USA > Wisconsin > Wisconsin, its story and biography, 1848-1913, Volume V > Part 37
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John Myers Olin secured his early education in the district schools of Richland county, the high school at Belleville, and Dailey's Private Academy, at Lexington. Entering Oberlin College, he remained in that institution through the freshman year, and then entered the sophomore class at Williams College, where he graduated with the class of 1873, receiving the degree of A. B., and being selected as a member of the Phi Beta Society. Three years later he received the degree of A. M. For one year after graduation, Mr. Olin was principal of the schools of Mansfield, Ohio, and in August, 1874, was called to Madison, Wiscon- sin, by Dr. Bascom, of the University of Wisconsin. From September, 1874 until the close of the college year, in June, 1878, he was instructor in Rhetoric and Oratory in the University of Wisconsin, and graduated from the law department of that institution in 1879. At that time he engaged in the practice of law in partnership with Lars J. Grinde. under the firm name of Olin & Grinde, and his partnership with this gentle- man continued until Mr. Grinde's death in December, 1881, Mr. Olin subsequently practicing alone until January 1, 1892. At that time he formed a partnership with Harry L. Butler, under the firm style of Olin & Butler, and in 1910 William R. Crukeet became a member of the firin, at which time the name was changed to its present form.
In the fall of 1885, Mr. Olin was selected as professor of Federal Jurisprudence and of the Law of Sales in the college of law of Wiseon-
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sin University, holding this professorship until the close of the school year of 1887. In June, 1894, he again became a member of the law faculty and continued as such until his resignation in 1910 covering, during this time, the subjects of Wills, Torts, and Real Property. A large private practice and interests of large and varied nature have kept Mr. Olin's time greatly occupied, but still he has found leisure to devote to work that has given him the title of "Father of the Park System." In 1894 he was one of the organizers of the Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association, of which he was president for eighteen years, resign- ing in 1910. During this period he has given freely of his time, his ser- vice and his means in promoting movements calculated to benefit and beautify the city. Since 1907 he has been a member of the board of trustees of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company of Mil- waukee. Mr. Olin is a Republican in his political leanings, though it is difficult to state that he belongs to any party. His religious associations are with the Congregational church.
On June 14, 1880, Mr. Olin was married to Miss Helen M. Reming- ton, who was born in Baraboo, Wisconsin, daughter of Cyrus and Maria (Train) Remington, the former a native of New York and the latter of New Hampshire. Mrs. Olin is a graduate of the University of Wis- consin, class of 1876.
COL. FRANK H. PUTNEY is one of the substantial capitalists of the beautiful little city of Waukesha, has been a most influential factor in its development and upbuilding and is one of the most pro- gressive and public-spirited citizens of the state in which he has main- tained his home for many years and in which he is widely known and honored. His career has been one of splendid achievement, as a sol- dier, citizen, lawyer, public official and man of affairs, and one of the most consistent and important functions of the publication at hand is to accord proper recognition to such representative men of Wiscon- sin as is this citizen of the metropolis and judicial center of Waukesha county.
Colonel Frank Howell Putney was born at Rockford, the capital of Winnebago county, Illinois, on the 13th of October, 1841, and is the only child of Captain Foskett M. and Clarissa (Howell) Putney, who were honored pioneers of that state, as were they later of Wisconsin, the father having gained his military title through service in the trouble regarding the boundary line between Michigan and Ohio, and the major part of his active career having been devoted to farming and merchandising. Colonel Putney was a babe at the time of the family removal from Illinois to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, prior to the admission of the state to the Union, and in 1845, his father became a resident of Prospect Hill, Waukesha county. Five years later, in 1850, removal was made to the little village of Waukesha, and the parents continued
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their residence in this county until their death, the father having been a man of exalted character and marked ability.
The village schools of Waukesha afforded Colonel Putney adequate educational advantages in a preliminary way, and thereafter he took a course of study in the preparatory department of Carroll College, at Waukesha. From 1855 to 1860 he attended the high school in Mil- waukee, and his youthful patriotism, which led him into the Union ranks at the inception of the Civil war, deflected him from his original plan of completing a collegiate course.
Colonel Putney was among the first of the loyal young men of Wis- consin to tender service in defense of the nation's integrity when the Civil war was precipitated. In September, 1861, he enlisted as a private in Company G, Twelfth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry. His company was commanded by Captain Howell and he served in this company for three years. On the 1st of July, 1862, he was appointed sergeant of his company, and on the 5th of January, 1864, he re-en- listed as a veteran, upon the expiration of his original term. On the 7th of the following month he was commissioned second lieutenant, and as such he was mustered in on the 8th of September, in his former regiment, which was reorganized at this time. The command had been stationed at Lawrence, Kansas, in the early period of its service, and later was in turn at Fort Riley and Fort Leavenworth, that state. In April, 1862, he was sent to Columbus, Kentucky, and in the sum- mer of that year proceeded to La Grange, Tennessee. Colonel Putney participated in General Grant's memorable campaign in northern Mississippi during the autumn and winter of 1862; thereafter was in the command of General Sherman in the Atlanta campaign and in the ever memorable march to the sea. He took part in the many engage- ments incidental to this campaign, including the siege of Savannah ; was thereafter identified with the campaign through the Carolinas, and the final march from Raleigh, North Carolina, to Washington, D. C., where he participated in the Grand Review of the victorious troops, at the close of the war.
In October, 1864, Colonel Putney was detailed as acting adjutant of his regiment, and he served in this capacity until April, 1865, when he was detached from his regiment and assigned to duty as acting assistant adjutant general on the staff of Colonel Cassius Fairchild. who commanded a brigade. On the 22d of May. 1865, by order of Major General F. P. Blair, Colonel Putney was assigned to duty as brigade inspector on the staff of General Charles Ewing. command- ing the First Brigade. Third Division of the Seventeenth Army Corps. and he continued in active service until the final mustering out of his company and regiment, at Louisville, Kentucky, on the 16th of July. 1865. He was a gallant and faithful soldier and his record as a defender of the Union canse during the long and weary period of the
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great conflict will ever reflect high honor upon his name and upon the state which he represented.
After the close of his military career Colonel Putney returned to Wisconsin and turned his attention to the study of law. He made definite progress in his assimilation and absorption of the involved science of jurisprudence and was admitted to the bar of the state in 1870. Thereafter he was engaged in the practice of his pro- fession at Waukesha until 1874, when he went to New York city, where he gave his attention to newspaper work for a period of about two years, at the expiration of which he returned to Wisconsin. In 1876 he was appointed private secretary to Governor Ludington, with the rank of colonel, and in 1878 he was tendered and accepted the position of assistant secretary of state, under Hans B. Warner. He was reappointed in 1880 and while serving in this position he was elected county judge of Waukesha county. He assumed his position on the bench on the 1st of January, 1882, and remained the able and popular incumbent of this judicial office for four years. In 1891 he was appointed postmaster of Waukesha, under the administration of President McKinley, and during his term of four years he gave a most effective service, as he has ever done in all positions of public trust to which he has been called.
It is scarcely necessary to say that Colonel Putney is admirably fortified in his opinions concerning economic and governmental polity and that he has been a stalwart of stalwarts in the ranks of the Repub- lican party, with the activities of which in his home state he has been closely identified. His interest in his old comrades of the Civil war has been of the most enduring order, and he has been actively affiliated with William B. Cushing Post, No. 19, Grand Army of the Republic, in Waukesha, from the time of its organization. He served three terms as commander of this post and has also held the office of adju- tant general of the Wisconsin Department of the Grand Army of the Republic, besides which he is a companion of the first class. in the Wisconsin Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. In ancient-craft Masonry he is affiliated with Waukesha Lodge, No. 37, Free & Accepted Masons, and he has also attained to the thirty-second degree in the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, having also completed the circle of the York Rite. He is a com- municant of the Protestant Episcopal church.
Colonel Putney has shown distinctive ability in the promotion and administration of business affairs of broad scope and importance, and through his well ordered enterprise he has gained a substantial for- tune. He was one of the founders of the Waukesha Mineral Springs Sanitarium, was formerly vice-president of the Waukesha National Bank, and at one time was president of the Waukesha Malleable Iron Company, each of which corporations benefited from his counsel and
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progressive ideas. He is at the present time president of the Waukesha Gas & Electric Company, and a stockholder in the Waukesha Realty Company. He has shown an abiding interest in all that has touched the welfare of his home city and his influence and co-operation have been freely given in support of measures and enterprises tending to further the civic and material prosperity of Waukesha and the state at large. He is the owner of much valuable realty in his home city and elsewhere, and now, after years of earnest and effective endeavor, he is living virtually retired in his beautiful home in Waukesha.
E. RAY STEVENS. Throughout his career and by reason of unim- peachable conduct and close observance of the unwritten code of pro- fessional ethics, gained the admiration and respect of his fellow mem- bers of the bar, in addition to which he commands a high place in the confidence and esteem of his fellow citizens. For several years past he has been judge of the Ninth Judicial circuit of Wisconsin.
A native of Illinois, Judge Stevens was born at Barrington, Lake county, that state, the date of his birth June 20, 1869. He is a son of George B. and Frances Ellen (Kellogg) Stevens, both of whom were born and reared in New York. The date of the father's birth was July 8, 1825, and he died in 1903. Mrs. Stevens was born Oeto- ber 30, 1838,, and her demise occurred in 1898. The early Stevens ances- tors in America were among the Dutch and English settlers of the Em- pire state and representatives of the name served in the Revolutionary war and in the War of 1812. In early life George Stevens was a farmer in New York and subsequently he engaged in the general merchandise business in his native state. In the early '50s he came to the west and settled in Lake county, Illinois, where he was identified with agricul- tural operations until 1877, when he located in Jefferson county, Wis- consin. Here he devoted his attention to farming for several years and eventually retired to Janesville, where he passed away in 1903. While in Lake county, Illinois, he was a member of the school board and for a number of years was justiec of the peace. In polities he was an ardent Republican after the war and in a fraternal way he was a valued member of the Masonic order. He and his wife had one son, E. Ray, the immediate subject of this review.
Judge Stevens was eight years of age at the time of his parents re- moval from Illinois to Wisconsin. He attended the public schools of Koshkonong, in Jefferson county, and was graduated in the high school of Janesville. In the fall of 1889 he was matriculated as a student in the University of Wisconsin, in which institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1893 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Two years later he completed the law course of his alma mater and the degree of Bachelor of Laws was conferred upon him. It is worthy of
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note here that Judge Stevens furnished the funds for his college educa- tion with newspaper work.
In 1896 Judge Stevens became a law partner of Burr W. Jones and the well known law firm of Jones and Stevens continued to do business in Madison until 1903. In the latter year, upon the election of Judge Robert G. Siebecker to the Supreme bench of the state, Governor La- Follette appointed Mr. Stevens to fill out the unexpired term of Judge Siebecker as judge of the Ninth Judicial circuit. At the expiration of that term, in 1908, Judge Stevens was regularly elected to fill that office and he is incumbent of it at the present time, in 1912. In the legisla- tive session of 1901 he represented the First district of Dane county in the Assembly and was the author of the so-called Stevens Primary Election bill, which failed of passage. In politics the Judge is a Re- publican and in religious matters he is a zealous member of the Con- gregational church.
In 1908 Judge Stevens became one of the organizers of the Wis- consin Criminal Law Conference, of which he was president for two terms. He was a member of the commissioners for the Promotion of Uniformity of Legislation from Wisconsin for a number of years and is affiliated with the Delta U College fraternity. In Masonic circles he is a member of Madison Lodge, No. 5, Free & Accepted Masons; Madi- son Chapter, No. 4, Royal Arch Masons; and Madison Council, Royal & Select Masters.
June 23, 1898, was solemnized the marriage of Judge Stevens to Miss Kate L. Sabin, a daughter of Henry Sabin, of the town of Windsor, Wisconsin. Three children were born to Judge and Mrs. Stevens: Ellen died at the age of ten years; and Myron and Sabin are attending school in Madison.
EMIL LENICHECK. A representative member of the bar of his native city, where he is also president and counsel of the Citizens Abstract & Title Company, of which he was the organizer, Mr. Leni- check is one of those progressive and loyal citizens to whom it is a pleasure to accord specific recognition in this history of Wisconsin, of whose metropolis he is a most popular business man as well as an able. representative of his profession.
Emil Lenicheck was born in Milwaukee on the 29th of November, 1872, and is a son of Frank and Anna (Slaby) Lenicheck, both of whom were born and reared in Bohemia, where their marriage was solemnized and where they continued to reside until 1867, when they immigrated to America and made Milwaukee their destination. The father was a skilled mason and became a successful contractor in the line of his trade. He was a man of ability and sterling character and during the many years of his residence in Milwaukee he erected many fine buildings and was otherwise prominent as a contractor and sub-
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stantial business man. He died in this city on the 19th of March, 1909, secure in the high regard of all who knew him, and his devoted wife preceded him to eternal rest, her death having occurred on the 18th of December, 1907. Of their children three sons and two daughters attained to years of maturity and all of the number are living except the eldest son, Joseph H., who died, in Denver, Colorado, on the 20th of October, 1898. In politics the father gave his allegiance to the Re- publican party and he manifested a loyal interest in civic affairs as well as in the promotion of the cause of the party with which he was aligned.
The public schools of Milwaukee afforded Emil Lenicheck his early educational advantages and he also attended the Milwaukee Law School and effectively prepared himself for the bar, to which he was admitted in 1895. For some time he was the incumbent of a position in the law office of Samuel Howard, and in connection with the abstract busi- ness conducted by Mr. Howard he gained a broad and accurate knowl- edge of this line of enterprise, especially in its application to Milwau- kee county. He later entered the employ of the Dupre Abstraet Com- pany, and shortly after, he formed a partnership with his only sur- viving brother, Frank J., and engaged in the active practice of law in Milwaukee, under the firm name of Lenicheck & Lenicheck, his brother being at the present time a member of the well known law firm of Lenicheck, Robinson, Fairchild & Boesel, of Milwaukee. In the autumn of. 1899 Emil Lenicheck and his brother dissolved partnership and the former then became associated with the real-estate firm of Richter. Dick & Reutemann, in charge of the firm's legal department. This alliance continued about three years and Mr. Lenicheck then became assistant secretary of the Milwaukee Abstract & Title Company, with which he continued to be thus identified until 1904, when he severed the conner- tion and effected the organization of the Citizens Abstract & Title Com- pany, of which he has since been president and counsel, the offices of the company being located at 109 Miller block, 112 Wisconsin street. To the affairs of this company Mr. Lenicheck now gives virtually his entire time and attention and through his technical knowledge. broad experience and marked executive ability he has made the enterprise most successful, the issuing of an abstract by this company being re- garded as an authoritative title. The files and records of the company are being completed and systematically placed, so that the service is prompt and reliable in every particular.
Mr. Lenicheck is aligned with the Republican party and while he has been a zealous worker in its cause, he has manifested no predilection for the honors or emoluments of public office. He is a member of the directorate of the Milwaukee Savings Bank. one of the substantial and popular financial institutions of the Wisconsin metropolis, and is affil- iated with the Equitable Fraternal Union.
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On the 23d of October, 1901, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Lenicheck to Miss Mildred L. Scheuber, who was born in Jefferson county, this state, where her parents established their home in the pioneer days. She is a daughter of Adolph and Henriette Scheuber, both of whom were born in Germany and each of whom was about fif- teen years of age at the time when their respective parents immigrated to America and established homes in Wisconsin, in the territorial days. For a time Adolph Scheuber resided at Golden Lake, Jefferson county, and he then removed to Jefferson county, where he and his wife maiu- tained their residence for many years, their home having been in the village of Sullivan the greater part of the time. Mr. Scheuber was a man of strong mentality and broad information, a citizen of sterling character and one who ever commanded unqualified popular esteem. He served for a long period as register of deeds of Jefferson county and also held the office of notary public. He gained a good knowledge of fundamental law and his fairness and mature judgment, combined with his broad information, made him a person of influence in his community, especially in the early days, when he was called upon to arbitrate difficulties and give counsel to his neighbors, who placed im- plicit confidence in his dictums. He and his wife passed the closing years of their lives in Milwaukee, where he died on the 12th of April, 1892, and where Mrs. Scheuber was summoned to eternal rest on the 1st of February, 1903.
Mrs. Lenicheck was afforded excellent educational advantages, both in Jefferson county and in Milwaukee. She was graduated from the East Side high school of Milwaukee and also from the State Normal School in this city, and prior to her marriage she had been for several years a successful and popular teacher in the public schools. She presides most graciously over the attractive family home, at 650 Twenty-eighth street, and three fine sons complete the ideal domestic circle, Frank Adolph, Harold Adrian, and Herbert Clyde, all of whom were born in Milwaukee.
JOHN D. TERMAAT. One of the most important of the industrial enter- prises that are lending prestige to the city of Oshkosh as a manufactur- ing and commercial center is that conducted by the Termaat & Monahan Company, manufacturers of gasoline and kerosene engines. This is one of the largest concerns of the kind in the Union, with a fine plant of the best modern type, and from a modest inception the business has grown to one of extensive ramifications, the while the products of the factory constitute, through their superiority, the most effective agency for adver- tising and expanding the enterprise. Of this company Mr. Termaat is president, and he has been a dominating force in the upbuilding of the splendid business,-a man of ideas and ideals and one whose course has been guided along most progressive lines and animated by the highest
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principles of integrity and honor. He is one of the essentially representa- tive business men of Wisconsin, has achieved success through his own well directed endeavors and is altogether worthy of specific recognition in this publication. Mr. Termaat is a scion of the staunchest of Holland Dutch stock and is himself a native of the fine old Netherlands. He was born at Aalten, Holland, on the 12th of January, 1867, and is a repre- sentative of one of the honored and influential families of Holland, a country to which the United States has owed much of her progress and prosperity, from the earliest stage of development to the present time. Mr. Termaat was reared and educated in his native land and was seven- teen years of age when he came to America, locating in Wisconsin in 1892. He came to Oshkosh and became one of the promoters and organizers of the Termaat & Monahan Company, which initiated the manufacturing of gasoline and kerosene engines. Operations were instituted on a small scale but the manifest superiority of the engines manufactured cansed the business to expand so rapidly that in 1895 it was found expedient to incorporate the same under the laws of the state and under the present title. Mr. Termaat has served continuously as president of the company and has proved a most discriminating and progressive executive, with L. J. Monahan as his chief coadjutor, the latter holding the office of vice president. The plant of the concern is well equipped and the products of the same have found ready demand in all sections of the Union, besides which a substantial export trade is now controlled, the annual business having attained to an average aggregate of two hundred thousand dollars and employment being given to a corps of more than one hundred opera- tives, many of whom are skilled artisans. The company manufacture all sizes of gasoline engines and make a specialty of those for stationary and marine use. From a bulletin recently issued by the company are taken the following pertinent statements :
"The Termaat & Monahan Company have been building and manu- facturing gasoline engines for the past eighteen years and have one of the largest and best equipped factories in the United States for the manu- facture of this line of goods. Nothing but gasoline and kerosene engines are built, and the designs are superior throughout. We build the engines in their entirety,-from the drawing board to the shipping room. Our foundry is one of the most modern in every detail, the eastings being of special quality for gas-engine work. Quality has always been a leading element in all T & M products, the slogan T & M standing for quality at all times. It means that each and every buyer of a T & M engine will receive honest treatment, with full guaranty. We build a number of styles and types of gasoline engines and manufacture the hopper-cooled engines in large quantities, each part being interchangeable, so that repairs will fit without trouble, should any parts become broken, which is not likely unless by accident of some kind. These engines are compact. light in weight and powerful, besides presenting an extremely neat
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