Grant County Place Names: J-L

Jamestown. James Boyce discovered lead ore here in 1827, and when prospectors moved in, the post office of Centerville was established. The settlement was abandoned within a few years due to the cheap price of lead ore, and the post office was moved to another location. When the community began to grow again the new post office was named Jamestown after James Gillmore, the postmaster.

Kelly. A settlement named after Valentine Kelly. [Likely Wrong County]

Kieler. George Kieler came from Germany in 1857. He was a shoemaker by trade and continued to make shoes in the small general store he built there. The post office was given his name.

Kimball Park. Mr. Kimball, who lived here at one time, is said to have had four wives and twenty-one children.

Lancaster. The town was first settled in 1828 and was platted in 1837 by Major G. M. Price, who proposed the name of Ridgeway. A relative who had emigrated from Lancaster, Pennsylvania induced him to adopt this name.

Lightcap’s Mill. Mr. Lightcap’s stone mill is one of the most extensive establishments of its kind in Grant County. It was started in 1847 and took a year to build.

Lima. The township is said to have first been known as Head of Little Platt. It was named Lima because of the lime kilns located there.

Livingston.  Irish people settling in this locality called it Dublin.  The railroad built from Galena to Montfort Junction passed through the settlement in 1878.  It is said that Mr. Hugh Livingston was so glad to have the railroad that he gladly gave his farmland for the roadbed.  He said it would do the people more good to have a railroad than for him to have one thousand acres for a farm.  He then sold lots to build the village.  Mr. Thomas Watson is said to have suggested it be named after Mr. Livingston.

Long Range.  There is a very large lode of lead that ran from Cuba City to Potosi, later known as Mud Range.  It contained a great quantity of mud that handicapped the mining, but it was one of the most fought-over ranges in this area.  [Long Prairie along Hwy. 18]

Louisburg.  In 1850 people began a settlement known as Puckerville.  In 1881 the town was known as Lewisburg after the last minister who preached in the little Methodist Episcopal Church, a Reverend T. J. Lewis.  Another account states it was named after Lewis Curtis, an early pioneer who came in 1827.  By 1900 the early settlements of Jamestown, North Jamestown, and South Jamestown or Puckerville all joined together as Louisberg, but there is no explanation why the spelling of the name was changed.

Martinville.  A Martin family resided in the area.

Millville.  Another settlement that originated from the lumbering industry.  [Not true—named for mills along creek]

Montfort.  In 1827 Richard H. Palmer followed an Indian trail into this area and stopped in a ravine to look for water.  He found a spring and a stream, and also pieces of lead that had been brought to the surface by badgers digging in the hillside.  The location was called Wingville after Marlin Burton caught a pheasant with his hands.  It was also called Podunk for a time.

Mt. Hope.  The story is that prior to 1875, when the legislature passed a law permitting the establishment of high schools by cities and villages, it was the desire of every community to attract an academy as an institution of higher learning.  This village was no exception, and the residents “hoped” so hard and to such good purpose that the Mt. Hope Academy did materialize.  It was located on a small hill or rise.

Muscoda.  The journal of Lieutenant James Gorrell, the first English commandant at Green Bay after the French and Indian War, records under June 14, 1763: “The traders came down from the Sack (Sauk) country, and confirmed the news of Lansing and his son being killed by the French.”

When all the Sauks and Foxes had arrived at Green Bay a few days later, they told Gorrell their people were all in tears “for the loss of two English traders who were killed by the French in their lands, and begged leave to cut them (the French) in pieces.”

In 1817 the journal of Willard Keyes, a young New Englander traveling with a party down the Wisconsin River, records: “Passed a place called English Meadow from an English trader and his son, said to have been murdered there by the savages, twenty leagues to Prairie du Chien.”

Thus the site came to be called English Prairie, or English Meadow, from a gruesome crime committed in the early days of exploration and settlement.  The post office was named Muscoda in 1843.  The word is said to be a corruption of Mash-ko-deng, the Indian word for “meadow” or “prairie.”  A tribe of Indians called the Mascouten or Prairie Indians lived in the Upper Fox River Valley.

The spelling and pronunciation is said to come from Longfellow’s Hiawatha:

And Nokomis fell affrighted
Downward through the evening twilight
On the muskoday, the meadow
On the prairie full of blooms.