USA > Wisconsin > Sauk County > A standard history of Sauk County, Wisconsin, Volume II > Part 40
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GEORGE FERBER has lived in Sauk County more than seventy years. His endeavors as a practical farmer were liberally prospered, and in later years he has lived at Sauk City largely retired, though he has never permitted himself to be without some useful occupation and in- terest. He is one of the best known citizens in that part of the county.
Mr. Ferber was born in Switzerland November 19, 1842, but was brought to America in 1846 by his parents, Felix and Margaret (Parrli) Ferber. Both parents were natives of Switzerland and on coming to America they located in Sauk City. A short time later Felix Ferber took up a tract of Government land in Honey Creek Township. He was busied with its care and development for about two years and then returned to Sauk City, where he died in 1853. Felix Ferber was a tailor by trade, an occupation he had learned in his native land. There was little demand for the services of a tailor in the pioneer times of Sauk County, and regular occupation thus being denied him at his chosen pursuit he found work wherever it offered. Felix Ferber and wife had five children: George; Alec, who is now living retired at West Allis, Wisconsin, and his three children are all married; Badger, deceased; Henry, who is married and lives in Sauk City; and John, also deceased. The mother of these children died when seventy-six years of age.
. George Ferber, being the oldest of the family, had to assume unusual responsibilities and burdens soon after the death of his father. He was eleven years of age when his father died and at the age of thirteen he began working at wages on neighboring farms in order to contribute to the support and maintenance of the household, consisting of his mother and five children. In this way he worked hard and earnestly until he was nineteen.
Mr. Ferber has a record as a soldier of the Union army which will always be cherished by his descendants. At the age of nineteen he enlisted in the Ninth Wisconsin Infantry, and saw 31/4 years of active service. He was in many of the notable campaigns of the South, and at the close of the war he laid down his arms and came home with health
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much impaired by his hardships. After resting a year he went out to California with his brother Alec and for three years they worked at the logging business. After coming back to Sauk County George Ferber bought a farm, and in the fall of 1870 he was joined by his brother Alec. Two years later Alec sold his interest in the place to George, and the latter then had active charge and continued farming as his vocation until about nine years ago. He then sold his farm, which had greatly increased in value in the meantime, and has since lived in' Sauk City.
In 1873 Mr. Ferber married Miss Louisa Meyer. She died in 1890, leaving six children : George, who is unmarried and lives in Sumpter Township; Henry, a machinist living at Milwaukee and married; Millie, wife of Anton Dietrichson, a resident of Payette, Idaho, and they have three children; Clara, deceased; Walter, who is a Government employe in Washington; Louis, who is unmarried and living in Chicago, where he is connected with the postoffice. In 1893 Mr. Ferber married Anna B. Myer. One child was born of that union, Alec, who is married and lives in Sauk City. All the children were well educated in the public schools of Sauk City. Louis also spent two years in the Toland Business College at La Crosse.
Mr. Ferber has had much to do with public affairs in his section of the county. For ten years he served as school clerk, was on the town board six years, was a member of the village board in Sauk City seven years, and for nineteen years was on the Farmers Insurance Board. Fraternally he is affiliated with the Woodmen of the World.
PAUL CAHOON is both a farmer and business man and has exempli- fied the progressive spirit which has put Sauk County far ahead in the matter of agriculture and agricultural organization and system.
He is also an auctioneer by profession, but his chief business has been centered around farm enterprise. He was born in Baraboo Town- ship of Sauk County February 23, 1875, was educated in the public schools and grew up in a rural community. In 1900 Mr. Cahoon bought the farm he now owns in Baraboo Township. It comprises 120 acres, and has become highly developed under his direction in the way of first class improvements.
Mr. Cahoon and two of his neighbors built the first three concrete silos in Baraboo Township. He is a dairyman and keeps a herd of fine Jerseys. In 1915 the farmers of about twenty-two counties in Wiscon- sin organized a packing company, with plant at Madison, known as the Farm Cooperative Packing Company. Mr. Cahoon under the auspices of the organization established the shipping association of the company during 1916-17. He is also one of the organizers of the Excelsior Creamery. Cooperative Company of Baraboo and served as its treasurer for about nine years. This is a consolidation of several creameries in and around Baraboo, and one of them was known as the Excelsior Creamery, and that name was taken for the larger association. Mr. Cahoon was a member of the building committee which established the fine plant at Baraboo.
Paul Cahoon is a son of Levi and Willie Ann (Wells) Cahoon. His
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father was one of the pioneers of Sauk County, and extended reference to his career and family history will be found on other pages. His mother, who was born in Walworth County, Wisconsin, July 4, 1846, and died at Baraboo June 13, 1905, was an early day teacher in Sauk County. His father cleared up 215 acres of land in the woods of Bara- boo Township. His later years have been spent in retirement and he now resides at Baraboo. Paul was the fourth in a family of six sons. The oldest, Wells, was killed in a railroad accident in 1892, when about twenty-five years of age. Concerning Wilber, a farmer of Baraboo Township, mention is made on other pages. Lee H. went to the North- west when about eighteen years of age and has since become an ex- tensive farmer, horse dealer and cattle feeder in Montana. Roger, the next younger than Paul, is a physician at Baraboo. Ora, the youngest, was graduated from the Baraboo High School at the age of seventeen, the University of Wisconsin at twenty-one, and then worked on the ranch of his brother. By profession he is an electrical engineer and served at one time as superintendent of the electric light plant at Chippewa Falls, subsequently was with the large Moline factory, and is now at Chicago, employed as an expert by the Sturdevant Company, manufacturing motors for aeroplanes and submarines for the Govern- ment.
Mr. Paul Cahoon served as treasurer of Baraboo Township for three years and is an independent in politics. He is affiliated with Baraboo Lodge No. 234, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, with the Knights of Pythias at Baraboo and the Modern Woodmen of America. He was married in 1895 to Miss Myrtie Spencer, daughter of Charles Spencer and a granddaughter of Thomas Spencer, one of the pioneers of Sauk County. Mr. and Mrs. Cahoon have four children: Ruth, who grad- uated from the Baraboo High School in 1917; Horace, who has com- pleted the work of the Baraboo public schools and is now in Company I, Sixth National Guards of Wisconsin; Ethel, a junior in high school; and Myrna, also in the public schools.
CHARLES L. SPENCER, a veteran of the Civil war and for over half a century a resident of Sauk County, is now living retired at Baraboo.
He has lived in Wisconsin since childhood, and was born in Madison County, New York, in 1842. His great-grandfather, Samuel Spencer, was a soldier in the Revolutionary army in the struggle for inde- pendence. His grandfather, Reuben Spencer, was married February 22, 1807, to Nancy Chapman, and they removed from Connecticut to the vicinity of Oneida Lake in New York.
Thomas H. Spencer, father of Charles L., was born in Connecticut October 1, 1813, and was married August 16, 1841, to Miss Nancy Maria Maynard, who was born in Massachusetts February 15, 1819. In 1850 Thomas H. Spencer moved to Wisconsin and in 1861 located in Sauk County on a farm 312 miles west of the City of Baraboo. He was a practical farmer and spent his last years in retirement at Baraboo, where he died in 1897. His wife passed away in 1886. Their children were: Charles; Julia, born October 14, 1843; Maude A., born June 26, 1846; Louisa, born March 14, 1848; Nancy Jane, born February 14, 1850;
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Laura A., born March 18, 1852; Sidney, born April 13, 1855; Martha, born May 8, 1857; Thomas M. and John W., twins, born September 7, 1858; and Mary, born February 28, 1860.
When Charles L. Spencer was eight years old his parents removed from New York to Waukesha County, Wisconsin, and two years later to Lodi, Wisconsin. He there attended school and in 1857 removed to Caledonia in Columbia County, Wisconsin. In 1861 he came to Sauk County, and after living here about two years enlisted, on July 4, 1863, in Company C of the First Wisconsin Heavy Artillery. Mr. Spencer saw two years and three months of active service in the Union army and was not granted his discharge until November 21, 1865, some months after the close of actual hostilities. For years he has been a member of the Grand Army Post at Baraboo.
After the war he returned to Sauk County and took up farming. He still has his well improved farm of eighty-five acres but since 1910 has lived retired at Baraboo. Politically he is a republican.
On December 28, 1868, Mr. Spencer married Miss Salena Jones, who was born in Walworth County, Wisconsin, in 1850, a daughter of David and Maria (Delap) Jones, both natives of New York State. Her parents removed to Walworth County, Wisconsin, locating on a farm, and in 1854 came to Sauk County, where her father died April 3, 1861, at the age of forty-one. Her mother attained the age of eighty- four and died May 9, 1916. Mrs. Spencer was the oldest of eight chil- dren, the others being Elizabeth, Abbie, Rosa, David, Fred and Byrd.
Mr. and Mrs. Spencer have four children: Rosette, Arthur, Myrtie, wife of Mr. Paul Cahoon, and Charles Hardy. Rosette is the wife of Fred Burdick, of Baron County, Wisconsin. Their children are named Harold, Irwin, Lester, Willis, Cecil and Helen Salina. Charles Hardy, who occupies his father's farm in Baraboo Township, married Gladys Pearson, a daughter of C. L. Pearson, formerly state senator. Their four children are named Charles Lavern, Thomas Hardy, Ruth Blanche and Pearson.
JOSEPH E. PREMO. The old pioneer family of Premo, which was established in Sauk County in 1850, has among its worthy representa- tives some of the leading men of this section, one of whom is Joseph E. Premo, who is well known in this section of the state in the livestock industry. Mr. Premo was born in Merrimac Township, Sauk County, June 17, 1864. His parents were Charles and Eliza Ann (Astle) Premo.
Charles Premo was born in 1835, in the State of New York, and died on his farm in Sauk County in 1901. He was a son of Joseph and Melvina (Delegerie) Premo, both of whom were born in France. In 1850 they came to Sauk County and located first in Sumpter Township, improved property in the county and he died in Merrimac Township in 1877 and his wife died in 1880. He married Eliza Ann Astle, who was born in England in 1837, a daughter of William Astle, and died in Sumpter Township in 1903. Of their family of eight children three survive, namely : Stephen, Joseph E. and William H., and the follow, ing are deceased : Sarah, Elizabeth, Herman, Ada and George.
Joseph E. Premo obtained his education in the public schools of
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Sumpter Township. Under the supervision of his father he learned the principles of agriculture and when ready to enter upon business life for himself found his knowledge thorough and practical.
In 1901 Mr. Premo bought his first farm, consisting of 103 acres situated in Baraboo Township, near Devil's Lake. In 1908 he bought the farm in Greenfield Township that is now owned by his brother William, to whom he sold it in 1912, when he bought the old Albert McGilvra farm of seventy-two acres and also a tract of twenty-five acres in Greenfield Township. This was followed by a purchase of twenty acres located within the city limits of Baraboo, being a part of the Stanley farm. Mr. Premo devotes the larger part of his acreage to the maintenance of his extensive stock and cattle industries. For six- teen years he has been a heavy breeder of Poland China hogs and Shrop- shire sheep, and he stands among the foremost in this part of Wisconsin as a successful breeder of Shorthorn cattle. He has made ade- quate provision and many improvements of his different properties, insuring the best of conditions for his valuable stock. Mr. Premo is a man of enterprise and belongs to the modern type of agriculturist, to which not only the United States but the world is turning an anxious eye in anticipation of future needs.
Mr. Premo was married May 2, 1892, to Miss Emma E. Fowler, who was born near Lansing, Clinton County, Michigan, September 8, 1870. She is a daughter of Dr. John and Mary (Blodgett) Fowler. Doctor Fowler and wife had four children, namely: Eva, who is the wife of John Searls and lives in Montana; James; Emma E., who is the wife of Joseph E. Premo; Dora, who died at the age of three years. Doctor Fowler, father of Mrs. Premo, was born in England in 1842 and her mother was born in Ohio in 1841. They came to Prairie du Sac, Wis- consin, in 1882, and there Doctor Fowler engaged in the practice of medicine for three years. In 1885 he came to Baraboo for a time and then went back to Michigan, his earlier home, where he practiced one year more and then returned to Baraboo. Here he died June 21, 1916, his wife passing away at Baraboo in 1899. Six children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Premo, as follows : Ada May, who is a graduate of the Greenfield public school, the Baraboo High School and the State Normal at Plattville, Wisconsin, and she taught school most acceptably for two years; Flora, Charles and Alice, all of whom have creditably completed their public school courses in the grade schools and the latter became a student in the Baraboo High School in 1917; Selinda Bernice ; and Nellie Margaret, who died in infancy.
Mr. Premo is nominally a republican in politics but is a man well able to do his own thinking and on many subjects entertains inde- pendent ideas that regulate his support of political candidates at times. He has never been desirous of political honors for himself but once con- sented to serve as road overseer in Baraboo Township and has always displayed a commendable interest in the public schools.
SAMUEL P. SEARLE. Of the men who have actively participated in the agricultural transformation of Sauk County during the past half century none are better or more favorably known than Samuel P. Searle,
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of Delton Township. Mr. Searle has had a long and active career and for a number of years has been in a position where he might retire and enjoy financial independence.
Mr. Searle is a native of England, where he was born April 19, 1847. His parents were William and Ann (Pollard) Searle, both natives of England and of English ancestry. In 1859 they crossed the ocean with their family to Quebec, soon came to the United States, spending about two months at London, Ohio, then went to Rockford, Illinois, and in 1860 to Mauston, Juneau County, Wisconsin. Still later they located in Columbia County, Wisconsin, and in October, 1867, established their home in Delton Township of Sauk County. Here the father bought the eighty acres now owned by his son Samuel and also eighty acres which he subsequently sold and is now owned by Edward Terry. The father acquired another farm of eighty acres and later a place of 160 acres in Excelsior Township. He was a very practical business man and to his qualifications as a farmer he added the ex- perience and skill of a veterinary surgeon. During the American Civil war he was in active service one year, enlisting in the Tenth Battery of Light Artillery, with which he went to St. Louis and subsequently transferred to the Ninth Battery and crossed the plains to Pike's Peak on an expedition against the Indians. He died in Sauk County in December, 1891, at the age of eighty-two. His wife passed away March 26, 1874. In politics he was a republican and a member of the Epis- copal Church. He and his wife had the following children: John, deceased; George, who became a sailor and died and was buried at Havana, Cuba; Samuel, who was third in age; Elizabeth, who died in 1916; and William Francis, a resident of Barron County, Wisconsin.
Samuel P. Searle was twelve years of age when he came with his parents to America. He had received his first instruction in the schools of England, and for a brief time attended school in this country. At the age of fifteen he tried to enlist in the Union army, but was rejected on account of his extreme youth. His early life was spent on a farm and farming became his permanent calling in life. He still owns and occupies the eighty acres of the old homestead acquired by his father fifty years ago and he has added to this forty acres. The passing of years has brought many improvements through his hands, and in his earlier and more active years he spent many weary days cutting down trees and grubbing up stumps. He has most of the land under cultiva- tion, improved with good buildings, and is one of the leading general farmers and stock raisers in Delton Township. He has served as town- ship supervisor and was chairman of the board for three years. Po- litically he is a republican.
On June 4, 1874, Mr. Searle married Miss Constantine Welch, who died September 25, 1880, leaving two children : Louis Claude and Grace Ann, the latter the wife of James Fry, son of A. H. Fry. Louis Claude, when fourteen years old, suffered the loss of a leg and at the age of sixteen he attended a school of telegraphy. At the age of eightcen he started in as a telegraph operator, and is now train dispatcher at Three Forks, Montana.
On December 25, 1882, Mr. Searle married for his second wife Melissa
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Graves. She was born in Delton Township of Sauk County April 21, 1859, and belongs to one of the pioneer families of Sauk County. Her parents were Willett Johnson and Rebecca (Murphy) Graves, the former a native of New York and the latter of Pennsylvania. They came to Sauk County when young people, were married here, and after their marriage they located in Delton Township, where her father followed farming actively until his death in 1883, at the age of sixty-threc. Mrs. Searle's mother died in Baraboo in 1912, at the advanced age of seventy-nine. Mrs. Searle was one of nine children: Carrie, Lettie, George, Melissa, Moses, Daniel, Arthur, Mary and Albert. Mrs. Searle's father was for a number of years a member of the school board in Delton Township.
To Mr. and Mrs. Searle were born nine children: Clara, the oldest, is the wife of Clyde McFarland, of Tacoma, Washington, and they have a daughter, Catherine; Catherine, the second child, was formerly a teacher and is now the wife of John Owen, their home being in the State of Oregon; Martha married Otto Powell and they have two children, William Searle and Arlene; Jennie is a graduate of the Reedsburg Training School and has been a successful teacher for eight years; Samuel P. is a graduate of the Baraboo Business College and lives at Milwaukee; William is still at home; Eva Belle died in infancy ; Howard died at the age of six years; and Ruth, the youngest, is now in the junior class of the Baraboo High School.
JAMES W. DIBBLE. Through three successive generations members of the Dibble, family have been connected with the boot and shoe mak- ing trade in Sauk County. James W. Dibble is a son of a pioneer shoemaker of Baraboo, and he himself followed that business through- out his active career but is now living retired. His son still continues the trade in Baraboo.
For sixty-seven years a resident of Sauk County and an honored veteran of the Civil war, James W. Dibble was born at Danbury, Con- necticut, February 2, 1845, a son of James S. and Julia (Johnson) Dibble. His parents arrived in Baraboo July 7, 1850, when that city was a mere village and when most of the surrounding country was a wilderness. James S. Dibble worked at his trade as a shoemaker in the employ of Andrew Anders for a number of years. Both he and his wife died in Baraboo. They had three children: Julius R., who became a soldier in the Civil war and died at St. Louis while still in the army, in 1863 ; Jasper Rufus, who died at Baraboo in 1897; and James W.
James W. Dibble was five years of age when brought to Baraboo. The family had made the journey from Milwaukee to this frontier town with covered wagons. He attended some of the first public schools at Baraboo and was still a youth of eighteen when on December 16, 1863, he enlisted in Company F of the Third Wisconsin Cavalry. He was with that splendid regiment during its later service in the war, and he performed all the arduous duties assigned to him and gave nearly two years of his young life to the cause. He was mustered out in October, 1865, and then returned to Baraboo and began active work as a shoe- maker. For thirty-four years he was connected with the Marriott Shoe
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Company. For about twelve years he lived at Bloomer in Chippewa County, Wisconsin, where he also followed his trade and on returning to Baraboo he began work with the E. G. Marriott Shoe Company and was with them continuously until quite recently, when he retired, after having been a follower of his trade for nearly half a century.
Mr. Dibble has been a loyal republican since he followed the flag of the Union during the Civil war. He is now commander of Joe Hooker Post No. 9, Grand Army of the Republic, Department of Wis- consin, and has served as its commander three different years and as chaplain two years.
Mr. Dibble was married December 25, 1867, to Miss Ella M. Bailey. Mrs. Dibble was born in New York State November 3, 1849, a daughter of John L. and Sophronia Ann (Cotton) Bailey. Her parents came from Ohio to Merrimack, Sauk County, Wisconsin, in 1856. Her father bought a farm in Merrimack Township, but that being insufficient for his purposes he rented more land and became one of the substantial agriculturists of that vicinity. In 1865 John L. Bailey enlisted for service in the Union army, although he was then past military agc. He served as a quartermaster and was with the army until 1866. Re- turning to Sauk County, he lived an active life as a farmer until he retired. He spent sixteen years at Lyons and finally met with a rail- way accident which made him helpless during his last six years. He died at the home of his daughter Mrs. Dibble in July, 1913. In Decem- ber of that year he would have celebrated his ninety-third birthday. Mrs. Dibble's mother died at Baraboo in 1909, at the age of eighty-eight. They were married in Chautauqua County, New York, May 7, 1843, in 1849 moved to Ohio, and in 1856 came to Sauk County, Wisconsin. To make the journey from Ohio to Wisconsin required twenty-six days. John L. Bailey was born in Yates County, New York, December 21, 1821, and his wife was born there February 11, 1821. Their children were four in number: Joanna Adaline, who was born March 19, 1844, now deceased; Ella Marie, born November 3, 1849; Burton B., born July 1, 1854, and died November 26, 1900; and Eliza Annette, born June 9, 1862, and died in 1865.
The only son of Mr. Dibble is Howard Lynn. He was born July 7, 1870, and was reared and educated at Bloomer in Chippewa County. He married Lavina LaBell, of that county. She was born in. Bloomer and was a school teacher there before her marriage. Howard L. Dibble served as town clerk of Bloomer for a number of years. Like his father and grandfather he is a shoemaker by trade and now conducts a shop at Baraboo and is enjoying a prosperous business. He and his wife have six children, named Harry L., Maud, Ned, Glenn, Ella and Catherine.
GEORGE A. GROSS is one of the oldest native sons of Merrimack Township, Sauk County. His life and its chief activities have been passed in that community, and he first gained success as a practical agriculturist and later has applied his time and capital to business enterprises in the Village of Merrimack.
His birth occurred in 1851, on a farm three miles south of that vil- lage. The township was then known as Kingston. He is a son of
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Andrew and Margaret (Keitel) Gross. His parents were both born in Wurtemberg, his father in 1811 and his mother in 1813. In that year of the German revolution, 1848, they immigrated to America, having married in the old country. From August of that year until the fol- lowing spring they lived at Sauk City. Early in 1849 they moved to Kingston Township and lived on rented land. While there Andrew Gross built one or two log houses and was there about two years. His home was near the bluff. He bought land from the Government, pay- ing $50 for forty acres. He and Mr. Keitel acquired together three forty-acre tracts, and then divided them. In 1875 Andrew Gross bought what was known as the Colborn farm, where his son John now lives. Andrew Gross succeeded by hard work in acquiring a competence, and died in 1882, a highly respected citizen. He went through all the pioneer experiences. In the early days he used oxen to break the land and perform the other heavy work of clearing and cultivating. Many weary days he swung the cradle or the scythe in harvesting his grain. His surplus produce was hauled to Madison. Mrs. Andrew Gross died in 1887. From the time of her husband's death she made her home with her daughter, Sophia. They had three children, George being the oldest. John, who lives in Sumpter Township, is the father of seven children, two daughters and five sons. Sophia, the only daughter, is the wife of August Borchers, living at Lavalle in Sauk County. They have four daughters.
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