Page 226 - Family History

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Stanley’s Ferry had moved to the location of the present Main Street Bridge, and
in 1847 the Fox River Bridge Company was formed and soon completed a toll
bridge at this site.

When Webster Stanley became the first permanent settler within the limits of our
present Oshkosh, in 1836, the Indian trail along Algoma Boulevard to Lake
Winnebago, was the only road in what is now Winnebago County. The first real
road in the county was surveyed in 1843 from Stanley’s Ferry to Neenah.

Just fifty-seven years before the incorporation of Oshkosh as a city, and only forty
years before Webster Stanley brought his boat load of lumber and supplies to the
site of Oshkosh, on September 19, 1796, President and General George
Washington had this to say about education in his “Farewell Address” …

From the coming of the Gallups and Mr. Stanley up to 1846, the progress of our
little settlement was slow, and the village consisted simply of a few log houses on
the farms of their owners, and the little stores of Osborn and Dodge Smith and
Gillett; Miller and Eastman. This was the city of Oshkosh in 1846. In that year Mr.
Stanley opened the first public house, a small structure on the corner of High and
Main street, opposite the present Oshkosh National Bank.

Webster Stanley First Settler

It was in the summer of 1836 that the first real settler came to Oshkosh. He was
Webster Stanley, born in Connecticut in September of 1798. He had been, the
year before, in government employ transporting supplies between Fort Howard
and Fort Winnebago. In his journeys by the site of Oshkosh he formed a favorable
opinion of it and decided to locate here. Consequently, he brought with him a
boat load of lumber and build a cabin on the south side of the river at Algoma,

opposite the point where Mr. Knaggs had several years before established a ferry,
on the new Indian Trail between For Howard and Portage, the old one near Butte
des Morts having been abandoned. Here just above where the Algoma bridge
now is, Mr. Stanley set up his cabin and purchased Mr. Knaggs’ interest in the
ferry. His object in coming here was to locate land and make a permanent home,
and he brought with his provisions to last a year. Immediately he set himself
about the main task of his coming, which was to build a city.

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