USA > Wisconsin > Grant County > History of Grant County Wisconsin, including its civil, political, geological, mineralogical archaeological and military history > Part 10
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Forty-third Regiment .- Co. A-Capt. E. D. Lowrey, Jacob Becker. Co. B-Corp. Frank Melvin, James Barrett, Dudley Lillie, Thomas Haw, William B. Wilkinson, Andrew Hudson, Richard N. Taylor. Co. C-Austin Nye, Marquis Barker, Thomas B. Harvil. Co. H-Sergt. J. A. Gammon, Isaac Davis, Andrew Lewis, Levi Potter, Enoch Briggs, Corp. George W. Likens, Thomas Dolan, Lewis Mickenham, Abel Rey- nolds, Ezra Atwood.
Forty-fourth Regiment .- Co. K-Thomas Bloyer, George C. Kaump, William Hotop, John Schmidt, C. H. Hinman. Co. H-Eli J. Hardy.
Forty-seventh Regiment .- Co. C-W. M. Withington, Co. F-Elias Long. Co. G-William Manley, Welling B. Polly, Henry Smith, Lea- vitt J. Merrill. Co. I-William Cook. Co. K-Sergt. Robert Fitz- gerald, Geo. W. Heasely.
Forty-ninth Regiment .- Co. F-Marshall McElwayne, Horace H. Hampton, Frederick Erich. Co. H. Henry Schmidt.
Fittieth (colored) U. S. Infantry Regiment .- Charles Shepherd.
First Cavalry .- Co. B-Anson B. Rice. Co. C-John Worley, Will- iam Worley. Co. D-Lars Johnson. Co. F-Peter Pickhartz, Andrew Barrett, Daniel T. Brown. Co. I-Isaac N. Hayden.
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Second Cavalry .- Co .- C-Lieut. J. Showalter, Alfred M. Bonham, James W. Jones, George H. Pond, Roswell G. Irish, Edward Stone- house, James Johnson, John Campbell, E. W. Dean, Horatio R. Palmer, Philip Brandlin, Joshua Davis, George B. Blakesly, James N. Shanley, William Greaney, W. G. Murray, Samuel B. Runion, Jonas Fuller, William Hicks, Francis L. Pember, Henry J. Schlosser, William J. Cooper, Linzey Kee, Isaac W. Reaville, Charles Kuntz, Orson Cook, Henry K. Wells, Lynn B. Cook, James F. Holloway, John Straw, Isaac N. Lander, Edmond D. Gulick, John Farris, Charles C. Camp- bell, John E. McKee, John McCormick, Peter E. Huson, Martin V. Stewart, John Mullaly, John L. McIntosh. Co. F-George W. Wash- burn. Co. L-Lyman E. Butterfield, John W. Dougherty.
Third Cavalry .- Co. G-James A. Otwell. Co. M-Robert Odell, James H. Clark, Abel L. Tyler, Nathan Janney, Sydney M. Smith, Andrew C. McCord.
Fourth Cavalry .- Co. H-Lewis Horn.
Sixth U. S. Cavalry .- Spencer Vail.
Fourth Iowa Cavalry .- Co. G-Marcellus Brock.
Fifth Iowa Cavalry .- Co. E-Lieut. Andrew Guler, Frank Gillihan.
Seventh Iowa Cavalry .- Co. E-Ira Patterson.
Eighth Iowa Cavalry .- Co. G-William Mitchell.
Fourth Missouri Cavalry .- Co. M-Abner H. Larrabee.
Fifth Missouri Cavalry .- Co. F-David Beard, Wilson Lowrey.
Tenth Missouri Cavalry .- Co. G-Owen H. Owens.
Second Kansas Cavalry .- Co. E-Marion M. Harper. First Kansas Infantry .- Co. B-John Fairall.
Eighth Illinois Infantry .- Co. F-John J. Owens.
Twelfth Missouri Infantry .- Co. F-Silas Lane.
Fourteenth Ilinois Infantry .- Co. I-Charles Palmer.
Ninetieth Illinois Infantry .- Co. B-Michael F. Donahoe, John Byrne.
One Hundredth Illinois Infantry .- Co. G-Sergt. Benj. F. Gridley.
One Hundred and Twenty-fourth Illinois Infantry .- Co. E-Wil- liam A. Butler.
Third Iowa Infantry .- Co. C-Robert Beard, William A. Arm- strong.
Fortieth Ohio Infantry .- Co. F-William Miller.
First Heavy Artillery .- Co. A-Richard Calvert. Co. C-Cornelius Johnson.
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COUNTY BUILDINGS AND INSTITUTIONS.
Twenty-first (U. S.) Artillery .- David W. Garvin. Fourth Artillery .- Co. F-Addison Medley. Dubuque City Battery .- Theodore Jackson. Navy .- Peter Larson, Joseph Bond,* John Thompson. Second (U. S.) Artillery-Daniel W. Garvin.
Twelfth Battery .- Ferdinand Ketterer.
The following names are without company and regiment : Charles Taylor, James Durham,t Joel Gear, Charles Pitsley, Wm. Bennett.
*An error-Joseph Bond did not die in the service.
tThe name James Durham, is probably for James Dunham, of Co. K, Seventh Infantry, who was transferred to a gunboat, on which he was killed.
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CHAPTER IX.
GRANT COUNTY'S DISTINGUISHED DEAD.
James Gates Percival-Nelson Dewey-Joseph C. Cover-Joel Allen Barber-Joseph Trotter Mills-John Hawkins Rountree- Thomas Pendleton Burnett-Jared Warner.
These biographical sketches are intended to give the reader as fair an idea of the men they describe as the editor is able to give. They are designed as impartial history, and not as eulogies or obituaries, in which the ancient rule, De mortuis nil nisi bonum (of the dead noth- ing unless good) is imperative.
JAMES GATES PERCIVAL.
Grant County had the honor of having for one of its residents one of the profoundest scholars America has produced and one of its most gifted geniuses as well, whose reputation was coextensive with the civilized world.
Percival was born in Kensington, Conn., Sept. 15, 1795. His an- cestors were early settlers of the colony. At the age of sixteen he en- tered Yale College, where his talents attracted the attention of Presi- dent Dwight. He was graduated in 1815, and for several years after that was engaged in literary pursuits and a part of the time as teacher. His first volume of poems was published in 1820 and was well received. In 1823 he received his degree as M. D., but did not practice, except a short time while in the military service as assistant surgeon at West Point and Boston. In 1827 he published another volume of verses. From 1827 to 1829 he was engaged in assisting in the preparation of Webster's Dictionary, a place for which his great philological attainments peculiarly fitted him : but for some reason his supervision was not continued beyond the first two or three letters of the alphabet. In 1835 he was appointed by the Governor of Con- necticut to make a geological survey of that State. His report of the survey appeared in 1842, showing that his work was of a very de- tailed and careful character.
In 1853 he came to Wisconsin in the employ of the American Min- ing Company to examine and superintend their lead mines near Hazel
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Green. In 1854 he was appointed State Geologist of Wisconsin. He was engaged in this survey up to the time of the illness which termi- nated in his death, which occurred May 2, 1856, at the residence of his friend, Dr. J. L. Jenckes, at Hazel Green. His advanced age and his naturally delicate constitution rendered the exposures and fatigues of a geological survey too much to be endured.
As a linguist Dr. Percival had few equals in America-perhaps none except Dr. Webster. He had a critical knowledge of most of the languages of Europe. Among his published poems are translations from the German, Spanish, and Italian, and also from such languages as Russian and Magyar. When Ole Bull visited New Haven in 1844, Percival addressed him a poem in Danish. He wrote two or three songs, probably his latest compositions, in German, which were pub- lished in the Staats Zeitung at Madison. As a poet Percival has writ- ten some things the world will long keep alive. His fancy was vivid but delicate. He rarely revised what he had written, believing that a poet should trust to his first inspirations.
In person he was somewhat below the medium hight and slight and frail, pale of countenance, with large blue eyes, beneath a broad, high forehead. In dress he was plain to eccentricity. His usual suit was of "Hard-times," often the worse for wear, with an old linen cap once glazed, but from which the glazing had mostly disappeared. A stranger meeting him would have thought him an old farmer in poor circumstances. He was called by the miners "Old Stone-breaker."
He was extraordinarily, even morbidly reserved. He was very sensitive and shrank from society as from a pestilence. His house in New Haven, Conn., had no entrance except one in the rear. He lived in cities as secluded and cut off from human fellowship as a hermit in the wilderness. A lady to whom he was giving instruction in French and Latin once persuaded him to attend a party given in honor of her birthday. He got as far as the entrance hall, gazed wildly around upon the gay assemblage for a moment with his large blue eyes star- ing in trepidation, and then turned and fled. It is supposed, and there are hints of it in his verse, that some crushed affection of his youth turned the current of his life from sunny social and domestic pleasures into the cold and solitary region of purely intellectual pursuits, where. with no companions but books and the works of nature, his stream of life flowed on solitary and sad, but serene, gentle, and uncomplain- ing, until it was lost in the sea of death.
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HISTORY OF GRANT COUNTY.
Hon. H. D. York, in the Grant County Advocate, gives the follow- ing reminiscences of Percival :
"To the casual observer Percival possessed no particular attrac- tions, but from those who knew him as the poet and scholar he re- ceived proper attention. He had some peculiarities of character that were difficult of solution and were sometimes the object of severe com- ment from strangers.
"Heentered upon his new field of labor in the mines with much zeal and pleasure which seemed to increase with the prosecution of his re- searches, whether viewing the rocky bluff of a stream or examining the debris from some mineral range, with the view of deducing some facts connected with industrial science for the benefit of mining. His ardor and earnestness in the discharge of his duties were intense and hardly ever until the fading hours admonished him the day for toil was ended would he turn his steps homeward. This unflagging devo- tion to the love of work and the consequent exposure therefrom, prob- ably was the leading cause of his last illness. However eccentric or forbidding Dr. Percival appeared to outside observers, in the private social circle he was full of cheer and mirth, his utterances often spark- ling with wit and wisdom.
"There were occasional intervals of a few days that an unpleas- ant restraint seemed to rest upon him-probably produced by ill health-at other times his intellectual powers would, apparently, ex- ercise free scope in the domain of thought ; then (if he felt communica- tive), to sit in his presence and 'drink at the fountain' was an inspir- ing pleasure that few men have ever been able to impart. The True and Beautiful were real existences with him. Nothing short of a clear and correct knowledge of everything worthy of investigation would satisfy him.
"Whether botanizing a flower or placing a piece of rock in its prop- er geological order, the utmost care and accuracy were exercised. Neither were his intellectual greatness and power confined to geology and poetry, but embraced a variety of subjects. We relate the follow- ing incident as an illustration: During the earlier years of Thos. H. Benton's Senatorial career, while addressing the Senate upon a meas- ure of importance, he eloquently portrayed the future of his country, predicting that at no very remote time a railroad would span the con- tinent, built as a necessity for the wants of the millions yet to people the vast area west of the Mississippi. Upon reading that speech Per-
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cival (at his home in New Haven) opened a drawer and took there- from a previously written article upon the feasibility of a highway across the Rocky Mountains, and the duty of the Government to con- struct it, expressing the strongest conviction that the topography of the country was feasible for a railroad that would ere long be needed to facilitate the commerce of the country. He at once forwarded the document to the Missouri Senator, who, after reading it, arose in the Senate and paid Percival a handsome compliment, at the same time asking permission to have it read to the Senate, which was granted; but in those days even Senators deemed such projects Utopian, vis- ionary.
"Percival's knowledge of the geography and topography of the country was characterized by the same thoroughness that entered into other fields of study and research.
"It is a matter of fact, recorded in his biography, we think, that he wrote no poetry for a number of years previous to coming west. But the Muse had not departed-was only held in reserve-as the fol- lowing incident will testify. While surveying the mining land near Sinsinawa Mound for the American Mining Co., in the year 1853, Percivial was lodging for the time at one of the early built hotels in Fairplay in which the sleeping apartments were partitioned with boards with a narrow hall extending the entire length of the building. In those days the boarders, mostly miners, were not governed by any rules of custom for time of repose, but were in the habit of wending their way up the staircase and along the dark hall at all hours of the night. The noise was quite annoying to the Doctor. Wishing in some way to enter his protest against such disorder and confusion, he took a pencil and slip of paper from his pocket and while waiting for breakfast wrote a caustic poem in Greek which, during the day, he read to two or three of his friends, also its translation in English. While not very severe on the landlord, the house and boarders were neatly 'done up.' Another anecdote illustrating his character : after writing a preliminary report of his survey of the Hazel Green Lead Mines to the President of the American Mining Company, he submitted it through the general agent of said company, William Warner, Esq. Mr. W., who was a highly educated gentlemen, suggested a change of a single word, substituting another that he deemed the better. Percival insisted upon the correctness of the word as he had used it. Remonstrance proved unavailing. The definitions of words and their
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proper use in sentences were to him positive things and after writing an important document he could not admit it contained mistakes.
"We have thus very briefly sketched some points in the history of the declining years of one of the gifted men of our country. His name will ever live associated with the noble and learned in science and let- ters. His remains peacefully rest in the spot of his own selection. As a fitting tribute to his memory, as a duty in harmony with the spirit of the age in which we live showing to generations that follow our ap- preciation of one who, though dead to earth, will ever live in the liter- ature and science of the age, may the desire of his many friends to see a suitable tablet placed over his grave terminate in successful effort."
The Galena Gazette stated that Percival literally starved himself to death, under the false impression that he had been bitten by a mad dog. Dr. Jenckes, at whose house he was, knowing his weakness, kept medical publications away from him as much as possible, One day, however, Percival got hold of a medical quarterly and there read the report of a case of hydrophobia. Several weeks previous to this he had been bitten by a dog, but no one, not even himself, thought the dog mad. But on reading the report, Percival imagined he felt symp- toms of hydrophobia. From that time until he died he refused to take liquid for fear it would throw him into convulsions. His mind could not be disabused of this delusion, and in a few days he died, it is thought more from dread and want of water than from disease.
His sensitiveness was morbid and anyone who attemped to do him a favor or help him in any way was apt to repel and offend him by the effort. His conscientiousness was also morbid. When very much in need of money he refused to accept his salary as State Geolo- gist because he had been sick and could not finish his report.
Like many geniuses, Percival was unbalanced, his great powers being offset by conspicuous weaknesses.
NELSON DEWEY.
Perhaps the best sketch of the life of this once prominent citizen of Grant County that can be given is his autobiography, which was given by his executor for publication in The Teller of October 24, 1889, as follows :
"I was born in Lebanon, State of Connecticut, December 19, 1813. When about six months old my father and mother moved from there to Cooperstown, Otsego County, New York. When I was four and one-half years old my father took me back to Lebanon, Conn., and I
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lived with my grandparents in that place until I was nearly eight years old. In the meantime, my parents left Cooperstown and set- tled in the village of Louisville, in the town of Butternut (now Mor- ris) in Otsego County. In 1821 I was brought home to my parents in Louisville, until I left for Wisconsin in 1836.
"Outside of a common school education, I was educated at Ham- ilton Academy, a non-sectarian school at Hamilton, Madison County, New York. I attended that school, commencing in the spring of 1830 and continuing until the close of the school year 1832. Among my class and schoolmates at that school were William Pitt Lynde, late of Milwaukee; Prof. John W. Sterling, of the State University; and Harlow S. Orton, now one of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin.
"After completing my education at the above school (which has long since been abandoned as an academy), I taught school one year in Butternut, now Morris, and read law more or less with my father, whose profession was law, and with James W. Davis and Nicholas Hansen, lawyers of Louisville.
"In the fall of 1835 I went to read law in Cooperstown in the office of Samuel S. Bowen. This Bowen was elected to Congress in Otsego County in 1840, as a Democrat. He supported Tyler's admin- istration in 1841, in 1842, and 1843. In 1843 he was appointed by Tyler register of the land office at Mineral Point, Wisconsin, and qual- fied as such. He not liking the situation, very soon resigned, and re- turned to New York.
"On the 12th of May, 1836, I left reading law with Bowen in Cooperstown, and my home in Louisville, and started for Cassville, Wisconsin. That place was then in Michigan, the territory of Wis- consin not being organized until July 4, 1836. I traveled by stage to Buffalo, on the steamer Michigan to Detroit, and by stage to School- craft or Round Prairie, in Michigan. There I stopped with Simon I. Daniels three weeks or more, under whose advice and protegeship I came to Wisconsin. Thence I went in a lumber wagon to the mouth of St. Joseph River, thence by a sail vessel to Chicago, and thence by stage to Galena, arriving there on the 19th day of June, 1836. From there I went to Dubuque by steamer, and thence on horseback with Joseph Hogue to the mouth of Panther's Creek, now Buena Vista, and thence on foot around the foot of the bluff to the mouth of Turkey River and across the Mississippi to Cassville. We were ferried across the Mississippi River in a flat-boat by William Walker, who ran the
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ferry, and stopped at the hotel then kept by Capt. James B. Estes and Robert R. Read. The night before we reached Cassville we camped out in the woods and rain, having missed the Indian trail which was the road from Dubuque to Turkey River.
I filled the position of clerk and bookkeeper for Daniels, Denniston, & Co., the proprietors of Cassville, in 1836 and 1837, till the close of the spring of that year.
"In the spring of 1837 I ceased to work for Daniels, Denniston & Co., and Grant County being organized, March 4, 1837, an election was held for county officers, at which I was elected the first register of deeds of Grant County. In the summer of 1837 I was appointed a justice of the peace of Grant County by Gov. Henry Dodge. In No- vember, 1837, I moved the office of register of deeds and myself from Cassville to Lancaster, and lived there until the spring of 1855, when I moved back to Cassville.
"In February, 1838, a high-handed murder was committed in the grocery kept by Owen Mclaughlin at the head of Snake Hollow, as it was then called-now Potosi-which grocery was entered in the even- ing by three men named Linsey Evans, Jacob Derrick, and William Colley. When they left, one of them, supposed to be Linsey Evans, having a cloak, after taking a drink in the grocery, turned and shot one Jim Crow, as he was then called, and killed him.
[The long account of this murder and its sequel which follows is here omitted, except such part as Mr. Dewey took in the trial, and will be found in Chapter V, Part V.]
"J. Allen Barber, who had settled at Lancaster in September pre- vious as a lawyer, was employed by the people to prosecute them, there being no district attorney then. He applied to me for a warrant for their arrest, and on his affidavit I issued one which was placed in the hands of Harvey Pepper, the Sheriff, for service. He arrested them and brought them before me. In such cases the law then required that the examination must be held by two justices of the peace, and I called in to sit with me in the examination James Bonham, a justice of the peace of Grant County. We found them guilty of murder in the killing of Jim Crow.
"The offense not being bailable, and there being no jail in Grant County, we committed them to the common jail of Crawford County to answer to the charge of murder to the grand jury of Grant County, at the next term of the district court of Grant County.
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"Soon after, the friends of the murderers obtained a writ of habeas corpus from Judge Dunn, and they were brought before him, and on new testimony introduced by them they were admitted to bail. Their lawyers before myself and Bonham, and in the habeas corpus case be- fore Judge Dunn, were Thomas P. Burnett and Thomas S. Wilson, now living in Dubuque, and one David T. Anderson, then of Snake Hollow.
"In 1838 I was elected a member of the House of Representatives of the Territorial Legislative Assembly, that first met at Madison in November, 1838. In 1840 I was elected Speaker of the House. In 1840 I was reelected to the House for two years. In 1842 I was elected to the Legislative Council for four years, and was president of the Council one session. I was clerk of the Board of Supervisors one or two years in the 40's, and also district attorney one year, or a part of a year in the 40's.
"In 1845 Henry L. Massey, James E. Freeman (the latter now living in California), and myself, were appointed commissioners to survey, lay out into lots, and sell the Section No. 34, Town 3, Range 3 west, now Potosi, which section was granted by Congress to the territory to aid in digging a canal from the Mississippi River to Grant River slough, opposite or near the mouth of Snake Hollow, now La- Fayette, which duty we performed. James F. Chapman, under the authority of the Legislature, expended the money in partially digging the canal.
"In 1848, myself, Clovis A. LaGrave, and a gentleman whose name I do not recollect, were appointed commissioners to survey into lots and settle claims of preemptors for lots of 200 acres of land com- prising the present village of Beetown, which was granted by Con- gress as a town-site. We performed that duty.
"In early May, 1848, I was elected as a Democrat the first Gov- ernor of the State of Wisconsin, under the present constitution, and qualified June 5, 1848, at Madison. In 1849 I was reelected, and served as the first Governor during the years 1849, 1850, and 1851. In 1853 I was elected State Senator from Grant County by three major- ity over Orsamus Cole, the Whig candidate, and now the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State. While living in Lancaster I was the director of the school board of that district and built the first school-house in that village. I was one year chairman of the Town Board of Supervisors, and was also the same year chairman of the County Board of Supervisors.
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"In the spring of 1855 I moved back to Cassville, lived there three years, and then, in 1858 moved to Platteville, and lived there five years. While living in Platteville I was director of the School Board of the north district several years, and while such director the brick school-house was built. I was also president of the Village Board of Trustees three years, during which time the calaboose was built, and saloons were ordered closed at 10 of the clock P. M. and to be kept closed on Sunday, which is the law there now ; and hogs were stopped from running at large.
"In the '50s and '60s I was several years a member of the Board of Regents of the State University. I was candidate for Lieutenant- Governor on the Democratic ticket with Henry L. Palmer as the can- didate for Governor; but we were badly beaten by Gov. Lewis, the Republican candidate. This was, I think, in 1863. In the spring of 1863 I moved back to Cassville and have lived in Cassville since that time, and had my home there, although my family have lived in Madi- son a part of the time. In 1869 I was a candidate for the State Sen- ate, and was beaten by George C. Hazelton. I was also a candidate for the State Senate against Noah H. Virgin, when he was a Republi- can, and I was beaten. I think that was in 1871.
"After moving back to Cassville I was for several years a director of the Cassville School District No. 1, during which time the second brick school-house, adjoining the one previously built, was built. On my return to Cassville in 1863 I was elected chairman of the Town Board of Supervisors, and held the office for seven years in succession. In 1875 I was appointed by Gov. Taylor one of the Board of Direc- tors of the State Prison at Waupun; reappointed by Gov. Smith in 1880, and held that office until the Board of Directors was abolished and the Board of Supervision of the State Institutions was established in the early summer of 1881.
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