In an article titled “Cooksville, The Town That Time
Forgot,” in the Autumn 1963 issue of
Wisconsin
Tales and Trails magazine, Virginia A. Palmer finds the village “unique,
lovely, and secure in its quiet charm…”
Palmer, the writer, gathers the bits and pieces of
Cooksville’s past—the people, the events, the struggles, the successes, the
failures—and tells the story of the Cook
brothers arrival in 1840, the founding of the village of “Cooksville” in 1842.
Then in 1846 came the arrival of Porter family members, founding their village
called “Waucoma” right next door, with both villages along the Bad Fish Creek
(so named by American land surveyors), otherwise known as “Waucoma Creek” (so
named by Native Americans). Both villages would soon be located in the Town of
Porter, so re-named in 1847 (previously named “Oak”) as Rock County got re-organized
by the Territorial government.
Palmer praises the talented pioneers. Their accomplishments
transformed the prairie landscape of oak-openings into hewn wood beams and converted
the flowing creek waters into powered saws for lumber to build the sturdy Cooksville
homes and barns. And the early settlers also shaped the local clay into kiln-fired
bricks for beautiful vermilion-colored brick homes, designed by themselves in simplified
Greek Revival and Gothic Revival styles of architecture. And, of course, the talented
settlers became skilled farmers as they and their children plowed the rich soil
and planted the grains, vegetables and fruits that grew so plentifully they
could feed them to their animals as well as to their growing families.
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| Benjamin Hoxie |
One of the early settlers’ sons, Benjamin Hoxie (1827-1901),
who came with his family from Maine, is described by Palmer:
“Benjamin Hoxie was an amazing man.
Although he had little formal education, he was exceptionally well-read. By
trade a carpenter and self-taught architect, he designed and built a number of
Cooksville’s houses, among them his own, a striking example of American Gothic
style. He also designed and built the Congregational Church in Cooksville, as
well as numerous homes, schools and churches in Evansville, Albany, Stoughton,
and Edgerton. Besides the building, which he did, Benjamin Hoxie established
Cooksville’s first cheese factory, patented a bee hive, was a constant
propagandist for dairy farming as the key to Wisconsin’s agricultural future,
was a notable experimenter in horticulture, and has a considerable interest in
spiritualism.”
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| Cooksville Congregational Church (1879) |
Palmer reports that when the railroad companies by-passed
many villages in the 1850s, as they did the Village of Cooksville-Waucoma,
those villages tended to quickly disappear. But not the two-fisted, strong-willed,
two-named little Cooksville-Waucoma, which survived the fatal blow of a railroad-bypassing.
(“Cooksville” became the accepted village name when the last local Post Office,
discontinued in the early 1900s, was located on the Cooksville side of the
dividing line of Main Street between the two communities.)
Palmer writes about
the consequences of towns without railroads, but adds:
“In Cooksville, however, although the
blow might have been painful, it was by no means immediately fatal….
Cooksville’s population remained about the same. People were absorbed in the
literary society, church activities, the Unity Society, the temperance
organization, singing schools and elocution contests, and regular meetings of
the Grange. In short, railroad or no railroad, Cooksville was too busy living
to die.”
But the village did not thrive.
“By the late 1880’s, however,
Cooksville was definitely on the wane. Many of the old Yankee settlers were
dead. And their sons and daughters had left to follow the frontier to new land
in the West. It was about this time that the first Norwegian Lutheran Church
was established in 1892, and its lutefisk suppers became an attraction for the
whole countryside. The industrious Norwegian element proved to be a bright
strand in the closely knit village.”
The first Norwegian Lutheran Church, 1892-1896
Like most writers about Cooksville, Palmer introduces the
famous Ralph Lorenzo Warner into her story:
“When Ralph Warner settled in
Cooksville [in 1911] it was all but a
ghost town… However, Ralph Warner had a certain instinct for old things… he
began collecting furnishings of the correct period to go with his house [Duncan House, 1848]. His taste… made him
one of the earliest and best antique collectors in a day when you could visit
any farm house and buy a wagon load of ‘that old junk’ for three dollars….
"House Next Door" parlor
"Warner
was, also, an extremely successful gardener… It didn’t take long for word of
his artistic restoration to spread, and many who heard of it wanted to see The House
Next Door for themselves… For over
twenty years, until Ralph Warner suffered a stroke in the early 1930’s,
Cooksville was a mecca for people who enjoyed beautiful things.
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| Ralph's dining room |
"The influence Ralph Warner had on
Cooksville was, and still is, far reaching. This forgotten hamlet remains
unspoiled, largely because of the precedent he established. Even today,
Cooksville lives on, unique, lovely, and secure in its quiet charm—the town
that time forgot.”
Fifty-four years later, Virginia Palmer’s tale of Cooksville,
with five photos and a map to guide her Wisconsin
Tales and Trails readers, still serves those who seek a trail (or Hwy 59 or 138)
to a special part of Wisconsin’s early history.
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| Map of Cooksville, 1955, by Dorothy Kramer |
The Cooksville Historic District is listed in the National
Register of Historic Places, the State Register of Historic Places, and is a
designated Town of Porter Historic District in Rock County.
Booklets for a self-guided tour of the historic village—“Historic Cooksville: A Guide”—are
available at the historic Cooksville Country Store, the oldest operating
General Store in Wisconsin.
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[The Cooksville Archives, maintained by the
Historic Cooksville Trust, Inc.,
welcomes additions and donations. Larry Reed (608) 873-5066.]
