USA > Wisconsin > Sauk County > A standard history of Sauk County, Wisconsin, Volume II > Part 16
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Mr. and Mrs. Steuber have two children: Esther, born March 6, 1891, and Dora, born May 26, 1894. Both are graduates of the Prairie du Sac High School and Esther is teaching music while Dora is a teacher of the Cook District School in Greenfield Township. Mrs. Steuber is a member of the Lutheran Church, while Mr. Steuber is affiliated with the Evangelical Association. For three years he has served as a member of the school board, has been Sunday school superintendent and class leader in his church, and in all the relations of a busy life has shown an active and public-spirited attitude toward everything that means better conditions and more improvements and a greater welfare. He is a stockholder in the Sumpter Light and Power Company and his efforts as a farmer and business man have given him possession of a fine place of eighty acres in Merrimack Township, with twenty acres of woodland on the bluffs of the Wisconsin River, and he also owns an entire section of land in Texas.
M. J. TYLER. Baraboo, Wisconsin, has among its honored retired citizens many men to whom it owes much, men of the highest type of
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responsible citizenship. They have been useful to the community through their activities in business, their public services and their professional achievements, and now, having stepped somewhat aside from the busy paths that their descendants still creditably occupy, they are entitled to the consideration which they receive. In this class is found M. J. Tyler, who during a long period of years was engaged in the milk , business, but who is now living in quiet retirement in the enjoyment of the comforts that came as a reward for his extended period of labor.
Mr. Tyler was born in Ulster County, New York, January 17, 1857, and is a son of Joel and Clarissa (Elmore) Tyler, the former born in Connecticut in 1805, and the latter a native of New York, her girlhood home being on the Hudson River. In the year 1867 the family came West, locating in Sauk County. In his earlier years, on the Atlantic Coast, the father had been a seafaring man, and when he left the life of a sailor took up the vocation of an educator. On coming to Wis- consin, however, he turned his attention to agricultural pursuits, and for many years carried on operations on a property which he owned not far from Baraboo. There he died in 1889, his wife passing away several years later. They were faithful members of the Methodist Epis- copal Church, and Mr. Tyler was a republican in his political views. There were four children in the family, namely : Mary A., Jennie M., Alice R. and M. J., the first named of whom is now deceased.
M. J. Tyler was reared in an agricultural atmosphere and passed his boyhood in learning the business of farming and in doing the tasks that fell to his lot as a farmer's son. In the meantime he was obtain- ing a good education in the graded and high schools of Baraboo, and when he left school returned to the farm. Later he established a milk business and by thorough energy and good management succeeded in building up a large and profitable route, of which he was the proprietor until 1916, in which year he disposed of his business interests. Since that time he has been living quietly in his comfortable home at No. 309 Lynn Street. Mr. Tyler was brought up in a republican household and, all else being even, is likely to vote that ticket. However, he re- serves the right to independent views, and often casts his ballot for the man, irrespective of party lines, whom he feels to be best qualified for the office at stake.
In 1880 Mr. Tyler was married to Miss Emily Johnson, of Bara- boo, daughter of Albert and Ann (Check) Johnson, pioneers of Bara- boo. Mr. Johnson served during the Civil war as drum major of a regimental band, and died soon after the close of that struggle; but Mrs. Johnson survived until 1916, being about eighty years old at the time of her demise. Two daughters were born to Mr. and Mrs. Tyler, namely : Anna Catherine, who is the wife of Rev. Guy Goodsell of Platteville, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and has two children-Helen and Anna; and Clarissa Elmore, who is the wife of W. D. Morse of Baraboo, now proprietor of the milk business formerly owned by Mr. Tyler, and has one son, William Tyler.
THOMAS B. BUCKLEY for a number of years has been identified with the great circus organization whose home is in Baraboo, the Ringling
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Brothers. He is a native of Baraboo and is a thoroughly trained and efficient business man and has a great many friends in Sauk County.
Mr. Buckley was born at Baraboo September 25, 1866, a son of Thomas and Priscilla (Newson) Buckley. These families were among the pioneers of Sauk County. Thomas Buckley was born in England in 1829. Priscilla Newson was born at Stoke-on-Trent, England, in 1833. Her parents were George and Jane (Alexander) Newson, the former a native of Stoke-on-Trent and the latter of Edinburgh, Scot- land. In 1849 George Newson immigrated to America and brought his family to Baraboo 'April 1, 1850. George Newson was a stone cutter by profession and followed that trade in Sauk County until he was eighty-four years of age. He died at the age of ninety, while his wife passed away in 1881, at the age of eighty-one. In the family of George Newson were four children, Priscilla and Jane, still living, while Clara and Mary are deceased. Thomas Buckley's parents spent all their lives in England. Thomas came to this country with his maternal grand- father in 1850. He was educated in England, learned the trade of stone cutter and stone mason, a trade also followed by his father, and after coming to Sauk County he became a stone mason contractor. He continued in the work until his death in 1867. His widow is still living at Baraboo. Thomas Buckley and wife had seven children : Joseph and the second child are now deceased; Sarah Jane; Clarence, deceased ; Arthur N .; Alexander G., deceased; and Thomas B.
Thomas B. Buckley, who has never marrried, was reared in Bara- boo, attended the public schools, and gained his first experience as clerk in a local store. For a time he was in the insurance business both in Milwaukee and Baraboo and was also clerk in a drug store at Mil- waukee. In 1901 Mr. Buckley became bookkeeper for the Ringling Brothers, and in 1906 was made treasurer of that company, a position he still holds. He has a thorough knowledge of the financial affairs of this large organization and for the past ten years has borne some of the heaviest responsibilities of the financial and business maintenance of the organization. Mr. Buckley has a fine home at 816 Ash Street. He is a repulbican in politics, though with strong independent leanings.
EDWARD BAER, of Delton Township, is one of the men who came to Sauk County possessing no end of physical vigor and ambition but absolutely without capital, and he established himself on a plane of prosperity by a number of years of work for others and as a developer of his own farm. He is now living in comfortable circumstances, and is a man looked up to and honored in his community.
Mr. Baer is a native of Switzerland, where he was born June 11, 1862. His parents were Gottlieb and Elizabeth (Wealthy) Baer. His father died in Switzerland in 1873 and his mother in 1893. They had two children, and Gottlieb has never left his native land.
Edward Baer attended the good schools of Switzerland and was about twenty-two years of age when, in 1884, he came to America and located at Baraboo. Here he found employment on the farm of . ยท Mr. Ochner, and was paid only a dollar a week. His wages improved with his increasing ability and his judgment, and he finally was in a
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position to become an independent farmer. Mr. Baer bought the farm he now owns in Delton Township in 1893. It consists of eighty acres, and has been well improved by his labor and under his direction. He has his property clear of debt, and his prosperity is the result of many years of consecutive toil and judicious endeavor. He cleared most of the land himself. He is engaged in general farming and stock raising. In politics Mr. Baer is independent.
On October 20, 1890, he married Miss Cora Lesuer. She was born in New York July 11, 1866, a daughter of Nathan and Mary (Briggs) Lesuer, her father also a native of New York. Her mother was a daugh- ter of Amintis Briggs, a prominent Sauk County citizen elsewhere men- tioned. Mrs. Baer was about a year old when in 1867 her parents came to Baraboo. Her father is still living in Delton Township, at the age of eighty-four, and her mother died there in 1893, at the age of fifty- five. The children in the Lesuer family were : Elverton, deceased ; Ella ; Eliza ; Cora ; Arthur; Morris, and Herman.
Mr. and Mrs. Baer have three children: Mabel, Albert and Howard. The two youngest are still in the home circle. Mabel is the wife of Fred- erick Boyd, a street car conductor at Madison, Wisconsin, where they reside. They have one daughter, Rachael.
DAVID E. WELCH, who has been a resident of Baraboo for more than forty years, was eighty-two years of age December 4, 1917. He is a veteran of the Civil war and during his 41/2 years of service with the Union army, identified with the Second Ohio Volunteer Cavalry, he advanced from the ranks to the lieutenant-colonelcy of his regiment. His military service ranged from the southwestern frontier to the fields covered by the armies of the Tennessee and the Potomac. Colonel Welch was then retained in the Cavalry Bureau until February, 1866, and in the following year settled on a farm in the Town of Delton, Sauk County. There, for four years, he was chairman of the County Board of Super- visors, and in 1876 moved to Baraboo to engage in the agricultural busi- ness. He had already served in the lower house of the Legislature (1874- 75) and was a member of the State Senate in 1876-79. The colonel also served as postmaster of Baraboo for about six years under Harrison and McKinley. He has been a Mason for over sixty years.
TIMOTHY HACKETT is one of the citizens of Sauk County whose mem- ories and recollections go back almost seventy years. He knew the coun- try when it was a wilderness. Here and there were the log cabins of the early settlers. Wild game was abundant in the woods and fish was plentiful in the streams. There was little money to be had, few of the modern luxuries, and people lived in utmost simplicity, but the virtues of the heart were not neglected and there were kind neighbors and good friends in those early days just as there are today.
Though he is now eighty-six years of age, Mr. Timothy Hackett has been retired from active business cares only a few years. He was born in Canada March 26, 1831, a son of Samuel and Dency (Terry) Hackett. His father was born in New Jersey in 1805 and his mother in New York. In the early days after their marriage they removed to Canada, and
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from that country they returned to the United States and in 1839 located in Boone County, Illinois. In 1848 Samuel Hackett penetrated the wilderness of Southern Wisconsin and located at Baraboo. He rented a farm in that community for a year and then removed to Freedom Township, where he acquired land on the site now occupied by the Village of North Freedom. Altogether he owned 320 acres, and made it a home of prosperity and comfort in which he spent his last years. His death occurred February 18, 1873, and his wife also died at North Freedom. They had a large family of children, briefly noted as follows: Mary Jane : George and Julia May, twins; Timothy; John; Joel; Hannah E .; Dency M .; Frank ; William J., who died in Utah when about twenty-two years of age; Parshall T .; Sarah; Wesley and Jacob, all of whom died in infancy.
Timothy Hackett was seventeen years of age when the family came to Sank County. In the meantime he had profited by attendance at the public schools of Canada and Illinois, and was well prepared to do his part in subduing the land in Sauk County. It has been his characteristic to do vigorously and well whatever he has undertaken. For twelve years Mr. Hackett was one of the leading merchants of North Freedom. Farming has constituted his chief dependence, and he still owns 336 acres near North Freedom, besides 120 acres of pasture land. Two years ago he gave up the responsibilities of the management of his property and now enjoys one of the comfortable homes of his old community.
Mr. Hackett has voted for democratic presidential candidates since the time of Franklin Pierce, and while he has been interested in local and national affairs it has never occurred to him to ask for an office. He attends the Methodist Episcopal Church.
On December 15, 1858, Mr. Timothy Hackett married Miss Fannie J. Moulton. She was born in Illinois in 1839, a daughter of N. B. and Lura M. Moulton, pioneers of Sauk County, Mr. and Mrs. Timothy Hackett had two children, Wesley O., and Maj. N. B.
Wesley O. Hackett was born in Sauk County in 1860, was educated in the public schools, and for a number of years was in the mercantile business at North Freedom and a traveling salesman. He married Inez Burt. Their two children were Irene and Thecla. The daughter Irene was married on January 6, 1910, to Charles Warn, and her daughter Rose is a great-grandchild of Timothy Hackett. Wesley O. Hackett died July 21, 1909.
Maj. N. B. Hackett was born at North Freedom on a farm October 18, 1868. He was well educated, and for a time taught school. He took up the work of traveling salesman, and for a number of years he con- ducted a theater at Stevens Point, Wisconsin. He and his brother had what was known as Hackett's Baraboo Orchestra for about ten years. In 1912 he returned to the old home where he was born and where he still lives. It is a matter of interest to note that the first road show of the Ringling Brothers was exhibited in a hall belonging to Timothy Hackett.
In 1891 Major Hackett married Miss Anna Luckensmeyer. Four children were born to their marriage: Exilda, Lysle, Durlin and Mona, all of whom are still living .. Exilda is now the wife of Lewis White, of
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North Freedom, and her two children, also great-grandchildren of Timothy Hackett, are named Lyle and Joyce Anna. Major Hackett's first wife died September 19, 1905. On August 24, 1910, he married Mrs. Bertha (Barrow) Aspinwall, of Baraboo. She had by her former marriage a son Edyn B.
GEORGE L. FISH. A Sauk County farm that represents many of the ideals in the way of cultivation, produetiveness, arrangement and equipment is that of George L. Fish in Delton Township. Mr. Fish has a large acreage under cultivation and handles it in a way to get the maximum returns for his labor and investment. He is a thorough- going farmer, and is one of the resourceful business men and public- spirited citizens of the county.
His birth occurred September 5, 1864, in Winfield Township of this county. His birthplace was the first frame house in that township. He is of pioneer stock, and the name is one that has been spoken with respect in Sauk County since early times.
His paternal grandparents were Silas and Betsey (Raymond) Fish. Betsey Raymond's father was a Revolutionary soldier. These worthy people came into Sauk County at a very early day, locating in Winfield Township, where they bought the old Andrews farm and their first house was built on that place. Silas Fish acquired 204 acres, and lived prosperously on the farm for many years. He died there in 1886, at the age of eighty-three and his widow followed him in 1891, at the age of eighty-seven. Their children were : Elizabeth; Elias, Spencer, Jasper M. and Lewis.N., all deceased : Emma Jane; Lucius; and Elbert.
Lewis N. Fish, father of George L., was born in Greene County, New York, in 1838. He was identified with Sauk County from early manhood, and as a farmer he developed 335 acres, including a part of his father's homestead. This farm is now owned and occupied by his son Edwin K. Lewis N. Fish married in Sauk County Sarah Darrow. She was born in Walworth County, Wisconsin, in 1842, a daughter of Henry A. and Luceba (Dann) Darrow. They came out of New York State and were early settlers in Walworth County, Wisconsin, and in 1850 moved to Sauk County, establishing a home in Winfield Township. Henry A. Darrow during his early life had eut cordwood and manufactured charcoal and potash on the site of the present city of Rochester, New York. In Winfield Township he had a farm of two hundred acres and died on the old place at the age of ninety-five. His wife passed away at seventy-three.
Lewis N. Fish was a democrat in politics. He and his wife were the parents of nine children: Ida May, deceased; George L .; Edwin ; Emma B .; Jasper; Walter; Mary ; Spencer; and Blanche.
George L. Fish passed his early years in Winfield Township and besides the public school advantages of that locality he was a member of the first short course class in agriculture at the University of Wis- consin at Madison. As a farmer he has always used business methods and a thorough system in handling the multitude of details which com- prise the farmer's life. His first farm was on Webster Prairie, the old Lee place, containing 140 acres. After living there five years he
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sold out in 1903 bought his present place in Delton Township, consist- ing of 376 acres. A considerable part of this land he has cleared up himself. He chopped down the trees from fifty acres and sold five thousand cords of stove wood. Of this cleared land he now has forty- five acres under cultivation. Besides raising the staple crops he is mak- ing something of a specialty of stock raising. He keeps about forty head of cattle and about 100 sheep, and his farm is well adapted for stock purposes.
Mr. Fish is a democrat in politics, served one year as township assessor, also as supervisor, and was a member of the school board in the Lee district four years and in his present home locality has been on the board for six years. From his surplus capital Mr. Fish has invested most of it in improvements for the farm, including a barn and his modern residence, which was completed in 1917.
In January, 1892, he married, Miss Sarah Montgomery. She was born in Winfield Township in April, 1870, a daughter of Lyman B. and Achsah (Peck) Montgomery. Her mother was a sister of Frank Peck, of Baraboo, and both the Montgomerys and Pecks were pioneers in Sauk County. In Delton and Excelsior townships Lyman B. Mont- gomery owned and operated a large farm, having over 400 acres. He died July 4, 1914, at the age of seventy-nine and the old farm is still occupied by his widow.
Mr. and Mrs. Fish have three children : Marion, who died in infancy ; Warren L., attending the State University at Madison ; and Florence A., at home. Both are graduates of the Kilbourn High School.
JOHN DETTMANN has been a resident of Sauk County for over thirty years. In that time his work has been partly as a farmer and partly as a business man and he has attained a substantial position in the local affairs of Ableman.
He was born in Germany June 2, 1862, a son of Fred and Mary Dettmann. In November, 1884, the Dettmann family immigrated to America, the parents locating at Ableman in Sauk County, where the father bought a farm in Excelsior Township. He improved a raw tract of land into a valuable property and lived there until his death in 1901, at the age of sixty-four. His wife also died in the same year and at the same age. Their four children are still living, being John, Freda, Carl and Mary.
John Dettmann grew up and received his education in his native country. He was married there in 1884, at the age of twenty-two, to Bertha Liverence. She was born in Germany in 1860, a daughter of Joachim and Mary Liverence. A few weeks after his marriage John Dettmann and wife, with his parents and also with her parents, set out for America. The parents of Mrs. Dettmann came to Ableman and both died there in 1884.
John Dettmann on settling in Wisconsin bought a house and lot at Ableman, and also a tract of forty acres of farming land in the village ' limits. Besides farming this tract he has also at different times sold some lots for residence purposes. He conducts his land as a general farming proposition and for the past sixteen years has been manager of
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the Ableman Co-operative Creamery Association. He has also served as a director of the Farmers State Bank of Ableman.
Mr. Dettmann is a republican in politics, and was one of the first trustees of the village when it was incorporated. He also served as school clerk and has taken an active part in all local affairs. He and his family are members of the Lutheran Church.
Mr. and Mrs. Dettmann have both children and grandchildren. Their oldest child, Ernest, is connected with the Johnson Lumber Company of Ableman and by his marriage to Mary Frames has two children, Marcellus and Mary. Emma, the second child of Mr. and Mrs. Dett- mann, is the wife of John Geiser. Ella is the wife of Rheinhart Pope, a merchant at Ableman.
CHARLES W. WHITMAN. The career of Charles W. Whitman is an expression of practical and diversified activity and in its range has invaded the realms of business, finance, agriculture and politics, all of which have profited by the breadth and conscientiousness which are dis- tinctive features of the work and character of this prominent Baraboo citizen. In business circles he is prominent as the proprietor of the South Side Drug Store, in financial affairs he is prominently connected as vice president of the Bank of Baraboo, and as an agriculturist he is the owner of several valuable farms in Sauk County and in Illinois.
Mr. Whitman was born March 18, 1854, in DeKalb County, Illinois, a son of Daniel and Melissa (Hoxie) Whitman, natives respectively of Rhode Island and Oswego, New York. They were both young people when they located in Illinois, in which state they were married, and following their union settled on a DeKalb County farm. There the father rounded out his life, passing away in 1861, when his son, Charles W., was seven years of age. Daniel Whitman was an industrious and intelligent agriculturist and no doubt would have accumulated a hand- some property had not his death occurred so early in his career. Mrs. Whitman, who survived her husband, was left with a family of seven small children and proved to be one of those good American mothers to whom this country owes so much. She was also a wonderful business woman. She was left with a section of land in DeKalb County, Illinois, but very little money with which to improve it. By her skillful man- agement this farm was kept in her possession until the time of her death and still remains in the Whitman family. She spent her last days at her home in Baraboo where she passed away at the age of seventy-seven years. They were the parents of five sons and two daughters, namely : John, a resident of Leland, Illinois; William, who resides at Earlville, Illinois; Joseph, a resident of Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Charles W., of this notice; Frank, who is in the drug store with his brother at Baraboo; Anna, who is the wife of Charles Young, of Morris, Illinois ; and Alice, who resides at Excelsior Springs, Missouri.
Charles W. Whitman received his education in the public schools of DeKalb County, Illinois, and the East Paw Paw Seminary. His early training was secured in an agricultural atmosphere, his home being on the farm on which his father had carried on his operations until his death. The young man's inclinations, however, turned more toward a commer-
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cial carcer, and as a youth he learned the drug business, a line of endeavor that has chiefly occupied his attention throughout his life. When he was twenty-one years of age he left the state of his birth and in 1876 arrived at Baraboo, which city has continued to be his home to the present time. After several years of living here he embarked in the drug business on his own account, and, from a small and modest start, he has built up one of the leading establishments in this line in the city. His capital at the outset was not large, as regards cash, but he had a plentiful supply of pluck, determination and resource, and an ambition to succeed that would not allow him to recognize or respect the obstacles that lay in his path. Also, he knew thoroughly his business, and likewise knew what he wanted to make of it. This proved a combination that was a winning one, and the South Side Drug Store, under which the business is conducted. is one of the city's substantial and well-established business ventures. Asso- ciated with Mr. Whitman is his brother Frank, also a capable and experi- enced pharmacist. Mr. Whitman has always been interested in financial affairs and since the reorganization of the Bank of Baraboo he has been the vice president. As a banker he is known to be sound and conservative in his policies, progressive in his ideas and shrewd and aceurate in his judgments. The ownership of farms in Sauk County, Wisconsin, and DeKalb County, Illinois, makes Mr. Whitman an agriculturist of some proportions, and a good deal of his time is spent in looking after the development and cultivation of these valuable properties. Politieally he is a republican when all other things are equal, otherwise he is apt to be independent in his support of candidates and parties. His official positions have been merely civic ones, and at present he is one of the three commissioners of the Lower Baraboo River Drainage District. He has always given his support and co-operation to any project which has been conceived and promoted for the betterment of his adopted city and the welfare of its people.
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