The earliest evidence of humans in the Cedarburg area is the Hilgen Spring Mound Site, located in the eastern part of the city of Cedarburg, near
Cedar Creek. The site consists of three conical burial mounds constructed by early
Woodland period Mound Builders. In 1968, archaeologists from the
Milwaukee Public Museum found human burials and artifacts, including stone altars, arrowheads, and pottery shards, during an excavation of one of the mounds.
Radiocarbon samples from the excavation date the mounds' construction to approximately 480
BCE, making it one of the oldest mound groups in the state. In the early 19th century, the land was inhabited by Native Americans, including the
Potawatomi and
Sauk tribes. The Potawatomi surrendered the land the United States Federal Government in 1833 through the
1833 Treaty of Chicago, which (after being ratified in 1835) required them to leave Wisconsin by 1838. While many Native people moved west of the Mississippi River to
Kansas, some chose to remain, and were referred to as "strolling Potawatomi" in contemporary documents because many of them were migrants who subsisted by
squatting on their ancestral lands, which were now owned by white settlers. Eventually the Potawatomi who evaded forced removal gathered in northern Wisconsin, where they formed the
Forest County Potawatomi Community. The first white settlement in the Cedarburg area was a community called "New Dublin," which later became
Hamilton. The first resident was Joseph Gardenier, who built a log shanty on Cedar Creek as his headquarters for surveying for the construction of the
Green Bay Road. In 1848, Hamilton became the first stop on the stagecoach route between Milwaukee and Green Bay. Most of Cedarburg's early settlers were German immigrants. Ludwig Wilhelm Groth is usually credited with being the first settler of Cedarburg. He purchased land from the government on October 22, 1842, and began platting the banks of Cedar Creek. The Wisconsin state legislature created the Town of Cedarburg on March 2, 1849. The first train line, which eventually became part of the
Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway, began running through Cedarburg in 1870. Cedarburg continued to grow and prosper due to its rail connections, while the surrounding communities of Hamilton,
Decker Corner and
Horns Corners remained more characteristically rural. The City of Cedarburg incorporated from some of the town's land in 1885. The Excelsior Mill was built on Cedar Creek in the town in 1871 for $21,000. The mill produced both flour and lumber. a large fire gutted the stone mill and destroyed the wooden outbuildings, causing the business to close. and retooled the mill as a wire and nail factory. ==Geography==