In 1854, Dewey and his wife Catherine began to plan to begin anew the development of Cassville, once the goal of Daniels, Dennison & Co. In 1855, he was able to purchase the village under foreclosure; he remodelled the village plot and repaired the Denniston House, a hotel which had been built by the now-defunct firm, at a cost of $15,000; his ultimate hope was that Cassville would be developed into a large city. He also acquired about of land northwest of Cassville, on which he built a three-story Gothic-revival mansion, which he named "Stonefield", at a cost of about $70,000; he expended another $30,000 on eleven miles (18 km) of stone fence. It was said that to have been the most modern house in Wisconsin at that time. At this time, Dewey employed around forty to fifty men as a means of returning money to Cassville; it is said that this was the origin of the prosperity of several of Cassville's residents.
