into Sauk County. Now Reedsburg was closer to 
the center of Sauk than its rival and a stronger 
candidate for the county seat. 
Reedsburg now demanded that the Sauk 
county seat be moved. No action was taken and in 
1853, Crosswell was replaced in the legislature by 
Charles Armstrong of "Adams." He persuaded the 
legislature to restore the old border between 
Adams and Sauk counties, once again placing 
Reedsburg on the edge of the county. In 1855, 
Sauk County voters rejected a final proposal put 
forth by Reedsburg to move the county seat. It 
remained in the old village of "Adams," which 
had, in the meantime, acquired the name it goes by 
today--Baraboo. 
By 1853, after all the county borders had been 
shuffled into place, Adams County covered all of 
what is now Adams and Juneau counties. With 
settlement progressing and the federal land survey 
complete, it was time for the work of county 
government to begin. 
After the election of April 1853, the first 
meeting of the Adams county board was held in 
the home of William Palmer, located in Section 7 
of the Town of Quincy. Palmer's homestead was 
close to Henry Kingsbury's ferry which crossed 
the river at Table Rock, where the Castle Rock 
dam was later built. Five towns sent supervisors: 
Grand Marsh, Ralph Patrick; Jackson, George 
Knox; Quincy, Thomas J. Greenwood; 
Lemonweir, A.P. Ayers; Necedah, John Werner. 
With the east siders in the majority, Grand 
Marsh's Ralph Patrick was elected as the first 
chair of the county board, with the west siders 
agreeing to make it unanimious. 
High on the board's agenda was the verifica- 
tion of the 
election for 
cation Dates                  cOunty officers, 
1860   New Chester- 1861     which was 
1861   New Haven-     1860   performed by 
1890   Preston-       1860   justices of the 
1855   Quincy-        1853   paeSt 
1860   Richfield-     1859   Thompson, 
1855   Rome-          1857   White Creek, 
1861   Springville-   1855   and William 
1857   Strongs Prairie-1860  Stearns, Camp 
1859                         Douglas. 
 
Approximately 
 
500 voters--all male--cast ballots in this first 
county election. West siders swept the legal and 
law enforcement departments: county judge, E.S. 
Minor; sheriff, W. J. Sayers; attorney, D. A. 
Bigelow. East siders took over the record-keeping 
jobs: county clerk, William H. Spain, Quincy; 
clerk of court, John Patrick, Grand Marsh; register 
of deeds, William H. Palmer, Quincy; treasurer, S. 
G. Holbrook, Quincy; surveyor, Caleb McArthur. 
In what must have been a confusing ballot, W.I. 
Webster, the first county coroner, defeated his 
opponent, W. J. Webster, by a total of twenty 
votes. 
In its early years, the county board spent much 
of its time responding to the consequences of rapid 
settlement. As the population grew and shifted 
throughout the county, new towns were organized 
and the borders of older towns were adjusted. The 
short-lived towns of Big Spring (New Haven), 
Chester (New Chester, Easton), White Creek 
(Quincy, Easton), Newark Valley (Quincy, Strongs 
Prairie), Barton (Richfield), Verona (Big Flats) 
and Brownville (Big Flats) were organized on the 
east side, and as many or more on the west. 
The supervisors also chartered the first county 
highway which ran from Quincy to the Marsh 
House, via White Creek. The state then called for 
the county to lay out east-west routes from the 
Marquette county line to the Wisconsin River in 
Quincy and from Wautoma to Petenwell Rock. A 
north-south route from Wisconsin Dells to 
Plainville, Friendship and Big Flats to the Wood 
county line was sketched out in 1858, as a replace- 
ment for the Pinery Road. While the state or the 
county may have chartered these roads, neither 
was the main source of funding. Road and bridge 
construction and maintenance--such as it was-- 
would remain the responsibility of the townships 
for the rest of the century. 
Public schools and the poor also were a town 
responsibility in the 1850s, although the county 
would assume a larger role in later decades. 
One question the supervisors tackled early on 
was the construction of a courthouse. After no one 
responded to a request for bids to build a Wood- 
frame court house and office building in Quincy, 
the board voted to accept the offer of space in a 
building constructed by Stillman Niles in Section 
 
19 of Quincy. The two-story building had a 
 
Town Organi 
Adams- 
Big Flats- 
Colburn- 
Dell Prairie- 
Easton- 
Jackson- 
Lincoln- 
Leola- 
Monroe- 
 
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