USA > Wisconsin > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self-made men, Wisconsin volume > Part 71
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About four years after marriage they removed to Wisconsin; and though Mrs. Smith had been raised amidst the luxuries of wealth and refinement, she submitted without a murmur to all the privations of frontier life, rebelling against one feature only of western civilization. On learning from the woman who kept the house where they first stopped that there were no churches in Janesville, she gave utterance to a slight expression of disappointment. The good hostess, in order to heal the wound she had made, added: "Oh, you will soon forget all about churches here. Why, the only way we have to distinguish Sunday from any other day of the week is by the crack of the rifle"-which was literally true, this being the day on which the marksmen of the neighborhood assembled to shoot for money.
An incident, related by our subject as occurring in Janesville in 1843, will serve to illustrate the moral state of society at that day. At this date a
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poor barber, who had been ailing for some time, died in Janesville, and left his neighbors (he had no relatives) to dispose of his clay as they saw fit. This was the first death in the town. There was neither a cemetery nor an undertaker in the village. A rough coffin was constructed by a wagonmaker and the body was prepared for burial, and a messenger dispatched to a village about twelve miles distant for a clergyman to give solemnity to the occasion; but the messenger reported that he had failed to procure any such functionary. The people were thus in a dilemma, and the town was canvassed to find a person who could fill the office of parson, but without avail. At this juncture a team entered the town, driven by a man seated on top of a pile of bags, whose clothes were white with flour; he had been away in Illinois to mill, and was returning home with his grist. As he reached the door from which the funeral was about to start he was accosted by the owner of the house with the inquiry, "I say,
stranger, can you pray?" The man sat for a mo- ment in blank astonishment, when A. Hyatt Smith stepped up and explained the difficulty, when he made answer: "Well, stranger, you put a difficult question to me. When I lived in Rochester, New York State, I could pray, and was a member of a church, and often led in prayer meetings, but since I have been out here in Wisconsin I have lost the habit, and I don't know what kind of a fist I would make of it just now, but if you can do no better I will try." He tied his horses, put himself in ad- vance of the procession, which wound its way up the hill to a half-acre lot devoted by the county to the burial of the dead, where the poor barber was con- signed to the grave.
The fruit of his union with Miss Kelly was eight children-four sons and four daughters-five of whom died in infancy, and three survive : James Maurice, May C. and Ann Kate. The last named is the wife of Charles A. Patterson, of Janesville.
ANDREW J. WEBSTER,
MENASHA.
T HE subject of this sketch was born at Cabot, Washington county, Vermont, January 24, 1829, a few weeks before the first inauguration of Presi- dent Jackson. His father, Alpha Webster, being a great admirer of "Old Hickory," named his son after the incoming President. The grandfather of Andrew was a revolutionary patriot and soldier, and his widow lived and drew a pension until her hun- dredth year. When she settled in Washington county she not only went thither on foot, but on snow-shoes, drawing a child on a hand-sled. The log cabin which her husband put up was one of the earliest built in the town of Cabot. Andrew passed his boyhood and youth on his father's farm, and at the age of twenty-one began life for himself. Going to St. Johnsbury he worked one year for E. and T. Fairbanks, but abandoning his purpose of becoming a scale manufacturer, he made up his mind to be- come a machinist. He worked at that trade about five years in Manchester and Nashua, New Hamp- shire, and Burlington, Vermont. In 1855 he removed to Wisconsin, and worked another year at his trade in Racine, and the next March began a small though safe business in the little village of Menasha. He started a spoke factory in a shop about twenty-four
by thirty-six feet, he being at first not only sole pro- prietor, but the only workman. In a short time, however, he began to extend his business by. manu- facturing wagon and carriage material in general, and thus required greater facilities and more help. Beginning with a capital of less than five hundred dollars, and more than half of that borrowed money, he could not expect to rush business the first few years. Business, however, gradually multiplied on his hands; his industry and energies began to be more and more liberally rewarded; and in 1861, in order to increase the capital and again enlarge his premises, and be able to meet the increasing demand for his wares, he took a partner, Mr. P. V. Lawson, an excellent mechanic, who, like Mr. Webster, had accumulated some means by the closest application to his trade.
Their business has gradually extended and exhib- ited a growth which reflects the highest credit upon the energy, enterprise and business ability of its proprietors. Their shops and yards in Menasha cover about ten acres of ground, and their business employs usually from one hundred and sixty to one hundred and eighty men, and yields an annual prod- uct of about two hundred thousand dollars, includ-
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ing a half interest in a spoke factory at Depere, which employs about twenty-five additional work- men. In their Menasha shops is the most improved machinery to be found in the world. Two com- peting railroads run a side-track under the eaves of their shops; they have a United States canal within sixty feet of their buildings, and a thousand feet of dock, with every facility for shipping at all seasons.
In politics Mr. Webster is a republican, but has no ambition for official honors, preferring the quiet of his legitimate business. In his religious senti- ment he is a Universalist; is a man of warm and benevolent feelings, and a kind neighbor.
On the 6th of November, 1855, he was married to Miss Helen F. Vance, of Cabot, an acquaintance of his youth. They have an adopted son, Edward M. Webster, a bright lad of twelve years.
Mr. Webster is closely approaching his fiftieth year, yet would be taken for a man under forty-five. Though a very hard worker he is a man who has done a great deal of hard work, both mental and physical, but has always taken good care of himself and maintained excellent habits. His aim has been to make the most of his powers and build up a noble manhood, an ambition which has been crowned with abundant success.
A. R. R. BUTLER,
MILWAUKEE.
M R. A. R. R. BUTLER, of Milwaukee, was born in Vermont, September 4, 1821, and was the first son of Dr. A. R. R. Butler, a practicing physician and surgeon of high standing, and a gen- tleman of education and literary tastes and accom- plishments.
In 1822 Dr. Butler removed with his family to Alexander, Genesee county, New York, where his son, the subject of this sketch, received an academ- ical education preparatory to the study of law.
After completing his law studies Mr. Butler re- moved to Milwaukee, and commenced the practice of his profession in the autumn of 1846. At the commencement of his practice he was obliged to compete with men of great ability, learning and ex- perience.
He rose rapidly to a high position, and soon won his way to the front rank of his profession, and for a quarter of a century has devoted himself exclusively to the practice of law, in which his success has been uniform and great. He has been repeatedly urged to accept judicial and other offices, but has always declined.
During his absence in Europe in the summer of 1874 his name was presented, without his knowl- edge, by the bar of Milwaukee and other counties, with flattering unanimity, for appointment to the office of chief justice of the supreme court, on the resignation of Judge Dixon, but as the court could not transact business without a chief justice, and it was not known that Mr. Butler would accept the place, his appointment was not pressed, and the
Hon. E. G. Ryan, the present able and learned chief justice, was appointed.
Mr. Butler is a man of ability, of learning and of eloquence; his mind is discriminating, logical and comprehensive; he perceives clearly, he reasons log- ically, he illustrates with the pencil of the painter. His ability is conspicuous at the bar in his discus- sion of legal principles and of their adaptation to the diversified business of life, and in the forum in his elucidation of the principles of civil liberty and of the philosophy of government. His learning is manifested in his familiarity with the opinions and adjudications of those jurists whose names and fame adorn the pages of history, in his philosophical spec- ulations and in his literary tastes. His eloquence does not come from the lurid light of the midnight lamp, nor from his brilliant imagination, nor from artificial arrangement for dramatic effect, but from the heart. It is heartfelt and heart-respondent ; it is the omnipotence of truth in defiance of false- hood; it is the voice of God incarnate in man ; and whether heard in withering denunciations of cor- ruption and vice, or in thrilling appeals to patriot- ism and honor, or in the melting tones of tenderness and pity, it is nature that stirs to action-it is the spirit of God within.
Talent and genius, the constructive and creative powers of the intellect, are happily blended in Mr. But- ler's mental character. Without the eccentricities of genius or the idiosyncrasies of temperament, his mind is stored with the axioms of science, the maxims of law, the learning of philosophy and the gems of literature.
auchgutter
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This portrait would be incomplete if it failed to recognize another trait in the character of Mr. But- ler, which gives to it its highest charm. It is that of modesty, manifesting itself in his unconsciousness of the possession of superior powers, and in his rec- ognition of them in others.
His dignified deportment commands the respect of his fellow-men, his courteous civilities enlist their sympathies. He is, in the fullest sense of the term, a well-bred gentleman -- the highest type of charac-
ter known to modern civilization. Thus endowed he avoids the common paths of notoriety and seeks no plaudits from the multitude, yet his merits are so manifest that he commands equally the respect and the esteem of all classes.
He has an only son, who recently completed his education in a German university, now studying law in the city of Milwaukee, upon whose shoulders will fall the mantle of his father's fame. May he wear it worthily.
T. FLOYD WOODWORTH, JANESVILLE.
T HOMAS FLOYD WOODWORTH, born at Napanock, Ulster county, New York, Octo- ber 20, 1832, is the son of Theodore and Sarah (Wadsworth) Woodworth, both natives of New York. His grandfather, Luther Woodworth, was the son of a revolutionary soldier of some local distinction. His father was born in Jefferson county, New York, June 21, 1801, and at the age of twenty was ap- prenticed to a cabinet-maker at Cleveland, Ohio. After acquiring his trade he returned to New York and settled at Watertown; and on the 16th of April, 1828, married Miss Sarah Wadsworth, a scion of the family to which belongs Major-General Wadsworth, United States Army. Three years later he moved to Napanock (where our subject was born). He sub- sequently resided several years at Ellensville in the same State, and in the year 1839 removed to Cleve- land, Ohio, and in 1850 settled in Bristol. Kenosha county, Wisconsin, where he resided the remainder of his life.
The Woodworth family is descended of Plymouth Rock stock, who came from England more than two hundred years ago. Luther Woodworth, who was a twin brother of Darius Woodworth, was born in New York State in 1774, and early in life married a Miss Murray, a New England lady, by whom he had a family of thirteen children, eight boys and five girls, all of whom lived to maturity, and most of them raised families of their own. The father of Luther was a revolutionary soldier, and the latter, though only a lad, had a distinct recollection of assisting his elder brother to mold bullets for his father, who was one of the minute-men of the revolution. Luther, after his marriage, settled in Watertown, New York. He served in the State militia during our second war
with England, and was greatly mortified at the pol- troonery of our men in connection with the capture and burning of Buffalo, and always said that if the Americans had stood fast they could easily have re- pulsed the English. After the sacking of Buffalo and the rout of the Americans, he was taken on board the gunboat Caledonia, with his family, and afterward had the satisfaction of witnessing Perry's victory on Lake Erie, which, in a measure, wiped out the disgrace of Buffalo. After a stormy and dangerous passage he and his young family were landed in a wild wilderness, thirty miles northeast of Cleveland, with nothing to eat except what game he could shoot in the woods. After constructing a hut for his family, he rejoined his regiment and served till the close of the war, after which he settled in Cleveland, and being a stone-mason by trade, built the old light-house on the hill north of the city, which is, or until within a year or two was, standing, and serving as a beacon to guide mariners into the harbor. He subsequently settled on a farm some five and a half miles east of the city, which until four years ago remained in possession of the family ; at that date it was sold for city lots at five hundred dollars per acre. On this farm the celebrated Colonel George Davenport, who had been a fellow- soldier and intimate acquaintance of Luther Law- rence during the siege of Fort Erie, Black Rock, etc., was frequently a guest, and was for many years on the most intimate terms with the family.
Until fifteen years of age our subject attended the common schools during a portion of each winter, and employed his summers in farm work. He sub- sequently pursued a course of study at Shaw's Acad- emy at Euclid, Ohio, and in the month of June, 1849
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being then in his seventeenth year, he moved to Wis- consin, where he attended school at Bristol, then in Racine, now Kenosha county ; and subsequently, in 1860, attended commercial college in Racine City. He afterward made a trip to California, and there first conceived the idea of studying medicine, and perused the elementary works on this science for some time in the office of a physician, but failing health impelled him to return to Wisconsin, where he continued his professional studies at intervals, clerking and doing such business as came to hand for his support. The winter of 1864-5 was spent in St. Louis, and his health being now fully restored he removed to Cleveland, Ohio, where he entered the office of Dr. Wm. B. Rezner, and after two years' study was appointed house physician and surgeon in the United States Marine Hospital, of that city. While holding this position he attended two courses of lectures at the Charity Hospital Medical College, and graduated with honor on the 25th of February, 1869. This institution was afterward amalgamated with the University of Wooster, Ohio, and is now known as the medical department of the University of Wooster, located at Cleveland, which institution, in 1871, conferred upon him the ad eundem degree.
In the summer of 1869 he returned to Wisconsin and joined the State Medical Association, located at Oshkosh, where he practiced his profession until the occurrence of the disastrous fire in that city in 1875, when he moved to Janesville, Wisconsin, where he has since resided.
Dr. Woodworth is a skillful and experienced phy- sician, diseases of the lungs and heart being his specialty. As a surgeon he is expert and success- ful. In all his operations he is cool, cautious and
deliberate, always making sure of his ground before advancing, and while he has the most tender heart and sympathetic feelings, he is possessed of great nerve and force of will. His social traits are court- esy, candor and great benevolence.
He is an exemplary member of the Protestant Episcopal church, having been received into that . communion by the late Rev. Dr. Washburn, of Cleve- land, who lost his life in the Ashtabula, Ohio, disas- ter, on the last night of the year 1876. He is a member of the vestry of Trinity Church, Janesville.
In politics he is a republican. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity (a Knight Templar) and an Odd-Fellow (a past grand); also a member of Memorial Lodge, Knights of Honor, No. 318.
On the 27th September, 1870, he was married to Miss Delia J. Schermerhorn, daughter of Walter Schermerhorn, of Albany, New York, of Holland origin, her grandfather being Philip Schermerhorn, who for many years resided on the patrimonial estate at Muitzeskill (the cap in the creek), at which point there stood, until a couple of years since, a very ancient church of the Dutch Reformed denomina- tion, in which Schuyler Colfax was baptized. He was an extensive land-owner and slave-owner. The original ancestor of the family, which has since be- come numerous and distinguished, settled on the Hudson about two hundred years ago. Her father still resides on the old homestead, while a broth- er, John Schermerhorn, is a large manufacturer at Bloomington, Illinois. Mrs. Woodworth, who was born December 19, 1837, is a lady of prepossessing appearance, intellectual and highly accomplished, of most amiable and benevolent disposition, and an exemplary member of the Episcopal church.
WILLIAM A. PRENTISS,
MILWAUKEE.
A
S shown by early records, Valentine Prentiss, the first person of that name in this country, immigrated from England with a wife and two sons, in 1631, and settled at Newtown, near Boston, Massa- chusetts. From this original stock sprang the three branches that in after years settled at Stonington and at Norwich, Connecticut, and in the State of Maine. Sargeant L. Prentiss, the celebrated orator of Mississippi, was from the Maine branch, and George D. Prentiss, editor of the Louisville " Jour-
nal," was descended from the Norwich branch, while from the Stonington branch came Judge Samuel Prentiss, a member of the United States senate from Vermont for twelve years.
Captain Thomas Prentiss, of Cambridge, Massa- chusetts, in 1650, commanded a troop of horse, and served with great distinction with King Philip, throughout the Indian wars.
The subject of this sketch, a native of Northfield, Franklin county, Massachusetts, was born on the
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24th of March, 1800, the son of Dr. Samuel Prentiss and Lucretia née Holmes. They formerly lived in Thorington, Connecticut ; later, resided three years at Worcester, Massachusetts, and in the early part of 1786, settled in Northfield. His grandfather was colonel of a regiment of Connecticut volunteers, and his father served as surgeon in that regiment throughout the revolutionary war.
At the age of fourteen, having received a common- school education, his father proposed that he pre- pare for Hanover College. Upon inquiry, however, he found that the expense of pursning a college course would be greater than his father could meet in justice to other members of the family, and he accordingly abandoned the project. His brother, John H. Prentiss, of Cooperstown, New York, hear- ing of his decision, proposed that he enter a large mercantile house of that village. The proposition was accepted, and in December, 1815, he made the journey by stage from Brattleboro', over the Green Mountains, to Bennington, thence to Albany and Cooperstown, and entered upon his duties as clerk. In the following year the proprietors of that estab- lishment removed to Albany, and after one year, an only sister having died, his father called him home. He soon afterward entered the mercantile establish- ment of Pomeroy, Prior and Brown, of Northfield, and there remained five years. At the age of twen- ty-two, four years after the death of his father, he· determined to remove to Greensboro' on the high- lands of North Carolina. Preparatory to this he, in September, 1822, visited his brother Samnel Prentiss, of Montpelier, Vermont, who dissuaded him from settling in a southern climate. He now decided to settle in Vermont, and forming a partnership, estab- lished himself in mercantile business at Montpelier. In the spring of 1824 the firm removed to Chitten- den county, and there continued in trade for seven years: Mr. Prentiss, however, desired a wider field of action, and accordingly in June, 1836, removed to the West and settled at Milwaukee. There were then less than fifty families of permanent settlers in the town and in the country within a radius of fifty miles, while the numerous Indians between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi river made frequent visits to Milwaukee, it having been for eighteen years previous their trading-post, under the super- vision of Solomon Juneau, agent of the American Fur Company.
In July, 1836, in partnership with Dr. L. W. Weeks, he opened a mercantile business in a rough board
building twenty by forty feet, situated on Block 2, East Water street, dealing in general merchandise, and continuing about two years. His career has been one of constant activity, and he has been called to many positions of honor and responsibility. While a resident of Vermont he was elected chairman of the board of selectmen and overseer of the poor for eight successive years; was justice of the peace for several years and a member of the Vermont legisla- ture in 1829. In February, 1837, about eight months after the Territory of Wisconsin was or- ganized, Governor Dodge sent Mr. Prentiss, without solicitation on his part, a commission as justice of the peace, with civil and criminal jurisdiction over a district of country, then Milwaukee county, which now comprises Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington, Jefferson, and a part of Dodge, coun- ties, and acted in that capacity until the organization of the State in 1848. In March, 1837, he was elected chairman of a board of county commission- ers, whose terms of office were one, two and three years, the chairman's being for three years. One of his colleagues resided at Summit, now in Waukesha county, and the other at Johnson's Rapids, now Wa- tertown, in Jefferson county. He was also elected a member of the first board of trustees, organized under a village charter for the district east of the* Milwaukee river, and was chairman of the board for several years. In August, 1838, he was elected to the upper branch of the Territorial legislature for a term of four years, the first session being held at Madison in the winter of 1838-9. Soon after settling in Milwaukee he was elected a member of the com- inon council, and has been a representative in that body, in all, about fifteen years. In 1858 he was elected mayor of the city by a majority of nearly twelve hundred. In 1866 he was elected a member of the general assembly, and reëlected the following year. Although Mr. Prentiss has held many public positions he has never sought office, and has taken them only upon the solicitations of friends ; but once, having accepted a nomination, he used all honorable and reasonable means of securing an election.
In politics, he was formerly a whig, but upon the organization of the republican party in 1856 he be- came identified with that body and still continues a member of the same, believing that its principles are best calculated to preserve and perpetuate our gov- ernment.
In religion, he has always entertained a liberal faith, believing that a pure, unspotted life, as de-
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scribed in the Epistle of St. James, embodies the essence of true religion. Such a faith he deems as in keeping with reason, the guiding star of man, and a proper interpretation of the Bible.
In September, 1833, Mr. Prentiss was married to Miss Eliza Sands, of Saco, Maine, who died Febru- ary 6, 1837. They had three sons and three daugh- ters, all of whom reached adult age. The eldest son, who lived in New York city, and the third daughter, who lived at Milwaukee, died within a few days of each other in 1872, and their remains now rest by the side of those of their mother in Forest Home cemetery.
Mr. Prentiss has had in his possession since the death of his father, in 1818, an order from General George Washington to his grandfather, Colonel Sam-
uel Prentiss, of Thorington, Connecticut. It is writ- ten in a bold, dashing and legible hand, and reads as follows :
To the officer commanding the party at Burdett's Ferry.
SIR,-You will receive and obey all orders given you by Brigadier-General Mifflin. G. WASHINGTON. 9TH AUGUST, 1776.
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