March 11, 1839, he took up eighty acres of Government land. In the second place ap- pears the name of Levi Ostrander who bought his eighty on the same day. He had followed closely. In the same year sixteen more set- tlers arrived and settled mostly in the southern part of the town. For five years following the pioneers poured in steadily, and by the end of 1844 most all of the land was taken up. The settling in this town was not so much wrought with hardships and want as in parts farther north. Milwaukee, at that time quite a village, was not far off, and victuals could be toted from there with comparative ease. Many of the settlers had not come without means. Among the first buyers of land of non-German nationality the Scotchman Alex- ander Mitchell may be mentioned, who later in Milwaukee amassed a fortune that made it unnecessary or undesirable for him to take to his eighty acres and agriculture as recourse. The town was incorpor- ated on January 21, 1846. On April 7, 1846, the first town meeting was held in the home of John Mattes. The clerk was J. T. Brown, a scholarly man well versed in the English language. But something seemed to weigh down his spirits, and poor and melancholy he passed his old age in the poorhouse. In the meeting eight road masters were elected for as many districts. $150 were allowed for the poor fund, $100 for highways and bridges, and $400 for schools. Votes were cast in favor of the admission of Wisconsin into the sisterhood of states, and the removal of the temporary county seat onto the county farm, and the raising of $1,000 for the erection of county buildings. There were 123 voters present. At the election of town officers George Koehler was chosen chairman.
Town Hartford .- It is thought that a Canadian by the name of Jehial Case was the first white man who lived in the town of Hart- ford. He was a squatter or a man who made himself at home on a piece of land without having a title of Uncle Sam. It is not known when he came. Timothy Hall who arrived in July, 1843, found him in a log shanty. In the fall or winter following he sold his claim, consisting of a small clearing and the hut, to a settler
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
named Scheitz. The first settler who took up land was the aforesaid Timothy Hall. One day he arrived with his wife and worldly be- longings on an ox-cart from Milwaukee, to the great surprise of the Canadian squatter. He settled on Section 12 and built his shanty, the second one in the town. It later for many years served as an inn, for it lay half way between Milwaukee and Fond du Lac, and many a weary traveler hailed it in those railroadless days. The first post- office was set up here. The first German settler whose name ap- pears in the realty records was Nicolaus Simon. He and another German, John Theil, arrived in 1843 from Prairieville (now Wau- kesha), on a landseeking trip. They walked around Pike lake, on the shore of which they struck a village of Pottawatomies. The In- dians had a different, and it seems more appropriate, name for Pike lake. They called it "Nokum," or Heart lake, and the lake actually is heart-shaped. While Theil stayed on the land, Simon returned to Prairieville to tell the two Rossman brothers of the rapids of the Rubicon river at the place which furnished the site for the city of Hartford, and to coax them to come along and to improve of the splendid opportunity to harness a water power. In the summer of 1844 he returned with them, and they bought 40 acres of land ad- joining the river. In the fall of the same year they built a dam, and in the following spring a sawmill. In 1846 a flouring mill droned complacently on the river bank. Thus the nucleus of the city of Hartford had been created. More settlers had come in 1844, and at the end of the year thirty entries had been made, but only about fifteen families had actually settled. In the four years following the noise of the ax in some pioneer's brawny fists echoed through nearly every section of primeval forest. The town's first name was Wayne which was subsequently changed into Benton, then into Wright and finally the popular predilection settled on the name Hart- ford. The greater number of the settlers were Yankees who took the leadership in civic affairs. The first poll list, that of the election in November, 1846, contains almost exclusively English names. In April, 1846, the first town meeting was held in the home of E. O. Johnson. The chairman was John G. Chapman, and the secretary John Barney. Town officers were elected and votes were cast in favor of the admission of Wisconsin to the statehood, the removal of the county seat to the county farm, and the raising of a school tax of one-fourth of one per cent of the assessment. There were forty-two voters present.
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
Town Jackson .- By a legislative act the town of Jackson was created on Jan. 21, 1846. But some years previous the settlement of the fertile and almost level land, watered by the Cedar creek and numerous tributary rivulets, had already begun. The first entries were made in 1843 by John McDonald and Peter Devereau. Each one took up eighty acres. In May of the same year John Kinney followed the Scotch-French vanguard and picked out forty acres. By fall thirty-one entries were made, and until the winter of 1845 their number had increased to 149. Much land was bought for speculation. The first poll list, that of the year 1846, showed up only one-fourth of the names in the realty records. The value of the land was in those early days readily recognized by people who saw the day coming when steel rails would glitter alongside of the foot-worn Indian trails, and the little heap of grain that was ground between two stones would be overtaken by golden wheat fields and the clacking mill. Among the first settlers was a large contingent of Germans. A troupe of German Lutheran immigrants headed by their pastor Kindermann and their teacher Steinke largely settled in the town and founded the hamlet of Kirchhayn which today can boast of having one of the oldest Lutheran congregations in Wis- consin. Smaller fractions of the same troupe founded colonies in the neighboring hamlet of Freistadt in the town of Mequon, and in Watertown. April 7, 1846, three months after the town had been born and baptized, the first town meeting was held. It appears to have been looked at as a most important affair, for 43 voters were present-evidently the entire voting population. It was in the turbu- lent times of the quarrel about the seat of the county's offices, and Jackson had its hands in the pie. The Poor Farm already lay within the borders of the town. Why not move the other offices onto the grounds and have everything together? The intentions were ex- cusable and the arguments plausible, but the older towns laughed at the little shaver who tried to put on father's big hat. But regardless of the scoffs they unanimously voted for the removal of the county seat to the town of Jackson. The meeting was held in the home of L. Topliff who was the clerk. He also was the first to be elected chairman of the town. It was decided to levy $100, of which $75 were for general expenses and $25 for schools. Thus the town began to manage its affairs.
Town Kewaskum .- The territory comprised in this town originally belonged to the town of West Bend, as was set forth in an act of the Legislature of January, 1846. In 1847 it was separated and received
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
the name of North Bend, the Milwaukee river which is flowing with many windings through the town being the sponsor. In 1849 its name was changed to Kewaskum, in honor of an Indian chief who lived there and was highly esteemed. In 1844 William P. Barnes and his wife settled in the town, and the couple are considered the first settlers. The first town meeting in the town of North Bend was held on April 6, 1847, in the home of the first settlers men- tioned. Twenty-six voters congregated. The minutes of the meeting are still extant. They read as follows :
"At the annual town meeting, held at the house of William P. Barnes, in the town of North Bend, Washington county., T. W., April 6, 1847, the friends who were there organized by calling Harry N. Strong to the chair, and appointing Joshua Bradley, clerk. The meeting being called to order, the following motions were made and carried in the affirmative :
"First .- That the next annual town meeting is to be held at the house of Ferdinand Dagling, on Section Number 21.
"Second .- That town officers receive for their services $1 per day where the price is not fixed by law.
"Third .- That the town raise one-eighth of one per cent for the benefit of schools in the town.
"Fourth .- That we, or the town raise one-eighth of one per cent, to be applied to roads in the town.
"Fifth .- That Samuel Ladd serve as Overseer of Highways in the town of North Bend till others are appointed.
"Sixth .- That we raise $75 to pay officers and to bear the neces- sary expenses of the town.
"Seventh .- That the Supervisors accept no account unless it is itemized, dated and sworn to.
"April 9, 1847.
JOHN S. VAN EPS, Town Clerk."
In the same house in the same year two elections were held: Sep- tember 6 for territorial and county officers, and November 29 for delegates to the constitutional convention at Madison in which the fundamentals of the state-to-be Wisconsin were laid down. The first election in the newly baptized town of Kewaskum was held on April 2, 1850, in the home of Nathan Wheeler. He also was the first postmaster. It proved to be void because it was held outside of the town limits, and the elected chairman J. T. VanVechten was re- fused the vote in the session of the County Board. Matters were set right in another election.
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
Town Polk .- The first settler of this town was William William- son. Timothy Hall, the first settler of Town Hartford, says of him: "At the time (in 1843) I found William Williamson five miles away from my place toward Milwaukee; he was the first settler of Town Polk. In November of the following year Densmore W. Maxon came and settled on Cedar creek where he still lives." The entries essentially corroborate his statements. Williamson who uses here the given name of James took up his forty acres on Aug. 7, 1843, and on Dec. 7, 1844, Densmore W. Maxon took up his forty, to which in March, 1845, he added another forty. Maxon was a young surveyor who in 1843 had settled in the town of Mequon and with his instruments had explored the country east. On the bank of the Cedar creek, the volumned outlet of the Cedar lakes, he bought a piece of land and built a dam and a sawmill. His next neighbor was Kewaskum, a noble chief of the Pottawatomies. Both men united in a lasting friendship. Prior to the year 1846 a large part of the fertile land traversed by ranges of low hills was sold, but little settled. In 1847 the clearing began on a larger scale, and in the next few years the woods of oak, maple, beech, and hickory fairly resounded with the ax-strokes of the pioneers. The biggest entries of land in the town were made by B. Schleisinger Weil, the founder of Schleis- ingerville. In December, 1845, he took up nearly two thousand acres -the best part of the northwest quarter of the town-in the name of his son Jules and his wife Adelaide. The first town meeting was held on April 7, 1846. The minutes of it are lost, but from the proceedings of the first session of the County Board it is evident that the first supervisors of the town were D. W. Maxon, Silas Wheeler and John Detling. Jacob Everly was the first treasurer, and C. B. Covender was the first clerk and school commissioner. After the removal of the latter, John Rix was appointed clerk, and Andrew Dunn school commissioner. The proceedings further show that the first town meeting was held in the home of John Rix, for the use of which, together with the light used, he was reimbursed with $1.50. There existed five taverns in the town in 1846; they were conducted by Jacob Berwind on Section 26, Peter Brenner on Section 25, Julius Schleisinger on Cedar lake, Nikolaus Guth on Section 28, and Emanuel Mann on Section 35. The oldest extant poll list, that of the November election of 1846, contains the names of 21 voters.
Town Richfield .- The first one to turn his eyes to the arable clay soil of the town of Richfield, dotted in its southwestern part by morainic hills, was Samuel Spivey. On May 31, 1841, he bought 160 Vol. I-3
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
acres of Government land in Section 36, but it is not known that he ever settled on it. July 6, 1841, Jacob Snyder had 40 acres in Section 35 entered, and about his settlement on the land there is no doubt. He is considered the first settler of the town, and for almost a year he also was the only one. In the fall of 1842 fifty odd entries were made. In 1843 the tide of German immigration began to find its way into the town, and two years later little Government land was left. Town Richfield was incorporated on January 21, 1846. A few resolutions of the first town meeting have come upon us. They read :
"Resolved, By the citizens of the town of Richfield, in annual town meeting, held at the house of Zachariah Fuller, April 7, 1846: (First), that it is our duty and it shall be our aim to practice strict economy in the government and management of our town affairs, and that our motto is 'the greatest good to the greatest number,' and in order to carry out these principles, therefore,
"Resolved (Second), That the pay and fees of the officers of the town shall be as follows, to-wit: Supervisors, Commissioners of Highways, Commissioners of Common Schools, and Assessors shall receive each $1 a day, and no more, for every day necessarily em- ployed on the business of the town, and that the Town Clerk shall receive the like sum of $1 per day when the business is such that it can be calculated by the day; in all other cases he shall receive for all necessary writing on town business six cents per folio, and the com- mittee of investigation shall order that the resolution be altered in such manner as to convey the same meaning in a less number of words; they shall make such revocation in the charges as they shall deem fit. The Collector shall receive for his services 5 per cent on all money by him paid into the Town Treasurer. The Treasurer shall receive for his services 2 per cent for all money received by him, and I per cent for all money by him paid out.
"Resolved (Third), That in all surveys of roads, that pay shall not be allowed to more than four persons, to wit : a Surveyor, two Chain- men and a Marker.
"Resolved (Fourth), That we will raise $80 to pay the expense of the town for the ensuing year.
"In addition to the above $80, $70 more was voted for at special town meeting, held at the house of Philip Laubenheimer, at I o'clock, the 6th day of May, 1846.
"Attest.
MICHAEL FOGARTY, Town Clerk."
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
The style and slips in the above are those of the original. The chairman of the first meeting was Balthus Mantz. Tradition says that in the meeting the first indemnity amounting to nine dollars was paid to Gustavus Bogk, a pioneer. His wagon on which he had packed his earthly belongings, tipped over on the Fond du Lac Road, whereby a stove and other things were broken. He blamed the poor condition of the road for his mishap, and the town fathers agreed with him and allowed for the damage. It is a historical fact, there- fore, that Gustavus Bogk had the first tip-over in the town. The first church in the town was built of logs by Catholic pioneers in 1845 and dedicated to St. Hubertus. The first priests were Revs. Meyer, Kundig and Obermueller. Another log church, that of St. Augustine, was started soon afterwards by another settlement of German Catholics.
Town Trenton .- As far back as 1836 the forest-clad undulations of this town, between which the Milwaukee river in many windings ate its way, attracted the attention of speculators. The land near the river bank, which now is the site of the village of Newburg, was es- pecially desirable. Here Solomon Juneau, the founder of Milwaukee, Michael Anthony Guista, Charles Hunt, M. C. Johnson, James Duane Doty, Joseph R. Ward and others bought land on which they never settled nor changed anything of its primeordeal appearance. Only the realty records give notice of the erstwhile owners. It was nine years later, in 1845, when the first real settlers arrived. They were: Peter Nuss, Ferdinand Nolting, Patrick Keown, Michael Bower, Edwin R. Nelson, Thomas Jessup, Moses Young, Emanuel Mann, Christopher Long and Fred Firstenberger. The vanguard on the spot, the main force of the pioneers, with axes and ox carts, brought up in the following year. In the years 1847 and 1848 the remainder of the land was settled. In the winter of 1847 Newburg, the most important village of the township, was founded by Barton Salis- bury. He was busy getting the village of Barton, some ten miles up the Milwaukee river, started, and sent a man by the name of Watson down to a place where the river's rapids invited some captain of in- dustry, with directions to build a log house. Into this Salisbury moved with his wife in 1848. He built a dam, a saw mill, a grist mill, and also an ashery in which the potash gained by the settlers from the vast ash-piles of their clearings was converted into pearlash. Salisbury was joined by two of his nephews. Under his direction some more buildings were put up and it was at the construction of the first hotel that a poor rafter broke under his feet, and he fell and
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HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY
came to a tragic death. The first town meeting was held on April 4, 1848, in the house of John Smith. The chairman was James H. Watson, and the clerk John A. Douglas. For roads $50 were ap- propriated, for the support of the poor $25, for general expenses $200, and for schools "as much as the law allows." A special tax was imposed on each freeholder for every eighty acres of land, consisting of five days road work, or five dollars in cash. As a polltax each had to put in two days' work for the community. The first supervisors were John A. Douglas, Reuben Salisbury, and Turner Bailey. The first town clerk was Frederick Balch, the first treasurer Eli L. Hurd, and the first justices were Frederick Leson and James H. Watson. The office of the "Sealer of Weights" that since sank into obscurity was held by John A. Douglas. In the first general election, held in the town in November, 1848, 58 votes were cast.
Town Wayne .- The northwestern quadrangle of the county map was named Town Wayne. The settlement of the wooded, undulat- ing country dotted with numerous steep gravel hills and stretching west of the morainic ridges began in 1846. On June 8, 1846, Alex- ander W. Stow took up the first eighty acres. In the fall of the year several other pioneers arrived. Among the first ones was a German, Konrad Schleicher. He on Feb. 1, 1847, had three tracts of forty acres each in Section 28 entered under his name, and brought his wife and two children out from Milwaukee to his big estate in the wilds. He left them in the care of his brother-in-law and re- turned to the city to work and save up a little capital to run the farm with. They began to clear the land and the woman put in her solid share of the work. An experience of her's throws a spot-light on the hardships these pioneers had to wrestle with. She needed flour to bake bread, and walked nine miles to get it. With a sackfull placed on her head-a practice which the peasant women of the fatherland, who carry large baskets and jugs filled with butter, eggs, milk, etc., for miles to the next market-place, still follow-she started for home. At one place she had to cross a creek swollen with heavy rains, which she could not ford. There lay a tree athwart the water, and on hands and knees, pushing the sack carefully before her, she managed to crawl over, and for a time she again could stuff the hungry mouths of her family. In the house of Patrick Conolly the first town meeting was held on April 1, 1848. Eleven voters were present-hardly enough to fill the offices. They chose A. S. Mc- Dowell for chairman; he also served as street commissioner and jus- tice of the peace. The salary of the officers was fixed at $1 a day.
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