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The village of Friendship was founded in 1857 when a group of settlers from western New York\u2014led by a man named Luther Stowell\u2014Purchased eighty acres adjacent to a little waterfall on the Roche-A-Cri.\u00a0 Stowell platted a village and named it in honor of his hometown in Allegheny County, New York\u2014Friendship.<\/p>\n
It was not the first village on the site.\u00a0 Native Americans kept hunting camps along the creek and we have one account of a group of runaway slaves living in cabins on the creek in the early 1850s.\u00a0 No trace of these earlier settlements has been found.<\/p>\n
The New Yorkers knew the creek could be dammed and a pond created whose water would run a gristmill that would bring farmers to the place to trade.\u00a0 And they built the<\/p>\n
first dam that very year.\u00a0 So this is also the sesquicentennial of Roche-A-Cri Lake, or \u201cthe pond\u201d as some of us know it.<\/p>\n
They also built the first building in the village.\u00a0 It was a rooming house that stood on the hill above the dam that was later expanded and became known as the Atcherson House Hotel.\u00a0 It survived until it was destroyed by fire in 1912.\u00a0 A few years later, George Polivka built the brick bungalow that stands there today.<\/p>\n
After the mill was built, other businesses and tradesmen were sure to follow and village life began.\u00a0 Other pioneers in Adams County had the same idea and villages were also built on mill sites at White Creek, Easton, \u00a0Arkdale, Preston and Fordham.<\/p>\n
Stowell and his partners looked for a way to boost their village past its rivals\u2014so they turned to politics.<\/p>\n
The government of Adams County was organized in 1853 and, since Adams County included what is now Juneau County as well, the county seat was established near the river in the Town of Quincy.\u00a0 The county board met in a rented building located where Carlson\u2019s Rustic Ridge restaurant is today.\u00a0 In early 1857, Juneau County was split off from Adams so Quincy was no longer in the center, as county seats usually are.<\/p>\n
The Friendship folks saw an opportunity to promote their village.\u00a0 Stowell and forty-two other investors incorporated the Adams County Building Company.\u00a0 They promised the county board to give the land where we are standing today to the county for use as a public square and to erect a building on it that would provide a court room and office space for county officials.\u00a0 That is\u2014if the county government agreed to move the county seat from Quincy to Friendship.<\/p>\n
The county board submitted the question to the voters in November 1858 and they voted in favor of moving the county seat.\u00a0 A year later the new courthouse was completed and the county records transferred to the new building.\u00a0 With the mill and the county seat, Friendship was on its way.<\/p>\n
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By 1876, the village had four general stores, the hotel, the post office, a wagon maker, two blacksmiths, a cabinetmaker, a newspaper and three attorneys.\u00a0 No bank, no doctor, no saloon.\u00a0 The biggest social event of the year was the county fair, which has been held out at the fairgrounds since 1859.\u00a0 The courthouse lawn, which was fenced to keep out stray livestock, was the village park where kids played baseball and families picnicked.<\/p>\n
The first village school occupied a single room and stood on Lake Street near the present day entrance to Friendship Park.\u00a0 It was replace by a two-room building on First and Superior where the first high school classes were held in 1887.\u00a0 The only church in town for many years was the Congregational Church whose 140th<\/sup> anniversary we are also celebrating this weekend, but they shared their facilities with the Methodist Episcopals.\u00a0 The Catholic church, whose new building we are also celebrating today, began in 1884 as St. Leo\u2019s parish in a small frame building still standing on West Street.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The population of the village throughout the remainder of the 19th<\/sup> century, which had yet to incorporate its own government, was about 250.\u00a0 The leading citizen was Solon Pierce, a Civil War veteran, and the first Adams County author to publish a book.\u00a0 He also ran the newspaper and practiced law.<\/p>\n Friendship was a quiet place in the 1880s.\u00a0 Pierce said that Adams County was so law-abiding that, except to visit with local attorneys, there was no reason for the circuit judge to come to town.\u00a0 The county supervisors did not get around to building a jail and any lawbreakers the sheriff could not keep at his home were chained to a tree on the lawn here until could be transported to the jail in Portage.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n In addition to not having a jail, Friendship was known as the only county seat in Wisconsin not to be on a railroad.\u00a0 In fact, by 1900 Adams was the only county in the state not to have a railroad.\u00a0 Railroad fever rose and fell.\u00a0 In the 1890s, folks were so sure the railroad was going to come that real estate developers platted the lots on the west side of West Street and drew in space for the tracks.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t happen and the fever subsided for a few years.<\/p>\n In the meantime, the people of the village decided that they should have their own local government.\u00a0 The village was officially chartered in the spring of 1907.\u00a0 That centennial is another one of the historical events we are celebrating this weekend.\u00a0 Among its early actions, the village board hired a street commissioner to fill the potholes on Belfast Street, as Main Street was then known, and investigated the cost of erecting kerosene-burning street lamps.\u00a0 They also granted the first village saloon license and\u2014maybe these are connected\u2014built the first jail in Adams County.\u00a0 It was a small frame building with barred windows and a padlock on the door that sat on the lawn not far from where we are standing.<\/p>\n Railroad fever struck again in 1908 with talk of no fewer than five railroads about to come to Friendship.\u00a0 None of them made it, of course.\u00a0 The closest was the Chicago and North Western, which bypassed the village and built its depot about one mile south in 1910.\u00a0 Ever since, the story has been told that when the North Western tried to buy land to run into Friendship, local property owners demanded outrageous prices and the railroad veered away.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n A new cluster of homes and businesses sprang up along the tracks and real estate developers Frank McConnick and Theodore Werner platted a large subdivision they called \u201cthe railroad addition to Friendship.\u201d\u00a0 Like Luther Stowell, they offered land to the county to build a new courthouse there, believing that it was only a matter of time before the village of Friendship annexed all the property between it and the railroad.\u00a0 They were wrong.<\/p>\n The village board did not act on the annexation.\u00a0 In 1912, the people living near the tracks, tired of waiting for the township to build a much-needed school for their children, organized the village of Adams.\u00a0 By 1915 it had 1500 people, about three times as many as Friendship.<\/p>\n So the community of Adams-Friendship was born: one community, two local governments.\u00a0 Those of us who grew up in the years since, remember the rivalry: sometimes serious, usually not.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Friendship developed without the railroad. In 1913, the county board voted to build a new courthouse to replace Luther Stowell\u2019s building and build it on this same spot.\u00a0 This time they built a jail\u2014in the basement.\u00a0 That courthouse has since been swallowed by the additions around, including the jail.\u00a0 About the same time, Frank<\/p>\n Wrchota built the famous Friendship Hotel and the Bohemians started on their hall, which soon became the hottest nightspot in the county.<\/p>\n In 1914, George Polivka improved the dam on Friendship Pond, rebuilt the powerhouse and brought the wonder of electricity to Friendship and to Adams.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Progress continued.\u00a0 Belfast Street became known as Main Street.\u00a0 It was paved and extended beyond the McGowan house where it had dead-ended to link up with the new Highway 13 up from Adams.\u00a0 In the 1930s, with help from President Roosevelt, the village established a water and sewer system.\u00a0 In the 1940s, like the rest of the county, Friendship sent its sons and daughters off to war.\u00a0 That\u2019s when families and friends built a signboard bearing the names of all those in service and mounted it on the lawn right out there near the street.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n After the war, those of us who returned hoped to build a better community.\u00a0 We built an athletic field at the fairgrounds and then mounted lights so we could have nighttime baseball and football games.\u00a0 Later, we took advantage of the sheriff\u2019s new radio tower and raised money to erect the first lighted star on Friendship Mound.<\/p>\n The biggest thing that happened in the 1950s and for many years after was the campaign to build a new modern hospital.\u00a0 Our centennial celebration in 1957 showed a profit, all of which was donated to the hospital.\u00a0 It was probably the most successful fund-raising campaign in Adams County history.<\/p>\n In the years since, we have continued to progress.\u00a0 Friendship is the headquarters of the Adams Columbia Electric Cooperative, the largest rural electric cooperative in Wisconsin.\u00a0 We have a modern fire station and village hall.\u00a0 The McGowan house restoration has given us a fine museum where the Historical Society displays our past.\u00a0 The hospital we were so proud of fifty years ago has expanded several times and we are just as proud of it today.<\/p>\n Friendship is 150 years old and has more than 150 reasons to celebrate.<\/p>\n ________________<\/p>\n NOTES:<\/p>\n This article previously appeared in the Summer 2007 edition of the Adams County Historical Society\u2019s newsletter The Quatrefoil.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>Since this article first appeared a comprehensive history of Friendship titled Friendship Wisconsin \u2013 A History <\/em>by Dennis McFarlin\u00a0has been published in two volumes<\/span>.\u00a0 The book is available from the Adams County Historical Society\u2019s Heritage Book & Gift shop in Friendship.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Capsule History of Friendship On the occasion of the Friendship 2007 Sesquicentennial \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Note: \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Attorney Donald Hollman shared the following Friendship history for the Friendship Sesquicentennial celebration … Continue reading A Time of Stability<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Railroad Fever!<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Splitsville<\/strong><\/h4>\n
So Who Needs a Railroad Anyway?<\/strong><\/h4>\n
No Place Like Home<\/strong><\/h4>\n