TOWN OF MAZOMANIE
An excellent short history of the town of Mazomanie was published in 1890 by William Kittle, then principal of the Mazomanie high school, later for many years secretary of the Board of Normal School Regents, and now living in Washington. Mr. Kittle gives a good account of the activities of the British Temperance Emigration Society, and its early settlement of the Mazomanie region. Strangely enough, however, he makes no reference to the fact that the battle of Wisconsin Heights, the only known “battle” to occur on Dane County soil, took place within the limits of the present town of Mazomanie between Black Hawk and his followers and the pursuing white militia. This was doubtless due to the impression then prevailing that the battle occurred on present Roxbury soil, which has since been found to be erroneous. A notice of this conflict is found elsewhere in this work. Likewise Mr. Kittle failed to record the interesting distinction of the town of Mazomanie in having given to the world John Appleby and the grain self-binder, one of the most important mechanical inventions of modern times. It was while a resident of the town and village of Mazomanie, following the Civil war, that Appleby worked out his invention which was to give him world fame. In the Mazomanie Cemetery too are buried his second wife, three of his sisters, and other relatives. It was the deftness of his English-born mother’s hand, by the way, that led to Appleby’s invention. Says Professor Hibbard in his history of agriculture in Dane County, in speaking of early reapers:
“However, there was one of Wisconsin’s soldier boys carrying an ordinary rifle (musket) in the Army of the Tennessee who was getting ready to be heard from. In the first place he was dissatisfied with his rifle and spent his leisure moments throughout the war in attempting to perfect the ‘pin-fire’ breach. In this he was at least partially successful. * * * This man had watched his mother at her wheel, tie, with her left hand alone, what was called the ‘granny knot,’ and it seemed to him that it was done so easily and mechanically that an artificial hand moved by a chain or gearing could be made to perform the same trick. To make a long story short, this was John F. Appleby of Mazomanie, Wisconsin, who, after spending the money received for his gun, and as much more loaned him by a friend and fellow townsman named Thompson, perfected the famous Appleby binder.”
Appleby’s mother, whose hand was thus to influence so greatly the agriculture of the world, is buried at Melette, South Dakota, where she died at the home of a daughter.
Mazomanie was originally a part of the township of “Farmersville,” which included the present townships of Black Earth, Mazomanie and Berry. Earlier the region was known as “Gorstville,” in honor of Robert Gorst, the leader in the English settlement, whose old home is now in the town of Black Earth. In 1858 the territory now forming Black Earth and Mazomanie was divided into two townships as at present constituted.
The first settlement in Mazomanie was made about Christmas, 1843, by three Englishmen, Charles Wilson, Joshua Rhodes and Alfred Senier, who first lived some weeks in a deserted Indian wigwam about three miles southwest of the present village of Mazomanie. As advance agents of the Temperance Emigration Society, formed the year before, they had come by way of Milwaukee and Madison, their last contacts with white settlers being at the log cabins of Berry Haney and John Thomas at Cross Plains.
The English settlement in that region in the ’40s by the English Temperance Emigration Society was probably the most ambitious settlement attempted by the English in Wisconsin.
The society was organized December 26, 1842, at Samuel Roberts’ Temperance Coffee-House in Liverpool, England. The men who had most to do in organizing the society were Robert Gorst, Charles Wilson and Charles Reeve. These three men were employes of a Mr. Frodsham, who kept a large establishment for the manufacture and sale of nautical instruments and apparatus. Coming in contact with sailors from various parts of the world, and reading the London and Edinburgh papers, they formed the plan of an emigration society to secure land and homes in the United States. They talked the matter over in Frodsham’s place of business and held frequent consultations at the house of Robert Gorst.
At the meeting December 26, 1842, an elaborate constitution was adopted, and officers of the society were elected, with Robert Gorst as secretary.
In 1844 the record shows that Thomas Ashton was president. Lawrence Heyworth, a member of Parliament from Liverpool, was a wealthy gentleman who gave his influence to the plan of emigration. He does not appear to have taken an active part or invested any money in the operations of the society. The full name of the organization was “Savings Fund.” The word “temperance” seems to have been chosen on account of the general interest then taken in that subject and to show that members of the society were of good character.
In the spring of 1844, Charles Wilson, Joshua Rhodes, Alfred Senier, John Hudson and Frank Ranyard were breaking land and putting up a few log houses for the newcomers. These houses (14 by 20 feet) were a story-and-a-half in height. Each farm consisted of eighty acres, five of which were cultivated and put into crops.
The following advertisement appeared on October 10, 1844, in the Argus, published in Madison:
“The British Temperance Emigration Society are desirous of receiving tenders for the building of thirty log houses on their settlement between this and the first day of April, 1845. Full particulars may be obtained by applying to the agent, Mr. Charles Reeve, after the 20th of October, at the English settlement, Gorstville, near Cross Plains.”
As Robert Gorst, the secretary, became the leading spirit in the colony, the settlement was given the name of “Gorstville.” It then meant the present townships of Mazomanie, Black Earth and Berry.
Settlement increased rapidly from 1843 to 1850, nearly 700 emigrants arriving. Many present Madison families bear names of some of these settlers.
Of the total number, ninety-two are known to have settled in the present township of Mazomanie, twenty-two in Black Earth, two hundred and fourteen in Arena, one hundred and ten in Berry, seventy in Springfield, thirty-six in Dane, forty-four in Vienna, and twenty-two scattering.
Richard Knight, who died in the village of Mazomanie, March 9, 1932, aged 98, was the last survivor of the early English group to settle in the Mazomanie region. He was born in Leicestershire, England, March 20, 1834. Although blind in his later years, he retained his mental faculties largely to the very end and recalled many incidents of the days of settlement.
Dr. Charles Gorst, of Madison, former superintendent of the state hospital at Mendota, is a grandson of Robert Gorst. His brother, George Gorst, lives in the old Gorst homestead in the town of Black Earth. His sister, Sadie (Sarah) Gorst, later Mrs. B. L. Dalamatyr, was a noted school teacher in her day, teaching several years in Primrose and boarding at the Ole Barton home while there. In a recent interview Dr. Gorst said:
“My grandfather, Robert Gorst, was the chief organizer of the Temperance Emigration Society, which brought about a thousand English families to Wisconsin in the ’40s and ’50s. The main colony stretched from Lodi to Mineral Point. Grandfather’s place, four miles southwest of Mazomanie, was known as ‘Gorstville,’ and was a sort of capital. The old home still stands.
“There never was any village there, but Robert Gorst had three sons, John, Thomas and Charles, who had homes there. Robert had lectured all over England, and was an important man in the settlement. He had a fine carriage, and his son John was his private secretary, driving to Madison or Mineral Point in state. It was a great change to the English settlers, particularly the women, many of them city-bred, to settle down in the wilderness. Some of the male contingent were university men like Borwell of Oxford. English relatives sent his son a fine broadcloth suit, which he wore to our red brick school, and which contrasted strangely with his cowhide boots and cap.
“Indians were frequent callers and would enter the cabins without knocking. They were very grateful for food, and would divide a deer with a settler if they had the use of the settler’s dog in hunting. One day a chief from near Cross Plains came to father’s cabin, with one or two companions. After being fed they looked around for things they liked. The chief saw a big silk hat upon a shelf and wanted that. This amused father and he gave it to him and he walked off proudly with it on his head.
“There were two churches, a Methodist and a Primitive Methodist, each about a mile from our place, and mother often had from five to 25 Sunday church guests for dinner.
“Having some education, much was expected of Robert Gorst. There being no physician in the settlement, he acted as such at times, prescribing and supplying medicines. In fact, his death from pneumonia at the age of 57 was caused by his calling to see a sick neighbor and taking cold.
“A touch of old England was brought to the wilderness by the settlers in their games of cricket. These were played in the pastures and made a pretty picture with the players in their white suits. Sutcliffe’s place was a favorite one for the game. In fact several cricket clubs were formed and some well-matched games and tournaments were held.”
Mazomanie derives its designation from the village of the same name. When the Prairie du Chien division of the St. Paul road was projected from Madison in 1855, Edward Brodhead, superintendent of construction, platted the present village. He had been struck by the story of the killing of Pierre Pacquette, the noted half-breed, in 1836, by Mon-ze-mon-e-ka, the son of Whirling Thunder, the Winnebago chief, and gave the village the name of Mazomanie, a corruption of the Indian name above given. In the Indian tongue it originally meant “Walking Iron,” or “the iron that walks.”
With the advent of the railroad the place grew rapidly, and by 1860 had 604 inhabitants. The village was incorporated in 1885, with John B. Stickney as first president. Mr. Stickney, who became prominent in town affairs, was the first station agent at Mazomanie, and at his death was the oldest station agent in the employ of the St. Paul system.
John Greening was the first chairman of Mazomanie. The present chairman is M. T. Coldwell, of English pioneer descent. Carl Fries is the village supervisor. Mrs. George Shields, who preceded Mr. Fries, was the third woman to serve on the Dane County board of supervisors. Henry Powell, also of English stock, served on the county board for years, was its chairman for several years and served in the Legislature in 1887.