USA > Minnesota > Wabasha County > History of Wabasha County : together with biographical matter, statistics, etc. : gathered from matter furnished by interviews with old settlers, county, township, and other records, and extracts from files of papers, pamphlets, and such other sources > Part 83
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WILLIAM J. DISNEY, farmer, son of John and Mary Disney, was born in Oneida county, New York, in 1842. At the age of fifteen he came with his parents to this county, where he has resided since that time. He enlisted in 1864, in Co. E, 11th Minn., and served until the close of the war. Although he was never in an engagement, yet he did faithful service for the government in guard- ing supply trains to our armies in the south. Mr. Disney was married to Miss Ward in 1869. He is a member of the Carnelian Lodge of Masons, of Lake City. Politically he is a republican.
JAMES J. BUTTS, the sixth child of Jonathan and Eleanor (Bran- non) Butts, was born in Brookfield, Trumbull county, Ohio, July 28, 1828. Mr. Butts, Sr., was a farmer, and James was brought np on a farm, receiving such education as was obtainable in a country school. At the age of twenty he started out in life for himself, and for two years worked as a farm hand. He next became a copartner with William Rounds in the management of a steam saw- mill, at Fowler, Ohio, and soon after engaged in the dairy business until the spring of 1857, when he came to Minnesota and bought one hundred and sixty acres of land on section 18, in Plainview town- ship, Wabasha county, and soon after pre-empted one hundred and sixty more on section 6, in the same township. His landed pos- sessions now aggregate nearly four hundred acres, situate chiefly on sections 8 and 18, in Plainview, and include a portion of the western part of Plainview village, the Union school-buildings standing on land donated to the district by Mr. Butts. Mr. Butts is both a good republican and a good Odd-Fellow ; is a man of great endurance and physical strength, which he displayed to good advantage during the winter of 1859 by cutting nine cords of cordwood in eight and one-half hours. He was married to Dorcas Alderman, a native of
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EARLY SETTLERS.
Trumbull county, Ohio, and daughter of Lyman and Lydia (Munson) Alderman, June 1, 1851. They have two children now living, namely : Lucy (Mrs. Myron Smith), of Plainview, and Addie (Mrs. John Doherty), of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.
JOSEPH W. MARSHALL, the subject of our present sketch, is one of the most prosperous farmers and stock-raisers in Wabasha county. He is the son of I. P. and Isabel (Wilson) Marshall, of Crawford county, Pennsylvania, and was born on a farm in that county October 5, 1831. The Marshalls came from Vermont and the Wilsons from Pennsylvania. Mr. Marshall came to Wabasha county in company with F. L. Meachum in the spring of 1857, and located a claim on section 3, in Elgin township. He has since dis- posed of this land and purchased a farm of two hundred and forty acres adjoining, on which he now resides. Since 1880 he has engaged extensively in the dairy and stock-raising business, and has also been connected with Mr. Meachum in the buying and shipping of live stock. Just prior to his removal from the east he was married, on April 6, 1857, to Miss Elizabeth Cram, daughter of Humphrey Cram, Esq., a Crawford county, Pennsylvania, farmer, by whom he has had sixteen children, all of whom are now living, as follows : Cloe A. (Mrs. Adolph D. Haltzer, farmer), of Oakwood township ; Murray A., residing in Plainview ; Otis H., of Oakwood ; Abel A., of Plainview ; Alice I. (Mrs. E. G. Meachum), of Elgin township ; Ever E., Elmer, Olney, Hattie, Grace, Maud, Mary, Layton, Arthur, Charley, and a female child not yet named. Mr. Marshall is a democrat in politics, and was a charter-member of Plainview Lodge No. 63, A.F.A. M.
JOSEPH PARKER ROBBINS, in the early spring of 1857, with his wife and one child, arrived in Wabasha county with a small store of household goods and eighty dollars in cash, seeking a salubrious climate for their child, whose life had been despaired of in their old home in Lowell, Massachusetts, where Mr. Robbins had been en- gaged in the fruit and produce business. After enduring many hardships, the family finally found a claim which they were success- ful in holding despite the efforts of the land-sharks, who pursued with dogged persistence the poor pioneer who sought to honestly acquire by his labors a home in this new country. This claim, con- sisting of one hundred and sixty acres on section 29, in Highland township, Mr. Robbins still owns, although he resides in the village of Plainview, where he has a very pleasant home. Mr. Robbins
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HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY.
was born at Acton, Massachusetts, on January 14, 1826. His parents were Joseph and Charlotte (Parker) Robbins. His educa- tion was limited to such as he was able to acquire in a common country school, before he reached his twelfth year. The death of his mother at this time left him homeless, and he went from one place to another for several years. At the age of twenty-one he was possessed of a trade which he had learned in the shoeshop of George W. Burt, in Concord, Massachusetts, but abandoned it to engage in the milk business. He afterward purchased and run a livery stable for a few years, which he exchanged for the fruit and produce business, having a store on Central street, in Lowell, Massa- chusetts, which he sold in order to come west and make a new home. He was married March 21, 1850, to Elizabeth Rebecca Smith, daughter of Samuel Smith, a millwright, of Nashua, New Hampshire. This lady was born in Barton, Vermont, December 28, 1825, where she received a good education prior to the removal of her family to New Hampshire. Mr. and Mrs. Robbins have but one child living, viz, Charles E. Robbins, cashier of the First National Bank, of Fargo, Dakota, the sickly baby, whose life was saved by the timely removal of his parents to Minnesota.
SCOTT A. FOSTER, was born in Washington county, New York, June 2, 1856. His father, Albert Foster, is an old settler in West Albany, Wabasha county, and it was here on a farm that young Foster's early life was spent. He attended the Lake City high school for a few terms. In 1875 he entered the State University, and kept up with his classes for three years, although obliged to do the requisite studying while also engaged in teaching district school to earn the means with which to defray his college expenses. The fall of 1880 he was elected principal of the Elgin nnion school, and taught therein acceptably for two years; then filled a similar posi- tion in the Plainview union school until elected county superin- tendent of schools in the fall of 1883. Prof. Foster was elected by a majority of one hundred and twenty-eight, running six hundred ahead of his ticket, and being the only man therein elected.
JOHN SCHWIRTZ, hardware, general merchandise, and farming tools and machinery. This business is located on north side Main street, midway between Pembroke and Alleghaney streets, and occu- pies two storerooms, fronting fifty feet on Main street and extend- ing one hundred feet toward the river in the rear. The hardware house and farming tools and machinery was established in 1875,
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EARLY SETTLERS.
and the general merchandise was added two years later, when Mr. Schwirtz married Mrs. John Duke, and the general merchandising establishment she had been successfully conducting since her first husband's death was consolidated with the hardware business. The stock as thus consolidated is a very complete one in all its depart- ments. The general merchandise department is still presided over by Mrs. Schwirtz, who gives her special attention to all the details of the business with which she is so perfectly familiar, having been actively interested in its management for over twenty years. The business gives employment to a force of six persons, and trade is about the same as last year. Mr. Schwirtz is a native of Luxem- bourg, Europe. Came to America in 1855, and for the past twenty- six years has been a resident of this county, spending the first ten years of his life in Wabasha, on his farm in Glasgow township. The rest of the time he has been a resident of the city. Mr. Schwirtz has been twice married. His first wife, to whom he was wedded in 1858, died in 1876, leaving six children : Emma, born October 27, 1858; George, born December 10, 1860; Lizzie, born October +, 1862; Olillia, born August 29, 1864; John, born October 26, 1866; Anna, born December 13, 1868. April 10, 1877, Mr. Schwirtz married Eliza, widow of John Duke, for many years in business in this city, who died here in 1876.
DRURY & KIRNS, lumbermen. The business of this firm con- sists in towing lumber, and from the date of its establishment in 1878, until the commencement of the towing season in 1883, they were engaged in towing from the Eau Claire mills in Wisconsin to points as far down the river as St. Louis. Operations were con- ducted by floating the materials for these rafts (dimensions, timbers, boards, lath and shingles) down the Chippewa to this point, where they were coupled into rafts containing from two million to three million feet of stuff, exclusive of the top load, shingles and lath, and from this point towed down the Mississippi. Since the begin- ning of the present season, floating down the Chippewa has been discontinued, and their operations are coupling rafts at this place and towing down the river. They have at present two boats in their trade, the J. G. Chapman and the Lizzie Gardner, and with a good stage of water the round trip is made from here to St. Louis and return in about twelve days. Last year the company kept three boats on the river, but the other, the Peter Kirns, was sold to the United States and is now used in the government improvement
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HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY.
works on the lower Mississippi, at Plums Point, Louisiana. The rafter J. G. Chapman was built expressly for the company, at Metropolis, Ohio, in 1880, and cost twenty thousand dollars. Her dimensions are, length over all one hundred and forty-five, beam twenty-eight feet, hold four feet. She has a full cabin, has two steel boilers, and her engines are of fourteen-inch bore, with six-foot stroke. The Lizzie Gardner was purchased in 1880 at Cincinnati, Ohio, to replace their iron steamer, J. G. Chapman, which was sunk at the mouth of the Illinois river in the month of June, 1880. The Gardner cost seven thousand dollars. She is one hundred and thirty-five feet over all, twenty-two feet beam, double boilers, and her engines are fourteen-inch bore, with five-foot stroke. The com- pany find constant employment for their boats, and including boats'
JCCH
D & K
crews and raftsmen employ a force of about sixty men during the season. Their operations aggregate a total tonnage of sixty million feet of lumber during the season, exclusive of what is designated top load, lath, pickets and shingles. The members of the firm are M. E. Drury and Peter Kirns. M. E. Drury, the only resident member of the firm, is a native of County Kerry, Ireland. Leaving home at thirteen years of age, accompanied by a brother two years older than himself, he crossed the seas to seek his fortune in the new world, landing in New York in 1853. The next four years were spent at the east and south in whatever work he could find to do, and in 1857 he came to Wabasha, found employment in the lumber trade, and for twenty-six years has made it his business. Ten years after coming to this city, 1867, he began contracting, coupling rafts at this point for the Eau Claire Lumber Company, keeping their
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EARLY SETTLERS.
books and doing their business at this point. 6 This business was followed until 1878, during the winter season in the woods, superin- tending logging operations and scaling. Since the towing operations began, business in the woods discontinued. In 1865 Mr. Drury's father, mother, and his two sisters, Catharine and Maggie, came to America, and the following year to Wabasha, making their home with M. E. Drury, who is unmarried. He has a very pleasant home on the corner of Third and Bailly. Mrs. Drury (his mother) died in this city, September, 1880.
ELIZABETH EICHENBERGER, widow of Rudolph, meat market and dealer in hides and pelts, corner Second and Pembroke streets. This business was established in this city in 1857, on the corner of Second and Pembroke streets, now occupied by Whitmore's drug- store, and was removed from there to its present location in 1874, where Mr. Eichenberger continued business until his death, Novem- ber 27, 1871, since which date the business has been continued by his widow, assisted by her sons, Rudolph and John. Mr. and Mrs. Eichenberger were born in Aargau, Switzerland; were married there in 1856, and the same year came to America, settling in Chi- cago. Remaining there one year, he removed to Wabasha in the fall of 1857, and established himself in business. The property, now occupied by the business then established, fronts sixty feet on Second street and one hundred and forty fect on Pembroke, and on this lot the shop, dwelling, icehouse, etc., are built. The slaughter- house and cattle-yards are at the lower end of the city, on the river bank. They slaughter from five to eight beeves a week, and from four to six cach of calves and sheep, and handle about three hundred and fifty hides and two hundred pelts in the year. Their safe has a capacity for sufficient dressed meat to supply about forty-eight hours' demand. The children are: Rudolph, born April 15, 1857; John, born June 4, 1858; Emma, born February 22, 1861.
W. L. LINCOLN, M.D., office corner of Main and Alleghaney streets, upstairs, has been a practicing physician in this city for over twenty-six years. Dr. Lincoln is a native of West Townsend, Middlesex county, Massachusetts; born August 5, 1824, and re- ceived his classical education at the Ashly Academy in his native town, and at New Ipswich Academy in New Hampshire, complet- ing his course at the latter institution in 1846. He read for his profession in the University of Harvard, and graduated from the medical department of that university in the class of 1850. Having
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HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY.
completed his preparation, Dr. Lincoln located for practice at Win- chendon, Worcester, Massachusetts, and was in practice there until he came west in 1854. In October of that year he accepted a posi- tion as one of the medical staff of the hospital for the insane, located in Calloway county, Missouri, just across the river from Jefferson City, and remained there until April, 1857, when he discontinued his services at the hospital, and shortly afterward located for practice in this city. The doctor is a member of the County and State Medi- cal Societies, and is the present president of the latter body, having been elected to that honorable position at the annual meeting held in Minneapolis, June 18, 1883. The doctor is also a permanent member of the American Medical Association. Dr. Lincoln was married in 1855. He has one son, Wm. H., born January 2, 1857, and graduated from Rush Medical College, Chicago, class of 1881, and is now established in practice in Chicago.
JOHN GARDINER, carpenter and builder ; shop on Alleghaney street near Fourth. Business was begun here by Mr. Gardner in 1857, and he has followed his trade in this city for twenty-six years uninterruptedly. He is a native of County Meath, Ireland ; born there in 1834. At thirteen years of age he came to America, to Philadelphia, where he learned his trade, and ten years after his arrival in the new world settled in Wabasha. In 1860 he bought the property he now occupies, which he improved, added to, built upon, and which for twenty-three years has been his home. Business the present season is good, and he keeps four men steadily employed. He was married in this city July 2, 1860, to Miss Kate Cleary. Their children now living are : John, born April 16, 1861, and now firing an engine on Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway ; Eduard, born April, 1863, and chairmaker in the furniture factory ; William, born November 27, 1866; George, born July 4, 1870, both of whom are now attending school.
JAMES HENRY, Zumbro, was the first male white child born in the town of Kinsman, Trumbull county, Ohio, the event occurring July 23, 1803. The marriage of his parents was the first event of that kind in the town. Their names were Robert Henry and Betsey Tidd, the former a native of Virginia, son of James Henry, from Ireland. Betsey Tidd escaped when a little child from the Wyoming massacre, with her father, Martin. Mr. Henry was mar- ried on Christmas day, 1828, the bride being Cynthia C. Knox, born in Ridgefield, Connecticut. They became residents of Zumbro in
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EARLY SETTLERS.
1857, their sons having preceded them one year, and were six weeks on the road with a team. Mr. and Mrs. Henry are members of the Wesleyan Methodist church at South Troy. The former has always been a democrat. Their eldest son, James A., is at Elkton, Dakota ; Stephen M., is at Ashtabula, Ohio. Hannah E. is the wife of Jacob M. Dale, elsewhere mentioned.
S. H. GAYLORD, was born in Gainesville, Genesee county, New York, June 9, 1830, where he remained till the spring of 1857. He was early apprenticed to the daguerreotype business, in the interest of which he traveled through New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio for six and a half years. In 1857 he came to Plainview and settled on one hundred and sixty acres as a homestead, which he has since worked and owned. He was married March 26, 1862, to Mary E. Gaskill, of Owego, New York, by whom he had five children : Emma E., born January 30, 1863; Chas. E., born September 18, 1865 ; Mary E., born June 13, 1875 ; Fred. H., born July 9, 1877 ; Nellie,' born May 14, 1882. His father, Elijah M., came to Wabasha county in 1866 ; died January 13, 1873, and was buried in Plainview.
HON. FRANK L. MEACHUM, one of the most enterprising stockmen and farmers in Wabasha county, was the only son of Chadwill and Mary (Lee) Meachum, and was born on a farm near North She- nango, Crawford county, Pennsylvania, August 8, 1835. Being of a studious disposition, he early aspired to better educational advantages than those afforded by the district school, and at the age of sixteen entered the Kingsville Academy, located at Ashtabula county, Ohio, where he remained a portion of three years, teaching arithmetic for his tuition several terms in the academy and occasionally dropping out of his classes to do service as a country pedagogue and earn the wherewithal to defray his expenses. Becoming ambitious to enter upon a business career, he abandoned the student life in 1854, and accepted a clerkship in the store of A. C. Stratton, at Linesville, Pennsylvania. The following winter found him teaching school again, and the next two years he spent at his old home in Pennsyl- vania, dressing and shipping staves. In 1857 the family came to Minnesota and located in Elgin township. Mr. Meachumn's first claim was a pre-emption on a quarter of section 3 in that township, which he sold in 1867. He now owns four hundred and twenty acres in Elgin, on sections 3, 10 and 11. His farm-buildings are surrounded by beautiful cultivated groves and orchards, and were
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HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY.
erected at an aggregate cost of four thousand two hundred dollars. Mr. Meachum has given considerable attention to stock-raising, more particularly to fine grades of cattle. He has engaged largely in the buying and shipping of stock since the fall of 1878, and during the season of 1883 was associated with R. R. Dumonde in handling farm machinery at Plainview. Mr. Meachum's political affiliations have been with the republican party, and he has been repeatedly elected to places of public trust and honor ; has been chairman of the Elgin township board of supervisors, justice of the peace and township assessor, a member of the state legislature in 1873, and engrossing clerk of the lower house in 1871. His name is enrolled as a Knight Templar in the Rochester Commandery. Mr. Meachum resides in Plainview and is living with his second wife, formerly Mrs. Abbie Merrill, née Brockway, to whom he was married Decem- ber 28, 1873, and by whom he has one child, Agnes, nine years old. His first wife was a Miss S. M. Trace, of Crawford county, Pennsylvania, by whom he had three children : Sarah F. (Mrs. H. A. Gifford), of Erie, Pennsylvania ; Emmet G. Meachum, married to Alice Marshall, and residing on his father's farm in Elgin, and Lee F., a compositor in the "Plainview News " office. His father, who was also a Wabasha county pioneer, was residing with his son at the time of his death, which occurred in January, 1874, in his sixty-fourth year, and whose aged wife still survives him and continues an inmate of her son's home.
MATTHIAS BAUSTERT, tailor, Mazeppa, was born near the city of Luxembourg, Germany, December 6, 1837. He attended school till fourteen, and was then apprenticed to his present calling. He came to this country in 1857, arriving on September 15 at Chicago, where he was employed ten years. He spent six years at Port Washington, Wisconsin, and four years at Read's Landing, this county. He arrived in Mazeppa March 4, 1878. The next spring he bought a house and three lots on First street, nearly opposite the Catholic church, where he now resides. He has a nice home, and is doing a fair business. He is a member of St. Peter's Catholic church - as are all his family - and an independent democrat. He was married in 1860, the bride being Miss Maggie Leider, who was born in the same country as himself. Their children were given them as here noted: Michael, July 12, 1863; Jacob, Jan- nary 7, 1865 ; William, December 16, 1867 ; Maggie, February 24, 1869; Henry, April 7, 1872; Nicholas, Christmas, 1874;
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EARLY SETTLERS.
Minnie, December 27, 1881. Besides these three have died, two with diphtheria.
JAMES RILEY MACK, Zumbro, came to this town in the spring of 1857, with sufficient funds to pay the pre-emption price of his land, and is now one of its most independent farmers. His grandfather, Archibald Mack, came with two brothers from Scotland to America, and was a soldier in the revolutionary war. Josiah Kellogg was born and reared in Vermont, and had a daughter Sarah, who married James, son of Archibald Mack. To this union was born the subject of this sketch, April 24, 1824, at Windham, Vermont. He remained on the farm, where a brother still resides, and attended the common school till seventeen years old. He then spent over three years in a Lowell cotton factory, and afterward two years as fireman on an engine. Seven years were then spent as engineer, part of the time on the Erie railroad. April 2, 1857, he married Margaret Kamery, and at once set out for Minnesota. Mrs. Mack is a daughter of Peter and Elizabeth Kamery, of German descent, and was born in Hinsdale, Cattaraugus county, New York, December 13, 1834. On arriving here Mr. Mack located on the northeast quarter of section 18, where he now resides. His estate now includes two hundred acres of fine agricultural land. He is a republican, and has been several years town supervisor, part of the time chairman ; was ten years town treasurer, and refused to serve longer, although unanimously elected.
THEODORE MAIRE (deceased) was born in France in the year 1819. He was always accustomed to farm life. On reaching manhood he set out to make a home thousands of miles from his native place, in America. After spending a year at St. Louis, he tarried many years near Galena, Illinois. Here he was married, in the fall of 1848, to Adeline Gambier, a native of the same sunny land as himself. After marriage he worked land, and came to Minnesota in the spring of 1857, to secure land of his own. Ile took a claim on section 28, Chester, where he remained the balance of his life, passing away December 3, 1876. He left eighty acres of land, on which his widow and younger children now reside. There are nine of the latter now living, two having died young. Their names and resi- dence are here given : Charles J., Mazeppa ; Rosa (Mrs. Nick Clemens), Central Point ; Josephine (Mrs. Fletcher Sheldon), Mazeppa ; Margaret (Mrs. James Hinds), this town ; Sarah (Mrs. Thomas King), Lake City ; Frederick, Della, Addie, Mary, Emma,
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HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY.
Jacob T. and William are at home. All the family are Roman Catholics.
GEORGE C. EVERETT (deceased), became a resident of Minnesota in 1856, remaining a year at Marion, Olmsted county. In 1857 he took a claim on section 36, then Mazeppa, now Zumbro, on which he dwelt a short time. After residing a short period near Lake City, he removed to Mazeppa. Here he entered the United States service Angust 15, 1862, in Co. G, Sth Minn. Inf. This regiment served some time on the western frontier, and was nearly a year at the south. Mr. Everett was discharged July 11, 1865. During his army service he purchased eighty acres of land on section 25, Zum- bro, which he tilled up to the time of his death. On the 28th of February, 1874, while hauling a load of lumber from Lake City, the load was capsized in the snowdrifts, and Mr. Everett was crushed to death between the lumber and a fence. The subject of this sketch was born in Bethel, Sullivan county, New York, January 25, 1831. He was reared on a farm there, and received a common school edu- cation. September 26, 1858, he married Miss Mary Arnold. Mrs. Everett was born in Fovant, Wiltshire, England, September 24, 1836, and came with her parents, James and Mary Arnold, to Min- nesota in 1857. She is a member of the Wesleyan Methodist church. Her husband affiliated with the republican party, and was several years elected constable of this town. The eldest child of this family, Elizabeth L., died at sixteen years of age. The next, Mary Helen, married Alonzo Anderson, and dwells at Grafton, Dakota. The others, at home, are christened as below : George H., Annie M., Lucy F., Alice A., Sedalia C. and Laura A. Frances S. died one year from the day of her father's demise, being seven years old.
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