Town of Freedom, Wisconsin named in honor of Black Wisconsinite, James Andrew Jackson

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by Angie Cope

The first non-native settler in the Town of Freedom, Wisconsin was James Andrew Jackson, an Black man who escaped enslavement around the year 1850.

https://collections.lib.uwm.edu/digital/collection/agdm/id/318/rec/23
Chapman’s sectional map of Wisconsin : with the most recent surveys / published by Dyer & Pasmore ; A.S. Barnes & Co. ; L.B. Lippinccott & Co. ; sold by Matthew Wallace. 1857

Jackson was very well liked by the local people and they wanted to name the town “Jackson.” But Jackson asked that it be named Freedom instead because that’s where he found his freedom.

Outagamie County, Wisconsin 1984 with inset of townships within the county.
https://collections.lib.uwm.edu/digital/collection/agdm/id/13485/rec/15
The bustling town of Freedom, Wisconsin from a 2006 highway department map of Outagamie County
https://collections.lib.uwm.edu/digital/collection/agdm/id/13032/rec/10

The town is small with a total area of 35.8 square miles (92.6 km2) and a population of 6,057. Freedom is at the crossroads of the Fox Valley, located halfway between Appleton and Green Bay on County E and halfway between Kaukauna and Seymour on State Highway 55 in Outagamie County.

Topographic details from a 1985 1:100,000 scale map of Outagamie County. “County map series (topographic), [Wisconsin]” / produced by the United States Geological Survey in cooperation with the Wisconsin Division of Highways and Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey https://collections.lib.uwm.edu/digital/collection/agdm/id/13032/rec/10

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