Looking Back; Unity, WI History 4

The year is 1964. The place is Unity, Wisconsin. As I sit at my typewriter I can hear the clanking of a power shovel and the buzzing of a bulldozer working in our back yard. It is one of the signs of coming improvements in the village. Last fall, the village council voted to put a sewage disposal system in the village. Last fall, the natural gas line also went through the village and had many of the homes connected up.

A definite sign of improvement is just two blocks east and one block south from my house. This would be the newly built grade school. In 1954 Unity's High School consolidated with the Colby High School and moved to Colby. Due to the good location the grade school remained and is providing a real service in elementary education.

It seems to me that the village can be compared to the butterfly that is just testing out its new wings. In the early 1900's it was in the larvae stage when it was developing quite rapidly but then went into a period of dormancy. Since the 1950's it has emerged from its cocoon or chrysalis.

To understand the village of today and prepare for its future we should first review a little of its history.

In 1862 Congress passed a Homestead Act granting 160 acres of free land in the west to any citizen who would settle on it and improve it for five years.

In 1864 Congress passed another act granting all the odd-numbered sections in the Towns of Spencer, Brighton, Hull, and Holton to the railroads free of charge and exempted from taxes for ten years. Despite this act and the hopes of Congress, railway construction and settlement of the area was slow. Congress retained the even-numbered sections and encouraged homesteading. But, settlers found their taxes to be extremely high because revenue could be raised only to the even-numbered sections.

BIRTH OF THE VILLAGE

Mr. Creed and Mr. Darling were the first settlers of the village. Together in 1871 they came to where Unity is now, and as the old Wisconsin Central Railroad was building its line north along the west boundary of Marathon County they decided to take up government homesteads. Mr. Creed made application for a 40-acre tract. Mr. Darling, who was a Civil War veteran applied for a homestead of 160 acres.

An account of this was written by the pioneer, Mr. Creed:

"Mr. Darling and I started out from the point up the line to look for a location. We wandered around until we came to where the Little Eau Pleine River crossed the railroad line. Here were some vacant fractions so we looked them over and liked the locations. There was the creek and a good place for a dam and pond. I thought there would be something doing here some day so I took the south fraction and Darling the next two." l

During the winter Mr. Creed hauled up supplies and built a log cabin. In the spring of 1872 Mr. and Mrs. Creed and Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Yerks came to the log cabin which was the only dwelling at Unity at the time. Since there were no roads or railroads, they moved up here on a jumper pulled by a team.

Mr. Creed had been in the lumbering business before he entered the store business in Nelsonville and he returned to the lumber business after he resided at Unity.

GROWTH OF THE VILLAGE

Railroad

The railroad played one of the key parts in the development of the village. The following paragraphs are by Mr. Creed concerning its progress.

"The next day Fitzgerald came along as he had a contract to do the grading for the railroad from Spencer to Colby. He asked me to board a crew of his men and he would furnish the supplies, I decided to take them. I built an addition to my cabin for a dining room. In a few days the crew came and went to work so we had plenty of company and lots of work” 2

"I kept on boarding the railroad men that summer and winter. The next spring Fitzgerald began to get discouraged. He was losing money. He was an old railroad builder who had built road on the Union Pacific and got rich at it but when he got here among the stumps, it was a different kind of proposition. He got two men by the name of Alexander and Seymour to take his job off his hands, but they did not last long. By this time the road was graded and the iron lay as far up as Flink's corners, half a mile south of Unity. The train, an engine, box car and caboose, used to come up from the Point every morning and go back in the afternoon.” 3

The next information was obtained from an essay by Mrs. John Fuller, a long-time resident of the village.

"Early in '73 the railroad was built through the village and as far as Medford. The first depot or stopping place was a short distance south of town. From here it was moved to about where the cattle sheds are north of town. The first depot agent was Mr. Sanford and the second Mr. Moony. In '90 the first depot which was built in '74, was struck by lightening and burned. Another was built as soon as possible.” 4

Lumber Industry

In addition to the advantage of a railroad, the village was ideally located in the midst of white pine and hemlock forests. This helped the village hold mills longer than the others.

"It was the lumber which caused D. J. Spaulding to purchase mill equipment in the summer of 1872 and have it shipped up the Black River toward Loyal. Alfred Cook, together with a crew of men, cut a trail from Loyal to Spencer and with two team of oxen hauled the equipment to Unity where it was then located just west of the present village dump grounds.” 5

Spaulding bought up immense tracts of land and during the twenty years of the mill’s operation manufactured and shipped millions of feet of lumber.

"In a few years another mill was located here by Robert Rosenfield another four miles east, by Butler Bros., and one a few miles west. The lumber from these mills was hauled and shipped from here, considerable of the money paid out incident to the manufacture of the lumber was spent here and those days Unity was ranked as one of the most prosperous towns in the state, but as soon as there came a lull in the lumber business its effects upon the general business of Unity were plainly visible.” 6

The building of the sawmills brought many men to the community. At the height of the mill operations as many as 300 men were employed and housed here. Because of the demand for lots on which to build homes, Mr. Creed went to Wausau and made arrangements to pay the federal government for the forty acres he had homesteaded in order that he might sell lots.

The village gradually slumped into a state of inactivity in which it remained from about 1890 to 1897. Unity emerged from under the spell with the great rush of settlers to central and northern Wisconsin and Unity, with its fine farming lands, drew a considerable number. The migration of settlers to this community helped to make Unity one of the most stable business villages in the state.

Peter Fritz erected a saw and planing mill in the northern portion of the village east of Highway 13. Later August Perschki had a mill approximately the same location. The coal-kilns of G. Groelle were a source of revenue to the farmers and greatly assisted them in clearing their land.

Incorporation

“Unity was first incorporated as a village in 1903 and organized, which incorporation was declared invalid after a long drawn-out lawsuit, involving its legality.” 7

The first incorporation was nullified by the courts by reason of irregularities in the census.” 8

“In consequence of this judgment, a new corporation was effected in 1906, which stood the test of judicial scrutiny. The first supervisor in the county board under the valid incorporation was Louis Cook.” 9

There are many versions of the story of how Unity received its name. The following account is the one that I feel is the most accurate as it was told to me by Mr. N. Creed and it is also recorded in Reverend Langseth's paper and Mrs. Fuller's.

When a post office was asked for at this place the name of Brighton was sent in to the post office department as the name selected for the new office, (Brighton was the name of the railroad station) but as there was already an office of that name in this state, we tried again and sent in the name Maple Grove, only to be informed that there also was an office of that name already in the state. Some now wanted that name and some another, and before we could come to an agreement the department took the matter into their own hands and gave the new office the name of Unity. The officials at Washington evidently were a 'unit' on that name, if the citizens of this place were not.

There is also another story about the naming that is enjoyable to tell but actually is a legend.

As the village grew and needed a post office it also needed a name. Since Mrs. Creed was the first woman to come to the village she was given the honor of giving it a name. She suggested the name of Maple Grove but there already was a town by that name in the state, so she then suggested Unity because of the unification of the small group already here.

School

Since education is the prime factor of success, the settlers soon began to think of building a school for their children. In 1874 they built a one-room log schoolhouse on the easternmost section of the Creed territory. Mr. H. L. Jacobitz, the first teacher, worked extremely hard to organize the small group of students and get them adapted to the new conditions. Mr. J. J. Austin, the third instructor, spread interest in enlarging the school. Thus an addition was made and the two-room system was effectively carried out.

In 1880, Mr. John R. Salter, a university graduate, organized a high school. He became its first principal and taught for four years. There were seven students in the first graduation class of 1883.

In the fall of 1890 the school burned down as a result of some children playing with matches in a nearby wood shed. Until the construction of a new building, classes were held in the drug store.

In 1911 the old school building was razed and a new building was erected farther north where the grade school now stands. This building was used as a high school until the consolidation with Colby in 1954.

By 1913 there were three churches in the village. The oldest was the Methodist Church; the congregation organized in 1873 with the beginning of the settlement. The church was not built until 1880. The Scandinavian Lutheran Church was the next to be built in 1901 and then the Church of "Christ Disciples," in 1909. There were no resident ministers; the churches being missions attended by ministers from the nearby villages and cities.

In 1905, the Methodist and Lutheran Churches were blown down by a cyclone. The Methodist Church was beyond repair and a new one was built. The Lutheran Church was repaired and used for twenty-five years when the present church was built. The Scandinavian Church reorganized in 1920 and was renamed the Trinity Lutheran Church.

The Disciple Church no longer exists in Unity. Soon the Methodist Church will be razed as the congregation has joined with another town.

Fires

Despite success, disaster often strikes. Two major fires occurred within ten years and left their mark on the village.

"In 1909 fire started in Button Membrue's Hardware Store and spread north to Fred Wescott's Saloon, and the Forest House Hotel which stood on the comer of P and 13. Then, it spread south to engulf Zell Bros. General Store, and August Weide's butcher shop and shoe shop. It was halted directly north of the post office. A second fire occurred in 1917, right south of the post office, and destroyed the drug store, Clark County Telephone Office, and two private residences." ¹ ⁰

Roads

At the time when Creeds moved up here there was nothing but a very poor logging road or tote road that had been built by the railroad company.

After Spaulding’s mill was running they used the sawdust from the mill to make a road and the low spots were corduroy.

"During the depression of the 1930's many of the surrounding hamlets installed municipal sewage and waterworks, through the assistance of the W.P.A. program. Unity, however, did not include itself in this project as it was too spread out ... to use the words of the original court battle in 1904, "It is not compact in form. . ." and its population and evaluation to small, believed the village fathers, to merit such an outlay. Somewhat as a compromise, I suspect, the streets were graveled to enhance the cement sidewalks which had been installed some years before.” 11

I think it is interesting to note that when Highway 13 was put through and some of the other roads blacktopped, they found sawdust nearly six feet deep in the area where the railroad crosses K.

“YARNS – THE GOOD OLE DAYS”

When Mr. Creed first moved to Unity, he unofficially acted as postmaster by keeping the mail in a sack at his home and giving people letters when they asked for them. Later he was asked to be the official postmaster of Unity, but he turned it down. It seems Mr. Creed was a Democrat and most of the village residents were Republicans. When asked the second time, Mr. Creed accepted the position. Mr. Nyole Creed, his grandson, who is the village postmaster, and incidentally, a staunch Democrat, still has the oath signed by Mr. Edmund Creed. 12

Mr. Nyole Creed also has the bill of sale for the first bell in the Unity school. A small down payment was made on the bell when it was first ordered. Then Mrs. E. Creed went around the area getting people to contribute. The final amount was not paid until six years later. Money must have been as hard to receive then as it is today. When the first school burned down the bell was also destroyed in the flames. 13

I used to feel sorry for old Doc Stewart. He was the only doctor there was this side of Stevens Point. Many times I have seen him traveling through the woods walking on a pole to get over the water holes and going four or five miles to see a sick person. Sometimes he would get his pay and sometimes nix, but if they had a couple of pipefuls of smoking tobacco, he was willing to wait until they could get the money. 14

In 1874, Creed built the main wing of his family’s home, the lumber having been cut almost entirely from one large pine tree from some of Creed’s land east of Unity, as the immediate Unity neighborhood was practically without pine. 15

Mrs. Creed knew Wabenkenish, the Indian, and his son who were well-known along the Wisconsin River valley from Stevens Point to Little Bull Falls. 16

Not long after Mr. Spaulding built his store many of the people had quite a scare by the appearance of a number of Indians who camped but a short distance from the village. Many of the people were afraid the Indians might make a raid on the town and in order to keep peace they bought crackers, cookies and cheese and a number of articles of food and fed the Indians. 17

It was not very pleasant to haul goods around on sawdust and corduroy roads. Think of hauling a load of feed or grain along a corduroy road and every few minutes, to have to get off and pick up the sacks that had gotten jolted off. Then, the main road was sawdust and corduroy and the rest were corduroy and sawdust. 18 In those days when the young people wanted to go for a drive they hitched up the ox team to a jumper and started out. 19

Either Cook or Salter was always the head of the town board. At the spring election it would be Cook against Salter, the next year Salter v. Cook, year after year. I think the Deacon (Cook) has a little of the leverage as he would furnish the most Lager and bologna and that cut quite a figure at the spring election. Well, no matter, they were both good men for the job and our taxes were not near as high then as now by about 300 per cent.²⁰

Maps indicate to me that in the first part of the twentieth century the village had many businesses compared to the number of dwellings. The village then went into retirement; many of the businesses closed or moved out. Retired farmers were moving into the village and it took on a quieter pace. Now it seems to be waking up and becoming a specialized community.

Population Graph

1903 ............................................................................................................... 405

1910 ................................................................................... 363

1920 ............................................................................................................... 405

1950 ........................................................................ 355

1 Creed, Edmund, Trial and Tribulations of an Old Pioneer Settler, pages 1 and 2.

4 Fuller, Mrs. John, Unity - "A Look Backward", 1905, page 4.

5 Langseth, Rev. R. V., Adventure in the Village of Sidewalks, 1962, page 4.

7 Marchetti, Louis, "History of the Village of Unity, " History of Marathon County, 1913.

8 Wedge, F. C., History of Clark County, 1918. Taken from Langseth, op. cit., page 7.

Creed, Edmund, "Trial and Tribulations of an Old Pioneer Settler". The original copy is in the custody of Mr. Nyole Creed.

Fuller, Mrs. J. E., “Unity – Look Backward, 1905.

Langseth, Rev. R. V., “Adventures In the Village of Sidewalks,” 1962, pp.1-11.

“Marathon County Register”, March 14, 1902. In the custody of Calvin Cook.

Marchetti, Louis, "History ofthe Village of Unity", History of Marathon County, 1913. This is also in the custody of Cal Cook.

Marshfield News-Herald, November 7, 1931, and an article from the summer of 1955 in the custody of Nyole Creed.

"Modern History of Unity", pp. 1-5, prepared by the Modern History Class of 1933-1934. Copy obtained from Gib Wiedenhoeft, Jr.

Interviews with Village residents.

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