News: Unity – 150 Year Reunion (Dec 2022)

Transcriber: Stan

Surnames: Hogden, Gurtner, Creed, Darling, Yerks, Stirling, Spaulding, Jacobitz

----Source: Tribune/Phonograph (Abbotsford, Clark Co., Wis.) 14 Dec 2022

By Neal Hogden and Al Gurtner, author of “A Village Called Unity” The village of Unity has been a place many people have called home throughout its 150-year history. The village serves as a bridge between the north woods and the central part of the state. But the village of Unity was in place long before Hwy. 13 connected the northern and central parts of the state.

Before the village was a village, it was just a piece of vacant land. The state had been officially formed about 25 years prior and people were starting to explore unsettled parts of the state.

In 1871, Edmund Creed and Fritz Henry Darling took to the wilderness to find a new place to settle. The men began in Amherst and traveled through Stevens Point and eventually, ended up at the little Eau Pleine River where the railroad right of way is now.

Creed and Darling each staked their claim to homesteads and marked a few plots of land for friends in the process.

Creed began building a log cabin on a plot of land and completed it in January of 1872. The Creed family along with Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Yerks moved from their homes in Nelsonville to Unity by ox and wagon. Soon after, Darling also returned to build a house and Unity began to become a village.

Any communication with family or friends back home near Amherst was delivered once a week by a man who was traveling between Stevens Point and Superior by horseback. Therefore, the families decided it was time to start surveying for a railroad.

During the fall of 1872, A.C. Stirling traveled to Unity from Stevens Point and built a shop which supplied primarily tobacco and whiskey products.

Mrs. Creed was in charge of naming the community and she suggested Maple Grove, Wisconsin as the village’s title. She sent the name to Washington, D.C. and was notified that there was another Maple Grove already in Wisconsin. As a result, the village had to come up with an alternate name. Because of the unification of the small group of settlers, Mrs. Creed decided Unity was the perfect name for the village.

As more and more people began to hear about the village, settling of the area began to increase. In the spring of 1873, D. J. Spaulding of Black River Falls expressed interest in constructing a saw mill in order to clear the oversupply of timber and make room for more settlers.

Spaulding organized the mill and provided a small store for supplies for his men. The railroad had been completed as far as the little Eau Pleine bridge south of the village so mill materials were brought on the train.

A second investor heard about the success of Spaulding in Unity and decided to go into a partnership with Spaulding. The creation and success of the mill caused the settlement to grow quite rapidly. The building now called Perla’s Place Bar and Grill was once a boarding house for the mill workers.

A grocery store was created on the west side of the railroad which was also provided by sawmill partners. At this time, the supplies carried in the store were tobacco, whiskey, candy, nuts and a few necessary grocery items.

Up until this time, the only streets or roads available were wagon tracks that had pummeled down paths. The sawmill helped create more stable roads using sawdust and corduroy to create better paths.

As the community continued to grow, people realized the need for a school within the village. In 1874, a group of community carpenters raised a one room log school house which provided a place for the few children of the village to attend school. H. L. Jacobitz served as the first teacher of the school.

While children were learning, men were working on completing the railroad. In 1874, the railroad was completed through the settlement and a train depot was built at the north end of the village.

Up until this point, the settlers had not had a place to worship. They did however, worship in the home of a settler with frequent prayer meetings held during the week. The services were held in a different home each week with the resident of the home presiding over the service that specific week. In 1880, that changed as a church was built near the school.

As more and more people started to gravitate toward the area, commerce increased and businesses like: Klein’s Shoe Shop, the Drug Store, Nelson’s Hotel, a Blacksmith Shop, Healy’s Grocery Store, a barber shop, photography shop, Nicholas’ Repair Shop, Thor Hardware Store and a butcher shop that eventually became Ray’s Market all popped up sporadically.

The courageousness and willingness to explore led to what we see today. The village served as a gateway to other towns and cities that would come into existence north on Highway 13 in the future.