Editing Whitewater, Wisconsin (section)

==History==
Whitewater was founded at the confluence of Whitewater Creek and Spring Brook, and named for the white sand in their beds.<ref name="History of Whitewater">[http://www.ci.whitewater.wi.us/about_whitewater/history.html History of Whitewater<!-- Bot generated title -->] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080125055054/http://www.ci.whitewater.wi.us/about_whitewater/history.html |date=January 25, 2008 }}</ref> A [[gristmill]] was built on Whitewater creek, the resulting pond now called [[Cravath Lake]]. The town grew quickly when the first [[railroad]] line in Wisconsin passed through in 1853, but struggled when the two largest employers left town.<ref name="History of Whitewater"/>

Whitewater was originally founded entirely by settlers who arrived there from [[New England]]. These people were "[[Yankee]]s", that is to say they were descended from the [[English American|English]] [[Puritans]] who settled New England in the 1600s. They were part of a wave of New England farmers who headed west into what was then the wilds of the [[Northwest Territory]] during the early 1800s. Most of them arrived as a result of the completion of the [[Erie Canal]]. When they arrived in what is now Whitewater, then nothing but dense virgin forest and wild prairie, the New Englanders laid out farms, constructed roads, erected government buildings and established post routes. They brought with them many of their [[Yankee]] New England values, such as staunch support for abolitionism and a passion for education, establishing many schools as well. They were mostly members of the [[Congregationalist Church]] though some were [[Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopalian]]. Due to the [[second Great Awakening]] some of them had converted to [[Methodism]] before moving to what is now Whitewater. Whitewater, like much of [[Wisconsin]], would be culturally very continuous with early New England culture for most of its early history.<ref>History of Walworth County, Wisconsin by Albert Clayton Beckwith, 1912 page 779</ref><ref>The History of Wisconsin by William Fletcher Thompson State Historical Society of Wisconsin, December 1, 1998 {{ISBN|9780870203039}}</ref>

Unlike much of Wisconsin, Walworth County was notable for not being heavily [[German-American]], Whitewater had almost no [[German-Americans]] at a time when the state as a whole was receiving many.<ref name="Wisconsin Votes pg. 11-12">Wisconsin Votes: An Electoral History, Volume 3 by Robert Booth Fowler pg. 11-12</ref> Whitewater in particular and Walworth County in general were also heavily anti-slavery, and the abolitionist movement was popular amongst the [[New England]] descended portion of the population in the area.<ref name="Wisconsin Votes pg. 11-12"/>

In the late 1800s immigrant families primarily from [[Belgium]], [[Canada]], [[Russia]] and [[Serbia]] settled in Whitewater, as well as smaller amounts of immigrants from [[France]] and [[England]].<ref>History of Whitewater, Wisconsin by Mary Janette Bohi</ref>