USA > Wisconsin > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self-made men, Wisconsin volume > Part 73
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In politics, he has been a democrat since the dis- solution of the whig party; during the rebellion he was a strong war democrat, and without his knowl- edge was nominated while in the field, and run by his party for the State senate two or three times. He has also been a candidate for lieutenant-gover- nor and member of congress, but in a strongly re- publican district, or at a time when the State was
decidedly republican. He owes his present position to the great confidence which all parties have in his integrity, and in his especial fitness for the bench.
Judge Park found his wife in Kalamazoo, Michi- gan, her maiden name being Mary D. Beach. They were joined in wedlock February 27, 1857, and have three children, Byron, the eldest, being a student in the State University.
AMBROSE B. GILCHRIST, STEVENS POINT.
A MBROSE BROWN GILCHRIST, son of James and Polly (Sherwood) Gilchrist, is a native of Otsego county, New York, and was born at East Springfield, February 19, 1815. His father was a farmer and lumberman, and owned a sawmill. Ambrose remained at home until of age, attending the district school, and assisting on the farm and in the mill. In 1837, with a view to bettering his con- dition, he removed to La Porte, Indiana. There he spent two years; one cultivating a farm in company with another young man. In the spring of 1839 he pushed westward to Galena, Illinois, ready for hon- orable work of any kind. There he met parties from Grand Rapids, Wisconsin, in search of lumber- men, and engaged to work for them, and in the fol- lowing June went to the Wisconsin valley. He worked at first as a logger and teamster, and after- ward in a sawmill; and at the end of one year com- menced operations for himself, buying lumber and rafting it down the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers, and jobbing in various ways.
About 1848 he moved up the Wisconsin river to Stevens Point, at that time a village of about three hundred inhabitants. There he has continued the lumber business for nearly thirty years. He has also, at times, dealt to a considerable extent in
land, and in all his business operations has met with good success.
When Mr. Gilchrist first saw the Upper Wisconsin valley, thirty-eight years ago, it was a barren wil- derness; to-day it is dotted with thriving villages and cities, and bears all the marks of enterprise, wealth and intelligence. Grand Rapids in 1839 had but few white families, and a score or two of single men, comprising Americans, Englishmen, Irishmen, Frenchmen, half-breeds, etc., two sawmills and a few shanties in which to shelter the pioneer families and floating raftsmen, loggers, etc .; now it is a place of two thousand inhabitants, with fine dwell- ings, several large sawmills, shingle factories, flour- ing mills, foundries and other kinds of manufacto- ries.
In the growth and development of Stevens Point Mr. Gilchrist has done his full share, and holds him- self ever ready to advance all enterprises tending to its prosperity.
Personally he is a quiet, unobtrusive man, always attending carefully to his business. He votes the democratic ticket when the best men are put on it, but sedulously refuses to accept of any office. He has a kind disposition, good habits, an irreproach- able character, and is universally respected.
DAVID R. CLEMENTS,
STEVENS POINT.
D AVID ROBBINS CLEMENTS, son of Peter and Lydia (McBridge) Clements, was born in Pinkney, Lewis county, New York, December 14, 1819. Both his parents were natives of Saratoga county, New York. His paternal grandfather was
a native of Germany, while his maternal grandfather was born in the north of Ireland. His mother was an active member of the Baptist church, and took especial care to instill wholesome moral sentiments into the minds of her children, she having six sons
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(of whom David was the fourth) and two daughters. The father of our subject was a farmer, but David early found farm work ill suited to his tastes, and at fourteen years of age, after receiving a fair common- school education, entered a store at South Rutland, Jefferson county. He remained in that situation a little less than two years, and at the expiration of that time accepted a similar position at Belleville, in the same county, having the charge of a store, after a few months, and remaining there between three and four years. He afterward spent about a year in Portage county, Ohio, teaching a part of the time ; also one season at Fawn River, Michigan, buying grain for another party; and after a brief trip to Middletown, Connecticut, in the interests of the same party, he went to Chicago, in 1845, and dealt in goods for two years in the firm of Miller and Clements.
On the 6th of December, 1847, Mr. Clements pitched his tent in Wausau, at that time in Portage, now in Marathon county, Wisconsin. There he was engaged in lumbering for three years with only mod- erate success, money in those days being very scarce in the upper Wisconsin Valley. In 1851 he moved down the river to Stevens Point, his present home,
where, together with his lumber trade, he has com- bined merchandising, and recently has engaged to some extent in farming. He has twenty-three forties in one farm, seven miles east of Stevens Point, and sixteen miles of as good fence as the State can ex- hibit, and thirty acres of hops, being the leading hop grower in those parts. He is still extensively engaged in lumbering, however, and in that business has had his greatest success. As a citizen he is very active, public-spirited and enterprising, and withal a splendid financier.
Mr. Clements was chairman of the Portage county board of supervisors at an early day ; he was sheriff in 1858 and 1859, and a member of the general assembly in 1872 and 1873. As a legislator his busi- ness tact and practical common sense were of great service.
On the 29th of December, 1862, he was united in marriage with Miss Eva Harvey, of Compton, Can- ada, then Canada East. They have lost one child, and have two bright and promising daughters, aged respectively thirteen and eleven. Mrs. Clements is a woman of much refinement of taste and manners, and a true Christian, and is thoroughly devoted to the interests of her little family.
GALEN ROOD, M.D., STEVENS POINT.
G ALEN ROOD, son of Orlin Rood and Au- gusta L. née Drakeley, was born at Jericho, Chittenden county, Vermont, January 14, 1830. His great-grandfather was a revolutionary soldier, and his grandfather, Thomas Rood, was a soldier in the second war with the mother country. His father was a farmer while living in Vermont, but came to Chicago, Illinois, about 1838, and took a contract on the Illinois and Michigan canal. About two years later he sent for his family, and in 1842 moved to Madison, in what was then Wisconsin Territory. At that date, we are told, there was only one house be- tween Madison and Janesville, and none between Madison and Portage. Here he engaged in the lumber business, but later removed to Missouri, and is still (1877.) a resident of that State.
Galen attended school at Madison until his nine- teenth or twentieth year, reading medicine the latter part of the time with Dr. C. B. Chapman. He after- ward went to Cincinnati and spent nearly four years
in medical studies and in attending lectures at the Ohio Medical College, from which he graduated in April, 1856.
Returning at once to Wisconsin, he opened an office at Stevens Point in June, and has never closed it since. For twenty-one years he has had a steady, and, much of the time, large and lucrative practice. He is extensively known as a skillful and successful physician and surgeon, and as a man of unimpeach- able character. He has a good medical library, a variety of fresh medical periodicals, and evidently believes that every man should make his profession his life study as well as his life business. " Reading maketh the full man ;" so Bacon declared ; so the doctor believes; and with good opportunities to ap- ply his knowledge he continues to grow. He pays considerable attention to physiology and chemistry, and takes some interest in the collateral sciences; and although a man of varied culture, is wholly un- ostentatious in his manners.
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Dr. Rood voted the whig ticket in 1852, and has since acted with the republican party, never, how- ever, allowing himself to be a candidate for office.
He attends the Presbyterian Church, of which his wife, to whom he was married in November, 1857, is a member. Mrs. Rood's maiden name was Jane Sylvester, formerly of Portage, Wisconsin, though
they were married in Stevens Point. They have four children, the eldest, Myron, being a sophomore in the State University, and a student of good stand- ing. Mrs. Rood is heartily devoted to the interests of the domestic circle, and the Doctor furthers every cause that tends to the sanitary, social or intellectual benefit of his adopted home.
EDWARD L. DIMOCK, JANESVILLE.
E DWARD LOTHROP DIMOCK, one of the oldest citizens of Janesville, Wisconsin, was born in Genesee county, New York, October 13, 1819, and is the son of Horatio Dimock and Teresa Maria née Hinkley, both natives of Tolland county, Connecticut. Horatio Dimock, who was an honest man and devoted Christian, died in March, 1844, in the fiftieth year of his age, in the town of Elba, New York, to which State he had immigrated in 1816. The mother of our subject, who is still living, re- sides with her daughter, Mrs. Dr. J. B. Whiting, of Janesville, and is a most lovely and exemplary Christian woman. The grandfather of our subject, Captain Edward Dimock, of Connecticut, was a soldier in the revolutionary war, and subsequently held several positions of trust and honor from his fellow-citizens, among them that of high sheriff of his native county. The family is of Scotch descent, some five or six generations since.
Edward lived on a farm till the age of thirteen, attending the district school regularly during the winter months, and became an expert mathemati- cian and fair English scholar. In his fourteenth year he moved to Rochester, New York, and clerked for ten years in a dry-goods store in that city. Thence he removed to Buffalo, New York, where he was engaged one year in a like capacity, and, having saved a little money, he resolved to try his fortune in the West. Accordingly, in June, 1845, he re- moved to Janesville, Wisconsin, where he engaged in mercantile business, which he carried on success- fully for six years, when he turned his attention to banking, and was elected cashier and afterward president of the Badger State Bank, a position which he held until September, 1857, when the institution shared the fate of so many others in the memorable monetary revulsion of that year. In this disaster Mr. Dimock lost all his previous accumulations.
In 1858 he turned his attention to the business of insurance, and became local, special and State agent for various companies, and is still (1877) conduct- ing the business with success. In the spring of 1854 he was elected alderman of the second ward of the city of Janesville, and in the spring of 1855 was elected mayor, serving one term, and subsequently held other city offices. He was for five years a director in the Milwaukee and Missouri (now the Milwaukee and St. Paul) Railroad Company. He was also a stockholder, and for four years, ending with 1861, lessee of the Janesville Gas Works, in con- nection with the late Timothy Jackman. He was a charter member and first secretary of the North- western Mutual Life Insurance Company, of Mil- waukee, now one of the largest and most successful companies of the West. He was for many years an Odd-Fellow in connection with Wisconsin Lodge, No. 14, Janesville, and for thirty years past has been a member of Western Star Lodge, F. and A. M .; also a Worthy Chief Templar of the Temple of Honor, and chief officer of that organization.
In religious opinion he is Protestant, and pre- fers the Episcopal church, and is a vestryman of Trinity Parish, Janesville, but is not in communion. In politics he has always been a republican, but is not a strong partisan.
In stature Mr. Dimock is slightly below the av- erage height, with compact and well developed frame, capable of great endurance. His mental characteristics are well marked, having a clear per- ception and an analytic mind ; his mental processes are so rapid that his conclusions-often seem intui- tive, rather than the natural result of ratiocination. He is a public-spirited man, and being one of the early settlers of Janesville, has taken a deep interest and contributed in no small degree to its growth and development. At the twenty-fifth anniversary
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of his marriage, which was celebrated some five months ago, a friend who made the formal presenta- tion of the gifts bestowed said: "In the upbuilding of this beautiful little city of the prairie, it is not too much to say that you have done your full share; and when its history is written your name will oc- cupy an honorable and conspicuous place upon its pages." He is a man of clear convictions and posi- tive opinions, and when his views are called for they are given in a manner so definite and emphatic as to leave room for no doubtful construction. He was one of the organizers of the Temple of Honor in Janesville, having for its object the reclaiming of inebriates, and is at the present time its principal officer. He is an earnest worker in this most wor- thy cause, and many an. unfortunate who was being hurried to ruin has been restored to self-respect and good citizenship by his efforts and kindly sympathies.
Mr. Dimock was married on the 30th of October,
1851, to Miss Emma C. Hanks, daughter of Colonel L. B. Hanks, for many years a prominent business man (still living, but retired,) of Hartford, Connecti- cut, and sister of L. S. Hanks, cashier of the State Bank at Madison. She is a lady of much beauty of mind and person, cultivated and refined, and the center of a large circle of the best society in Janes- ville, but, withal, modest and unassuming. She is an exemplary member of the Protestant Episcopal church, and is in sympathy with all that is chari- table, lovely and of good report. They have had five children, four of whom died in infancy, leaving an only daughter surviving, Mary Emma, a young lady of much promise, who was educated at St. Mary's Episcopal College, Faribault, Minnesota, under the charge of Bishop Whipple. Handsome, graceful and accomplished, she is destined to a career of usefulness and honor. She also is a mem- ber of Trinity Episcopal church.
AUGUSTUS G. RUGGLES,
FOND DU LAC.
T HE city of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, owes its rise, growth and present high standing among the great business points in the State largely to a few men, who early saw the importance of the site for a town, and, locating there more than thirty years ago, bent all their energies toward building up a thriving inland city. Among these early settlers was the subject of this biography, a man who, at the first, heartily enlisted efforts in the interests of Fond du Lac, and has never ceased to work for its growth. He has lived to see a village of two hun- dred inhabitants expand into a city of sixteen thou- sand, and has been among the leaders in making Fond du Lac what it is. He furnished the funds and aided in building the first saw-mill ever erected there.
Augustus Graham Ruggles is a native of New York, and was born at Montgomery, Orange county, August 25, 1822, his parents being David and Sarah (Colden) Ruggles. His father was a lawyer, and at the early inception of the New York and Erie rail- road was its attorney, and one of its staunch sup- porters. His mother was a descendant of Cadwal- lader Colden, colonial governor of New York at the time of the revolution. His father moved from Montgomery to Newburg, in the same county, be-
fore Augustus was a year old, and there the latter spent his childhood in attending a common school. His father dying when he was fourteen years of age, he was taken under the care of his uncle, Charles H. Ruggles, subsequently chief justice of the court of appeals of the State of New York. He was sent to school two years by that uncle, and spent one year on the old homestead, and at eighteen became clerk in the Bank of Poughkeepsie, where he re- mained about four years. Later, he clerked a few months in a store in New York city, but not liking the business went into Alleghany county, and was there engaged in looking after and managing a large tract of land which his uncle owned, and which he finally sold, when the nephew started for Wisconsin, reaching Fond du Lac on the 26th of July, 1846. He was attracted hither by the fine agricultural surroundings, the lumber. on Wolf river, and the apparently bright prospects of Fond du Lac-a forecast of judgment in which he was not deceived.
After dealing in lumber a few years Mr. Ruggles began operating in land, and dealt in it with good success until 1854, when, in company with B. F. Moore, John Bannister, Edward Pier and John H. Martin, he organized the Bank of the Northwest, which was finally (about 1863) merged into the
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Third National Bank of Fond du Lac. With this popular institution Mr. Ruggles has been constantly connected, serving as cashier a long time, and finally becoming its president, which office he now holds.
In addition to his interest in the bank, he owns a considerable amount of real estate within the city limits and elsewhere, and has acquired what may be designated a fair competency. Throughout his career he has been known and esteemed for his strictly honorable dealings and the prompt attention to business. Industry with him, like virtue, has been its own reward.
As already intimated, Mr. Ruggles has looked after the interests of the city as well as his own, rightly regarding them as mutual. While acting as
cashier of the First National Bank some years ago, he took a deep interest in the Sheboygan and Fond du Lac railroad, and it was mainly through his exertions that the road was extended from Glen- beulah to Fond du Lac, furnishing a direct outlet to Lake Michigan. He was also a leading man in securing the extension of this road westward to Princeton.
Mr. Ruggles is a member of the Episcopal church, and is worthy of the indorsement of his fellow-citi- zens for probity and uprightness.
His wife was Julia née Tallmadge, a daughter of Governor Tallmadge, of Fond du Lac. They were married October 31, 1855, and have had seven chil- dren, of whom two are now living.
GEORGE R. TAYLOR, M.D.,
WAUPACA.
H E who is familiar with Samuel Smiles' "Self- Help " will remember that many of the per- sonages mentioned in that interesting work educated themselves and made with their own hands every round of the ladder on which they climbed. The list of such illustrations of self-educated men is not exhausted ; unwritten history abounds in them. The subject of this brief sketch, an eminent surgeon in Waupaca county, Wisconsin, never went to school after he was nine years old, and yet is master of all the common branches of the English language, a thorough adept in medical science, and familiar with some of the collateral sciences.
He is the son of Robert and Hannah (Hopkins) Taylor, and was born in Bristol, England, October 28, 1822. His father, a builder and contractor in later life, at the opening of the war of 1812-15 be- longed to the British marine. He was at the battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1815. A short time prior to that battle, while engaged in an assault, he had his hat shot off his head by a six-pound ball, through the effects of which the left side of his head became partially paralyzed, and so affecting his left eye that he finally lost its sight. Strange to say, the Doctor seems to have inherited this defect of vision, and expects to finally lose altogether the sight of his left eye.
His father, a man of more than ordinary abilities, came to this country in May, 1843, and the son, who had worked for six years as an apprentice at the
tinsmith business, accompanied him. The family settled in Jefferson county, Wisconsin, and engaged in farming near Palmyra about two years. They then removed to the town of Concord, in the same county, and at the end of another year George went to Madison, and began the study of medicine with Dr. C. B. Chapman. He took two courses of lec- tures in the Cincinnati Marine Hospital and Inva- lids' Retreat, and graduated from that institution in March, 1854. After practicing eighteen months in Jefferson county, Wisconsin, commencing in April, 1855, he removed to Waupaca, where he is still con- ducting a flourishing practice, and where he has gained an enviable reputation in his profession.
In 1863 Dr. Taylor was appointed assistant sur- geon for the provost-marshal at Green Bay, and sub- sequently acted as assistant surgeon in the United States General Hospital at Little Rock, Arkansas, and remained there until dismissed by general or- ders at the close of the rebellion. His experience during the war was a good school for him, and made him still more eminent in his profession, especially in surgery. Since the war closed he has been United States examining surgeon for pensions.
Dr. Taylor is a member of the Congregational church. In politics, he was formerly a whig, but has been identified with the republican party since its organization in 1856.
Mrs. Taylor, who was Eliza Herron, of Concord, Wisconsin, and to whom he was married March 22,
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1856, died July 8, 1873, leaving six children, five daughters and one son. All of the daughters but the eldest and youngest are attending the local graded school, while the son is working at the print- er's trade at Berlin, Wisconsin.
Dr. Taylor is a warm friend of education, and has been a member of the school board several years, and is behind no man in Waupaca in work- ing for the sanitary, literary and other interests of the place.
G. W. HAZLETON,
MILWAUKEE.
T 'HE subject of this biography was born at Chester, New Hampshire, in 1829, the son of William and Mercy J. Hazleton. His ancestors among the early settlers of New Hampshire were, on his father's side, of English, and on his mother's, of Scotch, origin. After closing his studies in the common school, he entered Pinkerton Academy in Derry, New Hampshire, and also attended a school in Nashua, conducted by a Mr. Crosby, supporting himself in part by teaching. While preparing him- self for college in 1848, at the urgent request of his kinsman, the late Clark B. Cochrane, he went to Amsterdam, New York, and entered upon the study of law in his office, at the same time continuing his other studies under a private tutor. In 1852 he was admitted to the bar, and soon afterward formed a partnership with Hon. S. P. Heath, which contin- ued until 1856. At this time, with a view to select- ing a home, he visited the West, and while traveling through southern Wisconsin was so charmed with the country around Columbus that he chose it as his place of residence and removed thither in the latter part of September of that year, during the excitement of the memorable Fremont campaign, and was introduced to the people of Columbus in the following manner : A mass-meeting had been called which was to be addressed by the late Hon. Charles L. Billinghurst, then a candidate for con- gress. He failing to appear, the audience grew im- patient, and in the emergency Mr. Hazleton was waited upon at his office and invited to address the meeting. From that time to the present he has been an active participant in every important polit- ical canvass, visiting all parts of his State. In 1860 he was elected to the State senate from the twenty- fifth district, and during his term served as chairman of the committee on State affairs; also a member of the judiciary committee, and afterward chairman of the committee on federal relations. Upon the death of Governor Harvey and the promotion of Lieuten-
ant-Governor Solomon, he was elected president of the senate, and reëlected to the same position at the following session. He also served on a special committee to whom was referred the proposition to repeal the so-called State-rights resolutions of 1859, and on a special committee to whom was referred a bill to repeal certain sections of the revised statutes deemed incompatible with the functions of the na- tional government. At the close of his term of office, having attended two extra sessions, he re- sumed his profession, declining a reëlection. In 1864 he was elected prosecuting attorney for Colum- bia county, and before the expiration of his term of office, in February, 1866, was tendered and accepted the position of collector of internal revenue for the second district. But not being in sympathy with President Johnson's administration, he was removed in the ensuing October. In April, 1869, he was ap- pointed United States attorney for the district of Wisconsin, a capacity in which he acted until Janu- ary 1, 1870; though in November previous he was elected a member of the Forty-second Congress from the second district. While in congress he served as a member of the committee on elections and on expenditures in the navy department. In the appor- tionment of 1872 the second district was changed, but Mr. Hazleton was nominated for a second term by acclamation and without opposition. Referring to this, the "State Journal" on the following day said : " No convention of its size ever presented a larger number of experienced and able men. A unanimous nomination from such a body of men is a compliment that but few men receive in a life- time." In the Forty-third Congress Mr. Hazleton was promoted to the third place on the elections committee, and appointed to the second place on the committee of war claims, and also appointed one of the regents of the Smithsonian University, a com- pliment highly appreciated. Fully appreciating the importance of the Fox and Wisconsin improvement,
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