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History: Holeton Twp., Marathon Co., Wis. (1913)

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----Source: History of Marathon County Wisconsin and Representative Citizens, by Louis Marchetti, 1913, pg. 554 -  554.

----Township of Holeton, Marathon Co., Wisconsin 1913 History

THE TOWN OF HOLETON.

The town of Holeton was established September 16, 1875, and organized with the election of town officers in the spring of 1876; A. G. Stoughton was the first chainnan of this town. Its territory was confined to township 29, north of range 2 east. The early settlers of this town were, without hardly an exception, men who took the land under the Homestead Act. as mentioned in earlier chapters. Their hardships as pioneers have been related, and also how the exemption of the lands of the Wisconsin Central Railroad from taxation bore hard on them, but the town of Holeton is now as fine a fanning town as any in the county. It is particularly distinguished for its good roads. How did it happen that this town succeeded in getting good roads sooner than most other towns? The answer is that roads were made after a plan and according to a system. First, the road was cut out its full width to let the sun shine on it and dry the ground, and the stumps were removed out of the traveled path. Secondly, the water was drained and kept off the road, which is the most important part in road-building. Thirdly, because the ground is good clay soil, not so much mixed with stones or rocks, which, when left in the traveled part, are apt to cause holes where the wheel slides off a rock. which on the first rain fills with water and becomes deeper; and, lastly, because the roads seemed to receive better care from officers and overseers.

Of the pioneers few are left; time has thinned them out; some have died, some sold out and gone to other parts, and the present old settlers are of the group that came in after 1877. Among those still on the land who came with the building of the railroad are : Charles S. Ouimette, who now is and for thirty years was the town clerk of the town, with hardly an interruption; he still occupies his original farm with his family. Others of the earliest settlers still on their lands are Charles Brown, Gustav Striebe, Henry Jacoby, and the Kleinmann family.

In this town, consisting of thirty-six sections, and a comparatively new town, too, the farmers supply with milk one creamery and five cheese factories, which bring a good income to them without going to the market. The town is divided in five school districts with six schoolhouses, district No. 3 having two schoolhouses, and all are modem, up-to-date buildings. One German Evangelical Lutheran church was organized before 1900, and a minister from some neighboring town or village came to hold service; but nine years ago a church was built and there are now regular services held by the resident minister of the village of Dorchester. Many of the families of this town are members of the congregations in the near villages of Abbottsford, Colby, Dorchester and in the town of Johnson, which joins this town on the east.