USA > Wisconsin > Milwaukee County > Milwaukee > Early Milwaukee : papers from the archives of the Old Settlers' Club of Milwaukee County > Part 11
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"Soldiers ! The step you have taken is of no trifling importance. The positions you occupy are alike honorable and responsible. You have made no slight sacrifice-severed no common ties. You leave home, families and friends to go to a distant land, there to ex- change a life of comparative ease and domestic happiness for one of toil, of hardship and of danger. May you submit to all proper requirements with heroic patience-meet your fate with becoming fortitude-obey your superiors and discharge your several duties with honor to yourselves and with fidelity to your country, and may
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you bring no disgrace upon the fair escutcheon of this territory, whose shores you are now leaving. And now permit me, on behalf of the citizens of Milwaukee, to bid you and the patriotie officers and the soldiers under your command an affectionate farewell. May the god of battles guide, protect and return you to us in safety and honor."
The formalities over, the Milwaukee companies stacked their arms and mingled with the volunteers to grasp their hands once more and voice a final good-bye. The friends of Capt. Quarles and his lieutenants, of Liebhaber, Saborga, Brunst, Koerner, Schoellner and other popular Milwaukeeans, hastened to bid them farewell, husbands, brothers and lovers, in groups aside, joined in tender, tearful adieus, while those without kith or kin stood by in sym- pathetic accord with their sorrowing comrades. The bell ruthlessly warned all aboard, the hawsers were slipped, and the boat moved out and off amid the cheers of the throng.
The route of the company was to Lake Erie and thence down to the Ohio river on a canal which Byron Kilbourn had built years be- fore, to a camp at Covington, Ky., where several weeks were spent in the usual routine of a soldier's life. From this point they were conveyed down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans, and after another brief stay, were shipped across the gulf of Mexico, arriving at Vera Cruz, their destination, early in June. Arms and accouterments were provided and drill in the manual of arms was steadily maintained. The company, which was designated as F, Fif- teenth United States infantry, was assigned to Gen. Pillow's divi- sion of Gen. Scott's army.
Others Sent to the Front.
Affairs in Milwaukee had assumed their wonted composure when Lieut. Wright returned and renewed enlistment with such per- sistence that he was able at intervals to send large squads of recruits to a camp at Newport, Ky. On the 20th of September, 1847, he marched to the steamer Niagara with his last squad of the season, a force of sixty-four men. Returning before the close of navigation he resumed his work with such success that in the following Spring he had under command a fine-appearing and well-drilled body of
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134 recruits. When the time came for their departure, on the 21st of April, 1848, they were escorted to the propeller Princeton by fire engine company No. 1 and a large following of citizens. Gen. Rufus King delivered the farewell address on this occasion, and Lieut. Wright replied in behalf of the volunteers.
On the 15th of June, 1848, Lieut. Wright, who had resumed charge of the office, received orders to cease enlisting under the "during the war" clause and insist upon the five-year term.
Our militia was not lost sight of during this bustle of the regu- lar service. The state forces were organized with Dr. E. B. Wol- cott as colonel, J. S. Rowland as lieutenant colonel and David George as major. The Americans of the city had formed an artil- lery company with Gen. King as captain, John N. Bonesteel and James Kneeland as lieutenants, and William Pitt Lynde as quarter- master. A third German company was organized-a troop of dragoons-with Edward Wiesner as captain and H. E. Heide and Dr. Wunderly as lieutenants.
Quarles Falls at Churubusco.
On the first of July, 1847, we received the first news of our company under Capt. Quarles. His volunteers were glad to land at Vera Cruz after their tedious trip by water. They had not long been ashore when they began to experience the assaults of an in- sidious foe. The dreadful coast fever had invaded their quarters. Two comrades had died and many others were in hospital during their brief sojourn at that port. About the middle of June the regi- ment had been ordered to the front.
Later we received news that the company had had its first bap- tism of fire and that it had fought valiantly from early dawn to late in the afternoon. It was at Contreras, a small fortified town, seven , miles from the City of Mexico, that Capt. Quarles had the gratifica- tion of leading his men into their first regular battle. The fight, which had commenced on the previous evening, opened before the break of day, and was conducted by the Americans with the des- perate valor and against the fearful odds which characterized that campaign. Capt. Quarles signalized his gallantry by a coolness and self possession worthy of an older soldier. The victorious troops
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were allowed but a half hour's respite, when, pushing forward, they beheld the splendid spectacle of the whole army of Mexico drawn up behind the fortress of Churubusco. The second battle of that bloody 20th of August began and ended in the afternoon. Gens. Twiggs and Worth attacked the enemy in front. Gen. Pillow's division was ordered to cross a deep marsh and fall upon their rear. The gallant Fifteenth regiment led the van and opened the battle with a spirit which soon broke and dispersed the advance column of the vaunting Mexicans. Foremost in this regiment, and excelled by none, where all were chivalric, Capt. Quarles fought and fell. The fatal bullet struck him after he had ascended part way up a slope and waved his sword to inspirit his men. Falling into the arms of his brave companion and successor in command, Lieut. Upmann, he was borne to an adjacent hacienda, where he breathed his last, after assuring Gen. Shields, his commanding general, that he was resigned to his fate, that it was glorious to dic on the field of battle for one's country. In the morning he had called on his colonel and requested to be assigned with his company to any post of peculiar danger, if such there might be. Col. Morgan replied that he knew of no occasion, but he would station his company at a post near the right of the regiment, where he would come early into action. He did so, and Capt. Quarles, in leading the desperate charge, fell gloriously at the head of his men.
Beside Capt. Quarles, Privates John Herrick and Moses Whit- ney died from the effects of wounds received at the storming of Churubusco and were buried on or near that fateful field. Three weeks later Gen. Scott entered the city of Mexico and thus prac- tically ended the war.
The Dead and Wounded.
In all forty members of Company F were destined never to re- turn. Privates Shinewith and Mueller died in camp at Covington, Ky .; Private Barnard breathed his last on shipboard while cross- ing the gulf of Mexico, and the remaining thirty-seven, with the exception of Capt. Quarles, rest in the land of the Montezumas. The roll of honor runs as follows: Capt. Quarles, John Herrick and Moses Whitney at Churubusco; Enoch Benedict, Nicholas Burch, William Burnett, William Crosby, John Clark, James Davis,
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Amos Gooch, John Holbrook, Frederick Klauer, Charles Pratt, Martin Piper, Ernst Schubert, John Steinman, Henry Wild and John Walkin, at Pueblo; George Brock, Edward Calkins, Mathias Schnoerr and James Wright at Chapultepec; Edward Barnard at Plan del Rio; Oscar Warner at Perota; James Magone and John Bradshaw at Vera Cruz; John Wilkinson, John Ziller, John Rice, George Gimbey, Jacob Schebely and - Chase, at Guernavaca ; Leonard Kissell, Frederick Koerner and John Road at the City of Mexico, and Private Gilliland at Jalapa; John Greiner, missing. Of the twenty-three whom Lieut. Wright enlisted at Watertown but six returned, J. R. Richardson, C. Gilman, T. D. White, Mc- Graw, Scott and Field.
James Magone was a public-spirited Milwaukeean who had been a member of the convention which drafted. the first State constitu- tion. He was accompanied to Mexico by his family of wife and two children. They had no sooner landed at Vera Cruz than they were prostrated by a fever that proved fatal to Magone and the children. Alexander Conze, who had enlisted at Alton, fell at Buena Vista, and in the same engagement Carl Van Nekow lost an eye and Her- man Upman was lamed for life by a wound in the knee. Privates Klein, Bastian, Frattinger, Hoehn, Metzen, Steinman, Wright, Sanger and Brunst were among the wounded at Chapultepec.
Return of the Survivors.
The few of our volunteers who survived the campaign straggled home in squads after they were paid off at New Orleans. Capt. Up- man, Liebhaber and other prominent members renewed their activi- ties among us. Capt. Upmann when he had picked up the thread of his business, was obliged to relinquish it again to accept a land registership in Minnesota. When his term expired he returned and built a hotel on Market square, which he named the St. Charles, after the famous caravansary at New Orleans, in which he had spent many happy hours. Liebhaber drifted down to Toledo, Schoellner, Brunst and others became more or less prominent in the affairs of our then young and growing city, Brunst, in later years, successfully conducting the offices of supervisor and sheriff. Not one of these is now among the living.
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Many who were known by us as veterans of that war were not among the number who volunteered in Milwaukee. Dr. S. Comp- ton Smith, the author of a book of Mexican war sketches entitled "Chile con Carne, and who, during the Civil war, was surgeon of the Fourth Wisconsin regiment of volunteer infantry, had joined the regular service in the East. Col. Thomas Kerr ran away from home at the age of 17 and enlisted in the Second Pennsylvania vol- unteers, with whom he learned the art of war to such a degree of perfection that in the Civil war he rose from the ranks to the posi- tion of colonel of the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteer infantry. George Phillips, a brother of ex-Mayor Phillips, belonged to a Mississippi regiment, William H. Bradford, received his commission at Cin- cinnati, and John C. H. von Sehlen, who after the war was for a time employed in the Milwaukee postoffice, enlisted in New York City at the age of 17, immediately after he had arrived from the old country.
Not Conspicuously Represented.
In the official enumeration of the forces which the states and territories had in the field Wisconsin is accredited with but 146 men. This number relates to the Quarles company and its rein- forcement from time to time. Nearly 1,000 Badgers had enlisted for that war. Many were still on American soil when the conflict was so unexpectedly brought to a close. Capt. Hendrickson, Lieut. Wright and other officers had enrolled fully 700 men. Beside the Quarles company, which was attached to an Illinois regiment, as already stated, many volunteers were secured here to round out companies of Illinois soldiers.
View it as we may we were not very conspicuously represented in the fight with Santa Anna-yet what we lacked in numbers we far more than made up in true grit. Eighteen years later, in our war of the Rebellion, Wisconsin contributed far more soldiers in defense of the Union than all the states and territories had in the field throughout our war with Mexico.
The Burial of Capt. Quarles.
An event of deep solemnity marked the close of our connection with the war beyond the Rio Grande. The remains of Capt. Quarles,
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which had been shipped from Vera Cruz and placed in a vault at New Orleans, were brought home for burial. On the morning of the 27th of June, 1848, the Washington Guards, the Milwaukee Riflemen and the Milwaukee Dragoons, together with a large dele- gation of Odd Fellows, shipped on the steamer Ohio to pay funeral honors to the fallen hero. Shortly after their arrival at Southport, the steamer Globe landed with troops from Chicago under Col. Rus- sell, his command including Swift's hussars, Capt. Schoeffer's rifle- men and the Montgomery Guards. In the afternoon, the Odd Fel- lows assembled at the house of mourning, where, after the im- pressive burial service of the Episcopal church was read by the Rev. Frederick W. Hatch, the casket was borne to a platform in the pub- lic square.
Judge Hubbell's Oration.
Here Judge Levi Hubbell, who had been invited to discharge this sad duty, delivered the funeral oration. In the course of his eloquent tribute to the lamented dead he said :
"We have come to bury, not to praise, our dead brother. His remains were sent hither, to this, his home, by the order and at the expenses of the territory of Wisconsin. The act was designed as a mark of respect to the officer and to the service in which he was engaged. The country honors itself by honoring those who serve it. That beautiful sentiment of the Roman poet: ''Tis sweet and glorious to die for one's country'-so appropriate to the deceased- would lose its sublimity if the state did not honor those who sacri- ficed themselves for her sake.
"Standing on this hallowed spot, with the blue canopy of heaven arching o'er us, and the green mantle of earth spread beneath, I feel as if the kindred spirits of the universe were mingling with ours, and that they have come up hither to join us in pronouncing a fare- well blessing on these honored remains of the young and the brave. Surely, the beneficent God of Nature, smiling through all His works, is adding His blessing to the solemn rites we are here as- sembled to perform. Happy, indeed, would we be could we venture the hope that the willing honors and heartfelt blessings poured over this shattered corpse could reach the immortal spirit which has
LIEUT. DIETRICH UPMANN
CAPT. AUGUSTUS QUARLES
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flown to that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns.
Such honors Illium to her heroes paid
And peaceful slept the mighty Hector's shade.
"You from Wisconsin will need no other watchword when the bugle sounds 'to arms!' than the magic name of Quarles-the talis- man of victory or death.
"You of Illinois have before you a bright and fadeless page in the history of the recent war. The flag of our country never spread its stars and stripes over better officers and soldiers than yours.
"The earth closes over our departed brother. Peace, everlasting peace to his ashes. Let us cherish the memory of his virtues. Let us hallow the spot where he is buried. Let us point it out to our children as the grave of one who loved and died for his country. Let the great and the good honor it as a place conse- crated to publie virtue. Let the state mark it by a monument de- noting her respect for valor and patriotism. Let all the people visit it and water it with tears, that the world may know how much Wisconsin loves her sons and mourns their untimely loss. Then will the splendid lines of England's bard be a fitting inscription on the tomb of our brother."
There is a tear for all who die, A mourner o'er the humblest grave. But nations swell the funeral ery And triumph weeps above the brave.
The Milwaukee military companies fired their parting volleys, the Odd Fellows dropped their sprigs of evergreen into the grave- and all was over-save the undying fame of him they had buried. The civic and the military representatives of the territory had thus worthily honored the first commissioned officer of Wisconsin that ever died in the service of his country.
Increase Allen Lapham
Address by William Ward Wight at Unveiling of the Lapham Memorial, Lapham Park, Milwaukee, June 18, 1915.
Some few years ago, in another place, before a different gatn- ering, the pleasing duty devolved upon me of portraying at some length the career and character of him in whose honor we today assemble. Much that was then said was foreign to the purpose for which we are now gathered. Some few thoughts will I trust bear repetition.
Increase Allen Lapham was born in Palmyra, Wayne County, New York, March 7, 1811. His parents were of Quaker descent, the family having its American origin in Providence, Rhode Island. His father was a contractor on the Erie canal and the family's dom- icile changed with the father's business necessity. In about 1824 the family lived in Lockport where especially stupendous and in- tricate engineering construction marked the entry of the canal into the waters of Lake Erie. Here where Darius Lapham, an elder brother, was an engineer, Increase carried the target rod and vernier. Here and later, on the Miami canal in Ohio, he acquired that skill and facility in surveying which made his early life here both useful and successful.
In December, 1827, he went to Louisville, Kentucky, and in 1828 and 1829 he was employed as a rodman on the canal then con- structing around the falls of the Ohio. While in Louisville he supplemented the education of the field by a short attendance at Jefferson seminary. In this neighborhood among the river shells of the region he began his conchological collection. Here also be- gan his herbarium-a convenient pursuit for one who as a surveyor must track the fields and neighbor the flowers. Here too he made observations on the geology and climatic conditions of the country. Here too he wrote for Silliman's Journal of Science and Art his first scientific paper. Here too-so wide was the range of his hu- manitics-he became a member and an officer of the Ohio Histori- cal and Philosophical Society. And all this when he was scarce 25 years of age !
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From a position so well established, from a reputation so favor- able, from pursuits so congenial and so stimulating, the desire for new fields, the youthful love of change, the summons of his Ohio friend, Byron Kilbourn, brought him to Milwaukee.
Very early in July of 1836 he arrived in this little hamlet where the aboriginal warrior still stalked, and whose greatest asset was its possibilities. He was easily-this young student of 25 years-chief- est citizen of Milwaukee, a pre-eminence which until his death he never surrendered.
The prospect of a competence by the ownership of land was one of the possibilities of the growing Milwaukee. Mr. Kilbourn had been a heavy purchaser; Mr. Lapham in a small way followed his lead. His knowledge as a surveyor, his quickly acquired reputation for fairness, led to his appointment as register of claims in the West ward-or Kilbourn town-an office without pay established by his fellow citizen. Connected with this registry was a sort of court where pre-emptions were entered and where, as a species of judge, young Lapham executed certificates of title which yielded in importance only to a patent from the United States land office.
On October 24, 1838, Mr. Lapham married, his wife being Ann M. Alcott, of Rochester, New York. Of their five children, all sur- vive. A daughter of their son Charles, influenced by her venera- tion for her grandfather's worth, did more than any other person to bestow the name of Lapham Park upon this beautiful breathing place.
Of Mrs. Lapham-now more than fifty years dead-it should be stated that she was a helpmeet for her husband. His papers re- ceived her criticism, all his labors her encouragement, all his sci- entific tasks her assistance, all his varied successes her applause.
During the decades of the forties and the fifties Mr. Lapham's pen was very busy. The subjects upon which he employed it were so many and so varied that one is filled with astonishment at the fertility and the variety of his genius. To enumerate all his writ- ings is to cover all the then known field of useful knowledge. Not the least important was upon the flora and fauna of his adopted state, upon its grasses and its forest trees. An article written and
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illustrated by him upon the grasses of Wisconsin was published in 1855. He described and made drawings of eleven species of grasses. Surely a man who lived so near to nature and who bent his head so close to the earth to learn its secrets, deserves to be perpetuated in yonder charming spot, charming even in its present sombre garb, where blooming flowers and growing grasses shall be his constant neighbors.
Mr. Lapham was intensely interested in the education of youth. On October 7, 1846, he deeded to the then newly incorporated city of Milwaukee a plat of about thirteen acres in the present Sixth ward to be used forever for the purposes of a High school. The common council accepted the gift, thanked the donor, appointed a board of trustees and then-rested from its labors! The land re- verted to the grantor.
The name of Increase A. Lapham appears at the head of those citizens who on March 1, 1851, became incorporated by legislative act as the Normal institute and the High school of Milwaukee. This institution became later Milwaukee Female college-it is now Milwaukee Downer college. Of this girls' school he became presi- dent in 1851 and so continued until he declined further election in 1863. He was a trustee from 1851 until his death-twenty-four years. In the welfare of the young women gathered in that col- lege he was deeply interested, tempering and holding in check the extreme views of the early patron of the school, Miss Catherine Beecher, yet advocating the advanced and symmetrical development of the feminine mind. His books, his collections, the wealth of his varied learning, were always at the service of teachers and pupils.
How gladly would I-his remote successor at the head of the trustees of Milwaukee Downer college-exhibit to President Lap- ham the present institution in the Eighteenth ward, the seeds of which his labors planted and his industry watered.
Perhaps Dr. Lapham-for in 1860 Amherst college conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws-is most fondly remem- bered in his relation to the present weather bureau. Lake Michi- gan was the blackboard upon which he practiced his examples. To track the path of the tempests, to map their movements, to follow
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them from river to lake, from lake to seacoast, these things were his pastime-but more than a pastime, for he saw the practical benefits to flow from tracing what before were believed to be the whims and vagaries of the weather. Earnest and labored were his efforts to convince mariners and legislators that the fickle weather could be watched and the secrets of coming calm or storm revealed. He wrote much on this and kindred subjects, using freely news- paper columns. Hence, when after persistent efforts the weather bureau was established in 1870, it was truthfully stated by Profes- sor Baird in the Science Record :
"To Professor I. A. Lapham must be given the credit of having brought to a successful conclusion this long line of efforts."
By the summer of 1871 Dr. Lapham had investigated the his- tory and mapped the position of every known meteorite that had fallen within the limits of the North American continent. He first called the attention of scientists to certain lines in some of the irons which are now known as Laphamite markings. Nor had an- other branch of science overlooked his name. Dr. Asa Gray of Har- vard university named Laphamia, a new genus of plants of five species belonging to the Southwestern frontier. Dr. Lapham might well be remembered as a botanist, for at his death his herbarium consisted of 24,000 specimens, representing 8,000 species.
From the rolls of scarcely any learned society was his name ab- sent. In Europe much better than in his own country were his learning appreciated and his achievements recognized. He was an honorary member of the Royal Society of Northern Antiquarians at Copenhagen, and of the International Society of Anthropology and Antiquity of Man.
In pursuits congenial to his tastes and beneficial to his race, Dr. Lapham passed his busy days until his hour came. He rested not until the end arrived. He died September 14, 1875, upon Ocono- mowoc lake, on the edge of which his farm was. He had just fin- ished a paper upon the lakes of Wisconsin considered in their rela- tion to fish production. He had been subject to attacks of heart failure and had seldom been left alone. This particular day, how- ever, feeling much improved, he had taken his oars as the after-
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noon wore on for a pull upon the lake. Not promptly returning, search was made. A few feet from the shore his boat was found, and within, the body of our friend prostrate and lifeless.
This little writing has but ill performed its task if it has not indicated how appropriately a park in this city of his useful resi- dence bears his name, and how surely the members of the Old Settlers' club have honored themselves by placing the boulder, with its inset medallion of him, in the limits of that park. No building should hold the monument to him whose books were the open air, the giant stone, the blossoming flower, the lowly grass, the warbling bird, the fugitive insect. With these trophies of Nature we place him and we leave him.
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