USA > Wisconsin > Wisconsin, its story and biography, 1848-1913, Volume VII > Part 19
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In 1864, just before leaving Buffalo, Mr. Vine was married to Miss Mary Buss, also a native of Buffalo, and to this union there have been born seven children: Ettie, who became the wife of Henry Carter; Arthur, who is associated with his father in the hardware business; Fred, who is an agriculturist carrying on operations on the old home- stead place in Clarke county ; Elsie, who is the wife of Arlo Huckstav ; Frank; George; and Edna, who is the wife of Fred Major, also a member of the hardware firm. Mr. and Mrs. Vine have twenty grandchildren. In his political views Mr. Vine is a staunch and Active Democrat, al- though he has never sought preferment on his own account. He has long been connected with the Masons, and is popular with the members of the local lodge.
Arthur Vine, son of Fred J. and Mary (Buss) Vine, was born near Neilsville, Wisconsin, in 1867. After receiving a public school educa- tion he secured employment on a farm, and continued to be engaged in agricultural pursuits until 1892, when he accompanied his father to the Lac du Flambeau Indian Reservation. There he acted as clerk in the reservation store and remained among the Indians for seven years, learning their language and serving the government in various ways. In 1901 he came to Crandon and established the Crandon Hardware Company in a modest way, with his brother-in-law, Fred Major. Out of this has grown the large business of today. Mr. Vine is known as one of the energetic and progressive young business men of Crandon and as
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a citizen whose public spirit has led him to co-operate with others in securing benefits for his adopted city and its people.
CHARLES A. KOEFFLER, JR. This prominent lawyer and business man represents one of the old families of Milwaukee, one that holds prestige not only for the length of time it has been established here but for the prominent part it has had in the history of the city in both business and professional relations.
In 1848, during the revolution in Germany, Charles A. Koeffler, a young German twenty-one years of age, and his bride, Elizabeth Sophie (Herrmann) Koeffler, then nineteen years old, left the Fatherland in a sail ship bound for America. From Buffalo, New York, they traveled by stage to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which city was their destination and thereafter remained their home. The young people had been well edu- cated at home but were financially poor and eager to grasp any oppor- tunity for improving themselves. Mr. Koeffler was a tanner, brewer and a cloth dyer by trade, his father also having been a cloth dyer, and be- came the first distiller in the state of Wisconsin. On locating in this city he took employment with Pfister & Vogel, tanners, as a laborer, at fifty- seven cents per day, choosing this kind of work in order to familiarize himself with the American customs in tanning. Meanwhile the young wife conducted a small millinery shop on Wisconsin street, at that time just east of where is now the Iron Block. The husband worked at the tan- nery during the day time and then at night in the back part of the store room which served both as millinery emporium and as their home, he pre- pared and distilled liquors. He also manufactured a bitters, which he made mostly out of orange rinds and for which there grew a large de- mand. After working in the tannery about one year he gave up the posi- tion as it impaired his health. He then secured employment as a teamster for the C. T. Melms brewery and peddled beer in the country for Mr. Melms, while at the same time he also sold the bitters and liquids of his own manufacture. This was the start of his fortune. With his earnings he later opened a small liquor store on Third street, opposite the present Metropolitan Block. Here he continued as a liquor compounder through- ont the Civil war period, making large and frequent sales of his liquors to the government and receiving his pay always in gold on delivery. With the characteristic German spirit of thoroughness and excellency, he manufactured the very best whisky only and the government bought all he could make. From that location he later transferred his business to East Water street, near Buffalo street, where he opened a large retail and wholesale store, continuing there until shortly after the close of the war in 1865. During the following year he was associated with his brother Gustav in the distilling business on West Water street, near Cedar street, but at the end of that period Gustav retired and Charles A. continued alone. This was the first distillery of high-wines and whis-
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kies in Wisconsin. Mr. Koeffler remained in that business nntil a short time before a raid was made on fraudulent distillers in this city, which raid and investigation led to the implication of prominent officials and others high in national public life. He had sold out and had discontin- ued his connection with the business because he was unable to compete with the fraudulent distillers. The fraud consisted in refilling used pack- ages on which, with the connivance of the government officers, the rev- enue stamp had not been cancelled and was again used, thus precluding all honest competition of one who would pay the government revenue tax. In the meantime he had accumulated considerable property and on his retirement as a distiller he became a dealer in real estate and securities in this city. He had that business acumen and those abilities that brought his success in whatever he undertook. At this time he removed to Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, near Milwaukee, where he owned a large farm, and on this farm he spent the most of his time during the last twenty years of his life, though he lived occasionally in the city. In the later years of his career he was interested with his sons in heavy real estate transactions, and some years before his death, when the property of F. T. Day on the Highland boulevard was sold, he and his sons bought the property outright, paying cash for it. He owned considerable of this property at his death and also had other extensive holdings. His prin- cipal diversion was hunting and he had a choice assortment of guns and other hunting paraphernalia for the enjoyment of this sport. During the earlier days of his residence in Milwaukee he dealt considerably with the Indians hereabout and he also knew Solomon Juneau. the pioneer of Milwaukee's pioneers very well. Both he and his wife were born in Nassau, near the river Rhine, in Germany, the former's birth having occurred there on October 19, 1825, and that of the latter on March 17, 1829. After half a century of identification with the life of Milwaukee Charles A. Koeffler passed away at his home at 483 Marshall street, on March 27, 1897, leaving a large estate. His wife, Elizabeth Sophie Koeffler (née Herrmann), had preceded him in death many years, she having departed life on February 12, 1880. The father of Charles A. Koeffler was a man of considerable prominence and influence in his province in Germany and during the revolution was an effective worker in securing the abolition of feudal rights in his particular duchy. Four children survive these parents at this date (1913) : Mrs. Louisa Luebben, of Dresden, Germany; Mrs. Hermine Baumgarten, of Milwaukee, Wis- consin ; Charles A. Koeffler, Jr., whose name introduces this review ; and Hugo Koeffler, also a prominent real estate operator and business man of this city. All of the children were born in Milwaukee. Wisconsin, and were educated here. Mrs. Lonisa Luebben went to Europe in 1881 with her husband, who died there, and since then her residence has been in Dresden, and Eldville on the Rhine, Germany.
Charles A. Koeffler, Jr., the eldest son, was born December 24. 1856.
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He began the study of law in the office of Frank B. Van Valkenburgh, later becoming a student in the University of Wisconsin, from which institution he was graduated in law in June, 1880. At that time he was admitted to the bar and practiced law in all the courts of the state and the United States district and circuit courts in Milwaukee constantly until five years after the time of his wife's death on May 14, 1902. She was Miss Jessie Hurd Comstock, the youngest daughter and child of Leander and Mary Y. Comstock, pioneer citizens of Milwaukee. They were married December 19, 1899, and at her death she left a little son, Carl Comstock Koeffler, born in this city on September 23, 1900. Mr. Koeffler is still a widower and his attention is now occupied with man- ipulations in real estate and securities. His brother Hugo is in the same business, but while they have their office together they are not in partner- ship, though Charles A. looks after the legal matters for both. Mr. Koeffler is a member of the Milwaukee County and the Wisconsin State Bar Association and is a member of the alumni association of the Univer- sity of Wisconsin, as well as of the Dentsche-Gesellschaft German-Eng- lish Academy Society and Natural History Society and others. In poli- ties he is a Republican and while he has been frequently solicited to be a candidate for public office he has always declined such overtures. During the summer season Mr. Koeffler and his brother Hugo, who is unmarried, reside together in the old homestead, which lies directly opposite their farm of 125 acres two miles northwest of Milwaukee. Mr. Koeffler is deeply interested in horticulture and landscape gardening and spends all of his leisure time at his country estate, where he gratifies his sense of the artistic and beautiful in scenery and finds enjoyment in noting what science can accomplish in orcharding. In the winters he and his brother reside at their city residence at 483 Marshall street.
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL JEROME A. WATROUS. U. S. A., was born in Conklin, Broome county, New York, on September 6, 1840. When he was four years of age his parents moved to Wisconsin. Six years later his father, Captain O. J. Watrous, died, and his mother and the children returned to New York. There the boy worked on a farm for his board and clothes and three months schooling each winter until he was fifteen years old. When he was sixteen years old he taught school one term in Pennsylvania, and in 1857 he returned to Calumet county, Wisconsin. He taught schools during the winter of 1858-9. attended Lawrence University during part of a term, then began his career as a printer, and a few months later took his first position as an editor. He was one of the editors and publishers of the Appleton (Wis.) Crescent when the Civil war broke out, and he enlisted under President Lincoln's first call for troops, but his company, like thirty others, was not ordered to camp. He again enlisted under the second call and was mustered in on July 16, 1861. as a private in Company E, Sixth Wisconsin Infantry. The
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following winter he was made Ordnance Sergeant of a brigade, and after the battle of Antietam was advanced to the rank of Ordnance Sergeant of a division. At the end of three years he re-enlisted, and was made sergeant-major of his regiment, and a little later became first lieutenant and adjutant, finishing his service as adjutant-general of the "Iron Brigade" on the staff of General John A. Kellogg. At the battle of Gravelly Run, Virginia, on March 31, 1865, his horse was shot under him, and he was captured and taken to Libby Prison. For his service in the last named engagement he was brevetted captain.
Upon being mustered out on May 15, 1865, Captain Watrous returned to Wisconsin aud resumed his calling in the field of journalism. He first served as editor on the Jackson County Banner. In 1866 he was county superintendent of schools, and in the autumn of that year he was elected to the state legislature from the counties of Jackson and Clark. For four years he was a colonel on Governor Fairchild's staff. He declined a renomination for the assembly and in 1869 became one of the editors and proprietors of the Fond du Lac Commonwealth, and was one of the founders of the present Daily Commonwealth of Fond du Lac. In 1870 Colonel Watrous was the Republican candidate for Congress in that district. In 1879 he became one of the editors and proprietors of the Milwaukee Telegraph, and for fifteen years was its editor, during which time he gave excellent service in a public capacity as Collector of Cus- toms for the Milwaukee District, and also as department commander of the Grand Army of the Republic. He served as Brigadier-General on the staff of Governor J. M. Rusk, and at the opening of the Spanish- American war General Watrous tendered his services to both the gov- ernor of the state and to the president. On June 15, 1898, he was com- missioned a major in the regular army and served on the Atlantic coast until June, 1899, when he was made chief paymaster of the Department of the Columbia on the staff of Major-General W. R. Shafter, with head- quarters at Portland, Oregon. In the following year he was assigned to duty at Manila, and six months later he was made chief paymaster, Department of the Visayas, and in December, 1901, when the four departments were consolidated into two, Major Watrous became chief paymaster, Department of the South Philippines, on the staff of Major- General J. F. Wade. In September, 1904, he was promoted to a lieu- tenant-colonelcy in the U. S. Army, and was retired under the age limit clause.
Since his retirement Colonel Watrous has followed his old calling as a writer, and his works of a historic and army character are of a most interesting order, and are frequently to be seen in the daily papers of Chicago, Milwaukee and other cities.
Colonel Watrous has been a thirty-third degree Mason since 1888. He was married on August 25, 1866, to Miss Ellen M. Benedict. Their children are Richard B., of Washington, D. C .; Grace L., Mrs. R. G. Vol. VII-11
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Washburn of Milwaukee; Paul J., of Madison, Wisconsin ; Maude E., Mrs. C. E. Betts, of Chicago, Illinois; Amy Alice and Margaret, deceased.
GEORGE E. PAGE. Elected in April, 1913, as judge of the distriet court of Milwaukee county to succeed Judge Neal B. Neelen, George E. Page deserved and fairly won distinction, both in professional and in public affairs. There is much in his career to stimulate and to afford valuable incentive to young and aspiring men of any generation.
George E. Page was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on March 19, 1873. His parents were Robert H. and Rebecca (Hughes) Page, natives of England and Wales, respectively. They were married in England and came to America soon afterward. Their first trip was made about 1860, but after a short time spent in New Jersey, they returned to Eng- land and in 1869 again came to America, this time locating in Milwau- kee, Wisconsin, where they spent the remainder of their lives.
Robert Page, the father, was a steel and iron worker, and his death occurred in Milwaukee in October, 1879. His widow survived him until September 21, 1907. They were the parents of four sons and four daughters, of which number seven lived to reach years of maturity. Of the living, Mary A. is the widow of Henry Hurley, a resident of Mil- waukee; Mrs. Edward Morris is a resident of Milwaukee; and Mrs. H. E. Sweitzen is a resident at Aurora, Illinois.
George E. Page was but a lad when his father died, and it soon became necessary for him to participate in the work which would enable the family to live. He had the advantages of the common school, but at an early age went to work in the rolling mills, and his rise in public and professional life has been from the toiling workers. He continued as a worker in the rolling mills through his youth and until after he was married, and his first opportunity for the larger things of life which he had constantly kept in view, came after the election of Theobald Otjen as Congressman from the south side of Milwaukee. Knowing the ambitions of the mill worker, he secured his appointment as a door tender in the national house of representatives at seventy dollars per month. Because of the opportunities which went with the salary, Mr. Page accepted at once, and in Washington matriculated in the Colum- bian University. Probably no young man aspiring to the law ever worked harder in that institution than Mr. Page. He overworked and suffered for some weeks from eye strain, during which time his student asso- ciates read or explained to him orally the subjects considered in the lectures and classes of the day. In addition to this, his two children, who had remained in Milwaukee with their mother were stricken with diph- theria, the house was quarantined, and after several weeks of anxiety, Mr. Page followed a sudden impulse and went home to see his family, being quarantined himself for two weeks. Despite these handicaps and hardships Mr. Page graduated at the end of three years in law school
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and was complimented by the president of the school for his work and persistence.
After his admission to the bar on January 8, 1904, Mr. Page com- menced active practice in his home city, and after the many years of struggle and hardships and self-denial entered upon a fair field, where his ability and popularity have won him distinction and success. During his practice in Milwaukee for nine years he was never associated in part- nership, always conducting an independent practice. He was first located in the Graham building on Kinnickinnie avenue, where he remained from 1904 to February, 1912, at which time he moved his office to the Pabst building.
Mr. Page is a Republican and has been active in political affairs since his days in the rolling mills. In 1900 he was elected to the office of Justice of the Peace, but resigned in the same year in order to go to Washington and take up his law studies. In 1904 he was elected to the legislature, and in 1906 was sent to the state senate, being returned in 1909 as the representative of the Third Milwaukee County District. In the judicial election of the spring of 1913, Mr. Page proved a popular candidate, and was elected by a majority of nearly seven thousand over his Socialist opponent. A brief interview published in the local papers following his election illustrates the character and the attitude of Judge Page to civic affairs and his own personal character, and may be properly quoted. "Naturally I am much elated over my success," admitted George E. Page, soon to succeed Neal B. Neelen as judge of the circuit court. "My ambition shall be to prove worthy of the trust and confi- dence thus reposed in me by my fellow citizens. The district bench affords an opportunity not only for display of legal knowledge, but for broad humanitarianism and common sense. 1 trust I shall not be lack- ing in either during my tenure of office. I feel proud, justifiably, 1 think, of the splendid work my campaign associates accomplished, and I want to express hereby my thanks and appreciation to all concerned."
His views on the progression system applied especially to drunkards forecasting his own method of treating and handling these unfortunates, are of interest. "They should be confined, as a punishment against their own weak selves," he said with reference to the drunkards. "With some of these unfortunates the short sentences to the workhouse do them no good. While in the workhouse they think only of the good time they will have when they get out and soon they are back again. When they appear to have gained sufficient strength and will power to withstand the craving for liquor, a commission should determine whether they are fit for parole. If a man or woman, released on parole, fails to keep away from liquor, they may be returned to serve out the remainder of the indeterminate sentence. If these unfortunates could do manual labor and earn money while locked up it would go a long ways toward reform-
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ing them. It is not necessary to put them on a farm. The choice of work for them is a matter for the legislature to determine."
Judge Page is affiliated with Bay View Lodge No. 141, Knights of Pythias, and the Milwaukee County and the State Bar Association. On February 17, 1898, he married Miss Alma L. Vollmer, a daughter of Frederick and Albertina (Smith) Vollmer, both of Milwaukee, but natives of Germany. She was born in Milwaukee, and is a graduate of the schools of this city. They are the parents of two children : George E., Jr., and Merrill J. Page. The family residence is located at 648 Otjen street.
EMANUEL LORENZ PHILIPP. President of the Union Refrigerator Transit Company, and member of the police and fire commission of Milwaukee, and recognized leader of the Conservative Republican party of Wisconsin, Mr. E. L. Philipp has had an unusual career of accomplishment. A farmer boy with a vision, he had ambition suffi- cient to mould the world according to his own desires. He handled a telegraph key, rose rapidly, became known for his efficiency in trans- portation and industrial affairs, and eventually found himself presi- dent of one of the largest refrigerator car lines operating over the railroads of the nation. He has been none the less influential in civic and political affairs, and for a number of years his has been one of the best known names in Wisconsin.
Emanuel Lorenz Philipp was born in the town of Honey Creek, Sauk county, Wisconsin, March 25, 1861. The locality in which he was born and brought up was one of the most remote country dis- tricts of the state, but it is noteworthy that circumstances and environ- ment has played little part in the career of Mr. Philipp. His parents were Luzi and Sabina (Luwig) Philipp, both of whom were born in Zisers, Canton Grison, Switzerland, near northern Italy and were married in their native Republic. From Switzerland they emigrated to the United States in 1849, landing in New York and going direct to Milwaukee. In what was then a small village, the father bought an ox team, and then drove across country to Sauk City, settling in the county of that name. Lnzi Philipp himself had a interesting career. After coming to the United States he pursued the avocation of farmer, but in Europe when young had worked on the sunny side of the Alps, and spent much of his young life in northern Italy. He was a member of the Pope's guard, serving under Pope Gregory at Bologna and Naples. A few years after arriving in America, like many of his compatriots he enlisted for service in the preservation of the Union of the States, enlisting as a private in 1862 in the Twenty- Sixth Regiment of Wisconsin Infantry, as a member of Company K. At the battle of Chancellorsville he was wounded, but rejoined his command and served nutil the close of the war in 1865. Not only as
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a soldier did he bear a part in public life, but was also keenly inter- ested in public questions of the day. He was a strong abolitionist, and a Lincoln Republican. Though his support was readily enlisted in any public cause, he never aspired to political office. His death occurred in Sauk county in 1892, while his wife died in the same locality in 1898. There were three boys and one girl in the family, all of whom are living, Emanuel Philipp being the youngest. Mrs. Josephine Melzl, the widow of Simon Melzl resides at Baraboo, Wis- consin, John L. has been a mining prospector for the last thirty years, and his home is in Montana; Frank J., lives on the big dairy farm of his brother, E. L., at Hartford, Wisconsin.
The career of Mr. E. L. Philipp would make a long and interest- ing story, but it is proposed only to introduce the salient elements in his life's story. Soon after the Civil war his father bought eighty acres of land, covered with timber, west of Sauk City, and it was on that place that the son grew up. He obtained such knowledge as he could of books in the district schools during the winter, and learned many practical lessons of life in the other seasons of the year while working on the farm. Ambitious for larger things, at the age of eighteen he qualified and attained a position as teacher in a district school. With the earnings of this work he went to Madison, entering Bross' School of Telegraphy. It is a familiar fact that probably the majority of the great railroad men of America got their start as teleg- raphers. From the time he had perfected his training at a telegraph key, and attained his first regular position, the rise of Mr. Philipp was rapid, although during his early years he had many hard battles with poverty. Within three years he had been made a train dispatcher at Baraboo, and then was transferred to Milwaukee, and placed under John S. George, now of New York City, in the position of local con- tracting freight agent. Soon afterwards he was given charge of the Gould Freight interests, and for two years was Freight Traffic Man- ager for the Schlitz Brewery. In a few years he built and managed a sawmill for the Uihleins and Captain Pabst in a big tract of timber - owned by those men in the Mississippi Delta. Through his old Gould acquaintanceship he was made president of the Refrigerator Car Line, which he afterwards bought, and in which he and his partner, Mr. Wuesthoff, are now principal owners. The Union Refrigerator Transit Company operates its cars over nearly every railroad in the county, and the business represents a large investment of capital and some of the finest facilities for the handling of freight traffic.
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