USA > Wisconsin > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self-made men, Wisconsin volume > Part 49
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105
On the 10th of September, 1862, he married Miss Elizabeth Gardner, daughter of Elijah T. Gardner, who was born in the first frame building erected in the village of Monroe, which now has a population of about four thousand. Mrs. Booth is a lady of genuine good sense and superior cultivation, to whose advice and influence her husband is indebted for much of his success in life. They have four children, namely, Nettie, Rayburn, Charline and Maxwell, all having the middle name of Gardner, out of compliment to their mother.
EZEKIEL S. HOTCHKISS,
ARCADIA.
T HE subject of this sketch was born in Cairo, Green county, New York, March 27, 1837. His father, Henry E. Hotchkiss, was a farmer and undertaker. His mother's maiden name was Alice Smith. Ezekiel attended school and aided his father until nineteen years old, when he removed to Richland county, Wisconsin. He was there engaged in farming about four years, and at the expiration of that time removed to Osseo, in the town of Sumner, Trempealeau county, where he purchased land and
opened a farm. This he has continued to cul- tivate, engaging, at times, also, in other business. In 1870, in company with another gentleman, he built a flouring mill in Sumner, which, after operat- ing a few years, he sold. For several years he had a store in the village of Osseo, which he disposed of about 1874, but during this time, while engaged with other interests, he has never ceased to give his farnı due attention. He possesses a fine taste for horti- culture, and has an orchard of several hundred trees.
302
THE UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY.
· Aside from his regular business, he has been hon- ored by his fellow-citizens with positions of respon- sibility and trust. He was clerk of the town of Sumner for twelve years, notary public seven or eight years, deputy United States marshal in 1870, and aided in taking the census of the north half of Trempealeau county, and in November, 1876, was elected sheriff, an office whose duties he is at present (1877) faithfully discharging.
Although Mr. Hotchkiss was reared by a demo-
cratic father and among democratic brothers, he has never voted any other than the republican ticket. He holds his political sentiments from thorough con- viction of their correctness, and cherishes them with the utmost sacredness.
In religious matters he is "liberal."
On the 16th of December, 1862, he was married to Miss Hattie A. Field, daughter of the late Sena- tor Field, one of the most prominent men in Trem- pealeau county. They have two children.
HON. ROBERT C. FIELD,
OSSEO.
R OBERT CURTIS FIELD, who died on the 16th of June, 1876, of heart disease, settled in Wisconsin the year after it became a State, and for several years was a leading man in Trempealean county. He was born at Cairo, Greene county, New York, on the 6th of May, 1804, and was the only son of Robert Bates Field, a native of Connecticut. His mother's maiden name was Sally Austin.
Robert received a common-school education, and afterward studied law; but finding that profession unsuited to his tastes, he abandoned the study and turned his attention to mercantile pursuits, which he followed for several years in his native town. In 1849 he removed to Wisconsin, and settled in Rich- land county; ten years later he removed to the town of Sumner, in Trempealeau county, and there labored hard to develop the agricultural and other interests of that part of the county, till laid to rest in the cemetery at Osseo, a village in that town.
Both before leaving his native State, and after becoming a resident of Wisconsin, Mr. Field held important offices. In 1844 he represented Greene
county in the New York legislature, and in 1857 represented Richmond county in the general assem- bly of Wisconsin. He was a member of the State senate in 1874 and 1875, and proved himself a wise legislator. He often did good service in the Trem- pealeau county board of supervisors.
In politics Mr. Field was originally a Jackson democrat, but acted with the republican party from the date of its origin.
He was twice married : first, to Miss Harriet Gra- ham, who died several years before he left New York; and second, to Mary Stoddard, April 1, 1838; she has six children now living. The "Arcadia Leader" of June 22, 1876, paid the following trib- ute to the memory and worth of Mr. Field :
As a man he was noted for his honesty, intelligence, and the care with which he examined every subject. ... Of strictly temperate habits, industrious and enterprising, he accumulated a fine property. Ever ready to assist the unfortunate, always cheerful, frank and hospitable, he made hundreds of warm friends in this part of the State. During his active life his aim was the welfare and improve- ment of mankind, a practical endeavor to make the world better for his having lived in it.
HON. JOHN S. MOFFAT,
HUDSON.
JOHN SHAW MOFFAT was born on the 25th of November, 1814, in the town of Lansing, Tompkins county, New York. His grandfather, Rev. John Moffat, immigrated from Ireland with a colony with which also came the Clintons, who set- tled in New York State and made his home at Little Britain, in Orange county. He was a Presbyterian
clergyman of fine classical as well as theological attainments, and instructed De Witt Clinton in his first lessons in the dead languages.
His parents, Samuel and Ann (Shaw) Moffat, were industrious people, and early instilled into the minds of their eight children the strictest principles of rec- titude and virtue. His father, a merchant and lum-
303
THE UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY.
berman, operated a saw-mill, in which John was employed during his boyhood at times when not in school. At eighteen years of age he became a mer- chant's clerk at Dryden village, in Tompkins county, where he remained three years. At the age of twenty- one he entered the academy at Homer, and studied three years, except during the winters, when he taught. He next devoted about two years steadily to study in the Groton Academy, and, although pre- pared for college, never entered.
In 1840 Mr. Moffat began the study of law with Coryden Tyler, of Dryden, and prepared himself for admission to the bar; but the profession seem- ing to be already full, he abandoned the idea of opening an office at that time. Resuming teaching, he continued it for a few years, and afterward ac- cepted a clerkship in a store at Painted Post. He next engaged in the mercantile business on his own account, at Bath, in Steuben county.
In 1854 Mr. Moffat removed to Hudson, Wiscon- sin, and engaged as clerk in the land office, and at the same time filled the office of police justice, which latter position he held by repeated elections for about twelve years, the business increasing as the town grew, until it finally absorbed nearly all his time. Since January 1, 1870, he has held the office
of county judge (which in Wisconsin includes pro- bate jurisdiction), and has discharged its duties with unqualified satisfaction. He also practices more or less in the courts, and is a constant worker and punctilious in all his appointments and obligations.
In politics Judge Moffat is a republican, of New York "barn-burner" or free-soil democratic pedigree. He is a Master Mason. He is a thorough chris- tian gentleman, and holds the office of deacon in the Baptist church.
Mrs. Moffat's maiden name was Nancy Ann Ben- net. She is a daughter of Phineas Bennet, an inventor of Dryden, New York, and is also, with their one child, Mrs. Thomas Hughes, a member of the Baptist church. They were married January 24, 1844.
Judge Moffat is a man of great influence, which is all given to the furtherance of the best phases of society - temperance, virtue, morality and religion. He is a man of strong will, and when once his rea- son is convinced he is firm and immovable in his position. With him right is right, and he knows no compromise in such matters. He bears a very cheerful expression and cordial address, and in his everyday life exemplifies the power and beauty of a pure religion.
ROBERT MACAULEY,
MENOMONEE.
T HE subject of this sketch, a Scotchman by birth, was reared in this country, having crossed the ocean in his infancy. His parents, Robert and Margaret (Cavanaugh) Macauley, were living in Glasgow at the time of his birth, February 18, 1838, and came to the United States in 1841, settling near La Harpe, Hancock county, Illinois. His father was a weaver, but abandoned his trade on coming to this country, and purchasing a par- tially improved farm, cultivated it until his death in 1847.
Young Robert spent his time on the farm and in school until his fifteenth year, when, in the autumn of 1852, his mother and six of her children (two having immigrated to Oregon) removed to Dunnville, Wisconsin, fifteen miles south of Me- nomonee. There Robert was engaged in farming until 1864, when he began the study of law with Judge E. B. Bundy, of Menomonee; he was ad-
mitted to the bar in January, 1866, and since that time, except when absent on business, has been engaged in his profession.
In October, 1864, Mr. Macauley entered the United States service, enlisting in Company G, 16th Regiment Wisconsin Volunteers; he was with Gen- eral Sherman in his two famous marches to the sea, and to Richmond, and served till the close of the war.
Mr. Macauley was district attorney from 1869 to 1873, and in the spring of the last named year was elected county judge, a position which he holds at the present time (1877), making a model officer His strict honesty- a good Scotch inheritance - gives him great favor with the people.
In politics he has always acted with the republi- can party, most cordially indorsing all its principles.
He is a member of the Episcopal church and senior warden of the Menomonee body.
36
304
THE UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY.
On May 9, 186g he was married to Miss Cora Olson, by whom he has had two children.
Judge Macauley is known for his activity, not only in probate and other matters pertaining to his office, and in the church to which he belongs, but
also in benevolent objects generally, and in what- ever tends to benefit the people socially, intellect- ually or morally. He is a man of generous nature and broad humanity, kind to the poor, and attentive to suffering in its various phases.
LEMUEL ELLSWORTH,
MILWAUKEE.
TEMUEL ELLSWORTH was born in the town L of Esopus, Ulster county. New York, Decem- ber 27, 1836; received a common-school education ; was brought up on his father's farm until eighteen years old; came to the State of Wisconsin in 1857 ; settled in Milwaukee, then about thirty thousand inhabitants; soon after married Miss Nellie L. Jones, daughter of B. B. Jones, a noted shipbuilder ; engaged soon after marriage in shipbuilding busi- ness, under the firm name of Ellsworth and David- son; built several large lake vessels, among them the bark Nelson, bark Tanner (the latter wrecked at Milwaukee September 10, 1875), schooner C. G. Breed, schooner Waucoma, brig Hanover and several other smaller class vessels, all of which were mod- eled and drafted by said Ellsworth. In connection with the shipyard the firm had several large sec- tional floating dry-docks, used for lifting vessels of any tonnage so as to repair the bottoms if needed. He invented machinery so as to pump the said sec- tional docks out by steam power-a great saving in time and money over the old system of pumping by man power. He sold out his interest in shipyard and dry-docks in 1857 to W. H. Wolf, now under name and firm of Wolf and Davidson. After retir- ing from shipbuilding business he engaged in wrecking and contractor's business, making a spe-
cial business that of rescuing disabled vessels when beached or sunk ; has rescued many valuable ves- sels from destruction which would have been lost. Was elected to represent the seventh district in Wisconsin legislature in 1874 as republican; re- ceived large majority of all the votes cast; was again elected in 1875 by an increased majority.
His father, Theophilus Ellsworth, was born at Esopus, Ulster county, New York, March 17, 1788 ; died at same place, aged seventy-five years ; lived in one house fifty-five years; his occupation was that of house builder and farmer. A christian man, very industrious, always doing good. His mother, Rachel Hotaling, was born May 14, 1795; died December 1, 1866, at Esopus.
Mr. and Mrs. Lemuel Ellsworth were married January 2, 1860, at Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Lem. Ellsworth, as he is called, is a pleasant man in conversation, yet he seems a better listener than talker. His manners are kindly and courteous to all, the rich and poor alike; that, added to a cer- tain magnetism, has made for him a large circle of warm friends and admirers. Mr. Ellsworth is ap- parently in the prime of his manhood; he has achieved great success in life ; he has been thus far the architect of his fortunes, public and private, and is eminently a self-made man.
REV. JAMES EVANS, MONROE.
JAMES EVANS was born at St. Agnes, Cornwall, - England, June 26, 1828, and is the son of John and Sophia (Martin) Evans, both natives of the same place. His father had been for forty years a miner in the tin mines of Cornwall. He came to the United States in 1848 and settled at Mineral Point, Wisconsin, and for fifteen years operated in
the lead mines at that place. In personal appear- ance he was somewhat below middle height, robust, and strongly built, having an iron constitution and extraordinary powers of endurance. He was also endowed with high social qualities and was loved and reverenced by all who knew him. Above all, he was an eminent Christian. He had given his heart
Formul Ellsworth
307
-
THE UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY.
to the Lord in his youth, and for sixty years had been a local preacher in the Methodist church. He preached from house to house, in school-houses, and wherever he could get an ear to hear there he de- livered the message of dying love and mercy. He was indefatigable -instant in season and out of season. He was, moreover, a man of much intelli- gence, an incessant reader of all good books, but especially the Bible, which was his vade-mecum - his encyclopedia of knowledge. He died at the resi- dence of his sons, in Baraboo, Wisconsin, April 20, 1873, in the eighty-first year of his age.
His mother had also been a Christian from her girlhood, and was in the truest sense "a mother in Israel "- kind, affectionate, devoted, prayerful. She left the impress of her lovely character and deep religious experience upon all who knew her. She died April 17, 1875, in the seventy-fifth year of her age. She was the sister of Rev. Thomas Martin, a distinguished Methodist minister of Cornwall, whose name is still a keepsake in the church. He was the friend of Dr. Adam Clarke, Richard Watson, Robert Newton, and the leading men of that day.
They had a family of seven children, three sons and four daughters, of whom our subject is the old- est. The other sons are still living-John, the sec- ond, at La Salle, Illinois, and Charles in Darlington, Wisconsin. Two of the sisters are deceased, and the remaining two are married and comfortably settled.
The grandfather of our subject, Charles Evans, was also a Cornwall miner, as had been his ancestors for many generations, being originally of Welsh stock. His great-grandfather, Charles Evans, was converted under the preaching of John Wesley, during his first visit to the south of England in com- pany with John Nelson, the famous stone-mason of Yorkshire, at the very time when that eminent and now world-revered divine was by ruffian hands dragged through the horse ponds and pelted with rotten eggs. He was refused entertainment in the public hostelry, and so great was the popular indig- nation that no private family dare receive him into their house, so that he was obliged to lodge in the open air, rest on his saddle-bags for a pillow, and subsist on blackberries from the hedges. Since then what hath God wrought? The Wesleyan division of the Lord's army is among the largest and most prosperous in the world, and growing at a ratio of increase more than ten times as large as that of any other denomination in Christendom. Since the
memorable day when Wesley was thus mobbed in Cornwall, every member of the Evans family, root and branch, have been Methodists.
James received a fair English education, in his youth, in one of the Lancasterian schools of his native Cornwall, and later in life, under private tutors, studied the Latin language. He was a dili- gent student and close observer, and is now a man of large attainments and general information. He immigrated to the United States in 1846, two years before his father and the rest of the family came, he being the means of inducing them to come. Engag- ing in the clothing business, to which he had de- voted some attention in England, he continued it till 1855. In 1849, at the age of nineteen years, he was licensed to preach the gospel, in connection with the Primitive Wesleyan branch of the Methodist church, and continued to exercise his gifts in that capacity and connection for seven years, when he was regularly ordained to the ministry, and during the next five years preached at Mineral Point, Platteville and Shullsburgh, Wisconsin. In 1860 he changed his ecclesiastical relations to the Methodist Episcopal church, and was received into the West Wisconsin Conference, with which he has since remained, having meantime filled the following ap- pointments, namely, Fayette, two years; Providence, three years; Linden, two years; Darlington, one year; Portage City, two years; Baraboo, two years, and Monroe, his present appointment, three years. He is an earnest preacher and a fluent and ready speaker. His presentation of gospel truth is clear, simple and forcible, and his ministry has been greatly blessed. Revivals of religion have invariably resulted from his labors, and the membership of the various churches to which he has ministered have been largely increased through his instrumentality.
He was married October 28, 1850, to Miss Louisa Cheynaweth, daughter of James Cheynaweth, a na- tive of Cornwall, England, who also descended from original Methodist stock. He came to the United States in the same year with the late Mr. Evans. In her physique and general appearance Mrs. Evans is a fine sample of the average Englishwoman - robust, stout and rosy-cheeked, affectionate, loving and de- voted to her family. Like her connections, she, too, is a devout Methodist, and well qualified to fill a wife's place in the sphere in which her husband moves. They have eight children, all handsome, healthy and promising, named in the order of their birth : Thomas Martin, Richard De Lacy, Horace James,
308
THE UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY.
Edith, Ida Louisa, Mary Bell, Walter Howard and Clara Agness. The eldest son, a graduate of Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin, has adopted the profession of his father, and is now a minister of the gospel, preaching to the Methodist congregation at North Freedom, Wisconsin, having been ordained to the ministry in September, 1876. He is a youth
of fine talents, noble aspirations, and destined to a career of usefulness and honor. Richard De Lacy is a student of the Lawrence University, from which he will graduate in 1878, and Horace is a sophomore in the same institution. Edith, who is a handsome likeness of her mother, is attending the Monroe High School, and is a young lady of much promise.
CALVIN R. JOHNSON, BLACK RIVER FALLS.
T HE subject of this sketch was born at Fox- | borough, Norfolk county, Massachusetts, May 22, 1825, being the second son of Calvin and Nancy Johnson, whose permanent residence was at Hollis- ton, Middlesex county, in the same State, but who resided temporarily at other points in the two coun- ties named, while carrying out the business engage- ments of the father (he was and architect and mill- wright).
The paternal ancestors of our subject were among the first settlers of Holliston, and were, and are to this date, known as a representative family in that town.
On the maternal side his grandfather, John Rogers, was a non-commissioned officer in Washington's life guards during the entire period of the revolutionary war.
His father volunteered as a soldier in the war with England of 1812-15, and died in 1829, when young Calvin was but four years of age, leaving his family in reduced circumstances.
Our subject had but very ordinary educational advantages during his youth, having annually but a two-months' term at a common school between the ages of eight and sixteen, while the remainder of his time was spent in constant and unremitting labor; but early acquiring a taste for reading, he indulged it to the limited extent of time and means at his command, so that at the age of sixteen his scholarship would compare very favorably with oth- ers of his age enjoying greater advantages for acquiring an education.
At the age last mentioned he was turned loose in the world, with the injunction to "paddle his own canoe " down the flood of time, and to rely upon himself alone for a successful voyage.
The following two years were spent in Holliston, a small portion of the time at school; and by read-
ing everything within his reach he acquired a store of information that served an excellent purpose in later years.
Naturally of an adventurous nature, he at the age of eighteen embarked for a whaling voyage from New Bedford, and was absent some twenty-two months. In that time he doubled Cape of Good Hope going out and Cape Horn in returning, spend- ing the first season in the neighborhood of the Crozet Islands, in 50° to 55° south latitude, and the second season in Bay Whaling on the southwest coast of New Holland, and at intervals visiting sev- eral ports in Australia, New Zealand and South America.
The voyage was successful pecuniarily, and our subject, from a somewhat puny boy before, devel- oped into a rugged, healthy young man under his somewhat rough experience while on board a whale ship.
In 1844 Mr. Johnson removed to the West, and for a short time was employed as clerk in his uncle's store at Waterloo, Illinois. He spent the summer of 1845 in surveying lands in Iowa, between the Wapsipinicon, the Cedar and the Iowa rivers, and in the autumn of that year visited the Black River country, and in the following spring settled at Black River Falls. For a short time he was engaged in the saw-mill of Jacob Spaulding, and during the winter taught the first school ever opened at that place or in the Black River valley. His school comprised fifteen pupils, never more than seventeen, and he received a compensation of twelve dollars per month, and " boarded around." In the following spring Mr. Johnson enlisted in the 12th Regiment United States Volunteers, and served in the Mexican war until peace was declared.
Returning to Illinois in 1848, he was engaged for nearly two years in his uncle's store at Waterloo,
309
THE UNITED STATES BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY.
and in the spring of 1850 settled again at Black River Falls, where he resumed teaching, and em- ployed his leisure hours in the study of law. He was admitted to the bar in 1853, and since that time has devoted himself to his professional work, except when acting in some official capacity. He was elected justice of the peace at an early day, and served three years. Later, was register of deeds for two terms, and clerk of the court for one term. He was postmaster during a part of President Fil- more's administration, and during the same time served as town clerk. In 1856 he was county judge, and at the opening of the civil war a member of the general assembly. Being deeply in sympathy with the Union cause he went into the army, as captain of Company I, 14th Regiment Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, and served between two and three years, when, by reason of being again elected to the State legislature, he resigned his commission and returned home to participate in the session of 1864. In 1865 he was elected district attorney, and by reëlections
held that office for ten consecutive years. In all these various positions of honor and trust to which he has been called he has performed his duties faithfully and to the satisfaction of all concerned.
Politically Mr. Johnson was formerly a whig; he afterward became a free-soiler; later, identified him- self with the republican party, and at the present time (1877) is liberal in his views.
He was married in February, 1852, to Miss Lucy A. Marsh, of Black River Falls. Of the six children that have been born to them four are now living.
Among the many interesting experiences of Mr. Johnson's early life in Black River Falls may be mentioned the following: Ministers were at that time few, and while justice of the peace he some- times went fifty and sixty, and once eighty, miles to perform the marriage ceremony, and at one time he joined in wedlock a couple who had been living together seven years under a solemn pledge that they would be married as soon as an opportunity should present itself.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.