The story of the Milton House begins with a pioneer, Joseph Goodrich. Goodrich came to Prairie du Lac (Milton's name back then; it means "prairie of the lake") in 1838. Mr. Goodrich settled here simply because he sought a better place for his family to live. He settled where two Indian trails intersected and built a small frame home.
This prairie intersection became heavily traveled and the prospects for running an inn seemed quite capitalistic. Goodrich welcomed all. However, not all of his guests traveled by stagecoach or train. Some came by way of the historic Underground Railroad.
Joseph Goodrich constructed the Milton House as a hexagonal three-story tower. It is unusual in that it is a grout house, meaning it was made with lime mixed with course gravel and sand. This structure would serve not only as an inn for travelers passing through, but also as the Goodrich family residence. It would also, with its out-buildings, become a "station" on the Underground Railroad.
A history of the building would be incomplete without mentioning the builder and proprietor of the Milton House. Joseph Goodrich was born in 1800 in Massachusetts to a family active in the Seventh Day Baptist Church. The Seventh Day Baptists were a denomination that had officially denounced slavery in several resolutions. Goodrich moved to New York as a teen. He married Nancy Maxson in 1821. In 1838 he organized a party of fellow Seventh Day Baptists who traveled westward to Wisconsin to file a claim for unsettled land. This was not unusual. Ripon, Wisconsin (which would become the birthplace of the anti-slavery Republican Party) was another such community organized as an anti-slavery commune known as Ceres. North of Milwaukee was another settlement along the Onion River called Winooski which was also an assembly of Abolitionists (one of whom was the esteemed "man with the branded hand," Captain Jonathan Walker).
The group built a log cabin and surveyed the land for a town they named Prairie du Lac. The town was located near the Rock River, a tributary of the Mississippi River. This may explain why it was a popular spot on a route for fugitive slaves escaping to the communities along Lake Michigan that bordered Canada.
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