From Wisconsin County Histories, Waupaca County Edited by John M. Ware 1917
Transcribed and submitted to the Waupaca County Website
by Paula Vaughan January 2002

PARFREYVILLE AND THE EARLY MILLS
Among those who came in 1851 was Robert Parfrey, who settled in the northeast quarter of section 11, and founded the Village of 
Parfreyville. While he was absent making arrangements to bring his family to the new country, George Barnhart built a hut for 
him 12 by 14 feet, and had it completed in March, 1851. It stood  on the south side of Crystal River on the road leading to Crystal Lake.
The first frame house in town was completed soon after by J. H. Jones. It stood on the south side of the river, at the foot of Junction
Lake.

J. Holman, an early settler of the town, has this to say of the pioneer milling enterprises, and of the shifts to which the good housewives were
put to get flour for their households: "For the first season or two provisions were not very plentiful. The settlers could supply themselves
with venison and other game without going far from their clearings, but for flour, groceries, etc., they were obliged to go to Strong's Landing, as
Berlin was then called, and some of them went even to Sheboygan and Milwaukee for supplies.

"In the Fall of 1850 Mrs. Dayton was obliged to eke out her small supply of flour with an occasional dish of soup, which she made by chopping
some corn in a bowl. About the same time, bread became very scarce at Van Horn's. Mr. Van Horn, after putting up his log house,
had gone with his team to Racine County, to work on a threshing machine, after which he was to return with a load of supplies. But
before his return Mrs. Van Horn had got nearly to the bottom of the flour sack; so she went to Mr. Hitchcock, on the Emmons place, to try to
buy some buckwheat, of which he had about half an acre standing in the shock. He told her he was going to move away soon, and she could have
the buckwheat if she could use it. The next day she took her carpet for a threshing floor, and some bags, and went down and carried the shocks
together, and pounded them out with a stick, getting six bags of grain and chaff. With the first favorable breeze she winnowed out a half
bushel of grain, and taking it on foot to Mr. Dayton's ground it in their coffee mill, and sifted it in their sieve, leaving the bran for toll.

"But Dayton's coffee mill soon gave way to the 'Pepper Mill,' as Parfrey's grist mill, built in 1851, was called. Parfrey's grist mill was
sixteen by twenty feet, boarded up and down. The shafts were made of tamarack and oak, unhewn. The wobble of the machinery, occasioned
by crooked shafts, was counteracted by tightening pulleys, weighted down with stones. The belts were made of bags, sewed together, and cotton
factory cloth.

"It is well remembered that the first grinding in Parfrey's mill was one Saturday afternoon. The next day Parfrey attended meeting at the
house of Thomas Spencer. After the sermon, and before the benediction was fairly finished, Parfrey jumped to his feet, and, taking a handful
of flour from the tail pocket of his coat, shouted at the top of his voice, "Here 's a sample of my flour!' "The water power at Parfreyville was 
staked out and claimed by Thomas Spencer in the spring of 1850, and was by him given to Parfrey on condition that he should build a 
mill and grind a bushel of corn before the mill then being built at Waupaca (in 1851) should grind a kernel. Parfrey accomplished the task.

"Custom increased rapidly, and in 1855 Parfrey took a partner into the business, and built a large mill on the spot where the old one stood.
But Parfrey's partner and the hard times of 1857 were too much for him; so he sold his interest in the mill at Parfreyville, and built a small
mill at the foot of Junction Lake. But, his financial embarrassment continuing, he disposed of his mill at Junction Lake, and left the country.
"In 1863 the mill at Parfreyville was thoroughly repaired by J. D. Kast, after which it did a large paying business until Christmas, 1874,
when it was burned to the ground. In the spring of 1876 the high water, which was the highest ever known in this stream, destroyed the dam, leaving
the water to flow in its old channel, and thus uncovering ground that had been under water since the summer of 1851.

"Several blacksmith shops were established at Parfreyville, in the early '50s, as the mills drew thither quite a number of horses, and wagons
needed repairs which were beyond the skill of the average farmer. The first blacksmith in town was William Caley, who in 1851-52 had a small
shop on the north bank of the river about thirty rods from the bridge. R. Holman opened another in 1854, and for years it stood in Parfreyville
as the oldest building in the village.

As to matters of life and death-the first funeral in town was that of a child of Joseph Robbins, section 24, in August, 1850. The first adult
to die was the wife of Robert Palfrey, in March, 1851.The first white child born in the town was Calvin Morgan, son of Thomas and Fanny
Morgan, and grandson of Lyman Dayton, in February, 1851.

The first school at Palfreyville was taught in the summer of 1854 by Miss Jane Lathrop, in a log shanty where the public schoolhouse was
afterward built. A better building was completed in 1856.