A Tale of Three County Seats
The prolonged controversy over the location of the Trempealeau County Courthouse, according to University of Wisconsin historian Merle Curti, was “more dramatic” than any other political hassle between the period just prior to the Civil War and the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
Gazing over the serenity of today’s Courthouse grounds in Whitehall, one finds it difficult to imagine the bitter political infighting that led to the present location of our county’s seat of government.
After Trempealeau County was created by an act of the state legislature on January 24, 1854, the new county board met sometimes at Montoville, sometimes in Gale Township. Offices were maintained in the homes or businesses of board members.
On July 23,1856, however, the county’s first courthouse opened its doors in Galesville, after much delay caused by repeated thefts of building materials.
Trouble was already a-brewing for Galesville’s political hegemony in the county only three years later, evidenced by a Gale town board letter to Trempealeau Village which reprimanded them for agitating to have the county seat relocated in their river town.
Board members pointed out that is the seat did move out of Galesville, it should be moved north to a more centrally located spot. The members probably didn’t take their own suggestion too seriously as no towns of any consequence existed north of Galesville at that time.
In the following year, Civil War broke out and a “three district” county governance imposed by the federal government cooled down the quarrel, each board member reasoning that working for removal to their “district” wouldn’t necessarily mean the seat would be located in his own township.
Soon after the peace at Appomattox, another north-south controversy erupted, this time in Trempealeau County, Wisconsin.
By this time, Judge Gale, founder of the county was dead, his prestige “relocated.” Furthermore, the population center had shifted drastically to the north, and the new villages of Arcadia, Independence, Blair and Whitehall were ambitious to have the seat of government in their towns, all north of the Ridge.
By 1876, county voters gave the nod to Arcadia by a vote of 1648 to 1558. In the northern tier, only Lincoln and Pigeon townships voted for Galesville, giving Arcadia only twelve votes total, hoping to weaken that city’s position and then wrest the seat from a declining Galesville at a later date.
The Galesville-Whitehall-Strange-Political-Bedfellow-Conspiracy had begun.
Eleven days after the election, John McKeith of Gale proposed to the county board that offices and meeting place remain at Galesville until the next annual meeting or until the board ordered it.
In the northern tier of townships only D. Wood of Lincoln voted with McKeith, obviously hoping to enervate the fledgling county seat’s stability. John D. Lewis led the fight for Arcadia, won, and, on January 2, 1877, the county board held its first meeting at the schoolhouse in Arcadia.
Undaunted, Whitehall entered the fight in earnest, supported by neighbors to the north and by Galesville, bitter at its recent defeat, persuaded by Lincoln Township’s “friendship.” David Wade and T.H. Earle, according to W.H. Webb’s memoirs, worked tirelessly to promote Whitehall’s interest. Arcadia fought desperately to preserve newly earned advantage, printed and distributed county maps which showed Whitehall further north than it actually was, then asserted that Whitehall was too far north to serve as a viable county seat.
On November 6, 1877, county voters decided by a 600 vote majority to move the nonexistent courthouse to Whitehall. Galesville bitterly voted 329-10 against Arcadia and turned the tide in favor of a county seat many miles further away from its own location.
Arcadia alleged fraud, secured an injunction, but in the end failed to prove its contentions.
Whitehall quickly moved to consolidate its gains. Merle Curti gives high marks to Lincoln township’s foresight. Meeting in special session and chaired by T.H. Earle, the township approved a $5,000 bond issue to help pay for the buildings if the county would appropriate $10,000 to build at Whitehall.
The county accepted and, with the exception of Blair’s 1878 attempt to un-seat Whitehall, the controversy cooled off and in early January, 1884, Whitehall had a new $20,000 courthouse, which proved adequate until 1910, when $30,000 was appropriated to double the size of the building and to rebuild the jail.
The Galesville Independent, October 10, 1878, printed an anonymous poet who lamented the outcome of our county’s twenty-year-old conflict.
Lament of the County Seat
But now I am told by the young and the old
It would be a most excellent notion
To make the thing squared
I must go up to Blair
And keep up the rotary motion.
Thus I circle around, and I hope to be found
Someday to my first love returning;
For go where I will, I think of her still
My heart for the old home is returning.
Oh sad was the day when they took me away
From my home on the beautiful Beaver;
No peace have I found, since I ’ve boarded around--
I was pained when they forced me to leave her.
(From Pictorial Atlas of Trempealeau County, compiled by Title Atlas Co., Minneapolis, Minn., 1984)
Gazing over the serenity of today’s Courthouse grounds in Whitehall, one finds it difficult to imagine the bitter political infighting that led to the present location of our county’s seat of government.
After Trempealeau County was created by an act of the state legislature on January 24, 1854, the new county board met sometimes at Montoville, sometimes in Gale Township. Offices were maintained in the homes or businesses of board members.
On July 23,1856, however, the county’s first courthouse opened its doors in Galesville, after much delay caused by repeated thefts of building materials.
Trouble was already a-brewing for Galesville’s political hegemony in the county only three years later, evidenced by a Gale town board letter to Trempealeau Village which reprimanded them for agitating to have the county seat relocated in their river town.
Board members pointed out that is the seat did move out of Galesville, it should be moved north to a more centrally located spot. The members probably didn’t take their own suggestion too seriously as no towns of any consequence existed north of Galesville at that time.
In the following year, Civil War broke out and a “three district” county governance imposed by the federal government cooled down the quarrel, each board member reasoning that working for removal to their “district” wouldn’t necessarily mean the seat would be located in his own township.
Soon after the peace at Appomattox, another north-south controversy erupted, this time in Trempealeau County, Wisconsin.
By this time, Judge Gale, founder of the county was dead, his prestige “relocated.” Furthermore, the population center had shifted drastically to the north, and the new villages of Arcadia, Independence, Blair and Whitehall were ambitious to have the seat of government in their towns, all north of the Ridge.
By 1876, county voters gave the nod to Arcadia by a vote of 1648 to 1558. In the northern tier, only Lincoln and Pigeon townships voted for Galesville, giving Arcadia only twelve votes total, hoping to weaken that city’s position and then wrest the seat from a declining Galesville at a later date.
The Galesville-Whitehall-Strange-Political-Bedfellow-Conspiracy had begun.
Eleven days after the election, John McKeith of Gale proposed to the county board that offices and meeting place remain at Galesville until the next annual meeting or until the board ordered it.
In the northern tier of townships only D. Wood of Lincoln voted with McKeith, obviously hoping to enervate the fledgling county seat’s stability. John D. Lewis led the fight for Arcadia, won, and, on January 2, 1877, the county board held its first meeting at the schoolhouse in Arcadia.
Undaunted, Whitehall entered the fight in earnest, supported by neighbors to the north and by Galesville, bitter at its recent defeat, persuaded by Lincoln Township’s “friendship.” David Wade and T.H. Earle, according to W.H. Webb’s memoirs, worked tirelessly to promote Whitehall’s interest. Arcadia fought desperately to preserve newly earned advantage, printed and distributed county maps which showed Whitehall further north than it actually was, then asserted that Whitehall was too far north to serve as a viable county seat.
On November 6, 1877, county voters decided by a 600 vote majority to move the nonexistent courthouse to Whitehall. Galesville bitterly voted 329-10 against Arcadia and turned the tide in favor of a county seat many miles further away from its own location.
Arcadia alleged fraud, secured an injunction, but in the end failed to prove its contentions.
Whitehall quickly moved to consolidate its gains. Merle Curti gives high marks to Lincoln township’s foresight. Meeting in special session and chaired by T.H. Earle, the township approved a $5,000 bond issue to help pay for the buildings if the county would appropriate $10,000 to build at Whitehall.
The county accepted and, with the exception of Blair’s 1878 attempt to un-seat Whitehall, the controversy cooled off and in early January, 1884, Whitehall had a new $20,000 courthouse, which proved adequate until 1910, when $30,000 was appropriated to double the size of the building and to rebuild the jail.
The Galesville Independent, October 10, 1878, printed an anonymous poet who lamented the outcome of our county’s twenty-year-old conflict.
Lament of the County Seat
But now I am told by the young and the old
It would be a most excellent notion
To make the thing squared
I must go up to Blair
And keep up the rotary motion.
Thus I circle around, and I hope to be found
Someday to my first love returning;
For go where I will, I think of her still
My heart for the old home is returning.
Oh sad was the day when they took me away
From my home on the beautiful Beaver;
No peace have I found, since I ’ve boarded around--
I was pained when they forced me to leave her.
(From Pictorial Atlas of Trempealeau County, compiled by Title Atlas Co., Minneapolis, Minn., 1984)