Many of these early pioneers are buried in Green’s Prairie Cemetery, but even more moved farther West within the next thirty years.

[3] Beginning in 1851, Norwegians began to settle in the northern and western portions of the township where the hills and valleys were more wooded and rugged.

The land was fertile and comparably rock-free, but it was the water quality of the area that may have held the strongest draw.

[7] There were problems with malaria in some earlier Norwegian settlements of Muskego and the Fox River Valley in Illinois and, therefore, flat land, something already conceptually strange to Norwegians, gained a tarnished reputation through an association with swamps, unclean stagnant water, and disease.

In York and the Driftless Area, the water gushed out of the hills in a constant flow of bountiful springs.

[8][5][9] In 1855, a Norwegian Lutheran congregation in York formed and, in 1861, they began to build their church at the intersection of what is now Hwys 39 and 78.

Its location moved several times with changes in postmasters who each operated out of their homes, so it eventually ended up in Town of Adams.

Post offices were consolidated between 1900 and 1904 and rural route deliveries out of Blanchardville, New Glarus, Daleyville, and Mount Horeb then began to serve most York residents.

[10] The main industry for all the settlers was wheat farming until chinch bugs, overused soil, and lowered prices caused its profitability to drop significantly in the 1870s.

After 1900, a noticeable decline in population began, largely due to smaller familial units and migration into villages and cities.

[11] According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 36.0 square miles (93.2 km2), all of it land.