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Town of Brooklyn

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Town of Brooklyn

Transcribed from Portrait and Biographical Album of Green Lake, Marquwette and Waushara Counties Wisconsin, Acme Publishing Co., 1890, pages 269-270.

This town is bounded on the north by the town of Berlin, on the east by Ripon, Fond du Lac County, on the south by the town of Green Lake, and on the west by the towns of St. Marie and Princeton. The surface of the town is rolling, partially timbered with oak opening. In the eastern part is a fine tract of prairie. The town is indented by Green Lake on the south. This is the largest body of water in the county, and one of the most beautiful and attractive in the sate. It lies nearly in the center of the county, making part of the towns of Brooklyn and Green Lake.

Its banks are generally high with conspicuous headlands, and it is surrounded by small bays. Along it shores are some of the finest farms and residences in the county. There are several established summer resorts in the town of which Oakwood and Sherwood Forest are perhaps best known. Pleasant Point, Forest Home and the Root and Mill houses at Dartford are also popular sojourning places. Dartford is the central point and trading place, as well as the county seat.
Puckyan Creek, an outlet of Green Lake, six miles long, runs through the town, having it course northwest about four miles to the vicinity of the high grounds at Bluffton, then turning upon its course, and passing through a ravine for half a mile, until leaving this narrow valley, its general course is northwest into the town of St. Marie. Throughout its entire length it passes through a marshy strip with an average width of a mile. Marl and peat are found along its banks and marl elsewhere in the town. Near this creek peat beds have been explored to a depth of eighteen feet, without their bottom being reached.

The first settler in this town was William H. Dakin, who located east of the lake in 1843. He took a prominent part in aiding settlers to locate lands, and his house was a stopping place and favorite resort of all new comers. In 1845, Anson Dart settled where now is the village of Dartford. About a year later, J.C. and William Sherwood, Marshall, Thurston, and several others established themselves at this point. Mr. Dart and J.C. Sherwood built a grist mill in 1847. A sawmill was also early built here. The more detailed history of Darford is given under a separate head.

Other Early Events

The first birth in this town was that of Amos Marshall, son of Giles Marshall. A Miss Eaton was the first bride. Dearth first claimed Mr. Stearns. The first sermon was preached and the first church was organized by the Rev. MR. Lathrop, a Methodist preacher.

Bluffton
Of Bluffton, once a place of promise, Gillespy wrote as follows:
"Bluffton, once so celebrated as having the best waterpower in the sate, is situated in the northwest part of the town. Here was a grand chance to have made a fortune if the owner had been less sanguine and visionary. Nothing less than a large city was to be built at this place, have the whole of Green Lake and Puckyan March as a reservoir, some eighteen miles long by an average of two miles breadth, with a fall or head of eighteen feet. No bounds could be put to its furture growth and extension. The owner was offered for one-half of the waterpower $10,000. No! No! It was worth $40,000. But alas, for all speculative calculations for the future, this magnificent power was in a measure destroyed in the bud by some roaming Yankees locating upon the lowlands which a dam would overflow. The waterpower at present, having a fall of some eight ot ten feet, is considered very good, but is shorn of its glory. Other places have grown up and become business places, which must always affect or retard others in the neighborhood. Capital and enterprise may yet do much, as it is some four or five miles to Dartford or Brooklyn Mills. Nature designed Bluffton for a place of trade and commerce, but the desire to have the cake and eat it too has frustrated its prosperity. To explain the why of this failure as a waterpower: Government has always allowed first settlers to build dams and overflow lands, provided lands so overflowed have not been taken up or located before the dam was built, giving as is just, to the pioneer, advantages which in after years cannot be obtained unless purchased owners of the soil"

Organization and Nomenclature.

In the days of it early settlement this town was called Lexington. At its organization, Jan. 10, 1849, it was named Arcade. In the winter of 1850 it was re-christened by its present name. Its first election was held April 3, 1849. The number of votes cast was fifty-seven. The following were elected: B.B. Spaulding, Chairman; John S. Ward, Treasurer; John W. Vars, Charles De Groff, William Dakin and H.A. Buck, Justices of the Peace.

Also see the Village of Dartford.

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