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Trails to the Past would appreciate any genealogy information that you may have such as news items, wills, deaths, births, biographies etc. if you have any of these items they can be emailed to Marie Miller the state of Minnesota Adminstrator
Its county
seat is Stillwater. The largest city in the
county is Woodbury. Washington County was one of
the nine original counties created when the
Minnesota Territory was organized in 1849. The
county was officially established October 27,
1849, named after George
Washington.
Early development in the
area was on the St. Croix River, which now forms
the boundary with Wisconsin on the county's
eastern side. The river not only provided a
means of transportation to move people upstream,
but also move logs downstream. The area was
heavily forested and the early economy was
dependent on the logging and lumber
industries.
The first settlement and seat was
named Dacotah, and was located as early as 1838
in what is now northern Stillwater, where
Brown's Creek flows into the St. Croix River.
The creek's name is from the founder of this
settlement, Joseph Renshaw Brown. However, a
sawmill was built at Marine-on-St.-Croix in
1839, and another was built in the current
location of downtown Stillwater in 1844. The
success of these soon attracted the settlers
from Dacotah, and Stillwater became the county
seat in 1846.
During this early
period, the region was part of the Wisconsin
Territory, but Wisconsin became a state in 1848.
Brown and other leaders called together settlers
in this now-ungoverned territory to what has
become known as the "Stillwater Convention" on
August 26, 1848. Held in John McKusick’s store,
the settlers drafted a Memorial to Congress that
a new territory be created with the name
“Minnesota,” and elected Henry Hastings Sibley
to deliver this citizen’s petition to the U.S.
Congress. Because of this convention, Stillwater
calls itself the “Birthplace of Minnesota.”
After officially becoming a territory, growth
continued, with the first Sheriff of Washington
County appointed by Governor Alexander Ramsey in
1849, and the county's school district founded
in 1850.
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Cities
Afton
Bayport
Birchwood
Village
Cottage Grove
Dellwood
Forest
Lake
Grant
Hastings
Hugo
Lake
Elmo
Lake St. Croix Beach
Lakeland
Shores
Lakeland
Landfall
Mahtomedi
Marine
on St. Croix
Newport
Oak Park
Heights
Oakdale
Pine
Springs
Scandia
St. Marys Point
St.
Paul Park
Stillwater (county
seat)
Willernie
White Bear Lake
Woodbury
Unincorporated
communities
Arcola
Basswood
Grove
Carnelian Junction
Maple
Island
Siegel
Ghost
towns
Garen
Point Douglas |
Townships
Baytown
Denmark
Grey
Cloud Island
May
Stillwater
West Lakeland
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