CLIFTON TOWNSHIP HISTORY

To 1860
The first settlers in what was the southern half of St. Croix County near the confluence of the Mississippi and St. Croix rivers arrived five to 10 years before Clifton Township was established. What was to become the City of Prescott was a steamboat stop for anyone wanting to head into the interior of the county or up the St. Croix north to Hudson, Willow River and St. Croix Falls. The land that would become western Pierce County in 1853 was partially timbered and partially oak savanna with grasslands that appeared to cover fertile soil.

Those settlers who wanted to stay within walking distance of the steamboat landing tended to make claims on land to the northeast along what was a well used trail soon to be known as the Prescott-Hudson road (now County Road F). A number of farmers who settled close to Prescott always identified with that community, while those traveling farther north settled near the Kinnickinnic River gorge and became part of Clifton Township’s only village.

1850 was the watershed year for arrivals in and around the Kinnickinnic River gorge. The principal attraction was the stream’s water power potential. Charles B. Cox, with the help of other settlers such as James M. Bailey, built a sawmill there that proved to be successful in providing building lumber for area farms. A grist mill, known as the Pioneer Mill, followed, as well as a post office named Clifton Mills, established in 1855 with Isaak N. Holden as postmaster. The origin of the name “Clifton” is unknown, but one popular explanation is that it began as “Cliff Town,” an apt description of the little cluster of buildings situated along the northern limestone bluffs of the gorge. The name eventually changed to Clifton Hollow.

On March 3, 1857, four years after the establishment of Pierce County, residents living north and northeast of Prescott, regardless of their village alliances, petitioned the county clerk for the right to create a township separate from Prescott Township (formerly Elizabeth), one to be named Clifton. The separation was granted and the township's boundaries designated. The first Clifton town board was made up of Chairman George W. McMurphy (McMurphey), G. W. Teachout and Osborne Strahl. The former two remained farmers in Clifton all of their lives.

Clifton Hollow remained a primary grain milling site for pioneer farmers from Clifton, Oak Grove Township, the village of Prescott, and eastern Minnesota until flooding destroyed the mills and dams one too many times and grist mills built within 10 or 15 miles made rebuilding a losing proposition. During the early years, the gorge was noted for its plethora of Timber rattlesnakes, which were promptly killed, despite causing no apparent great harm to anyone.

1861 – 1865
The onset of the Civil War created problems for farmers in Pierce County because of depletion of labor. Yet, Clifton Township met its quotas of volunteers through enlistment of residents and recruits who were paid a bounty to replace actual residents. James M. Bailey, a Clifton farmer and Prescott businessman, was deeply involved in recruitment. At least 120 soldiers are known to have mustered in with Clifton listed as their place of residence.

Of those known to serve, regiment assignments were to the Wisconsin Light Artillery, 1st Wisconsin Heavy Artillery, the 3rd 6th, 7th , 10th, 11th, 12th ,16th, 17th, 18th , 20th , 23rd, 25th. 26th. 30th. 32nd, 36th. 37th. 38th, 42nd, 44th, 47th, 49th, 50th, 51st, and 53rd Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, and Unassigned Colored Troops.

Losses were relatively high for so few recruits. The wounded were:

• Sgt. William C. Brown and Cpl. Frank W. Bashford, Company F, 3rd Wisconsin.
• Cpl. John W. Winn, Company B, 6th Wisconsin.
• Cpl. Nathaniel Johnson, Francis Kerney, and Jasper Randolph, Company H, 7th Wisconsin.
• Erastus S. Lester, Company A, 12th Wisconsin.
• Charles C. Coates, Company C, James R. Hudson, Company E, 25th Wisconsin.
• Henry Segrist, Company C, 26th Wisconsin.
• Joseph A. Rollins, Company A, 37th Wisconsin.
• Hans B. Warner, Company G, 37th Wisconsin.
• Cpl. Joseph M. Sargent, Company B, 38th Wisconsin.

Those who were not able to return home were:

• Thomas M. Alverson, Company B, 6th Wisconsin; died of wounds received at Laurel Hills, Virginia,
• William D. Hancock, Company K, 6th Wisconsin; shot by a Confederate guard at Salisbury, North Carolina, after being wounded at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and imprisoned at Petersburg, Virginia.
• James Bishop and Company H, 7th Wisconsin; died in the battle of the Wilderness.
• Lucius Eastman, Company H, 7th Wisconsin; died at Gainsville, Virginia.
• Marcus L. Gleason, Company F, 10th Wisconsin; killed in action at Chaplin Hills, Kentucky.
• Josiah B. Rogers, Company A, 12th Wisconsin; died of wounds suffered at the battle of Kenesaw, Pennsylvania.
• Charles N. Plummer, Company F, 18th Wisconsin; died of wounds suffered in the battle of Corinth, Missouri.
• John E. Greenhaigh, Company G, 37th Wisconsin; died in an early battle at Petersburg, Virginia.
• Charles H. Churchill, Company I, 38th Wisconsin; died during an early battle at Petersburg, Virginia.
• David Davis, 50th Wisconsin; lost on the prairie during a hunting expedition outside Fort Rice, Dakota Territory. Thought to be captured and killed by renegade Lakota.

Eight men who died of disease while on duty were:

• Lemuel Eastman, Company F, 20th Wisconsin, in hospital at Springfield, Missouri.
• Leander D. Davis, Company A: 12th Wisconsin, at Memphis, Tennessee.
• Frederick Mero, Company D, 25th Wisconsin, on Hospital Boat, buried Helena, Arkansas.
• Francis Holgate, Company D, 25th Wisconsin, at Snyder's Bluff, Mississippi.
• George W. Currier, Company A, 30th Wisconsin, at Bowling Green, Kentucky.
• Nelson M. West, Company F, 30th Wisconsin, in hospital at Madison, Wisconsin.
• Gardner L Gordon, Company A, 37th Wisconsin, City Point, Virginia.
• Henry Taylor, Company E, 38th Wisconsin. at Willett's Point, New York.

A census of Civil War veterans taken in 1880 listed only John Burnett, John Caruthers, Joseph Copp, Stephen Clark, George Bascomb, John Colby, Edward Miller and J. Russell living in the township.

1865 - 1900
By the end of the Civil War, most early residents of Clifton Hollow had vacated the settlement, while new arrivals took over the vicinity. No other communities sprang up in the township despite the St. Croix River being its western boundary and the mouth of the Kinnickinnic River offering potential steamboat stops. Decent roads and access to the amenities of the cities of Prescott and Hudson possibly made further settlement in the Hollow unnecessary. Before 1900, two churches and four rural schoolhouses were built, but the Wisconsin state census of 1895 showed only 118 heads of household residing in the entire township. Clifton remained strictly agricultural for the rest of the century.

Four township rural schoolhouses— Angel Hill, Bailey, Pierce Valley, and Clifton Hollow—were operating to capacity in 1900. These buildings served as public halls for social events and voting places. Clifton Hollow was used by local lodges of the Good Templars, a fraternal type temperance organization that formed in the 1870s. Only two township churches, one Methodist Episcopal and the other Lutheran, served the township’s resident population, possibly because churches in Prescott and River Falls were within driving distance for residents in the eastern and southern parts of the township.

Milling, both saw and grist, continued along the Kinnickinnic despite breaches in the mill dams and periodic floods. When water levels in the “Kinni” were high, small steamboats chugged from the St. Croix to the mill and docked there. Besides the mill in Clifton Hollow, a second grist mill was built in early years about 2 ½ miles upstream by James or Henry King and S. V. Goodell. Known as Dayton Mills for millers Simon and Hiram Dayton, it was owned by Potter, Walterhouse & Co. by 1877 and produced flour. It was no longer operating by 1895. The Clifton Flouring Mill in the Hollow was operated by O.D. Webb in 1877. A great flood in 1898 took out most of the houses in Clifton Hollow, which typically numbered less than ten, and the mill in the gorge. Nicholas Kohl, who had been operating the mill for Jud Knight since 1893, rebuilt it until it was again destroyed after the turn of the 20th century.

A major transition in farming occurred throughout Pierce County in the 1890s, when the primary grain crop, wheat, became vulnerable to disease and pests and the market for rye diminished. Agricultural land use for Clifton in 1896 and 1907 illustrates the transition that occurred. The number of acres planted in barley increased from 1,880 to 2,757, in corn, from none to 3,138, in flax, from 98 to 1,165, and in oats, from 2,571 to 4,476, while acres in rye decreased from 1,077 to 100, and in wheat, from 2,332 to 231. Numbers of cattle grew from 282 to 1,544. (Source: A. B. Eaton's History of The St. Croix Valley; 1909).