Name/Title
Histories, History of WaupunDescription
History of Waupun: Unknown author, unknown date (after 1971). Page 2.
Briefly, from 1673 on for about 150 years, the Fox-Wisconsin waterway was Wisconsin's only traveled highway from east to west--our state's first Main Street. It was in 1673 that Marquette and Joliet set forth on it to find the Mississippi River.
In May of 1829, three men with an Indian guide, rode on horseback from Green Bay to Prairie du Chien. They were James Duane Doty, Wisconsin's first judge and later a governor; Henry S. Baird, the first practicing lawyer and political leader of early Wisconin; and Morgan L Martin, a prominent lawyer and political leader of early Wisconsin. As far as can be determined, this was the first known overland trip to be made between these two points -- the ends of the famous waterway route. This trail opened up a general route that came to be called THE MILITARY ROAD.
Years of hard labor went by and the road was finished in 1838. It was then that Seymour Wilcox decided to come south from Green Bay "to look over the new territory." In March of 1839, he moved his family here to make the settlement which developed into Waupun.
Two men who accompanied Wilcox, Hiram Walker and John Ackerman, later chose land for themselves--Walker's being entirely in Dodge County and Ackerman's, like Wilcox's, was in two counties, Dodge and Fond du Lac.
In 1846, Ackerman laid out 10 acres in village lots which he called "Upper Town" (now the west end of Waupun) and WIlcox immediately laid out 50 acres in lots, calling his section "Lower Town." Quickly a spirited rivalry began between the two men, as both wanted their land to be established as the village of Waupun.
A deciding factor as to which site would be chosen seemed to be when Wilcox donated land to the State of Wisconsin in 1851 for the building of a prison on the site.
By 1857, a reluctant "Upper Town" finally submitted to the inevitable and a charter approving the joining of the two sections into the village was accepted. A Board of Trustees organized April 8, 1857, with Jeremiah Look elected president of the Trustees.