USA > Wisconsin > Walworth County > History of Walworth county, Wisconsin, Volume II > Part 58
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After his military career Mr. Weaver returned to Walworth county and for about two years rented a farm, then moved to Johnson county, Missouri, where he bought a farm and there made his home for eleven years, then sold out, moved back to Walworth county and resumed farming, living near Delavan lake on a large farm for seven years. Then sold out and moved to (84)
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Whitewater, where his son was attending the State Normal School, and bought a home there. After the son finished school they sold their home and bought a farm in Richmond township and lived there two and one-half years, then bought a farm in Sugar Creek township, about five miles north of Elkhorn, and lived there until the children were all grown up and married. Two years later they sold the farm, and the parents spent several months visiting among their children at Beloit, Kansas, and Denver, Colorado, then came back to Elk- horn where they have since resided.
Silas E. Weaver was married July 20. 1863, to Amanda Loomer, daugh- ter of Leonard and Asenath ( Loomer ) Loomer. Her parents were both born in Nova Scotia, and when her father was nineteen years old he. emigrated to Walworth county, Wisconsin, and entered government land in Sugar Creek township. This was in the early pioneer days, and Indians were often seen; there were but a few houses in Milwaukee, and the country was a vast forest, full of wild game. He came here with his father, Stephen Loomer. After entering land the father returned to Nova Scotia and brought the rest of the family to this county. Stephen Loomer had been married, and there were four children by the first union, a son Leonard, and three daughters, Harriet, Hulda and Unity. Leonard's mother had died in Nova Scotia and there the father had married again, by which union there were two sons, Stephen and Simeon. All these children came back to Walworth county with their father. Asenath Loomer was the daughter of Jonathan and Sophia (Jess) Loomer, a native of Nova Scotia. She came here with her parents soon after Leonard Loomer's parents came. Her people also located in Sugar Creek township. Leonard Loomer and she were married when the former was about twenty- five years old, and she twenty, and they spent the rest of their lives in Sugar Creek township.
Silas E. Weaver was assessor of Sugar Creek township while living there. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic.
Five children have been born to Silas E. Weaver and wife, named as fol- lows: Sarah Asenath married Edward James and they have lived at Beloit, Kansas, since 1890, and have four children, Walter Edward, Leonard Weaver, Paul and Ruth : Elvira B. is the widow of John G. White, deceased, he having been a soldier in the Civil war.
After the close of the war John G. White lived in Philadelphia, Pennsyl- vania, in the employ of the government for some time, later engaging in the insurance business and was administrator of estates in Milwaukee, in which city he and his wife resided until 1903. when they moved to Elkhorn and built
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a fine home, and here his death occurred in July, 1904. She had one son, Philip Weaver White, whose birth occurred on September 5, 1901.
George W. Weaver, the third child born to Silas E. Weaver and wife, lives in Sugar Creek township, five and one-half miles from Elkhorn. He married Rose Hooper, of Palmyra, this state, and they have five children, Marian, Curtis, James, Rose and Eleanor. Harriet Weaver married Dr. Frank Burton, of Lagrange township, and they live in Denver, Colorado; they have three children, Winifred Jean, John and Harriet. Edith Amanda Weaver married Horace M. Gring, a builder and real estate dealer in Denver, Colorado; their union has been without issue.
AUSTIN C. MAXON.
A name known to every one who has the slightest acquaintance with the history of Walworth township and the southern part of the county of which this history deals is Austin C. Maxon, a worthy scion of a prominent old family, members of which have figured in the material, civic and moral up- building of the locality. He is an energetic, farseeing man of affairs, whose judgment and discretion are seldom at fault, and who merits the high esteem in which he is held, owing to his exemplary career.
Mr. Maxon was born in Walworth township, this county, March 29, 1836. He is the son of Edgar R. and Emily W. (Rogers) Maxon, and the grandson of Asa Allen Maxon. Edgar R. Maxon was born October 17, 1823. in Petersburg, Rensselaer county, New York, and at Cape Vincent, that state, he married Emily W. Rogers, a daughter of Austin Rogers, a native of Massachusetts, from which state he came to Cape Vincent, New York, when young and there spent the rest of his life, dying when past ninety years of age.
Edgar R. Maxon was a wheelwright by trade, also followed carpentering in New York. In 1849 he came to Walworth county and lived on the farm that his father, Asa L. Maxon, had bought in Walworth township. He bought a farm of his own about 1852, eighty acres in section 33 and forty acres in section 34, also forty acres in section 35. He made his home there until about 1885, then moved to the village of Walworth in which he bought a home where he lived until his death, January 12, 1907, and there his widow still resides. He had been a member of the county board of supervisors several times, and he was for a number of years secretary of the Walworth Mutual Insurance Company, of which he was one of the originators. He was a
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stanch Republican, a worthy member of the Seventh-Day Baptist church from an early date and a deacon in the local congregation for many years. He was a good and useful man, a leader in local public affairs. There were three children in his family that grew to maturity, one dying in infancy, and a daugh- ter, Ella J. died in 1861; Austin C., of this sketch; Jenny, who married Henry B. Gregg, lives at Madison ; May J., who married Prof. Henry Krueger, of Milwaukee, lives in that city, he being a teacher in the public schools there.
Austin C. Maxon grew to manhood on the home farm and received his education in the common schools of his community and in Milton College for two years. On December 31, 1877. he was united in marriage with Alice Simons, daughter of William Maxson Simons and Susan A. (Walker) Si- mons. Susan A. Walker was a sister of the father of Oliver H. Walker, a sketch of whom appears in this work. Mr. Simons was born in Madison county, New York, and there he and Susan A. Walker were married. She had come to Madison county in infancy with her parents from Massachusetts, and there Alice Simons, wife of the subject, was born and lived until 1864, when she came with her parents to Walworth county, Wisconsin, locating in Walworth township on April. Ist of that year, her father buying a farm there on which he spent the rest of his life, dying in 1882. his widow surviving until April 23, 1903, dying in the village of Walworth.
Five children were born to Mr. and Mrs. William M. Simons, namely : William Henry, who lives at Oakland, California; Perry was a soldier in the Civil war and he died November 3, 1864, having enlisted in the spring of 1864: Mary A. died September 12. 1862, when twelve years old; Elmer lives at Holly, New York; Alice, wife of Mr. Maxon, of this sketch. was a twin of Elmer.
After his marriage Austin C. Maxon continued farming on his father's place and here he has remained ever since, keeping the old farm well improved and well tilled, so that he has met with a large measure of success from year to year as a general farmer and stock raiser, keeping abreast of the times in everything that pertains to twentieth-century agricultural pursuits.
To the subject and wife one child, a son, has been born, Perry LaVerne, whose birth occurred January 30, 1879. He married Edith Hicks and lives on his own farm adjoining that of his father and he has a good start in life. His wife was born at Colchester, England, and is the daughter of John B. and Mary Hicks, who still live in England. LaVerne Maxon and wife have three children. Edgar. Dorothy Mary and Raymond.
Austin C. Maxon is a member of the Modern Woodmen and the Masonic
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order. Mr. Maxon is probably the oldest settler, in point of continuous resi- dence, in the southern part of Walworth township, and his fine place, known as "Maple Lawn Farm," is one of the choice landed estates in this part of the county. He is a man of splendid physique, and his manners are genial, oblig- ing and a ready friend maker, so that he enjoys the esteem of all who know him.
G. DELOS PIERCE.
Success has come to G. Delos Pierce because he has worked for it along legitimate lines and has not permitted the sordid things of earth to take the place of his better and higher nature. He has dealt honestly with his fellow men and has therefore won their respect and confidence.
Mr. Pierce was born in Otsego county, New York, March 21, 1850. ,He is the son of Delos Pierce, Sr., and Theodosia (Collins) Pierce. The latter, born in Otsego county, New York, was the daughter of Hezekiah and Hannah (Noble) Collins.
When Delos Pierce was about eighteen years old the family moved to Paris, New York, then came to, Walworth county, Wisconsin. He grew up on the home farm. The family located in the east side of Walworth township where they bought a farm, on which the parents lived until old age, then moved to Fontana and spent their last days there with their daughter. They had nine children, of whom Delos was the oldest; Libby was married to Fred Taylor and lives in Florida; Adell married Ellis Sutherland and lives at Nashua, Iowa ; Rowland and Rollin, twins, are both deceased ; Clarence is also deceased ; Nettie married Albert Cook and lives at Nashua, Iowa; Hannah is the wife of Milton Blackford and lives in Delavan: John lives in the northern part of Walworth township. The father of these children died the last Wednesday in November, 1906, his wife having preceded him to the grave in the spring of 1905.
Delos Pierce lived on the home farm until he was married, in October, 1881, to Adelia Wilson, daughter of John G. and Charlotte (Maxon) Wil- son, a sketch of which family appears on another page of this work. Mrs. Pierce was born in Boone county, Illinois, and her parents came from Jeffer- son county, New York. John G. Wilson was of Dutch ancestry and came from Pennsylvania to New York. Charlotte Maxon was the daughter of Asa and Julia Maxon, early settlers here, a record of whose lives is given in the sketch of N. Dwight Maxon. Mrs. Pierce's mother died when she was an
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infant and she was then taken by her mother's parents here and grew up in their home.
After his marriage Delos Pierce began farming for himself on a farm just south of his father's place and there he has lived most of his life since. In the spring of 1910 he gave up farming and moved into Walworth where he bought a nice home on the east side of the village. He is a member of the Masonic order and the Modern Woodmen. One daughter was born to Mr and Mrs. Pierce, Hazel, who died when four years old.
JOHN GREGG WILSON.
The life of the sterling pioneer, John Gregg Wilson, may be held up as an example worthy of careful consideration by the youth of the land whose destinies are yet for the future to determine.
Mr. Wilson was born November 22, 1824, in Jefferson county, New York, being the son of Victor and Elizabeth (Carpenter) Wilson. Victor Wilson was the son of John Gregg Wilson and Sarah (Newkirk) Wilson. The father of Victor Wilson was probably born in New York City, and he was the son of Irish parents. He was a soldier in Washington's army during the American Revolution, taking part in the siege of Yorktown and he saw the surrender of Cornwallis. Often in his old age he recalled the sour looks of the Scotch Highlanders as they marched between the two lines of victorious Americans. He was only a boy when he entered the patriot army : his two brothers, both officers, got him into the army. He drew a pension after the war.
The parents of the subject were both born in 1800 in Montgomery county, New York, and soon after their marriage moved to Jefferson county, New York, where the subject lived until 1849. In the fall of that year he came west and located in this county, his parents remaining in New York and there they died, in Jefferson county. The subject was about twenty-nine years old when he came here. He worked the first year near Walworth, then bought land in Illinois south of Sharon, and lived there five years, then sold out and bought a farm in the south half of section 29, in Linn township, this county, and he lived there until in March, 1892, when he moved to Hebron; however, he kept the farm about ten years. After a year at Hebron he moved to Sharon and was there several years, then went back to. Hebron. He now lives with his son-in-law, Harvey R. Hatch, of Zenda.
ยท
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Mr. Wilson was married first on September 18, 1849, in New York to Charlotte Maxon, daughter of Asa L. and Julia Maxon. Her people came here and settled in Walworth, and their numerous and well known descend- ants still live there. Mrs. Wilson died on November 23, 1854, leaving three children, Victor, who died when eleven years old; Julia died when nine years old; Adelia is the wife of Delos Pierce and lives in Walworth, this county.
Mr. Wilson was again married in 1857 to Lucetta J. Mccollum, daugh- ter of James Alexander and Lucetta (Walker) McCollum, the latter born in Eugene, Indiana. Her father was from New Hampshire and her mother from Michigan. These parents came from Indiana to Boone county, Illi- nois, and there they spent the rest of their lives.
Seven children were born to Mr. Wilson and his second wife, namely: Douglass died when three years old; he and the two children of the first marriage all died within three weeks of diphtheria. Harriet Wilson mar- ried Harvey R. Hatch, of Zenda; Mary is the wife of R. H. Stewart and lives at Urbana, Illinois; James Harlan lives a mile northwest of Hebron; Ada is the wife of Duane Cornue, of Hebron; John Franklin is now super- intendent of schools at Ashland, Wisconsin; Luella is the wife of W. J. Clarkson and lives at Omaha, Nebraska. The mother of these children died August 18, 1905, after nearly fifty years of married life.
Mr. Wilson has been a member of the town board several times, but has never been active in politics. He is a member of the Methodist church, as was also his wife.
JESSE GARFIELD MAXON, M. D.
Some one has aptly said, "He serves the Master best who serves human- ity most." There is no class to whom we owe more gratitude than the self- sacrificing, self-denying, noble-minded men whose life work is the alleviation of suffering and the ministering of comfort to the afflicted, to the end that the span of human existence may be lengthened and a greater degree of sat -. isfaction enjoyed during the remainder of their sojourn. Among the physi- cians and surgeons of Walworth county and vicinity who are proficient in their chosen calling and are conscientious workers in the sphere to which their life energies are being devoted, the name of Dr. Jesse G. Maxon, of Harvard, Illinois, who, while yet young in years, has shown a profound knowledge of his profession.
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Doctor Maxon was born a mile south of the village of Walworth, Wal- worth county, Wisconsin, June 9, 1880. He is a scion of one of the prom- inent old families of this locality, being the son of Henry J. and Phebe (Howland) Maxon. Phebe Howland was descended directly in the seventh or eighth generation from John Howland, the last survivor of the Pilgrims who came over in the "Mayflower" in 1620. For a complete history of the Maxon family the reader is referred to the sketch of N. Dwight Maxon, ap- pearing on another page of this work.
Dr. Jesse G. Maxon grew to manhood on the home farm in Walworth township, this county, and he was graduated from the Walworth high school in 1897, then took a course in the normal department of the University of New Mexico, located at Albuquerque, New Mexico, from which he was grad- uated in 1901. He has a natural talent for music. and he studied this art at Milton College, being graduated from the musical department there in 1902, and he was also graduated from the scientific department of that institution. receiving the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1904. Thus exceptionally well equipped for the world's work, he began his career by teaching, which he followed two years at Jackson, Wisconsin, as principal of the public schools. Turning his attention to medicine, he entered Hahnemann Medical College at Chicago in the fall of 1906 where he made a splendid record, graduating in May. 1910, and in June of that year he received the degree of Master of Arts from Milton College. While in school he spent his summer vacations as assistant on the United States geological survey in Colorado and New Mex- ico, a very interesting work from which he received much benefit. He also put in part of the time as an assistant of the Wisconsin state fish commission, also attended a summer session at the University of Wisconsin, and he spent two summers in the hospitals while taking his medical course.
Doctor Maxon located in Harvard, Illinois, in August, 1910, and here he has devoted himself to the practice ever since with constantly increasing success, and has built up a fine practice in this locality, being thoroughly well informed in recent medical research and in up-to-date ways of treating va- rious diseases. And the future for him will evidently be replete with suc- cess of a very high order.
The Doctor is a thirty-second-degree Mason and a member of the An- cient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He is a man of refined. upright character, broad-minded, genial and is eminently deserving of the high esteem in which he is held by all classes.
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MRS. ELIZA SPENSLEY.
Wholly devoted to home and domestic duties, doing through all the best years of her life the lowly but sacred work that comes within her sphere, there is not much to record concerning the life of the average woman. And yet what situation so dignified, what relation so endearing, what office so holy, tender and ennobling as those of home-making wifehood and mother- hood? A celebrated writer and biographer once said that the future destiny of a great nation depended upon its wives and mothers. May this not also be said concerning the future that is blood of her blood, and which is incal- culable of results and will never be fully known until eternity solves the problem? In the settlement of the great Middle West woman bore her full share of hardships, sufferings and vicissitudes, helping man in the rugged toil of wood and field, cheering him when cast down and discouraged, shar- ing his dangers, mitigating his sufferings, in the end quietly and unostenta- tiously rejoicing in his success, yet ever keeping herself modestly in the back- ground and permitting her liege lord to enjoy all the glory of their mutual achievements. In a biographical compendium, such as this work is intended to be, women should have no insignificant representation. As a man's equal in every qualification save the physical, and his superior in the gentle and loving amenities of life, she fully merits a much larger notice than she ordinarily receives, and the writer of these lines is optimistic enough to indulge the prediction that in a no distant future she will receive due credit for the im- portant part she acts in life's great drama and be accorded her proper place in biography and history.
The foregoing paragraph was suggested after a perusal of the leading facts in the life record of the worthy and highly respected lady whose name furnishes the caption of this article, a lady who has done well her part in the world and whose career from the beginning has been a simple, but beau- tiful poem of rugged, toilsome duty, faithfully but uncomplainingly per- formed as maiden, wife and mother.
Mrs. Eliza Spensley, of the village of Walworth, widow of Robert Spensley, deceased, is a daughter of Deacon John Reader, one of the leaders in pioneer times in Walworth county. A complete sketch of this noble char- acter appears on another page of this work. His daughter, the subject, well remembers the conditions prevailing here during the early settlement of Wal- worth and talks interestingly of life in those remote days. She was born in Oneida county, New York, and came to this county in the fall of 1837 with
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her parents and the rest of the children, all constituting a large family. The father had been here in 1836 and entered land and proved it and did all he could toward erecting a log cabin and getting ready to bring his family here. Being the first settler in that part of the county, he had no neighbors, conse- quently no one to help him. Thus in the western part of Walworth town- ship, which was a wilderness, the haunts of wolf, deer and other kindreds of the wild and "watchers of the trail," Eliza Reader grew to womanhood. In 1856 she was united in marriage with Robert Spensley, who was born June 14, 1825, in Lincolnshire, England. He was the son of John and Sarah Spensley, both natives of England, where they lived and died, and there their son, Robert, grew to manhood, finally emigrating to America and taking up his abode in Walworth county, Wisconsin, in the year 1850, boarding with Deacon Reader. He followed farming and after his marriage bought part of the Reader homestead and there he and his wife lived until 1884, then moved to Dell Rapids, South Dakota, where Mr. Spensley bought a farm of two hundred acres, for which he paid eleven dollars and fifty cents an acre and lived there sixteen years, reaping his usual large rewards as a general farmer and stock raiser. A church house had been erected in his neighborhood, but the congregation was heavily in debt and were dis- couraged, ready to give up the struggle. At this crisis Mrs. Spensley felt that she had been guided there providentially. She was much in earnest in her desire that the church continue, for she wanted her children to grow up under Christian influence. So she went back and solicited funds for this church, doing her work with a zeal befitting the motives that actuated it, and she deposited the sum of eighteen hundred dollars for the church, in her own name, in order to insure its proper use in liquidating the debt. This church is now a power for good in its community. She also took an abiding inter- est in the public schools and for eleven years was treasurer of the school board at Dell Rapids. Her own chances for schooling had been meager, she having learned to write from copy written for her on the ground by her mother, and these copies the young girl had practiced on while herding cat- tle in the early days of the family home in Walworth township. She was very earnest in assisting the children of a later generation in obtaining the advantages which she lacked.
Mr. Spensley's health began to fail and after sixteen years in Dakota he sold his farm and returned with his family to Walworth county and here spent the rest of his life, dying on June 22, 1907.
Five children were born to Robert Spensley and wife, namely: Dallas
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married Ora Sawyer and they had two children, Erma and Elma; his first wife died and he married Elizabeth Tabor; the death of Dallas occurred on April 10, 1903, at Walworth, at the age of forty-five years and seven months. Deloss Spensley, who married Melissa Hunt, of this county, went to Dell Rapids in 1884 and is farming there still; his family consists of four children, Carrie, Rena, Belle and Earle. Clara Spensley married Thomas McConnell and they have three sons, Robert, Claude and Clifford; this family lives at Toma, Wisconsin. Herbert Spensley married Etta Adams of Wal- worth, and he is an electrician here. Frank Spensley married Edith Sizer and they have two children, Walter and Nina; he is farming at Toma. The first two children of the subject, Dallas and Deloss, were twins.
Robert Spensley was a man of upright character who took great pains in the rearing of his children. He was a worthy member of the Walworth Baptist church, to which Mrs. Eliza Spensley also belongs. Mrs. Spensley now resides in Walworth with her sons. She is a woman of strong char- acter, neighborly, hospitable, always ready to help in times of need or dis- tress, and she has a host of warm personal friends wherever she is known.
WILLIS D. ECKERSON.
This gentleman is another of the old soldiers whom it is a delight to honor. They are getting fewer and fewer in number and their march is not as quick and full of meaning and fire as it was fifty years ago when they were fighting for the perpetuity of the Union. But it thrills one to see them in their old uniforms, with their tattered flags flying and their forms bent as they hobble along on their canes at reunions, or on Memorial Day or the Fourth of July. And how interesting it is to hear them tell the story of the dreadful hardships they endured in the hospitals or on the harassing marches, or in the battles and skirmishes, or in the prison hells of the Southern Confederacy. But their time is short now, so all persons should join in honoring them for the sacrifices they made when they were young and full of the love of life, but which was offered free on the altar of their country. Mr. Eckerson's uncle David, one of our early pioneers, came to the lake district here when it was a wild stretch of forest and unknown to the outside world, or at least very little known.
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