Ambrotype of the Wade House circa 1858

When Sylvanus and Betsy Wade and their family settled at Greenbush in 1844, Wisconsin was a frontier territory and the land between Fond du Lac and Sheboygan was a virtually uninterrupted forest. Years later, Betsy Wade liked to tell her children that when they arrived at their new homesite, the forest was so dense that even on a clear night she "could hold in her apron all the stars she could see."

The Wades were the first settlers to live permanently in what was to become Greenbush. They came to the remote place with the goal of establishing a village on the developing frontier, not merely of carving a single homestead out of the wilderness. Sylvanus and Betsy Wade selected the site carefully, choosing a location halfway along the beaten trail between Sheboygan and Fond du Lac, where the Mullet River crossed the trail and offered a promising source of water power. They purchased several sections of land clustered around a potential mill site.

When Wisconsin became a state in 1848, Greenbush was a booming little village with two stores, a school, a sawmill, a wagon shop, a blacksmith, and a doctor. Sylvanus Wade had sold off most of his land holdings to enterprising settlers who, like him, were willing to stake their futures on the little community. The trail between Sheboygan and Fond du Lac had been improved by the territorial government, and there were plans to further improve the thoroughfare by construction of a plank road. The Wades had kept a tavern in their log house, and as the years passed and business improved, they twice expanded the structure. By 1848 Wade's "Half Way House" was a regular stop for the stagecoach lines that operated between Sheboygan and Fond du Lac. The Wades planned the construction of a large and elegant inn that would serve the growing traffic and lend an aura of establishment and civilization to the growing village of Greenbush.

Ruth de Young Kohler

In 1850, the new Wade House stagecoach inn opened to the public. Built of locally harvested and sawn lumber, the three-story Greek Revival-style inn was in keeping with buildings in the fashion of the "civilized" east. To travelers first arriving in Greenbush, the Wade House represented the prosperity and progress of the young village. The inn was the scene of cotillions, business meetings, political caucuses and circuit court sessions, and the taproom buzzed with debates of issues as mundane as last year's crops and as heady as secession and the abolition of slavery. Construction of the Sheboygan and Fond du Lac Plank Road, which began in 1851, seemed to ensure that the Wade's village and inn would flourish.

The heyday lasted little more than a decade. In the early 1860s the railroad displaced the plank road as the main transportation artery between the port of Sheboygan and the interior of the state. The railroad bypassed Greenbush entirely, and established a terminal two miles to the north in Glenbeulah. By the mid 1860s the growth and prosperity of Greenbush had stalled, and the village became the sleepy rural hamlet that it remains today.

For the next eight decades, three generations of Wades lived in the structure. It continued to function as an inn until around 1910. In 1941 the building was sold by Sylvanus' grandson, William Wade, to family friend Mary Dorst for the sum of $5,200. It was Mrs. Dorst's intention to restore the Wade House to its original 19th-century splendor using the many Wade furnishings still within the house. Unfortunately, by 1949 Mrs. Dorst no longer had the funds to continue the repairs necessary to maintain or restore the building. By 1950, 100 years after its construction, the Wade House inn stood dilapidated, but in basically unaltered condition.

The Wade House's rich history was brought back to life in the early 1950s by the perseverance of Marie Christine Kohler and, later, Ruth De Young Kohler. It was the vision of Marie Kohler, daughter of Kohler Company founder John Michael Kohler, to restore the historic stagecoach inn to its 1850s and '60s heyday. Unfortunately, she passed away before she could set her vision in motion, but Ruth De Young Kohler enthusiastically took up Marie's cause.

Bringing to bear the considerable influence of the Kohler family and the Kohler Foundation, the Wade House was purchased. At that time, the Wade House stood vacant and in a state of disrepair, overlooking the route of a plank road that once connected Fond du Lac and Sheboygan. After the purchase in 1950, a top-to-bottom restoration began.

The foundation also acquired the circa-1855 residence of Charles Robinson, son-in-law of Wade House founder Sylvanus Wade. Mrs. Kohler personally directed the property's restoration and sought to deed the property to the Wisconsin Historical Society upon completion.

Amid great fanfare, complete with an appearance by poet Carl Sandburg, Wade House opened to the public on June 6, 1953, as the Society's second historic site. Sadly, Mrs. Kohler did not live to see the fruit of her labors. She passed away three months before the grand opening.

Wade House continued to welcome visitors through the 1950s, and in 1963 the Wisconsin Legislature voted to create a permanent home at the site for the carriage collection of Wesley W. Jung, grandson of a Sheboygan carriage maker. In 1968, the Wesley Jung Carriage Museum was completed at Wade House historic site.

Restoration continued in 1999, when the Kohler Trust for Preservation pledged a $1.8 million gift to rebuild the Herrling Sawmill on its original site. The mill, which had stood in Greenbush throughout the second half of the 19th century, opened to the public on June 16, 2001.