USA > Wisconsin > Marathon County > History of Marathon County, Wisconsin and representative citizens > Part 58
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But the people of Wausau love him best as the man who has changed the dreary aspect of our cemetery into a beautiful grove of trees and culti- vated grounds, so that our grief for our dead departed ones is softened by a visit to their last resting place, rather than increased by the desolation of the place. .
Neal Brown comes from good old Connecticut stock. Ebenezer Brown, his great grandfather, was a soldier in the American Revolution, and Hon. Neal Brown preserves as a family reliquy a powder horn worn by Ebenezer at the siege of Boston. His father was Thurlow Weed Brown, editor of the Cauga Chief at Auburn, N. Y., in the early fifties. He married Helen Alward,
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and the family moved to Jefferson county, Wis., where Neal was born. His father and his aunt, Emma Brown, edited the Wisconsin Chief in Ft. Atkin- son. Thurlow Weed Brown died in 1866 and his wife in 1890. The son Neal Brown graduated from the law department of the Wisconsin University in 1880 and came immediately thereafter to Wausau.
HON. LOUIS A. PRADT.
Besides Hon. Alexander Stewart, who for six years represented the ninth congressional district of Wisconsin, which included Marathon county, this county had another representative in the city of Washington, in the person of Hon. Louis A. Pradt, not in the halls of Congress, but in another and very important position of assistant attorney general connected with the Department of Justice, appointed to that place by President William Mckinley in 1897 and reappointed in 1901. His official duties required him to represent the government in all cases brought by claimants against the United States in the Court of Claims, the only court where a private party can sue the government. Claims for overcharges on tariff duties against the revenue department; for spoliation, and all sorts of claims against the government, are litigated and disposed of in this court, and not a few seemingly preposterous claims are coming up for adjudication, and as an instance of this sort of claims made against the government only one need be mentioned, although claims of that kind are not over rare. In his term of office there was a claim filed by the heirs of a deceased person for millions of dollars. The curious part of it was that the original claimant had made his will, disposed of all his property to his heirs, and never men- tioned this claim against the government. Thousands of claims are filed every year and the office was and is no sinecure, but requires thorough knowledge of law and application to dry legal work, and diligence to dig out the real facts in each case, which are mostly hidden by claimants to the best of their ability.
Appeals from this court are directly taken to the highest court in the land, and it became the duty of Mr. L. A. Pradt, the assistant attorney general, to represent the government in the Supreme Court of the United States. Nevertheless while at Washington he was always glad to meet and extend a friendly hand and welcome to any of his old neighbors and acquaintances, a true, faithful representative of the hospitable spirit of Wausau.
L. A. Pradt may well be numbered with the distinguished citizens and
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able members of the bar at Wausau, to which city he came as a practitioner in the law, immediately following his graduation from the University of Wisconsin, at Madison. He was born in Pennsylvania, and is a son of Charles and Esthier Pradt.
In 1856 the parents of Mr. Pradt came to Sheboygan county, Wis., where he was reared and received a public school training, and in 1872 he accompanied them to the western part of Marathon county. For twelve years he occupied his time mainly in teaching school, both in Sheboygan and Marathon counties, and then entered the law department of the Univer- sity of Michigan, where he was graduated in 1881, in the same year being admitted to the bar and his first law office was opened at Wausau. In 1884, with others, he organized the Wausau Law and Land Association, four of the original members subsequently retiring, but Mr. Pradt and Hon. Neal Brown remaining and, with Frederick W. Genrich, who was admitted to the firm in 1899, continuing the old organization under the present firm style of Brown, Pradt & Genrich. This is a very influential body, made up of veteran lawyers, and its connections with important litigation cover all this section. In 1896 Mr. Pradt was elected city attorney of Wausau and served as such until 1897, when he was appointed by the late President McKinley, assistant attorney general of the United States and his home was in the city of Washington during the succeeding nine years. In 1906 he resigned this office and went into private practice in the capital, all this time continuing his association with the firm at Wausau. In the summer of 1909 Mr. Pradt returned to Wausau and this city continues to be his home. His public services were in every way creditable and during his many years of Washington life he formed many permanent friendships with other able and prominent men from all over the country. During his long absence from this city he never forgot, in all the stress of great public business, the interests of Wausau and in every way possible to him advanced its enter- prises. He organized the Wausau Country Club, of which he was elected president and still serves as such. In his political affiliation Mr. Pradt has always been a Republican and from 1891 until 1897 served as chairman of the Marathon County Republican Committee.
In 1890 Mr. Pradt was married to Miss Charlotte Atwater, of Milwau- kee, and they have three children: Louis, Alan and Charlotte. Mrs. L. A. Pradt, herself an accomplished musician, is the president of the Ladies' Tuesday Musical Club, and delights in receiving at her home the literary and music-loving people of Wausau.
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GRANVILLE DUANE JONES.
Like most men who achieve success in early manhood, G. D. Jones was not born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth, nor was he bedded on roses in his childhood days. He had to work for his education, earn it by hard work on the farm. After passing through the vocation of teacher, and being admitted to the bar, and having practiced his profession for some years, it was then that his real work of an organizer of business enterprises began. His practice took him over nearly the whole of the northern part of the state, brought him in contact with people of all sorts, lumbermen, merchants, and settlers on homesteads, and being gifted with a keen observation, he acquired a thorough knowledge of the resources of the country, and the bright future for the uncultivated region of central and northern Wisconsin, which only awaited the hand of development to bring forth a rich harvest. His reputation for honesty and application to work stood him in hand when he first undertook to persuade men of means to interest themselves with him with a view of developing the resources of this region. To work in concert, to raise capital and entrust it to the man- agement of others, as must of necessity be done by corporations, was entirely a new idea. Up to this time each man conducted his business independent of any other, so far as his means would permit but to put their means together and work in concert had not occurred to any one. Indeed there was too much jealousy, especially among the old group of lumbermen, to work together. It is to the credit of G. D. Jones that he overcame that jealousy-that distrust of one against the other-and that he succeeded in combining many of the business men and capitalists of Wausau and in other cities, and inducing them to invest together in new and profitable enterprises. That is the so-called "Wausau Spirit;" the working together for common benefits, and G. D. Jones is probably the first man in the Wisconsin valley who succeeded in giving expression to and awakening this spirit. It must not be believed that there was unlimited capital at his disposal; on the con- trary, there was not. But by the coming and working together, with many men, each with some capital, great results were accomplished, as witness the many business enterprises in which he is interested with many others. One of his first business organizations is the G. D. Jones Land Company, which owned over 30,000 acres of rich farm lands in Marathon county and sells them on easy terms to actual settlers. Many men have profited by the in- ducements held out by this company to become independent and wealthy by honest labor just as the pioneers of old have done, and they have bright
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prospects before them. Not only is this company dealing in absolute good faith with purchasers, but assists settlers by helping them to good roads and schools and in every way. In making municipal improvements, he has been in the front ranks, assisting every movement by personal effort and his spirit of generosity is never appealed to in vain for any good cause.
His appointment and reappointment as regent of the university was a deserved tribute to one of the public-spirited citizens of northern Wiscon- sin, who in spite of his business activity, has given much of his time and best thoughts to education. In the following is a list of the enterprises in which he is a director, in nearly all of which he was connected since their founding and who owe its existence in a large measure to his own talent and persuasion for organization.
G. D. Jones is a member of the law firm of Hurley & Jones, at Wausau. He was born at Harrisburg, Lewis county, New York, and is a son of Marcus S. and Orpha (Allen) Jones. He is of New England descent, none of his ancestors having immigrated to the American colonies later than 1700. His father died of typhoid fever in 1871, aged forty-five years, and his mother died in 1860. aged thirty years. In the spring of 1872 Mr. Jones came to the town of Byron, Fond Du Lac county, Wis., and hade his home with his uncle, Daniel D. Jones, who was a farmer in that town. He attended the country schools, and taught in the Fond Du Lac district schools two winters, and entered the University of Wisconsin as a special student in the fall of 1878. He took the scientific course at the university and graduated there with the class of 1882, after which for two years he was principal of the Grand Rapids, Wisconsin, high school. He came to Wau- sau in June, 1884, and entered the office of Silverthorn, Hurley & Ryan as a law student. He was admitted to the bar in July, 1886, and at once en- tered the law firm of Silverthorn, Hurley. Ryan & Jones, and continued in the active practice of law with that firm until 1897, when Mr. Silverthorn became circuit judge. Mr. Ryan retired from the firm in 1902 and the firm of Hurley & Jones has since continued the business. Mr. Jones is a mem- ber of the county, state and American bar associations. For several years Mr. Jones' personal business interests and those of his firm have precluded his active practice of his profession. He has been largely interested in tim- ber and lands, is secretary and treasurer of the G. D. Jones Land Company, the Jones-Hart Land Company, the Wright Land Company, Jones-Ander- son Timber Company and the Wisconsin Valley Improvement Company and all of its subsidiary companies. He is secretary of the Walter Alexander Timber Company and the Neal Brown Land Company, and is a director of
CYRUS C. YAWKEY
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the First National Bank of Wausau, the Wausau Street Railroad Company, the Wausau Telephone Company, the Wausau Sulphate Fiber Company, the Watab Pulp & Paper Company, the Virginia & Rainy Lake Company of Minnesota, Peth Candy Company, the John Kiefer Furniture Company, Wausau Fixture & Furniture Company, Great Northern Life Insurance Company, and the Employers' Mutual Liability Insurance Company.
Mr. Jones has taken a large interest in public matters and for nearly twenty consecutive years has been a member of the Board of Education, and for the last seventeen years has been president of the board. He is and for about twelve years last past has been a member of the Fire and Police Commission.
In July, 1887, Mr. Jones was married to Miss Evelyn A. Jones, of Fond Du Lac, Wis., and they have four daughters: Orpha E., now Mrs. Ralph W. Collie, who is a graduate of Vassar College; Phoebe E. and Ellen M., both of whom are now students at Vassar College, and Hester M., who is a student of Milwaukee-Downer College. The family attend the Baptist church. Since February, 1909, Mr. Jones has been a member of the Board of Regents of the Wisconsin State University. He is a thirty-second de- gree Mason and is also a member of the Elks and of the Equitable Fraternal Union. He belongs to the University Club at Madison, to the Wausau City Club and the Wausau Country Club. Mrs. Jones is a conspicuous member of the Civic Improvement League, of the Ladies' Literary Club and several of the benevolent societies of Wausau.
CYRUS CARPENTER YAWKEY.
Cyrus C. Yawkey, who has made his home in Wausau since 1899, has been one of the most valuable acquisitions to this city in later years, not only socially, but from an industrial and financial point of view as well. Since his advent here he has interested himself practically in all of the large industrial enterprises which have had their birth in the last fifteen years and which make Wausau the industrial center of the Wisconsin valley. Not only did his active interest in these concerns enable them to perfect their organization, but the implicit confidence of the people of means in his busi- ness acumen, experience and integrity caused them to associate themselves willingly with the enterprises and assist in furnishing the means which were needed to set in motion the wheels of industry. To show to what an extent Mr. Yawkey is engaged in business in Wausau and Marathon county. it is only necessary to mention his connection with the following industrial
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and financial concerns: President of the Yawkey Lumber Company; presi- dent of the Marathon Paper Mills Company at Rothschield; vice president of the Wausau Paper Mills Company at Brokaw; vice president of the Wausau Street Railroad Company; director of the National German- American Bank; vice president of the Wausau Quartz Company; and vice president of the Great Northern Life Insurance Company, besides being financially interested in others.
Mr. Yawkey comes from a race of lumbermen. His grandfather, John H. Yawkey, was engaged in the lumber business near Massillon, Ohio, in the early forties, and his father, Samuel W. Yawkey, was a pioneer lum- berman of Michigan, having gone into the Saginaw valley in 1850. The family moved to Chicago in 1858, where Samuel W. Yawkey engaged in the lumber trade, and it was during the family's residence there that the subject of this sketch was born on August 29, 1862. In 1864 the family returned to Michigan and established a home at East Saginaw.
Cyrus C. Yawkey attended the public schools until 1879. He then entered the Michigan Military Academy at Orchard Lake, Mich., from which he graduated in 1881, and immediately after graduation turned his attention to business. He first entered a hardware store as clerk and by the time he had attained his majority he had sufficiently mastered the busi- ness to engage in it on his own account, forming a partnership under the name of Yawkey & Corbyn, which was successfully carried on for five years. While at East Saginaw he identified himself with the Michigan National Guard, serving first as Captain of Co. E, 3d Regiment, and later as major of the same regiment, but subsequent business cares, both public and private, induced him to withdraw from military life.
In 1889 he moved to Wisconsin and, with his uncle, W. C. Yawkey, and George W. Lee, organized the Yawkey & Lee Lumber Company, which was reorganized as the Yawkey Lumber Company in 1893. The company built a plant in Oneida county and founded the village of Hazelhurst. where Mr. Yawkey lived until he moved to Wausau in 1899. The Yawkey Lumber Company owned and operated saw and planing mills and a box factory at Hazelhurst until 1905, and it is estimated that not less than 350,000,000 feet of lumber were manufactured there during that time. When the com- pany was organized, Mr. Yawkey became its treasurer and general manager, and later was made president. The Hazelhurst & South Eastern Railway Company was also formed and the road built and Mr. Yawkey has been its president up to the present time. The success of the Yawkey Lumber Com- pany was directly due to the personal efforts of Mr. C. C. Yawkey. He pur-
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chased the timber and for seventeen years conducted the logging operations and the manufacturing and selling of the lumber. Through his efforts and business foresight the company not only became the owner of vast tracts of timber in Wisconsin, but also acquired large tracts of yellow pine timber in the south and white pine regions in Oregon.
The Yawkey Lumber Company finished cutting its timber in Wisconsin in 1905 and a new company was organized, the Yawkey-Bissell Lumber Company, which took over the plant at Hazelhurst and also acquired a plant at Arbor Vitae, Vilas county, Wis., Mr. Yawkey being made president of the new company. The Yawkey-Bissell Lumber Company has operated these two plants continuously since the date of their purchase and has manu- factured about 70,000,000 feet of lumber each year.
From 1891 to 1893 Mr. Yawkey served as chairman of the county board of Oneida county, and in 1894 was elected member of assembly for the district, composed of the counties of Oneida, Price, Vilas and Taylor, and took an influential part in the legislation of that session.
Mr. Yawkey's business interests are manifold and varied, as may be seen from the following official positions in business concerns which he holds outside of Marathon county : president of the Yawkey-Bissell Lumber Com- pany, with mills at Hazelhurst and Arbor Vitae, Wis .; president of the Yawkey-Crowley Lumber Company, which owns and operates retail yards in southern Wisconsin, with main office in Madison, Wis .; vice president of Wisconsin & Arkansas Lumber Company, with mills at Malvern, Ark .; director of McCloud River Lumber Company, with mills at McCloud, Calif .; director of Marshall & Illsley Bank, Milwaukee, Wis .; director of Wausau Southern Lumber Company, with mills at Laurel, Miss .; secretary and treasurer of Cisco Lake Lumber Company, which owns large tracts of hard- wood and hemlock land in Michigan; president of Globe Mining Company, which owns valuable iron ore land near Birmingham, Ala .; and president of Hazelhurst Land Company.
Cyrus C. Yawkey is not only one of the most prominent but also one of the most popular business men of Wausau. He has long been interested in Masonry, is a Knight Templar, and has attained the thirty-third degree. He is also widely known in trade and social organizations. His military education is shown by his courtly bearing in speech and manners. He is charitable and generous, though rendering his aid in silence, but many public and charitable organizations can testify to his generosity. He was married to Miss Alice M. Richardson, at Ann Arbor, Mich., October 13, 1887, and
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one daughter has come to bless their marriage, Leigh, now Mrs. Aytchmonde P. Woodson. He has one of the finest residences in the city, where his many friends are always welcome.
HON. ANDREW LAWRENCE KREUTZER.
Of the younger set of men who became prominent in the political and business life of Marathon county, none achieved more distinction than Hon. A. L. Kreutzer. After entering public life as district attorney, having been elected as a Republican in a strong Democratic county, he rose steadily to higher honors. Elected as senator for the twenty-fifth senatorial district of Wisconsin, composed of the counties of Marathon and Clark, he encoun- tered the opposition, not only of the Democratic party, but of a faction of his own party, because of his refusal to yield blindly to the behest of some self-constituted party leader, and evincing a commendable spirit of inde- pendence in matters not strictly party affairs. His course having been vin- dicated by a second nomination and reelection to that high office, he with- drew from political life after the expiration of his second term, for a time at least, giving his undivided attention to the organization and the manage- ment of the business of the Wisconsin Valley Trust Company, in which lie was singularly successful.
The establishment of the Marathon County Training School for teachers and the Agricultural School is his work, for which he cannot be too highly commended. He belongs to that class of young men who are pushing ahead in public business affairs to make Wausau and Marathon county one of the wealthiest in the state.
He was born in Germantown, Wis., August 30, 1862, a son of Andrew Kreutzer. In 1865 his father removed with his family to Grafton, Wis., where he was engaged in the milling and lime business, remaining there until 1879. He then removed to Athens in this county, being accompanied by twenty-five or thirty young men, residents of Grafton, who assisted him in building the first sawmill at Athens. He was a pioneer of that locality and was interested with Johnson. Rietbrook & Halsey, who were the owners of large tracts of timber lands in the western part of the county. He estab- lished a large farm, the old homestead of which is now within the limits of Athens, and in which one of his sons now resides. He came to an untimely death in 1896, owing to an explosion of dynamite. Of his family of nine sons and three daughters all are now living with the exception of two.
Andrew Lawrence Kreutzer was educated in a common school of the
ANDREW L. KREUTZER
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state and taught school from 1884 to 1888. He commenced the study of law in Wausau, to which city he came in 1888, attended the State Univer- sity in 1889 and 1890, being admitted to practice in the latter year. He is a senior member of the well known law firm of Kreutzer, Bird, Rosenberry & Okoneski, president of the Bank of Athens, president of the Wisconsin Valley Trust Company, and connected with many other business enterprises. He is a member of a good many social clubs. A Republican in politics, he has taken a prominent part in the councils of his party and has served as a member of the Legislature, as State Senator. Few men are better known or have taken a more prominent part in promoting the commercial develop- ment of this section.
In 1891 Mr. Kreutzer was united in marriage with Miss Minnie Knox, daughter of Samuel Knox, who was then engaged in the lumber business in the city of Wausau. They have two children living-Ruth Knox Kreutzer and Samuel Knox Kreutzer. Mrs. Kreutzer, a graduate of the State Uni- versity herself, is a prominent member of the Ladies' Tuesday Musical Club, of the Ladies' Literary Society, and also of the Ladies' Club of her church society.
HON. ERNST C. ZIMMERMANN.
The public and private career of this gentleman furnishes a striking example that a young man without pecuniary means can still make an honor- able career in life, if he has the industry, integrity and intelligence, coupled with the perseverance needed to accomplish that result. E. C. Zimmermann came from the city of Eau Claire, where he had been in an insurance office, and started out in the same business for himself after coming to Wausau in 1878. For two years he conducted it alone, meanwhile becoming acquainted and making friends by his gentlemanly bearing. Having shown his capac- ity to succeed in business, he accepted an offer of H. L. Wheeler, an old established insurance man, to associate with him and the firm of Wheeler & Zimmermann became the leading insurance firm in the city and county. Later he was offered and accepted the position of assistant cashier of the Marathon County Bank, the oldest banking institution in the county, soon afterwards was made cashier, and has been in that capacity now for twenty years. This bank was founded by J. A. Farnham as the Bank of the In- terior in the early years of Marathon county, and always has been a sound and safe institution.
Ever since coming into manhood, E. C. Zimmermann has acted with the Democratic party politically and has been frequently pressed into service,
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always giving a good account of himself and served with distinction in every trust imposed upon him. He was twice elected as supervisor, representing his constituency in the city council as well as in the county board, and at the expiration of his term was elected as mayor of the city twice, in 1888 and 1889, and again elected to that important position in 1904. He had the honor of being named as an elector at large on the Democratic national ticket in 1908, and was elected as an elector for the Eighth Congressional District of Wisconsin in 1912 on the Wilson and Marshall ticket, the only Democratic elector from Marathon county who ever cast a vote directly for a Democratic president.
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