USA > Wisconsin > Milwaukee County > Milwaukee > History of Milwaukee from its first settlement to the year 1895 > Part 90
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better managed. For a few years after he retired from the sheriff's office he devoted himself to his private business, but after 1889 lived a retired life. He was too closely identified with the city, how- ever, to be entirely idle, and was appointed by Mayor Brown to the office of Park Commissioner in 1889, which office he held up to the time of his death, which occurred March 5, 1894. In this capacity he devoted five years to the great work of building up the public park system of the city, for which, along with his associates, he will be entitled to the gratitude of coming generations of Milwaukee citizens.
THOMAS LETT KELLY was born on his father's farm near the village of Farmersville, Ontario, Canada, on June 3, 1833. When not in school he worked on the farm until he was seven- teen years old, and then he entered a country store as clerk, performing all the duties belong- ing to that position, being salesman, bookkeeper and general manager, as occasion required; and, his employer being postmaster, he also acted as assistant.
In 1855 he went South and secured a position in a leading dry-goods house in Columbia, South Caro- lina, where he soon became chief clerk and was to have been admitted as a partner on January 1, 1861. The head of the house died, however, before that date, and it devolved upon Mr. Kelly to close the business of the firm. IIaving by this time an extended acquaintance in Colum- bia and throughout the whole state of South Carolina, and having a large trade which he could control, Mr. Kelly had made all arrange- ments necessary to continue the business in company with a young friend then residing in New York, but the war coming on immediately, their plans were not carried out. In the spring of 1862 Mr. Kelly, realizing that the war might continue for a long time and result, as it did, dis- astrously for the South, bought, in company with others, a schooner and loaded her with cotton. With this cargo he ran the blockade in Charleston harbor in April, 1862, reaching Nassau, New Providence, safely, where the cargo and vessel were disposed of. Arriving at New York in May, 1862, he took a position temporarily in a New York wholesale house. In January, 1863, he formed a connection with one of the principal retail dry-goods houses of Milwaukee, coming here soon afterward with his bride, whom he
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL.
married February 3, 1863, and whose maiden name was Etta M. Hickok of Brooklyn, New York.
He continued with this firm until January, 1871, when he associated himself with a partner, and under the firm name of T. L. Kelly & Com- pany, opened the first dry-goods store established on Wisconsin street, which has since become the principal retail street of Milwaukee. His business prospered from the start, and in 1892 had become one of the largest in the city, employing more than one hundred persons. His partner died in 1890, and Mr. Kelly conducted the business in his own name until his store was totally destroyed by fire. After the fire he did not at once engage in trade, but was for a time interested in real-estate operations. In 1894, however, he again entered the dry-goods business as head of the large estab- lishment which he has since conducted on Broad- way.
Besides managing his extensive business, Mr. Kelly is a director of the Milwaukee Industrial Exposition Association, having served continu- ously in that capacity since 1885, and contributed very materially to its success. In January, 1889, he was elected president of the Milwaukee Ad- vancement Association, and it was largely due to his energy, tact and good judgment that this association grew so rapidly into one of the fore- most organizations of Milwaukee. Through it alone the city's industries and manufactories have been increased by several million dollars, and as a result of its activity many new establishments are annually induced to locate in Milwaukee. At the expiration of his first term of office as president, Mr. Kelly was unanimously re-elected, and at the close of his second term of one year was strongly urged to accept a third term, but owing to the demands of business he declined.
Upon Mr. Kelly's retiring from the presidency of the association the Evening Wisconsin of Janu- ary 15, 1891, said editorially : " T. L. Kelly, the retiring president, deserves the thanks of every loval citizen of Milwaukee. He has been sleepless in the performance of his duty, and has freely given his valuable time to the cause of advancing the interests of the city. Ile has repeatedly put aside his private business for the purpose of giv. ing the necessary attention to matters of import- ance to the people of Milwaukee, and it is largely due to his untiring efforts and sacrificing devotion
to the city that the Advancement Association has been able to accomplish the encouraging results which have marked its labors. Mr. Kelly simply steps back of the new president and manager, because the growth of his business has made it impossible for him to longer give the Advance- ment Association the time necessary to an ener- getic administration of its affairs; he does not relinquish his interest either in the association or the city. The last fact will reassure those who have learned to pin their faith to Mr. Kelly's energetic loyalty to Milwaukee."
Mr. Kelly was also an active member of the National Council of the Grand Army Reunion and Encampment held at Milwaukee in 1889, and he was also one of the very first in this city to advocate holding the World's Fair and Columbian Exposition at Chicago, prompted by loyalty to a sister city and foreseeing the beneficent effect such close proximity would have on Milwaukee's in- terests.
Mr. Kelly's family comprises his wife and two sons. The elder son, Frederick W., is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, and of Columbia College. New York city; he also attended the law department of Columbia College, and later was graduated from the law department of his Alma Mater. He is now practicing law in Milwaukee.
ALEXANDER MITCHELL was born Octo- ber 18, 1817, in the parish of Ellon, in the central portion of Aberdeenshire, Scotland. His grand- father was an Englishman, who emigrated from Northern England to Aberdeenshire about the middle of the last century. His father, John Mitchell, was an industrious and substantial farmer, a man of vigorous intellect, self-reliance and probity. His mother was of pure Scottish descent. Her maiden name was Margaret Len- drum, and she died during his early boyhood. He grew up on his father's farm under the care of his eldest sister, and received the usual educa- tion of the parish schools. He was afterward, for two years, an inmate of a law office in Aber- deen, where he enlarged his range of study and reading, and acquired some knowledge of the higher branches. He was, still later, a clerk in a banking house at Peterhead, and the business oc- cupation and habits of his life were there estab- lished.
At the session of the Wisconsin territorial legis- lature in the autumn of 1838, Mr. George Smith,
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HISTORY OF MILWAUKEE.
of Chicago, procured the enactment of a charter for the Wisconsin Marine & Fire Insurance Com- pany, and it was organized in the spring of 1839. Mr. Smith had been a resident of Chicago since 1833, engaged in banking and loaning money. He established this institution in Milwaukee for the purpose of making a profitable use of his capital and to extend his financial operations. The two places were then of about the same size, and same population, and with equal prospects for future greatness. Mr. Smith was a native of Aberdeen- shire, where he had known Mr. Mitchell and his relatives, and he induced him to come to Milwau- kee as the secretary of this company. This was in May, 1839, when Mr. Mitchell was a little more than twenty-one years old as related elsewhere. Irresponsible banks had been numerous in the West, and their failure had brought great losses to the people. There was a strong hostile sentiment against banks throughout the territory, and it was manifested in the charter of the Wisconsin Marine & Fire Insurance Company, which was authorized to insure against fire and marine losses, to receive deposits and issue certificates for the same, and to loan money, but it was for- bidden to do a general banking business. This prohibition, however, being general and indefinite in its terms, was regarded as nugatory, in view of the special grant of banking powers to the cor- poration, and was evaded or disregarded. The company issued certificates of deposit in the form of bank bills of the usual denominations, from one dollar upward, redeemable on demand, which passed into general circulation as currency, and it bought and sold exchange and discounted commercial paper like other banks, without doing a general insurance business. Mr. Mitchell en- tered upon the full management and control of the institution soon after it was successfully established, and Mr. Smith's connection with it ceased to be more than nominal. It is unneces- sary in this connection to enter further into the history of this notable monetary institution and of Mr. Mitchell's connection with it, its history hav- ing been fully written in the history of banks and banking. All who know anything of Milwaukee know that Mr. Mitchell soon became recognized as one of the leading bankers and financiers of the West, and retained that prominence as long as he lived.
In 1839, when Mr. Mitchell became a resident
of Milwaukee, the population of the place did not exceed fifteen thousand, and the entire population of the state was but thirty thousand. The early settlers and business men were poor, the sources of business prosperity were uncertain and limited, and it was not until years afterward that the growth of the interior and the expansion of trade caused a high degree of business activity in Mil- waukee, and supplied its means of rapid and healthful growth. In the midst of these small beginnings Mr. Mitchell laid slowly, and with care and circumspection, the foundations of his great wealth. It grew by steady accumulations, by prudent investments, by patient waiting for profits and returns, by the industrious use of the means at his command, and through the legiti- mate agencies by which money may be honestly and honorably acquired.
Following the panic in 1857, the city credit of Milwaukee was greatly impaired. Bonds issued in aid of railroad construction were outstanding, amounting in 1861 to one million six hundred and fourteen thousand dollars. Many of the compa- nies to which these bonds had been issued were bankrupt, and the interest was unpaid. Among the railroad bonds issued by the city was the amount of two hundred thousand dollars to the La Crosse & Milwaukee Railroad Company, which was then in the hands of Col. Hans Crocker as receiver. The interest on these bonds was regularly paid. A large amount of bonds had also been issued to the Milwaukee & Mississippi Railroad Company, but some settlement had been made on the reorganization of this company by which the city received stock in the Milwaukee & Prairie du Chien Railroad Company as resti- tution for the bonds. But there remained nearly nine hundred thousand dollars of railroad bonds on which the interest was unpaid, and the com- panies to which they had been issued were help- less to aid the city in their payment. There was also a floating debt of a quarter of a million dol- lars outstanding against the city, consisting of liens, judgments, unpaid city orders and over- drawn accounts.
The plan formulated in 1861, after an act had been passed by the legislature for the readjust- ment of the eity debt of Milwaukee, and for the redemption of the city from impending bankruptcy, was largely the suggestion of Mr. Mitchell, and he was appointed the first commis-
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL.
sioner under the law, with Charles Quentin and Joshua Hathaway as his associates. The plan for refunding the debt was accepted by the creditors of the city, and the new bonds were readily taken. The names of Mr. Mitchell and the other debt commissioners were a tower of strength, and as the plan of readjustment was understood, and as it passed into successful operation, the municipal credit improved until it became as good as that of any city in the West. Under successive city ad- ministrations the membership of the Board of Debt Commissioners was changed from time to time except as to Mr. Mitchell, who was re- appointed, and served term after term until his decease. With the restored credit of the city and its growth in wealth, the duties and responsibili- ties of the office became lighter, notwithstanding the creation of the water debt and the greatly increased extent of the city's financial transactions in loans and payments for bridges, school-houses, pavements and other corporate expenditures. But he continued to act as the guardian of the credit of the city which he aided so greatly in rescuing from destruction, and which exists unimpaired as a mark of his public spirit and of his financial skill and sagacity.
That part of Mr. Mitchell's career which is con- spicuously identified with the railroad history of Wisconsin marks him as a broad-minded financier. This part of his career, and the vast operations in which he engaged, supported, of course, by able colleagues, but guided by his masterful hand, added immeasurably to the value of every class of property, increased the wages of labor and multi- plied the profits of production and trade. It is in these directions, when business combinations and enterprises develop with powerful force the re- sources of the land and the people and give mo- mentum to the public prosperity, that financial sagacity and ability reach the dimensions of statesmanship in its broadest sense. That is statesmanship which originates and promotes a successful public policy, which secures public prosperity, adds to the national wealth, strength- ens the cohesion by which the people are united in interest, in sympathy, in impulse and in their common growth, and which increases human happiness. Statesmanship is not simply the man- agement of national policies, directing legislation and guiding diplomacy. Statesmanship includes a knowledge of the wants of the people, of the
means by which their prosperity may be pro- moted, the state made richer and stronger, and by which the march of civilization may be hastened. In these ways a business man of great understand- ing and unswerving honesty, in prosecuting grand enterprises which combine profit and advantage to entire communities, widely separated by dis- tance and possessing as widely diversified inter- ests, may display statesmanship of an enlightened order.
The various railroads .in Wisconsin were origin- ally owned by separate small and weak compa- nies. Their construction had been commenced in 1851, and had proceeded slowly for ten or twelve years after that time. Most of the lines crossing the state, as they now stand, were then substan- tially completed. They were built with difficulty on a basis of city, town and county bonds, farm mortgages, and other precarious forms of credit. Obstacles of a serious nature had been encoun- tered, for the times were hard; the country was new and poor; a large proportion of the people were apathetic or hostile; local and political feel- ing was often violent.
They were operated independently of each other, were without tributary and connecting lines, and their revenues were decidedly insuffi- cient to pay their operating expenses.
At about this period the foreclosure of the mort- gages on the different lines of railroad was com- menced in the various courts, and was prosecuted with greater or less energy. Owing to the variety of the liens, mortgages and judgments, compli- cated litigation involved the titles to much of the railroad property of the state, and rival claimants to its ownership were moving in many of the state and federal courts. The prospects were not en- couraging even for those who should in the end become successful as litigants and secure possession of the various lines, for it would remain a serious question whether they could make the railroads pay the cost of keeping them in operation. Mr. Mitchell had contributed, individually, more of the money which had been actually invested in building these roads than anybody else, and had aided in negotiating the great variety of securities which had been used in procuring the means which originally constituted the resources of the railroad companies. But few, even of the most hopeful minds, could foresee a promising future for the railroads of the state.
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HISTORY OF MILWAUKEE.
This crisis in the railroad and commercial his- tory of the state was precipitated by the univer- sal panic in 1857, reaching its height in 1861 and 1862, and lasting until 1865. It covered the time from 1857 to the closing period of the war.
The railroad lines in this condition were the Milwaukee & Prairie du Chien, the La Crosse & Milwaukee, the Milwaukee & Watertown, the Milwaukee & Horicon, and the Western Union, running from Racine to Freeport, Illinois. The first of these roads had been successfully re- organized. But in the collapse of the other com- panies there was reason to apprehend that the roads must fall into the grasp of alien capitalists, whose interests would be averse to prominent Wisconsin localities, and that they would be so operated as to divert all the currents of traffic and travel to rival cities and centers of trade.
In this emergency, and while the crisis in rail- road and commercial affairs was pending, but as it was drawing toward its close, an arrangement was formed by Mr. Mitchell and those acting with him by which the bond-holders of the various im- periled lines of railroad associated themselves together in a corporate capacity for the purpose of protecting and improving their property and enhancing its productive value. As titles to the various roads were settled in the decrees of the federal supreme court, they perfected their pur- chases made under foreclosure proceedings, and completed plans to consolidate all the lines under the ownership and management of a single com- pany. The valuable La Crosse & Milwaukee was first secured, including the Horicon line in the same purchase. The Milwaukee & Water- town road, running to Columbus, with a branch to Sun Prairie, was then bought. The Milwau- kee & St. Paul Railway Company was then formed (May 5, 1863), in which all these lines and their branches, with their projected extensions, were merged. Alexander Mitchell was elected pres- ident of the new corporation, with S. S. Merrill as general manager. A year or two later the Prairie du Chien line was added to the St. Paul system; the lines through Iowa and Minnesota to St. Paul were afterward completed; the interior connec- tions in Wisconsin to Oshkosh, Fond du Lac, up the Wisconsin River valley, between Watertown, Madison, Columbus and Portage, and to Mineral Point and Platteville, were perfected; the separate line to Chicago was built; the Racine & Sonth-
western and the Chicago & Pacific were con- solidated with the main lines; the Council Bluffs road was added, and the extensions were con- structed into Dakota and the far Northwest. In 1874 the name of the corporation was changed to the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company, which it has since retained. In 1869 Mr. Mitchell was elected president of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway Company. But wise considerations of public policy appeared to render it inadvisable that two great parallel and com- peting lines of railway should be under the same management, and he held the office but a single year.
Mr. Mitchell was always conservative in his political opinions. As a practical banker he be- came a Whig, which was the bank party, as the Democrats constituted an anti-bank party pre- vious to the division of parties on sectional lines and on the question of slavery. He was after- ward a Republican, and entered with considerable ardor into the Wide-Awake movement, and with many of his distinguished personal friends and associates carried a kerosene torch in the political processions in 1860. He was a firm supporter of the war policies of the government during Mr. Lincoln's administration and until after the war closed. Ile then supported the measures adopted by the administration of Andrew Johnson for the reconstruction of the states which had been at war against the national union, and in the reorgan- ization of parties which followed he became a Democrat. He supported Horatio Seymour, the Democratic candidate for president in 1868, and was himself the Democratic candidate for con- gress in that year in the first Wisconsin district, composed of the counties of Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, Walworth and Waukesha. The adverse fortunes of the Democratic party in that election involved him in defeat, but in 1870 he was again the Democratic candidate for congress in the same district, and was elected by a very large majority. Mr. W. P. Lyon of Racine, one of the associate justices of the supreme court, being his Republican opponent. In 1872 he was re-elected, but polit- ical life was not agreeable to his tastes and he de- clined to be a candidate for an additional term in 1874. In 1876 he was chosen by the Democratic State Convention one of the delegates-at-large from Wisconsin to the National Democratic Con- vention, in which he supported the nomination of
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Samuel J. Tilden as the Democratic candidate for president. He assumed an active part in the ensuing campaign, and, at its unsuccessful close, retired permanently from active party politics. In 1879 he was nominated by the Democratic State Convention for the office of governor, but he peremptorily declined to be a candidate.
During the time that he was a member of con- gress Mr. Mitchell was prominent and zealous in his support of such financial measures as were adapted for the protection of the public credit, and for the restoration of specie payments. He made a remarkably clear and able speech upon this subject on the twenty-seventh of March, 1874, presenting in a cogent and entertaining style the solid arguments which financial science suggested against an inflated currency and the evils insepa- rable from a deranged monetary system and from any basis except that of specie for the circulation of the country. At an earlier day, April 6, 1872, he made a speech on the subject of American shipping, showing that it could be revived as a successful industry only by removing the burden of tariff taxation which rested upon it.
Throughout his life Mr. Mitchell was far less par- tisan in his opinions and acts than were the party leaders whom he followed. He was always mod- erate in his views and in the language which he adopted for their expression, and he was incapa- ble of those impetuous impulses under which less thoughtful and well-balanced men make politics an issue in personal and business relations. When he was a Republican, he was not far distant from the line which separated that party from conserv- ative Democrats. When he was a Democrat, he was not far distant from the line which separated that party from conservative Republicans. Re- garding politics as rather a practical than a senti- mental question, he uniformly desired the success of that system under which the country would be most peaceful and prosperous.
Mr. Mitchell married in 1841 Miss Martha Reed, a daughter of Mr. Seth Reed, a pioneer of Milwaukee. He died April 19, 1887.
HOEL HINMAN CAMP, one of the oldest and most widely known bankers of Milwaukee, was born in Derby, Orleans county, Vermont, January 27, 1822; son of David M. and Sarepta (Savage) Camp. His father was a graduate of the University of Vermont and a distinguished attor- ney of that state, who at one time held the office
of lieutenant-governor, and in that capacity organ- ized the first state senate of Vermont. Of English origin, both the Camp and Savage families were among the early colonists of New England, settle- ment being made by them in Massachusetts early in the seventeenth century.
H. H. Camp was educated in the public schools of Derby, and at fifteen years of age went to Montpelier, the capital of the state, where he became junior clerk in an old and well-known mercantile house of that city. After serving a four years' apprenticeship to the business of mer- chandising, he found employment at different times as a merchant's clerk in Boston and other Eastern cities, and then engaged in merchandising on his own account in Montpelier. Ile was for a time a partner of Hon. Charles Paine, ex-governor of Vermont, but disposed of his business interests in that state and came to Wisconsin in the winter of 1852-53. Becoming a resident of Milwaukee he engaged first in the wholesale grocery trade, but within a year sold out that business and be- came interested in the Farmers' & Millers' Bank, organized under the state banking law of Wiscon- sin. He was made cashier of the bank at the time he became interested in it financially, and continued to sustain that relationship to the bank until it was succeeded by the institution organized under the National Banking Law. The First National Bank of Milwaukee was the first bank organized under the National Banking Law in the state of Wisconsin. The Farmers' & Millers' Bank was merged into this institution, and Mr. Camp was one of the moving spirits in promoting the new organization. He was made cashier of the First National, and continued to be the chief executive officer of the bank up to the time of the expiration of its charter in 1882. When the new charter was obtained the bank was reorgan- ized and Mr. Camp was elected to the presidency. For eleven years thereafter he was at the head of the bank, which grew rapidly into prominence and public favor, and during his administration became the leading institution of its kind in the state and one of the great banking houses of the Northwest.
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