USA > Wisconsin > Wisconsin, its story and biography, 1848-1913, Volume VII > Part 17
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45
WILLIAM A. WHITNEY. President of the United States National Bank at Superior, William A. Whitney is one of the group of business men who are chiefly responsible for the direction and control of the larger commercial and financial interests in his section of the state. His success and position have been honorably won, and his beginnings were made in an environment where the labor of his hands was the chief source of his livelihood. Mr. Whitney is the example of a man without means and without influential friends. He used what he had to get the position which his ambition desired, and in spite of the absence of early opportunities, his progress has been steadily upward.
William A. Whitney was born on the Miramichi River, ten miles above New Castle, New Brunswick, July 27, 1858. His parents, Edward and Lydia (Allison) Whitney, were born in the same vicinity. His father who spent his career in farming and lumbering, died in 1897, when sixty-five years of age, while the mother is still living. There were eight children, six still living, and William A. was the oldest.
What education he had in youth was largely gained as a result of his own efforts. The start of his business career was on a farm, and he gave his services for a salary of six dollars a month. When he reached his majority his wages were one dollar a day. Mr. Whitney has been a resident of the United States since he was twenty-one years of age. He crossed the border at Port Huron, Michigan, and at Eau Sable in that state spent a year in the lumber woods, and also had experiences at Menominee, Michigan. Employment on construction work with the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad brought him to Florence, Wisconsin, and finally to Iron River, Michigan. In 1886 he arrived at Ashland, Wisconsin, where he carried on a contracting business until his removal to Superior in 1890. At Superior, with his brother E. H. Whitney, he established the firm of Whitney Brothers, doing a general business of pile driver, dock builders, and with an equipment of tugs, lighters for a general towing and wrecking busi- ness, besides a general marine contracting business. Of this firm of- Whitney Brothers, Mr. Whitney is president, while Edward H. Whit- ney is vice president and· manager.
Www a. Whitery
1889
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
In 1908, Mr. Whitney became a director of the United States National Bank at Superior, and in 1910 was elected president. This is one of the solid and substantial banks of the city. Mr. Whitney has all the essential qualities of a successful and useful man of business. Quickness of perception, readiness to act, care and judgment in all his movements are among his notable characteristics. At the same time his honesty in dealings, courteous, considerate treatment of associates and subordinates have made him a representative of the highest type of successful business man. For a number of years his has been a position of real leadership, in the community.
With other earnest and public spirited citizens he has been active in advancing the general welfare and while never a politician, has accepted the duties and responsibilities which the city expect its men of wealth and influence to assume. Mr. Whitney is president of the Douglas County Fair Association, and gives his support to the candi- dates and principles of the Republican party. In February, 1890, he married Miss Esther Gwin, who was born in Black River Falls, Wisconsin. They are the parents of one son, Gwin, who lives at home.
ARTHUR H. SHOEMAKER was born in Albion, Marshall county, Iowa, on January 30, 1870, the eldest of a family of eight children. His parents are Gilbert J. Shoemaker and Clara (Ford) Shoe- maker who are now living on a farm near Hawarden, Iowa, where they have resided since 1887. Mr. Shoemaker, Sr., served as a soldier of the Civil war in Company B of the One Hundred and Fifty-first Regi- ment of Indiana Volunteers Infantry, and has held the office of Com- mander of the G. A. R. Post, at Hawarden, Iowa, and the offices of County Commissioner and County Treasurer of Sioux County, Iowa.
The subject of this sketch attended the public schools of his birth- place, and also Albion Seminary therein, from which institution he was graduated in 1886. After teaching school for several years he studied law and attended Drake University, of Des Moines, Iowa, and was graduated from the Iowa College of Law, connected therewith, in 1891. Upon application and examination he was admitted to practice law by the Supreme Court of Iowa, in June, 1891. In August, 1891, Mr. Shoemaker came to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where he has resided continuously ever since, practicing his profession in the various courts of Wisconsin. He never held any public office until 1910, when he was appointed Referee in Bankruptcy at Eau Claire, by the Honorable A. L. Sanborn, Judge of the United District Court of the Western Dis- trict of Wisconsin, but which office he resigned before performing any of its duties, in order to accept the position of official court reporter of the nineteenth judicial circuit of Wisconsin, to which office he was appointed by the Honorable James Wickham, Circuit Judge, in Janu-
1890
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
ary, 1910, and which he now holds. In April, 1910, he was elected Corporation Counsel of the City of Eau Claire, by the first Council of such City, operating under the Commission Form of Government, which office he also still holds.
In 1900 Mr. Shoemaker was married to Jennie Damon Whittier, principal of the Sixth Ward School, of the City of Eau Claire. Mrs. Shoemaker has always taken an active interest and part in the Woman's 'lub of Eau Claire and she has served as its president. She is now an officer in the Wisconsin State Federation of Women's Clubs. To their marriage has been born a daugliter, Jeanne Damon Shoemaker.
FREDERICK C. WESTFAHL, JR., of Milwaukee, a lawyer by profes- sion, was admitted to the bar in 1897, as a young man of twenty- one years. His success in the passing years has been of an unusual order, in a public as well as a private way, and he has twice served his district in the Wisconsin legislature. At the present time he is clerk of the United States Court, in which office he was appointed on January 1, 1909, having succeeded Edward Kurtz in that office after that gentleman had served in it for forty years.
Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on the 17th of January, 1876, Fred- erick C. Westfahl, Jr., is the son of Frederick C. and Katherine (Freitag) Westfahl, the latter now living in this city, while the former died at his home on April 11, 1911.
Frederick C. Westfahl, Sr., was born on September 24, 1850, in Rostok, Germany, and his parents brought him to Milwaukee, when he was a child of six years. He was educated in the public schools of this city and at an early age became an apprentice in the file works, of which he was president when he died, and which his sons continue to operate. The file works was then but a small concern, although it is today one of the largest plants of its kind in the United States. When he was twenty-six years of age Mr. Westfahl had become sufficiently acquainted with the plant and had reached such an understanding of the possibilities of the business, that he purchased the plant outright, and continued to be identified with its wonderful growth and expansion from then until in August, 1910, when he turned over the control of the business into the hands of his sons. It was largely to his business ability that the concern reached the wonderful state of growth and prosperity that characterized its later years, and he remained in active charge of the plant and its operations until the time indicated above. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Westfahl are as follows: Philip, now president and treasurer of the Milwaukee File Works, also captain of Battery A, Wisconsin National Guard; Charles, secretary of the Mil- waukee File Works; Frederick C., Jr., of this review ; Bernhard, deputy clerk of the United States court; Paul, a shoe merchant on Vliet street,
1891
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
and the Misses Sophia, Matilda, Elsie and Adela, all of whom live at home with the mother.
Frederick C. Westfahl, Jr., is the second child of his parents. He was educated in the Milwaukee schools, his graduation from the high school taking place in 1895, and after taking a course of study in the Milwaukee Law School, since then merged with the Marquette College, he was admitted to the bar in 1897. His first business arrangements were represented by his association as a partner with Benjamin Poss, with whom he continued for four years, the firm being known as West- fahl & Poss. In 1896 Mr. Westfahl was appointed Deputy Clerk of the United States Courts for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, and he served thus until January 1, 1902, when he engaged in law practice. In the autumn of 1902 he was elected a member of the Assembly of the Wisconsin Legislature and re-elected to the same office in 1904, serving his district well in his capacity as representative. In October, 1905, Mr. Westfahl returned to the office of the Clerk of the United States Courts as deputy, continuing as such until the resignation of Edward Kurtz, for forty years the incumbent of that office, at which time Mr. Westfahl was honored by the appointment to the office of clerk. As mentioned previously, he resumed his duties on January 1, 1909, and is still actively engaged in that position.
Mr. Westfahl is a member of Damon Lodge No. 102, Knights of Pythias of Milwaukee, and is a past Chancellor of that lodge. He is a Republican, and while in politics did good work in the interests of the party. Mr. Westfahl married Miss Ella Prengel, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. H. Prengel of this city, where Mrs. Westfahl was reared and educated. They live at No. 3118 Chestnut street, while Mr. West- fahl has his offices in the Government building.
ALOIS A. ROTH. Superior has become one of the most thriving and enterprising industrial and commercial centers of the State of Wis- consin, and its prestige in the business world is due to such men as Alois A. Roth, vice-president and treasurer of the firm of Roth Brothers Company. His efforts towards advancing the material interests of the city are so widely recognized that they can be considered as no second- ary part of his career of signal usefulness. He belongs to that class of representative Americans who, while gaining individual success, also promote the public prosperity, and he stands pre-eminent among those who have conferred honor and dignity upon the city of his home no less by his well conducted business interests than by his upright life and commendable career. Mr. Roth was born at Rio, Columbia county, Wis- consin, August 31, 1860, and is a son of Alois and Frances (Schliess- man) Roth.
Alois Roth was born in Kaaden, Austria, in 1830, and emigrated to the United States in young manhood. first locating in Portage, Wis-
1892
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
consin, where he established himself in a small merchandise business. Later he made removal to Winona, Minnesota, where he continued to follow the same line, but in later years returned to Wisconsin, settled at New Lisbon, and there passed the remainder of his life, dying in 1872, when but forty-two years of age. His widow, who is a native of Hessen Darmstadt, still survives him, as do two of their five children: Alois A .; and Theo. J., who is his brother's business partner. The father was a Democrat in his political views, but never aspired to public office, his time being too occupied in the establishment of a business and a home. He was a worthy citizen, whose character combined those traits for which his countrymen are famous,-industry, honesty, thrift and fidelity to trust, and he was highly esteemed by all with whom he came into contact.
Alois A. Roth received his education in the schools of New Lisbon, Wisconsin, and early began a business training in mercantile lines, which he adopted in youth as his life work. In 1885, with his brother, he engaged in the general merchandise business at Wessington Springs, South Dakota, and this venture proving profitable, they later estab- lished another store at Alpena, South Dakota. In 1890, desiring a wider field for their greatly increased business, they disposed of the South Dakota stores and came to Superior, where they have since continued. The firm of Roth Brothers Company is the largest business of its kind in Superior, and its department store excels any one store to be found in Superior, commanding a trade that extends all over the Northwest. Progressive methods, unique ideas, strict attention to every detail of the business, and, above all, strict fidelity to every obligation, have been the means by which this great industry has been built up. Four great floors, 130 x 125 feet in dimension, house a line of goods that can be excelled nowhere in the state, and the needs of the trade are carefully looked after by the members of the firm, whose long experience has enabled them to develop from small beginnings an enterprise that is a credit to their sagacity and ability and to the city in which it is located. The greater part of Mr. Roth's time and attention have been given to this business, but he has also found leisure to devote to other enterprises, and at this time he is president of the Superior Motor and Machine Works. He is independent in politics, and takes but little interest in public matters except in the way that they affect his community and its people. Progressive in all things, he is ever ready to support measures tending to the ad- vancement and welfare of Superior, and in this way he has become known as one of his section's public-spirited men. His fraternal con- nection is with the local lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
In 1886, Mr. Roth was married first to Miss Anna Butter who died in 1892, having been the mother of two children: Alois T. and
1893
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
Anna. In October, 1895, he married Miss Clara Hettinger, who was born in Portage, Wisconsin, and two children have also been born to this union : John H. and Harold Carl.
CHARLES HUGO JACOBI. A resident of Wisconsin since his boyhood days, Charles Hugo Jacobi is a scion of one of the sterling German pioneer families of the state and has well upheld the prestige of a name honorably linked with the development and progress of this favored commonwealth. He has long been numbered among the rep- resentative business men and influential citizens of Watertown, Jef- ferson county, where he conducts a large and substantial insurance business of general order, and he has been called upon to serve in various positions of public trust, these preferments indicating the high esteem in which he is held by his fellow men. His career has been marked by definite and worthy achievement and it is most consonant that he be accorded specific recognition in this publication.
Mr. Jacobi was born in Rockenhausen Palatinate, Germany, on the 18th of April, 1846, and is a son of Charles and Maria (Barth) Ja- cobi, both of whom were born and reared in that same section of the great German empire. Charles Jacobi received excellent educational advantages in his native land, where he made a special study of jurisprudence and where he held for some time an official position in the service of the Bavarian government. He was concerned with the patriotie revolutionary movement in Germany in 1848-9, and as the result of his activities in this connection he became persona non grata in his fatherland, with the result that, in 1854, he and his family emi- grated to America. Charles Jacobi remained in New York City until 1855, when he came to Wisconsin, a state that has owed much of its progress and prosperity to its citizens of German birth or extrac- tion, and he established his home at Watertown, as one of the pioneers of Jefferson county. He engaged in the retail grocery business, later became a member of the firm of Jacobi & Miller, which operated a distillery and was engaged in the wholesale liquor trade, and in 1865 he retired from active business, his death occurring in the following year. His devoted wife long survived him and passed to eternal rest in 1909, at a venerable age. Their names merit enduring place on the roster of the sterling pioneers of Wisconsin.
Charles H. Jacobi gained his rudimentary education in the schools of his native land and was a lad of about nine years at the time of the family's emigration to America. He attended the public schools of Watertown until his fourteenth year and thereafter was employed in a local mercantile establishment for two years. He then went to Ger- many, where he took a classical course of study, and after remaining in his native land for three years he returned to the United States, where he supplemented his academic training by a practical course in the Spencerian Business College, in which institution he was graduated
Vol. VII-10
1894
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
as a member of the class of 1868. After having been employed for some time as bookkeeper at Milwaukee he assumed the position of tel- ler in the Wisconsin National Bank, of Watertown, and later on as Cashier of the Bank of Watertown. He then accepted the position of manager of the Watertown freight offices of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad, an incumbency which he retained two years. He then engaged in the insurance business, and with this line of enter- prise he has been continuously identified during virtually the entire intervening period. He is representative of a number of the strongest companies in fire and accident insurance and has long controlled a sub- stantial and prosperous business, in connection with which he has prec- edence as one of the leading insurance men of his home country.
Mr. Jacobi is a staunch Democrat in his political allegiance and has ever taken a lively interest in the cause of the now dominant party. He served as city clerk of Watertown, was a member of the board of aldermen for four terms, and served six years as city school commis- sioner and was a member of the assembly in the Legislature of Wisconsin for 1891 and 1893. Under the administration of President Cleveland Mr. Jacobi received appointment to the position of United States gauger and later in the same administration he was given the important post of United States consul to Austria Hungary, a position which he retained one year. For a number of years he has been secretary of the Oak Hill Cemetery Association of Watertown. He has secure place in the confidence and esteem of the community that has long been the stage of his earnest and well ordered activities, and here is affiliated with Watertown Lodge, No. 49, Free & Accepted Masons; Watertown Chapter, No. 11. Royal Arch Masons; and Olivet Commandery, No. 18, Knights Templar.
J. W. COCHRAN. A directory of Wisconsin's lumbermen would include a large proportion of the most forceful and successful men of affairs, beginning with the earliest days of the territory and con- tinuing down to the present. One of the ablest of these is a resident of Ashland, Mr. J. W. Cochran, whose success has been entirely the result of his exceptional foresight, energy and faculty of management and control of many varied business facilities. Although a man of wealth, his wealth has been gained by straightforward means. Like many, in fact the majority of American lumbermen, he comes from the northeastern states, and is almost equally well known in Penn- sylvania and Wisconsin. Generous and kindly in disposition, Mr. Cochran has gained during a long and active career the admiration and respect of his business associates and the hundreds who have been at various times his employees and subordinates.
J. W. Cochran was born at St. Stephen, New Brunswick, August 3, 1842. His father was James Cochran, born and reared in the north of Ireland, where he married Mary Moore. They came to America,
Anbeiochran
1895
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
locating in St. Johns, New Brunswick, and later the opportunity for lumbering in the great forests of Maine caused him to remove with his family to Calais in that state. The rest of his life was spent at Calais, where his enterprise brought him considerable success as a lumberman. Six children were born to James and Mary Cochran, three of them dying in infancy, and of the others J. W. Cochran was second in age.
Mr. Cochran was a boy when the family moved to Maine, and his education was derived from the grammar and high school of that town. The same pioneer spirit which caused his father first to leave the old world, and later to move from the Maritime Province of New Brunswick to the forests of Maine, caused the son to go west in search of his opportunity. For a number of years, Williamsport in Penn- sylvania was his business headquarters. During his boyhood he gained a thorough experience in the lumberwoods of Maine, and that equip- ment was put to effective use in the lumber district of Pennsylvania. Having grown up in the woods, acquainted by practical work with almost every phase and detail of the industry, his ambition and enter- prise quickly took him out of the rank and moved him to a position of independent activity. In Pennsylvania four or five years were spent in contracting and in getting out the logs from the woods. His next step was establishing himself as a member of the firm of Payne, Cochran & Company, a concern which operated a large milling plant and lumber industry with Williamsport as headquarters up to 1893. Mr. Cochran's wide experience and his business sense won him the trust of older men and brought him quick advancement in his chosen lines of endeavor.
Although his business connections continued with Williamsport until 1893, Mr. Cochran moved to Ashland, Wisconsin, in 1889. In that city he bought the Superior Lumber Company, which was at that time engaged in large milling operations. Subsequently there came under . his control, the Keystone Lumber Company, and both companies were operated by him until 1903, when he closed out the affairs of the Key- stone Lumber Company. In the meantime Mr. Cochran had become interested in the Edward Hines Lumber Company of Chicago, one of the largest in the country, and became a member of its board of directors.
Although his fortune has been chiefly made in lumbering, Mr. Cochran has been almost equally interested in banking. He was one of the men who organized the Cochran, Payne, McCormick Bank of Williamsport, a bank which has since been reorganized as the Northern Central Trust Company of Williamsport. That institution has had his effective assistance as a director since its organization, and up to 1894 Mr. Cochran was a member of the directorate and also the principal stockholder in the Northern National Bank of Ashland. Since 1894 he has been president of the latter bank. His other interests are numer- ous and widely scattered throughout the west, including the possession
1896
HISTORY OF WISCONSIN
of stock in the Cochran Timber Company of Wisconsin and the Dun- levee Timber Company of Allenhurst, Georgia. Mr. Cochran is a stock holder in the Continental and Commercial Bank of Chicago, and has large coal interests in Pennsylvania. These relations represent large accomplishments in the business world, and are a creditable perform- ance for a lifetime, and though Mr. Cochran is now past the age of seventy his grip on affairs is as firm as it was in the days of his youth when he was at the head of a little sawmill business in Pennsylvania.
A Republican in politics, Mr. Cochran has never interested him- self to any extent in national affairs, although while a resident of Williamsport, he was for five years associate county judge of Cam- eron county. For many years his fraternal affiliations have been with the Masonic Order, since he took his first degree in Emporium Lodge, No. 382 at Williamsport in 1867. His higher affiliations are with Emporium Chapter, No. 227, R. A. M., and with Baldwin Com- mandery, No. 22, K. T.
In 1866 Mr. Cochran married Sarah A. Balcom. Of their six chil- dren, four are still living. Mrs. Cochran died August 15, 1895. The children are mentioned as follows: Joseph E., who married Mary Trobridge; Mary M., who became the wife of Professor James Over- ton, a member of the faculty in the University of Wisconsin; Carolyne, wife of J. P. Felt of Pennsylvania ; and Percival, who married Rebecca Knight a daughter of Col. John H. Knight. His second wife was Mary M. Mitchell, whom he married on January 10th, 1901, at St. Stephen, New Brunswick.
WILLIAM VAN ZILE. Sixteen consecutive years in office is the record of William Van Zile, postmaster of Crandon, Forest county, and a citizen who has been identified with the growth and development of this place from its earliest history. Since 1879 Mr. Van Zile has re- sided at Crandon, where he built the first house, and during the years that have followed he has acted almost continually in one or another official capacity, in the meantime contributing to the community's growth by his activities as a carpenter and builder. As a citizen who at all times has had the welfare of his locality at heart, he is eminently worthy among his adopted city's representative men.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.