Portage County, Wisconsin

Date: 24 Sep 1844
Location: Portage, Wisconsin, United States
Surnames/tags: Wisconsin Portage_County

Contents 1 General Information 1.1 Historical Background 1.2 Communities 2 Research 2.1 Cemeteries 2.2 Census Records

General Information

Portage County is a mid-sized county with a long history and interesting geographic features. The county seat is Stevens Point and the county courthouse is there. Six other counties border (Adams, Marathon, Shawano, Waupaca, Waushara, and Wood) and it is worth the effort to check repositories in those counties if your ancestors lived on the borders because significant amounts of record overlap occurs.

Historical Background

No online locality guide has the space to cover thousands of years of Portage County history so we will briefly touch on some important themes. Here is a short and general history of Wisconsin before statehood from the Wisconsin Historical Society. However, for a more thorough treatment of the topic of Wisconsin history in general and Portage County in specific please see first the Turning Points in Wisconsin History site from the Wisconsin Historical Society at Turning Points and then read Malcolm Rosholt, Our County Our Story (Stevens Point, WI: Portage County Board of Supervisors, 1959). It was scanned and shared for free online by the Portage County Public Library at this link.

Portage County is in central Wisconsin and was created from other counties (Brown, Crawford, Iowa, and Milwaukee) when Wisconsin Territory was separated from Michigan Territory on 7 December 1836. There were several boundary changes before and after Wisconsin became the 30th state on 29 May 1848, but it has had its current configuration since 29 March 1856 when Wood County was created. It is important to know that Portage County shared judicial and other governing resources with Dane County until 23 September 1844. The city of Stevens Point is the county seat, and it was incorporated in 1858.

Communities

Communities in Portage County are organized much the same as they are in the rest of Wisconsin with a variety of incorporated and unincorporated localities. If you are curious about the difference a basic description can be found here. Don't forget that some of these designations changed over time.

Township Map of Portage County, WI

• The most important civil division of the county is the township. All the cities, towns, and villages here have various powers and responsinilities (more or less) that are intertwined with their township. There are seventeen townships in Portage County.
• A great timeline of community development can be found on the Stevens Point Area Genealogical Society.
• There is really only one city in Portage County, Stevens Point, and there are two rural census-designated places, Bancroft and Polonia. The ghost town of Lake Emily is part of the town of Amherst.
• The towns of Portage County include Alban, Almond, Amherst, Belmont, Buena Vista, Carson, Dewey, Eau Pleine, Grant, Hull, Lanark, Linwood, New Hope, Pine Grove, Plover, Sharon, and Stockton.
• The villages in Portage County are Almond, Amherst, Amherst Junction, Junction City, Nelsonville, Plover, Rosholt, and Whiting.
• There are many small unincorporated communities in Portage County including Alban, Arnott, Badger, Blaine, Casimir, Coddington, Custer, Dopp, Ellis, Esker, Fancher, Garfield, Keene, Little Waupon, Jordan, Meehan, Mill Creek, New Hope, North Star, Peru, Rocky Run, Stockton, Torun, West Almond, and West Bancroft.

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Research

Cemeteries

There are more than 70 cemeteries in Portage County. Some are large and well-maintained and some are family plots with a wicket fence. The Cemeteries in Portage County, WI WikiTree Page has a table organized by cemetery name, location by township, Find A Grave link, and WikiTree category page. Currently, all the links work but please post a comment if something is off.

Helpful Information for Cemetery Research

• Here is an excellent guide to research in Wisconsin cemeteries from the Wisconsin Historical Society.
• Though incomplete, the Wisconsin Deaths and Burials, 1835-1968 index at FamilySearch may help.
• WisconsinGenWeb maintains a tombstone photograph project and their Portage County page is here.
• The University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point hosts the Portage County Cemetery Locator.
• There is some good information at the Wisconsin Cemetery Records Research Guide from RAOGK.
• No matter where in Portage County your family was interred, the Stevens Point Area Genealogical Society has great cemetery resources.

Census Records

The area of Portage County has been enumerated on the federal, state, and territorial levels. There are also a number of non-population schedules available.

• Federal Population Schedules
  • Prior to statehood, Portage County was in what was then called Brown County, Michigan for the 1820 and 1830 censuses. Portage County was in Wisconsin Territory for the 1840 census. Note that the index does not line up correctly with the order of the names listed in the image at FamilySearch so if you are having trouble try looking at the images at the National Archives or Ancestry for that year instead.
  • From 1850 to 1950 (except 1890), complete federal Portage County census records can be viewed online on most of the major genealogy portals.
• State Population Schedules
  • From 1855-1905 Wisconsin conducted state-level enumerations every ten years. They can all be viewed online at both Ancestry and FamilySearch. Due to record losses, FamilySearch has only six counties for 1865 and Portage is not one of them (Ancestry has none). Only 1905 lists all the names of all members of a household, the other years list only the head of a household.
• Territorial Population Schedules
  • There were six territorial censuses taken between 1836 and 1847. Those have surname abstracts that can be viewed online through the Wisconsin Historical Society here.
• Non-population Schedules
  • There is an 1840 Pensioners schedule that lists individuals that are receiving a pension from the federal government due to their previous service in the Revolutionary War. If the pensioner is not the head of the household, it also lists the head of the household. It can be viewed on Ancestry but it is hard to find the Wisconsin entries because of how the text was indexed. It is better to consult it directly on Google Books, though no one from Portage County is listed.
  • There are indexes only for 1850-1880 on Ancestry for the agriculture, manufacturing, and mortality schedules and those are not on FamilySearch at all.
  • The 1890 federal population schedule was destroyed but the Civil War veteran's schedule can be viewed on Ancestry. There are names of female veterans as well as widows who received pensions.