| White Settlers Arrive in Sauk County The section of land that would eventually become Sauk County in South Central Wisconsin, was claimed by Governor DeMont around the year 1603. The Council for New England accepted the territory in a grant in 1620 and the Massachusetts Bay Colony set claim to the area in 1629.
The French claimed and colonized it until they relinquished it to the British in 1763. The land was next annexed to Canada in the Quebec Act of 1774. It again became American territory through the Treaty of Paris in 1783 and was then claimed by both Massachusetts and Virginia.
In order that boundaries could be established for settlement the Federal Government surveyed the state from 1832 to 1865. Wisconsin was divided into a grid consisting of 1,554 townships, each six miles square. Each township was also subdivided into four quarter sections of 160 acres.
These were further divided into quarter-quarter sections of 40 acres, a common unit of farm size in those days.
General Land Offices were located at Milwaukee, Mineral Point and Muscoda. Here settlers came to buy land from the United States Department of Interior.
The county of Sauk was surveyed in the year 1844.
Sauk County became part of the Old Northwestern Territory when Virginia ceded its claim in 1784 and Massachusetts hers in 1785. Indiana then claimed it in 1789, Illinois in 1810, Michigan in 1820 and finally it became a part of Wisconsin Territory in 1836.
The Territorial Legislature of Wisconsin, in 1840, passed an act to establish Sauk County and define its limits.
On May 29, 1848, Wisconsin became the 30th state to join the Union and the Northwestern Territory was officially declared a part of the new state of Wisconsin.
The County Commissioners finally approved the act to establish the boundaries of Sauk County in 1849 and established six townships therein (see map). The new towns were called Honey Creek, Prairie du Sac, Eagle, Brooklyn, Kingston and Baraboo. The present boundaries of the townships in Sauk County are also shown on the map. |
