Several of the surrounding communities were being settled before Valton was surveyed for a town site. Ironton & Cazeniova were beginning to take shape of towns before 1850. When the first settlers came to the eastern edge of the town of Woodland, the first settlement west 10 miles away was Debello. Woodland township was first visited in 1848 by William Richards. The next year he settled where Joe Beuer now lives, formerly known as the Rufus Owen farm. John Rice came next. It is thought that he was the first Woodland resident to buy land from the Government. In 1850 J. D. Mitchel built a house on the same farm. Their nearest neighbors were Indians. They lived in a fifteen teepee village just north of the first white settlement. An old cemetery that the earliest settlers used for their for their burying ground was located on the hill north of this settlement it did not however prove satisfactory due to the seepage of water into the graves.

Quite a few of those who helped get Valton started were arriving in this new community between 1850 and 1855. The list of those who came here is rather long and will not be copied in this history, but you may refer to pages 412-424 in the book "History of the upper Baraboo Valley" by Merton Krug. When this book was first published many people around Valton bought copies.

The Oaks Post Office and the Valley House have been named as being important in those early days. Another that was more important but not yet forgotten was the Friendswood Quaker Academy. The building now occupied by Ray Gibbons are just a little east of the site of this Academy. It was started sometime during the sixties and was used for the men to hold their own meeting while the women met on the other side of the partition. For the regular service it was opened up as an auditorium, yet the men never sat with their women. Melissa Brown who was born in this community in 1867 and who is now 91 years old wrote that it was a real shock to her the first time she ever saw a man sit with a woman in a Quaker meeting.

It was originally intended that a second story should be added to the Academy but it was a number of years before this was done. This is when it actually became an Academy where they made a practice of teaching High School subjects. The most famous teacher who got his experience in that community was Jabez Brown, the father of Melissa Brown mentioned above. He passed away in 1930 after having taught over 50 years. Other schools within walking distance of his home near Bethel enjoyed his instructions till he moved to Madison. He is credited with stimulating around thirty others to become teachers. A full account of the work of this man has been written up by his daughter and published in the Wisconsin Historical Journal. It gives a very good picture of the early Quakers in Quaker Valley. Their is also a picture of Uncle Jimmy Stanley in a wagon with his wife. Two other Quakers are with him.

Here is more about the second story added to the Academy, it was built 1884. The first year around twenty people attended. And the attendance was increased the next year. Some from Valton went to school there. As a Academy it has a rather short life because many people migrated to California in 1898. Later it was torn down and the lumber was used to build the Friends Parsonage at Oaks. This church will soon not be able to qualify as a land mark.

Why did they come to this land that is hilly and full of stones, where on land was cleared and little immediate prospect of livelihood? The main attraction was the large number of cold start right in to clear the land without saving to stop to drill or dig a well. The animals liked it to for the woods were alive with game. The two essentials for living were here good water and food.

Religion was a common bond that united a large group in the Oaks-Friendswood area. The largest numbers of those who first came years later when a visiting minister came from Indiana was prompted to say these words "I thought I was coming to Wisconsin, but I think I must still be in Indiana".

Many of the people who came did not arrive directly from across the Atlantic. Most of them settled for a time in an Eastern states such as Indiana, Ohio and New York. This was a part of the great expansion westward that settled all of the middle and far west.

Immigration into the Oaks-Friendswood area was very rapid between 1850-56. To aid the new arrivals they kept as inn in the Coryell place just east of the Jim Birdd Farm. It was kept by Mr. Sands and was known as the Valley House. Often the men folks would come first to build a log house or shanty. Then they would go back and get the women and children. My Grandfather John Murdock went to Columbia Co. Wis. to help the Bedell family to Valton. The oxen had pulled the wagon without mishap till they were going up a hill. Grandfather prevented a tragedy by guiding the tongue of the wagon till it stopped upright at the bottom of the hill. A cow had been tied to the wagon broke loose but did not run away. She stood patiently looking at the wagon going down the hill. (This incident was related to me by Emma Bedell Compton who was in that wagon. She moved from Valton to Ironton when she was Thirteen).

Before the year 1857, the nearest Post Office was at Ironton. In the year above a Post Office was installed at Oaks. Oaks lost it for a while but the Post Office was returned. The writer has just found a pictures of the Post Office building among the family portraits. It might also be appropriate to mention here that another Post Office building used for the same at Oaks is still giving service. It was moved to Valton by WM. Mitchell and is part of the house occupied by Susie Mortimer. Mail was delivered an foot, making the trip three times a week. Before Valton got a Post Office, WM. Mullenix, who taught at the Bethel school, would bring the mail to Valton residents when he walked home on Friday nights.

What kind of roads did they have in those days? There were no roads at first, only trails made by animals and the tracks of heavy wagons sinking into the soft soil. One could make a trail most anywhere because there seemed to be little underbrush. The whites blamed the Indians or credited them for keeping the brush down, but it was more apt to be scarce due to the thick growth of the large trees choking out the growth below their mighty limbs. The great number of Deer probably also helped.

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