- Potpourri - Janesville Sesquicentennial
-
- Forgotten places remembered
- The Janesville area has had its share of "forgotten
places" - communities that once existed but didn't
- survive the test of time.
- They sprang up most prolifically in 1836 and 1837, years
of wild speculation in western lands.
- Eastern residents who had been successful in amassing comfortable
sums in the expanding new nation, and immigrants from Europe
who brought funds with them, grasped avidly at promises of becoming
pioneer residents and owners of new western communities, for
which fantastic claims often were made.
-
- Rockport
- The village of Rockport, laid out in the autumn of 1835 by
Thomas HOLMES on the west side of
- Rock River, for a time gave promise of being the major community
in this vicinity.
- It was only through the enterprise of Henry JANES
and his associates, who settled on the east side
- of the river, and the fact that speculators had laid claim
to land in this vicinity west of the stream, that this community
was called Janesville and not Rockport, which eventually was
absorbed as a part of Janesville.
-
- Wisconsin City
- The most pretentious of the Rock County communities which
failed was Wisconsin City, platted by
- John INMAN, Josiah BREESE, Edward SHEPARD,
James E. SEYMOUR and John H. HARDENBURGH on May
24, 1836, on the south side of the town of Janesville, and a
fractional lot in the town of Rock, on the west side of Rock
River.
- Wisconsin City, as laid out, contained 209 blocks, with places
reserved for six churches, a market-
- place, a college, an academy and three common schools.
- In the spring of 1837, Dr. James HEATH, although not
making a plat, located East Wisconsin
- City on the east bank of the river opposite Wisconsin City.
- The community consisted only of a 16-foot square frame house
in which Dr. HEATH lived with his
- family and kept a country store and tavern.
- "In addition to being a physician," says an early
history, "Dr. HEATH was a farmer, storekeeper,
- and landlord, and he must also have been a man of cheerful
disposition and infinite humor, as evidenced by his bestowing
the name of East Wisconsin City on his humble little shack, which
served as home, store, tavern, and office."
- Sales of Wisconsin City land boomed until 1845. One-twelfth
of the property brought the sum of
- $6,666.54, and other tracts were sold in varying amounts.
A settlement failing to develop, in 1845 parts of the "city"
were sold for taxes. Other parts were sold at a sacrifice, and
soon the property was turned into farmland, interspersed with
an occasional limestone quarry.
-
- Newburgh, Kushkanong
- Another community which failed was Newburgh, located a quarter
of a mile south of Wisconsin
- City.
- William PAYNE, who platted it in 1836, laid out 140
blocks and a public square. In 1837,
- PAYNE sold the entire site to William B. LAMB
for $20,000, part of the consolidation being a $7,000 mortgage.
LAMB in turn sold parts of the village site for $92,500.
- Other sales may have been made, but were not recorded. It
appears that LAMB did not pay his
- mortgage, and it was foreclosed and the entire tract bought
in by PAYNE for $1,352 in 1843.
- Half a mile down Rock River south of Newburgh, in 1836, a
site called Kushkanong was likewise
- laid out. The names of the founders were not recorded, but
the site was purchased at government entry by Robert A. KINZIE
in March 1836. Efforts to bring the territorial capital to Kushkanong
failing, Madison winning out over several aspirants, the community
passed out of existence, later being sold as farm land for $600.
- Other village sites which likewise came to unseemly ends
were:
- Van Buren, composed of parts of the town of Union in Rock
County, and town of Rutland in Dane County.
- Saratoga, containing a large, beautiful spring, was made
up of part of the town of Porter.
- Warsaw, in the town of Fulton, near Edgerton.
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