USA > Wisconsin > Wisconsin, its story and biography, 1848-1913, Volume V > Part 19
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Colonel Clark was married February 19, 1852, to Minerva Ann Pepper, the daughter of Harvey Pepper of Mineral Point. Their two children are Alice, now Mrs. Tiel, a resident of California, and William Harvey, a resident of Oklahoma City. The Colonel and his faithful wife make their home in the residence that has sheltered them for the past sixty years in Lancaster.
Despite his long years of activity in varied business relations, Colonel Clark is still hale and hearty, and is one of the men whom Lancaster reckons with when important affairs are on foot in the com- munity. His position is as secure now as it was in the days of his young manhood, and Lancaster honors and esteems him as one who has contributed no small portion to the best activities of the city and county.
LOUIS G. BOHMRICH. With offices in Suite 809 Wells building, Mr. Bohmrich holds a place of definite prestige as one of the strong and popular representatives of the bar of the city of Milwaukee, where he controls a substantial practice of important order. He is a man of fine intellectual and professional attainments, has been an influential factor in connection with political affairs in Wisconsin, and his sterling character and genial personality have gained to him unqualified popu- larity. He has served in various offices of public trust and in 1900 was the candidate of the Democratic party for the office of governor of Wis- consin,-a fact which indicates his status in the state of his adoption.
Mr. Bohmrich was born in the province of the Rhine, Germany, on the 26th of October, 1855, and is a son of Joseph and Amalia (LeClair) Bohmrich, who passed the closing years of their lives in 1895-1897, the father having been a successful manufacturer of furniture and a citizen of steadfast rectitude. He whose name initiates this review was afford- ed the advantages of the excellent educational institutions of his father- land, and in his collegiate course he gave special attention to the study of physics and political economy. He was a student in a college at Koenigsberg, Prussia, from 1875 to 1878, inclusive, and here made particular research and investigation concerning the anatomy of grain, its chemistry and the practical handling of its products.
In 1879, at the age of twenty-four years, Mr. Bohmrich came to America, and in 1885, in the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, he became a
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naturalized citizen of the United States. From 1880 until 1885 he held the position of superintendent of the Cincinnati Warehouse & Malting Company, and thereafter, with residence in New York city, he was representative for the eastern states of the M. L. Pettit Malting Com- pany, of Kenosha, Wisconsin, until 1892, when he became superin- tendent of the company's business at its headquarters, in Kenosha. He retained this position until 1895, and thereafter he was engaged in active business as a general expert in grain and its products until June, 1897, in the meanwhile continuing his residence at Kenosha. He began reading law under effective private preceptorship and finally entered the Chicago College of Law, which is the law department of Lake For- est University. In this institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1897 and from the same he received his degree of Bachelor of Laws. He was forthwith admitted to the Wisconsin bar and has since been engaged in the active and successful practice of his profes- sion. He maintained his home at Kenosha until April, 1901, and had in the meanwhile an office in Milwaukee as well as that place. Since the spring of 1901 he has resided in Milwaukee, and he is one of the essentially representative members of the bar of the Wisconsin metro- polis, where he has been concerned with much important litigation in the various courts and where he is legal representative of various corporations and prominent individual interests. In 1897-8 he served as city attorney of Kenosha, and by re-election he continued the incum- bent of this office during 1899-1900. In 1897 he received, through Gen- eral Fairchild, appointment as a member of the committee of one hun- dred, which had in charge the arrangements for the Wisconsin semi- centennial. From 1903 to 1906 Mr. Bohmrich was a member of the directorate of the Merchants' & Manufacturers' Association of Mil- waukee. He is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity and the Knights of Pythias, and in his home city holds membership in the Deutscher Club and the Milwaukee Athletic Club.
From the time of receiving the right of franchise in the land of his adoption the Democratic party has numbered Mr. Bohmrich as one of its stanch adherents, and he has been an active and effective exponent of its principles and policies as well as an influential factor in its coun- cils in Wisconsin. In 1900 he was the candidate of his party for governor of Wisconsin, and he made a most spirited canvass of the state in the campaign of that year, his opponent having been Hon. Robert M. La Follette, who was elected for his first gubernatorial term. Mr. Bohmrich made a most excellent showing at the polls but his defeat was compassed by normal politieal exigeneies. In 1892 Mr. Bohmrich made, in the Democratic state convention. the speech nominating Hon. George W. Peck for governor, and it will be recalled that in the ensuing election Mr. Peck was victorious. In 1911 Mr. Bohmrich was appointed by Governor McGovern, a member of the
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Wisconsin Perry's Victory centennial commission, and he has given most effective service in this position.
In the primary election of 1906, when Francis E. McGovern was defeated for renomination as district attorney of Milwaukee county, as the result of the manoeuvers of what was termed a combination of the anti-graft-prosecution forces, Mr. Bohmrich made, at the Pabst theater, the opening speech for McGovern in the latter's independent campaign for the office of district attorney, to which he was re-elected. In November, 1912, Mr. Bohmrich was elected one of the presidential electors at large on the party ticket in Wisconsin, and thus had the distinctive satisfaction of witnessing the great Democratic victory, through which he had the privilege of casting his vote for President Wilson in the electoral college.
Essentially broad-minded, liberal and public-spirited in his civil attitude, Mr. Bohmrich is ever ready to lend his influence and co-opera- tion in the furtherance of measures, enterprises and policies which he believes for the best interests of his home city, county and state, and through his character and services he has honored the commonwealth in which he has long maintained his home and to which his loyalty is unswerving. The family attends St. Mark's Episcopal church.
On the 12th of September, 1882. in Cincinnati, Ohio, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Bohmrich to Miss Elizabeth Knauber, who was born and reared in that city and who is a daughter of Jacob and Eliza- beth Knauber. Mr. Knauber came from Germany to the United States in 1848 and became one of the prominent and successful representa- tives of the pork-packing industry in Cincinnati, where he built up an extensive business, with which he continued to be actively identified until 1890, after which he lived virtually retired until his death, which occurred in 1911. His widow, who is eighty-nine years of age at the time of this writing, in 1913, still resides in Cincinnati. Mr. and Mrs. Bohmrich have three children-Mrs. Stella von Cotzhauerr, Mrs. Brunhilda Kellogg, and Miss Louise, the last mentioned remaining at the parental home.
DR. CHARLES EDGAR ALBRIGHT, promment in Milwaukee for many years as a physician and later as a solicitor for the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, was born in Darcyville, Tennessee, on January 1, 1867. He is the son of George N. and Barbara (Thomp- son) Albright, both natives of North Carolina, but who spent the greater part of their lives in Tennessee. The mother died in 1877 leaving a family of six children, five of whom are still living. The father, at the outbreak of the Civil war enlisted in the Seventh North Carolina Infantry of the Confederate Army, and he served in all the battles of the war in which his regiment participated, including the first battle of Bull Run and the Wilderness fight. At the former battle he
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came within a few yards of the guns of the Third Wisconsin. Near the close of the war, Mr. Albright was captured and remained for several months a prisoner in the Federal prison at Johnson's Island in Lake Erie, off the coast of Ohio. Previous to this he had been made a second lieutenant, and as such was mustered out of the Confederate service.
Dr. Albright completed his preliminary training in the common schools of his home, after which he entered Rush Medical College where he graduated in medicine in the class of 1899. After two years of practice as an interne in the Presbyterian hospital he became con- nected with the medical department of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company at Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He remained with the company in his medical capacity until 1903, and then resigned to spend one and one-half years in European travel and study. Upon his return home Dr. Albright again entered the employ of the Northi- western Mutual Life, this time as a solicitor, and as such he has since been actively engaged in and about Milwaukee. His success in this line of work has been phenomenal, and he has within the year 1913 captured the company's first prize for the greatest volume of business written, this being the seventh consecutive time that Dr. Albright has carried off that honor.
With reference to the wonderful career of Dr. Albright in this field of work, we here quote verbatim an article which appeared in a Milwaukee publication in August, 1912, under the heading "Wisconsin Portraits," by Ellis B. Usher. The article follows: "When a man beats a world's record, people sit up and look him over. When a Wis- consin man does it we feel the 'Rah Rah Rah' spirit rise within us for the 'home' man. At the recent national meeting of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, it developed that Dr. C. E. Albright had not only captured the Company's first prize for the seventh con- secutive time as the greatest writer of insurance, but he had distanced the record of every insurance writer in the world, writing $1.850,750 of business in twelve months. This is a very wonderful achievement in itself but the victory is more notable, in comparison with insurance writing of former days, because it demonstrates that the men of great business turn more and more to life insurance as an intelligent method of protecting their commercial enterprises as well as their estates. And this fact gives Dr. Albright his opportunity. He was educated in medi- cine, is an accomplished scholar and a man who has seen the world. As a director of the Wisconsin National Bank and the Wisconsin Se- cnrities Company of Milwaukee and a stock holder in other financial concerns, he is in constant contact with large commercial enterprises, in short, an intelligent man of affairs, who talks life insurance to men of large interests who appreciate expert advice. Ile gives them per- sonal service. The subject is never forced upon unwilling people. This is his secret. The figures given represent the business done for the Vol. V-11
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Northwestern. The company's limit is $100,000 on a single life. Last year he wrote one man for $600,000 so the surplus had to be placed elsewhere, a suggestion of a still larger aggregate as his actual accom- plishment. Dr. Albright is an excellent illustration of the value and the necessity of 'finding oneself' in these days of specialization. The winner in these days must be a specialist. He must know something of value and know it better than anybody else.
Dr. Albright is a Mason of the thirty-second degree, and is promi- nent as a Shriner and in other branches of Masonry. He also belongs to the Milwaukee Club, the Milwaukee Country Club, the Deutscher Club, the Town Club, the University Club of Milwaukee, the Midday and University clubs of Chicago, and the Union Club of Cleveland, Ohio, and the Duquesne Club of Pittsburgh, and Union League Club, New York. He is a Republican in his political faith and he and his family are communicants of the Emanuel Presbyterian church.
On November 21, 1899, Dr. Albright was married to Miss Laura Uihlein, the daughter of IIenry and Helena (Kreutzer) Uihlein, both pioneer residents of Milwaukee. Mr. Uihlein has been president of the Schlitz Brewing Company for many years and is prominent in other business enterprises in this city.
Dr. and Mrs. Albright have two daughters-Lorraine and Marion, and a son, David.
PETER TRUAX. In a lifetime of activities few men are able to encompass so broad interests and such accumulations of material prosperity as the late Peter Truax, of Eau Claire. Fifty-four years of his life was spent at Eau Claire and vicinity, where he was one of the pioneer lumbermen, the owner of a large property in lands and industrial and financial concerns, and long regarded as one of the most resourceful and enterprising factors in the business affairs of the Chippewa Valley. Death came to him at his country residence on Truax Prairie, near Eau Claire, on March 18, 1909. A brief out- line of his career is consistently a part of Wisconsin history, and no citizen of Eau Claire more justly deserves such a permanent memorial.
Of eastern birth and family, Peter Truax was born in Steuben county, New York, February 24, 1828, so that he was eighty-one years of age when called by death. During his boyhood his parents moved to Allegany county, New York, and it was in the schools of New York State that Peter Truax received all the book education which was granted him, and which was limited in accordance with the facilities of all public education in his time. In 1853 the family came west to Wisconsin, settling in Walworth county. The father of Peter Truax died in Eau Claire when more than one hundred years of age. Peter Truax had four brothers, all now deceased, namely : John Truax, of Menominee; Nathan, also of Menominee;
Mas Peter Treat
Peter troux
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David, of Eau Claire; and Joseph, whose home was at Ean Claire. There were also three daughters, and the only one to survive the late Peter Truax was Mrs. Wylie of Black Creek, New York. In 1855 Peter Truax moved to Eau Claire, and located on what later became known as Truax Prairie. His energies were devoted chiefly to farm- ing until 1865, in which year he took up his residence in the town of Eau Claire, and was identified with general merchandising until 1873. It was in keeping with his broad business capacity that his interests were seldom confined to any one line. While farming and merchandising occupied the earlier years of his residence in Wis- consin, it was at an carly period of the great lumber industry in this section of the state that his investments began in timber lands and in the practical work of logging. Besides his large holdings of timber lands, his investments comprised large amounts of real estate, not only in Wisconsin but elsewhere. For several years before his death, Peter Truax was estimated as one of Eau Claire's wealthy men. Besides real estate in the cities of Superior and Eau Claire, his interests extended to saw mill properties with the Cloquette Lumber Company, and to stock in an electric railway in the state of Idaho. One of the largest buildings in the early days of Eau Claire was known as Music Hall, at the corner of Barstow and Kelsey streets, a structure built by Mr. Truax. Many of the older residents recall the theater on the top floor of that building. Subsequently the music hall was replaced by the present Kahn-Truax Building. In Eau Claire is located a fine residence erected by Mr. Truax some years before his death, but it was little frequented by him since his preference was for his country home on Truax Prairie, and it was at the latter place that his death occurred. For a number of years his chief occu- pation and diversion was the raising of fine trotting horses at his farm on Truax Prairie, and as a part of his farm he built and main- tained the fine track, on which to exercise and develop his stock. All over the state he was known as one of the most prominent figures of trotting horses, and in his stables were to be found some of the most valuable trotters in the country.
It would take many pages to describe in detail the business career of Mr. Truax, but from what has been stated in preceding paragraphs it will be seen that he was one of the most substantial and one of the ablest business men of Wisconsin. The chief souree of his success lay in his own character. He possessed great foresight and judgment in business affairs, and his acquisition of wealth was due to his native ability to take advantage of opportunities. Ilis strong characteristics were his honesty, his shrewdness, his straight- forward disposition in all his dealings with others. There was in the late Peter Truax no tendency to sacrifice his convictions of right in behalf of his own personal advantage or of expediency. This is
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illustrated by his devotion to the cause of the Prohibition Party, of which he was long one of the leaders in the state, and often allowed his name to go on the ticket of that party, though he recognized that he was only the leader of a forlorn hope. In every way his was a type of citizenship which is of the greatest value to any community or state.
During his residence in Allegany county, New York, Peter Truax was married September 23, 1852, to Miss Cordelia Avery. Mrs. Truax, who survives her late husband, is one of the venerable pioneer women of Northern Wisconsin, where her home has been for more than fifty- five years. It is by no means as a result of her many years of resi- dence in Eau Claire and vicinity that Mrs. Truax holds so high a place in the esteem and affection of the people of this locality. In the domain of practical charity it is doubtful if any other resident has been so instant in giving and so steady in sustaining and upholding the broad purposes and activities of benevolence. Of her immediate aid to the poor and deserving, given in many cases, there can be no record, and she would be the last to wish any memorial of her unostentatious charity. In this respect it may be said that hers has been a life "of many unremembered acts of kindness and of love." In some special instances, however, her contributions are matters of public knowledge. In the building of the handsome Young Men's Christian Association Building at Eau Claire, her contribution amounted to sixteen thousand dollars. To the churches and other organized charities her purse has ever been open, and her resources may be said to have largely built two church edifices in that city. She is herself one of the very active workers in the First Congregational Church of Eau Claire.
CHARLES E. McLENEGAN. A thorough academic training, a wide and varied experience in dealing with educational institutions, an inherent sympathy with the uninformed attitude of many people toward books as educational tools and as friends, a faculty for bring- ing disassociated elements together in a common cause, and a sincere appreciation of the library as a public institution-there are the qualifi- cations which have made Charles E. McLenegan's administration as librarian of the Milwaukee Public Library one of the best the city has known, while his unfailing courtesy, his infinite tact and the ability to meet all kinds of people under varying circumstances have resulted in his universal popularity among those who have occasion to visit the institution under his charge. Since young manhood, Mr. McLenegan has been associated with work of an educational nature, and his com- prehensive knowledge of human nature, gained through long years of experience as a teacher, has aided him materially in discharging the duties of his public position. Mr. McLenegan is a product of the farm,
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having been born near Beloit, in Rock county, Wisconsin, January 23, 1858. He received his early education in the Beloit public schools, and later attended Beloit and Racine Colleges, being graduated from both institutions. On completing his collegiate course, he commenced to read law, but shortly thereafter decided to engage in educational work, and subsequently became an instructor in Racine College. Hle later held a like position in Kenyon College, and then became head master of Markham Academy, head of the English department, Mil- waukee High School, and of the same department in the Boys' High school, Brooklyn, New York. At the time of the establishment of the West Division High school, in Milwaukee, Mr. McLenegan returned to this city to become its principal, and from 1893 held that position until he was appointed to his present position, October 12, 1910. IIe entered upon his duties on November 15th following.
Mr. McLenegan possesses a personality enabling him to take his proper part on public occasions, and business acumen fitting him to plan and administer large projects. He has introduced a number of innovations which have added to the efficiency of the technical machin- ery and credit is largely due to his efforts for the great power that the Milwaukee Public Library has become.
JOSEPH P. CARNEY. Despite the fact that the preliminaries of the most exciting national presidential campaign in years were in progress the Milwaukee municipal election of April 2, 1912, attracted more general attention from press and people than any other political event of the month. The previous Socialist administration in one of Ameri- ca's largest cities had been watched closely, and not without some anxiety, and when the time came for a new decision by the local elect- orate the result was of more than ordinary significance in the nation.
On the non-partisan ticket which was successful at the polls and turned the Socialists out of office, the candidate for the city treasurer- ship, Joseph P. Carney, led all the other candidates in his majority, and this too in the face of a concentrated attack from the opposing forces. Mr. Carney proved himself an excellent campaigner, and through his personal popularity and on his fine record as alderman in previous administrations he received a vote of confidence such as has seldom been given in Milwaukee elections. In the conduct of his office Mr. Carney has aimed solely at the best interests of the city and the people without regard to class or faction, and every citizen receives the same courtesy and privileges in this branch of municipal service.
A native of the city which has so justly honored him, Mr. Carney was born on January 1, 1871, a son of James M. and Bridget Carney. the former a native of Milwaukee and the latter of Ireland. His father is an employe in the water department of Milwaukee. JJoseph P. Carney was a student of the ninth district public school. finishing
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there at the age of twelve in 1883, and then attended the East Division high school one year .. His practical career began when he was thirteen, at which time he was taken into employment in the editorial office of the Milwaukee Journal, and he has long been identified with the typo- graphical trades in this city. After serving out his apprenticeship as printer, he remained in the employ of the Journal for eight years, and was foreman of the composing room on leaving that office. Ile then went to the Daily News and had charge of the composing room for that paper fourteen years.
Mr. Carney has been prominent in the civic and social life of his home city for many years, and enjoys the esteem of all classes of citizenship. At the age of eighteen he was mustered into the Wiscon- sin National Guard in Company G of the Fourth Infantry, was elected first lieutenant and later captain of his company.
Politically he is a Democrat of the progressive type, believing in the rights of the common people exercised through regular forms of the constitution and statutes. His principles and his experience have aligned him in absolute opposition to Socialism, and his record in pub- lic office is sufficient testimony on this point. At the April election of 1908 he was chosen alderman-at-large for a term of four years, and from this office entered upon his duties as city treasurer following his triumph at the polls in 1912.
Mr. Carney has been a member of the Milwaukee Typographical Union for the past twenty-four years, representing the union for many years in the Federated Trades Council, and was its delegate to the International Typographical Union at Louisville, Kentucky. Mr. Car- ney and his family are communicants of the Catholic church and he is a member of the Catholic Order of Foresters and the Ancient Order of Hibernians.
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