Harmonia Hall

Before the formation of the towns of Montana in 1867 and Lincoln in 1871, the town of Waumandee embraced the Townships 21 and 22 of Range 11 with the eastern tier of sections in T. 21, R. 12 except Sec 13, and also Sec. 25 and 36 of T, 22, R. 12. The two entire townships constituted the' original town, the sections on the west were annexed in the course of settlement in order to afford settlers communications on legal roads, which could not but lead into Little Waumandee Valley or else in the direction to the main Waumandee Valley road. The northwest part of T. 22, R. 11, lay across the bluffs in Hutphjnson Valley and Sec.

Passage source: History of Buffalo County, Wisconsin, published 1888.

At that time there was no mill in operation in this valley or neighborhood and the earliest settlers were obliged to go to Rollingstone to get their grain reduced to flour. That they also had to get groceries and other necessary things in Fountain City or Alma was a matter of course. In 1862 Caspar Schmitz and his wife, now Mrs, Bach, came to the Big Waumandee and began to keep store and saloon near the Catholic Church, and things began to assume an air of civilization. The organization of the town was begun by a resolution of the county board March 13th, 1856 and perfected at the election a few weeks afterwards. It filled up rapidly and about 1870-80 could boast of two stores, two taverns, several blacksmith shops in different parts etc. These were the flush times when crops were large and prices good. But though crops are not so abundant as in those times, farming is still remunerative in the town, only it is more diversified.

Passage source: History of Buffalo County, Wisconsin, published 1888.

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 Waumandee Town - 1,901 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.