EARLY HISTORY AND GROWTH

     Captain Shaw landed at this place in 1816, as mentioned on page 9.  Thomas Hymer, afterward of Potosi, on his return from a trip to the Selkirk settlement stopped at this place in 1824, occupying an old cabin, probably built by a French trader.  Levi Gilbert came to the place in 1827 and has stated that Judge Sawyer put up a furnace there that year, and was to give a free Fourth of July dinner, but hearing of the Indian troubles, he left July 3.  The same year Orris McCartney and Alexander D. Ramsey came and settled a few miles from the village, where they opened farms.  The next spring McCartney went to Beetown and spent a few months there and then returned to his farm.  A. K. Barber and Woodward Barber also came in 1827.  Thomas G. Hawley is credited with building the first house in the new village.  Henry Hodges and Thomas Shanley came in 1828, but did not stay long.  They are said to have built a log warehouse.
     Nothing further can be learned of the young settlement until 1831, when Glendower M. Price, a young man of considerable means, came there from Philadelphia with his newly married wife and opened a store in a log building on the river bank, on the site of Grimm's warehouse.  When the Black Hawk War broke out Price, with his young wife, held his position, improvised a fort out of a large log house, raised a company of scouts from the refugee miners and commanded them, and after the war was always called Major.  Sometimes in his absence his wife commanded the refugees and friendly Indians at the fort, being called Captain Price.
     In 1834 Benjamin F. Forbes, afterward postmaster at Lancaster, came to Cassville.  His wife was a sister of Major Price's wife.
     About the time of Major Price's coming Daniel Barber, Henry Lander, Isaac Lander, Richard Ray, and William W. Wyman came.  Isaac Lander preempted land at the mouth of the hollow, Ray took up the southwest quarter of Section 20, and Price Section 29.  The land, however, did not come into market until 1834.
     Wisconsin was made a territory July 4, 1836, taking in all the present States of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, and part of the Dakotas.  Months before the bill passed and was approved by the President persons in the East pitched upon Cassville as an eligible and central location for the capital of the new territory, and laid out a city here, buying the claims of Price and Ray, except three lots reserved by Price.  The new town company was composed of Garrett V. Denniston, a lawyer of Albany, New York, and Lucius Lyon, who had been Surveyor-General of Michigan Territory.  There may have been others in the company, but no other names appear as grantors on the records of deeds to the lots sold by the company.  The company immediately began the erection of a mammoth brick hotel, five stories high, which was to shelter the legislators and State officials to-be.  Daniel Banfill, afterward a Lancaster landlord and contractor for the shoddy court-house of 1837, appears to have been the contractor.  It cost $45,000.  But before the great building was completed, or nearly completed, the great fight for the location of the capital was over and Cassville had lost, and the "big brick" long stood with lonely halls and vacant rooms, a monument to blighted hopes and failing ventures.
     In the debate in the first territorial legislature of Wisconsin on the location of the capital Col. Wm. S. Hamilton said:
     "Cassville stands on the east bank of the Mississippi, surrounded by very pretty scenery.  The eye can rest on the soft and soothing, the grand and sublime.  There will be found everything necessary for the promotion of man's comfort and the exercise of his energies.  In a word, nature has done all in her power to make it one of the most delightful spots in the far West."
       Nelson Dewey came to 1836 as clerk for the town company.  Writing in 1887, he thus describes early buildings and builders of Cassville: "Daniels,  Denniston & Co. built in 1836 the two houses in which G. Prior and F. M. Cronin now live.  Clovis A. Lagrave and Charles L. Lagrave built in 1836 the present frame building adjoining Geiger's brick store, and Charles Bensill in 1836 built the now old building on the alley on Block 11.  G. M. Price in 1836 built the building now owned by Holloway Stephens on Lot 11, Block 3.  It was originally built on Lot 10, Block 11, and Ezra and John Gleason kept store in it in 1837 and 1838.  The latter died in Prairie du Chien.  The former was living in Chicago when I last heard of him.  Charles L. Lagrave now lives in Minneapolis and Clovis A. Lagrave lives in California."
     A correspondent of the New York Commercial Advertiser, under date of June 20, 1836, gave this glowing description of Cassville.
     "This town is situated on the east bank of the Mississippi River five hundred miles above St. Louis, forty-five by land above Galena, and about the same distance below the mouth of the Wisconsin River.  The site is upon a beautiful prairie, twelve or fifteen feet above high water-mark at the shore, and extending back five hundred yards, ascending in this distance eight feet to a precipitous bluff two hundred feet high  The prairie is about four miles long, slightly broken by ravines above and below the town plat; but the plat itself is of so uniform a surface as not to require the cost of a dollar to grade either a building lot or a street.  The plat is four hundred yards wide, by eleven hundred and ninety long, or nearly one-fourth of a mile by two thirds of a mile.  In this bluff, about fifty feet above the surface of the plain below, are two hold springs, which discharge water enough to supply a population of ten thousand.

MORE TO COME UPON REQUEST

TOWN OFFICERS

VILLAGE OFFICERS

NEWSPAPERS

     The Cassville Current. - This paper was started Dec. 12, 1886.  Walter W. Pollock was editor and publisher.  It was a six column folio.  The typography was of unusual excellence for a country paper.  It was printed at the Teller office in Lancaster.  Although not printed at home, it fully covered the field of Cassville local news and interests.  It was published about a year, when the publisher found a more inviting field and the paper was discontinued.
     The Cassville Index. - This paper was first issued Mar. 8, 1888, by Charles DeWitt and his wife, formerly Mrs. Lou P. Lesler.  Both had formerly been publishers of the Boscobel Dial.   The paper was an eight-column folio.  In August, 1889, John Foley became the publisher and has conducted it ever since.  It is Populist in politics.  As a local paper it is a credit to the village in which it is published.

CHURCHES

SOCIETIES

SCHOOLS

BIOGRAPHICAL

  A prominent figure in the early history of Cassville was Orris McCartney.   He was born in Harford, New York, May 9, 1794.  At the age of seven, his mother dying, he went to live on the farm of his uncle near Cooperstown and afterward lived with his sisters.  In the War of 1812 he enlisted in Captain Gideon Orton's company and went to Plattsburg, arriving the day after the battle there.  In 1817 he came west, stopping a year or two in Ohio and several years in Illinois, where he married Miss Eliza Barber.  In 1827 he came to the lead mines with Major Rountree, locating at Cassville and Beetown, as before stated.  He was for a short time one of the owners of the famous "Bee Land," but traded his interest for a six-horse team and returned to his farm near Cassville.  In the Indian troubles of 1832 he sent his family to Jacksonville, Ill., for safety.
     In 1840 his wife died and in 1844 he married Mrs. Monse, sister of Benjamin Kilbourn, of Jamestown.  She died Apr. 24, 1887, in her 79th year.  Mr. McCartney died at his homestead in Cassville Apr. 16, 1868.  Four of his children survive:  William F. and Alex. R., at Denver, Colorado, Henry L., at Garden City, Kansas, and Mrs. Harriet Liscomb at Cassville.
     Mr. McCartney was one of the commissioners to locate the county seat, the first treasurer of Grant County, and held many other offices, as may be seen by looking over the rosters of officers in this work.