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 53
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Dr. John Holden Warren. The American Warrens came to America from Suffolk, England, in 1630, but the family is of French descent, the cradle of this ancient family being placed in Greene, Caux county, Nomandy. Playfair in his history states that
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the family of Warren are lineal descendants in direet male line from Charlemagne. By marriage, the family ean also traee their deseent to the royal families of England and Scotland. The Rev. John Watson in his great work on the Warren family, states that the youngest daughter of William the Conqueror married the first Earl of Warren. John Warren, a descendant of Earl De Warrenne of Warren and Surrey, one of the first of the Warren family who came to America, 1630, settled in what is now known as Mt. Auburn, near Boston, and from there the family scattered to different parts of New England.
Dr. John Holden Warren, the subject of this sketeh, was a pioneer resident of Rock county, and for many years prominent in the business and political life of this county and state.
Lovell Warren, his paternal grandfather, was a native of Marl- boro, Mass. At the beginning of the Revolutionary War he left his native home at Marlboro, the home also of the Howe family, to which he was related on his mother's side, and located near the village of Montpelier, Vt., where he secured a grant of land from the government, which is still in the possession of the Warren family. His death occurred in 1834. He was twiee married, his first marriage to Amy Holden, taking place Deeem- ber 23, 1790. She was related to the Adams family of Leo- minister, Mass. On January 2, 1814, he married Olive Bohonon.
Lemuel Warren, son of Lovewell, was born in Washington county, Vermont. In 1838, ten years before Wisconsin became a state, he came west and located on a farm in Rock township, Rock county, just below the school for the blind. This farm he after- wards sold to Josiah Willard, the father of the late Franeis E. Willard, it being her early home. He then removed to Center township, where he took up 160 acres of land which he improved and added to until he possessed about 400 aeres. He lived at this home until his death, in 1846. He was a soldier in the War of 1812, and was present at the battle of Plattsburg. His widow received a land warrant for his services. He was educated for the times and held many important positions in the town, being justice of the peace for many years and also a supervisor. He married Betsy Richardson, who was born in the state of New York.
Dr. John Holden Warren, son of Lemuel Warren, was born at Hogansburg, Franklin county, N. Y., August 23, 1825, and was
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but thirteen years of age when he came with his parents to Wis- consin. He attended the first school taught in Janesville. Later he went to school in the town of Center, and it was there his early education was completed. He taught a country school for one year at Barker's Corners, Rock county. At the age of twenty he began the study of medicine in the office of Dr. Samuel French Nichols, of Janesville, and afterwards studied with Dr. Dyer, of Chicago, at the same time attending a course of lectures at Rush Medical College, from which he was graduated in 1849. He estab- lished himself for the practice of his profession at Lodi, Columbia county, Wis., but in 1851, at the urgent request of a brother, relinquished his praetiee and removed to Albany, Wis., where he engaged in the milling and mercantile business with much sue- cess. He was closely identified with the Sugar River Valley Railroad, being a director and one of the principal stockholders of the company. He was largely instrumental in having the road built from Brodhead to Albany.
Dr. Warren was elected to the state senate in 1857 and served for five years, winning honorable distinction as a statesman. In 1862, he was appointed by Abraham Lincoln as collector of in- ternal revenue, an office he held for seven years. For many years he was the largest mail contractor in the United States, and presi- dent and general manager of the Western Stage Company. For several years he was vice president of the Wisconsin Agricultural Society and an enthusiastic worker for its success. In polities he was a Republican, having been a Whig in early days. Through- out his publie life, he gained a reputation for enterprise, coupled with that more commendable and rare element, sterling integrity, which served to give him a prominent position among the repre- sentative men of the state. In public life, he showed a great administrative talent, executive ability and power of combination.
He was always a firm believer and zealous worker in the cause of temperance. He was ever ready with money or influence to help those needy and worthy of assistance. He was reared under Presbyterian influence and was a firm believer in the principles of Christianity and adhered to the doctrines taught him by his mother.
Dr. Warren was married December 24, 1854, to Mary Louise Nichols, the daughter of his medical preceptor, Dr. Samuel French
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Nichols. Their union was blessed with seven children: Herbert N., Julia, Elizabeth, Gertrude, Louise, Benjamin and Fannie. Elizabeth died in May. 1891. and Fannie in October, 1896. Herbert is a graduate of Rush Medical College and Benjamin of the Col- lege of Physicians and Surgeons, Chicago.
He was a loving and indulgent husband and father; his chief enjoyment was his home. He was a charter member and former master of Masonie Lodge No. 36 of Albany. He died August 1, 1901. His life was a grand sermon in itself. It may be truly said of him that he was one of nature's noblemen.
Frances Elizabeth Willard. Among all the girls who have gone out into the world from Rock county the most famous name is that of Miss Willard. She was born at Churchville, near Rochester, N. Y .. September 28, 1839. When she was two years old the Willard family moved to Oberlin, Ohio. In 1846 her father, Josiah F. Willard, brought his wife and three children to Rock county. Wis .. and settled on a farm about three miles down the river from Janesville. There he built a house, which they called "Forest Home." and in which they lived for twelve years. The mother was a remarkable lady with a genius for motherhood. The father was a man of delicate physical frame, but of strong intellect and high moral and religious principles. He was for Free Soil, and was elected to the legislature in 1848 when there were only thirteen Free Soilers in that body. But his influence helped secure the Institution for the Blind for Janes- ville, and he was one of its trustees from 1852 to 1858. He was for several years president of the Rock county fair and of the State Agricultural Society, and in 1859, introduced Abraham Lincoln when he spoke at the state fair. held in Milwaukee. Throughout his twelve years' residence near Janesville he was a prominent officer of the First Methodist Episcopal church. He was the leading horticulturist of the county and his farm took first premium at the county fair. He was also the earliest his- torian of Rock county and published a history of this county in co-operation with the Hon. Z. P. Burdick. The mother of Miss Franees, a member of the Congregational church of Janesville. was equally capable in her way. Both parents had been teachers and they trained their son Oliver, and the two daughters, Frances and Mary, at home. (In faney the farm was looked upon as a great city, and all the interests were discussed by all the members
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of the household from that point of view.) They made Forest Home not only a most delightful spot to the children, but also a place of stimulus to intellectual and moral growth. When Frances was twelve years old a governess assisted in their edu- cation, when, in 1853, a small schoolhouse was built near the river and a school established there. Two or three years of that coun- try school life, with a term at a select school in Janesville, were followed by one term for the two girls in the Woman's College at Milwaukee. The only spending money they had during those three months was 50 cents, sent to both of them by their father's farmhand, Mike Carey. In the spring of 1858 Frances entered the Northwestern Women's College (Methodist), at Evanston, Ill., and during the summer vacation of that year taught for six weeks the school in that little schoolhouse, near her girlhood home, which is now called by her name. In 1858 the family moved to Evanston, where both daughters graduated from the woman's college, and Frances became a teacher. There also she joined the Methodist church. Later she taught in the Woman's College at Pittsburgh, in the Wesleyan Seminary at Lima, N. Y., and was then made professor of science in the Woman's College at Evanston. After her father's death, in 1868, she traveled two years in Europe, serving at the same time as correspondent of the "Christian Union," "The Independent," and other papers, and upon her return was made dean of the Evanston Woman's College and professor of aesthetics in the Northwestern Uni- versity. She first appeared as a public speaker in an address at a woman's missionary meeting in Chicago, which at once revealed her power as an orator. In 1874 she began working with the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. In November of that year she was made corresponding secretary of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, then organized, and thenceforth, for the rest of her life was devoted to its service. In 1877 she became its president. In 1883 she spoke for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in every state and territory of the United States, traveling 30,000 miles and averaging one meet- ing a day. At Charleston, S. C., Bishop Stevens said that she made W. C. T. U. mean "We come to unite" north and south, or perhaps, "We come to upset" the liquor traffic. That bronze figure of a girl holding out a basin of water, in front of the Woman's Temple, Chicago, is named for her, the Willard foun-
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tain. In 1883 she founded the World's Woman's Christian Tem- perance Union, and herself was elected president of it for the United States, and later, president of the whole society. At the fourth world's convention, held in Toronto, Canada, in 1897, on October 23, she gave her last address as president of that society. On New Year's day, 1898, she was at Janesville; spoke in the Congregational church, and revisited Forest Home and the old schoolhouse of her girlhood days. Going soon after to New York city, while being entertained at Hotel Empire, near Cen- tral Park, she was taken ill, and there, February 17, peacefully passed away, saying at the last, "How beautiful it is to be with God." She was the most eloquent American woman of her time, and of most noble character and world-wide influence for good.
In the National Hall of Statuary in the capitol at Washing- ton, D. C., on the seventeenth day of February, 1905, was cere- moniously unveiled a white marble life size statue of Frances E. Willard, presented to the nation by the state of Illinois. She is rep- resented standing erect beside a simple reading desk, her right hand resting on its inclined surface and the left, hanging at her side, grasping several loose sheets of paper, while her head is slightly inclined toward an imaginary audience in the attitude of earnest address. Among all that gathering of the great ones of our land this is the only statue of a woman. Its erection in that conspicuous place, therefore, does honor, not only to the women of Rock county, but also to all American women as well.
George Hayes was born at Amerndorf, Bavaria, Germany, June 8, 1824. While he was yet a child his father bought a large flouring mill in Lindorf, which became the permanent home, where the twelve children, eight boys and four girls, all grew up. That family had inherited military tendencies and the boys went into the army as naturally as young ducks take to the water. According to his account George's father and his grandfather also, was a military officer in the German army, where he had, in addition, seventeen cousins, some of them privates and some officers. Of his own brothers six became soldiers. The Hayes family were evidently a generation of fighters and George's un- usually large and broad head plainly indicated that trait.
When only twelve years old he came across the ocean to America, apparently by himself, and landed at New York in March, 1836. All the money he had was a five franc piece, worth
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seven shillings and sixpence. Going direetly west he reached Buffalo, N. Y., in the night, and there met a friend, a French German, who took him to a hotel and paid for his supper, lodging and breakfast. The next day George got a place to work for a French German lawyer, with whom he stayed one year and then left. George said that he was a fool to so leave that good friend, but we must remember that he was only thirteen. We have known some who were older. From Buffalo he worked his way to Milwaukee, and later to Racine, spending a year or two in each place. Finally, in the spring of 1841, he came to Beloit, walking all the way from Racine and carrying his bundle of elothes, fastened to a stick, on his shoulder. It was nine or ten o'clock Sunday morning, April 4, when he arrived and walked up State street, not knowing where to go, and not able to speak a word of American. At the corner of School street, now East Grand ave- nue, he received his welcome to Beloit from a drunken rowdy of Roseoe, who called him by some insulting epithet and attacked him. There was a fight at once. The gawky young German was both strong and plueky. The battle ground was that place where Brown's bloeks now stand, then an open lot with a small sand pile on it. In less time than it would take to describe the affray George had mashed his enemy's cheek, thrown the man down and jammed his face into that sand pile. It took four men to carry the damaged rowdy down to the office of Dr. Evans, so that the doetor might pateh him up and get the sand out of his eyes. That physician had reached Beloit just two days before and Mr. Hayes has often sinee enjoyed telling how he gave Dr. Evans his first patient. Beloit had then an officer of the peace named Thomas Holland, who was for promptly arresting this belligerent young stranger and hauling him to the lock-up. But a young lawyer standing by, named David Noggle, said: "No. The German boy was only defending himself. I'll take that boy home with me and be responsible for him." T. L. Wright (father of Professor Wright, of Beloit College), who was a justice of the peace, and who also saw the contest, said the same, so the young German was allowed to go with Lawyer Noggle. A few days afterward he was arrested for the difficulty, but the case was deeided in his favor, and the man he whipped had to pay the costs and $25 fine. George Hayes worked for Esquire Noggle two years, after-
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wards at general work in Beloit, and again some years for Mr. Noggle. One evening in 1847 the judge asked him if he was willing to go to the Mexican war. "I said, 'Yah,' " remarked George, "and the next morning at six o'clock started by stage for Milwaukee to enlist." At Milwaukee he met John Hauser, who told him he was going to Beloit, Wis. Said Hayes: "I told John I had a nice girl friend there in Beloit. Don't you meddle, or I will have war with you. Well," added George, "I was gone two years, and when I came back she was his wife."
On his return to Beloit from the Mexican war, in 1849, as Judge Noggle had moved to Janesville, George Hayes made his home for awhile with T. L. Wright, southeast corner of Broad and Prospect streets, and later with David Bundy, whose house stood about where the Savoy House is now. For many years Hayes did a draying business and was Beloit's first regular drayman. His dray became a familiar figure in front of A. P. Waterman's hard- ware store (now 322 State street), and his strong arms handled most of early Beloit's household goods and business freight. Our German friend, Jacob Weigle, who came to Beloit in 1850, will confirm this. He also worked for Mr. Hanchett, the quarryman, and handled most of the many cords of limestone that in the years 1856 and 1857 were built into the walls of Hanchett's block. Even before that time George was the man to call on for any such service. He helped haul the stone for the foundation of old Middle College, in 1847, and was one of the workers for John E. Houston's father, John P. Houston, when he was framing the first Central bridge, a timber trestle structure, in 1842.
"When we became a city, in 1856," said Hayes, "Bill Goodhue was the first mayor, one year, and A. P. Waterman the second mayor for two years. Beloit was a temperance town with no license, and I was elected a constable, to look after those who tried to break or did break the law. There were a plenty of such persons just across the line, in Illinois." When John Hackett was mayor and Selvy Blodgett an alderman the mayor and common council appointed Hayes to act as Sunday policeman because illegal liquor selling was most practiced on that day. George was a fearless young man, and arrested and brought to conviction many of those law-breakers.
In June, 1850, a family of father, mother, son and daughter, came to Beloit from Wolket, Oswego county, N. Y. George
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became acquainted with them and on the 4th of August, 1851, that daughter, "a nice young lady" he called her, became his wife. She was a good Christian woman, he told me, a Metho- dist, and they lived together forty-seven years, until she died at Clinton, Wis., in 1898, when sixty-four years old. He said they had fifteen children, and buried ten of them. Her aged mother lived with them until her death, in 1881, at the age of eighty-one years.
When the Civil War broke out George Hayes enlisted in Company C, Thirteenth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, and served about one year, 1862 and 1863, as a private. He was often de- tailed for special duty, frequently with colored soldiers, and having to take the place of a sergeant or lieutenant. No work was too hard for him, and so the jobs that others shirked would be given to him. As a soldier he was never reported otherwise than honorably, as one who was faithful to his duty and could be depended on. He was in one battle or skirmish in northern Alabama. For serious physicial disabilities, incurred while in the United States army service, he has long been receiving a fairly generous pension, which provided for his old age. He came out of the army a private.
He became a member of the L. H. D. Crane Post of the G. A. R. in this city and when in health was a constant and faithful attend- ant. As long as he could get out at all no inclement weather was allowed to prevent his presence at the funeral of a comrade.
During his young manhood George Hayes took a great liking, he said, to the first pastor of our First Presbyterian church, Rev. Alfred Eddy, and also to my father, Benjamin Brown, one of its early elders, and was led by them to join that church. He was quite ignorant of its distinctive features at first, but grew in Christian knowledge and was ever loyal to it. During his later years he has kept his Presbyterian confession of faith alongside the Bible on his table and has read both of them.
After his wife died in 1898 Mr. Hayes went to Waupun, Wis., and worked about the state prison there. He removed next to Kirksville, Adair county, Mo., where he lived for several years, and then in September, 1906, came back to Beloit, his old home, to stay here, as he often remarked, for the rest of his life. With this thought in view he therefore purchased a lot in the Beloit
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cemetery for his last resting place and placed a family monument there, the inscription on which, however, is not correct.
After the first building of the Beloit Presbyterian church had been completed, in 1850, George Hayes gave that society his service for about a year as a volunteer sexton. The good influences which were thrown around him in that connection undoubtedly influenced his whole after life for good. On his return from Missouri, about two years since, he renewed by letter his old membership in this First Presbyterian church and while in health regularly attended its public services of worship and occasionally also my Bible class, of which he wished to be con- sidered a member. When the new church edifice was dedicated, June 8, 1907, which was his eighty-third birthday, Mr. Hayes cele- brated the occasion by a gift of $100 towards the building fund and was the oldest of all who contributed.
During his last illness he took great comfort and a proper pride in the assurance that, beginning as a poor and ignorant German boy in a strange land, he had been enabled, though of a naturally passionate temper, to live a long and useful life, free from anything dishonest or degrading, had brought up children who were filling honorable places, and had been allowed to have and enjoy the respect of his comrades and of other fellow citizens. After a week of severe suffering that medical skill and kind care could not prevent, he died in his room at the Savoy house in Beloit, Wis., at 8 o'clock Tuesday morning, February 25, 1908.
Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin was born in Mattoon, III., Sep- tember 25, 1843. His father, a Methodist minister, moved his large family of boys in 1846 to a farm a few miles west of Beloit, Wis., where Thomas worked and attended district school. At the age of fourteen he began preparing for Beloit College and gradu- ated in my class of 1866. During the next two years he taught at Delavan, Wis., then became interested in science and took a spe- cial course at Michigan University for one year. His progress in various official positions is well indicated by the following con- densed list of his titles :
Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin, Ph. D., LL.D., Sc. D., professor and head of the department of geology; director of museums in the University of Chicago; A. B., Beloit College, 1866, and A. M., 1869 ; principal High School, 1866-8; graduate student, University of Michigan, 1868-9; professor of natural science, State Normal
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School, Whitewater, Wis., 1869-73; professor of geology, Beloit College, 1873-82; assistant state geologist of Wisconsin, 1873-6; chief geologist, ibid., 1876-82; student glaciers of Switzerland, 1878; lecturer on geology, Beloit College, 1882-7; professor of geology, Columbian University, 1885-7; U. S. geologist, 1882 to date ; Ph.D., University of Michigan, and University of Wisconsin, 1882; president, University of Wisconsin, 1887-92; professor and head of the department of geology, University of Chicago, 1892; LL.D., University of Michigan, 1887; Beloit College and Columbian University of same date; geologist to Peary expedi- tion, 1894; president of the Chicago Academy of Sciences; editor of "The Journal of Geology;" LL.D., University of Wisconsin, 1904; Se. D., University of Illinois, 1905; consulting geologist, Wisconsin Geological Survey; commissioner, Illinois Geological Survey; investigator, fundamental problems of geology, Carnegie Institution, 1902, to date.
At the meeting held in Chicago early this year he was elected president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. At the national conference of waste a gathering of governors of all the states, held at the White House, Washington, D. C., May 14 to 16, 1908, he was one of the scientists invited by President Roosevelt to address them. By the trustees of the University of Chicago in July, 1908, he was appointed a member of the commission who are to investigate educational conditions and possibilities in China, his special inquiries being made along the lines of agriculture, mining, manufacturing and transporta- tion. With his son, Rollin Chamberlin, Ph.D., he expects to sail from New York the first of January, 1909.
Besides the four-volume "Geological Survey of Wisconsin" and some eighty important scientific pamphlets, Dr. Chamberlin, with Prof. Rollin Salisbury, has recently prepared a new geology in two volumes, which is already an accepted text book.
Mr. Chamberlin married a Beloit girl, Miss Alma Isabel Wil- son, and their only child is the son above mentioned.
Dr. Chamberlin is a large man physically and every way. He is a member of the Congregational church, of affable and pleasant manners and a friend and champion of the highest forms of truth.
Hugh McCavock, Sr., one of the earliest pioneers and potent factors in the development of Beloit, passed quietly away at his home, 805 Ninth street, June 2, 1908, at the age of eighty years.
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Mr. MeGavock was born in County Antrim, Ireland, January 26, 1828. His parents, Alexander and Sarah McGavock, with their family of four sons and two daughters, emigrated to the United States in 1847, settling at Fox Lake, Ill. The remainder of the lives of the parents of the deceased were spent there, his mother dying in 1854 and his father in 1861, during a visit to Beloit. Both were loyal Catholics.
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