USA > Wisconsin > Wisconsin, its story and biography, 1848-1913, Volume VII > Part 25
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In these days, when so many women loved to live in glare and blare of notoriety, and who neglected their primal duties, it is well to have such an example of wifehood and motherhood as Susan Jennette Smith. She was a religious woman, a devout member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and she rarely failed to attend her services and gave freely to its support. But Methodist though she was, she knew no distinction of race or creed in her charity. No seeker for aid was ever turned from her door. No cry for help ever came to her unheeded. All in all she was my ideal of womanhood. She sleeps the last sleep in Forest Home Cemetery, by the side of her father, her husband and her son. She. rests in peace, and till the evening of time, her memory will be cherished by her family, her kindred, her friends, whom she served so faithfully and loved so well."
Concerning the children of this sainted woman, whose life was a benediction, it may be noted that her eldest daughter, Augusta, is the wife of Frank H. Hill of Widewater, Virginia; Thomas Hoyt Smith is a representative citizen of Baraboo, Wisconsin; Miss Clara A. remained with her widowed mother until the latter's death, and still maintains her home in Milwaukee; Lois is the wife of Judge Joseph G. Donnelly of this city. Mrs. Smith is survived also by sixteen grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
EDWARD GIFFORD CROSBY. In one of the most pitiable tragedies in the annals of modern history, the sinking of the great Atlantic steamship "Titanic," on the 15th of April, 1912, Captain Edward G. Crosby, of Milwaukee, was a victim, and in the records concerning that lamentable catastrophe, which tonched with horror and sorrow the entire civilized world, there will be found mention of one stronger, braver and trner than the noble man to whom this brief memoir is dedicated. From his side on the ill-fated steamer his wife and only daughter passed to a lifeboat to be saved, while the devoted husband and father remained with other noble men to meet the impending doom. His courage did not waver in the great ordeal of sublime sacrifice and he was foremost among those who aided in the enforcement of the command "women and chil- dren first." Heroism greater than this can scarcely be imagined, and the name of Captain Crosby merits a high place on the roll bearing the names of such other noble victims of the disaster as John Jacob Astor, Major Archibald Butt, Charles M. Hayes, Benjamin Guggenheim and others who on this lamentable occasion showed their fortitude, bravery and ten- der helpfulness in the face of imminent death. In making this supreme sacrifice Captain Crosby exemplified again the loyalty and valor of his younger days, when he went forth as a valiant soldier of the Union in the Civil war, and he also showed forth the abiding human sympathy and thoughtfulness which during his entire life had marked him as a man possessed of the truly great elements of character. He was long one of
Yn'. VII-14
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the most prominent and influential figures in connection with navigation interests on the Great Lakes, was president and general manager of the Crosby Transportation Company at the time of his death, and in the entire marine circles of the great inland seas came a deep sense of per- sonal loss and bereavement when it became known that Captain Crosby had paid the final debt to nature under circumstances tragic in the extreme,-circumstances that proved anew that he was the veritable captain of his soul in the hour of peril, the hour of death. He had long had fellowship with those that "go down to the sea in ships," and in view of the results of his final voyage, which terminated on the shores of eternity, we may well recall the heartfelt question of time, "Life- giving, death-giving, which shall it be, oh breath of the merciful, mer- ciless sea ?"
Captain Crosby was in the most significant sense the artificer of his own fortunes. He rose from an humble and obscure position to that of prominence, influence and distinctive success. His life was symmetrical and its lessons are emphatic and benignant. He had the will to dare and to do. He achieved much as one of the world's constructive work- ers. His heart was attuned to sympathy and love, and he won the respect and affection of those who came within the sphere of his influ- ence. He aided others and never neglected the call of duty, his high sense of personal stewardship having been one of the dominating ele- ments of his makeup. Such a man justifies human being. Such a man must remain, though dead, as the angle of ever widening influence for those things which are good and true, and in paying a tribute to Captain Crosby this publication but consults consistency and accords honor to one to whom all honor is due.
Captain Edward Gifford Crosby was born in Perrinton township, Monroe county, New York, on the 18th of February, 1842, and thus was seventy years of age at the time of his tragic death. He was of Scot- tish lineage and a scion of a family that was founded in America in the colonial days, his father, Warren Crosby, having been a native of Mas- sachusetts and his mother, whose maiden name was Louisa Lincoln, hav- ing been a cousin of the martyred president. Abraham Lincoln. Captain Crosby passed his boyhood days in Ontario county, New York, and after availing himself of the advantages of the common schools he was enabled to supplement this discipline by a course in Lima College, at Lima, New York. In 1856, when fourteen years of age, he accompanied his parents on their removal to Michigan, the family home being established in Lenawee county, where he remained until the dark cloud of civil war obscured the national horizon and roused his youthful patriotism to responsive protest. On the 21st of August, 1861, when eighteen years of age, Captain Crosby enlisted. for a term of three years, as a private in Company E, First Michigan Cavalry. He proceeded with his com- mand to the front and with this gallant cavalry regiment he partici-
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pated in many engagements the most important of which were the bat- tles of the Wilderness, Bull Run, Antietam and Gettysburg. At the expi- ration of his original term of service he re-enlisted as a member of Han- cock's Veteran Corps, and with this command he continued his service until the close of the war and for some time thereafter, as he did not receive his discharge until the 14th of April, 1866.
After the termination of his long and gallant military career Cap- tain Crosby returned to Lenawee county, Michigan, and in the village of Hudson he was employed for some time by the Lake Shore & Mich- igan Southern Railroad Company. Thereafter he was for a brief pe- riod engaged in the manufacturing of brick in Kansas City, Missouri. In 1869 he became identified with lumbering operations at Whitehall, Muskegon county, Michigan, where he worked for a time in a subordi- nate capacity, that of lumber driver, and in 1871 he removed to Muske- gon, where he became superintendent of the Muskegon Boom Company. From his wages he finally saved enough money to enable him to purchase a small tug, and this he put into commission in the towing of logs. In this line he developed a prosperous contracting business, and in 1881 he organized the E. G. Crosby Company, which engaged in the build- ing of piers and drydocks and in government contracting of other kinds in connection with navigation interests on Lake Michigan. The com- pany also operated a line of tugs, scows and scow-ferries, and as repre- sentative of his company Captain Crosby had the active supervision of constructing the greater number of government piers on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, as well as the breakwaters at Milwaukee, Ken- osha and Racine, on the Wisconsin shore.
Captain Crosby early became impressed with the possibilities and value of package-freight transportation across Lake Michigan, and his vital energies soon prompted him to definite action in the development of this enterprise. He finally became associated with Messrs. Rice and other business men of Muskegon in the purchase of the steamer "Ny- ack," which was placed in commission in the freight and passenger service between Milwaukee and Chicago. The initial success of the busi- ness spurred the ambition of Captain Crosby and through his ability and surpassing energy and executive power mainly was developed the great business now controlled by the Crosby Transportation Company. With his associates he gradually increased the compass of his lake fleet, and the first vessel to be placed in service with the "Nyack" on the Mil- waukee-Chicago route was the "Fremont," his associate in this line having been Gregory Hurson, and the enterprise having originally been conducted under the title of the Hurson & Crosby Transportation Com- pany. In 1896 Captain Crosby purchased the steamer Wisconsin, which he re-christened as the "Naomi" and marine men still recall the day when this vessel was partially burned, the boat being towed into port in a greatly damaged condition. The loss proved somewhat disheartening
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to Captain Crosby, but he was not to be baffled by ill fortune. With virtually no other security than his own word, he borrowed one hundred thousand dollars and with this reinforcement he rebuilt the "Naomi," which he then christened as the "E. G. Crosby" and which is still in active service as one of the finest vessels of its type on the Great Lakes. The manifest sincerity, integrity and ability of the Captain did not fail to receive objective recognition, and it was such confidence in the man that obtained for him the packet-freight contract with the Grand Trunk Railway Company, to operate their steamboat service between Milwau- kee, Grand Haven and Muskegon, Michigan, a contract that was renewed from year to year and that is still continued, the Crosby Transporta- tion Company, of which the Captain's only son is now president and general manager, continuing the service in connection with the Grand Trunk Railway, and its steamers being of the best modern type, with the most attractive accommodations for passengers and with the best of provisions for the handling of freight traffic. Captain Crosby did a most important part in the development of modern packet-freight transportation on the Great Lakes and it was in his ambitious work along this line that he gained such high prestige in lake-marine circles. He was a man of utmost kindliness and many a workman in the marine service is indebted to him for aid in time of need. He was the friend of the unfortunate, was tolerant in his judgment, and the generosity of his heart had no limitations. Cordial and considerate in all the relations of life, he won and retained the staunchest of friendships, and it may with all of consistency be stated that his circle of friends was coincident with that of his acquaintances. No man identified with transportation affairs on the lakes was better known or held in higher esteem, and he was a valued factor in connection with civic, social and business affairs both in Michigan and Wisconsin. He maintained his home at Muskegon, Michigan, until 1906, when he removed with his family to Milwaukee, where his wife and their two children still reside. In 1902 Captain Crosby organized the Grand Trunk Car Ferry Line, which assumed control of the operation of the Grand Trunk car ferries between Mil- waukee and Grand Haven, and he was the first president and general manager of this corporation, his interest in which he finally sold to the Grand Trunk Railway Company, whose president, Charles M. Hayes, likewise became president of the ferry company. Mr. Hayes was an intimate friend of Captain Crosby and met his death at the same time, in the great disaster of the Atlantic liner, the Titanic. It was the plan of Captain Crosby to place in commission upon his return from Europe a new steamship on the Crosby line, the same to have been constructed at a cost of about five hundred thousand dollars, but his tragic death frus- trated this ambitious improvement. He was a popular and valued member of the Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce and was one of the organizers of the Milwaukee Traffic Club, besides which he held member-
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ship in the Calumet Club and Milwaukee Athletic Club. He was affil- iated with the Masonic fraternity, was a staunch Republican in his political affiliations, was prominently identified with the Grand Army of the Republic and was a consistent and liberal member of Plymouth Congregational church in Milwaukee.
After the death of Captain Crosby memorial services were held by the Grand Army Posts with which he had been affiliated in Muskegon and Milwaukee, and while the limitations of this article make impos- sible the entering of details concerning these noteworthy observances, it is deemed but consistent to make the following extracts from the address delivered by Colonel J. A. Watrous, a retired officer of the United States Army, at the memorial services held on the steamer "Nyack," of the Crosby line, at Grand Haven, Michigan, April 28, 1912, under the auspices of Phil Kearny Post, No. 7, Grand Army of the Republic. After earnest and touching remarks of a preliminary order, Colonel Watrous continued as follows:
"Now I trust that you will pardon me if I read a portion of the report made to the E. B. Wolcott Post, a post which Comrade Crosby joined very soon after he took his card from Muskegon. We all thought much of him. We knew him. We knew him by his ways and by his works. We realized that he had the advantage of most of us; that his ability to organize great enterprises which gave employment to large numbers of men enabled him to confer blessings upon his neighbors, friends, city, his state and the nation beyond our power to do so. That is one reason why we looked up to him, why we honored him. It is one reason why we meet here today with sad hearts to pay him tribute. Comrade Crosby was a real blessing to his part of Michigan; he has been a real blessing to our city (Milwaukee) ; he was a real blessing to the country when he did his full part as a boy, a man's part, in more than four years of the great war. Now, if you will pardon me, I will read a portion of that report :
" 'The civilized world has been shocked and horrified, beyond the power of man to express, by the sinking of an ocean steamer and the loss of nearly seventeen hundred human beings. It was the greatest loss ever resulting from the sinking of an ocean steamer in any portion of the world. The story of the awful event has stunned the public. It would seem impossible that any good thing could come from such a frightful disaster, such an awful loss of human life, but the courage and manhood displayed after it was known that the ship was going down will live for centuries and have their influence with the multitude. Greater courage and truer manhood were never displayed in battle than manifested themselves on that dark night when the great steamer was sinking. Greater heroes were never known than there went to their death rather than that women and children should perish. In the future there will be erected monuments to men who died there
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and that will tell of heroism unsurpassed. Brave men! and our com- rade was foremost among them; brave men, the moment that danger appeared, assumed control of the frantic masses and brought order out of a very bedlam. * * * It is not necessary in this paper to enumerate that long list of world heroes, but this memorial would not be complete were we to fail to class with the greatest of them a com- rade of our post, a comrade of the Grand Army of the Republic. It wrenches the heart to picture the brave soldier, the skilled commander, our comrade, as he insisted, after placing his wife and daughter in a boat that would carry them to safety, in returning to help in saving the lives of other wives, mothers and daughters. To think of his efforts and the efforts of a large number of other heroes on that awful night is almost to think of a Cavalry where not only one died that others might live but where hundreds gave their lives that others might live.
" 'Those of us who knew Captain Crosby, who knew of his great heart, his kindly disposition, love of humanity and his country, of un- questioned courage and splendid manhood, are not surprised at his superb heroism that early morning of April 15, 1912. It was like the man to be such a hero. It was like the soldier to put forth his best effort for the weak ones about him and to die as he did, and while our hearts ache at our loss there is a feeling of pride that it was our privilege to have as a Grand Army comrade such a comrade, such a friend, such a man in our midst; that it was our privilege in the brave old days of the Civil war to have such a soldier brother. His life from his early manhood to the hour of his going to his final reward was an active and useful one. It was a life of honest effort, conduct above reproach,-a life that meant benefits for his country, his family, and thousands that I have already mentioned, for he was a leader in so many business enterprises that gave employment. His soldier career began when he was between eighteen and nineteen years of age. Throughout those four years and five months our comrade, who was so dear to all of us, gave his best efforts in behalf of the country
* He gloried in
which was dearer to him than his own life. * * that service and all of its sacrifices, and looked back upon it as by all odds the most satisfactory page in his life's history. His faithful and courageous service where he was many times tried as by fire while wearing the uniform of blue in the nation's greatest emergency, un- questionably had much to do in fitting him for the useful life that followed, in fitting him for the heroic service that he performed dur- ing the last hours of his precious life.'"
At Hudson, Michigan, on the 18th of April, 1868, was solemnized the marriage of Captain Crosby to Miss Catherine Elizabeth Hal- stead, who was born at Waterloo, New York, and who is a daughter of J. Y. Halstead, a sterling pioneer of Michigan. Of this union, the
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relations of which were ever of ideal order, two children were born,- Harriet and Frederick G., who, with the widowed mother, still resides in Milwaukee. Mrs. Crosby and her daughter were saved in the wreck of the Titanic, as already noted, and with fortitude such as their loved one would have wished, have they born the supreme loss and be- reavement entailed by his heroic and tragic death, as they are sustained and comforted by the gracious and hallowed memories of his noble character, which found its finest exemplification in the relations of his home, in which his interests ever centered. Miss Crosby had been abroad about two years, passing the greater part of the time in London and Paris, and in the former city she was joined by her parents, who remained with her during the winter and then set forth with her on the ill fated voyage in which the life of the devoted husband and father was sacrificed. The body of Captain Crosby was recovered from the deep, and, with those of nearly two hundred other victims of the dis- aster, was transported on the cable ship Mackay-Bennett to Halifax, Nova Scotia, from which point the remains were brought to Milwaukee, interment being here made in beautiful Forest Home Cemetery. Frederick G. Crosby succeeded his honored father as president and general manager of the Crosby Transportation Company and he is a steadfast, loyal business man who is doing well his part in upholding the high prestige of the name which he bears
MATTHEW H. CARPENTER. Pure, constant and noble was the spirit- ual flame which burned in and illumined the mortal tenement of Matthew Hale Carpenter, who was one of the most distinguished members of the Wisconsin bar and whose fame as a legist and states- man transcended mere local limitations to become a part of the na- tion's history. He established his home in Wisconsin in 1848, the year which marked the admission of the state to the Union, and here he continued as one of the foremost representatives of the legal pro- fession until the close of his long and useful life. He attained to high honors as a loyal and public-spirited citizen, and his deep appre- ciation of his personal stewardship was on a parity with the distinctive success which it was his to gain. Our later generation may well pause to contemplate his exalted and prolific life and to pay anew a tribute to his memory, for he wrote his name large on the pages of American history. His character and services are eminently entitled to careful study, and in a publication of the province assigned to the one at hand it is a matter of historical consistency that at least brief record be given concerning the career of the distinguished citizen and lawyer to whom this memoir is dedicated.
Ira Carpenter, father of him whose name initiates this review, was a scion of a family founded in New England in the colonial epoch of our national history. He continued to maintain his home in Ver-
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mont until the time of his death and long survived his wife, whose maiden name was Esther Ann Luce. Matthew Hale Carpenter was born at Moretown, a peaceful little village in Washington county, Ver- mont, where he was born on the 22d of December, 1824. When the boy had attained to the age of eleven years his mother died, and soon afterward Paul Dillingham, who later became governor of Vermont and who had charged himself with the education of the son of his valued friend, took the youth into his home, at Waterbury, in the same county. Young Carpenter there gained excellent educational advan- tages of a preliminary order and in 1843 John Mattocks, then repre- sentative of that district in congress, procured for him appointment to a cadetship in the United States Military Academy, at West Point. Concerning this stage in the career of Mr. Carpenter the following pertinent statements have been written: "It opens a curious field for speculation to reflect what might have been his career if he had per- severed in the profession thus chosen for him. In the academy Mr. Carpenter was a classmate of General Fitz John Porter and others who attained to prominence in the Civil war, and it is not inconceivable that he might have had the prerequisites of a great military leader, but to those who remember the man, his noble tenderness and his abiding sympathy, it is not altogether easy to think of him as leading a fierce onset at Chickamauga or storming an angle of the entrench- ments in the battle of the Wilderness. At all events the possibility of that spectacle was denied us by a weakness of the eyes which made it necessary for him to resign his cadetship at the expiration of his second year in the academy."
In the summer of 1845 Mr. Carpenter returned to Waterbury, where he surveyed a part of the then new Vermont Central Railway and began the study of law under the able preceptorship of Mr. Dill- ingham, and the timber of his mentality was significantly shown in this connection, for he made rapid and substantial progress in his assimila- tion of the science of jurisprudence, with the result that after a dis- cipline of two years in the law office of his honored preceptor and virtual guardian he was admitted to the bar, in Montpelier, the capital of his native state. Soon afterward the young disciple of Blackstone removed to the city of Boston, where he finished his studies in the office of Rufus Choate. It is known that he enjoyed in a peculiar degree the intimacy of Mr. Choate, and the formative influence of that incom- parable lawyer upon his admiring disciple is by no means difficult to discern in the record of the latter's career.
In the spring of 1848 Mr. Carpenter was admitted to practice by the supreme court of Massachusetts, and in the same year, admirably fortified for the work of his chosen profession, he came to Wisconsin and established his home at Beloit, Rock county. His novitiate was not unlike that of many other aspiring young lawyers, and he felt the
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lash of necessity, though the same was not needed to spur him to the most earnest of efforts. In initiating his professional career Mr. Carpenter was almost wholly destitute of financial resources, and fur- ther exigencies confronted him, in the recurrence of the disease of his eyes, which disorder became so serious as to make it necessary for him to go to New York for treatment. For more than a year he was almost totally blind.
Courage and indomitable perseverance characterized the early pro- fessional career of Mr. Carpenter, and he did not long remain in ob- scurity. In 1852 he was a candidate for the office of district attorney of Rock county, and the result of the ensuing election was such that it was contested, the case being taken to the supreme court of the state, which tribunal decided it in his favor. The case is a leading one in the reports of that court, and later Mr. Carpenter himself had occa- sion to cite the same when he was arguing the cause of Bashford versus Barstow. The appearance of Mr. Carpenter in this important cause, involving no less a question than the possession of the governorship of the state, is an evidence of the standing that he had attained when he had barely closed the third decade of his life. He was associated with eminent counsel, but it seems to have been left to him to project and mainly defend the principle upon which Governor Barstow re- sisted the writ of quo warranto filed in behalf of the contestant, Bash- ford. His position was that the branches of the state government are co-ordinate, and that it is not competent for the supreme court to pass upon the lawfulness of the incumbency of the executive office. The decision of the court was adverse, but Mr. Carpenter's argument will none the less impress the professional reader as ingenious and powerful.
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