Collette's Grove: a brewery, a fort, and a forgotten settlement

Did you know that Wisconsin's second earliest brewery operated just up the road from Cuba City? After encountering two obituaries that mentioned the "Rablin Brewery" near Elmo/Elk Grove, I had to know more. It turns out that not only did the brewery exist, but this particular corner of Elk Grove Township was home to a Black Hawk War-era fort and an early settlement called Collette's Grove.

Collette's Grove was named after one of Elk Grove Township's earliest European settlers. Mr. Collette was drawn to southwestern Wisconsin in 1827 for its wealth of mining opportunities. The Frenchman built a log furnace for smelting ore along the Fever River and also operated a store and post office on his property.

Collette's Grove made it onto R.W. Chandler's 1829 Map of the United States' Lead Mines on the Upper Mississippi River.

 

As for the exact location of Collette's Grove, Mr. Collette's land was supposedly on the south half of the northeast quarter of Section 7 in Elk Grove Township. The 1874 map below shows Section 7, and the south half of the northeast quarter was owned by E. L. McNett at this time. Mine Road runs through the property, as does the Fever River.

Image from the Atlas of Lafayette County, Wisconsin, 1874.

 The satellite image below captures the same area, and the red box provides an idea of where Collette's Grove may have been located.  For reference, Highway 81 runs along the top of the image, Highway 80 is along the left border, and S. Galena Road along the right.

Image from Google Earth.

In 1832, the area was populated enough to warrant extra protection from Native Americans during the Black Hawk War. Fort De Seelhorst was built on the farm of Captain Justus De Seelhorst, who arrived in Elk Grove Township the year after Mr. Collette. The fort consisted of two blockhouses on an acre of land, enclosed by "split wooden pickets." It became the headquarters of Captain Cornelius DeLong's company for four months in the summer of 1832, and settlers sought safety within the fort's walls in the evenings.

By 1836, the fort was no longer necessary, and Henry Rablin and Thomas Bray started a brewery on the site. The establishment is considered by many to be the second commercial brewery in the state of Wisconsin, bested only by the John Phillips Brewery, which opened one year earlier in Mineral Point. Wisconsin's beer heritage is usually attributed to its German immigrants, but both of these early breweries were started by men of Cornish descent.

The following description of the Rablin & Bray brewery comes from the 1881 History of Lafayette County, Wisconsin:

"The building was made of hewn logs and rough rock, and was partially destroyed by fire April 1, 1848. The burned portion was rebuilt in stone. The barley required for malting was crushed beneath a roller turned by a primitive one-horse power. The product of the brewery easily sold for an eagle [$10 gold coin] a barrel. Rablin & Bray continued here until 1850, when the brewery was rented to different parties, who continued to manufacture the Teutonic beverage until 1856, when the business was abandoned."

In the early 1850s, attempts were made to establish a village within Elk Grove Township, and the Collette's Grove area seemed a natural choice. Difficulties securing property at that location, however, led to the village of Elk Grove being established to the northeast of the earlier settlement, along present-day County Road X.

And what became of Collette's Grove? According to a 1919 article in The Wisconsin Magazine of History, the settlement had "stores, tavern, brewery, postoffice, boarding houses, shops, residences, church, and school in its day." By the time the article was written, a farm and schoolhouse were all that remained. Two cemeteries still exist in this area, known as the McNett East and McNett West cemeteries, and images of several of the old tombstones, including that of Justus De Seelhorst, are available online.

Sources:

Conley, P. H. "The Early History of Lafayette County." The Wisconsin Magazine of History, Vol. 2, No. 3 (March 1919), pages 319-330. Available online.

History of Lafayette County, Wisconsin. Chicago: Western Historical Company, 1881. Available online.

Hoverson, Doug. Wisconsin Breweries and Brewpubs: an annotated companion to The Drink That Made Wisconsin Famous: Beer and Brewing in the Badger State. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2019. Available online.