LeGrand Rockwell was born on March 21, 1812, in Otsego, New York, United States. His father, Ard Starr Rockwell, was 28 and his mother, Elizabeth Shaw, was 24. LeGrand married Frances Amelia Hickox on August 20, 1844, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They were the parents of at least 3 sons and 1 daughter.
The settlement at Elkhorn was planned in 1836 by LeGrand Rockwell, his brother, and their friend, Horace Coleman. Early in 1837 Mr. Rockwell and Mr. Coleman came to find the stake where the four central towns met. At Spring Prairie, Hollis Latham joined them. Within another fortnight Mr. Rockwell, with Daniel E. and Milo E. Bradley, but without Mr. Coleman, who thought not over well of the proposed site — perhaps because it lacked water power — were again at the pivotal stake. They built a cabin on section 6 of Geneva. Mr. Latham made In- claim in the same section, and Albert Ogden, who had come with them from Milwaukee, chose his location in section 1 of Delavan. The elder Bradley had come in the interest of Lewis J Higby, who afterward bought land in section 5 of Richmond.
The county having been set off by legislative act early in 1838, there was yet time within the same year to nominate and elect county officers. The chosen were for sheriff, Sheldon Walling, of Geneva (near Elkhorn); for register of deeds, LeGrand Rockwell, of Elkhorn village; for coroner, Hollis Latham, of Elkhorn.
THE FIRST COURT HOUSE.
Before April, 1839, Mr. Rockwell had built for the county a small office on the north side of the park, at or near the northeast corner of Court and Broad streets. It was about eighteen by twenty-two feet on the ground, a low story in height, with columned porch in front, plain in its neatness, and was decently painted. It was occupied as a court room, a meeting place for the county commissioners, and an office for the registry of deeds and mortgages. In 1840 Willard B. Johnson, of Whitewater, built a log jail on the county’s land, a little north of the primitive courthouse. Its dimensions were fourteen by twenty feet, and it was fully seven feet between joints. This frowning bastille, with its full equipment of bars, bolts, locks and solitary cell, stood there twelve years; for it never had at one time enough inmates to lift one side, upset the entire structure, and effect a general jail delivery.
In 1853 men of Whitewater, Elkhorn and Geneva obtained a charter as the Wisconsin Central Railway Company. Beginning at Genoa and running diagonally through the county much curved from Geneva toward Elkhorn, and onward in a nearly straight line to Whitewater, and thence through Jefferson, Columbus and Portage, the builders would be providentially guided to a suitable terminus at Lake Superior. Erom Genoa to Chicago its trains would use the Galena & Chicago Union tracks. Millard and Heart Prairie lay on this crow-flight across the county. By 1857 the line was nearly determined through Stevens Point to the mouth of Montreal river. The first president of the company was Legrand Rockwell.
Having chosen his village site settled on it, and named it from Colonel Phoenix’s elk horn trail-mark, and a vote of the county in 1838 (confirmed by legislative act) having made it the county-seat, Mr. Rockwell’s next great care was to lay out a few streets about the park and set off the enclosed blocks into home lots.
As at first platted the village was wholly on the county’s quarter-section. Edward Norris, the county surveyor, laid out the streets, blocks and lots, and Mr. Rockwell was appointed county agent for sale of lots. There were five parallel streets, running northward and southward. Beginning with East street, on the section line, the others are Washington, Wisconsin, Broad and Church. Beginning near the intersecting section line, the streets running from east to west are named Park (then called South), Walworth, Court, Jefferson, and North. Court, Wisconsin, Walworth, and Church streets bound the park, which overlies or cuts in twain Broad street.
All these and the newer streets are four rods wide, except Walworth and Broad, which are six rods wide. These two streets were designed for business uses, but a hotel built at Wisconsin and Walworth streets diverted business from Broad street. No alleys were considered in the original plat nor in the several additions. Rockwell’s first addition enlarged the village by a narrow tier of blocks eastward, and by a row of blocks southward, to Rockwell street. LeGrand served his community in a variety of ways:
- Postmaster for Elkhorn, LeGrand Rockwell, 1838
- Appointed clerk of the District Court for the County of Walworth, 1839
- Member of the County Board for Village, 1852-1853
- Chairman of the County Board of Supervisors, 1853
LeGrand died on December 23, 1869, in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, at the age of 57, and was buried in Hazel Ridge Cemetery in Elkhorn.