Rev. Enoch Downs Underwood

Rev. Underwood was born near a town unofficially named Polsley’s Mills, Virginia, now known as Fairmont, Marion County, West Virginia. (West Virginia officially became a state in 1863, long after Enoch moved to Wisconsin.) 

His parents were William Underwood and Catherine Hill. William worked at a sawmill owned by Adam Ice, which was located where Buffalo Creek flows into the Monongahela River. Tragedy struck when Catherine died in 1820. Enoch and his brother Abram were sent to live with his grandparents near Farmington, West Virginia. His father remarried; his second wife was Margaret Morgan. In 1824, William, Margaret, Enoch, and Abram moved to Vermilion County, Illinois.

Twelve years later, in 1836, the Underwoods moved again, this time settling in what would become Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, near the modern intersection of Highway 100 and Watertown Plank Road.

In 1842, Enoch married Harriet Denney, a schoolteacher from Leicester, Massachusetts. The were the parents of five children: Sarah, Emma, Frederick, William, and Hattie. 

After a religious awakening at the age of 23, Reverend Underwood initially joined the Baptist church in Greenfield, Wisconsin. He parted ways with that congregation over a major issue of the time—slavery. Enoch strongly supported the abolitionists, so much so that he opened his home to people escaping slavery through the Underground Railroad.

Members of the Baptist congregation in Wauwatosa established their own church in 1845. 

Rev. Enoch Underwood died in April 1888. He is buried in Wauwatosa Cemetery alongside his wife.