This site contains the content and additional information for the 175th Anniversary of Dane County display at the Dane County Regional Airport. Content was created by the Dane County Historical Society.

Beginnings of Dane County

The lakes of Dane County were formed approximately 12,000 years ago when the last receding glacier deposited a thick layer of glacial till (unsorted sediment) over the landscape and dammed up the large pre-glacial Yahara River Valley.  The Yahara River begins just north of Dane County in Columbia County and flows south to connect the four lakes, finally joining the Rock River in Rock County.

There were three cultural traditions present in prehistoric Dane County.

Paleo-Indian Period: (ca 12,000-9000 BC)
Paleo-Indians entered Wisconsin as they hunted woolly mammoth, mastodon, and bison that lived on the abundant vegetation beginning to grow as the glaciers retreated northward. The best evidence of Paleo-Indian occupation in the area was found at an archeological site on the banks of the Yahara River between Mud Lake and Lake Kegonsa in the town of Dunn.  The site is considered the paramount Paleo-Indian site in the region, perhaps in the entire upper Midwest.

Archaic Period: (ca 9000-2500 BC)
Beginning about 9000 to 8000 BC, the climate warmed further and the large Ice Age mammals were replaced by animals found in the state today. People lived in smaller family groups in caves, rock shelters, along rivers and around lakes.

They harvested wild plants, nuts and acorns. These new arrivals hunted smaller animals such as deer and elk; they brought with them new skills and copper tools.  They were less dependent on hunting and developed sources for food that allowed them to sustain themselves year round in the area.

Woodland Period: (ca 2500-800 BC)
About 2000 to 3000 years ago new groups of people, known as the Hopewell or Woodland people, arrived on the landscape.  The newcomers lived in large villages, possessed agricultural skills and brought with them knowledge of corn cultivation.  By 1500 BC and later, the Four Lakes area became the center of an extensive network of villages and cultivated fields.

The “Four Lakes” region of the Yahara watershed became the center around which these early peoples clustered their communities.  The archeological record reveals nearly continuous habitation of the area prior to the appearance of Europeans.  The most striking evidence these prehistoric peoples left behind is a multitude of mounds, many in the shape of familiar birds and animals which still adorn the land. The mounds built early in this stage were round or conical; later many mounds were molded in the shapes of animals, including bear, canines, panthers, waterfowl, hawks and other wildlife, and in one instance a human effigy.

The beginning of the Historic Period came approximately 350 years ago and was marked by European encounters.

Trouble between the native peoples of the region and the European settlers began in the late 1820'S when lead miners moved into southwestern Wisconsin.  To avoid future disturbances, federal officials attempted to purchase the Ho-Chunk's valuable mineral lands. The Ho-Chunk, formally called the Winnebago, reluctantly agreed to sell their land in an 1829 treaty.

Illinois provided the pretext for the eventual expulsion of the Ho-Chunk from Dane County.  In 1804, Sauk tribal lands in Illinois were sold to the government.  As part of that agreement, the Sauk were relocated to Iowa, but Black Hawk persuaded a group of his followers to return to their ancestral lands in April of 1832.  A series of skirmishes drove Black Hawk and his band to retreat into Wisconsin.

On May 21 a Potawatomi war party attacked a frontier settlement in Illinois.  Fifteen settlers were killed and two girls, Sylvia and Rachel Hall, were captured.  Black Hawk met the Potawatomi band and interceded to prevent the girls from being killed. When Black Hawk’s band reached the Ho-Chunk camps of Lake Koshkonong, they were in need of food and horses.  The Ho-Chunk provided the supplies in exchange for the two captured girls.  The Ho-Chunk delivered the girls to Fort Blue Mounds to show the settlers that they were not in league with the Sauk.  But the incident heightened suspicion of the Ho-Chunk and soldiers at the fort took several Ho-Chunk chiefs from the Four Lakes and Koshkonong villages hostage.

Nearly 3000 men in arms were mobilized to pursue Black Hawk in Southern Wisconsin.  His Sauk band left Koshkonong and headed north.  On July 18, 1832, General James Henry and Colonel Dodge with 750 soldiers flushed Black Hawk’s band back west through the Four Lakes area.  Black Hawk and his dwindling band suffered extreme hardship during that retreat, with many of his band dying from exhaustion and lack of food.  The band escaped through the marshes and thickets on the isthmus between Lake Monona and Lake Mendota, just a few hours ahead of the military.

The Battle of Wisconsin Heights in late afternoon of July 21, 1832 was the only major skirmish in Dane County between Black Hawk’s band and the pursuing troops.  General Henry Dodge and his militia approached the high ground near the Wisconsin River.  A brief battle ensued as Black Hawk directed 60 Sauk warriors to engage the soldiers long enough to enable the main body of the band to escape across the river.

The Black Hawk War of 1832 opened the door for the United States to compel native tribes to sell more land in southern Wisconsin.  A treaty was signed in 1837 whereby the Ho-Chunk ceded to the U.S. government, “all their remaining lands east of the Mississippi” and agreed to western removal.

The federal land survey of southern Wisconsin, begun in 1831, was interrupted during the Black Hawk War, but continued in the region until completed in 1834.  The survey divided the government land into forty-acre parcels.  Each 40-acre parcel became available for sale.  Settlers could establish claims and purchase land from district land offices once the survey teams completed their work.

The population of the Great Lakes region increased dramatically. New territories were created from old, and the most populous ones became states.  Wisconsin was successively part of the original Northwest Territory (1788-1800), Indiana Territory (1800-1809), Illinois Territory (1809-1818), and Michigan Territory (1818-1836) before it became a territory in its own right (1836-1848).

The area soon to be known as Dane County was created by the Michigan Territorial Legislature in 1836.  Judge James Doty had convinced the Legislature to select Madison as the Capital and name the surrounding county in honor of Nathan Dane, a compiler of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which established the Northwest Territory.

Nathan Dane was born in Massachusetts in 1752.  He served in the Confederation Congress 1785-87.  The Congress unanimously passed the Northwest Ordinance with a major amendment by Dane: “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in said territory.” – It also contained a bill of rights four years before the Constitution’s Bill of Rights.   Dane died in 1835 prior to the formation of the county that bears his name.

The first homes of pioneer farm families were either log cabins or “dugouts,” log-lined holes in the ground, often carved into the hillside, with roofs of bark, thatch or sod.  Most early settlers chose land parcels with enough woodland to provide timber for a cabin and fuel for cooking.  The next task of the pioneer family was to clear and plant a garden large enough to sustain a household.  With minimal shelter provided and a few acres cleared, settlers planted wheat and set to raising livestock for their own use and to trade for other goods.

In 1836, the region soon to be designated Dane County had only 36 non-native inhabitants, including the households of Ebenezer Brigham at Blue Mounds, Berry Haney at Cross Plains, Wallace Rowan at Lake Monona and three squatters at the Four Lakes: Michael St. Cyr, Oliver Armel and Abel Rasdall.      

In 1838 Berry Haney, a migrant from Cross Plains, Tennessee, established the Cross Plains Post Office in a log house and served as that town’s first postmaster.  Haney’s Tavern located on Stagecoach Road in the town of Cross Plains is one of Dane County’s oldest existing buildings. The tavern, built from native stone, was erected for Haney in 1840 by the Birds, builders also of Madison’s first capitol. 

Ebenezer Brigham (1789-1861) was the first permanent European settler in Dane County, Wisconsin. Born in Massachusetts, he came to the area in 1826 in search of lead. He established a lead mining operation in Blue Mounds and opened an inn and general store to serve his miners, as well as travelers and native peoples.

In April 1837, Eben and Roseline Peck moved to the Madison isthmus from Blue Mounds and built a log cabin boarding house near S. Butler St. to accommodate the workmen who came from Milwaukee to build the Capitol.  Roseline Peck became the first white woman settler in Madison. She was the mother of Wisconsiana Peck, the first white child born in Madison.  The 1837 census of Madison, the “city on paper,” totaled three. 

Updated February 12, 2011