In 1844 Sylvanus and Betsey Wade and their family settled in what was to become Greenbush. At that time, Wisconsin was a frontier territory. The land between Fond du Lac and Sheboygan was a wilderness of virtually uninterrupted forest. Years later, Betsey Wade would tell her children that the forest was so dense that, even on a clear night, she “could hold in her apron all the stars she could see.” The Wades were the first permanent settlers in Greenbush. They came to the remote area not to carve a single homestead out of the wilderness, but to establish a village on the developing frontier. Learn more.