The first settler was James Knight who took a homestead. People came on foot along Indian and animal trails as there was not a road through Oconto County until 1860. In early times there was only the much used Indian trail through the settlement, and Indian trade was vital to the newcomers. Riding ponies bareback and wearing mocassins and often buckskin and blankets, their clothes were trimmed with shells, beads, hair, feathers and animal teeth. 

Homestead families who followed came by the names Greibles, Davis, Johnson, the three Breed brothers from New England, whom the town was named after. Danes soon followed;. The first child born in the settlement was Mary Johnson in 1885 in a log cabin just east of the Breed Union Cemetery. The land was donated by her father, who, as fate had it, was the first to be buried there. 

Mary Johnson became Mrs. Jonas Hamberg and lived in Breed all her life. Leona Breed, another early birth in the settlement, became Mrs. Victor Tait and continued to reside there. Also in 1885, the first road to Breed was build along the route of what became Highways 32 and 64. 

The Breed general store opened in 1887 as the surrounding land was being quickly settled for farming. Mail was carried by R.R. Davis once a week from Hayes to the postmaster George M Breed in 1888 and was increased to twice a week from 1889 until the railroad was built. The Chicago and Northwestern Railroad arrived in 1896 from Mountain and Gillett. 

Miss Addie Gifford was the first school teacher. As the center of the community, the old "North Star Hotel" was first run by Mr.Nelson, then by the Flynn Family and saw more than its share of lumberjack brawls and "friendly" competitions. Schools, churches, cheese factories, stores and farms later made up the village. Information gathered in part by Carrie LaPene.