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Hartford (town), Wisconsin
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==History== In the early 19th century, Hartford was inhabited by the [[Potawatomi]] and [[Menominee]] people, who had a trading post on the Rubicon River and a village on the eastern shore of [[Pike Lake Unit, Kettle Moraine State Forest|Pike Lake]]. In 1831, the Menominee surrendered their claims to the land to the United States Federal Government through the [[Treaty of Washington, with Menominee (1831)|Treaty of Washington]], and the Potawatomi surrendered their land claims in 1833 through the [[1833 Treaty of Chicago]], which (after being ratified in 1835) required them to leave the area by 1838.{{sfn|Quickert|1912|pp=17-18}}<ref>{{cite journal |last1 = Gerwing |first1 = Anselm J. |title = The Chicago Indian Treaty of 1833 |journal = Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society |date =Summer 1964 |volume = 57 |issue = 2 |pages = 117–142 |jstor = 40190019 |issn = 0019-2287 }}</ref> However, when the first white settlers arrived in 1843, they found that the Potawatomi were still living at the Pike Lake village.{{sfn|Quickert|1912|pp=30}} Some Native Americans remained in the area and were referred to as "strolling Potawatomi" in contemporary documents because many of them were migrants who subsisted by [[squatting]] on their ancestral lands, which were now owned by white settlers. Eventually the Native people who evaded forced removal gathered in northern Wisconsin, where they formed the [[Forest County Potawatomi Community]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Potawatomi History|url=https://www.mpm.edu/content/wirp/ICW-152|publisher=Milwaukee Public Museum|access-date=February 20, 2020}}</ref> In July 1843, Timothy Hall became the first white person to purchase and settle land in the Hartford area, although when he arrived he found a Canadian named Jehial Case squatting near his land. Later that year, German immigrant settlers John Theil and Nicolaus Simon surveyed the Hartford area and determined that the Rubicon River would be a suitable location for a hydropowered mill. The following year, James and George Rossman joined Simon and Theil's venture. The men purchased forty acres abutting the rapids of the Rubicon River in what would become the City of Hartford<ref name="hartford">{{cite web|last=Hartford Centennial Committee|title=Hartford, County & State History|url=http://ci.hartford.wi.us/Hartford_History/Hartford_History.pdf|access-date=November 6, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120301212004/http://ci.hartford.wi.us/Hartford_History/Hartford_History.pdf|archive-date=March 1, 2012|url-status=dead}}</ref> and constructed a dam and a sawmill that harnessed the river's power to make lumber from the [[old-growth forest]]s covering the area.{{sfn|Quickert|1912|pp=29-30}} In 1846, a third Rossman brother, Charles, arrived in Hartford and constructed a [[gristmill]] to process grain grown by the settlers.{{sfn|Quickert|1912|pp=40}} On January 31, 1846, the land incorporated as the Town of Wright, before the name was changed to the Town of Hartford in February 1847,<ref name=hist>{{Cite web |url=https://townofhartfordwi.com/town-history/ |title=Town of Hartford: Town History |website=TownOfHartfordWi.com |access-date=May 9, 2025}}</ref> after [[Hartford, Connecticut]]. The early settlers cleared land for farming; constructed roads; created a post office; erected churches, the first being the [[Congregational church|First Congregational Church of Hartford]] which formed in 1847, and was followed by Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, and Catholic churches in the 1850s;<ref name="early">{{cite book |date=1881 |title=History of Washington and Ozaukee Counties, Wisconsin |url=https://content.wisconsinhistory.org/digital/collection/wch/id/12029 |location=Chicago |publisher=Western Historical Company |pages=412–422 }}</ref> and established businesses to serve the town's agricultural economy, including equipment wholesalers, general stores, and dry goods dealers.<ref name="Encyclopedia">{{cite web|title=Encyclopedia of Milwaukee: Hartford |url=https://emke.uwm.edu/entry/hartford/ |publisher=University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee|access-date=January 3, 2021}}</ref> The [[Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad|La Crosse and Milwaukee Railroad]] was constructed through the community in 1855,<ref name="Encyclopedia"/> and while rail connections were important to Hartford's growth into the early 1900s, the company failed in 1861. Many local landowners had taken out mortgages on land for the railroad in exchange for company shares. The company's failure left the landowners with mortgages to pay off, creating a local crisis in which some families were forced to sell their farms. The ''Hartford Home League'' newspaper started during the crisis to advocate for the farmers.<ref name="Encyclopedia"/>{{sfn|Quickert|1912|pp=91-92}} The community's early years saw increasing tension between the white settlers and their Native American neighbors. For example, on August 25, 1861, a group of approximately a dozen Native Americans were living near [[Horicon Marsh]], northwest of Hartford. They owned a horse, which got loose and wandered into a neighboring settler's cornfield. The settler shot and killed the horse, and the Native Americans vowed revenge. The story traveled quickly, becoming increasingly exaggerated as it spread. By the time the story reached Hartford on August 26, the dozen peaceful Native Americans had been transfigured into an army of 5,000 warriors preparing to massacre the settlers in the area. Many able-bodied men in Hartford armed themselves, formed a war party, and set out to fight the Native Americans. But when they arrived at Horicon Marsh they found that the threat was entirely fictional. The incident caused widespread fear among the Native Americans as well as in the surrounding communities. {{sfn|Quickert|1912|pp=93}}<ref>{{Citation | last = Quaife | first = M. M. | title = The Panic of 1862 in Wisconsin | jstor = 4630295 | journal = The Wisconsin Magazine of History | volume = 4 | issue = 2 | year = 1920 | pages = 166–195 }}</ref> The City of Hartford incorporated out of some of the town's land in 1883, and shifted from being a small market town serving the local farmers to being a larger industrial community, including the [[Kissel Motor Car Company]]; the International Stamping Company, which manufactured automobile parts; the Hartford Canning Company,<ref name="Encyclopedia"/> which process local farmers' crops—particularly peas, which were a [[cash crop]] in the area;{{sfn|Quickert|1912|pp=136}} the knitting mills of the Paramount Knitting Company; a glove factory; three tanneries; and a brewery.{{sfn|Quickert|1912|pp=131}} During [[World War II]], the Town of Hartford's farmers were affected by labor shortages, and in the summer of 1944, the U.S. military tried to remedy the problem by contracting German [[prisoner of war|prisoners of war]] to work on pea farms. Initially, the prisoners were transported from a requisitioned hotel on Lake Keesus in [[Waukesha County, Wisconsin|Waukesha County]]. In October 1944, the military requisitioned the Schwartz Ballroom in the City of Hartford<ref>{{cite web|title=Chandelier Ballroom: History|url=https://www.chandelierballroom.com/history.html|publisher=Chandelier Ballroom|access-date=January 12, 2020}}</ref> to serve as a [[List of POW camps in the United States|prisoner of war camp]] for 600 Germans. The prisoners were contracted to work on farms as well as in canneries, hemp mills, dairy facilities, and tanneries. The camp closed in January 1946 and the prisoners were repatriated to Germany.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zD-kby0LiuEC&pg=PA123|title=Stalag Wisconsin: Inside WW II Prisoner-of-war Camps|last=Cowley|first=Betty|date=January 1, 2002|publisher=Badger Books Inc.|isbn=9781878569837|pages=146–57|language=en}}</ref>
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