Juda, Wisconsin

The villages of Jefferson are two - Juda, in the northeast corner, and Twin Grove, almost in the centre of the township. Jehu Chadwick entered, sold, and bought back again the land on which Juda is built, after which he sold several lots and gave lots for a cemeterv and Baptist church. The first building there was a log school house, called, for the old home of the settlers, the Pennsylvania school house. The first person buried in the cemetery was James Chadwick, who died in September, 1846. People who had moved their dead from farm to farm, as their own homes had changed, now brought the precious remains to the new cemetery; so that when, a few years later, the growth of the unexpected village necessitated the removal of the cemetery, some coffins were taken up for the third time. The church was b'uilt in 184S by the society which was organized by Elder Wm. Stilwell, September 19, 1840. This was the first Baptist society organized in the county, and it numbered thirteen members. Elder Stilwell lived in Illinois, but for four years preached to the society once in two months. As he was not willing to give up his other churches, and as .all were anxious to have preaching every week, Deacon Davis went to Pennsylvania in 1845, t° ^n<^ a minister. Elder G. R. Patton, who had charge of five churches, -was induced to give them up, sell his home, and come to Wisconsin. While he was selling his property Deacon Davis came home, and found that during his absence the people had engaged another minister, Elder Lewis. Deacon Davis remonstrated, but the desire to have Elder Lewis was by that time so great that remonstrance would have been in vain, had not the Elder himself been touched by the injustice to his brother minister., and refused to stay. Elder Patton arrived in October, 1845, and is still the pastor of the church. In 1S64 it was necessary to build a larger church. Since then, letters have been given to a great many who were going west, or who wanted to form other churches. The number of members is now two hundred and fifty-one. The first dwelling house in Juda was that of George Debolt, who built a dwelling and a blacksmith shop about the time the first church was built. The next comer -was Garrett Clawson, who built a wagon shop. The third dwelling was Edward Tenney's, and through his efforts a postoffice named Juda was established there in 1849. Soon after this, Robe'rt Hanna came from Pennsylvania, bringing with him a few groceries and dry goods, which he kept for sale in his house. A little village. Two hotels, kept respectively by Robert Hanna and John Overton, sprung into existence and into rivalry with each other; and when the coming of the railroad was foretold, Barney Taylor and John Overton platted the place as Springfield, a name now used only by lawyers and scribes, for, as the postoffice department refused to change the name of the office to Springfield, the people have refused to call the village anything but Juda. Soon after Springfield, or Juda, was platted, a number of enterprising business men were numbered among those interested in her improvement. Prominent among these were Messrs. Axtell, Sherman, J. C. Chadwick, and S. and D. Witmer, and few, if any, have done more to promote the welfare of the village than was done bv the gentleman last named. Being the only point of shipment in Jefferson - a town which has some of the best land, best farms, and best stock in the county - the growth of Juda is necessarily sure. The Judsean, a diminutive but spicy paper recently started by Witmer and Stair, will hereafter be likely to keep before the people of the surrounding country the good points of the village, chief among which are West & Reed's flour mill, Christian Karlen's American cheese factory (one of the largest in the state), the stores of Mess re. Byrne, Newman and Stair, and the large stock business of J. C. Chadwick.

Passage source: History of Green County, Wisconsin, published 1877.

In the winter of 1837-8, Joshua Davis, a very estimable young man who came from Pennsylvania with Mr. Mitchell, died of the '-winter fever " - probably the typhoid fever of modern times. He was attended by Dr. Harcourt, whose medical studies consisted, it is said, of a few experiments made with lobelia and a few other medicines on a calf. He visited his patient three times a day and charged a dollar a visit. Dr. Harcourt, whose name was usually pronounced Haircourt, was no more popular in Sylvester as a preacher than as a doctor. The common opinion of him seems to have been expressed by Mr. McCraken, who, after listening to a long harangue of the doctor's, remarked to a fellow sufferer: "The Lord never called Haircourt to preach; oh, no! he wouldn't have done that. He called Bearcourt, or some other court, and Haircourt thought he meant him." In some respects the Doctor seems to have been one of the most agreeable of the early preachers. He comforted those frightened by the doctrine of election, by saying: "Don't believe it; God don't choke religion down any of His children as an Indian rams a knife down the throat of a deer." In the funeral sermons of his own patients he was naturally to their virtues a little kind, and funeral sermons then had in them the possibilities of dreadful things. At one funeral in Monroe in 1843, the minister preached his subject to hell, showed a possible avenue of escape, and preached him in again so many times that the audience was almost frenzied. One woman rose to q-q out and the minister ordered her to sit down. She replied that she would not stay and hear such talk, to which he retorted, that she could not get through the crowd, but he had under-estimated the humanity of his audience.

Passage source: History of Green County, Wisconsin, published 1877.

The citizens of Sylvester seem to have been the first in the county to avail themselves of that best means ot education within their reach, a debating society. From 1S42 to '50 the village of Monroe was never for any long time without some organization of the kind, but Sylvester had a society in the winter of 1S39-40. Most of the questions discussed were political, and great interest was taken in the meetings. Svlvester lost the characteristics of a wilderness more rapidly than the towns that were settled before it. Settlers came in more rapidly, and it cost them much less time and trouble to get lumber and flour from Clarno and other merchandise from Monroe than it had cost those towns to get all the necessaries of life from Galena.

Passage source: History of Green County, Wisconsin, published 1877.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Jefferson Town - it names this place 14 more 14 times.