USA > Wisconsin > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self-made men, Wisconsin volume > Part 103
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In the autumn of 1855 Mr. Holloway settled in Lancaster, Wisconsin, purchasing a farm adjoining the village and working it until 1870, engaging meantime in other pursuits. Before the rebellion he was a heavy and prosperous stock-dealer; from 1860 to 1872 was in the mercantile trade, having excellent success, and running a bank during part of this period with George W. Ryland. He has, also, operated a woolen mill from 1872 until the present year (1877). He owns a farm of sixteen
hundred acres in Buchanan county, Iowa, of which he has the oversight. He is full of enterprise, and although he has had many different irons in the fire at the same time, he has managed them with care and success.
Mr. Holloway was a member of the lower house of the State legislature in 1871, and of the senate four consecutive years, commencing in 1872. While in the latter body he was chairman of the commit- tee on printing the first year, of the committee on finance the second, president pro tem. the third, and chairman of the committee on claims the fourth, holding a high position among his co-workers in that honorable body.
Mr. Holloway was a whig until the demise of that party, since which time he has acted heartily with the republicans, and is one of their leading men in Grant county.
March 3, 1853, Miss Mary E. Baldwin, daughter of Rev. Johnson Baldwin, of York, New York, be- came his wife, the fruit of their union being six children, only two of whom are now living. Theo- dore, a promising son, was drowned, June 7, 1876, at Beloit, while a student in the college; John, the elder of the two living children, has been about half through Beloit College, and should his health, which is delicate, permit, he intends to graduate. Addie is at home; she has spent two or three years at the State University, Madison.
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Mr. Holloway has a delightful home in the north- ern part of the village of Platteville, his elegant house standing in a three-acre lot, embellished by nature and art, and he is living a partially retired and
very comfortable life, the health and education of his two children seemingly being his chief concern. His wife, an accomplished woman, is in full sympa- thy with him in all his tastes and family interests.
HON. J. ALLEN BARBER,
LANCASTER.
JOEL ALLEN BARBER, son of Joel and Aseneth Melvin Barber, is a native of Vermont, and was born at Georgia, Franklin county, January 17, 1809. His father was from England, and settled at Canton, Connecticut. His mother was of Welsh descent, and her father was a captain in the revolutionary army, serving to the end of the war. Receiving his pay in continental money, his first breakfast after being discharged cost him seventy-five dollars in that currency. Young Barber farmed till his eigh- teenth year, when he entered the Georgia Acad- emy, and fitted for college; entered the University of Vermont in the summer of 1829; left at the end of two and a half years; read law with Hon. George P. Marsh, of Burlington ; was admitted to the bar in Prince George's county, Maryland, in 1834. after teaching school there two years. He returned to Vermont and practiced at Fairfield until 1837, set- tling, in September of that year, at Lancaster, Wis- consin. Here he has been in the practice for forty years, at times mingling land operations with legal business, but not enough to interfere with his pro- fession. His legal knowledge is sound and exten- sive ; he has a high standing as a criminal lawyer, and in all respects has long been an honor to the profession.
During the forty years that Mr. Barber has been a resident of Grant county, he has held some official
position two-thirds of the time. He was on the county board of supervisors several years, and its chairman five ; was county clerk four years ; district attorney three terms; three times a member of the lower house of the legislature; one term in the State senate, and a member of the forty-second and forty- third congresses. In the house of representatives he was on the committees on war claims and revision of the statutes. He seldom spoke, but was an inde- fatigable worker.
Originally Mr. Barber was a whig of "free-soil " tendencies, and naturally identified himself with the republican party, to which he has steadfastly ad- hered.
In 1842 Miss Helen Van Vleck, of Jamestown, Grant county, became his wife, she dying in child- bed the next year, the child also dying. In 1847 he married Miss Elizabeth Banfill, of Lancaster. They have had seven children, only four of whom are now living. Joel A. is in the United States navy ; Marsh is a student in Beloit College; Mattie is the wife of Rev. Edward D. Eaton, of Newton, Iowa; and Carrie is unmarried and resides with her parents.
Mr. Barber has abilities fitting him for any office in the gift of the people of Wisconsin ; is a man of solid character as well as intellectual qualities, and is one of those statesmen whose record is an honor to a State.
LESTER SEXTON, MILWAUKEE.
TN publishing a history of the prominent influen- tial and self-made men of Wisconsin, we should be remiss in our duty should we omit an honorable mention of him whose name heads this sketch. A native of Somers, Tolland county, Connecticut, he was born on the 28th of April, 1807, one of a large family of children, and the son of Stephen Sexton,
a farmer by occupation. His early life, while it had many things in common with the lives of other youth, was marked by earnestness and decision of character, and he early became accustomed to those habits of industry whose fruits were shown in all his subsequent life. He passed his youth upon his father's farm, receiving a common-school education,
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and upon attaining his majority went to Hartford, about twenty-three miles from his native place, and entered into the mercantile trade. In 1837 he left his native State, and going to New Orleans engaged in a general dry-goods business,
Ten years later he removed to Wisconsin and settled at Milwaukee, which place he made his home during the remainder of his life; though he at one time seriously entertained the idea of removing to Chicago, but was dissuaded from his purpose by his friends, and especially the business men of Milwau- kee, who felt that his moving away would be a seri- ous loss to the business interests of the city. He was a man possessed of great energy and remarkable business capacity, and by his own untiring efforts and business tact built up an extensive and influen- tial trade. At the time of his decease he was at the head of a firm which stood second to but few in the Northwest.
Through his business Mr. Sexton was brought into close relations with many farmers and merchants, and in all his manifold transactions his dealings were char- acterized by strict integrity, justice and generosity.
Aside from his regular business, he was called to fill various offices of honor and trust. For some
time prior to his death he had been president of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company and vice-president of the Milwaukee National Bank, both of which corporations are largely indebted to his wise management for the prosperity which has attended them. He was also a prominent member of the gas company.
Mr. Sexton was a man who never aspired to polit- ical honors, and took no active part in politics more than to perform his duties as a citizen. He rejoiced in the prosperity of his city, and in all enterprises pertaining to its growth and interests manifested a most worthy public-spiritedncss.
In his religious communion Mr. Sexton was iden- tified with the St. Paul's Episcopal Church of Mil- waukee, and was a liberal contributor to religious and benevolent enterprises.
He was married in 1836 to Miss Emma A. New- ton, a daughter of Abner Newton, of Hartford, Con- necticut, who was of English parentage. Of five children who were born to them, four lived to ma- turity, namely, James L., William F., Emma A. and Lucy W. The last named was married to Charles E. Stone, who is now carrying on the business of the old firm, of which Mr. Sexton was a member.
WINCHEL D. BACON,
WAUKESHA.
W INCHEL DAILEY BACON was born at Stillwater, Saratoga county, New York, on the banks of the beautiful Hudson river, in the fam- ily residence which was built at so early a day that the nails, including those used for shingling, were wrought iron, made by hand. The house was lined with imported brick. His grandfather, Samuel Ba- con, senior, was one of three brothers who immi- grated from England and settled in Connecticut, and afterward removed to Stillwater, New York, before the revolution, taking up a tract of land which became noted as a part of the battle-ground of General Gates with General Burgoyne in Octo- ber, 1777, where the latter general suffered a signal defeat, losing his favorite officer, General Frazier, a calamity which so dispirited the British army that in a few days it surrendered.
His father, Samuel Bacon, junior, inherited a portion of the homestead, including the family residence, and followed the occupation of farm-
ing. His mother's maiden name was Lydia Bar- ber Dailey. He was born in the same house where his father was, and worked on the farm until nineteen years of age; then went to Troy, New York, twenty-two miles from home, and, ob- taining a situation, served as clerk in a store for two years. In 1837, his father having sold the old homestead and having purchased another farm in Butternuts, Otsego county, Winchel accompanied the family thither and resumed farm labor. On the 4th of July of the next year he was married to Miss Delia Blackwell, of the town of Butternuts, and con- tinued on the farm for four years, teaching a school each winter; and on the 2d of September, 1841, collected his small accumulations, and with his wife started for the West, traveling from Utica to Buffalo by canal, thence by steamer to Milwaukee, and thence by team to Prairieville, now Waukesha. Being captivated with the country he immediately bought a farm, paying three hundred dollars down,
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all the money he had, and receiving credit for the balance, and was settled and sowed a field of wheat in September, within thirty days after leaving his eastern home. He taught school during the follow- ing winter, and before spring sold his farm, which was six miles southwest of Prairieville, and bought another only half as far from town. In the summer of 1842 he worked that farm and taught school in the village, walking to and from his farm daily. His crop of wheat harvested in 1843 yielded from forty to fifty bushels per acre, the crop of that year being the largest, per acre, ever grown in the State, except that of 1860, which fully equaled that of 1843, although the earlier crop was winter wheat and the latter spring.
In the autumn of 1843 Mr. Bacon moved into the village and united with his brother-in-law, Mr. Charles Blackwell, in conducting the business of wagon-making. They obtained their first spokes and seasoned oak timber from rails of fences where they could be found sufficiently seasoned for that purpose. Mr. Bacon continned to teach school until the spring of 1844, when, at the request of Mr. Edmund Clinton, he formed a partnership with that gentleman in the blacksmithing business, con- tinuing wagon-making also until the autumn of that year. At that date Mr. Clinton purchased an inter- est in the local grist -mill, and Mr. Bacon, not being willing to hazard the risk, dissolved the partnership with Mr. Clinton, and bought a lot at the corner of West Division and Main streets, where the Exchange hotel now stands. On that lot he built a shop, and with Mr. Blackwell still continued the business of wagon-making and blacksmithing. On this lot was a two-story building, the lower floor of which was used for a store, while the second story, being fitted up by Mr. Bacon, was used for a printing-office, and there Hon. C. C. Sholes printed the "American Freeman," the first liberty-party paper published in the Northwest.
In 1846 Mr. Bacon built a stone blacksmith and wagon shop, three stories high, with a cornice, which caused considerable talk, there being not more than two or three buildings of any kind in the place having a cornice. Continuing in this business about six years, he then traded his shops for a steam saw-mill at Brookfield, on the Milwaukee and Prairie du Chien railroad, seven miles east of Waukesha, the road then being in the process of construction.
In 1863 Mr. Bacon was appointed by President Lincoln paymaster in the army, and directed by
General Andrews, chief paymaster-general, to re- port to Major Brown, stationed at St. Louis. Major Brown detailed Major Bacon to serve at St. Louis, but in due time he resigned, his private business compelling him to return to Wisconsin.
In 1865 Mr. Bacon, with other citizens, organized the Farmers' National Bank of Waukesha, and con- ducted it about four years, when, desiring to retire as much as possible from active business, he closed up the bank.
During all these years he had continued his farm- ing operations, and still conducts them, styling him- self a farmer. He was hardly out of one depart- ment of business before another sought him. For several years he was general agent of the North- western National Fire and Marine Insurance Com- pany, of Milwaukee, and held that position until June, 1875.
Politically Mr. Bacon was of whig antecedents. He voted for General Harrison in 1840. He after- ward became a liberty-party man, and was active in his sphere for the success of emancipation. He was a member of the assembly in 1853, the session noted for the attempt to impeach Judge Hubbell. He was appointed one of the commissioners to locate a State reform school, which, through his influence, was lo- cated at Waukesha, he being made acting commis- sioner and superintending the erection of the first building. He was appointed several times one of the trustees of the Hospital for the Insane, and on finally resigning was appointed a trustee of the Asy- lum for the Deaf and Dumb. He was several times president of the Waukesha County Agricultural So- ciety, and has filled several town and village offices, always receiving without seeking office.
In religious sentiment Mr. Bacon is a Baptist. He is a member of the board of trustees of the Uni- versity of Chicago, and also a trustee of Carroll Col- lege, located at Waukesha. He is a member of the Temple of Honor, the most popular and prosperous temperance organization of the day, and also of the Masonic fraternity, having taken the degree of Knight Templar.
In the days of slavery he was wide awake in aid- ing the fugitive slave, and knew all the blind ways of the underground railroad. No slave, having made his way to Wisconsin, was ever taken back south by the operation of the fugitive slave law or any other. Glover was captured near Racine by United States marshals and other slave hunters, and thrust into the Milwaukee jail, when fifteen thousand sons
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of freedom surrounded the jail, burst in its doors, and carried Glover away by daylight beyond the reach or knowledge of any of the cringing sycophants of the slave power of that day. Glover stayed, the first night after his rescue, at the house of Mr. Bacon, twenty miles from the jail. So successful was the escape that only four or five interested friends knew where he was.
The wife of Mr. Bacon was Miss Delia Blackwell, of Butternuts, New York, their union dating July 4. 1838. They have three children living, and have
lost two. Joshua, the only son, is a physician, of the firm of Kendrick and Bacon, and is one of the most promising young men of his profession in Wauke- sha county; Lydia Delia is the wife of George Bar- ber, of Waukesha; Ida Julia is unmarried and lives at home.
Mr. Bacon has always been a stirring, industrious man, courageous and determined, a bitter enemy of oppression and of abuses of every kind. He is a stranger to financial reverses and embarrassments, all kinds of business having prospered in his hands.
HON. HENRY S. MAGOON,
DARLINGTON.
H ENRY STERLING MAGOON, late mem- ber of congress from the third Wisconsin district, and the first man born in the State to ap- pear as a representative at the national capitol, is a native of Lafayette county, and was born in the township of Monticello, one mile from the Illinois line, January 31, 1832. His parents were Richard H. and Elizabeth (Kinney) Magoon. His paternal great-grandfather was a soldier in General Schuy- ler's division, and assisted at the capture of General Burgoyne's army in October, 1777. Richard H. Magoon was born at Salem, Washington county, New York, March 9, 1799. At seventeen years of age he moved to western Illinois, near Belleville, and there studied and practiced law until 1824, when he removed to Missouri. In 1828 he settled in Wisconsin, and erected a smelting furnace at Blue Mound, near Madison. He settled at Monti- cello in the autumn of 1829. In 1854 he moved to Scales Mound, Jo Daviess county, Illinois, and died in 1875, aged seventy-seven years. He was a man of great energy, strong will and firm integrity, and much esteemed by the old settlers in his part of the State. The mother of our subject is living with her son in Darlington. She is the daughter of Hon. Louis Kinney, who for many years was a judge and prominent citizen of central Ohio.
At the age of fifteen Henry entered Mount Morris Seminary, Illinois, and prepared for college, and afterward attended the Western Military College at Drennon, Kentucky, graduating with the highest honors of his class June 23, 1853. He subsequently attended the Montrose Law School at Frankfort, Kentucky. He was appointed professor of ancient
languages in the Nashville University, Tennessee, in 1855, and two years later returned to Wisconsin and began the practice of law at Shullsburg, build- ing up a good business in a short time. He removed to Darlington in 1864.
He is a very close student, and has made all his acquirements, not by intuition, but by earnest and steady application. Being a native of the State, and a man of fine talents, good attainments and an unblemished character, his constituents have taken pride in electing him to offices of responsibility and prominence. He was district attorney in 1859 and 1860; was a member of the State senate in 1871 and 1872, and chairman of the joint committee of inves- tigation on the Dalles bill, and chairman of the joint committee on general laws ; and was elected to congress in 1874, being one of the youngest mem- bers from the West of the forty-fourth congress. He served on the committee on education and labor, and on several special committees, being very indus- trious and diligent to represent and attend to the wants of his constituents.
Mr. Magoon has been a republican since 1860. He was originally a whig, but voted for Stephen A. Douglas in 1860.
He is a Royal Arch Mason; has been a Good Templar since there was such an organization in the States, and his predilections are toward the Methodist Episcopal church.
Mr. Magoon married Miss Belle L. Smith, at Buck- ingham, Tama county, Iowa, on the 22d of October, 1871. They have two sons and one daughter.
Mr. Magoon has a large, well-selected law library, by far the most valuable one in Lafayette county,
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and also a choice literary library of about four thousand volumes in all. At no period of his life has his mental activity been greater than it is now. He is a growing man, and should his life be pro- . longed, will be likely to make yet more honorable history. It is understood that he is engaged, dur-
ing his leisure from professional pursuits, in writing a history of southwestern Wisconsin, which will no doubt prove interesting and valuable to the people of that section, if not to the general reader. He has a fine literary taste, and writes with much care and terseness.
HON. HENRY DODGE,
IOWA COUNTY.
H ENRY DODGE, the first governor of Wis- consin Territory, was a native of Indiana, and was born at Vincennes on the 12th of October, 1782, Indiana at that time being part of the North- western Territory. Quite early in life the family moved to Missouri, where Henry spent his youth and early manhood. He became sheriff of Cape Girardeau county in 1808, and four years later was chosen captain of a mounted rifle company, there being occasion for such soldiers in those days on the frontiers of Louisiana Territory. In the autumn of the year just mentioned, he was appointed major of the militia in that Territory; was promoted to lieutenant-colonel in 1814, during which year he had command of an expedition up the Missouri river against the Indians.
In 1827, just fifty years ago, he came to south- western Wisconsin, then a part of Michigan Terri- tory, and settled near where Dodgeville now stands- the seat of justice of Iowa county. There he lived for several years (the first six or seven in the most primitive style) with his family, poorly clad and poorly fed. In 1832, while the Black Hawk war
was progressing, he acted as colonel of a regiment, and the next spring was placed at the head of the Ist Dragoons. He was quick to act, and full of energy and bravery,-a good man to fight the red- men.
In 1836, when the Territory of Wisconsin was formed, President Jackson appointed Colonel Dodge governor, he holding that office until 1841. That year he was elected delegate to congress; was re- elected in 1843, and on the expiration of his second term, in 1845, he was again appointed governor, this time by President Polk. In June, 1848, the year Wisconsin became a State, he was elected United States senator ; was reëlected in 1851, and served in all twelve years. From 1857 until his demise he lived in retirement, part of the time at Mineral Point, six miles from Dodgeville, and part of the time at Burlington, Iowa, the residence of his son, ex United States Senator A. C. Dodge.
Governor Dodge was a bold pioneer, enduring great hardships in aiding to found the great State of Wisconsin, and his name is held in grateful remem- i brance by its twelve hundred thousand citizens.
ISAAC HODGES, PLATTEVILLE.
T' "HE Hodges were early settlers in Vermont, the grandfather of Isaac Hodges moving thence to Missouri while it was owned by a foreign power. Isaac is the son of Samuel and Keziah Patterson Hodges, and was born in St. Louis county, Missouri, May 14, 1810. He lost his mother when he was quite young. He aided his father on a farm in early youth, receiving such mental discipline as could be had in a country school from teachers illy qualified for their task. He acquired much more knowledge
by the fireside, acting as his own teacher, than in the school-room. In the spring of 1826 his father moved to Green county, Illinois, and died that year. Left alone in the world, Isaac started northward on the Mississippi river, paying his way by work on a keel boat, and reaching Galena on the Ist of April, 1827, a lad of seventeen, without friends or a dollar in his pocket. He was, however, self-reliant, with a strong will and a strong body, and ready for any kind of decent work. The first month he lived with
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others in an Indian hut on Small-Pox creek, hauling logs used for house-building. The following sum- mer he cut cord-wood for Dr. Meeker, of Galena, at the mouth of Fever, now called Galena, river. The next year he worked for the same person at smelting.
After he had been living in Galena about two years young Hodges commenced driving cattle from south- ern Illinois to Wisconsin, with headquarters at Elk Grove, Lafayette county. Two years later he re- moved to Platteville, and for a while was engaged in the smelting business, without any risk of becom- ing giddy from prosperity. In 1841 he embarked in the mercantile trade, and followed it until 1861, with fair success. During the rebellion he gave his time almost entirely to securing from the State the pay due war widows.
In 1866 he started a bank with Mr. Lambert Mc- Carn, the firm being Hodges and McCarn. In 1873 Mr. McCarn died, since which time the firm name has been I. Hodges and Co. It is a prosperous institution.
At times Mr. Hodges has dealt more or less in real estate, and now has four or five hundred acres in Grant and Iowa counties. He is public-spirited, lends a hand in such enterprises as will develop the country, and has been for several years a director of the Dubuque, Platteville and Milwaukee railroad.
He is a strong, out-spoken and unwavering re- publican, but has no predilections for office-holding. He was chairman of the town board of Platteville four or five years, which is all of civil office that he has ever accepted.
He is a Freemason and an Odd-Fellow, and is an
attendant on Congregational worship, and a man of excellent character.
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