“The History of Jefferson County, Wisconsin”, published: Chicago:  
Western Historical Company.   1879.


CHARLES B. WILKIN, farmer, Sec. 14;  P.O. Watertown; born in 
1815, in Orange Co., N.Y.; came to Wisconsin in the spring of 1839, and 
located in Watertown Township, Jefferson Co.; took up 160 acres of 
land; returned East in the spring of 1841.  In 1843, came back to 
Wisconsin; visited the East occasionally, but considered Watertown his 
home.  In the fall of 1840, Mr. Wilkin and a friend tried to run some logs 
down the river, but at the mill-dam the logs parted and let him through, 
but, fortunately, the current carried him to the bank all safe, much to the 
surprise of his friends; that same year, six or eight rafts with two men on 
each, went as far as Lake Koshkonong, where they waited for favorable 
winds three or four days, and got frozen solid, and had to remain twenty-
four hours before they could get to land, when they had to abandon the 
rafts.  In 1846, he sold eighty acres.  His brother, who came in 1839, 
owned one-quarter section; he died in 1856, and Mr. W. inherited the 
property, but has since sold eighty acres of it.  He now owns 180 acres; 
he built his barn in 1858, and his house in 1860; he raises all kinds of 
grain and live stock, wheat being the staple.


Submitted by:  Linda Pingel  (LPingel@worldnet.att.net)