Title: Jackson L. Prentice Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1852-1932

Creator:

• Prentice, Jackson L., 1827-1902

Call Number: Stevens Point Mss A; PH Stevens Point Mss A

Quantity: 1.2 c.f. (2 archives boxes and 1 flat box) and 3 photographs (1 folder)

Repository:

Housed at the Nelis R. Kampenga University Archives & Area Research Center, Learning Resources Center, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point; owned by the Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

UW-Stevens Point Library / Stevens Point Area Research Ctr. (Map)

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

Abstract:

Papers of Prentice, a Stevens Point, Wisconsin, surveyor and businessman, including fragmentary correspondence, 1857-1907, mostly from business associates concerning timber sales; survey maps for the 1850s and 1860s for portions of Adams, Juneau, Marathon, and Portage counties containing descriptions of land conditions, plant cover, and soil; additional notebooks, maps, and diagrams concerning work as a Stevens Point city surveyor; two volumes of employee time records, 1881-1882; photographs; and genealogical materials concerning the Prentice, Van Dusen, and related families. The photographs are informal portraits of Prentice and his family and interior and exterior views of their home.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-stpt000a

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Jackson L. Prentice was born on October 17, 1827 in Aurora, Erie County, New York. About 1844 he migrated to Fox Lake, Wisconsin with his parents Thomas and Lucy Spafford Prentice, his brother James Prentice, who became one of the first physicians in Wisconsin, and other members of the family. From there he moved to Portage where he received an offer from the government to serve as a topographical engineer in the work of platting northern Wisconsin. In 1850 he married Sarah Van Deusen in Marcellon, Wisconsin and settled in Stevens Point. In addition to his government work Prentice did a great deal of surveying for individuals. In Stevens Point he also engaged in land and timber sales and a mercantile business. In later year he farmed and operated a large cranberry marsh. In the early 1860's he served as Portage County surveyor and after Stevens Point was organized as a city he served as alderman. In the 1880s and 1890s he was surveyor for the city of Stevens Point. In October 1861 he enlisted in Company A, 3rd Wisconsin Cavalry Volunteers, and when he was mustered out in September 1865 he was a sergeant major of his regiment. For about two years he also served in the Engineer Corps, and when he left this service he was lieutenant of his company. He died in 1902. A short biographical sketch of his life is found on page 755, History of Northern Wisconsin...Sketches of its Counties, Cities, Towns, and Villages (Western Historical Company, 1881).

The Prentice Papers are a small, disappointing collection that provide only fragmentary information about his survey work, his land and timber sales, or his family life. The collection is of benefit to genealogists because Prentice's daughters, Mrs. Jennie Conslick and Mrs. C. McMillan, were avid family historians, and the collection includes correspondence, notes, and charts they compiled about the Prentice and Van Dusen families. The collection is arranged alphabetically by subject.

The surveyor's maps and notebooks are unquestionably the most valuable material in the collection. In addition to a variety of notes, notebooks, diagrams, and maps, there is important material for portions of Adams, Juneau, Marathon and Portage Counties dating from the 1850s and 1860s. The manuscript maps from this period are arranged by township number and in addition to the usual survey markings and locations of rivers, Prentice has frequently noted the kind of timber present (such as pine, maple, hardwood, etc.), the location of property held by U.S. patent and state school lands, the location of homesteads and buildings, the name of the owners of the property, and the most desirable areas for future settlement and timber lands. The maps are supplemented by notebooks, primarily for Towns 33 and 34 N, in which Prentice often wrote his impressions of the land (hilly, swampy, rolling, meadows), kinds of timber and its condition, and his own rating of the soil (“unsuitable for cultivation,” “worthless,” “3rd rate”). Unfortunately the pencil notes are difficult to decipher. Volume 6 of the survey notebooks contains Prentice's notations of his survey of the state road from Stevens Point to Fremont as well as a list of expenses incurred in the work. Various other maps and notebooks relate primarily to his work as a Stevens Point city surveyor. They show the location and names of early business establishments, sidewalk and street levels, paving estimates, and platting of new additions.

Other business records are an 1872-1889 ledger of Prentice's mercantile establishment in Stevens Point and two employee time records books giving the name of employee, number of hours worked daily and in some cases, the daily wage as well as the weekly wage. J.L. Prentice is listed in these volumes as an employee. However, the researcher is cautioned that either one or both may be part of the B. F. McMillan Lumber Company Records because a third notebook , 1916-1922, originally with the Prentice Papers, was clearly linked to the McMillan Co. journals.

The correspondence in the Prentice papers is fragmentary. The bulk of the correspondence is from Prentice's business associates, and it concerns land and timber sales. Included among this is a postcard, 1884, June 25, from Moses M. Strong, regarding the sale of property. In addition, the correspondence also includes copies of resolutions of the Stevens Point Common Council concerning sidewalk and street surveys. For the period 1883-1886 Prentice held an office in the local G.A.R. post, and the correspondence includes his applications for a veteran's pension, as well as several applications for fellow veterans. After 1895 the correspondence deals almost exclusively with land and timber sales in north central Wisconsin. The scantiness of the correspondence is particularly disappointing with regard to Prentice's land and timber business for the separately filed land records suggests that his acquisition practices would be a fruitful subject for study. The chief advantage the collection offers beyond information available in grantor/grantee indexes is the inclusion of a large number of tax certificates. These documents indicate his intention to purchase land that may have been reclaimed by the original owners. Such transactions are documented in county property records. The deeds, taxes, and other property records in the collection are of value primarily in establishing the geographic scope of his property.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Mrs. Thornton Green, Jr., Marshfield, Wisconsin, and Mr. C. M. Green, Mosinee, Wisconsin, 1953-1954, and by the Marathon County Historical Society, Wausau, Wisconsin, 1980. Accession Number: M80-486

Stevens Point Mss A Box   3 Folder   1	Civil War certificates
Box   1 Folder   1	Clippings
Box   1 Folder   2-4	Correspondence, 1851-1906
Box   3 Folder   2	Curtis Hall broadsides, 1867
	Deeds
Box   1 Folder   5	1840s
Box   3 Folder   3-7	1850s-1904
Box   1 Folder   6	Employee Time Books, 1881-1882
Box   1 Folder   7	Financial documents, 1859, 1880s, 1896
	Genealogy
Box   1 Folder   8	Bridgeman
Box   1 Folder   9	Prentice
Box   1 Folder   10	Correspondence, 1898-1932
Box   1 Folder   11	Notes
Box   1 Folder   12	Riggs
Box   1 Folder   13	Stow
Box   1 Folder   14	Van Camp
Box   1 Folder   15	Van Dusen
Box   1 Folder   16	West
Box   1 Folder   17	Ledger, 1872-1889
	Maps
Box   2 Folder   1	Lumber survey maps of Adams and Juneau Counties, 1858
Box   2 Folder   2	Minnesota (?)
Box   2 Folder   3-4	Miscellaneous maps
Box   3 Folder   8-9	Manuscript survey maps of T23N-T42N, 1850s
Box   2 Folder   5	Miscellaneous survey notes and maps, 1860, undated
Box   2 Folder   6	Vacant state lands (T36N), 1889
Box   3 Folder   10	Oversize diagrams
	Notebooks
Box   2 Folder   7	Stevens Point surveys, 1881-1904
Box   2 Folder   8	Portage County, 1852-1853
Box   2 Folder   9	Towns 33 and 34 (R5-8E), 1854
Box   2 Folder   10	Notebooks, 1853-1856
Box   2 Folder   11	Notebooks, 1856, 1889, undated
Box   2 Folder   12	Pension materials
	Photographs
PH Stevens Point Mss A	Original prints
Stevens Point Mss A Box   2 Folder   13	Xerox copies of photographs
Box   2 Folder   14	Redemptions, 1861-1900
Box   2 Folder   15	Reminiscences by Mrs. Prentice
Box   2 Folder   16	Taxes, 1855-1904
Box   2 Folder   17	Vital records