History: Mormon Settlement in Greenwood, Wisconsin

Contact: Mary Urban

 

Surnames: Snedic, Smith, Scott

 

----Source: Local Historian

 

Mormon Settlement in Greenwood, WI

Contributed by Mary Urban

 

Historical Marker – A Clark County Historical Society marker, erected this week in the Greenwood City Park, recalls that Mormons were Greenwood’s first white settlers when they came to the area in 1844 to cut lumber for their Illinois city of Nauvoo. Viewing the new marker, which will be dedicated in December, is Greenwood Mayor John Snedic.

Marker Recalls Mormon Settlement At Greenwood Mormon Settlement
 

Photo Contributed by George Plautz
 

Greenwood – A registered historical marker, sponsored by the Clark County Historical Society, has been erected in the Greenwood city  park in memory of the Mormons who are said to have been the first white settlers to locate in Clark County in 1844.

The marker will be dedicated Dec. 7 at a meeting of the Historical Society in Greenwood.

“The history of the Mormons, and their visit to Clark County to obtain lumber,” says Jess W. Scott, president of the Clark County Historical Society, “was commendable in every way. The Mormons who located on the Mississippi about 1840, purchased the city of Commerce and changed the name to Nauvoo.

“They needed lumber to build their tabernacle and other buildings in Nauvoo, so they came up the Mississippi as far as La Crosse. Next, they came up the Black River to Jackson and thence to Clark County in 1844, locating four camp sites on Black River in Clark County, near Wedges Creek, at Ross’ Eddy, now Neillsville; at Weston Rapids, and where the city of Greenwood now stands.

“While busying themselves here, word came that Joseph and Hyrum Smith, their spiritual leaders, had been taken from a Carthage, Ill., jail and murdered. This led to an early exodus from Clark County to 95 per cent of the Mormons. They soon left Illinois for Missouri, from whence Brigham Young led them west to Utah.

Source: The Marshfield News Herald (Marshfield, Wood County, Wis.) Friday, 10 Nov., 1967; Page 2