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HISTORY OF DUNN COUNTY
8 at the intersection of Twelfth Avenue and Sixth Street. Its pipe organ (soon
to be discarded for a new one) is now in service, at St. Paul's Evangelical church at
the corner of Eleventh Avenue and Ninth Street in this city, but the whereabouts
of its fount is not known. The church was built and owned by Capt. William
Wilson.
The county school main building and its adjacent special buiidings in which are
located the county training school for teachers of the common schools, the
county school of agriculture, and domestic economy are situated on the east one-
half of block 54. The main building is set well back in its grounds, its north side
answers as a front and faces on Wilson Avenue. Back of it on Ninth Avenue is a
solid mass of wooden structures that serve the activities of the agricultural depart-
ment. This department has its schoolroom in the lower story of the main building.
Where now this main building stands was once a dwelling house in which the
Rev. John C. Sherwin lived for a few vears. Mr. Sherwin was one of those men who
bv nature and nurture was qualified and equipped to go forth as a missionary to
the early sojourners on the frontier where lived men and women, for the most part
honest of purpose and earnest in the walks of life, but careless of the conventional-
ities of society and of the church. He early appeared in the Mississippi River
Valley and at an early day made LaCrosse his home. He came here in 1859 and
organized the Congregational church. In 1868 he came again and reorganized
this church and became its resident pastor until 1874.
He moved pleasantly and modestly among all of the people. Under his gentle
manners there was a strong and persistent air of purpose which attracted and did
not repel. He was a successful hunter and fisherman. He did not alarm nor flush the
game. He never scared a school of fish from its secluded hole but quietly caught
each fish there. He did not attempt to scare sinners from hell but enticingly
beckoned them to heaven. Whether he was called of God is not known, but it is
known that he came to the people of the West and that he did much good.
Main and Broadway are the principal streets of the city, and all of these school
buildings, except those of the Homemakers', are within one and two blocks of these
streets, and those excepted, are but two blocks south from Main and four east of
Broadway.
These sites are now the seats of inculcated learning. Here students by repeated
conning of lessons gain a knowledge of the general principles that govern the physical
and mental activities of life. These studies are supplemented by manual training,
but this training is on lines previously determined upon and specifically worked out
in advance for illustration of the texts taught.
Before their present use these sites were not fallow ground. On them were then
the abodes of men and women who lived here some of the experiences, noted some
of the effects and recorded some of the conclusions, that have now become the basis
of study and observation in these schools. The knowledge they acquired rested
largely on their daily direct contact with the unlooked for, the adventitious events of life.
Thev went before and prepared the way for the student throng we now see upon
our streets. It mav not, therefore, be amiss at some future time, to recall the names
of these pioneers while some still live who knew them in the flesh.
Block 76 was always known as school block, but three dwellings were built
thereon before the increase in the school ground area. Block 53 had six dwelling
houses located on it, when, in 1F97, it was purchased for school purposes. These
houses were among the earliest built in the town plat and had in the mutation of
home settlement housed many early day families connected with early day local
history. Three houses stood on the ground now covered by the domestic science
school building and in them lived at different times a number of the early day promi-
nent families. Two houses occupied the ground of the county schools. Before
the Barwise family occupied the Homemakers' house it was successively the abode
of the family of a foreman, a preacher, and a teacher. It was a building early
erected on the village plat.
Memoir of Peter Jungck.-The author of this memoir, who passed away early
229