The Native Americans who occupied the Four Lakes Region before the advent of the white man were Winnebago, who had many summer encampments in the Maple Bluff area. There was a large one on the north side of the lake; others were located in Fuller's Woods and on the Mendota Hospital grounds. While at the University of Wisconsin in 1882, Thomas E. Coleman wrote that there had once been an encampment on McBride's Point (the "Upper Bluff"); the mounds were still present when cottages began to be built there in the 1890's.
The Native Americans had camps all around Lake Mendota, but they were especially attracted to the north side of the lake because it comprised a dense forest of mature trees, an area excellent for hunting. One reason for this heavy forest was because Lake Mendota protected the land from the prairie fires that swept northward; thus the dense maple grove on McBride's Point from which the village gets its name.
One of the most heavily used trails of the Native Americans was that which ran north to the village of Portage from the north side of Lake Mendota. This trail went through the present village. To mark their trails, the Indians bent tree limbs so that they pointed out the directions of the paths. For many years there was a twisted elm in the rear of the property at 200 Lakewood Boulevard which had been used as a trail marker. The limb that had been tied down was removed in the 1950's because it hung into the street. This elm, one of the oldest and largest in the state, was later a victim of Dutch Elm disease.
The first permanent settler in the Maple Bluff region was James Douglas McBride, who came to America from Ireland in 1803. In the 1840's, he visited Madison and was so pleased with the area that he bought 500 acres of land on the lake, extending from what is now East Gorham Street to land that would later be occupied by the Mendota State Hospital. He and his wife Mary built in 1849 a handsome Italianate-style house of red brick. In 1868 this house was sold to Halle Steensland, a Norwegian immigrant and prominent Madison banker.
Steensland occupied the house until 1892, when he sold it to Samuel H. Marshall, a gentleman farmer and son of one of the founders of the Marshall and Ilsley Bank of Milwaukee. In 1906, the house was purchased by Senator Robert M. LaFollette and it is now known as the LaFollette House (see later). From its commanding view of Lake Mendota, the McBride property stretched down the hill almost to the edge of the lake.
McBride and his wife were enthusiastic gardeners and horticulturalists, and grew many varieties of trees on their estate. Their son, Alexander McBride, was employed in 1847 to plant the trees on the Capitol Park.
Leonard Farwell had come to Madison from Milwaukee in 1847, attracted by the beauty and business potential of the region. He purchased an extensive tract on the east side, comprising a part of the city and a part of McBride's estate. In addition, he obtained rights to the unimproved water power of the Catfish (Yahara) River at the outlet of Lake Mendota. To harness the water power, he hired a crew which straightened the channel of the Yahara River and dammed Lake Mendota, raising its level two feet and lowering the level of Lake Monona one foot. In the summer of 1849 a saw mill was erected, and the following year a grist mill. At the same time, a brewery was begun, purchased in 1852 by John Rodermund and gradually enlarged. Industrial development flourished at the outlet of Lake Mendota into the 20th century. After Rodermund's business failed, the brewery was purchased by another local brewer, Joseph Hausmann (whose main brewery was at the corner of State and Gorham Streets).
In addition to his industrial developments, Farwell had the forest cleared for city streets (including East Washington Avenue and WIlliamson Street), laid roads out to thesurrounding countryside (including the Lodi Road, that later became Sherman Avenue), graveled and graded the city streets, began the drainage of the low lands between Lake Mendota and Lake Monona, built sidewalks, started the first woolen factory, started the first machine shop and foundry, and built the first bridge over the Yahara River.
Before this Yahara River bridge was erected, it had been extremely difficult to travel between Madison and the farms on the east and north side. However, even with the bridge the Maple Bluff area remained remote from Madison in the days when only horse-drawn vehicles were available.
By 1873 there were more than a dozen individuals with holdings in the Maple Bluff area. Farwell had lost all his property in the Panic of 1857, and Alexander McBride had sold most of his land to the William Woodward, Sr. family, who also lived for a while in the McBride house. Some of the other land holders in Maple Bluff in the early 1870's were H. Sachtjen, B. Veerhusen, D. Nicholson, H. Steensland, and J.G. Dengel (for whom Dengel's Bay in Lakewood is named).
According to William Woodward,Jr., the land was poor for farming so that grazing was the best use. However:
Sometimes the cows wandered too close to the edge of the bluff and fell off into the lake. If you could get a rope there soon enough, and [the rope was] long enough, and if the cow didn't break a leg; maybe you could save it.
Woodward also told of an incident that occurred after the death of ³Uncle" John McBride shortly after the Civil War. When he died, it was rumored that he had buried his wealth on his estate in Fuller's Woods. Many Madisonians came out at night and dug up the ground around his cabin.
One morning the imprint of a three-legged iron pot was found in a hole that had been dug the night before. Who got it, and what was in it, nobody ever found out.
In 1871 the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad built a line between Madison and the Twin Cities. Out of Madison, the tracks curved north and northwest around Lake Mendota in the direction of Waunakee. Today, these tracks form part of the northern and eastern boundaries of the village of Maple Bluff.
Two men associated with the railroad, Alder Ellis and George Dunlap, also owned land in Maple Bluff. They intended to make McBride's Point a summer resort for Chicago people, but left the railroad before the project materialized. (Instead, Lake Geneva became the summer haven for wealthy Chicago businessmen.)
Another industry located in what would become Maple Bluff was the Kurtz and Huegel Ice Company, built near 309 Lakewood Boulevard (site of the present Maple Bluff beach). A railroad spur from the Chicago and Northwestern was run down to the lake and the harvested ice was shipped all over the Midwest and as far away as St. Louis and New Orleans.
Next to the ice company was a slaughterhouse run by M. J. Hoven, whose specialty was sausage. Undoubtedly one of the reasons for locating here was to obtain ice for chilling the meat for shipping. The cattle were grazed on the high ground of what is now the Lakewood region of Maple Bluff. When Stanley Hanks built a house at 315 Lakewood about 30 years later, his construction crew dug up large numbers of bones, remains of the slaughter operation. Both the ice company and the slaughterhouse were gone by the beginning of the 20th century, but the railroad spur remained until the late 1920's.
The village of Maple Bluff is a small, homogeneous, residential suburb of Madison. Maple Bluff occupies a narrow ring of Lake Mendota shoreline in the northeast town of Madison and the southeast town of Westport. It is a village with numerous large and stately residences, some of which occupy commanding views along one of the most scenic parts of the lake.
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