rivers, watering almost every portion of the county. Water powers are already improved in the city and town of Fond du Lac, in Ceresco, the village of Ripon, Metomon, Eldorado, Oakfield, Alto, Waupun, Ashford, Auburn, Osceola, Empire, and Forest. The soil of the county is somewhat diversified. The eastern and southeastern portions being mostly heavy timbered land, having a dark, rich soil in the bottoms, and fine gravelly ridges upon the swells. In the western portion, which is composed of small prairies and openings, and indeed in the whole open portion of the country, which comprises more than two-thirds of the whole area, the soil is an argillaceous loam, moderately mixed with sand and lime, resting on a thin layer of limestone much broken, and occasionally interspersed with knobs of drift gravel. Underlaying a considerable portion of the whole is a red sandstone, which occasionally outcrops in ravines. On many of the highest points of the prairies and openings, in the towns of Ceresco, Metomon, Waupun, Lamartine, Oakfield, Byron, Empire, Taycheedah, and Calumet, the limestone comes to the surface, affording the best of material for building and fencing; and in many places furnishing the most beautiful flagging stones of any thickness, from one inch to ten, of a texture nearly as fine and compact as marble. The face of the country is gently rolling, and from the quality of the soil, the county is well adapted to all the more northern productions of agriculture. The peculiar geographical position of this country, embracing nearly the southern half of Winnebago lake, which is connected with the great lakes by Fox river and Green Bay, and being within some thirty-five miles of lake Michigan, at Sheboygan, as well as the character of its soil, renders it one of the most important inland counties. Fond du Lac county forms a part of the fourth judicial circuit, and of the the third congressional district. It constitutes the twentieth senatorial district, and is divided into four assembly districts, as follows: 1st. Ceresco, Meto

mon, Alto, Waupun, Springvale, and Rosendale. 2d. Byron, Eden, Osceola, Ashford, and Auburn. 3d. Eldorado, Lamartine, Oakfield, Friendship, Fond du Lac, and the city of Fond du Lac. 4th. Calumet, Forest, Taycheedah, Kossuth, and Empire. The population in 1840 was 139; 1842, 295; 1846, 3,544; 1847, 7,459. Dwellings, 2,722; farms, 1,073; manufactories, 16. County Officers for 1853 and 1854: County Judge, C. M. Tompkins; Sheriff, Robert Jenkinson; Clerk of Court, John J. Driggs; Register of Deeds, Randolph Ebert; Clerk of Board of Supervisors, A. W. Paine; County Treasurer, O. S. Wright.

FOND DU LAC, Town, in county of same name, being town 15 N., of range 17 E. It is the seat of justice of the county. Population in 1850 was 2,016. It has 6 school districts.

FOND DU LAC, City, see Appendix.

FOND DU LAC, River, rises in Oakfield, Fond du Lac county, and runs northeast, emptying into lake Winnebago, at Fond du

Lac city.

FORT ATKINSON, P. V., on section 3, town 5 N., of range 14 E.,

Jefferson county, being in the town of Koskonong, at the junction of Bark with Rock river. It is 6 miles south of Jefferson, and 32 miles southeast from Madison. It derives its name from General Atkinson, who built a temporary fort at this place during the Black Hawk war--hence its name. Population 350, with 70 dwellings, 8 stores, 3 hotels, 1 steam saw mill, 3 tailors, 2 shoe, 3 blacksmith, 2 cooper, and 1 cabinet shops. 1 Presbyterian and 1 Methodist church. FORT CRAWFORD, formerly a military station near Prairie du Chien, in Crawford county, about 540 miles above St. Louis. FORT HOWARD, formerly a military station at mouth of Fox river, see Fort Howard village.

FORT HOWARD, Village, is situated on the west side of the Fox river, near its mouth, opposite to the old town of Green Bay. The site of the village of Fort Howard was purchased and

surveyed into village lots by Joel S. Fisk and the Hon. Urial H. Peak, in the spring of 1850, since which there has been a rapid growth and settlement of the place, and it bids fair to become one of considerable commercial importance. It derived its name from being situated immediately in the vicinity of Old Fort Howard, a military post of considerable notoriety. The village contains some four or five hundred inhabitants; it has several stores, three public houses, a large foundry and machine shop which gives employment to some thirty or forty workmen; there is also in the course of erection two steam saw mills, together with shops for various mechanical purposes. The soil on which the village is located is alluvial, on a clay subsoil, and is well adapted to gardening and the growth of fruit trees and shrubs; it possesses a back country of very considerable extent, which is rapidly filling up with an intelligent, industrious and go-a-head population; and although the pioneer settler is under the necessity of undergoing the fatigue and labor incident to the settlement and clearing up of a heavy timbered country, yet when it is brought under a state of proper cultivation it will not be surpassed by any section of the state in fertility of soil, and all the other appendages which make a country desirable for farming purposes.

FORT WINNEBAGO, P. O., at the old military station of same name, at the Portage of Fox and Wisconsin rivers, near Portage city.

FORT WINNEBAGO, Town, in county of Columbia, being town 13 N., of range 9 E. Population in 1850 was 1,642. It has 11 school districts.

FORREST, Town, in county of Fond du Lac, being town 15 N., of range 19 E.; centrally located, 12 miles east from Fond du Lac. The population in 1850, as then organized, was 1,218. It has 8 school districts.

FOUNTAIN, Prairie, is the name of a large prairie south and west of Columbus, in Columbia county.

FOUNTAIN PRAIRIE, Town, in county of Columbia, being 11 N., of range 12 E.; centrally located, 23 miles from Portage city. The population in 1850 was 546. It has 5 school districts. This is an excellent farming town, and has a good water power at Fall river, with a mill capable of making 500 barrels of flour per week.

FOURTH, Lake, adjoining and north and northwest of Madison, is

the uppermost and largest of the Four Lakes. It has an area of nearly 16 square miles. Its diameter is 6 miles, and its periphery 194. It is also called Mendota.

FOWL, River, (Sand Creek), a tributary from the north of St. Croix river, in the west part of La Pointe county.

Fox, Lake, (Waushara), in town of same name, in northwest corner of Dodge county, is three miles long and two wide. It is of an oval form, and discharges its waters into the Crawfish river, through Beaver Dam creek.

Fox LAKE, P. V., see Waushara.

Fox LAKE, Town, (formerly Waushara), in county of Dodge, being north half of town 12, and town 13 N., range of 13 E.; centrally located, 14 miles northwest from Juneau. The population in 1850 was 856. It has 6 school districts.

Fox, River, of Illinois, (Pishtaka), rises in the north part of Waukesha county, and running south through the counties of Waukesha, Racine, and Kenosha, into the State of Illinois, discharges its waters into the Illinois river at Ottawa, Lasalle county.

Fox, River, of Green Bay, (Neenah), rises near the middle of the town of Randolph, being in the northeast corner township of Columbia county, runs southwesterly to the Portage, where its course is turned to the northeast, passing through extensive marshes, covered with wild rice. It enters on the west side of Lake Winnebago, at Oshkosh, and forms the outlet of the same lake, which it leaves on either side of Doty's island,

Menasha on the north, and Neenah on the south. Below the lake it has a succession of rapids as far down as Depere, 7 miles above its outlet, into Green Bay.

FRANKLIN, Town, in county of Milwaukee, being town 5 N., of

range 21 E.; centrally located, 12 miles southwest from Milwaukee. The population in 1850 was 1,246. It has nin school districts.

FRANKLIN, P. V., Milwaukee county, in town of same name, on section 7, town 5 N., of range 21 E., 12 miles southwest from Milwaukee, and 80 miles east from Madison. It is beautifully located, 2 miles south of the Milwaukee and Janesville plank road, and three miles northeast from Muskego lake. Population 60; with 17 dwellings, 2 stores, and 2 hotels.

FREDONIA, Town, in county of Washington, being town 12 N., of range 21 E.; centrally located, 9 miles northwest from Ozaukee. The population in 1850 was 672. It has 9 school districts.

FREDONIA, P. O., in county of Washington, being town 12 N., of range 21 E.; centrally located, 9 miles northwest from Ozaukee.

FREEDOM, Town, in county of Outagamie, being all of said county, not included in the Oneida R servation, in towns 22 and 23 N., of range 18 and 19 E; centrally located, 15 miles northeast from Grand Chute. It has two school districts.

FREEDOM, Town, in county of Sauk, located west from Baraboo. It has 5 school districts.

FREMONT, P. V., in Waupacca county, being on section 25, town 21 N., of range 13 E.; it is 11 miles southwest from Mukwa. Population 50; 12 dwellings, 2 stores, and 1 hotel. It is situated on the left bank of the Wolf river; is a steam boat landing, and the only feasible crossing on the river in the route from Menasha to Plover Portage.

FRENCH, Creek, in Columbia county, a small tributary of the Fox or Neenah river, from the east, in Port Hope.