Lancaster, WI
N 42° 50.858 W 090° 42.613
15T E 687100 N 4746437
Lancaster was laid out in 1837 by Major G. M. Price who named the city after Lancaster, PA. It is the county seat of Grant County. Nelson Dewey, the first governor of the State of Wisconsin is buried here.
Waymark Code: WM5N44
Location: Wisconsin, United States
Date Posted: 01/24/2009
Views: 7
LANCASTER, 49.2 m. (1,086 alt., 2,432 pop.), since 1837 the seat of Grant County, is old, shady, placid. Its business buildings straggle around the courthouse square, its residences spread irregularly beyond.
In the center of the George W. Ryland Park is the Public Library, an old white building with the flat siding and ornate roof popular in the 1880's. In shady Courthouse Square is the red brick Courthouse with a gleaming dome of copper and green glass. Within the building a sealed box bears the inscription, "Accursed be he who openeth me ere a hundred years are gone." The box was sealed in 1876 during the country's celebration of the 100th anniversary of American Independence and contains issues of the county newspapers, agricultural products raised at the time, and the like. A Civil War Monument, one of the first erected in the United States, and a Statue of Nelson Dewey, the State's first Governor (1848-1852), stand in the square. Dewey (see below) is buried in the local Episcopalian cemetery.
---Wisconsin, A Guide to the Badger State, 1941
Today the town is still a shady, placid city. Courthouse square is still ringed by businesses and the residences still surround the downtown area. The courthouse is still the central landmark for the city and the Civil War monument and Nelson Dewey Statue still reside on the courthouse lawn.