Kewaunee County's Ellisville: A Long History

 

Gator Janda's tavern and St. Paul's church and school are all that remains of the Ellisville of 1907, then a small, vibrant community in the Kewaunee County Town of Montpelier. When the postcard photo was taken of the Rural Free Delivery, or R.F.D. (above), the mail carrier was traveling south from the hamlet on the present County Highway AB. Ellisville was a busy place then. But not quite as flourishing as it was only a few years before when it sported a cheese factory, blacksmith shop, flouring mill, sawmill, store, livery, slaughterhouse, schools, hotel, wagonmakers and more. Ellisville even had its own post office before the days of R.F.D.

Kewaunee County was a little less than 10 years old when Ellisville appeard in the fledgling Kewaunee Enterprise. Although the early history is elusive, Ellisville dates to before December 26, 1861, the date Levi Mack was named postmaster of the first Ellisville postoffice. After serving the community for 44 years, the office was closed with the advent of R.F.D. in Kewaunee County in 1904.

There are histories telling us Ellisville had its beginnings in the 1870s when August Kons/Kohns bought land and opened a store and saloon, however articles in the Kewaunee Enterprise indicate otherwise. Ellisville was supposedly named by Mrs. Thomas Paddleford, whose husband, Thomas, named the town for his home in Montpelier, Vermont. Mrs. Paddleford’s maiden name was Ellis and the hamlet became Ellisville. The Ellis family was well-known in the early days. Albert Ellis was the first to patent land in the Wisconsin Territory on September 1, 1838, in what would become the Town of Montpelier in the State of Wisconsin 20 years later. Lazarus W. Ellis began making significant purchases in 1856. Mrs. (Sophronia Ellis) Paddleford patented land in her name in December 1856 while her husband appears to have patented his first Montpelier land in 1858.

As early as June 1862, someone thought Ellisville was a stand-out community. Kewaunee Enterprise editor, Dexter Garland, ran a citizen’s letter informing readership about “the quiet little Village of Ellisville.” Garland opined that for “pleasantness,” Ellisville compared with Casco and the other inland places although while it was not consumed with commerce, it was in the midst of good farming lands, lands that were not expensive. Land records tell us Edmund Freeman patented the NE ¼ of Sec 22 on February 22, 1858 and originated the first blacksmith shop. Did Freeman move on, or, perhaps, die? At the time of the article, its author said Ellisville needed a blacksmith, a tradesman essential to pioneer communities. Another Freeman – Seaborne - was no doubt connected to Edmund. Seaborne and Ahnapee’s* millman Abraham Hall were partners in a Montpelier land patent. Opportunity abounded in Ellisville. The forward-thinking place boasted the Town of Montpelier’s first school.  

County history tells us  that in 1857 Conrad Kimpel  operated a sawmill about a ½ mile north of the Franklin/Montpelier line, today on County Highway AB. Records also indicate that William Baldwin’s sawmill was in about the same place at the same time. Is that where Baldwinsville was? Interestingly, that puts the mills in either Section 34 or 35, so on a spot very near Henry Christman’s mill. Land Management records indicate one Truman Baldwin patented Sections 34 and 35 in 1858. A year earlier, Solomon Baldwin and millman Isaac Taylor bought land in Section 22, the location of Ellisville. The area around Ellisville was rich in limestone, and at one time there were seven operating limekilns within the town.

While there was plenty of land to be purchased in the Town of Montpelier, a search of Land Management records fails to find one named Kimpel, Kimbal, Kimble and so on. Perhaps Mr. Kimpel was employed by someone else. Freeman and Baldwins appear in land records, but very little is found in the Enterprise. Searching records points to the overwhelming number of acres patented by lumbermen Slausson and Taylor beginning in 1854. A portion of the patents show additional partners. Surprising is the date of the last patent recording: 1912.

The June 1862 letter was preceded by an April letter from someone unabashedly touting the advantages of Montpelier. Its author said that Montpelier’s agricultural lands were among the best in the country. The author claimed most land was high and rolling, rich and productive, timbered with elm, sugar maple and basswood. Roads led to Ellisville thus ensuring Baldwin’s mill was easily accessed. The author signed his letter as “A Subscriber” and refers to Ellisville as Baldwinsville, a first-rate place for settling or building up a trade. Things get confusing. Could the author have been Mr. Baldwin himself? By 1873 the Enterprise was touting C.W. Baldwin ‘s corn. His acreage averaged corn 6’ high and was considered impressive for the county.

In June, the Enterprise received another letter from one who referred to the letter from “A Subscriber,” saying it was “partial to Baldwinsville.” The June penman went on to stress soil fertility in all of Montpelier, which was well adapted to agriculture and horticulture. He went on to discuss the adaptation of timothy and clover hay, and to point out springs, creeks, and larger water sources. He said Montpelier would begin marketing high quality cheese and butter while pointing to the woman who won the prize for cheese-making at the county fair. The scribe knew there would be competition because of excellence within the town. George Wing’s history says Thomas Paddleford won the cheese prize, so, perhaps, it was won by his wife Sophronia.

The letter-writer went on to say Montpelier was comprised of honest, hard-working Germans, Bohemians, and Irish immigrants, as well as Yankees, who were good Americans. Realizing the high price of cotton, the astute farmers were looking at flax. Some, such as the letter-writer, began sheep farming with thoughts of manufacturing cloth. The writer was calling for apple trees and said within five years, neighbors would see apples growing in his yard. The writer discussed religious and civil interests in Montpelier.

The June 1862 letters came on the heels of the Homestead Bill, which had been passed in Congress to take effect on January 1, 1863. The law said all lands owned by the U.S. government were open to settlement for quantities not to exceed 160 acres. Anyone – a citizen or one who filed a Declaration of Intention – was eligible if 21 years old, or the head of a family, or had served in the military of the U.S. (the Civil War), and could make entry for ten dollars and fees at the land office. The act required a residence and cultivation within five years to “perfect the title.” Montpelier Town had land.

The Montpelier Centennial Book, 1957, tells us that at the first meeting of the Kewaunee County Board on November 11, 1856, a resolution was passed to organize after April 1, 1857 seven towns in Kewaunee County, including Montpelier. On April 15, 1857, the first of Montpelier’s Town meetings was held at Thomas Paddleford’s home. The Centennial Book further says that on April 1, 1855, early settlers came to make their homes in the “Forest Primeval” of wolves, deer, red fox, and other animals in the hunting grounds of the Oneidas. Chippewa and Menominee peoples.

Carlton F. Hall was elected to represent the town on the county board. A year later Augustus McAllister was elected to the seat. George Wing tells us both men were early American pioneers who settled in Montpelier – which was a part of Coryville until 1857 -  in 1856 and lived in the town until the 1870s. On February 22, 1858, Hall patented the NE ¼ of Section 34, most of the section also patented by the Baldwins. One Michael Hall also patented land in 1858, however in Section 28. Eliab McAllister also patented land in 1858.

Little is known about any of the men, however Carlton T. Hall served in the 6^th WI, Iron Brigade, and was discharged on July 8, 1865, after seeing hard service under General U.S. Grant near the close of the War  of Rebellion/Civil War. Six months later, the Enterprise in February 1866 reported a terrible accident. Carlton Hall and Elias McAllister were felling a tree when a limb struck McAllister on the head, causing his death within minutes. The limb missed Hall, barely grazing his hand. McAllister was married and had one child.

Longtime resident Henry Christman was elected to the board in 1860. Christman patented the E ½ of the SE ¼, Section 34 on November 6, 1855. It was there that he established a store on the southeast corner of the property in the late 1850s, and a sawmill just to the north. Ahnapee Record in August 1873 called attention to Christman, and his partner Mr. Brandt, who ran a large, well-stocked store in addition to their new sawmill which was capable of sawing 6 thousand board feet of mostly custom work daily.

While the 1860 Census indicates Montpelier had about 40 families, the early town settlers saw to their children’s educations and to the town’s religious needs.

Organized in 1860, St. Paul’s Lutheran Church was the first church in the town. Land records connected to the building of the church point oddities that one noted historian has been researching for years. A March 30, 1961 article in Algoma Record Herald reported that Zion Evangelical United Brethren Church was constructed about 1873 and razed in March 1961. The congregation, however, was organized in 1869 and disbanded in the 1940s. Its cemetery holds the grave Thomas J. Paddleford who came to the area in 1855 and, as the story goes, was the oldest settler, thus given the honor of naming the town. Paddleford was 67 at his death. The cemetery is also the resting place for his daughter Mary Jane who died at 3 days old.

St. Wenceslaus Church was the first Catholic Church in the town, built about 1 ½ miles north of Pilsen in 1874. Early burials started in 1870 in the cemetery across the road (from where the church was built). A few years later, St. Mary’s was built at Pilsen. Its first baptism was recorded in 1877. Early settler John Doehler built a flour mill in the late 1870s. Purchased by P.L. Reinke in 1899, the historic mill is is on the Historic Register.

There were schools, the first of which was formed on September 30, 1858, eventually becoming Montpelier District #3. The town's early school history is somewhat sketchy. Some articles seem to suggest a school was a replacement for another. Locations and names changed with new buildings. 

The Ellisville of 2022 is not the hopping place it appeared to be in the letters to the editor of the Enterprise. The community was viable early in the 1900s. 

After R.F.D. came to the county in 1904, country folk no longer had to go to a post office to pick up mail; the mail came to them in a box-like delivery wagon, such as the one above that resembled an outhouse on wheels more than anything else.

During the winter, the mail carrier carried a small stove helping to keep him warm, dry, and comfortable. Carriers brought much more than traditional mail. R.F.D. brought everything. Papers and magazines were popular, and catalogues such as Sears and Montgomery Ward seemed to offer everything from the outside world. Brides ordered trousseaus while farmers ordered baby chicks and farm implements. Often such items were in the same delivery wagon. If one ordered a Sear's house from the catalogue, it came on the train.

And the mail carrier in the original photo? He was from the Luxemburg office. Luxemburg's rural carriers then were men named Miller, Weinfurter, Salmon, Alsteen, Seidl and Liebl. Which one was on the postcard, and did he ever know it?

To drvie north on Highway 163 today is to realize that not a lot has changed since the rual mail carrier was on the road in 1907.

Note* From its beginnings in 1859 to 1865, the Kewaunee paper was known as the Enterprize. The name was changed to Enterprise and was known with that spelling until publication ended. Enterprise is used here although the spelling had yet to be changed. Ahnepee became Ahnapee in 1873, and the second spelling is used here.

Sources: Ahnapee Record, Algoma Record Herald, Here Comes the Mail: Post Offices of Kewaunee County; Kewaunee Enterprise; George Wing Histories and historian J. Zeitler. Painting used with permission of NL Johnson Art.