USA > Wisconsin > Rock County > Rock County, Wisconsin; a new history of its cities, villages, towns, citizens and varied interests, from the earliest times, up to date, Vol. II > Part 23
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In 1887 Mr. Winans received the Democratic votes of mem- bers of the legislature for United States senator in opposition to Philetus Sawyer, and upon the assembling of the national conven- tion of Democratic clubs, held in Baltimore on July 4, 1888, was made chairman of that body. He was upon several occasions chosen as an elector on the national ticket or a delegate to the national conventions.
From all of the foregoing it will be correctly inferred that Mr. Winans was a leader of men. It may be added that he was
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such by inherent strength of character, and that the offices which he held came to him as a free gift from the people. After a lingering illness he died at his home in Janesville on January 17, 1907.
Isaac Woodle was born at Washington, Washington county, Pa., November 9, 1819, and lived there until he attained his majority; was graduated from Washington College in 1840, and soon afterward became a resident of Janesville, Wis., where he studied law and was admitted to the bar. Mr. Woodle gave much time to the building of railroads and was not extensively known as a lawyer. In 1861 he was active in raising a cavalry regiment for service in the Civil War, and became quartermaster with the rank of major. His service in the army brought on an illness which caused his death April 3, 1862.
"He was a noble, generous, able and unselfish man, and while his talents made no great lasting impression on the annals of his time, his place in the hearts of his surviving peers is second to none."
Sanford A. Hudson. The subject of this sketch was born at Oxford, Worcester county, Mass., May 16, 1817, the son of Amos Hudson and Mary nee Fisk. The genealogy of his father's fam- ily has not been carefully preserved, but it is claimed that he was descended from the same ancestry as the great navigator and explorer, Hendrick Hudson, while on the mother's side he was descended from Richard Haven, who immigrated from England and settled in Lynn, Mass., about the year 1644. His maternal grandfather, Dr. Daniel Fisk, was one of the leading physicians of his county and a man of considerable prominence. From a published genealogy of the descendants of the above named Richard Haven, and embracing some eight or nine degrees of con- sanguinity and upward of thirty thousand persons, the descent of our subject from this common ancestor is thus traced: "San- ford A. Hudson, son of Mary Fisk, daughter of Daniel Fisk, son of Isaac Fisk, son of Hannah Haven, daughter of Richard Haven, son of Moses Haven, son of (the original) Richard Haven." He began the study of law, entering the law office of Dyer N. Burn- ham, Esq., at Saekett's Harbor. He was admitted to the bar in 1848, after being examined with a class of sixteen, half of whom were rejected. It was with mueh hesitaney and embarrassment that he entered upon the practice of his profession, for although
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his attainments in the science of jurisprudence were not inferior to the average of incipient attorneys, yet he felt keenly his lack of education, and regarded it as little less than presumption and folly on his part to attempt to compete with learned and cunning members of the profession. He formed a partnership with John R. Bennett, Esq., who had been a fellow-student with him in the office of Mr. Burnham, and who had been admitted to the bar a few months previously, and to whom he cheerfully acknowledges a debt of gratitude for valuable assistance willingly rendered in his studies.
In the autumn of the same year (1848) they resolved to remove to the West. They had never heard of Janesville before leaving New York, but during the journey they heard it highly spoken of as a promising village in the interior of Wisconsin. The place fully met their expectations, and here they settled.
From an early period of his life Mr. Hudson took a lively interest in political matters. As early as 1844, when Henry Clay was the Whig candidate for President, he engaged aetively in his support in New York state, and on several occasions, in company with Hon. Orsumus Cole, of the Supreme court of Wisconsin, addressed large public meetings. In 1845, when the legislature of New York submitted to a vote of the people the question of licensing the sale of intoxicating liquors, he took an earnest and active part on the negative side of the question and with very considerable effeet.
In 1853 the town of Janesville obtained a city eharter, and our subjeet was elected the first attorney of the new corporation. In the preceding year he had been nominated by the Whig party for the position of prosecuting attorney for the county of Rock, but was not elected.
In 1856 the eity obtained an amendment to its charter estab- lishing a eity court having jurisdiction over all criminal and city prosecutions ; over this Mr. Hudson was elected to preside. In 1858 he was elected mayor of Janesville, and held that office two years. In 1863 he was again elected presiding magistrate of the City court, and held the office seven years consecutively and two years at a subsequent period, in all nine years.
On the 13th of October, 1847, he was married to Miss Sarah D., daughter of John M. Canfield, Esq., of Saekett's Harbor, N. Y. They had five children. The eldest son, Theodore C., gradu-
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ated at Racine College in the class of 1873; Frances S., Harriet J., Sanford H. and Sarah C.
George Record Peck was born near Cameron, Steuben county, N. Y., in 1843, and at the age of six years was brought West by his parents on their removal to Wisconsin, where he spent his childhood amid the hardships of farm life in a Western clearing. At the age of sixteen, with only a common-school education, he left the work of the farm to become a district school teacher, that he might add to the scant income of his father and free the farm from debt. At the age of nineteen, feeling his duty to his coun- try paramount to everything else. he enlisted in the First Heavy Artillery of Wisconsin, was transferred to the Thirty-first Wis- consin Infantry, and marched with Sherman's army to the sea. After three years' service he was mustered out, at the age of twenty-two, having by his fidelity and gallantry been promoted to the rank of captain.
On being mustered out of the service Captain Peck im- mediately returned to Wisconsin. He spent six years in Janes- ville as law student, Circuit court clerk and practicing lawyer. and then sought a wider field in the new state of Kansas, pur- suing his profession with signal success in Independence from 1871 to 1874. In the latter year he was appointed by President Grant to the office of United States attorney for the district of Kansas, and removed to Topeka, where for nineteen years he won ever increasing distinction as a lawyer and influential citizen and a man of letters. Within a month after his appointment he was directed by the attorney general of the United States to bring a suit involving a title to 960,000 acres of land. The ability with which he brought this and other cases to a successful issue soon made him one of the leading lawyers of the state. In 1879 the greater rewards of private practice led him to resign the office of district attorney. In 1881 the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Rail- road Company elected him its general solicitor, and from that time until September, 1895, that large and constantly growing system of railroads was created and developed under his counsel and direction.
During his residence in Chicago his political experience and learning and his fine literary art have become familiar to the public through his occasional addresses. The most notable of these have been his address on Gen. George H. Thomas before the
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Loyal Legion of the United States, at Indianapolis ; his response on Abraham Lincoln at the Marquette Club banquet, in Chicago; his address on the Puritans before the Ethical Society of Mil- waukee; his address on the "Worth of a Sentiment" delivered before the Washington and Jefferson societies of the University of Virginia; his address on "The Ethical Basis of American Patriotism" before the graduating class of Union College, New York; his oration at the unveiling of the statue of Gen. John A. Logan in Chicago, and his address on "George Washington" before the students of the University of Chicago.
As a lawyer Mr. Peek ranks with the greatest this country has produced, and few of these can show such a list of professional triumphs. When the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company secured control of the St. Louis & San Francisco Rail- road, in 1891, one of the stockholders of the latter company sought to enjoin the sale on the ground that the two roads were parallel and competing. The case was bitterly contested in the circuit and supreme courts of the United States. Mr. Peek's successful management of this litigation, in which the formation of the Atchison system was involved, gave him his place among the first railroad lawyers of the time. In this he was ably assisted by E. D. Kenna, a young man who has achieved distinction at the bar and won high honors in the profession.
When, in December, 1893, the Atchison system went into the hands of receivers, and the problem of its reorganization was pressing upon the holders of its almost worthless securities, the direction of the legal proceedings devolved upon Mr. Peck. Within two years the mortgages had been foreclosed, the prop- erty sold and a working plan of reorganization effected, and the great railroad system preserved unbroken. Such a feat of effi- cient and rapid reorganization of so large a railroad property is unparalleled in railroad history. In September, 1895, Mr. Peck resigned as general solicitor of the Atchison system, to become general counsel of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company, and Hon. Henry C. Caldwell, United States circuit judge, in accepting his resignation, asked that he still give to the Atchison reorganization committee the benefit of his counsel until the reorganization should be completed. He also characterized his connection with the receivership matters in terms of highest praise.
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HISTORY OF ROCK COUNTY
William Morrison Tallman was born in Lee, Oneida county, N. Y., June 13, 1808, the son of David and Eunice Tallman, both of whom were natives of Woodbury, Litchfield county, Conn. The family immigrated from Litchfield county to Oneida county in 1806, and resided there until 1816, when they removed to Brooklyn, Kings county, N. Y.
In 1821 Mr. Tillman began the study of law in the office of the late Hon. F. A. Talmadge, in Vesey street, New York, then on the site of the Astor House. After studying law one year, he determined upon a more complete preliminary education, and in 1822 began to prepare for college at the academy in Norwalk, Conn. He remained here four years, and then, in September, 1826, entered the freshman class of Yale college, where he con- tinued four years more, going through the entire collegiate course, and graduating with his class in September, 1830. Im- mediately after graduation he entered the law school connected with Yale. and was there two years, completing the full course of legal studies. He was admitted to the bar in New Haven in the fall of 1832.
He at once returned to the city of New York and commenced anew there the study of law, and the practice then peculiar to the courts of that state, in the office of Hon. James Talmadge and W. H. Bulkley, in Wall street. He was admitted to the bar of New York state in Albany in October, 1833. Immediately there- after he entered upon the practice of law in his native county, at Rome, N. Y., and continued so engaged until 1850, when he re- moved with his family to Janesville, Rock county, Wis. He resumed practice at Janesville, and continued it until 1854, when he relinquished the profession entirely-having been in the prac- tice twenty-one years.
In 1831 he married, at New Haven, Emeline, second daughter of Norman and Ruth Dexter, of Hartford county, Connecticut, by whom he has had two sons and one daughter, named respectively, William Henry, Edgar Dexter, and Cornelia Augusta.
John B. Cassoday was born in Herkimer county, New York, July 7, 1830. About three years later his father died, and he and his mother moved with her parents to Tioga county, Pennsyl- vania. He began his life as the poorest of poor boys, but the same industry, good judgment and well directed ambition which made him one of the foremost lawyers of Wisconsin, carried him
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successfully through his early struggles. Besides occasionally attending the district school for a few months, working for his board, he attended one term at the village school at Tioga, and one term at the Wellsborough academy, before he was seventeen. For the next four years he was engaged in various kinds of manual labor, occasionally teaching in the winters. He after- ward spent two terms at the academy of Knoxville, Penn., and two years at Alfred (New York) academy, from which he was graduated. He then attended the University of Michigan one year, taking the select course, which was supplemented by a term at the Albany Law School, and reading in a law office at Wellsborough. Desiring to find a wider field, he went west in 1857 and settled at Janesville, Wis., where he entered the law office of H. S. Conger, afterward judge of the Twelfth judicial circuit, and pursued his law studies there until 1858, when he became a member of the firm of Bennett, Cassoday & Gibbs, which continued for seven years, and he was soon recognized as the peer of his brethren at the bar.
From 1866 to 1868 he was alone in his practice. At the latter date, the firm of Cassoday & Merrill was formed; it continued for five years, when Mr. Merrill retired from practice. That firm was succeeded by the firm of Cassoday & Carpenter, which con- tinued until our subject was appointed to the Supreme bench, November 11, 1880.
Mr. Cassoday was one of the brightest and most successful lawyers in the state. From the outset of his career, he showed a clear, analytical mind, well-balanced, cool and cautious. While in practice he was devoted to his profession, thorough in the prepa- ration of his cases, and skilled and judicious in their management. His practice was general, and during his twenty-three years at the bar, he was constantly crowded with business and retained in a large number of important cases.
Judge Cassoday's first vote for a presidential candidate was for Franklin Pierce, in 1852, but was a Republican from the organization of that party. In 1864 he was a delegate to the Baltimore convention which nominated Lincoln, and was placed upon the committee on credentials. He was the only member of the Wisconsin delegation who voted for Andrew Jackson as a candidate for vice president. In the same year he was elected to the Wisconsin assembly, and during the session served with
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credit on the judiciary and railroad committees. The thirteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States was rati- fied by this legislature at this session, and Mr. Cassoday took an active part in the debate upon its passage. In 1876 he was again called upon to represent his district in the same body, and was then chosen its speaker without opposition in his own party. He made up the committees with strict reference to their experi- ence and capacity, and announced their appointment on the sec- ond day of the session. By so doing, and by his tact and ability in the chair, the business was completed in fifty-eight days, being one of the shortest sessions in the history of the state. In 1880 he was a delegate at large to the national Republican convention at Chicago, and was chairman of the Wisconsin delegation. He presented to the convention the name of Elihu B. Washburne as a candidate for president in a speech that was worthy the man and the occasion. On the morning of the second day of the balloting for a candidate for president, sixteen members of the Wisconsin delegation, including Mr. Cassoday, resolved to cast their votes for James A. Garfield, and it was left to Judge Casso- day to determine the opportune time for casting such vote; he acted accordingly, and the result was that General Garfield was nominated on the second ballot thereafter.
While at the bar, Mr. Cassoday kept up a lively interest in all public questions and took an active part upon the stump in every important political campaign from 1856 to 1880 inclusive. He was frequently a delegate to state conventions, and presided over the one in 1879. Hc declined to be a candidate for numerous offices, including circuit judge in 1870, and attorney general in 1875. He was never a politician in any sense.
October 19, 1880, that eminent jurist, Chief Justice Ryan, died, thereby creating a vacancy upon the Supreme bench. Mr. Casso- day was at that time stumping the state for Garfield and the Republican party. October 23, 1880, the Rock county bar held. a meeting and unanimously resolved to urge the governor to appoint Mr. Cassoday to the office made vacant by the death of Chief Justice Ryan, and sent their communication to the gov- ernor. However, on November 11, 1880, Mr. Justice Cole, who had been a member of the court for more than twenty-five years, was appointed by the governor to the office of chief justice. He at once accepted the same, and thereupon Mr. Cassoday was
ALEXANDER E. MATHESON.
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appointed to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Justice Cole. In April, 1881, he was unanimously elected to the office and re-elected in 1889. In June, 1881, the Beloit College conferred upon him the degree of LL. D. Judge Cassoday for many years lectured to the senior classes in the College of Law of the Uni- versity of. Wisconsin upon wills and constitutional law. His lectures on wills were published in 1893 in a book entitled "Casso- day on Wills," and the same is now used as a text-book by law students in many schools.
In February, 1898, Mr. Cassoday was elected president of the State Bar Association, of which he was a member for years.
He was married on February 21, 1860, to Mary P. Spaulding. of Janesville. Their children were four daughters and one son. Mr. and Mrs. Cassoday were affiliated with the Congregational church.
The high position to which Mr. Cassoday attained was due entirely to his own exertions, and through his ability, steadfast- ness of purpose and integrity, he reached the goal of his ambi- tions, a membership of the highest tribunal of his state, and pos- sessed the highest measure of respect of the bar and of the peo- ple. His career affords a forcible illustration of the power of patience, perseverance and conscientious work in overcoming early difficulties and obstructions of no ordinary kind. It is but just and merited praise to say that as a lawyer Mr. Cassoday ranked among the ablest of the great West; as a legislator, he was the peer of any of his colleagues; as a judge, he was ever honest, painstaking, laborious, courteous, learned and strong; as a citizen, he was honorable, prompt and true to every engage- ment ; as a husband and father, a model worthy of all imitation. His characteristies were a modesty of demeanor, an entire absence of all parade and ostentation and a simple dignity, born of innate purity and self-respect. He had an educated conscience, a large heart and tender regard for young men struggling for a higher life. His was a rounded and complete character. His death occurred December 30, 1907.
William Freeman Tompkins, the son of William Tompkins and (Freeman) Tompkins, was born April 4, 1812, at Scipio, N. Y. He came to Janesville prior to January, 1845, and dur- ing the years 1845 and 1846 was probate judge for Rock county. He was a wealthy farmer in his early life in Janesville. Judge
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Tompkins was an uncompromising Whig for many years, and after the disruption of that party he became a Democrat. He was a temperance man of extreme views, and while farming, re- fused to sell his barley to the brewers, and was known as "The Father of Temperance" in Rock county. He was elected Novem- ber 5, 1850, as member of the assembly of the Wisconsin state legislature. From December 13, 1845, to September 19, 1846, he was co-partner with Levi Alden in the publication of the Janesville Gazette. Mr. Tompkins, having lost his property, left Janesville some time during the war of 1861-65, and went to Pike's Peak, engaging at length in the cattle trade. He finally settled at Abilene, Kan., where he died August 17, 1871. He was married, February 25, 1834, at Fleming, N. Y., to Caroline Leach, the daughter of Winslow and Esther (Southworth) Leach. She was born September 29, 1816, at Aurelius, N. Y., and died August 25, 1898, at Washington, D. C. They had four children : Horace Tompkins, born April 4, 1837, at Scipio, N. Y .; died May 10, 1865, at Nashville. Tenn. He served as first lieutenant, Com- pany F, Nineteenth Michigan Infantry, and was confined for many months in Libby prison. Celestia Tompkins, born July 31, 1839, at Fleming, N. Y .; died September 25, 1898, at Washington, D. C. She was twice married; first, May 28, 1856, at Janesville, Wis., to William H. Mobley. He died August 6, 1863, and she was married on December 25, 1866, to John Jackson, of Lockport, N. Y. Carrie Tompkins was born at Janesville, July 17, 1851, and died there September 23, 1853. William F. Tompkins, Jr., was born February 21, 1854, at Janesville, Wis., and died at Vallejo, Cal., in 1908. He married, April 15, 1880, Minnie How- ard, at Kanoplis, Kan., and had a daughter, Martha Caroline, born October 18, 1881.
Judge Tompkins was a nephew of Daniel Tompkins, an early governor of the state of New York.
John Wesley Sale is, to all intents, a Rock county product, having been a resident of the county since he was three months old. He was born on a farm in LaPorte county, Indiana, but his parents removed to Rock county and settled on a farm just west of the now city of Evansville, when he was but three months old. His father. John F. Sale, died when the subject of this sketch was but four years of age, leaving his young widow with four children, the oldest of the children being under eleven years.
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Mr. Sale obtained his education at the district school and the Evansville Seminary. After completing his course at the semi- nary he taught school for five years, and then commenced the study of the law in the office of Conger & Hawes at Janesville. After spending one year in office study and work he went to Michigan University and spent two years, graduating from the law department of that institution. While at the university, in addition to his law studies, he took some special studies, and while there was, for a time, in the office of the late Hon. Thomas M. Cooley. After his graduation he settled at Janesville, form- ing a partnership with the late Hon. C. G. Williams, which con- tinued until Mr. Williams was elected and went to congress. He was married to Mary M. DeBaun March 15, 1870. When Mr. Williams went to congress he former a partnership with the late Hon. John R. Bennett, which continued until Mr. Bennett was elected circuit judge and went on the bench. He then formed a partnership with Charles E. Pierce, which continued for about two years when, upon the death of the late Hon. Amos P. Prich- ard in September, 1886, he was appointed, by the late Governor Rusk, county judge of Rock county to fill the unexpired term of Judge Prichard. He has remained on the county bench since his appointment, having been, without opposition, elected each four years. He is now entering upon his twenty-third year on the bench.
While Mr. Sale was at the bar he served three years as city attorney of the city of Janesville and ten years as district attor- ney of Rock county. In 1884 he was chosen as one of the con- gressional district delegates to the Republican national conven- tion at Chicago, which nominated James G. Blaine as its candi- date for president.
In August, 1886, he was, without solicitation on his part, unanimously nominated by the Republican senatorial convention as their candidate for the state senate, which nomination he accepted, but withdrew as a candidate upon his appointment as county judge.
John Meek Whitehead, senior member of the Janesville law firm of Whitehead and Matheson, is generally recognized as being one of the most prominent lawyers of Wisconsin. His paternal grandfather, Daniel, came from England to the United States about the year 1812, settled in Ohio and died, leaving two
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sons and a daughter. His maternal grandfather, Joseph Paisley, of Greensboro, N. C., moved to Illinois about 1820, located on a farm in Montgomery county and died there in 1858, leaving his widow and five children.
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