About Walworth County Historical Society

The Walworth County Historical Society (WCHS) is a major research and exhibition center open to the public. Under the auspices of the WCHS include the following: The Doris Reinke Research Center, Paul and Katharine Schmidt Library, Genealogy Center, Walworth County Veterans Museum, Webster House Museum, Boyd Carriage Barn, and two buildings located within the Walworth County Fairgrounds:  the Sharon Town Hall and Blooming Prairie Schoolhouse. Our mission is to collect, preserve, interpret, and exhibit artifacts, archival materials, and photographs of the cultural, social, and political history of the people and communities of Walworth County, WI.

Through education, research, and public exhibits, the WCHS serves the local, state, and national communities of visitors, students, and scholars. The varied collections within the WCHS are used to form the basis of understanding ofpast and present issues of our community, and to meet the challenges of the future. The WCHS will accomplish our mission through education and outreach programs, and through cooperative efforts with other local organizations.

Our Story

Since 1904

The Walworth County Historical Society was incorporated August 29, 1904. Since its incorporation, the Walworth County Historical Society has been an affiliate of the Wisconsin State Historical Society.

In its 1906 report to the State Historical Society it was stated that the Walworth County historical Society held “a great collection of books, pamphlets, circulars, maps, charts, diagrams, pictures, autograph letters, and relics of real interest.”

Excerpt from History of Walworth County Wisconsin by Albert Clayton Beckwith

The Walworth County Historical Society was incorporated August 29, 1904, by ten members of the Old Settlers’ Society. It was not attempted, as in other years, to arouse the indifferent, nor to assemble unknown friends of such a movement. Mr. Page said to a friend, “Let us act at once.” Eight more friends were ready for instant action, and the dream or hope of 1846 became a reality. Nine of these movers were named in the first officer list, which is yet unchanged (except as to treasurer) by election, resignation, removal, or death; and the tenth lies in a soldier’s grave. In its first report, in September, 1904, to the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, to which the county society is auxiliary, was shown a list of twenty members. Pursuant to provisions of chapter 650, statutes of 1907, a room in the basement of the county court building, well warmed and lighted and accessible, was in that year placed at the society’s service for storage of its bulkier collections. About two hundred feet of shelving is crowded with its variously valuable printed matter. How this society sees the task it has undertaken may be judged, perhaps, from the following extract from its report for 1906:

“This body is made up of intelligent members, who are therefore capable of doing some useful work, and who. by the fact of their membership, may be presumed to be willing so to contribute to the society’s objects. To find and take some working part, greal or small, is to assure and increase each one’s permanent interest in the institution we have founded. We have taken the first step, which costs; and movement forward at some fair rate, and continuously, is but a just expectation. Neither one nor a hundred willing minds and hands can do all that has been too long left undone; but we can gather no inconsiderable fraction of the records and memories of the past and the passing, and can move onward with the ceaselessly coming.

“A great collection of books, pamphlets, circulars, maps, charts, diagrams, pictures, autograph letters, and relics of real interest is very desirable; but such matter will accumulate with comparatively little effort. The most important division of our work—one that may yet give some distinction to our society—is what each member or his friends may contribute: Manuscript accounts of early arriving families; of the earlier social life; of long-gone relatives and esteemed friends; of pioneer road-making; of abandoned highways; of the growth of villages; of church building; of earlier schools; of business development, and changes therein; of the decay of certain industries and the causes thereof; of crops, greatly above or below the average; of changes in the county landscape arising from known causes; of earlier caucuses, conventions, and public meetings; of various phases of public opinion; of early mail communication; of wayside taverns; of stage routes; of past generations—how they lived, how employed and amused themselves; where men and families came from, and whither they went for greener graves: of epidemic diseases and other notable calamities; of the personal appearance and distinctive qualities of men in public service, and similarly of lawyers, physicians, and clergymen; of personal service in war; of local geographical names now disused or not found on maps—in short, of things the like of which we miss in the meager details of the histories of our ancestral Eastern towns, and which will be valuable in many ways to coming generations, since they will show how men, women and children of the nineteenth and first decade of the twentieth centuries lived, thought and acted.”

Founding Member List

Morgan, Theron Rufus (died), Elkhorn 1905
Morrison, Smith Baker, Elkhorn 1906
Page, Jaw Wright, Elkhorn 1904
Rockwell, Le Grand, Elkhorn 1906
Skiff, Benjamin Franklin, Elkhorn 1904
Skiff, Iris Emeline (Stowe), Elkhorn 1904
Snyder, Clifford Francis, Munich 1906
*Snyder, John Henry, Jr., Elkhorn 1904
Sprague, Edward Harvey, Elkhorn 1904
Thomas, Katherine Wentworth, Elkhorn 1904
*Wales, Charles Marshall, New York 1904
*West, Walter Aaron, Elkhorn 1904

*Denote members of the State Society.

Officers, 1904-1911: Beckwith, president: Lyon, vice-president; J. H. Snyder, secretary; Kinne, corresponding secretary; Eames, librarian; Carswell, treasurer; Page, F. W. Isham and Sprague, executive committee.

Mr. Morgan died September 28, 1905; E. S. Beckwith, May 28, 1909; Henry Bradley, August 17, 1909; Captain Fellows died Fehruary 10, 1912; Mr. Flanders, December 16, 1909. 

We remember special friends who have passed. They will be greatly missed.