Shortly after Wisconsin became a state in 1848, Friends families, came from Indiana and Ohio by covered wagon. They settled up and down the Little Baraboo River in Woodland and Ironton townships. This area is still referred to as "Quaker Valley."
Among the earliest settlers in the township of Woodland were Mr. & Mrs. James Jackson and Mr. & Mrs. J. D. R. Mitchell and family. The year 1852 brought rapid settlement. In the vanguard of Indiana Friends were the Mark Davis' and the Elihu Presnalls. Other families to come that year were the Wallaces and the Calvin Gardners. James Stanley and his wife Jemima were among those who came in 1853. Others among this company were Mr. & Mrs. Joseph Small, Zimri & Pheriba Small, Francis & Louisa Jones and Mr. & Mrs. William Mann and family.
Friends families arriving in 1854 included Mr. & Mrs. Benjamin Pickering, Mr. & Mrs. Isaiah Frazier, Meredith & Melinda Beeson, Solomon & Mary Cook, Fielder & Martha Brown, and Ephraim & Elizabeth Bundy. Will F. Bundy, a son of Mr. & Mrs. Ephraim Bundy, was a physician, poet and learned scholar. Few of the Friends were more widely known than Jabez Brown, son of Fielder Brown, who for more than thirty years was one of the foremost school teachers of Sauk County.* (see note at end.)
Included in the arrivals in 1855 were Caleb and Sarah Coryell, and Solomon & Elizabeth Moon. Many familiar names, such as Cammack, Harvey, Williams, Price, Good, Bunker, Hutchens, Woolever, and Veeder, were included among the numerous settlers of the years 1856 to 1865.
By 1855 it was thought that a sufficient number of Friends had settled in the valley to maintain a Friends Metting. Accordingly, one was organized in the home of Jabez Brown and his father Fielder Brown, who then lived in a small log house beside the creek. Thirth charter members were on the list, including four ministers. In 1856, a small Friends Meetinghouse was built of logs a short distance back of the old Oaks school house, and a Sabbath School was organized at the time. Death early claimes three of the original Friends' ministers, and James Stanley, "Uncle Jimmy," remaines as shepherd of the flock for more than forty years.
In 1867 the Friends had outgrown the log Meetinghouse and they erected the Friendswood building, located three and one-half miles west of Ironton. This building was 30 by 50 feet in size, with a large meeting hall, a room in the west end, and a second floor suitable for school purposes. Friendswood Academy was opened October 6, 1884, with an enrollment of 32.
The "Pickering Land and Water Company" was formed in 1887 and a large company of Friends moved from the community to California to help in founding the city of Whittier.
Later, about 1893, the Friendswood building was taken down and the Oaks Friends Mettinghouse was built out of the lumber, located south of the road, near the Oaks Cemetery. The Oaks membership was eventually transferred to the Valton Friends Meeting which had been established to meet a need as Friends' families moved on up the valley to settle in the vicinity of Valton.
According to Cole's A Standard History of Sauk County (1918),p. 396: "The first burials made in the little graveyard in the woods about half a mile east from Oaks Cemetery were those of Nellie Davis, mother of Neil Davis, and Elizabeth Stafford..." Elizabeth Stafford is the mother-in-law of Elizabeth Bundy, not the mother, as stated by Cole.
Location : NE 1/4 SW 1/4, Section 36, T13N, R2E, Town of Woodland, County of Sauk, State of Wisconsin.
Copied by : Bette Hall, Marie Oesting, Ph.D., Ena C. Moll, Harold Stout
Date Copied : September 16, 1975
From Sauk County Cemetery Inscription, Volume #5, Pages 116-126.
Page 116
Back-To Mortimer Genealogy Home Page.
Back-To Sauk County (Volume 5) Cemetery Index Page's 116-139.
Forward-To Page 117