USA > Wisconsin > Wisconsin, its story and biography, 1848-1913, Volume V > Part 35
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CHARLES H. GRELLE. The name of Grelle has always been associated with the history of Prairie du Chien, and the present head of the house, Charles H. Grelle, has well sustained the reputation of the family for uprightness and strength of character. Mr. Grelle is pres- ident of one of the largest and most important financial institutions in the city and in addition to this is interested in a number of impor- tant commercial enterprises, all of which give him a position of influ- ence in the business world. That he is always ready to aid any cause which has as its object the betterment of conditions, is universally conceded, and Mr. Grelle is not only respected for his business ability but is widely liked for his personal characteristics and his public-spir- itedness.
The grandfather of Charles H. Grelle was born in France and came to this country in 1855, locating in the city of New Orleans, at the time a city strongly impregnated with French customs and ideals. With him was his son, Charles Grelle, the father of Charles. They ยท remained in New Orleans for a time and then determined to locate farther up the Mississippi. They came by boat as far as St. Louis and here the mother and son remained while the father continued on up the river by boat, his destination being St. Paul. When the boat arrived at Prairie du Chien, the attractiveness of the surrounding country and the very evident life that the little village showed, the
Charles Grille
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prospects for growth and the location of the town finally determined Mr. Grelle to settle here, and so sending back to St. Louis for his wife and son, he located permanently in Prairie du Chien and thus became one of the pioneers of the place and of Crawford county. In France he had learned the trade of cabinet making and was an expert at the art, so he established himself in this business in the town and since at this time all the furniture in use was made by hand he soon had all the work he could attend to. Even in later years when machine made furniture came into use he had a large number of customers, for he was able to turn out furniture of a quality of workmanship that could not be equaled by the factory made articles. He continued in this business until his death and then his son took it up.
This son, Charles, was the only child, and after obtaining what education he could in the primitive schools of the period he left school at the age of seventeen and entered his father's shop. Here after the death of the father he continued the cabinet making business and was also engaged in the undertaking business. He was a Demo- erat in politics and was a prominent and publie-spirited citizen. His father before him had been interested in all public matters and had served two terms as a member of the city council. Charles Grelle was born in France and his wife, who was Caroline Stuckey, was born in Crawford county, Wisconsin. Charles Grelle died in 1902 and his widow is still living at the age of sixty-seven. Eight chil- dren were born to this couple, of whom six are living.
Charles H. Grelle was born in Wauzeka, Crawford county, Wis- consin, on the 17th of February, 1867. He grew up in Prairie du Chien and received his education in his home eity. He attended the public schools until he had reached his thirteenth year and then he was sent to the parochial schools for a time. In 1880 he attended the Sacred Heart Academy in Prairie du Chien, but previous to this time he had been at work. His first position, which he held until 1881, was as a clerk in a dry goods store of L. Case & Company. He made so efficient a clerk that soon after he was made general manager of the dry goods department of the above mentioned store. Having earned both experience and money in the business, in 1891 he resigned his position to go into the dry goods business for himself. He has continued in this business up to the present time, though quite re- cently he transferred all his interest in the business to his brothers. and the firm is now known as Grelle Brothers. This store is one of the best stocked and best known establishments in the town and the large trade which it enjoys has been built up in large measure through the efforts of Mr. Grelle.
The electric lighting system of the eity was originally begun by Mr. Bayliss, but the capital at his disposal proved to be insufficient to finance the undertaking and the company was almost bankrupt when
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Mr. Grelle stepped in and took matters in charge. He put the com- pany on a good solid financial basis and gave to the city its present efficient lighting plant. The Prairie City Electric Company owns one of the finest and most satisfactory plants in the northwest and this is due in large measure to Mr. Grelle. In 1904 he was elected president of the company, the other officers being Mr. Poehler, who is vice-president, Henry Otto, secretary and treasurer, and Fred L. Haupt, superintendent.
One of Mr. Grelle's principal interests is the Bank of Prairie du Chien, which was organized in 1889 by E. I. Kidd, a former bank examiner of the state of Wisconsin. Mr. Grelle became a stockholder and director of this institution in 1900 and with the death of Mr. Kidd in 1907, Mr. Grelle was elected president of the bank. The other officers are W. R. Graves, vice-president, Henry Otto, cashier, and A. G. Kieser, assistant cashier. In addition to the officers of the bank its board of directors includes J. S. Earll, O. G. Munson and D. F. Horsfall. The capital of the bank is $30,000 and the surplus is $30,000, the deposits being over $633,000.
Mr. Grelle became vice-president of the Prairie City Canning Company when the business was operating with a capital stock of twenty-five thousand dollars. This company cans tomatoes and sauer kraut exclusively and so lucrative has the business proved that in 1913 the capital was increased to fifty thousand dollars. It has proved to be a valuable enterprise to the city, for a number of employes are required for its operation.
Mr. Grelle was married on the 6th of July, 1893, at Prairie du Chien, to Miss Gertrude E. Fredrich. Three sons have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Grelle, as follows: Robert Charles, who was born June 21, 1897, and is at present in his third year in the Sacred Heart Acad- emy in Prairie du Chien ; Lawrence Henry, whose birth occurred on the 18th of September, 1899, and Edward C., born on May 27, 1900.
KADING & KADING. The law firm of Kading & Kading, with offices in the Masonic Temple Building at Watertown, possesses not only the distinction which comes to successful ability in that profession, but is noteworthy as a union in professional relations of husband and wife, and there are very few of such legal partnerships to be found any- where in the country. Mr. Kading who recently retired from the office of district attorney for Dodge county, is regarded as one of the ablest members of the bar, while Mrs. Kading is likewise admirably trained and has made a similar successful record in her chosen profession. Mrs. Kading is circuit court commissioner of Dodge county, and one of the few women who have achieved definite success in the practice of law in Wisconsin.
Charles A. Kading was born in the village of Lowell, Dodge county,
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Wisconsin, January 14, 1874. His parents, Charles and Elizabeth (Boggans) Kading, were born, reared and married in Germany, and in 1866, set out for America, the land of opportunities. The sailing vessel which bore them across the ocean was eleven weeks in making the voyage, and landed them at New York City, July 3, 1866. Coming to Wisconsin, where so many of their countrymen had established homes, they located in the town of Oak Grove, of Dodge county, and as poor emigrants set to work to make a home aud acquire some degree of sub- stantial prosperity. Charles Kading had very little money, and his first employment was at farm labor. Hard working and thrifty, and with the aid of his capable wife, he soon accumulated savings which were invested in a little farm. The succeeding years saw a gradual increase in the estate, and now for a long time he has been one of the sub- stantial land owners of Dodge county. He is now living practically retired on the homestead, at the age of seventy-three years, and is one of the well known and highly honored pioneer citizens of Dodge county. His wife passed away in 1881, when her son Charles A. was seven years old. Of the six children in the family, five sons and one daughter. four sons are still living.
As a boy Charles A. Kading grew up on the Dodge county farm, attended the district schools, at the same time learning valuable lessons in industry and coming to appreciate the dignity of honest toil. At the age of sixteen he entered the graded schools at Lowell, and after two years was qualified for a teacher's certificate. He taught a district school one year, and then continued his studies in the high school at Horicon. All his work in those days was in line with a definite ambition ' for a professional career, and during one summer he attended the Uni- versity of Wisconsin. Four years were spent as a teacher in the public schools, and he then entered the law department of the Northern Indiana Law School, now known as Valparaiso University. From that school he was graduated with the class of 1900, and the well earned degree of Bachelor of Laws. Admitted to the bar of his native state in the same year, he has since been active and increasingly successful in his profes- sion.
The year 1900 marked another important event in his career, when on November 7, was celebrated at Milwaukee his marriage to Miss Elizabeth Holste, adopted daughter of Henry Holste, a well known citizen of Watertown. Mrs. Kading's parents, Julius and Freda ( Maybauer) Sommers, died when she was in infancy, and she was given the best of educational advantages by her foster parents. She graduated from the Watertown High School and was graduated in the law department of Valparaiso University in the same class with her husband. While much of her time has necessarily been taken up with the duties of home and motherhood, she has in many cases proved herself exceptionally able as attorney and counsellor, and has proved a valuable partner in the firm
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of Kading & Kading, which now enjoys a large clientage. Mrs. Kading has served as circuit court commissioner for Dodge county since 1910. Mr. Kading in 1906 was elected district attorney of Dodge county, and gave six years of skillful and disinterested service in that office, his term expiring in 1912. For seven years he was city attorney of Water- town, where he and his wife have been in practice since their marriage in November, 1900. In the fall of 1912 he was nominated at the Septem- ber primary election for the office of attorney general for the state of Wisconsin, and came very near being elected; having materially cut down the Republican majority.
Mr. and Mrs. Kading have one son, Charles Earl, born June 11, 1907. Mr. Kading gives a staunch support to the Democratic party, and both he and his wife are popular members of social circles. Fraternally his affiliations are with the Masonic Fraternity, the Knights of the Modern Maccabees, the Equitable Fraternal Union, the Modern Wood- men of America, the Fraternal Order of Eagles, the Knights of Pythias, and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He and his wife both have membership in the Dodge County Bar Association.
WILLIAM C. COWLING. Success is the natural prerogative of such valiant personalities as Mr. Cowling, who defrayed through his own efforts the expense of his higher academic and his professional educa- tion and who has gained secure prestige as one of the able and repre- sentative members of the bar of his native state. He is engaged in the . active general practice of his profession in the city of Milwaukee, with offices in the Wells Building.
Mr. Cowling was born in the city of Oshkosh, judicial center of Winnebago county, Wisconsin, on the second of July, 1874, and is a son of John and Mary E. Cowling. John Cowling established his home in Wisconsin prior to the Civil war. In this great conflict he served as a valiant soldier in Company C. Twenty-first Wisconsin Volunteer In- fantry, with which he participated in many of the important engage- ments of the prolonged struggle through which the integrity of the nation was perpetuated.
To the public schools of his native city, William C. Cowling is indebted for his early educational discipline and there he was gradul- ated in the high schools as a member of the class of 1891. Depending upon his own exertions in his higher studies, he entered the University of Minnesota. He earned his way through college by reporting for various newspapers during the university sessions and by working in factories during his vacation seasons. In 1895 Mr. Cowling assumed the office of clerk of the municipal court of Oshkosh, Winnebago county, and he retained this incumbency until 1899. He devised and estab- lished in this office an effective system of records, and the same has been followed closely since his retirement from office, his resignation having
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been entered two years prior to the expiration of his second term. In the meanwhile he had taken up the study of law under effective private preceptorship, and he was admitted to the bar of his native state. Upon resigning his position as clerk of the municipal court at Oshkosh, Mr. Cowling moved to Princeton, Green Lake county, where he engaged in the practice of his profession and where he assumed occupancy of the office formerly owned by Hon. James H. Davidson, member of con- gress from that district. He continued in the practice of law at Prince- ton from January 1, 1899, until June, 1901, when he returned to Osh- kosh and entered into a partnership with W. W. Quatermass, under the firm name of Quatermass & Cowling. Mr. Quatermass was at that time district attorney of Winnebago county, and he found in Mr. Cowling a most able and valuable coadjutor, their partnership alliance continu- ing until the death of Mr. Quatermass in March, 1903, and the firm having controlled a substantial and representative practice.
At Oshkosh one of the important industrial and commercial centers of Wisconsin, Mr. Cowling continued in the practice of his profession for some years, since which time he has been numbered among the strong and successful members of the Milwaukee bar. Here he had added materially to his reputation as a resourceful and versatile advocate and well fortified counsellor, and his clientage of one of essentially important and representative order.
In politics Mr. Cowling has been found arrayed as a stalwart and effective exponent of the principles and policies of the Republican party. and he early became influential as a worker in the party cause. In November, 1902, he was elected to represent the First District of Winne- bago in the assembly of the state legislature, and he made an excellent record for zealous and well ordered efforts to promote wisc legislation and to represent fully the interests of his constitutents. In the session of 1903 he was a member of the important judiciary committee of the assembly, or lower house, and was chairman of the joint committee on printing, besides holding membership on other committees. He retired from the legislature in 1905, at the expiration of his term, and in the same year assumed the office of city attorney of Oshkosh, of which position he continued the alert and valued incumbent until 1909. Mr. Cowling is a close observer of the ethical code of his profession and his work in his chosen calling has been such as to dignify the same and gain to him the confidence and esteem of his confreres at the bar. As a citizen he is progressive and publie spirited. and takes a lively interest in all that concerns the welfare of his native state. In the Masonic fraternity he has received the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite and is affiliated with Wisconsin Sovereign Con- sistory, as he also is with the Tripoli Temple. Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. in Milwaukee. He also holds member- ship in the Knights of Pythias.
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FOSSETT A. COTTON. It is neither essential nor desirable that a eulogy be offered in presenting a brief review of the life and works of Fossett A. Cotton, President of the State Normal School of La Crosse, for the character and quality of his service is apparent to all, and the far-reaching influence that emanates from the life of a conscientious and zealous master instructor such as he is a factor with which all thinking people are familiar and appreciative, and which even unthinking peo- ple regard with the utmost respect. So it is that in this connection specific attention is given to the actual facts of the life of Mr. Cotton, with some mention of the institution with which he has been honorably connected since March, 1909.
Born on May 1, 1862, in Johnson county, Indiana, he is a son of Marion I. and Rachel Amanda (Wright) Cotton. The father was a native of Kentucky who died in 1869, but the mother is still living, at the advanced age of seventy-nine years. Marion I. Cotton was a farmer and teacher by occupation, a member of the Christian church and an elder in that body for many years. He was a man of excellent natural qualities, who enjoyed a high standing in his community all his life, brief though it was. Until he was twenty years old Fossett A. Cotton was a student of the elementary branches, at which time he entered the State Normal School at Terre Haute. He was graduated from the Butler University at Indianapolis, with the degree of A. B., after which he spent a year in study at the University of Chicago. His first work along educational lines was as a teacher in the district, village and town schools, advancing rapidly in the field of work for which he had prepared himself. He was county superintendent of the schools of Henry county, Indiana, and for six years was deputy state superin- tendent of public instruction of Indiana, and state superintendent of public instruction for Indiana for another six years. While serving in the latter office, his last salary was paid to him on the 15th of March, 1909, and on the 16th of March, in the same year, he entered upon his duties as president of the State Normal School of La Crosse, Wiscon- sin. Though that institution is one of the younger ones in this section of the country, having been established in 1909, the school has since that time made rapid strides in the acquirement of the ability to confer upon its students the best training and equipment possible to be fur- nished by a conscientious faculty of instructors, whose aim it is to make the more efficient the work of the teachers, and to render them the more skillful in the matter of imparting instruction in the most telling manner.
The State Normal School of La Crosse has been fortunate in its loca- tion, as well as in its choice of a president and faculty. Numerous advantages accrue to the institution as a result of its excellent location in a city of the character and general atmosphere of La Crosse. The great natural beauty of the adjacent country provides a setting for the
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school that might be long sought without being equaled. Grand Dad Bluff, generally acknowledged to be perhaps the most attractive spot along the entire length of the Mississippi river, is but a five minutes walk from the Normal School, and from its summit, some five hundred feet above the valley, may be seen the city, the La Crosse, Black and Mississippi rivers, and the beautiful hills of Minnesota stretching for miles along the river banks. Many attractions of the city itself might be ennumerated, but mention is omitted here of such. The school itself is one of the great points of interest in La Crosse, and located on State street, between Seventeenth and Eighteenth streets, presents a most attractive appearance and occupies a space some two hundred feet square. It has an auditorium with a seating capacity of one thousand persons, a library furnished with several thousand carefully chosen books, gymnasiums and baths for all, with every accessory of college life known to the present day for the convenience of the individual student. In addition to the regular yearly sessions, the summer term of six weeks is provided for prospective teachers in the districts where normal grad- uates are not required, a provision of the legislature of 1909 being to the effect that all prospective teachers must attend a professional school for six weeks, and the Summer Normal Term provides thus for such aspirants.
The school has made most excellent progress under the management of Mr. Cotton, and takes rank with the best of the older established Normal schools in the Middle West, much of the credit for which is undeniably due to the wise and efficient administration of Mr. Cotton as president of the faculty, which ineludes some of the best known edu- cators to be found in the country.
JAMES W. MURPHY. Platteville, the judicial center of Grant county, has its due quota of able and honored representatives of the legal pro- fession, and among the leading members of the bar of the county is numbered Mr. Murphy, whose distinctive technical ability and sterling attributes of character need no further voucher than that afforded in the definite success and prestige which are his in his chosen calling. He is one of the loyal and publie-spirited citizens of his native place and here his popularity sets at naught any application of the seriptural aphorism that "a prophet is not without honor save in his own coun- try." He is a scion of one of the honored pioneer families of Grant county and thus this section of the state is endeared to him by many gracious memories and associations.
James W. Murphy was born at Platteville, Wisconsin, on the 12th of April, 1858, and is a son of William and Catherine (Sullivan) Murphy, both of whom were born and reared in Ireland, where their marriage was solemnized. In 1853 the parents, with their one child. immigrated to the United States, and they numbered themselves among
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the pioneer settlers of Grant county, Wisconsin, where they passed the residue of their lives and where they were known and honored for their steadfast character and kindly and genial ways. They did not attain to exalted position but their lives were guided and governed by the highest principles of integrity and honor and they did well their part in the world, so that their names merit perpetual place on the roll of the worthy pioneers of Grant county.
To the public schools of his native county James W. Murphy is indebted for his early educational advantages, and in the same he con- tinued his studies until he had attained to the age of fifteen years, after which he attended the Wisconsin State Normal School in Platteville. In the meanwhile he formulated definite plans for his future career and his ambition was one of action, as it has continued to be during the years of his practical career as one of the world's productive workers. In consonance with his ambition Mr. Murphy was matriculated in the law department of the celebrated University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, and in this institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1880, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. - In the preceding year he had been admitted to the bar of his native state, and after his graduation he entered upon his professional novitiate in Platteville, where he has continued in active practice during the long intervening period of more than thirty years and where he has built up a large law business, with impregnable reputation as a resourceful and versatile trial lawyer and admirably fortified counselor. He has been concerned with much im- portant litigation in the various courts of this section of the state and his distinctive success is the direct result of ability and earnest effort. He has been shown many evidences of popular confidence and esteem, and in this connection it may be noted that in 1882 he was elected city clerk of Platteville, of which municipality he was chosen city attorney in 1884. In 1886 he was elected United States district attorney, of which impor- tant office he continued the incumbent for two years and through his effective service in which he signally advanced his professional reputa- tion. For two years he served as a member of the board of supervisors of Grant county. In 1903 Mr. Murphy was elected mayor of Platte- ville, and so progressive, liberal and effective was his administration that, through successive re-elections, he continued at the head of the municipal government until 1906.
Strong in his convictions and opinions concerning matters of eco- nomic and governmental policy, Mr. Murphy has been an aggressive and effective advocate of the principles and policies for which the Demo- cratic party stands sponsor, and his work in behalf of the cause has covered many campaigns in his native state. In 1906 there came to him high mark of popular confidence and esteem, in that he was elected representative in Congress from Wisconsin. In the national legislature he fully justified the popular choice which placed him in office, and his
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