When the traveling party with Joseph Goodrich concluded a months-long journey west from Alfred, New York, in the spring of 1838, the strong-willed abolitionist staked out land some 60 miles west of Milwaukee. The area was then a crossroads of militia trails still worn from the Black Hawk War six years prior. Wisconsin's statehood was 10 years away when Goodrich began platting a community. He began with the Milton House, a unique hexagonal structure made of grout and built to serve as a temperance inn. Later, Goodrich used Milton House to aid fugitive slaves fleeing the South, and the inn...