USA > Wisconsin > Grant County > History of Grant County Wisconsin, including its civil, political, geological, mineralogical archaeological and military history > Part 12
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After coming to Lancaster he taught school awhile. Although a lawyer, he seemed to have more love for teaching than litigation, and during most of his life, while practicing law and on the bench, he had private pupils whom he taught for love of instructing, refusing all re- muneration. He was always a student and seemed to love all other book's better than law books, although he was a deeply read lawyer withal. Ancient and foreign languages were his especial delight, and he read Greek. Latin, French, and Spanish with great facility.
As a lawyer the antiquated and absurd fictions of the old common law were revolting to his logical mind and he entered vigorously on the task of having the new Code of New York, in which the old fic- tions were abolished, adopted in Wisconsin. Being a member of the legislature in 1856 and 1857, he made good use of his opportunity and through his efforts Wisconsin was the second State to adopt a new and rational code, an example which all the other States have since followed. He also systematized his work by a device apparently then unknown, but now common, annotating the margins of his books with references to decisions, etc., bearing on the same subject.
In politics Mills was an advanced Radical. In his younger days the slavery question was beginning to overshadow all others. Mills was more than an anti-slavery man-he was an abolitionist, although reared in a slave State and in pro-slavery Egypt of Illinois. In 1844 he was the candidate of the Liberty (abolition) party in the county for
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District Attorney. The ticket received eighteen votes in the county -jast the number of names on the county ticket. Evidently the party was like Artemus Ward's company-there were no privates in it. In 1848 the party again put up James G. Birney for President, and Mills and his few fellows and followers rallied again with a county ticket. It is difficult now to realize the virulence of the abuse heaped upon the abolitionists of that time, even in the North. An abolition speaker named Matthews attempted to speak in Lancaster, but the meeting was broken up by a mob. Mills and his wife, assisted by Stephen Mahood and David McCord, guarded the speaker to Mills's house, amid the din and threatening demonstrations of the mob. The crowd gathered in front of the house and became more threatening. Matthews escaped by a back way and spent the night at Stephen Mahood's a mile west of town.
The Whig party went to pieces in 1853, and the anti-slavery men formed the Republican party. Mills joined the party, not because it represented his views to the full extent, but because it came nearer to his views than any other, and he hoped that it would eventually come all the way. In 1854 the Republican party carried the county and Mills had the unwonted luxury of being with the majority.
During the war he was zealous in the Union cause and assisted to the best of his ability in the prosecution of the war, though unfit phys- ically to bear arms.
Late in life, wanting something radical, he ceased to act with the Republican party and espoused the cause of free-trade and woman suffrage.
Judge Mills was District Attorney in 1859-60 and 1863-64. He was a member of the Assembly in 1862 and 1879, besides the two terms before mentioned. He was Circuit Judge twelve years from 1855 to 1877 inclusive.
In religious faith he was a Congregationalist and an ardent cham- pion of his theological views, in essays, newspaper articles, and lec- tures. In early life he had frequent encounters with his brother-in-law, Jared Warner, an able and aggressive agnostic, or "infidel," as he was then called. But he seems to have had due respect and admiration for Warner, as he named one of his sons Jared Warner.
His second wife died in 1857, and in 1860 he married Miss Mary A. Coumbe; who died in 1893. His children having all grown up and left home (except one son who died in early manhood),
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Judge Mills was left alone in the old homestead, and as it was home to him no longer, he went to live alternately with one and another of his children. While at Denver with his son Warner, he experienced un- usual trouble with his throat, which had always been affected from drinking strong lye when a child, mistaking it for maple syrup. The affection grew rapidly worse and the aged Judge died November 3. 1897. The corpse was brought to Lancaster for burial by the side of the mother of his children, where his funeral could be attended by his old neighbors. The burial was attended by the bar of Grant County, of which the deceased had been so long an honored member and an ornament.
JOHN HAWKINS ROUNTREE.
John H. Rountree was born in Warren County, Ky., near the Mam- moth Cave, March 24, 1805. His great-grandfather, Randall Roun- tree, came from Ireland to Virginia in 1720. The only school educa- tion young Rountree had was obtained in a primitive log school- house. He removed in 1824 to Hillsboro, Ill., where he was appointed as Deputy Sheriff, which position he held till he was twenty-one, when he was elected Sheriff and held the office till 1827, when he came to Wisconsin. An account of his settlement at Platteville will be found in Chapter II of Part I and in the History of Platteville in this volume.
"Major" Rountree, as he was always called was married August 7, 1828, to Mary G. Mitchell of Galena, Ill., and the next day he brought his young bride to a log cabin on the site of the present Platteville. His wife died in 1837 and Sept. 3, 1839, he was again married to Miss Lydia H. Southworth, of Platteville, who died June 16, 1881.
Major Rountree gained his title by being appointed Major of the Illinois militia in 1826. At the breaking out of the Black Hawk War in 1832 he raised a company of miners and served as Captain. In 1829 he was appointed postmaster at Platteville, and was reap- pointed several times, the last time in 1857. In 1834 he was ap- pointed by the Governor of Michigan as Judge of the County Court of Iowa County. In 1837 he was appointed Probate Judge of the new Grant County. In 1839 he was commissioned as Aide to the Governor of Wisconsin with the rank of Colonel. In 1838 he was elected a member of the Council of Wisconsin Territory, and was re- elected in 1842. In 1847 he was elected a member of the Constitu-
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tional Convention and took a prominent part in it. In 1850 he was elected to the State Senate and in 1851 he was appointed a Regent of the State University. In 1853 he was appointed Major General of Militia of the Second District of Wisconsin. In 1863 he was elected a member of the Assembly and in 1866 to the State Senate. He was many times president of the village and mayor of the city of Platte- ville. He was president of the Old Settlers' Club of Grant County from its organization till his death. He took great interest in the Club, and being the oldest inhabitant, could contribute most of the reminiscences, the relation of which formed a large part of the pro- ceedings of the Club.
From his first coming to Platteville (or the site of that city) he was the most prominent business man in the community, and such he remained until advanced age compelled him to lighten his business burdens. He was postmaster, justice, miner, smelter, merchant. He was foremost in aiding all enterprises that promised to build up Platteville. The first newspaper in the village and the county owed its existence largely to his generosity. Coming to the county when its white inhabitants, outside of the few miners at Platteville and Hard- scrabble, could be counted on the fingers, he lived in the county to see it containing nearly forty thousand inhabitants, with its agriculture developed to immense proportions. He long stood as a monument of pioneer days, a link between the past generation and the present. He not only saw all of Grant County's history, but made much of it.
Major Rountree was of stalwart frame and commanding presence. Though not an orator, his long participation in public affairs enabled him to speak clearly and readily before an audience. He was a busi- ness man and not a politician nor an office-seeker and the long list of official honors that were heaped upon him speaks more than words of the estimation in which he was held in his community and in the State.
Much more relating to this representative pioneer will be found in the History of Platteville and other parts of this volume. He died at Platteville June 27, 1890.
THOMAS PENDLETON BURNETT.
Thomas P. Burnett was born in Pittsylvania County, Va., Septem- ber 3, 1800, and was reared in Bourbon County, Ky. He had an aca- demic education and such private instruction as he could get, support-
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ing himself by manual labor and teaching. He read law at Paris, Ky., supporting himself partly from the small fees of such offices as con- stable and deputy sheriff. He was District Attorney for one term. Paris was then the home of some of the ablest lawyers in Kentucky and young Burnett had the advantage of daily contact with them.
He took an active part in the campaign which resulted in the elec- tion of General Jackson as President and received, October 15, 1829, the appointment as sub-agent in the Indian Bureau, to reside at Prairie du Chien, then far out in the wilderness. It was far below his expectations, but as he had some time before been crippled by having one of his legs crushed while zealously fighting a fire in Paris, he deter- mined to accept the appointment rather than attempt to regain the practice he had lost by being so long prostrated by his accident.
He arrived at Prairie du Chien in June, 1830. There were then only two or three American families there, except the families of the officers at Fort Crawford, The bulk of the inhabitants were Canadian French and half-breeds, who spoke only French, or some Indian tongue, alike unintelligible to Mr. Burnett. Under the circumstances he was naturally homesick and despondent, and detested the place and every- thing in it, but at last he became firmly attached to it. The salary of his office was $500 a year, and he was allowed to practice as a lawyer. prosecuting some suits for the Government and for private individuals. In 1834 he withdrew from the Indian Agency and devoted himself to the practice of law. In January, 1835, he was appointed District At- torney for the counties of Crawford, Iowa, Dubuque and Des Moines, then in Michigan Territory, but held the office only during thesummer of that year, and, finding the great amount of travel necessary incon- venient and expensive, he resigned the office. In October, 1835, he was elected a member of the Council of Michigan Territory (the upper house of the legislature), and was chosen President of the Council. The session was of questioned validity and did little except to send a memorial to Congress in favor of the immediate organization of Wis- consin Territory. Upon the organization of this new territory the claims of Mr. Burnett for appointment as Secretary of the Territory or Judge of the Supreme Court were strongly but unsuccessfully urged upon President Jackson by influential friends, including several Sena- tors.
The apportionment of the members of the legislature of the new territory was made by Governor Dodge, upon the basis of a census
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taken in 1836. Crawford County was allowed two members of the lower house, but no member of the Council. The people of Crawford claimed that, under the organic act, each county was entitled to rep- resentation in both houses, and they elected Mr. Burnett as a member of the Council. As the full number of Councilors had been elected from other counties, in accordance with Governor Dodge's apportionment, Mr. Burnett's election was not certified by the Governor, and he was not admitted to a seat. As a compensation he was nominated by the Governor and confirmed by the Council as District Attorney of Craw- ford County. He declined the appointment on the ground that the Council was not legally organized nor competent to perform any legal act, such as confirming his nomination. This action, very character- istic of Mr Burnett, was doubtless a satisfaction to him and the dis- satisfied people of Crawford County, but the legislature thus alleged to be illegally constituted went on with its work, which has always been treated as valid by the courts, just as has been the legislation of subsequent legislatures, illegally constituted by the admission of post- masters and other Federal officials, in plain violation of the Consti- tution.
In December, 1836, Mr. Burnett was appointed reporter of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin Territory, which position he held until his death. "The decisions of the court were prepared for publication by him.
Mr. Burnett prided himself on being an "independent," unconfined by party ties or the decisions of conventions. In territorial times party lines were not generally drawn, but candidates for important offices were generally nominated by conventions. More than once Mr. Burnett refused to abide by the decision of these conventions and ran for office as an independent candidate, but on all such occasions he was beaten. The most important of these was his candidacy for Delegate in Congress in 1838 and 1840.
While living in Prairie du Chien he married the daughter of Rev. Alfred Bronson, a prominent pioneer of Crawford County. In 1837 he removed to Cassville and remained there a short time, when he again removed and opened a farm on the Military Road in what is now the town of Mount Hope. Here he built a comfortable double log cabin, which is still standing in tolerable preservation, a mile and a quarter west of the village of Mount Hope. He was planning to build a substantial stone house, but death frustrated his plans. He
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named his home "The Hermitage," in imitation of his hero, General Jackson, and not because he, ambitious and in the prime of life, had any idea of becoming a hermit, as had Jackson, old and tired of public life. He embellished his grounds and garden with great taste and was preparing a pleasant home for old age.
In 1845 Mr. Burnett was a member of the lower house of the leg- islature of Wisconsin, and in 1845 he was a delegate to the Constitu- tional Convention. Suffering from illness, he did not take his seat in the Convention till October 14th. He was appointed a member of the Committee on Claims and served nearly two weeks. On the 25th of October he was informed that his wife was very ill with typhoid fever. Starting home in the evening, he rode more than eighty miles to his home, and enfeebled by previous sickness, he reached home only to be prostrated by the fever. His aged mother, who had recently come from Kentucky, was also lying ill with typhoid fever, and died on the first of November. On the fifth of that month both husband and wife passed away in the same hour, each conscious that the other was dying. The wife, unwilling to bear separation from her husband, was quite willing to die with him; but he was inconsolable that her death should leave his children motherless. The three members of the fam- ly were buried near the house, husband and wife in the same grave. Although the region was comparatively unsettled, the funeral was largely attended from Prairie du Chien and all the northern and west- ern part of the county.
On the 10th of November J. Allen Barber announced to the Con- vention the death of Mr. Burnett. That body adopted resolutions of condolence, respect, and sympathy, and took the usual means of pay- ing respect to the memory of a deceased member.
JARED WARNER.
Jared Warner was born in Canfield, Ohio, December 6, 1811. In 1838, his father, Elihu Warner, removed with his family to Wiscon- sin and settled on the Wisconsin River at Millville, or "the Pocket," as it was at first called. They were towed up the Mississippi in a keel-boat with other families. Elihu Warner and his son and partner Jared were not mining adventurers. They came to make homes and engage in manufacturing and agriculture. The little stream running through " the Pocket" into the Wisconsin furnished sufficient water- power to run a saw-mill, and one was established by the Warners.
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Here pine logs rafted down the Wisconsin were sawn and furnished to the pioneers of Grant their first pine lumber. Here Jared Warner built up an extensive business and made much money. But he worked be- cause he loved work and business, and not because he was devoted to money-making. He also during the fifties owned a grist-mill on Rattle- snake Creek, since called McKemmie's Mill, and lived there some time. When he thought he had enough money for a competency he sold his mills and retired to the village of Patch Grove, where he built a com- fortable house and bought a small but fertile prairie farm near the vil- lage. Here he had considerable leisure to indulge his literary tastes, and spend his hours with his books and periodicals.
During the hard winter of 1879-80 he suffered much from the breaking down of his system, but he bore it with uncomplaining forti- tude. He was collector of taxes for his town, and endeavored to per- form the duty with his usual faithfulness, but it was discovered that the once perfect memory was failing. The end came on the 4th of February, 1880. It is thus described in the obiturary notice in the Herald.
"He was original in. his modes of doing business. He believed men were more liable to pay a debt when not bound to it by mort- gages and securities. He often lent money without even a note of hand, making a memorandum of it in his account book. Recently he forgot some of his loans, but those he accommodated readily came forward and told what they owed. On the day he died he was ob- served in the morning to be writing something on a sheet of paper. He placed this paper in an atlas where it was accidentally found after- ward. He then went to his barn, about a hundred yards distant from his house, to turn out his horse and cow. Mrs. Warner, knowing his custom was to walk every day down to the post-office and through the village, thought nothing of his absence. At dinner-time it was found that he had not visited Mr. Paul's [the postmaster]. Miss Weed, who was then living in the family, immediately ran to the barn. Mr. Warner was lying on some hay as if asleep. She attempted to arouse him, but stepped back affrighted. Jared Warner was dead !
"Mr. Warner thought an obligatory will might cause contention. The paper he had written in the forenoon was found to contain his wishes in reference to the division of his property. Such was the effect of this simple writing that his wife and children all met together at his house, in obedience to his wish, and by solemn writing and deeds di- vided their inheritance precisely as he advised.
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"Thus had passed away one of the most remarkable men known on the roll of the old settlers of Grant County. A large concourse of people, the representatives of three generations, pressed around his coffin to take a last look at one they knew so well."
Jared Warner was considerably in public life. He was a member of the Assembly in 1861, and was for many years a member of the County Board. He was a man of too independent and original char- acter to train well in party harness, and he was several times an inde- pendent and defeated candidate. Indeed, considering his independent character and unpopular religious views (far more unpopular forty years ago than now), it is a wonder that he was ever elected at all. He was an agnostic, a person who fifty years ago was called an "in- fidel " and many worse names, and was nearly as much reviled as an abolitionist. And Jared Warner was not content to keep his views on theology to himself; he was aggressive, and being very able and well- read, he was an adversary as much dreaded as disliked by the sup- porters of the accepted creeds of theology. The principal sect in early times in this county was the Methodist, and Jared Warner was a veri- table bogie-man to the Methodist ministers ot those days.
GEORGE W. JONES.
This prominent pioneer of our county was born in 1800 in Mis- souri. He was graduated at the Transylvania University of Ken- tucky, studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1826. In 1827 he came to Grant County, locating near Sinsinawa Mound, where he successfully engaged in mining and smelting. He took an active part in the Black Hawk War as aide-de-camp of Gen. Dodge and filled var- ious civil offices, among them was judge of the county court of Iowa County. In 1835 he was Delegate in Congress for that part of Michi- gan Territory left out in forming the State of Michigan. In 1836 he was elected as Delegate in Congress for the Territory of Wisconsin. In 1838 he was defeated for that office, having becomesomewhat unpopu- lar on account of his acting as second in the duel in which Congressman Cilley, of Maine, was killed. He was Surveyor-General of Wisconsin and Iowa in 1840, but was removed by Tyler in 1841, and restored in 1845 by Polk. After this term of office he was attracted by the rap- idly growing city of Dubuque and made his residence there. He was Senator from Iowa many years. He died a few years ago in Dubuque. While he lived in Grant County he did much to advance the interests of his neighborhood and of the Territory
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MILAS K. YOUNG.
Milas K. Young was born at Salem, Indiana, July 18, 1812. He was raised a farmer, and was graduated at Hanover College, Indiana. He came to Wisconsin in 1846. He at first practiced law, but aban- doned it for agriculture, and was long a prominent farmer in Grant County. He was a member of the Assembly in 1853, and of the State Senate in 1862-65.
He was a prominent member of the Blake's Prairie Grange, an or- ganization that took considerable part in politics. He died May 16, 1875, from wounds inflicted by his son Albert. An account of this murder will be found in the history of Glen Haven in this volume.
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CHAPTER X.
SOME NOTORIOUS CRIMINAL TRIALS.
Rose Zoldoski-Nick Ames-The Sisley Case.
Most of the crimes deemed of sufficient importance to be noted in this work will be described in the history of the towns in which they occurred, but for various reasons some will be described here.
ROSE ZOLDOSKI.
Considering that the principal parties in this case were total strangers in the county. the intense interest it awakened and the par- tisanship it excited were phenomenal.
All the parties to the affair lived in Richland Center. Rose Zol- doski, the accused, was a milliner, who had boarded in the family of Dr. G. R. Mitchell, and on the death of the Doctor's wife in March, 1890, had remained in the family as a sort of housekeeper. On the 8th of January, 1891, she gave a party at the Doctor's. Among the invited were Ella Maly and her sister Lilly. After eating some refresh- ments, Rose was taken sick, or claimed to be, and retired to her room. Before leaving, Ella Maly went up to the room to see Rose. It was claimed that at this time Rose gave Ella a piece of candy supposed to be poisoned, but on the trial Lilly Maly testified that Rose gave the candy at the party to both Ella and her, and that Ella put the candy in her pocket and ate some on the way home, saying that it was bit- ter. Lilly supposed she referred to the taste of the burnt chocolate. Before reaching home (according to the distance it must have been five minutes after eating the candy), Ella was taken with a convulsion, and after frequent convulsions died the next morning. Dr. Ludwig testified on the trial that at the post mortem he concluded that death was caused by uræmic convulsion (caused by the urine poisoning the blood), but afterward it was thought that death was caused by strychnine which Ella had eaten in the candy given her by Rose. Sus- picion against Rose was increased by her talk. Before Ella's death Rose had talked of so many people dying in convulsions, and after the
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death she talked in a suspicious manner. An examination of the candy remaining in the dead girl's pocket showed no poison. Suspi- cion was strengthened by the fact that Dr. Mitchell's wife had died of convulsions. There was evidence that Rose was infatuated with the Doctor and jealous of his attentions to Ella Maly, who was a beauti. ful and attractive young lady. Thus Rose might have been interested in getting rid of both Mrs. Mitchell and Ella. Rose had access to strychnine in the Doctor's office. Examination of the contents of Ella's stomach revealed considerable strychnine. The body of Mrs. Mitchell was taken up and an examination made and a little strych- nine found.
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