USA > Wisconsin > Walworth County > History of Walworth county, Wisconsin, Volume I > Part 26
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had fitted him for the daily routine of banker's business. He was twice imposed upon by clumsy forgeries, both of which were detected and punished. But in 1869 he was a man for an emergency. Men knew him as a man of undoubted integrity, having a high sense of personal and commercial honor, a man of courage to face disaster, a fair judge of real-estate values and having a wide personal acquaintance within the circle of his business; and he had a large interest in the bank. He was just-minded in most matters, public-spirited, of equable temper, and an excellent neighbor. Besides, he wisely leaned on Henry Adkins, who served long and well as bookkeeper and teller, as to the conduct of the bank's business. He found the bank nearly moribund and left it sound and full of promise of great length of years. Its deposits now amount to six hundred thousand dollars.
In 1885 William J. Bray and Edmund J. Hooper came from Palmyra, bought and fitted a building, and opened a banking house, under the state laws The next year they admitted to their partnership Winsor S. Dunbar, John G. Flack, Asa Foster, George Hutton, Robert J. and Thomas E. Lean, John Oslock, and Frederick Winters, and formally organized as the State Bank of Elkhorn. its capital twenty-five thousand dollars. In 1899 Thomas J. Sleep became president. In 1909 Mr. Hooper, who from the first had been cashier, retired from the bank and Miss Amanda Winters, assistant cashier, served in his stead. In 1910 Mr. Hooper came again into the bank as president with Laurel W. Swan as cashier. There are now twenty-seven stockholders. The deposits amount to nearly four hundred thousand dollars.
BRICK AND TILE MAKING.
Local brick-yards were everywhere wanted, though their product might be narrowly limited as to quantity and far behind the once famous Mil- waukeean article in color and quality. The roads were laid out rather than made, and for half of the year nearly impassible for heavy carriage. There were indications of brick-clay in the western side of the village, much of which material was on Levi Lee's domain, His numerous enterprises called for something brick-shaped, and he therefore opened a pit along the line of Jefferson street. Some men have said that his clay was of fair quality for its purpose, but as to this there has been some doubting. for the product of the kilns varied from rather hard to the softness of crayon. Men whose reverence for Mr. Lee could not be called idolatry were used to say that at each firing he would count and lay out a fixed number of rails or sticks of cord-wood, and when these were burned the bricks were baked. He sold all he burned or dried, and his bricks helped to build the village.
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When railway prospects hastened the village growth, and men began to add each morning another dollar to yesterday's front-foot price of their real estate, it was found that more bricks were needed. Nathan Sexton, who had come to a farm west of the village, found it worth while to lease a bit of Albert Ogden's land along Walworth street, two long blocks south- ward from Lee's works. The clay was of better quality, and Mr. Sexton knew how to make brick. Baird & Ogden ( the latter a brother of the pioneer ) worked this yard for a year or two each side of 1856. Mr. Sexton resumed the work with George Burpee as a partner. The latter continued this industry until his death in 1876, after which followed a period of inaction.
Edward H. Sprague took the old yard in hand in 1886, and calling his brother, George B. Sprague, from Lancaster, they began a systematic pro- duction of bricks and drain tiles by providing coal-burning furnaces, engine, pug-mills, engine-house, and sheds, and with all these went and still goes Mr. Sprague's personal supervision. Of late the demand for home-made bricks has become visibly less than formerly, but that for drain-tiles is likely to be for some years active.
Edwin Daniels owned or had invented a quick process of leather-making by the use of terra japonica. In 1857 William Walker, a harness-maker. built a tannery, with six vats, in East street, between Court and Walworth. The Walker & Daniels leather (mostly sole-leather) found for a season a fair home market. Men who wore it found that whenever it was wet through it stained through stockings and gave their feet a beautiful deep Mongolian complexion. The tannery had not come to stay, and in a few more years the building was moved around the next southward corner to serve tem- porarily as a chapel. Its latest use to mankind was as a shop where William Allen Barnes wrought with brain and hand on his models for improved corn- harvesters and propellers for ocean-navigation; and then it was burned in 1902.
George Watson, in 1852, built the brick shop at Court and Washington streets and made wagons and buggies. About 1855 he gave place to Josiah WV. Gaylord and Isaac Stoner, respectively wheelwright and blacksmith and both good workmen. The all-ruining and far-dispersing panic period dis- solved the firm and reduced Edward McDonald, its successor, and the shop to repair work, chiefly, until 1870. Nelson Hanson then resumed wagon- making with Frederick Opitz at first as his blacksmith and then as his partner. This firm, too, passed away and a blacksmithy remains. Nearly contemporary with the brick shop was the white shop at Walworth and
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Washington streets, built by Edward Winne, who worked at nothing but attempted several other enterprises, none of which returned his investment. He employed wrights. smiths, painters, and trimmers until the business had lived out its short life. In 1857 Bernard Malachi Madden and William Van Gasbeck, wood-workers. George Clary and Henry J. Shaver, smiths, and Dexter Witter, trimmer and painter, formed the Elkhorn Carriage Company. They were good workmen, Madden one of the best in the state, and they deserved the success which their time denied them.
In 1851 Joel A. Daniels and Moses Hemenway, both of Winnebago county, Illinois, bought about an acre of Colonel Elderkin's land, nearly opposite the fair-ground and on the margin of the broad, shallow pond- now dry enough for corn fields. They built and equipped a steam grist-mill, but their capital was small and their flour not of highest quality. The property changed ownership more than once, and the mill was most of the timne idle, until 1860, when Mr. Hodges leased and refitted it. George W. Ellis came as miller and in no long time as temporary owner. His was the last attempt to make flour by steam power.
D. Mansfield Stearns built and equipped a wind-mill, near the northern end of Wisconsin street in 1876. The breezes were found too unsteady and lawless for profitable use as mill power. After him came Nathaniel Pitkin, "a gentleman. sir, and a scholar, sir; you see, sir." He ground feed for two or three years, after which Charles Beetow had a term at the hopper. Then the wheel was blown away and the building was left to the tooth of time.
About 1866 Osmer C. Chase, Nathaniel Carswell, and Clarence E. Remer refitted the steam-mill building for cheese-making. The business was continued by Carswell & Wiswell, and in 1881 by George N. Wiswell. Late in 1883 the building was burned, leaving only its stone foundation and its stout brick walls. On these Walter A. West began in Jannary, 1884, to re- establish a slowly, steadily growing enterprise. In March he was ready for business, and with John HI. Harris the firm of Harris & West began a prosperous career. In 1900 Miner & Thompson took the old works. and Harris & West in 1904 began their works near the railway station, and these have since been greatly extended. The building was designed and equipped for latest and best methods of making Elgin butter and plain and fancy cheeses. Their little cheese-pots have reached the Mohawk valley, and other regions are not barred against them. The latest extension, for condensing milk, is nearly ready for its work. This factory is one of nine now owned by John II and George B. Harris, George D. Puffer ( of Waukesha), and
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Walter A. West, incorporated as the Wisconsin Butter and Cheese Company. The estimated value of the works at Elkhorn is one hundred thousand dollars
RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES.
.About two dozen persons, of fourteen families, met in December, 1852, at the court house and organized a Baptist society, choosing Rev. Thomas Bright as pastor. He lived on his farm, about a mile from the park, within the town of Geneva, a circumstance which often enabled him to be useful in emergencies, long after his pastorate ended. George W. Gates came in 1856, Thomas Brande 1858. John H. Dudley, Joseph E. Johnson 1866, Levi Parmly, Francis M. Iams 1869, Arthur L. Wilkinson 1870, Ferdinand D. Stone 1873. George A. Cressey 1874, Sylvester E. Sweet 1879. Henry .I. Buzzell 1885, J. Russell Baldwin 1892, Charles Carey Willett 1896, Henry Clay Miller 1901, Warren Hastings McLeod 1903, J. Hector Miller 1906, Charles A. Hemenway 1908.
For several years the Catholics of Elkhorn and its vicinity seemed a nearly negligible element of local religious life, but good grain was sown early and in 1848 Rev. Francis Prendergast came from the mission at Delavan to hold services at Michael Fahey's. Services were held occasionally at the court-house. The parish was poor but steadfast, and the general increase of population from 1854 to 1857 brought gain in numbers to this as to the other churches. About 1861 a lot was bought at Walworth and East streets, and a disused tannery building was moved from a half-block away and fitted decently for temporary use. Thereafter until Rev. John William Vahey came in 1878 as a resident priest, the clergy of St. Andrew's came fortnightly from Delavan to minister at the altar of St. Patrick's. Another and in most ways more desirable lot had been bought. at Walworth and Church streets, on. which two large churches have successively been built. the first one having been used twenty years. In 1886 Rev. Michael Luby came for one year's service, and in 1887 Rev. James Nicholas closed for the present the list of resident priests of St. Patrick's.
Rev. Amnon Gaston, then of Delavan, organized the Congregational society at Capt. George Young's hotel, in 1843, and gave it part of his time as pastor. David Pinkerton came in 1844. Samuel E. Miner 1847, Jedidiah D. Stevens 1852, Lyman Huggins Johnson 1857. John Babson Linn Soule 1860, Stephen .D. Peet 1865. Calvin Carlton Adams (1813-1906) in 1867. Alba Levi Parsons Loomis 1868, Peter S. Van Nest ( 1813-1893) in 1872. Joel Gleason Sabin ( 1821-1897) in 1874. Hanford Fowle 1878,
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Newton Barrett 1881. Samuel Fay Stratton ( 1837-1883) in 1883. George Francis Hunter ( 1855-1891) in 1884, Charles H. Fraser 1886, David R. Anderson 1890, George Cavanah Lochridge ( 1845-1903) in 1893, Frederick M. Hubbell 1900, Jesse F. Taintor 1904. Almon O. Stevens 1905.
To found the Episcopal parish of St. John in the Wilderness was in 1841 the work of Revs. James Lloyd Breck. William Adams, a son-in-law of the bishop, and John Henry Hobart, all named often by the older mem- bers. though the last named is nowhere found in parish or public record. He was a son of the bishop of his name, and it is known that he was in 1865 rector of Grace church, Baltimore. It is likely that he was of Bishop Kemper's staff of serviceable young mission workers. sent where and when occasion needed. For many years rectors at Delavan supplied Elkhorn's frequent need. The succession of rectors as shown by parish books was John McNamara in 1848 and again in 1858, William S. Ludlum 1851, Gerrit E. Peters 1853. Henry M. Thompson 1856, Joseph H. Nichols 18 -. Joseph C. Passmore 1861, C. T. Seibt. Alexander F. W. Falk, Charles N. Spalding, George W. Dean (these five last named were professors at Racine College. holding Sunday service between 1861 and 1871), George W. Harrod 1872, Edward Huntington Rudd 1873. Charles Melvin Pullen 1875. Henry Hughes 1881. Charles Holmes ( from Delavan) 1882, Luke Paul Holmes 1888, William B. Thorn 1802. Edward A. Bazett-Jones, 1894, Charles N. Spald- ing 1896. John Welling Areson 1898, Philip Henry Linley 1901. Arthur J. Wescott 1904. Elijah Hedding Edson 1906, Alan Grant Wilson 1910, Free- man Philip O. Reed 1911. Dates indicate beginning of each rectorship. As in the other churches, the pastor was not always followed immediately by his successor.
An Evangelical Lutheran society was formed in 1870 with Rev. Heinrich P. Duborg as nonresident pastor. Rev. Johannes J. Meier, who came about 1875, brought his family in 1876, and was succeeded by Wilhelm Buchring in 1879. Johannes DeJung 1882. Timotheus J. Sauer, 1886, Carl II. Auerswald 1893. Christian Gevers 1898 to the present time. Before the end of Mr. Auierswald's pastorate a division of the society occurred, and a new church was built in 1898. Its resident pastors have been Hugo Stubenvoll 1898, Karl O. Salzmann 1901. Heinrich Cull 1902, Carl Hammer 1905. Since 1907 the church service has been supplied by Herman Lindemann and Angust Kohlhoff, of Burlington.
In 1852 the Methodist Episcopal society began its roll of resident clergy with the name of Joseph C. Dana, after whom John Tibbals 1853. D. B. Anderson 1854. Levi Lee 1855, Russell P. Lawton 1856, Stephen Smith
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1858, Thomas White 1859, Horace B. Crandall 1860, John G. Pingree 1862, Andrew J. Mead 1864, Joseph T. Woodhead 1866, David Deal 1868, William R. Jones 1870, Samuel Lugg 1872, John L. Hewitt 1873, John D. Cole 1874, Wesley Lattin 1875, Thomas T. Howard 1876, Samuel C. Thomas 1877. Norvall Joseph Aplin 1879, Hiram G. Sedgwick 1881, John Schneider 1883. Payson W. Peterson 1885. John V. Trenery 1887, William H. Summers 1889. John W. Olmstead 1891, Elvardo C. Potter 1893. William Wesley Woodside 1896, Mark A. Drew 1898, Sidney A. Sheard 1900, J. Thomas Murrish 1902, Jason L. Sizer 1907, Thomas Austin 1911.
Of clergymen remembered as church-builders were Messrs. Barrett, Barry, Bright, Buzzell, DeJung. Luke P. Holmes. Johnson, Lee, Nicholas, Peters, Pullen. Vahey, Willet. Mr. Johnson had been bred to the use of hawk and trowel and he plastered every yard of the ceilings and walls of the church built in 1858, having Bro. Osborn Hand to carry mortar. . \ few years later he left the state, the pulpit, and his young family. Messrs. Pullen and L. P. Hohes worked on church and rectory with hands well hardened to the use of saw, plane, hammer, and the ruder tools of labor. Fathers Vahey and Nicholas were practical architects, and Mr. Willett de- vised and supervised the extensive alterations of his church. Mr. Lee made the brick for the church of 1856. Mr. DeJung was also a bee-keeper, and often sat with book and pipe among his swarms. Mr. Barry had been state superintendent of schools and also chaplain of the Fourth Wisconsin In- fantry. While in military service he said or wrote that he had been preaching universal salvation for many years, but was at last convinced that hell was just then a military necessity. Messrs. David R. Anderson, Crandall, Cressey, Lochridge, Stratton, Sweet, and Vahey also served in the Civil war. Mr. Sedgwick was an amateur telescope-maker, and owned a portable ob- servatory. from which might be seen the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. He had been a telegrapher, and was serviceable in 1882 as a "scab" operator during a strike of telegraphers. Henry DeLancey Webster, Universalist, wrote lyrics for his namesake's music. Prof. J. P. Webster was not his relative, but he had W. Lyman Stowe and Mrs. Levi Lee among his cousins.
NEWSPAPERS.
George Gale. with Francis Asbury Utter, a printer from Towanda, Pennsylvania, began business June 2, 1845, on the upper floor of the Booth R. Davis (brick) store, with a half-medium press and a few pounds of type. The arrival of a newspaper press was delayed for five months, but
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the office began work at once. Its first job was to print blank forins for the circuit clerk's use. Mr. Gale set about printing the first of several editions of his book of legal forms which was finished in the following April. Friday, August 8, 1845, the Western Star rose above the near eastern tree-tops, the first newspaper in the county. Seven numbers were printed with new type on good paper about the size of a quarter-sheet auction bill. A larger press was needed and in November Mr. Gale bought of Hon. John Wentworth ("Long John") the old "pioneer press" on which the Chicago Democrat had first been printed. The Star was then enlarged to "a wide twenty-column folio." Mr. Gale had no mind to indulge in editorship as a pastime or as a means to raise himself to "chairs or seats of civil power." He had advanced the money and had seen the enterprise fairly in motion, toward success, when he sold his interest, in April, 1846, to his partner's father. Dr. Eleazar R. Utter, who assumed the editorship. A few years later Charles Utter, another son, became owner, the father remaining as editor. The paper. politically, was for Free Soil. About 1854 Charles seems to have retired and his father and brother, having become administration Democrats, changed the name of the paper to Wakeorth County Reporter. The week after the election of 1856 they sokl their office equipment to Densmore & Hotchkiss and in the next spring removed to Trempealean county.
In some way under Mr. Rockwell's patronage or by his inducement Edwin A. Cooley came in 1884 and for two years, more or less, published the W'akvorth County Democrat, and then went away into the mysterious North or Northwest. Mr. Rockwell. the Drs. Henderson, Lot Mayo, and Judge Cowdery were of that "old guard" of their party which was as unchangeable as the laws of the universe.
In June, 1853, Edgar J. and Alonzo L. Farnum, from a farm in Geneva, put forth the first number of the Elkhorn Independent, which soon passed into James Densmore's ownership. He was a ready writer, but not a printer. He made the paper Republican, and kept its columns free from the personalities so much Frank Utter's editorial stock in trade. He took John Hotchkiss, the Reporter's foreman, into partnership about 1855. In the spring of 1857 Leland & Utter came with their little office equipment from Geneva and Hotchkiss, Leland & Utter having bought the Densmore interest, became owners and editors of the W'alworth County Independent. Utter retired in 1858 and in February, 1861. S Fillmore Bennett came from some nook in Lake county, Illinois, and added himself as partner and editor. Before the end of the Civil war Mr. and Mrs. Leland were owners and Editors and so continued to be until July, 1874. John D. Devor came from
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a daily paper at Galesburg, Illinois, to ownership and editorship at Elkhorn. He was a clear, vigorous writer and a businesslike manager, neither courting nor finding great personal popularity; but he gave the paper some weight among Wisconsin newspapers. In December, 1877, he sold the office to James Wiley Sankey, from Holden, Missouri. Mrs. Dora Jemima ( Peck ) Sankey undertook the triple labor of editing the paper, caring for her baby, and nursing her dying husband. In December, 1878, Mr. Sankey died and in January, 1879, Mortimer T. Park, from the normal school at Oshkosh, and his cousin, Curtis R. Treat, a young printer from Clinton, took posses- sion of a revised and improved Independent. In July, Mr. Park became its single owner. In January, 1882, he admitted to partnership his excellent foreman, Eugene Kenney, and in April of that year Major Shepard S. Rockwood bought and edited the paper for one year, when Park & Kenney resumed ownership. In 1899 Francis H. Eames was added to the firm. In 1902 Mr. Kenney retired: and in 1904 Mr. Park retired, making way for the present firm of Eames & Snyder. The press has aforetime been likened to a lever which moves the world. The Independent's press, pen, and shears have raised three editors and a foreman to places in public service: Mr. Leland to a seat in the Assembly in 1873 and to the consulate at Hamilton, Ontario; Mr. Cowdery to the county clerkship; Mr. Park to the assistant's desk in the office of the secretary of state (at Madison), 1882 to 1890, and to superintendency of the state's school at Sparta and Mr. Snyder to the postinastership at Elkhorn. While Mr. Park was at Madison a series of substitute editors performed his work at the home desk. Of these Mr. Dewing, mid-'84 to the end of '88, was the fittest and most acceptable. Del. C. Huntoon, a semi-Bohemian from the Detroit press-gang, served until Mr. Park's return, in 1891. He was a pleasant fellow, fairly versed in Michigan politics, a client of Senator Palmer of that state, and an ex-inspector of consular agencies in Ontario, where he became a brother-in-law of Rev. Charles II. Frazer, who was a clergyman, in turn, of three denominations : Baptist, Congregational, Episcopal.
It may be noted that at some time after the Civil war Mr. Leland oc- casionally used a thin device for dividing the Delavan paper's patronage in the southwestern towns. This was to print part of his edition as the Darien News, differing from his paper at Elkhorn only in its heading and in a column of matter, local to that village, supplied by Orvellus II. Gilbert. About 1870 he tried this ingenious plan at Lake Geneva. He thus hastened the event that he tried to forestall. the establishment of a paper permanently (20)
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at that city. His successors had better business judgment, and in 1892 Park & Kenney's better taste restored the name of Elkhorn Independent.
Local chroniclers have incorrectly included among Elkhorn newspapers the Conservator, of which one pamphlet number was published in 1857, and the Live Man, which broke out irregularly between 1864 and 1868. Both of these were planned and edited by Otis Preston and reflected his extrava- gant faith in the creative power of advertising. Both were printed at the office of the Independent and might have been regarded as special editions of that paper, the Conservator to advertise village lots at Elkhorn to all the nations of the earth, the Live Man to advertise Elkhorn dealers to all the buyers of the county.
With the business panic of 1873 came Isaac B. Bickford from Ogle county, Illinois, to supply the political cave of Adullam with a county "organ." He brought a slender stock of type-metal, but no press. October 18, 1873, and for twenty weeks thereafter, the Walworth County Liberal was printed on the Independent's press. Eight weeks later, when Bickford ap- pealed to the county committee for the sinews of war, that body decided to buy the little he could sell, and to install Beckwith & Kenney in his stead. Editorially, the paper had been composed of, say, seven parts Bickford, seventeen parts Spooner, and seventy-six parts Preston. Hence, it seemed as if the Live Man had been called back. Preston's peculiar oratory, reduced to paper and ink, lost the wizardry of his vehement delivery and neither convinced nor entranced but sometimes puzzled his readers. Gov- ernor Spooner gave the paper the little distinction it ever earned. His privately spoken criticism of the new editorship was caustic, kindly, and not unprofitable. In the following summer Henry H. Tubbs was added to the firm. But for two somewhat memorable events the later history of this paper is not in itself interesting.
One of these was its exposure of some rather excessive severities of discipline at the State School for the Deaf. This was on information derived from three of the teachers. The published statements, which made more fluttering within the school and at three newspaper offices of the county than elsewhere, were investigated, and a very judiciously prepared report of the state board of charity and reform soon restored public confidence in the school, though nobody was specifically blamed. The principal resigned at the close of the school year : but. excepting Rev. Thomas Clithero, who pre- ferred the pulpit to the school room. all the teachers kept their places. The principal was a gentleman, with a dyspeptic's temper, eminent in his pro- fession, and he was quickly called to further usefulness in an Eastern institution.
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The other event was the total destruction of the Liberal office building. uninsured, with all its contents, also uninsured, by a fire which broke out almost as suddenly as if by explosion, at nearly midnight of July 2. 1875. James R. Browne, of Racine, had owned the building and Messrs Perry G. Harrington, Albert Ogden, Stephen G. West, and Samuel A. White owned the hand-press on which the paper had been printed. The publishers ac- quitted themselves of carelessness and the property of spontaneous com- bustion. Kenney went to the Independent office as its foreman and in time became its part owner. Tubbs returned to compass, transit and level. The fire had left nothing but the name of the paper and the editor's memory of its subscription-list. Changing the name to Elkhorn Liberal and making the paper Democratic, the Beckwiths printed twenty-five numbers, the last one dated January 7. 1876. From its beginning this paper had derived half of its support from Republican patrons, one more proof of the kindly, tolerant spirit of the people of Walworth.
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