USA > Wisconsin > Walworth County > History of Walworth county, Wisconsin, Volume I > Part 41
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About 1849 Delorma and Freeman L. Pratt built and carried on a dis- tillery. on the way to the red mill in section 8. Salmon Hopkins Tuttle and James M. Schultz bought it in 1856, and two years later Mr. Schultz sold his interest to Albert W. Curtiss. In 1859 the building was burned and was rebuilt in 1862. This business was closed in 1864. The building afterward became Frederick Coburn's cheese factory, but was finally left tenantless.
From 1855 for about fifteen years Sheldon C. Ilall, with oft-changing partnership, bought and packed pork and "rendered" lard. Their house was in Whitewater street, near the station.
Nicholas Klinger bought, about 1866, in Birge's addition, lots for a brewery. After his death, about 1906, men of Milwaukee bought the prop- erty and the business is continued by them as the Whitewater Brewing Com- pany. It is noticeable that neither Mr. Cravath nor his continuators of the Annals mention either Klinger or the brewery. Yet he made himself famous at home and for a few miles about in such years as men called "dry," for he was full of resourcefulness in his contentions with the no-license sentiment of the village.
Daniel C. Tripp and John M. Crombie built a paper-mill in 1859 on the site of Doctor Tripp's saw-mill, near the village. In 1861 Thomas II. Gant- ley became one of the firm of Crombie & Gantley. John W. Denison and
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Leonard A. Tanner paid thirty-seven thousand five hundred dollars for it, in 1866. Mr. Denison sold his interest in 1884 to Mr. Crombie. Charles Allen and Benjamin M. Frees, as the Whitewater Paper Company, took the business, extended and improved it, in 1894 sold it to the Columbia Straw- board Company, and it soon afterward stopped work. In the carlier years this mill produced white print-paper of a fair quality.
Among temporary industries was stove-casting by Powers, Allen & Com- pany in 1857, Peter H. Brady in 1859, and Winchester & DeWolf in 1865. The latter changed its product to mills for grinding corn in the ear. In 1858 Wright and Cash made one-horse cultivators and for several years found a ready sale for the work of thirty to forty men. In 1875 Augustus Y. Cham- berlin built a furniture factory, which presently became a coffin factory. In 1880 the Esterly company returned it to furniture-making for a year and then merged it into the reaper works. Distilling and pork-packing made cooper shops active at times. Cheese-makers came and went, as at other cities.
Such enterprises as have been mentioned gave Whitewater, for a long generation of men, the aspect of a real manufacturing city. The workmen employed were numerous enough to form labor unions, and at times to affect the action of caucuses and conventions and the results of elections for the city and assembly district. Failure of the wagon works and removal of the reaper shops had something like the effect of a great disaster, one not readily reparable. The city has suffered some decrease of population, but so once did Des Moines and Kansas City. Whitewater creek, in both its branches, re- mains ; and doubtless the world needs and in time will use all its water power. Much else remains-enough to make the city a good point for retail trade and for small shops, and a goodly place to visit for such as are so fortunate as to have any noticeable acquaintance there.
TAVERNS AND HOTELS.
In 1840 Freeman L. Pratt bought the Powers tavern and in 1842 gave it a two-story front and named it the Whitewater Hotel. In 1845 he sold it to Warner Earle, who is said to have passed it to Eli King. Septer Winter- mute bought it of Gideon A. Mosher. about 1850. improved it, and named it Montour House. It was burned in 1865, and there an end to it.
In 1845 William C. and Frederick Cady Patterson became proprietors of the Whitewater Exchange tavern. At a later period it was "swapped" for the Badger State Hotel, once kept by Morris Ensign, which Giles Kinney (30)
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bought in 1862, improved it, and named it the Cortland House. Asaph Pratt bought the Exchange hotel in 1867 but did not long find it profitable to him. Luther Cadman built the American House and occupied it from 1853 to 1875. Joseph C. Bower built the Bower House and occupied it in 1880. Another landlord was John H. Fryer. It was also called Hotel Duquesne. The Ilotel Walworth was built about 1900. One of the old hotels, near the sta- tion, is now the Hotel Whitewater. There were other short-term hotels, with but imperfectly remembered landlords.
BANKS AND BANKERS.
Alexander Graham and Augustus H. Scoville began business in 1855 as bankers and brokers. In August. 1857, they organized the Farmers and Mechanics Bank, with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars, and issued currency notes of small denominations. Mr. Scoville was then president and John S. Partridge cashier. The calamity of 1857 did not overwhelm the bank, though the books were closed in 1858 or 1859. Mr. Cravath said that while the monetary panic variously affected business men of the village, none of them quite failed. Within the time between 1856 and 1861 Sheldon C. Hall and Eli C. Hall instituted the Bank of Whitewater. Their losses in the pork trade involved the bank and it was closed in April, 1865.
New Year's day. 1864, the First National Bank of Whitewater began business with Sanger Marsh as president and Charles Morris Blackman as cashier. Its capital was twenty-five thousand dollars, which was gradually raised to one hundred thousand dollars. In 1911 its officers were C. Morris Blackman, president (died May, 1912) ; Edwin F. Thayer, cashier : deposits, 1911, three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The Citizens State Bank was organized in 1894. Its present capital is fifty thousand dollars. deposits one million one hundred thousand dollars. Officers, 1911, George L. Marsh. president : Isaac U. Wheeler, cashier.
RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES.
In the summer of 1842 Elders Alva Burgess and Phipps W. Lake as- sembled resident Baptists in William Birge's barn for permanent organization. Elder A. B. Winchell was engaged for service on alternate Sundays. . church was built in 1850, and a second one was undertaken several years later. a fine-looking building of cut stone: but this was sold without having finished it. There is, no doubt, a record of pastoral services, not hidden, but in unknown custody.
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Martin Lonigan with his family came in 1844 to section 23, about three miles from the village. At his house Rev. Thomas Morrissey came from Milwaukee in 1845 to say mass, and for a period not recorded he held like service each month at this and other dwellings. Rev. Fathers Kernan and Smith continued this mission work. as did Very Rev. Martin Kundig after them, and he also gave money for a church building fund. Nora Moore's baptism. December 28, 1853, by Rev. James Doyle, was the first at the new St. Patrick's church. John Tiernan supplied the short interval before Richard Dumphy came to the village in 1857 as first resident-priest. After him were Thaddeus Kirwan, 1869; Francis Xavier Etechmann for one month of that year : Hiram F. Fairbanks, 1870 : James Fitzgibbon, 1881 ; Sylvester J. Dowl- ing, part of 1897: Francis P. Reilly, 1897: Matthew E. Downs, 1903-1912. In 1866 a new church was built, with house, schoolhouse and other improve- ments costing in all about twelve thousand dollars.
Father Fitzgibbon had been Mr. Lincoln's personal friend, and from him received in 1861 the military chaplaincy at Harper's Ferry. In the later years of his long pastorate at Whitewater he was assisted in turn by Fathers E. P. Lorigan, Philip Klein, M. E. Downs, and S. J. Dowling. He was born in 1827 and died February 5, 1897. Father Downs is a native of Delavan.
Justus and Wealthy .\. Carpenter, Deacon Prosper Cravath and wife Miriam (Kinney ), their daughter-in-law Maria P. and daughter Sophronia Cravath, Harriet, James, Roxy and Zerah Hull, Zerah and Ada Kinney, Emily (Cravath) Salisbury, Laura (Cravath) Smith, and Jenny ( McGee) Williams met July 3. 1840, at Deacon Cravath's house in Lima, led by Rev. Daniel Smith, to form the Presbyterian church of Whitewater. Most of these be- came residents at or near the village. For a few months they met at the larger houses of the members, and in June, 1841, housed themselves, for service, at the log schoolhouse, or, in pleasant weather, met under the old trees. In 1842 they met, alternately with the Baptists, on the upper floor of Mr. Weed's wagon shop. In this or in the next year the Congregationalists built a church at cost of four hundred dollars, on a lot with eight rods front, given by Doctor Tripp for one dollar. This society built again in 1850, and a third time in 1871. This church was burned February 9, 1880, by which event the society's loss was twenty-five thousand dollars. Rebuilding, on a more liberal scale than before, began at once. The list of pastors, with dates of service, is full, continuous and correct, thanks to the kindly helpfulness of one of its congrega- tion : Daniel Smith, 1839; Seth Smalley, 1841; F. Henry Case, 1842: Martin ยท P. Kinney, 1844: William Sidney Huggins, 1853: William A. Baldwin, 1854: Edward Goddard Miner, 1859; Theron Gaylord Colton, 1866; Benjamin
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Drake Conklin, 1874; Edward P. Salmon, 1880; Theodore B. Willson, 1882; Frank T. Lee, 1884; Elihu C. Barnard, 1888; Bryant C. Preston, 1896; Frederick V. Stevens, 1900; Watson L. Lewis, 1906; Robert Hopkin, 191I. AIr. Colton was born in 1820 and died in 1896. Mr. Conklin was born in 1840 and died in 1908.
Rev. Richard F. Cadle canie in 1842 to form an Episcopal parish. He held service in the useful log school house. ( Rev. Washington Philo had been here in the previous year. ) But it was not until 1852 that St. Luke's parish was permanently organized. Doctor Tripp had given a lot at Church and Center streets. His widow, Rosepha Ann (Comstock), was one of the early few and always faithful. In that year a chapel was built, and was conse- crated by Rt. Rev. Jackson Kemper. This building was burned February 17, 1869, and the corner stone of a new church, of gray stone, was laid in July. In 1880 Mrs. Flavia White gave a fine organ as a memorial to her son, Hon. Samuel Austin White. She had given a bell, worth five hundred dollars, to the chapel. The parish property is now valued at twenty-five thousand dol- lars. With occasional intermissions in the earlier years the service of this church has been supplied by L. R. Ilumphrey, 1851-62; Henry W. Spaulding, 1864-5: John McNamara, 1865-8: W. E. Walker, 1868; Charles J. Hendley, 1870; Erastus B. Smith, 1872; Rufus D. Stearns, 1873; Andrew J. McGlone, 1883; Smith Delancey Townsend. 1884; Joseph Marshall Francis, 1887; Jolin Howe Jenkins, 1889; Joseph Moran, Jr., 1890; Myron Alfred Johnson, 1896; Henry Benton Smith, 1900; Daniel Wellesley Wise, 1904; Rudolph Frederick Keicher, 1907-12. Mr. Francis was consecrated in 1899 as bishop of the diocese of Indiana. Mr. McNamara had been rector at Delavan, Elkhorn, Lake Geneva, and had served as chaplain of a volunteer regiment of 1861. Mr. Moran was killed by a railway accident in 1900
Rev. Johann M. Hametter and Rev. Johann Meier supplied in 1856 thie missions at Cold Spring and Whitewater of the Evangelical Association, here a German-speaking body whose creed and discipline ally it to Methodism. In 1865 the two missions joined in one and in 1869 built a church and parsonage in Janesville street. The minister list is : J. G. Mueller, 1857 : C. A. Schnake, 1859; Wilhel F. Schneider, 1861: Joseph Harlacher, 1863; J. G. Eslinger, 1865: Johann Meier, 1866; Johann M. Hametter and Tobias Rabus, 1868; Wilhelm Huelster, 1869: Carl Friedrich Zimmermann, 1870; John Dietrich, 1872; F. William Pfefferkorn, 1873; Carl Schneider, 1876; Leonard Strobel, 1879: Julius Kahl, 1881: F. Dite. 1884; J. A. Siewert. 1887; John Schneller, 1800: F. Illian, 1892; John E. Klein, 1895; August F. Haberman, 1897;' Michael Uebele, 1898; Emanuel S. Zimmermann, 1901 ; George Reichert, 1000; Herman .A. Franzke, 1909-12.
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St. John's Evangelical Lutheran church, of the unaltered Augsburg con- fession of 1580, was organized May 17, 1881. The society bought one of the old church buildings, beside which is a comfortable parsonage. Before organization Rev. Heinrich Ernst had ministered to the few families from 1865 to 1872, and Christian Johann Koerner to 1880. George Wildermuth came in 1881, Heinrich Bergmann, 1882; W. Huth, 1883; Henry Ohde, 1887- 1912.
Norwegian Lutherans of Heart Prairie, Scuppernong, Sugar Creek and Whitewater have long been joined under one pastorate. A few of the pastors named were Germans who were also masters of the Norsk tongue. Johann Wilhelm Christian Dietrichson came in 1844 to Scuppernong in the north- west corner of Lagrange: Claus Lauritz Clausen, 1845 ; Adolph Carl Preuss. 1850; Hans Andreas Stub, about 1851: Mr. Preuss again in 1855: Nels Brandt, 1856: Olavus Frederick Duus, resident pastor, November, 1858, to June, 1859. The parish was organized formally December 8. 1858. Rev. Herman Amberg Preuss came in 1859, Heinrich P. Duborg in 1861. In Mr. Duborg's ten years pastorate the four congregations previously named were definitely grouped in one pastorate. Mr. Duborg's field of usefulness reached also to Elkhorn, and across into Kenosha county. He was at times assisted by Herman A. Preuss, Abraham Jacobson, Marcus Frederick R. Wiese, and William Koern, all of whom are named in the record at Whitewater. Carl Christian Aas came in 1871; Eskild Peter Jensen. 1876: Christian Matthias Hvistendal, 1880; Rev. Prof. Knudt Bjoergo, 1881; A. H. Dahl, 1881; Iver O. Schie. 1882: Ole Johnson Akre, 1901 : Nels Cornelius A. Garness, 1907-12. These services are without noticeable interruption. The first church was built in 1868 in Cravath street near Wakeley street, and is now a hospital. Ole Bull, the once world-famous violinist, gave one hundred dollars to build this church. In 1907 the society bought the stone church at Main and Fourth streets, built by the Baptists.
In the summer of 1843 a Methodist Episcopal society was organized by Rev. Alpha Warren, of Johnstown. A class of five members was formed with Talma Hamilton as leader. Until 1848 this church was joined with that at Milton for pastoral service, and the service at Whitewater then became weekly. In 1849 the frame work of a church building was raised, but was not ready for dedication until February, 1852. It was enlarged and again dedicated in 1860. A third building was begun in 1872 and finished in 1878 at a cost of thirty thousand dollars. It is said to be one of the finest Methodist churches, excepting at Milwaukee, in the state. This church is at Centre and Prairie streets, in the neighborhood of the Catholic, Episcopal and other churches, the
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public schools, and the normal school is but little farther away. The ground is high and gives some dignity to the outwardness of these buildings. The pastor-list is, as usual to this denomination, rather a long one: Alpha War- ren, 1843 and again in 1846; L. Gallup and William Wood, 1844; Nelson S. Green and Joseph S. Hurlbut, 1845; Mr. Green in 1846; M. Bennett, 1847; 1 .. Dickens, 1848; James Harrington, 1849; William B. Schroff, 1849; J. N. Scott, 1850; Joseph M. Walker, 1851 ; A. D. Hendrickson, 1856; George W. Robinson. 1859 (but this may be another clergyman's name) ; Alexander C. Huntley, 1860; William Harkness Sampson, 1861 ; Rossiter C. Parsons, 1862; Rufus H. Stinchfield, 1864; Eli W. Kirkham, 1865: A. C. Manwell, 1868; Charles N. Stowers, 1870: Oliver J. Cowles, 1873: A. A. Reed, 1874; George W. Wells, 1877: Henry Sewell. 1880; Henry Colman, 1883: Samuel Jolliffe, 1885; Andrew J. Benjamin, 1887; Walter D. Cole 1892: Walter A. Hall, 1895; Enoch Perry, 1897; George H. Trever, 1901; John J. Lugg, 1904; James Churm. 1907 : John S. Lean, 1900: Charles F. Spray, 1911.
Universalists organized early in 1868, began building in the fall, and in the next year dedicated their church, its cost ten thousand dollars. Barton FF. Rogers, Judson Fisher and Holmes Slade filled the pulpit for the next dozen years. Frederick C. Millar came about 1894.
EDUCATION.
No tax was levied to build the school house of 1840, but citizens gave logs and labor, each one in proportion to his good will and his power to give, and thus was enclosed sixteen by eighteen feet ground space. Though this house had served three or four infant religious societies as a meeting house, and the citizens for various secular purposes, it was found as early as 1844 that yet more room was needful wherein to seat the fast-coming and faster- growing youths and maidens before the awful majesty of the teacher. For the sum of two hundred and forty dollars Thomas Van Horn built the new house of brick, twenty-four by twenty-eight feet in ground dimensions, and thence enclosing two and one-third times the floor space of the log house. This was building for the present with a sharp outlook for time to come. But neither pre-calculator nor prophet could then forecast the village growth when ten years later the inserutable but in this instance unerring judgment of railway buiklers should mark Whitewater as a suitable place at which to stop trains for wood and water and to load or unload passengers from the palace-like coach of the period which gracefully trailed at the rear of thirty or more freight cars which, too, were of the period.
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There was new matter for public discussion in 1852. Another school house must be provided. Then the many-mindedness of many men was again evident and audible. Some men would provide for teaching only the three R's. Others would add one department for most-advanced pupils. A few others would join academic and collegiate courses of study to the common school course, and by borrowing money, if need be. would do this work greatly for Whitewater. George W. Chapman and James Ludington, of Milwaukee, had bought in 1850 of William Birge, about seventy acres and had laid out this land in streets and blocks as their addition, next westward of the Tripp " plat. They offered to the academy partisans four lots in block 18, at the northeast corner of their addition. Subscriptions to the amount of eighteen hundred dollars were obtained, but further action was delayed for a year. In the end the district decided by vote to build at block 21, facing the westward extension of Centre street, and this is yet the site of the public school. The new house was ready for use at the beginning of 1855. It has been known as the Union school. A second house was built here in 1867, at a cost of four thousand dollars. The present house was built in 1883 at a cost of thirteen thousand dollars, and has since been improved.
An academic department at the normal school was for long so convenient for Whitewater pupils that a high school was not instituted until 1885. With city government in that year came a high school building and city superintend- ency of schools. These officers relieve the county superintendency of official duty at Whitewater. They have been: Dr. Edward L. Carey, 1885; Dr. Moses Furlong, 1886 and 1889: Theron B. Pray, 1888 and 1893; Charles H. Sylvester, 1891; Ehner W. Walker, 1894; Arthur .\. Upham, 1896; Henry C. Buell, 1900; W. W. Martin, 1901 ; Charles H. Rittenberg, 1903-12. For the same period of time the principals of the high school have been : William J. Pollock, 1886: W. D. Gibson, 1888; Charles II. Sylvester, 1891; Elmer W. Walker, 1892; Harry A. Whipple, 1896; Henry C. Buell, 1899; W. W. Martin, 1901 ; Charles H. Rittenberg. 1903-12. It has now become customary to make the principal in fact city superintendent, with two more city schools in his charge.
In 1857 a brick school house was built next east of Grove cemetery at cost of sixteen hundred dollars. The present building dates from 1872, its cost about four thousand dollars. In 1894 the city bought the Esterly house and ground at the head of Centre street to serve as a west side school, though it is but a short distance from the principal school.
The annalists have preserved but few names of earlier teachers, and most of these so initialed as to have but half-preserved them. As teachers of select
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school. J. B. Hunt in 1846, Ebenezer H. Wilcox in 1847, D. W. Carley in 1849. The last-named was used to tell his slow pupils that he would make them learn fractions if it should take him and them all summer. Perhaps he had taught at Galena, or at one of General Grant's old homes. At the log school Sheldon C. Powers, from Troy, was first teacher and Frederick Cady Patterson in 1842 at the brick school, followed by Dr. John Dunn, and in 1844 by Charles E. Curtice. At the school in Centre street "a regular system," as Mr. Cravath tells it-which probably meant the organization in four grades, then customary at villages-began with A. A. Lewis as principal in 1855, Rev. A. D. Hendrickson in 1858, H. L. Sherman in 1859, Dr. F. B. Brewer in 1861. Joseph A. Badger in 1863, Elias Dewey about 1869, George W. Reagle, 1879. All else is uncertain or now unknown. Before and after 1885 Luther L. Clark seems to have served several terms at the Union school and also at the east side school. The presence of the normal school has been of great advantage to local pupilage, and has had a wholesome influence in the community in forming a liberal sentiment as to the support of schools of high grade. Broad-minded and in other way capable men of the city, as, for instances. Thompson D. Weeks and Samuel A. White, have been of the board of normal school regents.
Henry J. Curtice issued the first number of the Whitewater Gazette, January 5, 1855. It was a weekly Republican newspaper, fairly edited and neatly printed, and compared favorably with village newspapers of the time in this state. Its editor was A. Valentine. Its last number was dated January 1. 1857. whence it seems that its publication day had receded from Friday to Wednesday. It was then the property of Dr. J. A. Leonard, with A. Emer- son as editor. The office equipment was removed to Waukesha.
Hamilton L. and Lallemand H. Rann, who were brothers, came in their stead and with new, well-assorted materials. They published on Friday. March 25. 1857. the first number of the Whitewater Register. These young men were excellent news, book and job printers and were also capable editors. Whitewater had now one of the cleanest and best weekly papers in Wisconsin. This office supplied at least three soldiers of the Civil war : 1 .. HI. Rann, George W. Peck (long afterwards Governor of the state), and George H. Beckwith. 1. 11. Ran left the firm in 1868 and Horace Greeley Parsons became junior partner. Dr. E. G. Benjamin bought the office in 1870 and lightened the burden of editorship by buying half-printed sheets from an "auxiliary" publisher.
Edwin D. Coe became owner and editor in 1871. He printed it wholly at home, and the Register at once took its place near the head of the front
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rank of weekly newspapers of the state: for it now had a quality of editor- ship that even the Ranns could not have given it. No editor at Whitewater could at all times, in every column, please all Whitewater ; for the growth of the city brought conflicting interests and jarring notions-differences not all at once to be removed or compromised. But however they who differed with or from Mr. Coe might judge him, there was but one opinion of the Register among his fellow editors throughout the state. It was the most desirable paper on their several exchange lists. From the mid-period of his editorship other duties at home, at Madison, and at Milwaukee, made division of editor- ial labors urgent. He then associated with him successively Howard S. Salis- bury, Henry E. Roethe, Edward S. Hanson and Robert K. Coe, his son. At his death, in 1909, this son became proprietor and editor.
Pitt N. Cravath, the brilliant and wayward only son of the pioneer- annalist, published the first number of the Puddingstick, in June, 1879. To his mind local opinions on constantly arising matters for more or less public discussion suggested a large kettle of boiling, bubbling, sputtering, hasty- pudding, or, in the vulgate. mush. These needed only a little culinary atten- tion, a judicious stirring to prevent burning at bottom, and the results would be palatable and nutritious. The name of the paper was indicated at its title- head by a home-cut engraving, as like an oar as a puddingstick. It was a cause of much rushing of wit to editorial heads elsewhere, and the name was soon changed to Whitewater Chronicle. At first it was politically independent. then leaned indulgently toward prohibition, and in 1884 became squarely Democratic. This change may have moved all the Cravath bones, until then long at rest at Lima and Whitewater, to sorrowful protest.
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