Sauk County, Wisconsin - Chapter 19: North Freedom, Lavalle and Able Man, 1918

The Hacketts ok North Freedom - Village ok Bloom and North Freedom Platted - Corporation ok North Freedom - Bank ok North Freedom - Churches ok the Village - John Fallar Post No. 83, Grand Army ok the Republic - Early Settlement ok Lavalle - Pioneer Wood Manueacturers - Came to Town ok Excelsior - Upper Narrows, Logical Village Site: - Called Village Ok Excelsior - Ableman as a Quarry Center - Present Village as a Whole - Mrs. Alexander's REcoixECTidNS ok thk Colonel.

About ten years after the first settlers came into the Town of Freedom and six years after it was given a civil body, the first house was erected on what is now the site of North Freedom ; those who are posted on the main history of that section of the county will gather that the village itself commenced to be born in 1856, when John Hackett thus threw up his residence in the locality.

From that time to the present the Hackett family has waxed strong in numbers and good influence and, from North Freedom as a nucleus, spread over the neighboring country and even into distant parts of the United States. But there has always been enough of them on the ground, and within calling distance, to make a creditable reunion. For a number of years members of various generations and branches of the family who reside in Sauk County and vicinity, or have claimed that region as their home, have been united into what is called the Hackett Association, the gatherings of which, under the general management of a secretary and historian, have been events of even more than family interest. As high as seventy or eighty relatives have been in attendance at one time.

became evident that the Chicago & North Western line was going to strike that locality, Mr. Bloom (G. W.) purchased twenty-seven acres in section 2, and in the following year it was surveyed and platted as the Village of Bloom. The depot was already located on his plat, John Ladd had opened a store there, a postoffice was established, and everything was favorable for the founding of a good town.

In 1873 W. C. T. Newell surveyed and platted the Village of North Freedom, also on section 2, and the two finally consolidated under the latter name. The residents of the two villages soon organized temperance societies (Independent Order of Good Templars) and North Freedom has always stoqd firmly on the ground of sobriety and good order.

In October, 1893, the Village of North Freedom was incorporated under order of the circuit judge and its first officers were : N. F. Wetmore, president of the board of trustees; Frank Hackett, D. C. Rice, E. A. Dwinnell, William Bonnell, William Randall and T. Hanger, trustees ; supervisor, John Wiggins ; clerk, Charles E. Butters ; treasurer, J. I. Elliott; assessor. C. W. Fisk; marshal, William Hackett; constable, D. C. Rice ; police justice, P. H. Gunnison.

The village owns the electric lighting plant and water works which supply its residents with these conveniences and almost necessities of life. The system of water supply has been established since 1904, which indicates enterprise arid forethought in a corporation which embraces only ahout 700 people within its limits.

The Bank of North Freedom was organized in July, 1903, its first officers being M. A. Warren, president, and William A. Warren, cashier. The substantial building still in use was erected by the management when the institution was opened for business. The original management continued for three years. Since 1906 R. B. Dickie has served as president and W. C. Hahn as cashier. The capital stock of the bank is $10,000, surplus and undivided profits $7,000, and average deposits $200,000.

The German Baptists, Methodists and German Lutherans have well established churches at North Freedom, in charge, respectively, of Rev. Christian Dippel, Rev. Thomas Foulkes and Rev. John Freund. The organization of the German Baptists was founded April 25, 1858, with a membership of fourteen, and its first trustees were L. Ristau, H. Egerer and U. Lange. The pastors of the church have been : Rev. J. G. Werthner, 1858-5!), 1862-6:3; Rev. C. Manthey, 1867-75; G. F. Zeckser, 1875- 77; H. J. Mueller, 1878-83; William Kroesch, 1883-88; Rev. H. C. Griep, 1889-93; Rev. G. Engelmann, 1893-1900; Rev. J. Kaaz, 1901-05; Rev. W. S. Argow, 1905-12; Rev. Chr. Dippel, 1912 - . The structures which have been erected on the church property include the first little frame meeting house and the parsonage, both built in 1876 ; the brick house of worship now occupied, completed in 1903, and the parsonage of present use, erected in 1912. The membership of the German Baptist Church of today is 145.

The Methodist Episcopal Church of North Freedom was organized by Rev. S. O. Browne in the fall of 1873. Besides Mr. Browne, some of its early pastors were Revs. Thomas Evan, \V. E. Conway, G. B. Haseltine and Robert Smith.

The societies which have headquarters at North Freedom are neither numerous nor strong, although the Masons, Odd Fellows, Mystic Workers, Royal Neighbors and Grand Army of the Republic are all represented. As much interest is taken in the John Fallar Post No. 83, Grand Army of the Republic, as in any of the local organizations, although it is one of the weakest. It has dwindled from twenty-two charter members at the time of its organization, May 2, 1883, to nine members at present. Its first officers were: John Wiggins, commander; J. B. Ashley, senior vice commander; John Rooney, junior vice commander; L. Smith, surgeon; F. Hackett, chaplain. John Wiggins, the first commander, was followed by J. B. Ashley, R. B. Carpenter, M. A. Burt, J. T. Lawtou, D. C. Rice, J. Odell, E. A. Dwinnell, J. M. Blachly, S. Maxham, D. L. Odell, J. G. Patterson, J. Wiggins (second term), J. B. Ashley (second term), J. T. Lawton (second term), J. Odell (second term), J. M. Blachly (second term), J. G. Patterson (second term), A. J. Spahn, L. Smith, F. Hackett, J. Rooney, E. N. Trumble, John Hall. J. G. Patterson (second term), and J. M. Blachly (third term).

The early history of the town and the Village of Lavalle run along parallel lines - in fact, are substantially uniform. The first settlers in what is now the township were on the site of the present village, or very near it, and the nucleus of the settlement was formed only two years after the original pioneers located in the neighborhood. In the order of time the settlement which developed into the village preceded the organization of the Township of Lavalle by twelve years.

The first white man to locate in the town was Samuel Karstetter, who built a shanty on section 28 in 1847. In the following year came Manelious Pearson, an Englishman, who erected the first substantial house perhaps three-quarters of a mile to the southeast on section 34. He had moved from Columbia County, took up a quarter section of laud and developed his homestead for many years thereafter. Shortly after he came several English families settled near him - the Harrisons, Jessups, the Thorntons and Tordoffs. Among the other early settlers should be mentioned George Harrison, who came in 1848; Jabez Inman, 1849; Ansel H. Brownell, 1850; John and Edmund Tordoff, 1851; A. D. Potter, 1853; W. S. Hubbell, 1854; and John W. Dickens and John White, in the same year.

The territory now embraced in the Town of Lavalle was originally in the Town of Baraboo and subsequently in the Town of Marston. It became the Town of Lavalle in 1861, and the first meeting for the election of its officers was held in the Village of Lavalle April 1, 1862. J. G. Blakeslee was elected chairman ; E. B. Hageman and J. H. Douglass, supervisors; C. F. Christnot, clerk; II. G. Howard, treasurer; II. A. Sturgess, assessor; David Neery, II. A. Sturgess and Calvin Gardner, justices.

The first school district was organized while the town was a portion of Marston in 1851. A schoolhouse was commenced the same year, located on the north side of section 33 near the I ronton and Lavalle Road. Owing to a lack of harmony among the people work was suspended on it for some time, but it was finally completed in February, 1853. As is generally the case, religion came to stay simultaneously with education, the first religious meetings being held at the house of Rev. Mr. Hamlin, a Free Will Baptist minister, in the summer of 1851.

In 1849 J. F. Hamlin made a claim of land upon which the village is now situated and commenced the improvement of the strong water power at this point on the Little Baraboo. With the financial and physical assistance of Solon Rushmore ho built a dam and a sawmill, the entire enterprise being in working order by the spring of 1850. .1. F. Sanford, of Baraboo, who had opened the first store in Reedsburg. manufactured the mill irons for the Lavalle plant and subsequently took over the property. He became a resident of Lavalle and still later established a gristmill there, the old sawmill coming into the hands of

Stafford & Company of Reedsburg, who turned it into a stave-mill. The surrounding country was then heavily wooded with oak and basswood, and as long as the local supply lasted large quantities of the output were sent to Chicago, Milwaukee and other western cities. In 1874 the Northwestern Hoop-Pole Company of Chicago erected a steam mill at Lavalle which added somewhat to the reputation of the place as a wood manufacturing center. The North Western road had then been completed for four years, and the place was then at the height of its prosperity and growth. Since then Reedsburg and other even larger centers have drawn from its strength until now it is a quiet but pleasant rural town containing a bank, several modest stores, a hotel, a school and other evidences of typical American life found in a community of some 400 people.

The first district schoolhousc was built in 1859, a much larger one being completed in 1879. The postoffice was established in 1856. In that year the Methodists commenced to hold their meetings and the Adveutists were also active at an early date. Both denominations held services at Sanford's Hall, Field's Hall and Odd Fellows Hall, until the Adventists built a church in 1878. The Odd Fellows were the first to organize a lodge at Lavalle, its charter dating from 1875.

Previous to the coming of Col. S. V. R. Ableman to the site of the village which bears his name, the settlers in what is now the Town of Excelsior did not generally consider themselves as fixtures. Don Carlos Barry selected a mineral claim in section 7, on the western border of the present township, and worked it in a small way for a short time, or until he was convinced that the expected copper would not pan out. George Haney, a Massachusetts man, built a large frame hotel just east of the present Ableman railroad station before the Colonel came upon the ground, as did Jonathan Knowles, who settled on a farm about a mile and a half north of that locality. Mr. Knowles afterward moved into the village and became well known by its people.

In 1851, having made a personal examination of the country as possible railroad territory, Colonel Ableman concluded that when a line was put through its gateway to the Northwest that locality must be the Upper Narrows of the Baraboo River, and that there was the logical site for a village. He proved to be in the right. First, he built a log shanty on his claim, locating it on an elevation near the site of the present railroad station. There his family and half a dozen workmen in his employ resided for seven weeks. At the end of that period there had lieen erected a sizeable frame residence, which stood as the third house on the Baraboo-Reedsburg Road. Gen. A. \V. Starks soon afterward built a house a mile west, and in 1853 Maj. Charles II. Williams erected a residence a few rods east of the Colonel's. About the same time Peter Mattheys built the first house on the west side of the river within the limits of the present village. In 1867 Colonel Ableman built a sawmill on Narrows Creek a few rods above its junction with the Baraboo, and in 1861 he enlarged it and added gristmill machinery. He carried on the mills until 1875. when they passed to other hands. A strain stave factory was doing quite a large business at that time.

The cabin built by Colonel Ableman to shelter his family and the workmen engaged in erecting his frame residence was converted into the first sehoolhouse of the locality. A district school was not organized until 1856-57. The German Baptists organized about 1860, but the German Lutherans had no church society until 1872. Both erected meeting houses in the village and the English Methodists organized and built a church about two miles west.

In December, 1857, the Town of Excelsior was formed from the towns of Freedom and Dellona, and the settlement at the Upper Narrows retained the name of the town until the Colonel's great ambition was realized in the building of the Chicago & North Western Railway to and through his village. In the fall or winter of 1871 a postoffice was established at the new station and very appropriately took the Colonel's family name.

With the clearing of the timber from the surrounding country, and oilier changed conditions patent to all, the life of the village has come to depend upon another branch of industries than those founded on lumber or cereals. As the manufactures of wood have deteriorated, the operations of the sandstone and quartzite quarries at and near Ableman have increased in importance. The stone was used at first mainly in the construction of railway roadbeds, but with the growth of the Good Roads movement and its prosecution, systematically and officially, by the county government, thousands of tons are now worked into the construction of highways, street pavements and other public enterprises. The Village of Ableman is the active and direct center of this extensive business which has extended far beyond the limits of the county. At least half a dozen large quarries are now in active operation in the neighborhood. The leading operators of the quartzite quarries are W. G. LaRue (Duluth), the White Rock Quarry Company (L. J. Pier-

Ableman, with its nearly 500 people, is now largely dependent upon the surrounding quarries for its support, and the general appearance of the neat little village indicates that such support is substantial. The continuous growth of these industries made necessary the establishment of the Farmers State Bank in 1912; that, and the fact that the village is the trading center of a large and prosperous farming country. The bank named was incorporated on April 16, 1912, and opened for business in October. On that day it occupied a substantial and convenient building erected for the purpose, with W. J. Hummell as president, Henry Behnke vice president, and Frank B. Moss, cashier. There has been no change except in the vice presidency, the present incumbent of that office being W. C. Holly. The capital of the Farmers State Bank is $18,000; surplus, $2,000; average deposits, $210,000.

Historically speaking, Colonel Ableman is the largest and most interesting character who has ever been identified with the village itself, and one of the strongest men whose works and influences have been woven into the fabric of the entire county. The facts in this connection have been told. It is left for one who felt the genial and inspiring warmth of his personality to draw a clear and rather domestic picture of the Colonel. Mrs. Eva Slye Alexander, who was a member of his household and afterward a resident of Baraboo, writes as follows:

"In the early history of Sauk County, there were a number of prominent men, and among them were three who lived in or near what is now Ableman and were friends and associates for many years, Colonel Ableman, General Starks, and Major Williams. Colonel Ableman owned a large tract of land there and started the village which he called Excelsior, the New York State motto. General Starks lived to the westward upon a farm on Narrows Creek, and Major Williams on a farm to the east. Colonel Ableman was born, grew to manhood, and married, and two children were born to him in New York State. In 1847 he moved to Milwaukee, in 1851 to Baraboo, and in the spring of the next year to his home nine miles west of Baraboo, where he started his village of Excelsior. Colonel Ableman was a man of herculean build, weighing from 312 pounds to 325. No spindle legged furniture would do for him in a Chippendale drawing room. Total wreck would have followed any attempt of his to be seated. During the administration of Franklin Pierce, Colonel Ableman was appointed United States Marshal for Wisconsin and when in Washington to receive his appointment, was introduced to President Pierce, who, after surveying him for a moment, said: 'Well, Colonel, you are Ablemau by name, a nobleman by nature, altogether you are a colossal man. Let us shake. '

"My first recollections of Colonel Ableman are when as quite a young girl I went to his home in Excelsior with my father, who was called to see the first Mrs. Ablemau, a terrible sufferer for many years from rheumatism. For twelve years or more she was totally unable to move except one little finger a trifle. She bore her affliction with heroic fortitude, and was devotedly attended to with the most loving care by both husband and daughter, until death ended her suffering.

"I never forgot that home in the woods nor the impression it made upon me, and when in later years 1 went to Excelsior to teach school, 1 was received into the Colonel "s family and treated like a daughter by both the Colonel and his second wife. That impression was deepened and it has always seemed to me an ideal home.

"Everybody who came to the Colonel's was made to feel the human kindness which filled their hearts and overflowed toward all their guests, who were many; so many, that Edward Gilmore, the Colonel's stepson, once suggested that they had better hand out a sign and call it 'The Hotel De Mary Ann' (Mary Ann was Mrs. Ableman 's name).

"The Colonel's doors were always open to everybody ; even Joe Eagle, a big Indian, who used to camp in that vicinity sometimes in those days. The Colonel loved a joke, and if he could get one on me when I was there, he would chuckle over it with great glee.

"Colonel Ableman was very anxious to have the railroad build through the Baraboo valley and his village, and it was very largely doe to his efforts and influence that it came through where it did. When the road was built through Excelsior the station was named Ableman in compliment to the Colonel. The postoffice was for a time called Rock Springs, but not for long. Village, postoffice and station arc now Ableman, and will be as long as there is a village, which will be always, judging by the way it has grown in the last few years.

"I think that it was one of the first, if not the first, meeting called to discuss the railroad proposition, when only three men responded to the call : Colonel Ableman, General Starks and Major Williams. General Starks reported it as a large, enthusiastic and respectable meeting

"The next time Colonel Ableman met the general he called him to account for his apparent lack of veracity. 'Why,' replied the General, 'it was. You were large, I'm sure the Major was enthusiastic, and I hope that I am respectable. ' Those three are gone now; Major Williams left us only last year, the General died before the Colonel. Colonel Ableman died July 16, 1880. Mrs. Ableman lived a number of years after his death and died in California, Sometime during the '80s the Charter House was burned and also the old Ableman house, which was occupied at the time by the Colonel's stepson, Edward Gilmore. So the old friends pass away and leave us only results and memories. I never go to Ableman, and look at the vacant place where the old home stood, without memories of the happy days I spent there, and the goodness of those two people gathering thickly about me, and I pass on saddened that their place is empty here; glad that I had the privilege of knowing them.