In 1844, two brothers, John and Samuel Langdon, settled on the site. Samuel P. Langdon built a sawmill on a branch of Duck Creek, the other opened a small stock of merchandise. They surveyed and platted four blocks, and called the village Florence. But the mill dominated the landscape in those days, and the settlement around it was called Langdon's Mills.
The settlement had just begun when about fifty Welshmen, with their wives and children, came from North Wales, many from Dolwyddelan. Morris J. Rowlands, a son of one of the colonists, wrote in 1912,
Passages that mention Cambria, cut from the printed page as they were published.
The history of Columbia county, Wisconsin, containing an account of its settlement ..1880 · page 310Read the page →
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Courtland {Township 1 .', Range 13 east). — The Potsdam sandstone is at the surface only along the bottom of the ravines on Sections 5 and 6. It is seen in small exposures below the mill-dam at Cambria. The Mendota and Madison beds constitute the tongue of high land lying between the branches of Duck Creek, and on which the village of Cambria is built, and are the surface formations over a considerable area in the northern parts of Sections 4 and 5. Reddish shaly Mendota is exposed in a railway cutting on the northwest quarter of Section 5. The Lower Magnesian' is the surface rock over the larger part of the town, though, for the most part, covered by drift. It may be seen at the head of the ravine on the southeast quarter of Section
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The history of Columbia county, Wisconsin, containing an account of its settlement ..1880 · page 497Read the page →
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It was then decided that the inhabitants of the different settlements in Columbia County should join in a grove about eight miles north of the present village of Cambria, to celebrate the Fourth of July in a manner worthy of the day. Music was furnished by a large and welltrained choir. E. B. Williams delivered a philosophical lecture on music. Several speeches on different subjects were made by many who were present from different settlements.
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Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
Cambria, 1854 to 1969
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (12), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System, Sanborn fire insurance maps (Library of Congress) and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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