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 27
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To his uncle, General John F. Farnsworth, a few days after the battle, General Pleasanton wrote: "The gallant Farnsworth fell heroically leading a charge of his brigade against the rebel infantry. Gifted in a high degree and remarkable for his dar-
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ing and coolness, in his death was closed a career that, had it continued, must have won the highest honors of his profession."
Early in that spring, young Farnsworth visited in Beloit, and the writer well remembers the black hair, broad brow and flash- ing eyes, my ideal of a young soldier .- Ed.
Alvin B. Carpenter, long one of the leading promoters of Be- loit, Wis., was born in Stratford, Orange county, Vermont, July 17, 1812, son of Willard and Polly (Bacon) Carpenter. His first venture in business life was driving a peddling wagon and selling goods on commission for his uncles, Willard and John Carpenter, of Troy, N. Y. This was in 1831. In six years he had made and saved $10,500. In 1835 he went to Evansville, Ind., and opened up a general store; six months later, took his brother in partnership and increased the capital to $40,000. In 1841 they sold out the business and engaged in milling and wholesale produce, selling through their house in New Orleans, of which Mr. Carpenter was the manager. Later he sold out this line and returned to Evansville, and in company with Oliver Ladd en- gaged in the wholesale dry goods jobbing, in which they were successful. His first appearance in Beloit business circles was in 1845, when he engaged in general merchandising on a large scale for three years, removing in 1849 to Cambridge, Dane county, where he again engaged in milling, owning the town site and several mills; sold out here in 1851 and bought a town site in Avon township and 3,000 acres of land and opened a large store and constructed a water power plant, but in 1852 sold out here and returned to Beloit to establish his permanent home. Start- ing with a general store, he continued in this for one year, then sold out to Keys & White, and in 1854 engaged in banking for three years, when he again sold and returned to Evansville, Ind., and was interested in many different enterprises until 1866, when he again entered into the mercantile trade in Beloit, open- ing three different stores under the firm name of Carpenter & Greene. In February, 1869, they were burned out and Mr. Car- penter retired from the firm, Mr. Greene continuing in the trade. In July, 1870, in company with Cyrus Libby, E. H. Chapman and John Foster, they commenced the manufacture of boots and shoes, the first factory of its kind in Beloit. Three years later he sold out to Mr. Chapman and engaged in handling real estate and building.
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He was married on July 5, 1839, to Miss Almira L. Dutcher, of Troy, N. Y. They celebrated their golden wedding on July 5, 1889, at their Beloit home, and it was one of the most notable gatherings ever held in Beloit, from the large number of friends and people of prominence from all parts of the country who were in attendance. The occasion was out of the usual order, also, on account of all of their children being present. They ineluded James M. Carpenter, Mrs. Hattie M. Searing, Mrs. Anna B. Law- rence, Mrs. C. B. Salmon, Mrs. Mary A. Green and Mrs. F. D. Caldwell. Mr. Carpenter enjoyed a hale old age and the full possession of his faculties up to the very end of a long and active life. He died at his residence in Beloit, Wis., in his ninety-first year, March 19, 1903. Mrs. Carpenter had already passed away February 9, 1891.
William H. Grinnell, who resides at 407 Bluff street, Beloit, Wis., was born in Sherman, Chautauqua county, New York, Octo- ber 31, 1841. His father, George W., and his mother, Jane A. (Weed) Grinnell, were both natives of New York state and came to Wisconsin, settling first at Johnstown, in Rock county in 1854, where they remained two years and then removed to La Prairie township, where the mother died in 1865 at the age of forty- three years and was buried at Beloit. In 1873 the father re- moved to Harlan, Iowa, where he remained for a short time and then went to Manning, Iowa, where he remained until 1892, then returned to Wisconsin and died the year following at the age of seventy-six years. His remains were interred at Beloit.
William H. was educated in the public schools, and when the Civil War broke out, he enlisted in Company F, Thirty-fifth Wis- consin Volunteer Infantry, and served fifteen months in the ser- vice of the government, being mustered out at the close of the war, in 1865. He then learned the trade of a machinist in a shop at Madison, Wis., after which he formed a partnership with William Butterfield and carried on the Madison Foundry and Machine shop for two years, when the partnership was dis- solved and Mr. Grinnell came to Beloit. In 1869 he entered the employ of O. F. Merrill & Co., where he remained for one year and then for a short time was associated with the Parker & Stone Company. After severing his connection with the last named company, he went to Chicago and entered the employ of the D. M. Ford Manufacturing Company, and after one year he
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went to New Hampshire, where he remained until 1875, then re- turned to Rock county and became associated with the Harris Manufacturing Company at Janesville; after spending two years with the above named firm, he returned to Beloit and the em- ploy of Parker & Stone Company. At the end of one year he became associated with the Merrill & Houston Iron Works, where he remained until the failure of his company in 1884. One year later he and others formed a company and bought up what was left of the Merrill & Houston Company's assets, and organized the Beloit Iron Works, of which company he was treasurer for five years. Since 1890 Mr. Grinnell has been vice-president of the company which is still known as the Beloit Iron Works; also a stockholder and director in the Beloit Telephone Company.
Mr. Grinnell is a member of the Elks lodge and one of Beloit's substantial and highly respected citizens.
In 1872, at Chicago, Ill., Mr. Grinnell was married to Miss Myra C. Clark, who died at Beloit, Wis., September 17, 1903. In 1905 Mr. Grinnell was again married to Mrs. E. C. Ewing, nee Peck, who is a native of Beloit and a member of one of the first families of the city.
John Foster, head of the John Foster Company, of Beloit, Wis., manufacturer of the celebrated Foster shoes, was born and passed his early life on a farm in Burlington township, Kane county, Illinois, and is a son of Samuel and Malinda (Peters) Foster, the former a native of Halifax, Yorkshire, England, and the latter of Darien, N. Y. The parents came West in 1842 and in 1843 settled on a tract of land in Kane county, Illinois, which the father purchased from the United States government and where the family home was for many years. In 1864 the father retired from active work and later he moved to Beloit, Wis., where he died in 1884 and where his wife died in 1874.
Our subject was reared on his father's farm and received a good English education, attending the district schools and Elgin Academy and one year at private school. Mr. Foster first en- gaged in the manufacture of shoes in 1867 at St. Charles, Ill., as a member of the firm of Libby & Foster, which moved its busi- ness to Beloit, Wis., in 1870. The business, at first conducted on a moderate scale, was located in the building which is now known as the Grand Hotel block, but changed its location from time to time to suit the demands of its development and growth. The
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policy of the company has always been to excel in everything pertaining to its finished products. To this end its factory and plant are equipped with the most approved machinery and ap- pliances; only material of the highest grade enters into the prod- ucts manufactured, and only skilled workmen of the highest type and character are employed. As a result of this wise and far-sighted policy the John Foster Company has attained a wide and well-merited reputation both as the originator of novel and practical ideas in designs and styles of ladies' fine shoes, its ex- clusive specialty, and also as the producer of the very best prod- ucts in its line, comprising high shoes, oxfords, low cuts, pumps, slipper-in short, everything pertaining to ladies' fine footwear, in every variety of leather, canvas, silk, etc. Mr. Foster has made his business his life study and the success that has come to him is a gratifying and just reward for his conscientious and painstaking work. As a man Mr. Foster is modest, quiet and un- assuming, seldom talking of himself or his achievements, satis- fied to let his work, to which he devotes his energies and talents, speak for itself. He is a man who loves his home and delights in social enjoyments. He is a member of the Order of Elks, a Republican in politics, and in religious faith a Christian Sci- entist.
On September 3, 1873, Mr. Foster married Miss Marcia E. Dearborn, of Beloit, Wis., a daughter of Rice and Luscena (Che- ney) Dearborn, the former a native of Saco, Maine, and the latter of Lunenburg, Vt. They settled in Beloit in 1838 and were married there, and there spent their lives-the father's death occurring in 1866 and that of the mother in 1901. Six children were born to them, of whom the eldest son, Horace Dearborn, was a prominent lawyer in Beloit, where he died in 1881.
Mr. and Mrs. Foster have three adopted children, and their beautiful home at 638 Broad street, over which Mrs. Foster pre- sides with true womanly grace, is a center of social and domestic refinement and happiness.
David Smith Foster, who was one of the pioneer merchants of Beloit, and a man who was noted for his ability and integrity, was born on May 26, 1826, at North Andover, Mass. He was the son of Moses and Sarah (Baldwin) Foster. Moses was a direct descendant of Abraham Foster, a native of England, who emi- grated to the United States in 1638 and settled in Ipswich, Mass.
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Ephraim Foster, a son of Abraham Foster, was born October 9, 1659; moved to Andover, Mass., September 21, 1746.
The subject of our sketch received his early education in the common schools of his native town, and after absorbing the knowledge to be gained there attended the Franklin Academy and finished his studies at Phillips Academy, at Andover, gradu- ating in the class of 1843. After completing his education he followed his natural bent for a business life by commencing as a clerk in the wholesale dry goods house of Langley & Abbott, of Boston, and continued with them until 1848, when he entered the employ of Eben D. Jordan, now the great firm of Jordan, Marsh & Co. In 1856 he concluded to branch out in the business world for himself, and being attracted by the possibilities in the thrifty and growing town of Beloit, he removed to this place and commenced his business career. He entered into the dry goods business and closed it out the following year during the panic. He afterwards engaged in merchandising in the grocery and woodenware line and was very successful, continuing this until 1869, when he sold out to M. E. B. Lewis.
Mr. Foster was a man who had the best interests of his town at heart and was always striving for the betterment of his fel- low men by private and public improvements of all kinds that would tend to make Beloit the beautiful and prosperous city that it now is. His fellow citizens appreciated his many public- spirited acts in this regard and honored him in many ways, con- sequently he was three times called to serve as mayor of the city of Beloit. In politics he was always a staunch Republican. Mr. Foster stood very high in Masonic circles, being a thirty-second degree Mason, Knight Templar, past commander of Knights Templar, also past grand generalissimo of the state of Wisconsin. In religious faith he was a Unitarian.
On March 7, 1854, Mr. Foster was united in marriage with Miss Agnes F. Byers, of Andover, Mass. They were the parents of five sons-John, Alfred, Joseph Byers, Frank Smith and David Humphrey.
Mr. Foster's death occurred on January 31, 1903. He was honored and respected by all.
David Humphrey Foster, one of the busy editors of the Beloit "Free Press," was born August 19, 1873, in Beloit, Wis. He is the son of David Smith and Agnes F., Foster. He received his
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education in the high school and Beloit Academy. Mr. Foster's first business venture was in selling books, and while he has not striven very hard to attain the altitude of an office-holder, he has been placed in the position of city clerk, which offiee he filled with credit to himself and the municipality during the years 1902 to 1906. He is part owner and business manager of the Beloit "Free Press." In political faith he is a Republican, and his re- ligious affiliations are with the Episcopal church.
Mr. Foster was married August 21, 1895, to Miss Fanchon Schutt, of Milwaukee, Wis.
Mr. and Mrs. Foster have one child, David Smith Foster.
Edward J. Fillingham is a native of Montreal, Canada, where he was born December 25, 1831. His parents, Isaac Fillingham and Mary (Hall) Fillingham, were natives of England, but in 1830 they went to Montreal, where they resided until 1832, when they returned to England. After spending twenty-four years in their native place they decided to come to America, and in 1854 landed in Buffalo, N. Y. They remained there but one year, then came to Beloit, Wis., where Mr. Fillingham engaged in newspaper work, and made this place their home the remainder of their lives.
Edward received his education in the schools of England and when nineteen years and six months of ago he came to the United States and first found employment with the Middlebury (Ohio) Comb Factory. He remained here from 1851 to 1855 and then came to Beloit and was employed in the lumber yards of this place, where he remained one year, and then commenced farming, in which he engaged until 1887, when he sold the farm and went to Minnesota, settling in Lyon county. He lived there eleven years. then returned to Beloit in 1898, and has since been in re- tirement from active business cares.
Mr. Fillingham has taken somewhat of an interest in political affairs, and while in Minnesota filled the office of town treasurer for four years and chairman of the board of supervisors for three years, to the satisfaction of his constituents and with credit to himself.
In 1857 Mr. Fillingham was married to Miss Francis Hall, who was also a native of England. Mrs. Fillingham died at Be- loit in 1883 at the age of forty-eight years. In 1885 he was again married to Miss Sarah Nichols, a native of Canada, and who died
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in Minnesota, and Mr. Fillingham married his present wife, Mary Hall, in 1888, a native also of Canada.
Cyrus D. Fox was born August 28, 1821, in a rude log cabin a few miles southeast of Cleveland, Ohio. His great grandfather, related to the Quaker John Fox, had served in the French and Indian War, and his grandfather, Israel, also a Quaker, served as a non-combatant of the commissary department in the Revo- lutionary War. His father, Samuel Fox, born in Glastonbury, Conn., May 3, 1791, had in the year 1816 located at Mentor, now Lake county, Ohio, and married as his second wife Hannah Dan- iels, two years younger than himself, the daughter of a wealthy farmer. Their ten children were Aaron, Samuel, Cyrus, Abner, Amos, Sydney, Abigail, Delana and Laura. Cyrus' father served as teacher of the log cabin school for two or three of the winter months and as a farmer and neighborhood blacksmith the rest of the year. Their rough log house, chinked with clay mortar, was covered with elm bark held in place by long poles. There was a large stick chimney plastered with clay and the one door swung out so as to save room. That first schoolhouse, which accommodated half a township, was of the same material and style of building. When Cyrus was three years old he was car- ried to it on his father's shoulders through deep snow, heavy forest and tangled thicket, and most of the way by a cow-path. Other difficulties besides distance hindered the smaller children from attending school. Besides squirrels, geese, turkeys, rac- coons, deer and elk the woods there harbored panthers, wild- cats, wolves and wild hogs. Mr. Fox remembers one case of a neighbor's child being caught and devoured by wild beasts. Once, when about seven years old, sent two miles through the woods to carry a basket of dinner to his father, he met at a turn of the path what he supposed was a large brindle dog. On his approaching him with a friendly whistle, however, the animal turned and walked off, showing the long, bushy tail of a wolf. The children of those days learned to handle a rifle early, and boys ten years old would shoot and bring home partridges, wild turkeys and sometimes a young deer.
Cyrus' school days ended with the death of his mother (in Plymouth, Ashtabula county, Ohio, February 25, 1828), who gave him as her dying injunction, "Be a good boy and meet me in heaven." The family became disbanded, and from this time, his
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eleventh year, Cyrus carned his own living. For his first five months' work he received $40, the use of his employer's library and some training in declamation. Three years were thus spent in chores work, with an occasional month at the district school, clerking in the village grocery, or serving as cabin boy on the schooner "Western Traveler," owned by his uncle, Abner Fox. After three years his family was reunited again at Manhattan, on the Maumee, his father having married again and engaged in the hotel business. The depression of 1837 ended that effort, and with what was left his father bought the quit-claim of a French Canadian half-breed of North Bass island, Put-in-Bay. Of its 600 acres fifty were cultivated, and there was a quarry of good lime- stone. When Cyrus was sixteen years old, however, a new survey showed that North Bass island was within what was called United States territory. The Canadian claim had been worthless and the family were deported to the docks of Sandusky City, penni- less and shaking with ague. Cyrus could have supported him- self, but bravely chose rather to help his poverty-stricken father and the younger children. After wearing out his ague by har- vesting corn, buckwheat and potatoes for the neighbors and threshing wheat with a flail on shares, he managed to bring home something every Saturday night. He repaired a deserted log house for winter quarters, provided a liberal woodpile, then when his father and brothers had recovered secured a job thirty miles away at chopping five acres of fallen timber at $5 per aere with board, and another job of splitting 1,000 rails at 50 cents per hundred, and making 200 sap troughs at 2 cents apiece for his sister Delana's father-in-law. His father having rented a forty- acre tract containing a log house and a sugar bush, by April 20 the whole family were comfortably settled there. Cyrus then offered his father $100 for the balance of his time, which was ac- cepted, and with a bundle of clothes suspended from a stick on his shoulder and $10 in his pocket he walked to Sandusky City, went thence by steamer to Cleveland, and next day on foot to Mentor. Just south of the center of Mentor the Mormon prophet, Joe Smith, had built a village and temple, which later, after the Mormon exodus, was used for a normal school called the Western Reserve Teachers' Seminary, under the supervision of Drs. Lord and Nichols.
The Fox boy, now seventeen years old, worked for a teacher-
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farmer, James Dickey, whose library and experience, with at- tendance at night schools, helped him to become a teacher also. His wages for three years averaged $13.50 per month for eight months, the remaining four months of each year being spent in chopping cordwood and splitting rails. Working next for Ed- win French, Cyrus also taught a district school for five winters, with an occasional term at the Teachers' Seminary for himself. He gained the power to interest young men from the lakes and the furnace, and also in 1844 gained Miss Lucy Ann Nichols for a wife, and two years later decided to go West. With a prairie schooner and a heavy team and good wishes from neighbors, August 31, 1846, he started with wife and twins, Louisa and Eliza, for northern Illinois. They had hardly crossed the Mau- mee when the mother and children became quite ill, and little Eliza died and was buried. Reaching Coldwater, Mich., the home of his sister, Mrs. Delana Fox Rawson, they were all sick with bilious fever. Resuming the journey near the close of Oc- tober, they finally reached the home of his brother-in-law, Lewis Nichols, November 1, 1846, in Winnebago county, Illinois, just south of the Wisconsin line near Beloit. Cyrus had used up all his means and $200 of borrowed money, but bravely started into the work of making a farm from native prairie and small wood lot. His previous training with the ax and natural inventive faculty were a help, and within a year he had an abandoned claim shanty built over into a house for his family. With two splint-bottom chairs (one a rocker) and a three-legged stool for furniture, the new stove and new oil lamp were lit up. The mother, holding her little Louisa in her arms, took her seat in the rocker and exclaimed, "Baby, we have got home." For sixty years Mr. Fox continued to farm that same land, making Beloit his market town. In the course of developing his hack- berry farm into one of the best-equipped and most productive farms of the county he was helped much by his inventions. One of the first was a simple device for planting a sod crop of corn, beans, buckwheat, etc., in such a way as to hide the hills as much as possible from the gophers; another was the attachment of a corn and bean planter and the plough, so that the rows and hills could be at any desired distance apart or at any desired depth without any additional tax upon team or teamster. Also the vibrating telephone-small wire of the right tension for trans-
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mitters and cigar boxes for receivers-that was quite popular on the farms, conversing any distance less than three miles. An- other was a riding attachment to a plow, harrow or roller. He also increased the profits of dairying by means of a new kind of milk ean which could be submerged in water, keeping in the milk and keeping out the water; he improved his eorn by selee- tion of the best seed and by careful cultivation, and soon pro- duced cars of forty-eight rows. For such large corn he had in- vented a new kind of sheller.
In politics Mr. Fox is and has always been a Democrat of the Jeffersonian school; his war record was wholly vicarious; two of his brothers lost their lives in the great rebellion, and one was of the squad of the Fourth Michigan Cavalry that halted Jeff Davis when he came out of his tent disguised in his wife's waterproof. Religiously, up to his thirtieth year Mr. Fox was a Universalist, a pupil of Hosea Ballou; his wife, however, being a member of the Baptist church, he early became a half brother of the church in Beloit, and after thirty years of that doubtful relation he came with his wife into full fellowship with that church.
As to public office his ambition has simply been to take his term in serving as township and county officer. During twenty- five years off and ou he served as justice of the peace and mem- ber of the school board. His fraternal society membership has been with the Sons of Temperance and the Good Templars.
In 1891, December 22, Mrs. Fox died and was buried in the Be- loit cemetery. A few years ago Mr. Fox finally gave up farming and has since made his home in Beloit with his daughter, Mrs. H. S. Tower. Other children living are Esther Louisa (Mrs. Charles W. Gore), Mary Delana (Mrs. P. T. Nichols) and Cyrus N. Fox, all now residents of Beloit; and there are seven grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
In his old age Mr. Fox has enjoyed making a systematic vis- itation of the public schools of Beloit with the approval of the board and the hearty welcome of teachers and 1,500 scholars. He has written often for the local papers over the signature of "Deacon Peck." Now, in his eighty-seventh year, he is still en- joying active physical and mental powers-a hale old gentleman.
Lawrence E. Cunningham, mayor of Beloit, Wis., was born at Beloit on March 1, 1852, and is the son of Captain Burard and
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Elizabeth (Bailey) Cunningham, both born and reared in Ire- land, but who, believing that better opportunities existed in the United States for them, came to Beloit in 1849. Mr. Cunning- ham was a sea captain and a ship owner in his native land, but after coming to Beloit he engaged in the business of contracting and building, which he followed successfully for a great many years. He is now ninety years of age and retired, making his home during his declining years with his daughter, Mrs. J. H. Gatley. Mother Cunningham died in 1892, mourned by husband, children and hosts of friends. Their children were seven in num- ber, viz .: Mary, now Mrs. J. H. Gatley; Lawrence E., subject ; Elizabeth, died in infancy; John, died April 30, 1905, was part- ner with our subject since 1877; Anna, wife of Mr. John Kinney ; Burnard, Jr., contractor and builder; James, died in 1889.
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