On November 18, 1859, the Board of Supervisors of Brown County moved to create the Town
of Eaton from portions of the Town of New Denmark, located in the eastern part of the county. Election of officers followed on April 1st of the following year. Belgian, German, Irish, Polish and Scandinavian settlers populated the township. Fire spread through the town in 1871, and once again in 1886 when it destroyed almost every building. From 1876 through 1918 the town government engaged primarily in constructing a transportation infrastructure that grew from merely scraped roads to graveled highways with bridges. The town board created road districts, ordered new work, and charged path masters with responsibility for reporting and overseeing necessary repairs. Until 1894, path masters also monitored the shoveling of snow. Individuals shoveled snow on a day labor basis, the compensation being a dollar per day in 1889. The town accomplished repairs and maintenance of roads by means of a levy in cash and in the labor of landowners. In 1884, for instance, the town board ordered that two days roadwork and forty cents be raised on each forty acres of land. In 1888, the town board contracted to have August Brauns survey the whole town, placing stones or posts at the appropriate spots in each section. Over thirty-five residents appear on the payroll for this project in 1889. By the 1890s the town board approved the building of more bridges and graveling of roads. The increased levy of money for these new works resulted, from 1894 to 1897, in petitions for tax relief by landowners. They asked to work off their taxes in labor. Each year during this period, the Board of Supervisors resolved to accept labor in lieu of cash.
By the middle of the twentieth century, the town government was still primarily concerned with the repair and maintenance of roads. However, the system of funding roads through a combination of a cash tax and labor no longer existed. Town government accomplished necessary work on roads and highways through management of local tax revenue in combination with state and county aid money. From 1961 to 1965, the town also participated in the process of dissolving and consolidating its rural school districts with neighboring towns and with the City of Green Bay.
Each clerk's general record book typically contains minutes of annual meetings with election results, oaths, and bonds of office; proceedings of the Town Board of Supervisors and intermittent town meetings; register of town officers; petitions, resolutions, and ordinances; saloon licenses granted; descriptions of school boundaries; taxes levied on the town; statements of accounts, and treasurers' reports. Also included until 1897 are the appointment of path masters in each road district to oversee work approved by the Town Board.
Each record book is typically divided into the following sections:
Annual Meetings consist mainly of the results of elections, with total votes for each candidate for all offices and, in some years, the oaths of office and bonds. Included, until 1897, are appointments of path masters in each road district to oversee work approved by the Town Board. Included, occasionally, are proposals to change the method by which the path masters were appointed and the amount of their compensation.
A Register of Town Officers, (in volume three, 1903-1907), includes names, place of residence, and terms of service.
Proceedings of the Town Board of Supervisors and occasional Town Meetings include petitions and resolutions that are mainly for the laying out of roads. Few ordinances are included and they deal primarily with the control and fencing of cattle, removal of winter fencing, and snow removal.
Road and Highway Records have informational value in their documentation of how the town constructed a transportation infrastructure as it emerged from an era when roads were merely scraped. Orders for new road construction include a description of the route and the compensation paid to property owners for loss of land. Supervisors' instructions to the path masters state what work is to be done, on whose land, and how much labor, based on a given number of hours per acreage owned, is to be contributed by landholders. Instructions also frequently include a statement about the cash road tax levied for each district.
School District Boundaries are described in 1876, 1883, 1886, 1892, 1896, and in 1918. Included in volume three is an undated plat map of school districts.
Taxes and Financial records include statements of taxes collected and those to be levied. The treasurers' reports state the total revenue for the reporting period and to whom it was paid out. Statements of accounts document how the town organized its funds and amounts paid out from them.
Also included in this series is a cancellation record, 1892-1904, listing the number of the order, date of redemption, amount drawn for whom and purpose. For some time periods it duplicates information found in the clerk's record books.
Records, 1959-1966, consist of a small file of the clerk's incoming correspondence; orders consolidating rural school districts into larger joint districts and consolidation with Green Bay Schools; petitions from landowners for roadwork; and annual reports of town finances.
The clerk's correspondence, 1961-1966 concerns civil defense and fire protection, farm statistics; the orders to dissolve and consolidate rural school districts into larger joint districts and the Green Bay Public Schools, 1961-1965, document the rapidity of these changes to the organization of town schools; Annual Financial Reports, 1959-1964, lists all account expenditure, to whom paid, the amounts of county, state and utility tax revenue, and highway and bridge fund aid paid to the town.
