Martintown

The life story of Nathaniel Martin and Hannah Strader is, in some ways, the story of the place they lived from 1850 onward -- the village of Martin, later to be called Martintown, which Nathaniel founded. Nathaniel owned and operated the sawmill and grist mill that were the economic heart of the community for the second half of the 19th Century. (Though not the geographic heart, as the mills were on the north side of the river. The majority of the town, including all the other businesses except the quarry, were on the other bank.) He was the major landowner. He established the community church. He left his bones in a cemetery that overlooked the mills, bridge, and main street. He was Martintown.

Martintown could be said to have had three births. First came the initial settlement in 1850. At that point, the place was little more than a crossroads or manor holding, consisting of the Martin home, the sawmill, and a handful of other residences. The second birth came at the end of the 1860s. Nathaniel platted the community in 1868, defining streets and blocks that still exist today, and the following year saw the opening of several retail establishments. (One source says the platting was actually accomplished in 1869.) While other significant development had occurred during the intervening years -- the completion of the flour mill in 1854, the construction of the bridge in 1856, the opening of a post office in 1865 -- the 1868/69 surge of expansion meant the village now had a semblance of a downtown, though its length could be walked in a minute or so. The third birth came with the arrival of railroad service and the erection of an Illinois Central Railroad depot in 1888. The depot was given the designation Martintown rather than Martin. Somewhat surprisingly, the locals embraced the change. Once the post office was renamed Martintown on the first of June, 1892, there was no going back.

This page collects some pictures of Martintown and vicinity. Many date from the period between 1888 and 1905, when Martintown enjoyed its prime. At that point, in addition to dozens of family residences, the village included the mills, the church, the railroad depot, a cheese factory (which doubled as a creamery), an elementary school, an undertaker’s parlor, two general merchandise stores -- the post office was operated out of one of these -- and various shops including those of a wagon maker, a blacksmith, and a cabinet maker. At the left is a platt map from 1891. This is very much like the original platt map of 1868, but includes details of the community added later, such as the depot and rail line added only three years before this version was published. The bridge shown here no longer exists. It was torn down, along with the mills, when County M Road was modernized in the middle of the Twentieth Century. County M Road now does not make the “L” bend shown at the top of the map; now it continues straight across the river and climbs the hill just west of the church to join the road to Winslow, a fragment of which you can see at the bottom of the map. The new road wiped out structures and streets in the lower left portion of the original town. Elsewhere -- especially along Bridge Street, the original main street of the village -- many of the business were never rebuilt after being lost to fires or floods, and others fell victim to delapidation over the long stretch of years. However, to this day the grid pattern shown here lingers and a sense of old Martintown remains. The cheese factory, once owned and operated by Nathaniel’s grandson-in-law Alie Spece, is now a house. So is the old Martin school (not shown here -- it was a little to the west). Even the old train depot is now a residence, though it was at some point moved to closer to the corner of Bridge Street and the river than is shown here. The community is no longer as dense as it was in the 1890s, with many vacant lots. There is no post office anymore; the last delivery of mail occurred 30 September 1938. Today all residents on the Wisconsin side of the line get their mail from the Browntown post office, and technically have Browntown addresses even if they live dead center in what used to be Martintown. (A small number of residents live in the part of the town that is in Illinois; these people have Winslow addresses.) The only public building that still is a public building is the church. Newer homes added off to the east keep the population about the same as it was in the glory days, which is about two to three hundred people. The modern denizens include descendants of Nathaniel and Hannah.

Looking north, this view, probably taken in the 1890s or early 1900s, shows Nathaniel’s stomping grounds as they looked during his lifetime. Note the rock dam across the Pecatonica River, piling up the water to operate the sawmill and grist mill -- the largest buildings shown. The white house immediately upslope from the dam is the residence of Hannah and Nathaniel. Along the hilltop above the mills is the family cemetery, though it is almost impossible to make out the tombstones in this photo, particularly at the somewhat low resolution used for internet purposes. The large building on the hillside is a horse barn, the slightly smaller but similar structure is a cow barn. The house just below the cow barn, mostly hidden behind trees, is the home of Horatio Woodman Martin and his family. The other house to the right, also somewhat hidden in foliage, is the home of Emma Ann Martin and Cullen Penny Brown, though at the time the picture was taken the couple and their younger children were usually to be found in Arkansas and the main occupants were Emma’s daughter Lena, husband Frank Opal Hastings, and their kids. Martintown itself is out of view to the right of where the photographer set up his camera. Today very little of what is shown here still exists. The bridge, rock dam, mills, and railroad tracks were removed decades ago. However, the foundations of the three houses have been preserved as the basement level of new residences. The cemetery also still exists, though it ceased to be used as a burial site -- with one exception -- after Hannah passed away in 1919.

This view was taken from within the town itself, again facing the river. (You can see the building on the upper left is the horse barn that appears in the upper center of the first picture.) This is the “bent” part of Bridge Street, the original main street. The bridge itself is here, but is mostly obscured behind the flag. The depot is just out of sight to the left. The utilitarian building right on the track, mostly out of view to the right, was the coal house. The mills are out of frame to the left. The poles and strung lines are for the depot’s telegraph service; at this time the town did not have electrical power. The scene shows a number of vacant lots; this undoubtedly reflects structures lost in fires -- one such fire consumed much of the business core of the village. This photo must have been taken around 1902 to 1905, because the little girl in the white dress is surely Nathaniel and Hannah’s youngest granddaughter Vivian Blanche Martin, who appears to be about the same age as in the photograph displayed on her father Horatio Woodman Martin’s page (click here) of family and neighbors in the town’s limestone quarry, which is known to have been taken in 1904 or 1905. Here four people have been identified so far. Vivian is one. The woman in the street (her dress blends in with the background, so look closely) is Laura Hart Martin, wife of Horatio. The mustachioed man on the tracks in front of the group that includes Vivian and Laura must be Horatio himself. Two figures to the left of Horatio is John Warner, the husband of Eleanor Amelia “Nellie” Martin.

This image was used for a postcard. It captures the Martintown mills in the deep of winter. The Pecatonica River is nearly frozen over. With the foliage of the trees absent it is much more apparent that the mills consisted of three large buildings, not two as it seems in the top picture.

This is a concept sketch of a woolen mill that Nathaniel intended to add to the mill complex. The scheme may have been the brainchild of his son Horatio and/or one of his sons-in-law such as Jacob Hodge and/or Cullen Penny Brown, because the project was in the planning stages in the 1870s, just at the time when this younger generation was looking for new ways to create income-producing ventures. The 1884 History of Green County, Wisconsin contains this line: “The village of Martin ... in the summer of 1876, had within its limits twelve families, a store and post-office, N. Martin’s mills, including an unfinished woolen mill, and Haase’s furniture factory.” As near as can be determined now, the woolen mill never was completed. The shell of the building may have been erected -- it may be the third structure shown in the winter scene above -- but if so, it was apparently never outfitted with looms and other equipment, nor staffed with employees. (Instead, it would have become warehouse space.) No references to a working woolen mill belonging to Nathaniel Martin have turned up so far. By contrast, many sources refer to the on-going sawmill and grist mill operations. Therefore it is safe to say the plan was never put into practice as intended. In the same paragraph that contains the quoted sentence, the historian referred to the formation of the Lone Rock, Dodgeville, and Freeport Railway Company, whose primary purpose would be to erect a rail line from Freeport, IL through the Pecatonica Valley into Lafayette County, WI. This would have provided the village of Martin with its first rail service. It was probably critical to the woolen mill project that trains be available to ship raw material in and finished goods out. But the rail project failed at that time. It was not until 1888 that Martintown obtained a rail connection. By then, the woolen mill project seems to have been aborted.

When the Pecatonica froze completely, the ice could get quite thick. Ice skating was popular at such times. A family tale tells of an occasion in the 1890s or early 1900s when Nathaniel’s grandson Bert Warner and grandson-in-law Fred Philo Hastings skated all the way from Martintown to Scioto Mills, a distance of some ten miles. Here is a view from the late 1910s or early 1920s of local young adults enjoying an excursion. From left to right, Charles Cline, John Cecil Hastings, Leland “Hap” Hastings, Earl Wickersham, Frank McMillan, Ernest Leck, Edgar Kincannon, Minta Van Matre, Emma McMillan, Ava Van Matre, Nora Smith, Christie Van Matre, Merle Gage, and Stella Cline.

This view is centered upon the original Martintown depot. The building was actually quite near much of the town, though this angle makes it seem isolated. In the background, across the river, is the family home, and the mills, always a landmark part of the village, are seen once again. The gouges in the hillside are the result of quarry activity. This picture, reproduced from a post card, had “In Spring Time -- Martintown, Wis.” written in the margin in a child’s handwriting. The child was probably Nathaniel and Hannah’s great-granddaughter Gladys Beryl Spece.

Here is a class picture of the pupils of the Martin School in the mid-1890s. This photo comes from the collection of Albert Frederick Warner, son of Nellie Martin and grandson of Nathaniel and Hannah. He and his brother Walter Clare Warner are the two boys (left to right) shown standing immediately in front of the right-hand shutter of the window, in the back row of pupils. Bert wrote on the back of the print that the date was 1896 or 1897. Bert would have been twelve that year. He wrote that note while in his nineties and perhaps his recollection was hazy; he seems younger than twelve in this view. However, his memory remained extraordinarily keen until he was well over one hundred years of age, so his date might be correct. The teacher standing at the left is Jennie Tyler Steer (1866-1938). She was a daughter of Dayton D. Tyler, a Martin sawmill worker. The Tyler clan, along with the Lynch clan, had moved to the Winslow/Martintown area from Coshocton County, OH in the 1850s in great numbers; one of them was Lavina Watson, daughter of Mary Lynch, who became the wife of Nathaniel and Hannah’s eldest son, Elias Martin. Jennie’s sister Mary married Simon Peter Lynch, one of the prominent citizens of the district for many decades around the turn of the century. Alas, except for Bert, Walter, and Jennie, no other names of the subjects of the photo are currently available. However, the group surely includes some of Nathaniel and Hannah’s other grandchildren, who are known to have been students at the school that year. Those would be Elias’s son Robert Earle Martin, Horatio’s sons Nathaniel and Fay Martin, and Tinty Martin Bucher’s children Claude, Arley, Rose, and Blanche Bucher. (With luck all can soon be identified.) The building still exists. It is now a private residence, occupied by a brother-in-law of a descendant of Nathaniel and Hannah. The wall shown here is still intact -- the windows (one is hidden behind the flag) are still in the same spots.

This view of the town was probably captured in 1909. It was taken by a professional photographer and then published in postcard form by B.H. Dingman Publishers. This was scanned from one of those postcards, one that was sent to Hazel Cannon Rodgers or another one of the “Arkansas” branch of Nathaniel and Hannah’s descendants years later -- perhaps decades later -- by a cousin or family friend who still lived in the area. (The date is unknown because it was not mailed on its own, but included inside a letter, so there is no postmark or addressee.) Do not be led astray by the description on the image -- a feature of the original item -- that refers to the Martintown dam and mills. The photographer was facing away from the dam and mills. He was probably standing on the bridge or a spot near it, looking south along Bridge Street toward the church, which can be seen on the hill in the background.

This is Nathaniel and Hannah’s house as it looked in 1960. It still strongly resembles the version seen in the views from the late 1800s. In recent years trees have filled in thickly on the hillside behind the residence. The structure underwent major renovations in 2005.

Photograph taken 2 November 2005 by Dave Smeds. This church was “built” by Nathaniel in 1879. That is to say, he requisitioned the structure, provided the land, and no doubt paid the major portion of the materials and labor cost. During Nathaniel’s lifetime it was a United Brethren house of worship, served by a travelling pastor. In the early decades of the 20th Century the building fell into disrepair, but was revived in the 1940s by a coalition of three denominations. As can be seen in this view, it is in excellent condition today. A 100th anniversary souvenir commemorative dinner plate was created to honor the church’s founding. Now known as Martintown Community Church, it has been served since 1994 by a pastor who is married to a great great great granddaughter of Nathaniel and Hannah.

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