Origin

Preliminary reference to the early settlement and progress of Potosi Village must necessarily be made to the town of which the village is today the prime factor. The town of Potosi is bounded on the north by Lancaster, on the east by the town of Harrison and Paris, on the south by the Mississippi River, and west, partly by that highway, and partly by Waterloo. It is centrally located in Grant County, with an area comprising 34,109 acres, of an assessed valuation, in 1880, of $362,887.

Section 34 upon which the village is located was donated by an act of Congress, approved June 15, 1844, to the State for the purpose of improving Grant River. This was further provided for by subsequent legislation, and Nelson Dewey, Henry L. Massey, and James E. Freeman were appointed commissioners to survey the same. The survey was completed by James E. Freeman and Henry L. Wiltse (the latter subsequently becoming Surveyor General in the land office at Dubuque), the subdivision appropriated into in- and out-lots, the former containing two and one-half acres each, while the latter were each sixty-six feet front, by 120 feet deep. The survey was completed and filed in the office of the Register of Deeds of Grant County June 19, 1845, and deeds issued to purchasers by Governor Henry Dodge, attested by John Catlin, Secretary of State, the proceeds being used in the construction of a canal from the Mississippi to the Grant River. The work has remained uncompleted, however, owing to the exhaustion of the fund, and has never been of much practical utility to the town, save for tugs and woodboats, and some other purposes during high water.

The lower part of the village, comprising the section where on Hail's Brewery is now situated, called Van Buren, with LaFayette still southward on the left bank of Grant River, previous to the building up of Potosi proper, were the principal business portions of the town. The former place is known as the "Van Buren Entry," having been originally entered by Joseph Wooley and Robert Templeton prior to 1849. It was reserved from sale for a time by the Government on account of being mineral lands; but as the story goes, witnesses were hired to go to it blindfolded, then taken to the land-office and sworn that they had been all over the ground and could see no mineral. This may or may not be true, but the sections were never of any great moment as mining ground and the Government lost nothing in the sale of these rough and broken points.

The surface of the town, it may be said, is mostly of a rough, broken character, being traversed by many deep ravines or hollows, which debouch into the valleys of the Grant and Platte Rivers. The best arable land constitutes the southern part of Boice Prairie. -The soil is a rich, gray loam, well adapted to the growth of corn, as also the principal cereals, and being embedded upon a substratum of clay, retains its moisture for a great length of time in dry seasons. Along the bluffs of the Mississippi, and upon the farms which reach out to the borders of Grant and Platte Rivers, a new industry is rapidly obtaining in the cultivation of the grape; and wine of native manufacture bids fair to take the place of New England hard cider and beer of Bavarian hops.

The earliest settlement is believed to have taken place a brief space of time anterior to the Black Hawk War. Those who came in those days were men of heroic mold, and stood out from the common race of mortals like the inscription over the door of John Knox's residence at Netherbow. Some came into this section before the war.

Cast ashore froth Pleasure's bolstering surge, and left to rot and molder in the winds and rains of heaven."

But all who came and went out from the mines were not failures. Many succeeded in business beyond their most sanguine expectations, and others arose from the humble occupation of mining to fill the most responsible and exalted positions in the land. Many were in affluent circumstances and from the first ranks of society, and came here for the purpose of extending their businesses and adding to their wealth. In early days, as all are aware, before the cry of war and blood rang out upon the frontier scenes of this yet undeveloped territory, the surveyors surveying in Wisconsin discovered lead on a branch about two miles from the Mississippi River where Potosi is located. The excitement in Galena was then great for what was called a new discovery, and a party that had got acquainted started at once for the new El Dorado. Of the party was Sam Druen, as good a fellow as one ever knew, subsequently rich and living at Beetown. Druen's case fully illustrated that a stone lying still will gather moss, and no man is worthier than Sam to have moss all over him of the richest kind.