The History of Rock County, Wisconsin: Its Early Settlement, Growth, Development, Resources, Etc., Part 66

Author: Wesern historical company, Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : Western Historical Co.
Number of Pages: 899

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All his domestic relations were exceedingly and uninterruptedly happy. His social rela- tions were also pleasant. His manners were without ostentation; the " daily beauty of his life " was such as to draw around him, from the ranks of the high and the low, the rich and the poor, the simple and the wise, men, women and children who loved and reverenced him, and who will honor and cherish his memory.

Mr. Ruger was endowed by nature with a mind of great vigor, and became proficient in the exact sciences and literature, and gave much study and reflection to the immediate subject

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of his profession. As an orator, many of his clerical compeers were superior to him ; but as a writer and a reasoner, few, if any, of them surpassed him. His sermons were practical rather than doctrinal ; and while he believed in the creed of his church, and was ready to maintain it on every proper occasion, and to give a reason for his belief. yet he chose rather, as a means of greater good, to lay before his hearers those truths and principles which were delivered by the Master during the period of His ministry, and which, by the generations of men who have since lived, have been regarded as divine.

.Mr. Ruger spent little time in recreation, rarely wearied and never rested. During the active period of his clerical life, the " summer vacation " had not come to be an incident of the clerical office, and he wrought on, through summer and winter. heat and cold, seeking to per- form the trust of his high office acceptably to Him whom he served, and to the spiritual welfare and advancement of the people.

The respect and affection cherished for him and his kindly ways have been most pleasantly and delicately shown by the frequent requests made to him by "contracting parties " to join them in marriage; by the desire of many parents that he should baptize their children ; by the many requests of the sick and the afflicted that he should visit them, and by the many invita- tions he has received to come to the house of mourning, and help to bury the dead.

Father Ruger filled his place in the hearts of his children in the church so acceptably and fully that all regarded his ministrations with favor, and his benedictions as blessings. Thus, for many years, he lived and worked in Janesville, beloved and respected as a man among men and as a minister in the Church.

The Ruger family in America, from which the deceased sprang, came, in the seventeenth century, from Holland to New York, then New Netherland. The paternal ancestors of Mr. Ruger, for three generations back, were born in Dutchess County, N. Y. His mother was Jane (Jewell) Ruger, of a Puritan family from Connecticut, of English ancestry. His grandmother, Katherine (LeRoy) Ruger, was of a French Huguenot family. .

Mr. Ruger was married soon after his graduation at college, to Miss Maria Hutchins, of Lenox, Madison Co., N. Y. She is still living. The issue of the marriage was four sons and three daughters, in all of whom Mr. and Mrs. Ruger have been greatly blessed. Thomas H., the eldest son, is a Colonel and Brevet Brigadier in the United States Army. Edward held the rank of Colonel in the war, and was in command of the Topographical Engineers of the Army of the Cumberland, and is now devoted to his profession as a civil engineer in Janes- ville. William, also, has held a responsible position in the army, and is now engaged in the practice of the law in Janesville, with his brother-in-law, J. J. R. Pease. Dr. Henry H. is a surgeon in the United States Army. Of the three daughters, two are married-Cornelia M., the eldest, to Mr. Pease, of Janesville, and Addie to Rev. George W. Dunbar, a chaplain in the United States Army. Augusta is the youngest daughter of the family.

JOSEPH SPAULDING. .

Few men were better or more favorably known in Rock County than was Joseph Spaulding, whose death took place at his residence, three miles north of Janesville, August 12, 1877. For over forty years had Mr. Spaulding been a prominent resident of Rock County, and it would be difficult to find a person who ever uttered a disrespectful word in regard to him ; and certainly no act of his ever justly deserved censure. He was one of the best men in the world : ever kind, ever just. He was born in Bradford County, Penn., August 23, 1812, and resided there till 1836, when he sought a home in the then Far West. After a brief stop in Racine County. he finally made a permanent location in Rock County in the spring of 1837, on the farm where he ever after resided. In 1839, he was married in Berlin, Conn., to Miss Lydia S. Ellsworth, who survives him .. They have four daughters living, all being settled in life. They are Mrs. N. C. Dow, Mrs. J. B. Cassoday, Mrs. E. D. Coe and Mrs. G. M. Hanchett.

Mr. Spaulding occupied a prominent position in his county. He was deeply interested in religious and educational matters, and active and liberal in patronizing these interests. In

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1853 and 1863, he represented his district in the Assembly, and no constituency had a more faithful or conscientious representative. In politics, he was a Republican, never faltering in his faith in the principles of that party.

The deceased was a man of strong and active nature, energetic, self-reliant, prompt to decide and act, and clear and fixed in his opinions. He was also a man of perfect integrity, and in all his dealings with others, an honorable regard for his obligations was one of his most marked characteristics. Without making any pretensions to superior excellence, he lived far more closely in accordance with the requirements of the Golden Rule than many succeed in doing. . He was of an exceedingly happy disposition, and his hearty, genial ways made him a most popular companion and associate. He was warm-hearted, charitable and social. His home was the abode of hospitality, and neighbors and friends can testify to his kindly and generous spirit. In his family, he was a most affectionate and indulgent husband and father, and his death bas removed the head of one of the happiest households in our community.

It is easy to speak words of eulogy of such a man as Joseph Spaulding, for his life was one in which good purposes and good principles combined to produce an abundant harvest of good works.

WILLIAM MORRISON TALLMAN

died May 13, 1878, at his residence in Janesville, having reached the age of sixty nine years and eleven months. Mr. Tallman had not been blest with very robust health for some years, but no immediately alarming disease attacked him until the Ist of April. A month pre- viously, he started on a trip for pleasure and health. He reached New Orleans in safety, and, after spending a short time there, went to Washington, where he was enjoying himself in greet- ing friends and sight-seeing, when a cold which he had, became aggravated and increased greatly his asthmatic difficulties, and finally reached his heart. He hastened to New York, where he was cared for at the residence of his brother. His oldest son hastened from Janesville to his bedside, the best medical aid and the most careful attentions were given him, but the disease refused to give way. He gained sufficiently, however. to be removed to his home before death put an end to his sufferings.

Mr. Tallman was a native of New York, being born in Lee, Oneida County, June 13, 1808. his parents being David and Eunice Tallman, both natives of Woodbury, Conn., whence they removed to New York in 1806. Ten years later, the family removed to Brooklyn, where Mr. Tallman, in 1821, began the study of law in the office of Hon. N. P. Talmadge, on the old site of the Astor House. Deeming it advisable to secure a better preliminary education, he went, the following year, to an academy in Norwalk, Conn., and, after four years' preparation there, entered Yale College, where he graduated in 1830. After a two-years' course in the Yale Law School, he was admitted to the bar in New Haven. During his course in the law school, in 1831, he married at New Haven, Miss Emeline Dexter, of that place, and. at the end of his course, commenced practice in New York, in the office of Hon. James Talmadge & W. H. Bulkley. In 1833, he removed to Rome, N. Y., and continued there in the practice of law until 1850. when he removed to Janesville, where he continued practice until 1854, and where he has resided till the time of his death.

In October, 1848, two years before coming West, he purchased at public auction, large tracts of land in Green, La Fayette, Grant and Iowa Counties, in this State, and soon after added other large purchases in those counties, and also in this county. IIe did not deem it desir- able to pursue the practice of law, but, though he dropped that profession in 1854, he has been always since actively employed, but wholly with his own enterprises. He has devoted much time to developing, improving and disposing of real estate. and these improvements were on property in Janesville.

Although he never deemed political distinctions nor official positions desirable objects of pur- suit, or congenial to his tastes, and in spite of his persistent declinations of such proffered dis- tinctions, he was induced by the solicitations of many friends in both political parties, to occupy

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during a considerable portion of ten or fifteen years, the positions of Alderman and County Commissioner, that the interests of city and county. in which he was largely concerned, might be duly cared for and protected.

Although in no sense a politician, his feelings and sympathies were with the Whig party from 1833 to 1838, and he was always an outspoken and enthusiastic Abolitionist, and since the organization of the Republican party in Wisconsin, in 1854, he acted with it. He was at one time an active co-worker with Rev. W. Goodell, both of whom were mobbed at one time in Utica, N. Y., for fearlessness in uttering their convictions. IIe worked earnestly but unos- tentatiously for the establishment of the principles of his political creed, and deemed himself sufficiently rewarded by seeing these principles triumph, without seeking any further reward by political honors or official positions. He left behind him a wife (since deceased), and two sons, William H. Tallman and Edgar D. Tallman. both of whom are well known and highly respected residents of Janesville. His only daughter was married to Mr. John P. Beach, in 1865, and settled in Chicago, where she died the following year.

Mr. Tallman was a member of the First Congregational Church of Janesville, and was an exemplary and honored member. In his personal habits, he was pure, in his business enterprises, straight-forward and energetic, and his labors were crowned with success.

He has always occupied a prominent position in social and in business circles, although naturally of a retiring disposition, and having a strong distaste for any ostentation. He was always deeply interested in all that concerned the growth or prosperity of Janesville and county, and coupled cautiousness with wise counsel, and an industrious persistency in pushing forward all enterprises which he deemed wise and expedient, and of benefit to the public.

REV. II. C. TILTON.

Few Methodist ministers were better known in Wisconsin than Rev. Hezekiah C. Tilton, and the announcement of his death carried sorrow to many hearts. He had been quite ill for nearly a year, and for many months there had been but little, if any, hope for his restoration to health. He died at his residence in Janesville on the 26th of March, 1879. His naturally strong constitution battled nobly against the grim messenger, but it finally had to succumb, and after many months of severe pain, through all which he bore up with Christian fortitude and hope, he peacefully passed from time to eternity, and his spirit is at rest.

Rev. H. C. Tilton was a native of the State of Maine, and was born August 30, 1818. He prepared for the Methodist ministry, and entered the Maine Conference in 1841. He remained in that State till 1857, and, during his ministrations there, was stationed at Mount Desert, Deer Island, Steuben, North Penobscot, North Bucksport, Frankfort, Hampden, Bangor, Rockland and Damanscotta. In 1857, he came to Wisconsin. and at once took prominent position as an able pulpit orator, and in this State has been stationed at Summerfield and Asbury Churches, Milwaukee ; at the First Methodist and Court Street Churches, Janesville ; at Fond du Lac, Appleton and Whitewater. He became Presiding Elder of the Racine District, and, in 1864, represented a district in Walworth County in the Assembly, in which body he became a leading and influential member. In the fall of 1861. Mr. Tilton was commissioned as Chaplain of the Thirteenth Regiment of Wisconsin Volunteers, but failing health compelled him to resign his place in August, 1862. He contracted disease during his service, from which he never fully recovered. We clip the concluding paragraphs of a notice of Mr. Tilton, from the Janesville Gazette, with which a son of the deceased is editorially connected :

His last appointment in the ministry was at Whitewater. He had served his allotted time, and was urged to go to Oshkosh, but his declining health admonished him that it was best to cease from his labor awhile, at least, and having assumed a superannuated relation, he removed to Janesville in 1876, and in the spring of that year was Appointed by Gov. Ludington a member of the State Board of Charities and Reform for the term of three years. He was not only an active member of the Board, but a very able one Among all the officials connected with the institutions of Wisconsin, there were none more devoted to the welfare of the State, or more thoroughly identified with the interests of our institutions than Mr. Tilton.

From early manhood to the last year of his life, Mr. Tilton was an uncompromising foe to intemperance. He was a powerful advocate of total abstinence, and, by his speeches, sermons and writings, did much good for the cause

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in which he took so deep an interest. In 1875. he was nominated for Governor of the State by the Prohibitionisis. but he declined the honor, as he did not believe in coupling the temperance question with politics; and again, he could not think that any substantial good could come of such a political movement.

During the thirty-five years Mr. Tilton was connected with the ministry, he held a high place in the esteem of his brethren. He was not only an indefatigable worker, and intensely in earnest in doing the work of his Master, but in church discipline and government. on all questions of finance and those of a legal character, his opinions were almost regarded as law; and hence, by virtue of his zeal, his business capacity and his executive ability, he became one of the first men in the Conference. His death was a severe loss to the church, as well as to the community in which he was known and honored. The afflicted family consists of a wife, two sons-Henry A., of Chicago, and Howard W., city editor of the Gazette-and a daughter, Jennie.

EDWARD VERNON WHITON

was the son of Gen. Joseph Whiton, of Massachusetts, a soldier of the Revolution and of the war of 1812, and was born at South Lee, Berkshire Co., Mass., ou the 2d of June, 1805. During the first thirty years of his life, he continued to reside in his native town, whence he at length removed to the then Territory of Wisconsin to take part in the great and glorious battle of life in that new field of development-the great West. IIe settled there when the present site of Janesville and its neighborhood was almost a wilderness, and lived for some time the life of a pioneer in a cabin on the broad prairie. He was elected a member of the House of Representa- tives for the first session of the legislative assembly at Madison. At the next session. he was elected Speaker of the House. During those sessions, he was a frequent participant in debate, and took an active part in enacting the first Territorial code. Up to that time, the laws of Wisconsin consisted of the Territorial statutes of Michigan, and the laws of the Wisconsin Legislature, passed at the sessions at Belmont and Burlington. The Revised Statutes which became of force on the 4th of July, 1839, were published under his supervision. In 1847, he was a member of the Constitutional Convention which framed the Constitution of the State. On the organization of the State Government in 1848, he was elected a Circuit Judge, and, under the then system, became a Judge of the Supreme Court. He occupied this position until 1853. when the "separate Supreme Court " was established, when he was elected Chief Justice, and re-elected in 1857, and continued to hold the office until he was compelled to leave it by the dis- ease of which he died.

Chief Justice Whiton was thoroughly identified with almost every prominent event in the history of Wisconsin, both as a Territory and as a State. Throughout the whole period of his residence in Wisconsin, his life was a public life, and he filled political and judicial stations suc- cessively with such ability and integrity that the people exalted him from place to place, until he had received the highest honors in their gift; and the positions with which he was honored were ennobled by the lustre of his conduct and character. Amid all the conflicts of party-both in the means by which he attained and the manner in which he discharged the duties of office-the purity of his character was ever unsullied by the slightest breath of reproach, or even suspicion. In the carly part of the year 1859, his health began to fail, and it became manifest to his asso- ciates upon the bench that his system was suffering from some malady which, it was hoped, would be but temporary in its effects, and would yield to the invigorating influences of relaxation and home exercises, where the cares and anxieties of official responsibility would not intrude ; accord- ingly, his associates upon the bench, after much persuasion, induced him to retire, as all hoped, for a short season only, in order to recruit his energies for the approaching term, as well as to complete the unfinished former business still remaining. He left the bench, as was supposed, in the confident expectation of returning to it again after a short respite at home. Insidious dis- ease, however, had obtained too strong and deep a hold in his system, and about noon on the 12th of April, 1859, he died at his residence in Janesville, in the house of his own construction, loved and mourned as to few men it has been vouchsafed to be loved and mourned.

Among those officially and professionally connected with him, as well as among his private circle, his death called forth the deepest expressions of sincere regret and sorrow. At meetings of the bar of the Supreme Court and of the Milwaukee bar, as well as those held at the county seats of the several counties of the State, resolutions were adopted indicative of the great

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general loss felt by the people, as well as the exalted estimation in which the deceased Judge was most deservedly held by bench and bar. The President of the Milwaukee bar, in the course of a touching tribute to his virtues and ability, said of him : " Were I to name any one sphere of action in his life in which he was most eminently distinguished, and for which he had a peculiar adaptation, I should say it was as a legislator. His varied information, strict integ- rity, eminent conservatism and finely balanced mind all combined to make him a ready debater and a high-minded and patriotic legislator. But it is useless to name any one sphere when all the positions he ever occupied were filled so ably and perfectly." And another of his intimate associates said : " On this melancholy occasion, I can hardly trust myself to speak. For years, Judge Whiton has been to me, as it were, an elder brother. Our relations have been so harmo- nious, so uniformly genial, so entirely fraternal, that we have scarcely thought of official rela- tion. During our long association, in deliberation upon matters of the gravest concernment, while discussion has been most free and unrestrained, never an unkind word, nay, not even a petulant expression, has been uttered. All through his official career, he preserved a strictness of propriety which can scarcely be equaled, a conscientiousness which never wavered, a depth of thought and comprehensiveness of the subject-matter ever present, commanding without force, controlling without intrusion, clear and unassuming in his high office, great when he least thought of greatness, but great only wherein man can be truly great-because he was wise and good.'

JOSEPH F. WILLARD

was born in Vermont in 1805. His parents removed to the State of New York when he was ten years old, and settled in Monroe County, near Rochester. In that vicinity, he grew to man- hood, devoting himself chiefly, after sixteen years of age, first to teaching and then to mercantile pursuits. In the autumn of 1841, several years after his marriage, he removed with his family to Oberlin, Ohio, where, for five years, he devoted himself assiduously to study, with the manly purpose of supplying, as far as possible, the deficiencies of early education. Ill health obliged him to relinquish his plan of completing his college course, after he had entered the junior year, and he removed to Wisconsin, where he lived fourteen years, carrying on a large farm near Janesville, besides holding several important civil offices at various times, and being prominently connected with the horticultural and agricultural interests of the State.

Mr. Willard came to Wisconsin in 1846, and located some two miles below Janesville, on the east side of Rock River, where he purchased three hundred and forty acres of wild land, upon which he made practical demonstrations of his theories of agriculture. As early as 1850, though the country was then quite new, he succeeded by unwearied and continued efforts, in organizing the Rock County "Agricultural Society and Mechanics' Institute," of which he was elected President; and by liberal contributions of both time and money he succeeded, beyond the expectations of its most sanguine friends, in placing the Society on a permanent basis. Before this Society, in 1853, he, as its President, delivered an able address, which was published in the " Volume of Transactions of the Wisconsin Agricultural Society" for that year.

His success and the ability and zeal he manifested in the interests of agriculture soon pointed him out as a fit person to take a prominent position in the management of the affairs of the State Agricultural Society, and, in the year 1857, he was elected its President, which position he filled with much credit to himself, and to the entire satisfaction of the Society and the people of the State. His efforts for the promotion of the welfare and usefulness of the Society were most earnest and devoted, and must be ever gratefully remembered by all true friends of agri- culture throughout the State.

In 1859, he changed his residence to Evanston, Ill., on account of the superior advantages it offered for the education of his children, and of its proximity to Chicago, where he contemplated entering into business. "I shall never live elsewhere," he said, soon after locating there, " no place ever suited me so well as this."

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In the autumn of 1865, he withdrew from the banking-house of Preston, Willard & Kean (with which he had been for several years connected), his health, which had always been delicate, no longer permitting him to engage in business. But his interest in the village, and especially in the Methodist Church, was more manifest than before, now that he was released from absorbing occupations of a personal character.

The following is from a published account given by his bereaved daughter. In speaking of his last protracted illness, she says:

But for one year he has been missed from his accustomed place in the church and in the social meetings, which no one filled more regularly than he, when it was possible. For one year his feeble frame has endured untold pain, by chill and fever, night-sweats, cough, and all the dreadful symptoms of that most terrible disease, consumption. It crept up slowly, allowing him a daily respite at the first, attacking him with great violence in the early months of summer, pursuing him when he left his home on the lake shore, as the chilly winds of autumn began to blow, and went to his friends at the East, in the old familiar places, hoping much from change of air and scene, confining him constantly to his bed for four months, wasting him to a mere skeleton, and, finally, in untold suffering, wresting away his last faint breath-the earthly side. Not so stands the record. thank God ! upon the heavenly side. Almost from the first, he thought this would be his last illness, and quietly, diligently and wisely proceeded to arrange his earthly affairs. No item, however minute. seemed to escape him. Whatever was of the least importance to his family, whatever friendship or acquaintance, or any of his relations in life demanded or even suggested, ever so faintly, was done by him.

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The History of Rock County, Wisconsin: Its Early Settlement, Growth, Development, Resources, Etc., Part 66

Author: Wesern historical company, Chicago, pub Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Chicago : Western Historical Co. Number of Pages: 899

Author: Wesern historical company, Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : Western Historical Co.
Number of Pages: 899