This story is reprinted from Page 5 of the July 2, 1999, edition in honor of this publication’s 20th anniversary.

Misspelling plagues Stevens Point’s first mayor

By Gene Kemmeter

Steven’s Point’s first mayor gets no respect.

Dr. William Scholfield, a physician and lumberman, was the first mayor elected when Stevens Point incorporated as a city in 1858. The display of photographs of Stevens Point mayors at an entrance to CenterPoint MarketPlace even misspells his name, leaving out the first “L’ in his name.

Of course, the central Wisconsin city named after him misspelled his name well before the wall display was put up, leaving out the same letter.

While Schofield left his impact on central Wisconsin, he was born in Salem, OH, on March 7, 1810. He qualified for a professional career of medicine and surgery at Joliet, IL, where he was located in 1836, according to an account by Katherine A. Rood, a historian for the Stevens Point Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Dr. Scholfield practiced medicine for some years in Joliet, then moved to Wisconsin in 1847, settling in Shullsburg, where he reportedly was engaged in business with a Captain Lombard. The following year, he came to Portage County, which encompassed a much larger area then it does today, settling in the location of today’s Schofield, a few miles south of Wausau, for the purpose of buying lumber to be used for the construction of buildings.

Scholfield

After he arrived, he bought the small sawmill operated there from a Mr. Martin and began a lumbering business on the Eau Claire River. On Oct. 28, 1852, he was married to the former Mary S. Haseltine, and they were the parents of five children: William, Kate, Virginia, Elizabeth and Margaret.

In 1856, the mill burned and Dr. Scholfield bought sole ownership of the mill, which became known as Scholfield’s Mill, and continued to operate the business. He apparently gave up the medical practice too, because there is no indication he served as a physician once he moved to this area.

He was one of the first to introduce rotary saws in the Wisconsin River mills, replacing the frame saws run by flutter wheels in most mills at the time. The same year the mill burned, Scholfield made his home in Stevens Point, then the hub of the northern pinery. He built his home on Clark Street in the block between Ellis and Third streets.

Although a resident for only two years, he was apparently honorable and respected because he was elected Stevens Point’s first mayor on July 1, 1858, and served two one-year terms.

Dr. Scholfield died Dec. 16, 1863, and was buried in Stevens Point. When the family later moved to Wausau, however, his body was moved from Stevens Point and interred at Wausau.