Walworth County, Wisconsin - Chapter 21: Town and Village of Darien, 1912

Chapter 21: Town and Village of Darien

The land area of the township of Darien is given officially as 22,700 acres, leaving 340 acres (surveyor's errors excepted) under water. Turtle creek comes out of Delavan and flows in the devious way of prairie streams for more than eight miles to reach the line of Bradford, in the next county, making a sigmoid flexure through sections 13, 12, 11, 10, 15, 16, 21, 17, 18, its exit from Darien nearly due west from its entrance. Its tributaries are few and small, the two larger ones coming out of Sharon, crossing sections 32 and 31 near Allen Grove and meeting the Turtle beyond the county line. The wooded areas were greatest in sections 3, 4, 9. The smaller forests and groves are so distributed through the town as to divide the open country into several locally named prairies, as Blooming, Hazel, Ridge, Rock, and Turtle. Rock prairie, in the northwestern sections, reaches into neighboring towns, and is one of the most fertile in the state.

Statistics

Town 2 north, range 15 cast, was at first included in the town of Delavan, from which it was detached by legislative action January 6, 1 S40, and named from Darien. Genesee county, New York, the last previous home of several settlers of influence in the new community. Elijah Belding and Christopher C. Chcsebrough came in April, 1837, apparently by way of the Phoenix settlement, making claims respectively in sections 1 1 and 14. Both broke land and planted a few acres, and Mr. Chesebrough built a house, though he had not yet married. Near the end of May, Joseph and Arthur \V. Maxson followed Turtle vale to section 18, where they found passable water power, on which, four years later, they built a sawmill and thirteen years later a gristmill. In June William H. Moore came to section 15. and Rev. Hiram Alvah Kingsley to section 19. Mr. Moore raised, threshed, ground and ate the first grain crop raised in Darien. John Bruce, Cyrus and John Lippit, Salmon and Trumbull D. Thomas came, the first to section 22, the Lippits to section 35, Salmon Thomas to section 12, his brother to section 1. August 11, 1837, Alfred Delavan Thomas, son of Salmon, was born to other usefulness than hoeing corn or milking cows.

Within the next four years came Orange \V. and William T. Carter, Ebenezer and Jabez B. Chesebrough, John Curtis, Leander Dodge, Charles Ellsworth, Jared Fox, Jasper Griggs, Cyrenus N., Kinner, Lemuel and William Hollister, Robert A. Houston. Alvah B., Asher and Hiram A. Johnson, Loren K. and Lyman Jones, Robert Law-son, Hugh and Chester D. Long, Elisha McCollister, William Gregory Mayhew, Amos Older, Lyman H. Seaver, Hiram A. Stone, John Valentine Walker, John and Joseph R. Wilkins, Archibald Woodard, Minthorn Woodhull.

Before the new town was seven years old it received these accessions to its citizenship: Oscar Anderson, Hiram Babcock, Eusebius Barwell, Levi Beedle, Dearborn Blake, Levi Blakeman, Willard A. Blanchard, Jeremiah Bradway, Philander Brainerd, Lorenzo Carter, John Mudgett Chase, Washington Chesebrough, John Clague, George Clapper. Nicholas S. Comstock, John B. and Richard Cook. George Cotton, Horace Croswell, Josiah and Samuel W. Dodge, James Dudley, Cornelius Dykeman, Walter P. Flanders, Asa Foster, Samuel Fowle, Henry Frey, Alexander and James Gallup, Thomas George, Homer B. Greenman, Samuel K. Gregory, John Haskell. Silas llaskin, John B. Hastings, Robert Hutchinson, Amos Ives, Parley W. fones, Peter M. K.eeler. Eli and Henry King, John Sardine Kingsley. Stephen Kinney. Timothy Knapp, S. Rees LaBar, Ira P. Larnard, Zebulon T. Lee, David Lindsey, James McCay, Newton McGraw, Stephen and Thomas M. Mc Hugh, Moses McKee, Thomas M. and William Martin. Alfred A. Mott, Joseph Edward Newberry, Jacob and John N. Niskern, Edson P.. ami William Older, Hiram Onderdonk, Amos Otis, Joshua Parish, Nicholas Perry, Amasa T. and Ovid Reed. John Reinhardt, Lucius Relyea, Erastus Rood, Charles F. and James A. Scofield, John Woodard Seaver, John Martin Sherman. William H. Shimmins, Henry Smith. Charles I'. Soper, Joseph Murray Stihvell, Randall Stone. Edwin and Luke Taylor, Ezekiel Trip]), Isaac Vail, (16)

Christopher Columbus Chesebro, son of Ebenezer and Anna, was born in Albany county, November 13, 1S16; died at Darien March 14. 1841. He married Maria Johnson, June 12, 1839.

Henry Frey (1785-1865) and wife, Amelia J. (1794-1839), must have been among the earliest settlers, since Mrs. Frey's tombstone is in the village burial ground. Her death, then, is the earliest found in the town. Mr. Frey was for some years postmaster, and was an active business man. His son, Philip R. Frey, was first railway station agent at Darien, and was transferred to the station at Corliss about 1870.

John Brooks Hastings (1815-1902) was born at Pembroke, New York; came to Darien in 1843; married in 1846 Hannah Maria (1825-1882), daughter of Alexander and Elizabeth Reed.

Asher Johnson (1 791-1873) came from Steuben county, New York; bought land in sections 4, 17, 19, 20. His wife was Amy Smith (1793-1882). Sons, Alvah B., Hiram A., John J., and Samuel, and daughter Celeste (Mrs. Joseph R. Wilkins).

Zebulon Taylor Lee (1801-1858), son of Ouartus Lee and Keziah Johnson, was In nil at Willington, Connecticut, and was buried at Allen Grove. He married Sabra (1804-1883), daughter of Orange and Elizabeth Carter. He bought land in section 32. Of his children were Amelia Josephine (Mrs. Dr. John Dickson). Laura Ann (Mrs. Chester IX Long), Almirette (Mrs. William II. Babcock).

Cyrus Lippit (1810-1888). son of Hezekiah and Susan, came from I attaraugus county to section 35 in 1838, having married in [832, with his wife Lydia ( 1810-1881), sister of John Bruce. She was born at Phelps, Xew York, Her sister Susan was ^Irs William Phoenix.

Early Growth

In 1837 John Bruce built a house near the road to Beloit at the central part of section 27. This modest mansion also served as a wayside inn, until [843, when his son, James R. Bruce, built a hotel with such substantial frame and workmanship that it still serves the purpose of a public house. Henry Frey built a store in 1844, and filled it with a large stock of goods. A postoffice had been established there in 1839. A hamlet grew slowly about these buildings until 1856, in which year Mr. Frey, Hiram A. Stone and Edward Topping platted the village of Darien, through the middle of which the railway came that year from Racine and onward to Beloit. The new station at once became an important point for shipping the abundant grain crops of Darien and other towns, and as busy a distributing point for the trade in pine lumber. Less grain than then is now raised and forwarded. but the station has not lost its relative importance. Before 1862 five grain houses were built, severally by Parker M. Cole, Hiram Onderdonk, John Williams, John Bruce and M. Bushnell Stone. These have been operated by men who knew how to draw and hold trade.

The village is on slightly uneven ground, bul has no difficult street grades. It is generally a few feet higher than at the station, where it is

945 feet above sea level. It is 9.4 miles from Elkhorn, 65.9 miles from Milwaukee (by rail), 84.7 miles from Chicago. It is as yet unincorporated, and has about four hundred inhabitants. (In October, 191 1, the village rejected a proposition to incorporate by a decisive majority.)

Its churches are Baptist and Methodist, each costing about three thousand dollars. The town of Darien has seven school districts, of which three are joint districts. The village supports a graded school, with six teachers, doing excellent work. The school house was built in 1903 of red brick, two stories high. A town hall, very convenient for many public occasions, was built about 1870 and burned July 28, 1909, and with it most of the priceless town records.

In 1897 the Farmers' State Bank was organized with a capital of fifteen thousand dollars, John R. Eagan cashier and resident officer. It has a building suitable for its purpose. Like most villages in the county, Darien is an active dairy center. Its cemetery, northwest of the village, lies on sloping ground, and is kept in perfect order. Several of the fathers and mothers of the town we're buried there, and also at the Mount Philip cemetery, Allen Grove, which lies north of the station, within the town of Darien. The village (Darien) has a tidy little park of two or three acres; but, in larger sense, the village itself with all one may see, from its higher points, of field and grove makes one of the finest parks in Wisconsin.

Clinton street, Allen Grove, lies along the south line of Darien, in section 31 ; and the Sidney Allen addition to the village plat lies north of that street. The railway keeps to the Darien side, having its station at the top of Allen's hill, at an inconvenient distance from the half-abandoned village. Bardwell station, or crossing, at first named "Tioga," is in section 32. 2.5 miles from Darien and 1.7 miles from Allen Grove. Its station building and its Y's are all there is in sight besides the intersecting lines of two divisions of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway system. Why this crossing was not made at Darien may be one of the inscrutabilities of railway building.

As nearly as may now be learned the town and village of Darien furnished one hundred thirty-eight soldiers for the Civil war. Migration and death have so far reduced the number of resident ex-soldiers as to suspend the once flourishing Grand Army post.

The several postmasters were Christopher C. Chesebro, John Bruce. Henry Frey, Edward Topping, Moses Bushnell Stone. Nathaniel Wing Hoag, Joseph F. Lyon, Charles S. Teeple, George F. Lathrop, Rodney Seaver,* Horace Everett Seaver, Edwin E. Park,* Frederick Siperley, John W. Garbutt.* The three whose name- are starred were soldiers of 1861.

The loss of records, burned with the town hall, makes the official list of the town somewhat incomplete; though part has been recovered from county clerk's and circuit court clerk's records, and part from newspaper files at Delavan and Elkhorn.

Associate Supervisors

Names are wanting for both supervisors in 1884, and for one of them in each of the years 1883. '86, '90, and '93; but it is probable that Mr. Christie's service was continuous from 1886 to 1896 inclusive.