Wisconsin Highlights

I know! I should be at home packing for our upcoming move next week, but I found it near impossible to cancel or reschedule a genealogy trip to Wisconsin that I had planned well in advance with distant family members.








So off I flew - arriving at the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport Tuesday morning. I immediately headed to what I now believe is the greatest small town in Wisconsin... River Falls. Of course my first task was to research many Healy descendants in the area. Betsey Newton (1806-1872), the daughter of Reuben Newton, married Manley Healy and is buried there. This research work took me to the local cemetery, newspaper office, the local historical library.

However, as I walked around the town of River Falls (population 14,352) I discovered it is a very friendly, peaceful, and pleasant place. Only a block away from S. Main Street, with its historic buildings full of thriving businesses, is the campus of the University of Wisconsin - River Falls (Go Falcons). Every one so friendly and (something I'm not used to by living near Atlanta) they actually drive the speed limit and stop for people in the crosswalk!

My favorite small business in River Falls is the Whole Earth Grocery, a local food co-op filled with healthy items, many organic. My favorite part of the store is the whole bean coffee selection, managed by coffee roaster, Joel Deusterman. Every town, big or small, needs a store like Whole Earth and a coffee expert like Joel.






But back to the genealogy excursion. My next stop, and the primary reason for it, took me to Durand, Wisconsin to research the Newton/Ward connection. Rowland Newton (1829-1914), grandson of Reuben Newton, settled in this area and remained here until his death. His daughter, Sophie, married into the large Ward family and to this day many of their descendants remain in the Durand area. Here I am in the local Durand cemetery. I can always find Newton's to hang out with.

In Durand I met up with Candace (Candy Sue) Ward Jones (on the left in the photo), a distant cousin who flew in from Dayton, Washington, and her cousin, Karen Tarrant, of St. Paul. Off and on over the next three days these fine ladies served as my local guides. We were also fortunate enough to have free board at Christopher Rautman's (another distant cousin) cabin on Lake Pepin, a body of water that to me appears to be a big bulge in the Mississippi River. The cabin, originally an old schoolhouse that had been moved, was the former vacation home of Nathaniel Ward II and still remains in the family. Nat named it the "Sand Dollar". The sunset view photo was taken from the beach in front of the Sand Dollar.

Over the next few days I put many miles on the car visiting Ward farms, cemeteries, libraries, historical museums, courthouses, etc. The highlight for me was finding the old Newton homestead in Newton Valley, Canton Township, Buffalo County. The attached photo shows the heavily remodeled house, built around 1870~1880, which sits somewhere near the long-gone old log cabin that the family first lived in. This is the back of the house, looking north down Newton Valley. The two-story section of the house and the single-story immediately to the right in the photo, are part of the original structure.

Soon time ran out on my genealogy sleuthing and Saturday morning (today) I left the Sand Dollar, and am now back in River Falls (where I'm in the UWRF library writing this Blog entry) to wrap up a few loose ends and will soon head back to the airport for my trip back to Atlanta.