William H. Canfield - Pioneer and Land Surveyor
Not every county in Wisconsin is lucky enough to have had a historian on the ground since virtually day one—and a passionate and gifted historian at that. Sauk County was set apart in 1840 to become a county of the Wisconsin Territory, and only two years later William H. Canfield arrived in the Baraboo Valley, destined to become its first historian. Like many of us today, he was struck by the beauty of Sauk County but knew that its history was changing fast and that it needed to be recorded. William Canfield was born on April 9, 1819.
