USA > Wisconsin > A political history of Wisconsin > Part 26
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39
DANIEL WELLS, JR.
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Daniel Wells, fr .. was born in Waterville, Kennebec county. Maine, July 16, 1808. His father was a farmer, and the owner of a custom carding and cloth dressing mill. The boy obtained his schooling in the winter. In the summer he worked on the farm. But he made such progress in his studies as to qualify him for instructing others. and before he was 20 he had taught a district school for two terms. While thus engaged. he found time to obtain some practical knowledge of the science of navigation. At the age of 22 he invested his savings in a stock of produce which he took in a coaster to Magnolia, Florida, where he disposed of it to advantage. He there became a partner with a young man who had secured a contract to make a survey of government lands. This undertaking proved profitable to both of them, though Mr. Wells found exposure in the Florida swamps detrimental to nis health. Returning to Maine, he opened a general store at Pal- nyra, in the fall of 1831, and that winter married Miss Marcia Bryant, daughter of Dr. Bezer Bryant, of Anson. In 1835, in com- pany with Winthrop W. Gilman, he made a journey to the West. in search of investments, and purchased a number of town lots in Milwaukee, and lands in other parts of the State. He had sold out his business in Palmyra in the spring of 1835. and the follow- ing year, with his family. he removed to Milwaukee. He had not been three months in his new home when Gov. Dodge 'appointed him justice of the peace for Milwaukee county, which then embraced. in addition to what it does now, the territory at present forming Washington, Ozankee. Jefferson, Racine, Walworth and Kenosha counties. In March, 1837. he was elected a member of the executive committee of the claim organization formed to pro- tect the squatters until they could get titles to their land from the government. In 1838 he was a trustee of the east side of Milwau-
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kee, and on the 4th of September of that year he was appointed probate judge. In 1841 he was elected a fire warden. In 1842 he served as under-sheriff, and the same year was appointed com- missioner in bankruptcy, and held, the office until the law was repealed. He also held the office of county supervisor and town surveyor. In 1838 he was elected a member of the Territorial Council, and was active in securing the passage of the law which provided that taxes should be assessed against land alone. and not on improvements. This law, which disappeared with the circumstances that called it forth, was intended to protect actual settlers against non-residents who held large tracts of land for speculation. He was conspicuously influential in securing the passage of the bill granting a charter to the Wisconsin Marine and Fire Insurance Company, which for many years conducted the greatest banking institution in the West. In IS51 he was Wis- consin Commissioner to the first world's fair. In 1852 he was elected to Congress on the Democratic ticket from the First dis- trict of Wisconsin. Without pretensions as a speaker or debater, he was extraordinarily efficient in promoting legislation advantageous to Wisconsin. He introduced bills granting lands to the State in aid of the construction of railroads throughout its limits. He also introduced a bill providing for the purchase of a site and the erection of a government building in Milwaukee, and secured an appropriation of $50,000 thercior, which, at the next session, was increased by an additional appropriation of $38,000. He was active in securing appropriations for the improvement of the har- bors of Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha, the reduction of the rates of ocean postage, and the regulation of the foreign coasting trade on our northeastern and northwestern frontiers. He was re-elected to the next Congress, and took a conspicuous part in the election of N. P. Banks as speaker. To the work of Mr. Wells at this session, Minnesota is largely indebted for her grants of public lands in aid of her railroad system. At the end of his sec- ond term in Congress he declined a re-election. For many years Mr. Wells was one of the most con-pienons figures in the business circles of Milwaukee. He built the City Hotel. now the Kirby House, the first brick hotel in the city. He engaged in the stor-
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age and shipping trade; dealt largely in grain and wool; was one of the organizers of the Malison, Watertown & Milwaukee Plank Road company, and from 1847 to the present time has been largely engaged in the lumber trade, and has been associated with many of the lumbermen in Wisconsin and Michigan in all branches of the business. He has been interested in the banking business, hav- ing been a director of the Wisconsin Marine & Fire Insurance bank for many years, and president of the Green Bay bank and of its successor, the First National of La Crosse. He was vice- president of the old Board of Trade, has long been a member of the Chamber of Commerce, and is a director of the Northwest- crni National Insurance Company. He was one of the organi. zers of the various branches of what is now the Chicago, Milwau- kee & St. Paul Railway system, to which, more than any other instrumentality, is due the rapid development of the resources of the State. He was one of the incorporators of the Milwaukee & Mississippi and the Milwaukee & Watertown Railroad companies. and was president of the latter after it became the Milwaukee & La Crosse railroad. He was also president and director of the Southern Minnesota and of the St. Paul & Minnesota Valley roads. Though in his ninety-second year, Mr. Wells is still capable of attending to business, and his tall figure is familiar on the streets of Milwaukee.
D. A. J. UPILAM.
Don Alonzo Joshua Upham was a descendant of John Upham. who immigrated from the west of England 'in 1635 and settled first at Weymouth and later at Malden, near Boston, Massa- chusetts. It was on the 31st of May, 18og, a year noted for the birth of celebrated men. that D. A. J. Upham first saw the light in Windsor county. Vermont, whither his parents had moved from a farm in the Connecticut valley. He was care- fully educated, and was graduated with the highest honors from U'nion College. New York, in 1831. For three years there- after he was assistant Professor of Mathematics in Delaware Col- legre, and then, being destined for the law, entered the office of
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Hon. James A. Bayard, of Wilmington, being admitted to the bar in 1835. In the same year he was elected city attorney of Wilmington. In 1834 he had become editor and proprietor of the Delaware Gazette and American Watchman, for which he had been a writer while studying law, and he continued he's editorial work. in connection with his other duties, until 1837. Then he visited the West, and, after a protracted examination of various localities. settled in Milwaukee, where he resided till his death, July 19. 1877. Here he at once became conspicuous as a lawyer and an enterprising man of affairs. In 1840-1 he was a member of the Territorial Council of Wisconsin: in 1843 he was prosecuting attorney for Milwaukee county, and in 1846 he was elected a member of the first Constitutional Convention, by which body he was chosen to be its president. In 1849 and 1850 he was mayor of the city of Milwaukee. In 1851 he was the candidate of the Democratic party for Governor of the State, and came within a few votes of election. Subsequent disclosures have led many to believe that Mr. Upham was in fact elected Governor and should have served as such. From 1857 to 1861 he was United States district attorney for the district of Wisconsin. Mr. Upham's first case of importance in the territory illustrates the difficulties in the transaction of business in those days, and how far the State has advanced in the space of one generation. Mr. Upham was retained to take an appeal to the Territorial Supreme Court to enjoin a judgment sale of a large amount of property in Milwaukee. Two of the judges were out of the territory, and the third one. Judge Dunn, lived in the extreme southwestern limit of the territory. The only thing to be done was to appeal to him, but this involved a ride on horseback of some one hundred and seventy-five miles. The time was short. but Mr. Upham made the trip. secured the injunction, and. by riding day and night, returned one hour before the sale was advertised to take place. Some of Mr. Upham's experiences on that trip were thrilling, and even perilous, including a struggle to escape a widespread prairie fire, and would read strangely to those who are familiar only with the facilities for travel and the transaction of business at the present day in Wisconsin. In 1863. after thirty years of ardnous exertion, Mr. Upham's health
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failed, and he retired from professional life and took no further part in public affairs. Tenney and Atword's "Fathers of Wisconsin" contains the following estimate of bis character: "Mr. Upham was by inclination and by habit a student, preferring the quiet of study and professional laber to a public career. His ambition was hottest and pure. He accepted official position from necessity rather than choice, neither seeking public honors nor avoiding them when voluntarily tendered by his fellow citizens. In all relations of life his highest aim was an honest and conscientious discharge of duty. He was neither depressed by defeat nor elevated by success, but kept the even tenor of his way, and was ever alike esteemed by both friends and political opponents. His record. in all senses, was worthy of the pioncer era of American history."
GEN. RUFUS KING.
Rufus King, son of Charles King. LL.D., and Eliza Gracie, his wife, and grandson of Rufus King, twice minister to England and twenty years United States Senator from New York, was born at No. 3 Pearl street. New York City, January 26, 1814. His boyhood was spent in New York, and his early education entrusted to an old French soldier scholar (M. Peugnet) who emi- grated to America after Waterloo. At the age of fifteen. King entered the Military Academy at West Point, and was graduated when only nineteen and commissioned in the Corps of Engineers United States Army, standing number four in a large and brilliant class, prominent in which were John G. Barnard and George W. Cullum. King's first duty was in the construction of Fortress Monroe, where he was associated with Lieutenant Robert E. Lec. of the Engineers, but he was soon transferred to duty in connec- tion with the improvement of the navigation of the Hudson River. his office being in Albany. In September. 1836, he resigned from the army to become Assistant Engineer of the New York & Erie . Railway, then being surveyed. and held his position until 1839. when, the new enterprise becoming crippled in its finances, he re- turned to Albany, accepting the Adjutant Generalship of the State tendered him by Gov. William H. Seward, who was just entering
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The Fachlich
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upon his first term. This office, despite his youth, General King discharged with marked credit for the four years of Seward's incumbency. Meantime the inherent editorial stuff in him had attracted the attention of both Mr. Seward and his stanch friend. Thurlow Weed, and King became, under Weed's intelage. asso- ciate editor of the Albany Evening Journal, making his home in that city and becoming captain of the famous Burgesses Corps. In 1836 King was married to Ellen. daughter of Robert Eliot. Esq., of Albany, but she died within the year. Eight years later he was married to Susan MeKown Eliot, a younger sister of his first wife, and in the autumn of 1845 he removed to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he became editor and proprietor of the Milwau- kee Sentinel, and took a prominent and active part in building up the infant city, which became the metropolis of Wisconsin. He served in the State Constitutional Convention, was for years mem- ber of the Board of Regents of the State University, Superintend- ent of Public Schools, Milwaukee, and the leading officer of the State militia. It was his paper that led the movement which resulted in the formation of the Republican party in the Northwest. In March, 1861. King was appointed by President Lincoln Minis- ter resident at Rome, Italy, and was about to embark with his family for his new post when Fort Sumter fell. He at once sought service in the field, was appointed Brigadier General of Volunteers in May, 1861, organized and commanded the brigade of Wiscon- sin and Indiana troops that won, in the Army of the Potomac, the name of the Iron Brigade of the West: was promoted to the com- mand of a division in MeDowel's Corps, but after Second Bull Run, was prostrated by illness from which he never fully recovered. In February, 1863, he was commanding the defenses of Yorktown, Virginia, and later commanded a division in the defenses of Wash- ington, but in the fall of that year he resigned his military com- mission on account of continned ill health, and repaired to Rome. where he remained on duty as Minister of the United States until the abolition of the mission by Congress in 1867. Returning to New York, he spent there the last nine years of h's life, surrounded by friends and relatives, succumbing to an attack of pneumonia
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October 13, 18;6. He was buried in the old church yard at Jamaica, Long Island, where are interred six generations of the name. General King was survived by his wife, son and daughter.
PHILETUS SAWYER.
Of men who by their own exertions have risen from poverty to affluence and after a youth of obscurity and hardship have run a long and useful public career, Wisconsin furnishes no more con- spicuous example than is illustrated by the life and services of Philetus Sawyer. He was born in Rutland county, Vermont, Sep- tember 22d, 1816. When the boy was only about a year old his father removed with his family from Vermont to Essex county. New York, locating at Crown Point, the place made historic by the exploit of Ethan Allen in 1775. The elder Sawyer was a farmer and blacksmith of very scanty means, and could give his children no educational advantages. Philetus made the most of a three months' term at a crude rural school. When a mere youth young Sawyer worked in summer for six dollars per month. In the Adirondack woods near his home he worked at lumbering, and in the rude saw-mills of the region he got his first ideas of the busi- ness from which he afterwards won his great fortune. At the age of seventeen young Sawyer was a strong and vigorous youth, am- bitious and self-reliant, and anxious to begin the making of his own way in life. So he bought his time of his father for the remaining four years of his minority, borrowing the money therefor, $100. from an older brother. Before the time had expired he had paid the borrowed money and given himself two more terms of the district school from his savings as a mill hand. His business tact was soon apparent in his operating the mill under contract. Ten years of industry and careful management sufficed to give him a capital of some $2.000, no inconsiderable sum for those times. In 1841, when twenty-five years old. he was married to Melvina M. Hadley, a young lady of the vicinity, who, all through his stirring. remarkable career, was a true helpmeet to him. In 1847, with his family of wife and two sons, he came west, purchased a farm in Fond du Lac county, and settled upon it with the purpose of
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becoming a farmer. But he was not destined for a farmer; two years of short crops changed his course. He saw the promise of the great pine forests on the Wolf river, and his mind was made up for other work. The farm was sold. and Mr. Sawyer, in 1849. took up his residence in Algoma, now in the city of Oshkosh. He plunged at once into the lumbering business, first running a mill on a contract, then purchased it. formed a partnership with Messrs. Brand & Olcott, lumbermen of Fond du Lac, and so on until he was the chief man in the business. His operations in lumber extended over all the northern part of the State, and he probably owned more pine lands than any other man in the country. Flis business sagacity never failed him, and his energy and enterprise were unexcelled. In 1856 his political career may be said to have begun; in that year he was elected to the Legislature on the Repub- lican ticket, although prior to that he had been nominally a Demo- crat. In the business of legislation he at once showed the same comprehensive grasp that had characterized his business career. As a legislator he was influential and popular from the start. so much so that his constituents wished to re-elect him; but he declined the service on account of the pressure of his business. In 1860, however, he was again elected, and showed that he was possessed of first-class legislative ability and was a man for the troublons times then approaching. In 1863-4 he was Mayor of Oshkosh, and was instrumental in compromising the railroad indebtedness of the city on very favorable terms, and in other ways rendered the public great service. Meantime he had been repeatedly talked of for representative in Congress, but he refused the position until 1864. when he accepted the Republican nomina- tion, was elected and took his seat December. 1865: and was four times re-elected. During this long service in one of the most exciting times in the history of the country he was one of the wisest and most influential representatives in Congress. James G. Blaine, in his "Twenty Years of Congress," speaks of him in the highest terms, and so did every one who knew of his labors and their value. At the end of his fifth term Mr. Sawyer voluntarily retired from the position which he had so long honored by close and self-sacrificing labors. In isSo he had designed going to
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Europe with his family, but it became evident that he was wanted in the United States Senate, and he gave up the trip. and was elected with comparatively little opposition, and re-elected in 1887 with no opposition whatever. In the Senate he soon assumed the same influential position that he held in the House. Not a speaker in any sense, he came to be known as one of the best-posted men in that body on legislation, and one whose influence was unques- tioned. When he made a positive statement as to the character of a bill and its effects if passed. it was conclusive both for the men of his own party and for his political opponents. After forty-seven years of devoted companionship, Mr. Sawyer lost his wife in 1888. His surviving children are Edgar P. Sawyer of Oshkosh and Mrs. W, O. Goodman of Chicago. 'On the 22d of September, 1896, hundreds of Republicans gathered at Oshkosh to pay their per- sonal compliments to Senator Sawyer on the occasion of his turn- . ing eighty years of age. It was the most notable voluntary personal tribute in the history of the State, and the more significantly dis- interested because it was paid to a man retired from active politics.
ALEXANDER MITCHELL.
Wisconsin's greatest financier and railway organizer exerted during many years a strong conservative influence in the politics of the State, and during two termis represented the Milwaukee district in the lower house of Congress. Alexander Mitchell was born October 18, 1817, in the parish of Ellon, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. His grandfather was an Englishman. His father, John Mitchell, was an industrious and substantial farmer. His mother, whose maiden name was Lendrum, was of pure Scottish descent. She died when he was only a few years oldl. The boy grew up on his father's farm, under the care of his eldest sister. He was educated in the parish schools and was for two years an inmate of a law office in Aberdeen, where he went through a wide range of .reading. Later he was a clerk in a banking house at Peterhead. In May, 1839, Mr. Mitchell, then between twenty-one and twenty- two years of age, came to Milwaukee, where he was shortly after- ward entrusted with the full care and management of the banking
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business which was established by George Smith under the name of The Wisconsin Marine and Fire Insurance Company. Subse- quently Mr. Mitchell became by purchase the head of the institu- tion in his own right. He welded together a number of bank- rupt railway corporations into the vast and prosperous system now known as the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul. But the purpose of the present sketch is to consider the political phases of Mr. Mitchell's many-sided career. As a practical banker, his sym- pathies in the early days were with the Whig party, which was then the bank party. He was afterwards a Republican, and entered with considerable ardor into the Wide-Awake movement, which mate- rially contributed to the election of Lincoln to the Presidency. With many of his distinguished personal friends and associates, he carriedl a kerosene torch in the Republican processions of 1860. He was a firm supporter of the war policies of the government during Lin- coln's administration, and until after the war closed. Then he sup- ported the measures adopted by Andrew Johnson for the rehabili- tation of the States which had been at war against the Union, and in the reorganization of parties which followed he became a Demo- crat. He supported Horatio Seymour for the Presidency in 1868. and was himself the Democratic candidate for Congress in that year in the First Wisconsin district: composed of the counties of Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, Walworth and Waukesha. The adverse fortunes of Democratic politics in that election involved him in defeat; but in 1870 he was again the Democratie candi- date for Congress in the same district, and was elected by a large majority. In 1872 he was re-elected, but he declined to be a candi- date for still another term in 1874. In 1876 he was chosen by the Democratic State Convention one of the delegates-at-large from Wisconsin to the Democratic National Convention, in which he supported the nomination of Sammel J. Tilden. He took an active part in the ensuing compaign, and at its unsuccessful close retired permanently from active party politics. In 1879 he was nominated by the Democratic State Convention for the office of Governor. but he peremptorily declined to be a candidate. During the time while he was a member of Congress, Mr. Mitchell was prominent and zealous in the support of such financial measures as were
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adopted for the protection of the public credit, and for the restora- tion of specie payments. He made a clear and able speech on this subject on the 27th of March, 1874, presenting the arguments against inflation by the issue of more greenbacks, pointing out the evils inseparable from a deranged monetary system, and declaring against any basis except that of specie for the currency circulation of the country. Mr. Mitchell was married in 1841 to Martha Reed, a daughter of Seth Reed, who was a pioneer of Mil- waukee. He had one son, John L. Mitchell, who after his father's death, became a Senator of the United States. The death of Alex- ander Mitchell occurred April 19, 1887.
HENRY L. PALMER.
Henry L. Palmer, distinguished as the head of the Masonic Order in the United States, and also as a lawyer and president of a great corporation, and for many years a conspicuous and influen- tial figure in the politics of Wisconsin, was born at Mount Pleasant, . Wayne County, Pennsylvania, October 18, 1819. He received a . common school education, studied law and was admitted to the bar. In 1836, at the age of seventeen, he went to West Troy, New York, to reside, and from that place came to Wisconsin in 1849. where he has made his home ever since. He entered upon the practice of the law, which he continued with marked success until he became president of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company. Previous to that time Mr. Palmer took an active part in politics, being the acknowledged head of the Demo- cratic party in the State, and was its candidate for Governor at the clection of 1863. He was a member of the Assembly in 1853. 1860, 1862 and 1873; and of the Senate in 1867 and 1868: was Speaker of the Assembly in 1853, and at the extra session in 1862. In 1873 he was elected County Judge. but resigned early in Febru- ary, 1874. to accept the office of president of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company. Relinquishing his very exten- . sive law practice, and eschewing active participation in party poli- ties, he has since devoted his attention wholly to the interests of the mammoth corporation which he has been largely instrumental in making one of the first, as it is one of the soundest, life insurance companies in this or any other country.
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