USA > Wisconsin > A political history of Wisconsin > Part 34
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
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
388
A POLITICAL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
he held a recruiting commission, and enlisted over 100 men. He has at different times hell several minor offices, such as School Clerk, President of the Village Board and Treasurer of the village. He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention at Philadelphia in 1872, and was State Senator for the years ISSo-81 and 1882-83. He was chairman of the Town Board for eighteen years, and chairman of the County Board for fifteen years. In his first canvass for the Lieutenant-Governorship, in 1886, his Democratic competitor was Joli D. Putnam, and Mr. Ryland's plurality was 14.639. In 1888, when his Democratic opponent was Andrew Kull, Mr. Ryland's plurality was 21.753. Mr. Ryland joined the Independent Order of Odd Fellows in 1852. He was a charter member of Lodge No. 86, of which he has been Treasurer for twenty-five years.
WILLIAM P. LYON.
A long and useful career has been that of William P. Lyon, ex-Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin. now Presi- dent of the State Board of Control. He was born at Chatham, Columbia county, New York, October 28, 1824. where he attended the common schools until eleven years of age, then becoming clerk in a small store. Later he attended select schools for sev- cral terms, and at the age of fifteen taught in a district school, after which for three years he was a clerk in a store at Albany. In 1841, with his father's family, he came to Wisconsin, settling in what is now the Town of Lyons, Walworth county. In 1844 he entered upon the study of law in the office of George Gale, at Elkhorn. He also read law in the office of Hon. C. M. Baker. In 1846 he was admitted to the bar and entered upon practice, serving also as Justice of the Peace. In 1850 he removed to Burlington, where he practiced law until 1855. when he established himself at Racine. He was District Attorney of Racine county for two terms. In 1859 and 1860 he was elected to the State Assembly, on each occasion being chosen Speaker. In Septem- ber, 1861, he entered the military service as Captain ni Com- pany K, Eighth Regiment, Wisconsin Infantry Volunteers. Aug-
.
359
A POLITICAL HISTORY, OF WISCONSIN.
ust 5, 1862, he was commissioned Colonel of the Thirteenth Regi- ment, Wisconsin Infantry Volunteers, in which capacity he served till the close of the Civil War. While still in the military service he was elected Judge of the First Judicial Cirenit, and entered upon the duties of that office in January. 1866. He served on this Circuit until January, 18;1, when Gov. Fairchild appointed him to the seat on the Supreme bench made vacant by the death of Byron Paine. At the election in the following spring he was chosen by the people to hold the office during the unexpired term, and was afterward. in 1877 and 1883, twice reelected. On the retirement of Chief Justice Orsamus Cole. in 1891, he became. ex-officio, Chief Justice, and so continued until the expiration of his term, in January, 1894. In 1896 he was appointed a member of the State Board of Control.
ELLICOTT R. STILLMAN.
Ellicott Roger Stillman, Postmaster at Milwaukee by appoint- ment of President McKinley, is the son of Edwin Amos Stillman and Jane Cochrane Stillman. His mother was of Scotch-Irish descent, and her grandfather (Craig) was a member of the British Parliament. Her father was a Presbyterian minister, and President of Detroit College at the time of his death. Edwin Amos Stillman was a civil engineer. and at different times had charge of public works in the State of New York. Before the Civil War he was a prominent advocate of abolition and tem- perance. and while engaged as a lecturer in favor of those reforms was frequently the object of mob violence. In 1874 he was a prominent Greenbacker, and that party made him its nominee for the office of Surveyor-General of the State of New York, but the ticket was defeated. Ellicott R. Stillman was born at Roches- ter, New York, March 6, 1844, and received a common school education. Soon after leaving his studies he enlisted as a private. in August. 1861. in the Eighty-fifth New York Volunteer Infantry, and participated in most of the battles of the Peninsular campaign, under Gen. MeClellan. He was afterwards transferred to Gen. Butler's command in North Carolina, where he took part
.
390
A POLITICAL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
in the battles of Kingston, White Hall, Goldsboro and Plymouth. At the place last named his regintent and brigade were captured on the 20th of April, 1804. after three days of fighting; and the prisoners were sent to the Southern military prisons at Anderson- ville, Charleston and Florence, where they remained until March, 1865. During his service he was promoted to Corporal. to Ser- geant, and to Sergeant-Major, and was recommended for appoint- ment to West Point Military Academy by the Colonel command- ing the regiment and the General commanding the brigade, under the order of President Lincoln apportioning to the army the cadetships to which the rebellions States were previously entitled. Young Stillman took lessons of a private tutor to prepare himself for entering the Military Academy; but his capture precluded the possibility of his availing himself of the appointment. January Ist, 1865, he reenlisted for three years more; but, the war coming to an end, he was discharged with his regiment June 7th, 1865, being at that time only three months past his twenty-first birthday, a remarkable record for so young a man. In. 1866 he engaged in the lumber business in Michigan, and, subsequently, in the cooperage business, which was transferred. in 1877. to Milwaukee. where it has grown into an extensive and valuable establishment. employing seventy to one hundred men, and producing daily 300 to 500 barrels. Mr. Stillman has been an active Republican ever since he became a voter, and has done mich for the success of his party. He was a delegate to two State Conventions while a resident of Michigan. After taking up his residence in Mil- waukee he was nominated for Alderman in a strongly Democratic ward, and was defeated. In 1804 he was elected member of the State Assembly from the Eighth District of Milwaukee county for the two years beginning with 1895. In 1806 he was chosen one of the Republican Presidential electors and cast his vote for William McKinley for President: and in the spring of that year he was strongly supported for the Republican nomination for Mayor. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and of the Masonic Fraternity. Mr. Stillman was married. in 1868, to Mary J. Dickey, of Quincy. Michigan, who died in 1872. leaving one child, Minnie J. He was married a second time, in
-
.
391
A POLITICAL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
1874, to Lillian E. Stevens, his present wife, and three chiklren have been born to them, namely: Gertrude 1 ... Clara 1 .. and E. B. Wolcott Stillman, an only son.
ANGUS CAMERON.
Caledonia, Livingston county, New York, was the birthplace of Angus Cameron, and he first saw the light on the 4th of July, 1826. As his name indicates, he was of sturdy Scotch descent. He received an academic education, read law at Buffalo, and was graduated from the National Law School at Ballston Spa. In 1857 he removed to Wisconsin and settled at La Crosse. He was a member of the State Senate in 1863-4 and again in 1871-2, and a member of the Assembly in 1866 and 1867. being Speaker of that body in the latter year. In 1864 he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention at Baltimore. From 1866 to 1875 he was one of the Regents of the University of Wisconsin. The striking circumstances under which, by a combination of Republicans, Democrats and Liberals, he was elected United . States Senator to succeed Matt H. Carpenter in 1875. have been vividly described by Mr. Thomson, in the historical part of this work. He had not been a candidate for the position, but had used his influence for the election of Mr. Carpenter. The honor came to him unsought, because he was the only man in the State upon whom the opposition to Senator Carpenter could be induced to unite. A Republican from conviction, though never a narrow partisan, he voted with his party in the Senate. When the Bland Bill came before that body in 1878, he was among the Republicans who voted for that measure, reestablishing the coinage of the 4121/2-grain silver dollar, an act which gave great offense to many Republicans in Wisconsin. When his teri expired. Philetus Sawyer was elected to succeed him: but when. a few weeks later, Senator Carpenter, who had been reelected in i87y, was removed by death. Senator Cameron was chosen as his successor: so that. with an interval of less than a week in which he was out of office. Mr. Cameron was a Senator of the United States for ten years. from March 4. 1875. to March 4. 1885. He died March 30. 1897.
392
A POLITICAL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
ISAAC STEPHENSON.
Isaac Stephenson, who was the choice of a large number of Wisconsin Republicans for the United States Senatorship during the exciting contest in the Legislature last winter, has been a: member of the Republican party since its organization, and has labored for its success and contributed liberally to its campaign funds because he believes in its principles. His life has been devoted mainly to business, but he has cheerfully given his time to the people when called upon by them to serve them in official stations. In 1866 and ISOS he was a member of the State Assem- bly. In 1882 lie was elected to Congress, being reelected in 1884 and 1886. When the close of his third term approached, he declined renomination, there being other strong men of the party in the district well qualified for the office, and his large business interests demanding his personal attention. While in Congress he was a popular and influential member, and did his country good service, as might have been expected from one of so much energy and such wide and varied experience in business affairs. He was on terms of intimacy with many of the political leaders at Washington, and his retirement from public life was a subject of general regret in official circles at the national capital. On his return to Wisconsin his labors for Republican success contin - , ued, and he showed in many ways an interest in public affairs. contributing generously to educational and charitable objects. notably to Lawrence University at Appleton. When the United States battleship named in honor of the State of Wisconsin was launched at San Francisco in 1898. Mr. Stephenson conducted. at considerable expense to himself. an excursion to the Pacific slope which participated in the celebration of that event in a manner worthy of its significance to the State and the nation. Mr. Stephenson is of Scotch-Irish extraction on the paternal side. His mother, whose maiden name was Watson, was a native of London. He was born in York county. New Brunswick, June 18, 1829, and after attending school for a short time began to assist his father, who was a farmer and lumberman. When sixteen years of age he came to Milwaukee, in 1845. attending school the following winter, but going in the following spring with Mr.
.
.
·
Exo. Dr. Janlov.
-
393
A POLITICAL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
Sinclair to an unimproved farm five miles south of Janesville, where for two summers he engaged in the heavy work of breaking prairie and trying to raise a crop. Nature was not kind to the young agriculturist, as both crops failed, and Mr. Sinclair, becom- ing interested with Daniel Wells, Jr .. in pine lands in Northern Michigan, sent the young man to look after matters there. He engaged in getting out timber and hauling it to the lake for ship- ment. Then he was placed in charge of lumber camps, and much of his work was of the hardest and attended with great exposure and danger, but he was not one to quail, and so hc advanced in the confidence of his employers until he began opera- tions for himself. During the summer he sailed the lake between Escanaba and Milwaukee and Chicago, carrying freight between those points, and before he was twenty-one years old he owned the controlling interest in the schooner Cleopatra, which, unfor- tunately, was wrecked in 1853. His familiarity with lumbering and with the pine regions made him a good judge of pine lands. and, in 1848, he accompanied Daniel Wells, Jr., to the Sault Ste. .Marie Land Office and assisted in purchasing large tracts of val- uable timber land. The enterprises and activities in which he engaged from that time on are too numerous, varied and extensive to be enumerated here; suffice it to say that his business rapidly advanced and extended until he became one of the leading lum- bermen of that region. He acquired a quarter interest in the property of N. Ludington & Co., including the great mill. and when, in 1868, that firm gave place to the N. Ludington Stock Company, Mr. Stephenson owned a controlling interest in the property, and since 1883 he has been President of the company. He was one of the large stockholders in the Peshtigo Company. whose factory, together with the village of Peshtigo, was destroyed by the great fire of 1871, involving a loss of nearly $2.000.000: but the mills and village were immediately rebuilt. In 1892 he bought the Peshtigo Company, and reorganized it under the .. name of the Peshtigo Lumber Company, with Daniel Wells. Jr .. and Charles Ray, of Milwaukee, cqual owners with himself. He is the President and was the organizer and promoter of the Menominee River Boom Company, which handles more logs than
394
A POLITICAL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
any other in the world, and which is capitalized for $1.250.000. He is President of the Stephenson National Bank at Marinette. and is interested in. a half dozen companies relating to the lumber industry, which represent millions of capital. He is owner or part owner of thousands of acres of timber in Michigan, Wiscon - sin and Louisiana. In addition to these vast interests he owns a farm of nine hundred acres in Kenosha county, which is fully stocked and equipped. In connection with this farm is a creamery that makes three hundred pounds of butter daily. He also owns another farm at Marinette, which is principally devoted to the raising of trotting horses. Mr. Stephenson may be properly termed the industrial pioneer of Northeastern Wisconsin and Northern Michigan, because of his promotion of so many enter- prises that have proved of vital importance to that region. Mr. Stephenson has been thrice married-first to Margaret Stephen- son, in 1852. From this union there are four children living. In 1873 he married Augusta Anderson, who bore him three children, who survive their mother. His third marriage was to Elizabeth Burns, in 1884. and one son is the issue of this marriage. His daughter, Elizabeth Stephenson, has a place in Wisconsin annals for the queenly grace with which she represented the State at the launching of the battleship that bears its name, and for the fact that the ceremony of conferring that name in the manner decreed by nautical traditions was performed by her.
R. C. SPENCER.
·
Robert Closson Spencer is a member of the famous family conspicuously identified with the cause of practical education in the United States whose name belongs to a style of penmanship devised by one of their number. Platt R. Spencer, the father of the subject of the present sketch. Caleb Spencer. the grandfather of R. C. Spencer, was a soldier of the Revolution. The immigrant ancestor. John Spenser, came to America in 1661, and was one of the founders of East Greenwich, Rhode Island. Robert C. Spencer was born in the village of East Ashtabula, Ohio, January 22, 1829. He grew to manhood on a farm which he helped to
.
395
A POLITIC.IL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
clear and cultivate. After receiving a common school and academic education, he taught a short time in Gundry's Mercantile College at Cincinnati, and in 1851. in company with Victor M. Rice, opened a commercial school at Buffalo, New York. During the time intervening between then and the Civil War he was actively engaged in establishing a chain of commercial colleges in the larger cities of the Union. When the war broke out he was at St. Louis, and in May, 1861, enlisted in the Third Missouri Volunteer Infantry. When his term of enlistment had expired he returned, with impaired health, to his instructional work. and in 1863 came North in the hope of obtaining benefit from the climate. He arrived in Milwaukee in May. 1863, and in Septem- ber of that year, under the name of Bryant, Stratton & Spencer, opened the institution which has since 1865 been known as the Spencerian Business College, in which nearly twelve thousand students have been equipped for commercial and other practical pursuits. During his long career Mr. Spencer has been a liberal m religion and has actively exerted himself in the interest of a complete separation of Church and State, as a necessary condition of perfect religious freedom. Politically, he has always been a Re- publican, with liberal tendencies. and has been active in politics to the extent of discharging what he conceived to be his political duties as a citizen. He has never hell nor sought any public office. In: 1800 he was the Republican nominee for Representative in Con- gress from the Milwaukee district. That was a year of disaster to the Republicans, when the State of Wisconsin went over to the Democratic party by a plurality of 28.coo. mainly on the com- pulsory education issue arising out of the passage of the Bennett Law. Mr. Spencer's opponent was Hon. John L. Mitchell, who was elected. Mr. Spencer has performed public services quite as useful as any which official position would have enabled him to confer. He was a leading spirit in organizing the Milwaukee People's Institute, which was for several years a flourishing and useful institution: he was the most active promoter of the Wis- consin Phonological Institute, by whose influence numbers of the congenitally deaf have been taught to speak. He was one of the founders of the Wisconsin Humane Society. As a member
396
A POLITICAL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
.
of the G. A. R. he originated the plan by which the personal. war, civil and family history of members of that and kindred organizations is being collected and preserved. He is Vice-Presi - dent of the Political Science Association of the University of Wisconsin.
CALVERT SPENSLEY.
Calvert Spensley was born at Stockton-on-Tees, England. January 2, 1846, and came with his parents to Wisconsin three years later. The family settled at Shullsburg, Wisconsin, remov- ing to Mineral Point in 1857. and there Mr. Spensley has since made his home. He was educated in the common schools, Min- eral Point Seminary, and Western Union College, Fulton, Ill. While a student at the last-named institution he enlisted in the 140th Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and served as Ser- geant of Company D. After the war he entered Columbia College Law School, New York city, from which. he was graduated in 1869. In 1875-6 he was Chairman of the Board of Supervisors of . . Iowa county, and in IS;7-8 Mayor of the city of Mineral Point. In 1892 he was the candidate of the Republicans for the State Senate in the Twenty-eighth District, and was elected. serving through the sessions of 1893 and 1895, and making a creditable · reputation as a useful member of the Senate. Governor Scofield appointed Mr. Spensley a member of the Wisconsin Fish Com- mission, of which body he is Secretary and Treasurer. His term will not expire till April. 1903.
E. S. BRAGG.
Edward Sylvester Bragg has been one of the most prominent figures in the public life of Wisconsin during the past forty years. Ile is the son of Joel and Margaretta (KohD) Bragg, and was born at Unadilla, Otsego county, New York, February 20, 1827. His early years were passed on his father's farm. After prepara- tory study at the Delaware Academy, at Delhi, he spent three years in Geneva, now Hobart, College, but lack of money pre-
.
-
.
Geo, Spratt
397.
A POLITICAL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
vented him from completing his course. Returning to his native town. he entered the law office of Judge Noble, and was admitted to the bar at Norwich in 1848. After practicing with Judge Noble for two years, he removed to Wisconsin. settling at Fond du Lac, then a promising village, and soon acquired a remunera- tive practice. In 1854 he became District Attorney of Fond du Lac county, holding the office for two years. In 1860, as a Douglas Democrat, he was a delegate to the National Convention at Charleston. When the Civil War broke out he entered the army as Captain of Company E. Sixth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, May 5, 1861. . On the 6th of September in that year he was made Major, and in 1862 he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He was commissioned Colonel in 1863, and Brigadier-General in 1864, being mustered out with the latter rank October S, 1865. As one of the commanders of the famous Iron Brigade his name became a household word through- out the land. His coolness, daring and fertility of resource so · impressed the men of his command that whenever he led he . inspired enthusiasm, and his soldiers fought like tigers. He. participated in all the campaigns of the Army of the Potomac except those of the Peninsula, Gettysburg and Five Forks. Returning to Fond du Lac after the war. he was, in 1866,appointed Postmaster of that city by President Johnson. In the same year he went as delegate to the Loyalists' Convention at Philadelphia. In 1867 he was elected to the State Senate. In 1868 he was a delegate to the Soldiers' and Sailors' Convention which nomi- nated Horatio Seymour for the Presidency. Gen. Bragg was a member of the Forty-fifth. Forty-sixth and Forty-seventh Con- gresses. He was a delegate to the Democratic National Con- vention at Chicago in 1884. where, as Chairman of the Wisconsin delegation, he seconded the nomination of Grover Cleveland for the Presidency, and caught the ear of the nation with the ringing phrase. "We love him for the enemies he has made." In the fall of that year he was elected to the Forty-ninth Congress, and in 1885 he was appointed Minister to Mexico, in which post he represented his country during the first administration of Presi- dent Cleveland. In 1893 he was enthusiastically supported for
. .
(34)
398
A POLITICAL HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
the United States Senatorship by a large number of Democrats, but was later defeated by the supporters of John L. Mitchell. Since then he has been engaged in the practice of his profession at Fond du Lac .. Like many other, leading Democrats in Wis- consin, he repudiated the platform adopted at Chicago in 1896. He was a delegate to the convention of National Democrats which met at Indianapolis that year and adopted a gold standard plat- form, nominating Senator Palmer for the Presidency. In that convention his own nomination for the Presidency was strongly urged. During the campaign which followed he made several public addresses which consolidated the gold-standard sentiment and powerfully contributed to the overwhelming defeat of Bryan. Gen. Bragg is a member of the Protestant Episcopal church. He was married January 2, 1855, to Miss Cornelia Coleman, by whom he has had three daughters and one son.
EMIL WALLBER.
Prominent among citizens of German birth who have borne an active part in the public life of Milwaukee is Judge Emil Wall- ber. He was born in Berlin, Germany. April 1, 1841, being the son of Julius and Henrietta Krohn Wallber, and came to this country with his parents when he was nine years of age. The family settled in New York city, where Emil was educated with a view to entering the profession of the law. Coming to Milwaukee in 1855. he secured employment in the office of Charles F. Bode. a Justice of the Peace, and later in the law office of Winfield Smith and Edward Salomon. When Mr. Salomon, who was elected Lieutenant-Governor in 1861, became chief executive of the State by reason of the death of Gov. Harvey, he made Mr. Wallber Chief Clerk in the executive office. Meanwhile the latter continued his legal studies. In 1864 he was admitted to the bar, and in the same year Winfield Smith, who had become Attorney- General, appointed him his assistant in that office. In 1866, at the expiration of his term as Assistant Attorney-General, he returned to Milwaukee and established himself in the practice of his profession. From IS;o to 1873 he was a member of the Mil-
399
A POLITICAL. HISTORY OF WISCONSIN.
wankee Board of School Commissioners, serving two years as Chairman of the Board. In 1872 he was a member of the State Assembly. In 1873 he was elected City Attorney, in which impor- tant office he was continued by successive reflections till 1878. when he declined a renomination. Reopening a law office, his efficiency secured a large and remunerative practice. In 1884 he was elected Mayor of Milwaukee. and at the expiration of his two. years' term was honored by re-nomination and reelection. From 1883 to 1890 he was a member of the State Board of Normal School Regents. In 1889 he was elected Judge of the Municipal Court of Milwaukee, to which office he was reelected in 1885 at the expiration of his six years' term. During his incumbency the law fixing the jurisdiction of the Court has been so altered as to take away the petty police cases formerly assigned to it and ele- vate it to the grade of a Criminal Court. Judge Wallber is a member of the Masonic Fraternity and of the Sons of Hermann, the Turnverein Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Musical Society, the Kindergarten Verein and other organizations promoting social " fellowship and educational progress.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.