page_title: Rochester, Wisconsin
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Rochester, Wisconsin / History
caption_attribution_description: The municipal building in downtown w:Rochester, Wisconsin. This file was uploaded with Commonist.
context_page_description: Rochester is a village in Racine County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 3,682 at the 2010 census. The village is located within the former Town of Rochester. On November 4, 2008, the village of Rochester voted to consolidate with the Town of Rochester.
context_section_description: The first non-Native American settlers in Rochester were a group of five farming families, who all hailed from the town of Rochester, Vermont after which they gave their new settlement its name. These were "Yankee" settlers, that is to say they were descended from the English Puritans who settled New England during the colonial era. Correspondingly they were members of the Congregationalist Church and were staunch abolitionists. When they arrived in what is now Rochester there was nothing but dense virgin forest and wild prairie. They laid out post routes, built roads, constructed farms and government buildings all within the first few months of settling in what is now Rochester.  Due to the Second Great Awakening many of them had become Baptists or converted to either Presbyterianism or Methodism before coming to what is now Walworth County, Wisconsin.  The old Union House hotel in the Village of Rochester was a part of the Underground Railroad. The trail started there, went under the Fox River, and ended at a house on the other side.
caption: Municipal building
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