History of Dane County, Wisconsin, Part 78

Author: Butterfield, Consul Willshire, 1824-1899; Western Historical Co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago : Western Historical Company
Number of Pages: 1304

USA > Wisconsin > Dane County > History of Dane County, Wisconsin > Part 78

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Mr. Bird was born on the 1st day of April. 1802, in the State of Vermont. His mother was a daughter of Dr. Burgoyne, who was a nephew of Gen. Burgoyne, of the British army. When three years of age, Mr. Bird's father, with his family, moved from Vermont, and settled in Madison County, N. Y. In April, 1824, he was married, in the town of Westmoreland, N. Y., to Miss Charity Le Clar, who was a daughter of Louis Le Clar, a Frenchman. In 1826, Mr. Bird moved with his family to Ann Arbor, Mich., where he remained over two years, and then moved back to Madison Co., N. Y.

In 1836, he located at Milwaukee, and there engaged energetically in the business of build- ing. He was appointed one of the three Commissioners for the erection of the Territorial cap- itol at Madison, and was the active and efficient man of the board. On the 1st day of June, 1837, Bird, at the head of about forty workmen, and a train of four wagons loaded with provis- ions, tools and other articles essential in commencing a new settlement, started for "The Four Lakes," the present site of Madison. There was then no road, and the party were obliged to make one for themselves. By the aid of an old map and compass, by perseverance and energy, Bird and his party were enabled to pursue their route, chopping their way through the forests, building long corduroy roads over swamps and fording or bridging streams.

In 1851 and 1856, he was chosen to represent the Madison District in the Legislature, and served the city as one of its earliest Mayors, and became well known to all early prominent men of the Territory and State. In the prime of life, he was a man of much energy, and was well fitted, by his hardihood of character, for a pioneer. He passed through many hardships and priuations.

On the 25th of February, 1870, he died very suddenly at the residence of his son-in-law, John Starkweather, in Green Bay, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. He was apparently in good health, and had, less than an hour before, walked home from town, and was sitting at the table, when his head suddenly dropped forward and he was dead.

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HISTORY OF DANE COUNTY.

DAVID BRIGHAM

died August 16, 1843, aged fifty-seven years. He was an elder brother of Ebenezer Brigham, of Blue Mounds, and removed to Madison in 1839. He was a graduate of Harvard University in 1810, was tutor in Bowdoin College, and subsequently read law. In 1818, became established in practice at Greenfield, Mass., where he married his wife. The latter-Mrs. Elizabeth Franklin Brigham- died at Madison at the residence of her daughter, Mrs. H .. G. Bliss, November 3, 1879, in the eighty-seventh year of her age. Mr. Brigham was a member and officer of the Congregational Church, and at his death was the senior member of the bar. The Dane County bar, at a meet- ing held the day after his death, passed suitable resolutions on his decease, testifying their respect and regard for their deceased associate, at which meeting Alexander L. Collins was Chairman, and L. F. Kellogg, Secretary. Remarks were made by A. P. Field, Thomas W. Sutherland and Alexander Botkin. His son, J. Ripley Brigham, resided at Madison until 1851, when he removed to Milwaukee.

THOMAS W. SUTHERLAND,

an early settler, died at Sacramento, Cal., February 2, 1859. He was the eldest son of Joel B. Sutherland, of Philadelphia. In 1835, he first came to Indiana with H. L. Ellsworth, Com- missioner of Patents, as a Clerk of a commission to settle some Indian matters. He then crossed the country to St. Louis, thence up the Missouri to Council Bluffs, from which place, with a pony, he traversed the then savage wilderness to the upper waters of the Mississippi, at or near the St. Anthony ; from thence he procured a skiff, and floated down the river to the mouth of Rock River, and paddled his skiff up that stream to the mouth of the Catfish, up the Catfish, through the chain of lakes, to the point upon which the city of Madison now stands, then only inhabited by Indians. Here he spent some time in an Indian camp on the east side of Lake Monona, opposite the capitol, and this he then resolved upon as his future home. After a short visit to Philadelphia, he returned, and, as soon as the lands came into market, made considera- ble purchases in this neighborhood, and settled at Madison very soon after it was fixed upon as the capital of the Territory, and was elected the first President of the incorporated village.

In 1841, he was appointed United States District Attorney for the Territory, which office he held four years. He was appointed to the same office, by Mr. Polk, in 1848. In the spring of 1849, he took the overland route to California, through the valley of the Gila, and landed at San Diego. He subsequently removed to San Francisco, where he practiced law with success, until he was appointed to the office of Collector of the Port of Sacramento by Mr. Buchanan.

Mr. Sutherland died of congestion of the lungs, leaving a wife and one child.

In his private relations, he was a noble, generous-hearted man, highly esteemed by every one.

JOHN STONER.

Mr. Stoner was born in Washington County, Md., on the 25th day of December, 1791. When a child, he was taken to Adams County, Penn. ; from this place he went to New York City, and soon afterward to Buffalo, when that place was comparatively new. The family, leaving Buffalo, settled at Fairport, five miles east of Willoughby, on the lake shore. Here his father died, when, with his mother, he returned to Pennsylvania, and learned the cabinet-making trade. Soon after, the war of 1812 broke out, when he enlisted as a private, and at the close of the term of his enlistment he was discharged. He then went to Ohio, was married, and settled in Euclid, eight miles east of Cleveland, where he resided twenty-five years. With a small piece of land, upon which he grew his bread, and working industriously at his trade, he managed to obtain quite a competency for those days, but, his family increasing faster than his dollars and his acres, he was obliged to seek for a wider range for his field of labors, and conceived the idea of seeking a new home in the then " Far-off West."

Husbanding his means, a portion of which he invested in a span of horses and a wagon, he started, with his wife and a family of seven children, for Madison, the capital of the then Terri- tory of Wisconsin, and after a tedious journey of just four weeks, through a new and almost

Vullingelles

SUN PRAIRIE.

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HISTORY OF DANE COUNTY.

wilderness country, reached his destination on the 6th of September, 1837. His wagon was about the first that came from Janesville to Madison. Janesville then contained but one solitary log cabin, and was occupied by Janes himself. The course to the capital was marked by blazed trees, a party of Government surveyors having just before run a line between the two points.

Mr. Stoner found but three or four log cabins in Madison. Aside from women and chil- dren (few, indeed), the population of the place consisted of but twenty-five or thirty persons, most of whom were employed as laborers on the capitol. Milwaukee and Galena were the points from which provisions must be obtained, and, as the wife and babies had not learned to live without food, Mr. Stoner was obliged to procure it. He concluded to go to Galena, and on foot he started. At the head of Lake Mendota, where the village of Pheasant Branch now is, he struck the military road which led off into the lead mines, and from there he found a wagon track to Galena. Arrived there, he purchased a yoke of oxen and a wagon, and his provisions. Pork was $36 a barrel ; butter, $1 a pound ; sugar, 75 cents ; and everything else in proportion. Returning to Madison he was caught in a heavy fall of snow. When the storm abated, the snow was so heavy that he was unable to travel, and he camped several days and nights, subsisting himself and team as best he could. On reaching home he found a new-born son, which was the first male child born in Madison, and which he at once christened " Madison," in honor of the place. In 1838, he entered 240 acres of land on what is now called "Stoner's Prairie," a few miles southwest of Madison, in the presedt town of Fitchburg, the prairie taking his name. Leaving his family in town, in order that his children might have the benefit of a school, he kept "bach " on this farm, more or less, for seventeen years; the first few years his land was without fences, he being annoyed only by deer and wild geese. Finally he sold his farm for $15 per acre ; within a year thereafter the same land was worth $50.

In the spring of 1863, his faithful wife, who had shared his pioneer life, died. His family having grown up, he felt alone in the world. Restless and uneasy, the pioneer spirit revived, and, taking his old sorrel mare, which he had owned when a colt twenty-two years before, and his only grandson, a lad of fourteen summers, he set out for Colorado Territory, where his son Madison had made a home four or five years before. The next year he returned to the "States," going hack the same season-coming and returning with the old mare. In 1865, he came again to Madison, returning the same year, after visiting Ohio. He had two daughters, who were mar- ried, but they died a few years after, of consumption, as well as two unmarried daughters. His son, George W. Stoner, is still a resident of Madison. Mr. Stoner was a good man, honored and respected by every one. On the 11th of January, 1872, he died at his residence in Madison, in his 80th year.

ALEXANDER BOTKIN.

Alexander Botkin was born in Kentucky, in 1801. At an early age he removed to Ohio, and from thence to Alton, Ill., in 1832. He was a Justice of the Peace at the time of the Love- joy riots, and took an active part to preserve law and order. He came to Madison, Wis., in 1841, as Assistant Secretary of State under the Territory, and was for awhile a law partner of Alexan- der P. Field. He was a member of the Territorial House of Representatives of 1847-48; was a State Senator in 1849-50, and a member of the Assembly in 1852. He was a candidate for the First Constitutional Convention of 1846, but was defeated by John Y. Smith, and was voted for by the Whigs in 1849, for United States Senator, against Isaac P. Walker. He died sud- denly at Sun Prairie, March 5, 1857, aged fifty-six years.

In the fall of 1847, Botkin, who, by the way, was a great practical joker, was a candidate for the Territorial House of Representatives. He was a Whig, and his competitor resided in Marquette County. It was agreed that they would jointly canvass the district ; hence, they were to hold a joint discussion at Baraboo. Public notice having been given, nearly all the inhabit- ants turned out, so that Mrs. Peck's hall was well filled. By agreement, it was Botkin's priv- ilege to open the discussion. He commenced by complimenting the intelligence of his auditors, whom he flattered up to the highest notch, and in eloquent and glowing terms, eulogized the

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HISTORY OF DANE COUNTY.

beautiful valley of the Baraboo, dwelling on its magnificent advantages, its water-power, its great manufacturing privileges, its romantic scenery, its productive soil. Then he paused, and at length exclaimed : " One thing you especially need, and you are justly entitled to it; and that is, a good road over the bluffs. How can you procure it ? How can that most desirable end be attained ? I will tell you how! If, through your sufferance, I have the honor to repre- sent you in the Territorial Council, send me your petition to organize a company for the purpose of macadamizing the highway over the bluffs. You don't desire to subject the inhabitants of Sauk Prairie to pay toll on the way to your mills, nor persons coming to transact business at the county seat. Hence, I shall endeavor to get an appropriation from the .Territorial treasury to macadamize that road." Of course, cheers rolled up for Botkin. His competitor hemmed and hawed, and assured them if they voted for him, he would do all for them that Botkin could do or had promised to do. The meeting closed with a speech from William Welch, of Madison. Then Jim Badger struck up on the violin, many joined in the dance, and did not go home till morning. The next discussion between these two gentlemen was at Prairie du Sac. Botkin's competitor led off, and he thought he would take all the wind out of his antagonist's sails. He started in, deprecating their condition, being shut out from communication with the beautiful val- ley of the Baraboo, and having to pass over such a miserable, dangerous road. If he should he elected, he would put a bill through the Legislature appropriating a sum toward macadamizing the bluffs. At that time, Prairie du Sac was smarting under the removal of the county seat, and hoped to get it back again ; hence, anything that would contribute to the advancement of Baraboo, Prairie du Sac was decidedly opposed to. Botkin rejoined ; " Fellow-citizens : I am astonished at the diabolical proposition made by the gentleman. What is it that he proposes ? Why, that you shall be taxed to build up a town in a barren, worthless, rocky, stone-bound region, where there is no town, nor never ought to be one! When I look upon your beautiful, rich prairie, your magnificent river, the trade and business which must necessarily center here, I think with indignation of the proposition made by my opponent, that you should be taxed to help build up a competing town, where neither God nor any sensible man ever intended there should be one." Botkin was overwhelmingly elected. He carried both sides of the bluffs.

He was in many respects a most peculiar man, and was well known to all who visited the State capital with any frequency through the last ten or twelve years before his death. He possessed an inexhaustible fund of anecdote and rough humor that made him an entertaining companion in he circles in which he moved. He frequented places of amusement, and was always ready to join in them-was occasionally seen at the dances and by the friendly card table-but never could be induced to violate his habits of the strictest abstinence. He had not received the benefits of a highly polished education, which sometimes caused him to make serious blunders in the use of language. Upon one occasion, in the Senate, he proceeded to speak against some measure adopted by the opposition in secret caucus, protesting strongly against the secrecy which had characterized their proceeding, and said, " Mr. President, we want a fair fight. We don't want to go crawling around in the brush about this measure; but we want action on it to be sub rosa and above board." Upon another occasion, in one of the Justices' Courts of the county, he was arguing some question of law or fact, and attempted to quote Iago, as follows : " He who steals my purse steals trash ; but he who filches me of my good name, steals that which not enriches him, and makes me-gentlemen of the jury-makes me feel-disagreeable."

A laughable anecdote is told of his electioneering tours. He called upon a Norwegian family, for he was an accomplished master of electioneering arts. He was invited to eat, and at once accepted the invitation. Among other Norwegian delicacies provided was a quantity of pickled ripe cucumbers-yellow and plethoric, with their intestinal contents. They were urged upon the Colonel by his officious hostess until he could no longer refuse without hazarding the vote of the head of the family. He at length attacked a monstrous specimen, and, with tears in his eyes, induced by the sharpness of the vinegar, and the contents of the enormous pickle run- ning out of both corners of his mouth and down his protuberant vest, insisted upon her giving him a recipe for the pickles that he could carry home and get some more made like them.

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HISTORY OF DANE COUNTY.

The last convivial occasion at which he was seen was at a dinner, given by Mayor Fairchild, to the Common Councils of Watertown and Madison, and those interested in the W. & M. R. R. He was then called out, and delighted all by his humorous accounts of his efforts as right-of-way agent to secure the best possible terms for the railroad. He related his system of doing his business with an unction and humor that were in the highest degree entertaining. Botkin had a good and manly heart. No acquaintance that he ever had in this State will charge him with a mean or dishonest act. His goodness of heart was as unbounded as his humor; he was everybody's friend; " had no arts but manly arts ;" and, if merit that received public respect-

" A hand open as day to melting charity "-

the qualities that make a man generous, patient, honest, forgiving and good, constitute a gentle- man and a Christian, the subject of this sketch was both.

NATHANIEL TAYLOR PARKINSON.

Mr. Parkinson was born on the 25th day of September, 1815, in White County, West Tennessee, and was the second son of Daniel M. Parkinson, so long and well known in that county and State.

In the year 1818, he came with his father and family to Madison County, Ill., and lived a few years twenty-five miles east of St. Louis.

In the year 1827, he came with his father to the Galena lead mines, amid the wild tumult and excitement incident upon the discovery and early occupation of that all-important mining district, where vice, corruption, and almost every species of immorality prevailed. Card-playing, horse-racing, drinking, quarreling and fighting were the common order of the times; and, though he was but a stripling of a boy, without education, without experience, and without moral instruction or example, he steered his way clear and came out unscathed of all these vices and immoralities. He played no cards, run no horse-races, drank no whisky, fought no fights, nor quarreled with those with whom he came in contact, but lived in peace and friendship with all.

In the winter of 1828, without the influence and promptings of temperance efforts, he became fully impressed with the terrible effects and pernicious consequences of whisky-drinking, and resolved never to drink any strong drink, which resolution he most faithfully maintained until the day of his death, never drinking a drop unless prescribed as a medicine.

In the year 1837, he removed to Madison, the new seat of Territorial Government, when he was appointed by Henry Dodge (then Governor of the Territory of Wisconsin), Sheriff of Dane County, which office he filled most acceptably for three years.

In 1841, he was married to Miss Louisa M. Briggs, of Jefferson County, Wis., and imme- diately upon this event he returned to his farm on Duke's Prairie, the same farm which he and his elder brother Peter commenced making in 1832, and on which they afterward lived for many years, when Nathaniel removed to the farm on which he died, it being the old homestead of his father.

While making a living on the Duke's Prairie farm, he and his brother Peter lived together and kept bachelor's hall for six years, the nearest woman (their mother)living five miles distant.

By his first wife (Miss Briggs) he had four children, two of whom still survive-Frank E. Parkinson, Attorney at Law, Madison, Wis., and Mrs. Riley T. Scott, of Yellow Stone, Wis.

On the 3d of August, 1851, he was married to Mrs. Ann Stursiker, of Willow Springs, of which marriage there were born seven children, six of whom still survive.

About the year 1842, he embraced Christianity, and united with the Methodist Episcopal Church of Fayette, and was, from that time forward, one of its most zealous, persistent, straight- forward and useful members.

His house and his table were always free to the hungry and needy.

As a citizen, friend and neighbor, he stood in the front rank. He neither lawed nor wrangled with any one, but was patient and forgiving of others' faults and imperfections.

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HISTORY OF DANE COUNTY.

He was no politician or office-seeker, but his upright and judicious character often caused his friends to confer public trust upon him. He was, therefore, often Chairman of the Town Board, and, as such, a member of the County Board, rendering full satisfaction to his constitu- ents. His ability in these capacities induced his friends to seek his nomination as a candidate for the Legislature, but this nomination he informally declined, not desiring to leave his family.

At the time of his death, he was, and for two years previous had been, President of the La Fayette County Agricultural Society. He was a member of the Board of Trustees that built the Methodist Church in the village of Fayette.

He was a soldier in the Black Hawk war, under Dodge, and distinguished himself for bravery in the battle of Bad Axe. In matters of business, he was practical and judicious, not speculative or adventurous, fully content with the slow but sure success of farm pursuits, which he followed with quiet diligence, and, in the end, acquired a handsome competence.

About three years previous to his death, he moved to the town of Willow Springs, on the old homestead of the family. There lived and died this good and just man.

To his immediate family, his loss was irreparable. He was a kind and affectionate hus- band, a considerate and indulgent father, a generous and obliging brother.

To the community at large, his loss could not well be estimated; his usefulness was valua- ble in all the departments of life.

He died at his residence, in the town of Willow Springs, on the 7th day of January, 1879.

JAMES MORRISON,

one of the early settlers of Madison, died December 23, 1860, aged sixty-one years. He was born in Kaskaskia, Ill., September 30, 1799. His father, William Morrison, was a native of Bucks County, Penn., and his mother was a French lady. In early life, Mr. Morrison was engaged with his father in the Rocky Mountain fur trade. He removed to Wisconsin in 1827, and his first business was a lead miner and smelter at Porter's Grove, near Dodgeville. He came to Madison in the spring of 1838, when he immediately engaged in business; was con- tractor for building the capitol ; in 1838, erected the American House, and was long a promi- nent citizen of Madison. He did not move his family there till near the close of 1839. He was Territorial Treasurer, under Doty's and Tallmadge's administrations, from 1841 to 1845. He was the owner of a large landed property in Wisconsin, Illinois, and St. Louis. He left a widow, who died at the residence of her grand-daughter, in California, August 28, 1866, aged sixty-six years, and three daughters-one, the Mrs. N. W. Dean, of Madison. The funeral took place December 26, 1860.

NEELY GRAY

was born in Virginia February 25, 1810; removed to Pennsylvania at a very early age, and by trade was a millwright. He was one of the very early settlers of Grant County, Wis., where he arrived April 4, 1835, and for many years was a prominent business man at Platteville. He was a member of the Territorial House of Representatives in 1841-42, and, in 1846, was elected to the Constitutional Convention from the county of Grant, and served in that body on the committee on corporations other than banking and municipal.

He was inclined neither by habit nor training, to take much part in general debate ; but, in the qualities of clear judgment, strong reasoning powers and good native sense, he had no superior. In 1849, in company with many others from the mining region of Wisconsin, he went to California, first removing his family to Madison, to which place he returned in 1852, and remained there during the balance of his life. He devoted his latter years to mercantile pursuits. Mr. Gray was of a kind-hearted, generous nature, of upright and honorable character, quiet and unassuming in manners, a stanch friend, a kind neighbor, and an honest man, pos- sessing many warm friends. He was patriotic, and took a lively interest in the war for the maintenance of the Union, which he aided by his voice and means, and by sending his son,

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Henry L. Gray, to fight in the ranks of the country's defenders. Mr. Gray discharged, in a highly creditable manner, the duties of all public positions he held, but was seldom willing to accept of political preferments. He was, for a time, a member of the County Board of Super- visors of Dane County. He was in all respects an excellent citizen, and highly esteemed in all the relations of life.

He was married to Miss Adaline C. Starks in 1842. Their children are Henry L. Gray, married to Miss Nema Merrill ; Frank H. Gray, married to Fannie R. Robbins ; Ellen J. Gray, married to E. D. Pardee (of the firm of A. A. Pardee & Bro., druggists in Madison); and Arthur I. Gray.

Mr. Gray died May 15, 1867 ; his widow, an estimable lady, still survives, and is a resi- dent of Madison.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN HOPKINS

was born in Hebron, Washington County, N. Y., April 22, 1829. His early life was spent on a farm in Granville, in the same county. He received such an education as was afforded by the schools at his own home, and, though the opportunities were rather limited, he made excellent use of his time, and was deemed a good academic scholar. Farming was not to his liking ; though, being put to it in his boyhood, he was diligent and useful in this employment. His mind was too active for a farmer's life, and craved the more stimulating pursuits of the business world.

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History of Dane County, Wisconsin, Part 78

Author: Butterfield, Consul Willshire, 1824-1899; Western Historical Co., Chicago, pub Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Chicago : Western Historical Company Number of Pages: 1304

Author: Butterfield, Consul Willshire, 1824-1899; Western Historical Co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago : Western Historical Company
Number of Pages: 1304