Jefferson's location was selected to make use of the waterpower and transportation opportunities offered by the Rock River. It was the furthest point a steamboat could navigate the Rock in 1839. Later bridges built downstream prevented such navigation.

Jefferson's founders were settlers from New England, particularly Connecticut, rural Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, as well some from upstate New York born to parents who had migrated there from New England shortly after the American Revolution. These people were "Yankees" descended from the English Puritans who settled New England in the 1600s. They were part of a wave of New England farmers who headed west into what was then the wilds of the Northwest Territory during the early 1800s. Most arrived because of the completion of the Erie Canal as well as the end of the Black Hawk War.

When they arrived in what is now Jefferson there was nothing but dense virgin forest and wild prairie, the New Englanders built farms, roads, and government buildings and established post routes. They brought many of their Yankee New England values, such as a passion for education, establishing many schools as well as staunch support for abolitionism. They were mostly members of the Congregationalist Church though some were Episcopalian. Due to the second Great Awakening some had converted to Methodism and others had become Baptists before moving to what is now Jefferson. Jefferson, like much of Wisconsin, would be culturally very continuous with early New England culture for most of its early history.

During World War II, Camp Jefferson, a prison camp for German POWs, was erected at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds. The Jefferson County Fairgrounds hosted horse buggy racing prior to the renovations to the new fairgrounds.

Gemuetlichkeit Days was started in 1971 to celebrate the German heritage of many of the residents of the Jefferson area. The festival was first held under tents in the downtown area. The festival quickly grew and in 1975 the festival was moved to the Jefferson County Fair grounds and has been held there every year since.

St. Coletta

St. Coletta was founded by the sister of St. Francis Assisi-Milwaukee. During the school’s prime between 1970 and 1980, it housed over 600 students and patients.

The institution originally went by the name “St. Coletta School for Backward Youth.” This was mercifully changed to “St. Coletta School for Exceptional Children” in 1931.

This school for the developmentally disabled is now an abandoned shell. Though the students have moved away, the haunting story of one of its most famous residents is still chillingly tragic.

Lacibacsi (priest in middle) at St. Coletta about 1951

Father Laszlo Szepe (Lacibacsi) with St. Coletta residents (1950)

Oldsmobile Purchase by Lacibacsi, once belonged to JFK’s sister, Rosemary Kennedy

Rosemary Kennedy passed away on January 7, 2005 at the age of 86. She was born in Massachusetts on September 13, 1918. She was the third child, and she was also the first daughter to join the family for Rose Elizabeth Kennedy and Joseph Patrick Kennedy. She was born just a year after her very famous brother, the former President of the United States John F. Kennedy.

Rosemary didn't seem to catch on to things as quickly as others in the family. In a family of super high achievers, with IQ's of around 130, it was estimated that Rosemary's IQ hovered around 90. For an adult to truly be mentally challenged, usually the standard IQ measurement is 70 to 75. But in a super high achieving family such as this, she was considered to be slow. There was also a theory that her "slowness" was due to circumstances surrounding her birth. It was said that her birth was "delayed" by a nurse due to the doctor arriving late. It was also thought that she was deprived of oxygen for a period of time during her birth.

When Rosemary was 15 years old, she was sent to the Sacred Heart Convent in Rhode Island for education, where two nuns along with a special teacher worked with her in a separate classroom. She was able to read, write, do math problems including multiplication and division... she just wasn't quite up to the level of the other Kennedy's. She felt like she was a huge disappointment to her parents, whom she had always wanted so much to please. She put forth amazing effort and grew increasingly frustrated as she entered adolescence.

She was a blossoming young woman whose life up until the age of 22 was filled with special occasions such as tea dances, outings to the opera, fittings for dresses, and other social occasions. She was able to write about things happening to her in her life, in a diary that was later released in the 1980s. A biographer that wrote about Rosemary described her as "beautiful, with a gorgeous smile" and a very sweet personality that endeared her to just about everyone she met.

As it turned out, she became increasingly frustrated in her late teenage years with her inability to achieve as much as the rest of the Kennedy's. She had outbursts that were thought later to be due to frustration, as well as possibly being exacerbated by hormonal changes in early adulthood. It seems that the "outbursts" were undesirable to the family, and they felt that something needed to be done to stop them.

She was still being educated in the convent. Along with the sporadic outbursts, it seemed she would decide to leave the convent at night. The family feared that she might become pregnant or otherwise embarrass them. So in 1941, when she was only 23 years old and in the prime of her life, doctors told her father about a new surgical procedure that would drastically calm her outbursts and curb the family's embarrassment.

Why in the world Joseph Kennedy ever agreed to this procedure has defied understanding for years. The procedure was experimental in nature, called a frontal lobotomy. When it was successful, the person would become meek and more calm. This was a neuro-surgical procedure performed on Rosemary with a piece of equipment resembling "a butter knife," which was actually a spatula type of instrument. At this time, few lobotomies had ever been performed on anyone.

The procedure was further described as making a surgical incision near the front of her skull, then this spatula instrument was used by "swinging it up and down" to cut brain tissue. She was partially awake during the procedure. They would ask her to recite things that should have been easy for her to recite from memory, and when they had cut away enough brain material and she became incoherent, they stopped.

After the botched surgical procedure, Rosemary lived for a few years in a private psychiatric hospital in New York, then eventually was transferred to St. Coletta of Wisconsin in 1949. There she was placed into a home and had a car available to her (which of course, had to be driven by someone else) and she did have a dog as well. It was a private home, built just for Rosemary and she had two nurses to care for her around the clock. There was also a lady that would sometimes work with her to help her create ceramic pieces. She was incontinent and stared at walls for hours. This was a place for adults that would require lifelong care, which Rosemary now did require.