USA > Wisconsin > A political history of Wisconsin > Part 33
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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
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engaged in the practice of the law, to which he brought natural talent that ensured his success from the start. He was admit- ted to the bar in February. 1866. In 1883 he retired from prac- tice to engage in industrial enterprises. His first venture in this direction was the organization of the International Tile Company, at Brooklyn, New York, in the spring of that year. In August of the same year he resigned the presidency of the company and purchased a piece of land in Janesville, Wisconsin, including the site of the present Phoebus Block, which was then occupied by the Farmer's Mills, and the water power belonging thereto. He erected the Norcross Block, and the next year removed the Far- mer's Mills to another site. and built the Phoebus Block. A year later he established the electric light plant, furnishing light to the city streets and numerous private buildings. This plant, as well as the Farmer's Mills, a shoe factory, two printing offices, a laundry, and other small establishments, were operated by the water power. In the summer of 1887 Captain Norcross erected the Library Building, and the next year engaged in the manu- facture of ladies' fine shoes, in partnership with Alexander Rich- ardson, under the firm name of Richardson & Norcross. He was one of the incorporators of the Merchants' and Mechanics' Sav- ings Bank, the Badger State Works, the Janesville Pickle Fac- tory, the Janesville Machine Company, the Janesville Cotton Manufacturing Company, and the Basket Factory. In 1892 he bought the water powers and mills at Fulton and Indian Ford. a few miles above Janesville, and used them in extending his opera- tions for supplying electric power. Captain Norcross has always been a Republican, and has often been called by his fellow-citizens to serve in honorable and responsible positions. Cii the organiza- tion of the Janesville Business Men's Association he was made one of its presidents. He also served as trustee of the Institute for the Blind for several years, and served on Governor Smith's staff as aide-de-camp. In the fall of 1866. at the age of 27. he was elected to represent the Janesville district in the State Legisla- ture, and as Chairman of the Committee on State Affairs, in that body, he proved an active and useful member. In. 1885 he was . . again elected to the Legislature and served as Chairman of the
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Richard Treener
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Judiciary Committee. He was District Attorney for Rock county from 1871 to 1875. two terms, and declined a third candidacy. In 1875-6 he was City Attorney of Janesville, and during the two succeeding years he was Mayor. While incum- bent of public offices he has used for the benefit of his constituents the great talents which have won for him so much success in the conduct of his private affairs. He married. on January 4. 1865. Miss Phoebe Poole, a daughter of Jolin II. and Elizabeth Poole, of Turtle, Rock county, Wisconsin, who had been his schoolmate at Milton Academy. They have four children -- Fred Franklin, John Vanderpool, Elizabeth Leavitt and Edward Powers.
WILLIAM G. WHEELER.
William G. Wheeler is a native of Wisconsin, and has always resided in Rock county, where he was born in the Town of La Prairie, November 11, 1861. He was educated in the district and high schools of the county, graduating from the Janesville High School April 22, ISSI. In December of that year he entered the law office of Winans & Fethers as a student, and read law until August, 1884, when he was admitted to the bar. He was Deputy Clerk of the Circuit Court of Janesville from September 24, 1884. to June 6, 1885, and Clerk of the Circuit Court from the latter date to January, 1887, since which time he has practiced law in Janes- ville. In January, I891, he was elected District Attorney of Rock county, and held the office until January, 1895. In 1896 the Repub- licars of the First District of Rock county nominated him for the Assembly, and he was elected over the Democratic candidate, whis was Jolin Winans. His record in the Legislature made him the log- ical candidate in the election of 1898, and he was again chosen to represent the district. In 1897 he had been given a place on the Judiciary Committee of the Assembly, and in 1899 he was made its Chairman. Mr. Wheeler is a man of good judgment and conspicu- ous ability, whose political career, auspiciously begun, bespeaks a brilliant future.
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EDWARD SAUERHERING.
Edward Sauerhering, who was member of Congress from the Second District for the four years ending March 4, 1899, went to the national capital in 1895, with the reputation of having routed the forces of Democracy in its most rock-ribbed stronghold in the Badger State. When he received the nomination nobody believed that any Republican could be elected to Congress in the Second District. But he hitched up a team of horses and made a personal canvass among the honest German farmers, chatting with their families and incidentally descanting upon the ruinous consequences to Dodge county agriculture which had inevitably resulted from the Democratic free trade policy applied to wool and barley. Nearly every young voter in the district ranged himself under the Sauerhering banner, and many an old fellow who had never before cast any but a Democratic ballot, changed his mind and exerted his right of suffrage to piace the keen-witted young candidate of the Republicans where he could help to re-enact the protective tariff. Mr. Sanerhering was born at Mayville. Dodge county, on the 24th of June, 1864, and educated in the Mayville public schools. He went from the High School to the Chicago College of Pharmacy. whence he graduated in ISS5, and from that time till his election followed his father's profession as an apothecary. In 1892 he was chosen Chairman of the Republican County Committee, and also nominated for the Assembly. He organized the county so thoroughly that. though not elected himself, he secured the elec- tion of a Republican County Judge, the first Republican county official ever elected in Dodge county. When his first term in Con- gress was drawing to a close. his record in that body and his ex- traordinary personal popularity made him a logical candidate for a second term, though the honor was one which he did not espe- cially desire. His work for the filled cheese bill was enthusiastically commended by the farmers. His plurality in 1896 was 5.506. In ISOs he positively declined to be a candidate for a third term, and returned to take charge of his large and prosperous drug business at Mayville. Mr. Sauerhering is a member of the Turn Verein Eintracht. at Mayville, of which he was President from Isso to
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1806. He is also a member of the Masonic order: He was married in 18Sy to Miss Eugenia Langenbach, of Mayville. They have two children.
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A. M. JONES.
The clever management by which the unwieldy Republican State Convention of 1898. the largest delegate assemblage that ever convened in Wisconsin, was brought into casy working order, was the first exhibition that Badger State Republicans had an opportunity to witness of the executive ability of a man who had years before been famous throughout the West under the familiar nickname of "Long" Jones. Col. Jones had for years been the confidential political co-worker of Senator John A. Logan and other Illinois Republicans of national celebrity, and had been a recognized power in the politics of that State. He knew Abraham Lincoln and President Grant before the Civil War. Few men living have borne a more active part in the practical politics of the past forty years than he. Alfred Miles Jones, though in many respects a typical Western man. is a native of New England. He was born at New Durham, New Hampshire. February 5. 1837. coming West with his parents in childhood. and received his education in the H. P. Kimbali Institute, at Rockford, Illinois. During his long residence in that State he lived first at Hebron. MeHenry county, and after- ward at Warren. Jo Daviess county. He was a member of the lower house of the Illinois Legislature in 1872. 1873 and 1874; a member of the Board of Commissioners of the Joliet peniten- tiary, and for three years and six months its Secretary: collector of internal revenue of the Northern District of Illinois, and. under President Garfield. United States Marshal of the Northern District of Illinois. For twelve years he was Chairman of the Illinois Republican State Central Committee. He came to Wis- consin in IS04, and settled in the City of Waukesha, where he has large business interests. In isos he was the Republican candidate for the State Senate in the Thirty-third District, com- prising Washington and Waukesha counties, and was elected.
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receiving 6,060 votes, against 5.452 for Thomas McCarty, Demo- crat. and 240 for Thomas Dimond, Prohibitionist. Col. Jones was one of the leaders in the Senate, and his successful manage- ment of the campaign that resulted in the election of J. V. Quarles for United States Senator will be remembered as one of the most striking features of the session of 1899.
A. C. DODGE. ..
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A. Clarke Dodge was born in the Town of Barre, Washington county, Vermont, in November, 1834, his parents being Joseph and Laurinda Thompson Dodge. He was educated in the con- mon schools and in Barre Academy, and came to Wisconsin in 1855, settling in Monroe, Green county, where he has since been established as a dealer in wood and coal. Mr. Dodge has always been a Republican, and has taken an active part in public affairs. He was five times Chairman of the Board of Supervisors of Green county. In ISS4 he was a delegate to the National Republican Convention. In ISSS he was Republican Presidential elector for the Third Wisconsin Congressional District. He was for twenty: five years a member of the Monroe Board of Education, and during most of that time its Chairman. In 1898 the Republicans of Green county nominated Mr. Dodge to represent their district in the State Assembly, and he was elected over Ira M. J. Chryst, Democrat; Albert A. Ten Eyck. Populist, and John Legler, Pro- hibitionist. In the Assembly he served on the Committees on Cities and Legislative Expenditures. Mr. Dodge has two sons and one daughter-Charles S. Dodge, Flora E. Skinner and Lewis Dodge. The last-named was a member of Company I. First Regiment, Wisconsin Volunteers, during the war with Spain.
T. J. CUNNINGHAM.
Thomas Jefferson Cunningham was born in Brooklyn, New York, March 17, 1852. He received a common school education at New Haven, Connecticut, and came to Wisconsin in 186. settling at Stoughton. Dane county, whence he removed in 1875
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to Chippewa Falls, where he now resides. "Mr. Cunningham learned the printer'- trade in his youth and rose to the rank of editor and publisher. For many years he has been proprietor and editor of the Chippewa Falls Independent. one of the most influential Democratic daily newspapers in the State. He was Clerk in the office of Secretary of State at Madison from January, 1873, to October, 1875: Mayor of Chippewa Falls from April, 1885, to May, 1886; delegate from the Ninth Congressional Dis- trict to the National Democratic Convention at Cincinnati in 18So, and member of the State Assembly from Chippewa in 188 ;. In 1890, the year when the Democrats rode into power on the tidal wave of the Bennett Law excitement, Mr. Cunningham was their candidate for Secretary of State, and was elected by a plurality of 35.729 over E. D. Coe, the candidate of the Repub- licans. He was reelected in 1892, and, on the return of the Republicans to power in 1895. retired from the office with an enviable reputation for efficiency and popularity. He is at present Mayor of Chippewa Falls.
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MARTIN PATTISON.
The father of Martin Pattison was Simeon Thayer Pattison. a native of New York, descended from the same family as Maj. Simeon Thayer, who was a distinguished officer of the Revolu- tionary War, and a distant relative of ex-Governor Pattison of Pennsylvania. His mother. Emmarilla Pattison. is a descendant of a sister of Benjamin Franklin. Mr. Pattison was born January : 17th, 1841, in Niagara county, Ontario, to which his parents had moved from New York. The family in 1854 moved to Salinac county, Michigan, and here the boy acquired the rudiments of an education in the common school, but at an early age engaged in lumbering as a common laborer, gradually advancing to Sie positions of foreman and superintendent, and eventually engaging in the business on his own account, in which he was very success - ini. He was early recognized as a man of ability, of great force of character, and one fitted for public station. When but a little past his majority he was elected member of the School Board
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of his town, and successfully reelected until he had held the office for six years. He was abo twice elected to the lower house of the Michigan Legislature, and in these positions he faithfully and honorably served his constituents. In 1879 he came to Wis- consin, settled in Superior, and engaged in lumbering. In the winter of 1879-So he got out square timber for the English market. The following winter he took out saw logs, and during the following summer explored for pine lands. Selling out his pine in 1882, he turned his attention to exploring for iron ore. In June, 1882, he, in company with several others, went to the Vermilion iron range in Northern Minnesota, on foot, carrying provisions and camp outfit to Vermilion Lake, one hundred miles north of Duluth, proceeding thence in canoes to their destination. In the following spring, in partnership with his brother, William H. Pattison, he further explored the range, and located the land embracing the famous Chandler and Pioneer iron mines. They continued their explorations during the two following years, and located several thousand acres of government land on the same range, and still retain their interest therein. Mr. Pattison's first vote was cast for the reelection of Abraham Lincoln, and he has always been a Republican. In 1884 he was elected Sheriff of Douglas county, Wisconsin, and served two years. In 1890 he was elected Mayor of Superior, and reelected in 1891 and 1896. He was a member of the Republican State Central Committee during the years 1892 and 1893, and was a member of the Executive Committee of that body. On account of his well- known sympathy with the laboring classes, he was nominated for Lieutenant-Governor by the Labor Party Convention which met in Milwaukee in 1892; but he declined the nomination for the reason that his party affiliations were entirely Republican. In April, 1896. he was, for the third time, elected Mayor of Superior. On taking his seat. he found the city finances in bad condition; the large property owners had, for several years, refused to pay their taxes, and had begun suits to set them aside. The Mayor at once began negotiations for the settlement of these suits, and arrangements were made whereby the city gets all of her general taxes, and extends the payment of the
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special taxes for a term of ten years, which is regarded as a favorable termination of the financial troubles. Mr. Pattison is a Knight Templar, and member of Wisconsin Consistory, a Knight of Pythias, a Patriarch Militant of the Independent Order . oi Odd Fellows, with the rank of Captain on the General's staff. He is a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and for the past three years senior warden. In 1879 he was married to Grace E. Frink, at Marquette, Michigan. They have had eight children, including two pairs of twins, but Verna M. and Leda I., one of each pair, are dead. The living children are Martha Grace, Byron M., Ethel M., Alice Irene. Myrna E. and Louis N. Mr. Pattison is a public-spirited, generous man, kind to all in need. and in every way a most worthy citizen. His fine home, overlooking Superior bay, is furnished with taste and contains many treasures of art.
JOHN JOHNSTON.
John Johnston was born on the farm of Overton. Auchnagatt, twenty-four miles north of the city of Aberdeen, Scotland. His "forebears" had been on that farm for a long time, as he has in this possession a lease dated 17.49, signed by his great-great- grandfather, John Johnston, and Hugh Forixes. His mother was Margaret Mitchell, sister of the late Alexander Mitchell of Mil- waukee. He was educated until twelve years oldl at the district school of Savoch, after which he went to the Grammar School of Aberdeen, and. at the age of fifteen, he entered the University of Aberdeen, having gained a scholarship at a public competition in Latin and Greek, open to all comers. At the age of nineteen he took the degree of Master of Arts, and in 1856 he received an invitation from his uncle, Alexander Mitchell, to come to America; and, accepting it. he arrived in Milwaukee on the Ioth of March, 1856, entering Mr. Mitchell's employ at once, as general accountant of the Wisconsin Marine and Fire Insurance Company Bank. Here he thoroughly learned every department of the banking business; and, after ten years, when yet a young man of thirty, he was made assistant cashier of the bank, holding
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that position, to the very general satisfaction of its many cus- tomers, until 1887, when he became cashier. The duties of this office he discharged with signal ability and fidelity until 1893, when he retired from the bank, having transferred his interest therein to the Hon. John L. Mitchell. During his long service in the bank he had, by carefully husbanding his resources and by legitimate investments, gained a handsome fortune. Always public-spirited, and a generous giver to worthy objects, he came to be regarded as one of the most valuable of Milwaukee's citi- zens, and one whose services were often sought for public positions. Upon his retirement from the bank at the beginning of the year 1893, he devoted his time and attention to his private interests, with fair prospects of years of comfort and release from the harassing cares of a large business. But the panic of that year involved the historic bank with which he had for so many years been associated; and, though he had long before severed all busi- ness connection with it, he was, by reason of a law of the State holding stockholders in any corporation liable for debts con- tracted within six months after the filing of the memorandum of the transfer of stock, held liable for all its debts, and his entire fortune was involved in the catastrophe. Nothing daunted, how- ever, he bent himself, with his well-known energy and courage. to the work of the reorganization of the bank, the revival of its , business and the reconstruction of his own shattered fortune. He succeeded. Mr. Johnston was unanimously chosen cashier of the reorganized bank, and it reopened its doors in 1894. In public estimation he stands to-day head and shoulders above even what he was before the calamity. The public positions of honor and trust which Mr. Johnston has held are numerous, varied in their duties, and of great importance. He was member of the Board of Aldermen for two years from 1867, and from 1874 to 1876, a trustee of the Public Library from 1878 to 1881, a . Commissioner of the Public Debt from 1887 to 18)3. for twenty years a trustee and treasurer of Milwaukee College, and is now President of the Board of Trustees, has served as director and . Vice-President of the Chamber of Commerce and two terms as President, has been a Regent of the University of Wisconsin and
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William Twotweey
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President of the Board, President of the State Historical Society. member of the City Board of School Commissioners. trustee of Carroll College, Waukesha, and has been more or less actively identified with numerous business enterprises. He has been an officer or active member of several social and recreation clubs, has a Scotchman's love for the national gaine of curling, and has won the championship in this game for the Milwaukee club. When the Greenback agitation was in force he delivered a speech before the workingmen of Bay View, of which one hundred thousand copies were circulated by the Honest Money League of Wisconsin. He was one of those who discovered and developed the great deposits of cement rock in the suburbs of Milwaukee. and has been a director and treasurer of the Milwaukee Cement Company since its organization in 1875. Among his most benevo- lent deeds was the giving to Milwaukee of the lot for the Emergency Hospital, and $5.000 toward the endowment of Mil- wankee College. In politics he was formerly a Republican, but found himself at variance with the party on the policy of recon- struction of the Southern States at the close of the War of the Rebellion. Since leaving the Republican party he has acted with the Democracy, and taken part in many of its conventions and campaigns. In the Presidential campaign of 1896 he refused to follow the Silver Democracy, but at once came boldly out for the gold standard. He has been a somewhat prolific writer, and has made many public addresses which have been received with favor. He wrote the article on Milwaukee for the Encyclopedia Britannica, that on Scotland for Salor's Encyclopedia, and that on curling in Johnson's Encyclopedia. Mr. Johnston was one of the founders of Calvary Presbyterian Church, Milwaukee, of which he has been a trustee since its formation in 1869. and was for years one of its elders. He was married, in 1861. to Miss Margaret Hunter of Scotland, who died in 1878. Three years later he married Miss Ethlinda Marie Thorsen, daughter of John . Thorsen of Milwaukee. They have two children. a daughter and a son. Of the children of the first wife but one is living.
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SAMUEL W. REESE.
Samuel W. Reese was born in the parish of Llaubryumair. in the county of Montgomery, North Wales, November 29. 1830. After attending the Old Chapel Free School for several years, he was sent to the city of Shrewsbury. England, where he served three years with a merchant, to learn the trade. When still quite young he came to the United States, residing for some time in Cincinnati, Ohio, and then coming to Wisconsin, settling in the spring of 1852 at Dodgeville, lowa county, where he has resided ever since. After working for four years as a clerk in the general store of B. F. Thomas, Mr. Reese opened a general store of his own, selling out at the end of a year and beginning the study of law. In 1858 he was admitted to the bar and began a legal pras- tice which he has conducted since that time with distinguished success. In 1871 he established the Dodgeville Bank, which. under his conservative management, has been and is a flourishing institution. Mr. Reese has been a Republican since the organiza . tion of the party, having voted for every Republican candidate for the Presidency, every Republican Congressman nominated in his district, and every Republican State officer. He has been Chairman of the town several times and Mayor of the city. In 1876 he was elected District Attorney of Iowa county. In 1892 he was one of the Republican electors on the Presidential ticket. He is at the present time the Chairman of the Iowa County Republican Central Committee. In June. 1856. Mr. Reese was married to Miss Alice L. Ennor, by whom he had four chikiren. Emma, William, Eddie and John. She died in October. 1881. In August, 1886, he married Miss Jennie .A. Owens, of Dodgeville.
GEORGE W. RYLAND.
During the last term of Gov. Rusk and during the adminis- tration of Gov. Hoard-that is, in the four years from 1886 to ISgo-the Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin was George W. Ryland. Mr. Ryland was born in Shelbysport. Alleghany county, Maryland, December 19. 1827, and received his education in the common schools, coming to Wisconsin in 1853 and settling
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at Lancaster, Grant county, where he has since lived. His first work here was done in the hay field, for Gov. Dewey. The same season he became a clerk in a store, where he was employed for fourteen months. In the fall of 1854. with Simon E. and John P. Lewis for partners, he established the mercantile firm of (. IV. Ryland & Co .. which continued in business till the partnership was dissolved in May, 1860. Mr. Ryland then bought the grocery business of George Cox, and in September of that year J. C. Hol- loway became associated with him, the business being expanded to. take in general merchandise, including dry goods. In the fall of 1860 the firm began to buy and sell exchange. For this purpose they kept an account with a New York house. They purchased drafts on New York and drafts on London. Exchange offers of the latter class were not infrequent. A number of English families had settled within trading reach of Lancaster, and remittances came to them from the old country in the shape of drafts on New York or London. The recipients, of course. wanted them converted into currency or wanted trade for then !. . They were practically gold certificates and were at a premium, especially later as the war time advanced. This business in exchange was conducted by the firm until 1865. That year they put up a sign across the west end of their building, inscribed "Ryland & Holloway. Bankers." In 1869 the firm sold out their mercantile business, and continued in partnership as bankers until 1874, when Mr. Ryland bought out Mr. Holloway and became sole owner of the bank, continuing alone till October, 1880, when he admitted his bookkeeper, Richard Meyer, and the latter's son. Richard Meyer. Jr., as partners, the firm being G. W. Ryland & Co. In May, 1887, Mr. Ryland retired, selling his interest to his partners. In October, 1888, with others, he established the State Bank of Grant County, of which he was president, from which he resigned and withdrew April 1, 1899. with the landable object of "crowning a life of labor with an . age of ease." . Mr. Ryland has held a number of public offices with credit to himself and satisfaction to the community. He was postmaster of Lancaster under President Pierce, and again under Presidents Lincoln and Johnson. During the Civil War
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