USA > Wisconsin > Wisconsin, its story and biography, 1848-1913, Volume VII > Part 31
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In 1902 Mr. Rote engaged in the lumber, contracting and engineer business in Monroe, and in this field of enterprise he has built up a large and prosperous business. The well equipped office and yards of Mr. Rote are situated near the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad station in Monroe, and the enterprise is one of the most important of its kind in Green county, with all departments fully adequate to meet the demands of an extensive and appreciative trade, and special attention being given to contract work, both in the erection of buildings and the preparing and supplying of estimates. All kinds of architec- tural work receive attention, and in this department of the enterprise provisions are made for reinforced concrete and structural steel con- tracts. The same lines of business are followed by the Rote Lumber Company, at Orangeville, Illinois, of which corporation Mr. Rote is the head.
As a citizen Mr. Rote is most liberal and public-spirited and he naturally takes specially deep interest in all that touches the well- being of his native city and county. His political allegiance is given to the Republican party and both he and his wife are zealous members of the Universalist church, besides which they are valued and popular factors in the representative social activities of their home city.
In the year 1886 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Rote and Miss Mary Kruger, who was born and reared in Winnebago county, where her parents settled in the pioneer days .- sterling citizens who contributed their quota to the civic and material development and up- building of this favored section of the state. Mrs. Rote attended the University of Wisconsin and is a woman of distinctive culture and
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broad views. She is at the present time vice-president of the Feder- ated Woman's Clubs of the State of Wisconsin, and one of the leading and most influential members of the Woman's Club of Monroe. She takes advanced position in the matter of woman suffrage and is a staunch advocate of the cause. Mr. and Mrs. Rote have one son, Robert Lewis, who was born at Berlin, Green Lake county, this state, on the 12th of January, 1888, and who is now associated with his father in business. He was graduated in the Monroe high school in 1904, and thereafter completed a course in civil engineering in the University of Wisconsin, as well as an effective course in the Monroe Business College. In association with the flourishing business founded by his father, Robert L. Rote has supervision of the engineering. architec- tural and general construction work, and he has done much to expand the contracting feature of the business. He has designed and super- vised the erection of many of the most recent and modern business buildings in Monroe, including the Telephone building, and he is one of the most progressive and popular business men of the younger generation. Alvin F. Rote has never been imbued with ambition for political office, but he has served with marked ability as a member of the board of supervisors of Green county, a position of which he con- tinued the valued incumbent for three terms.
PETER MCGEOCH. The elements of character that brought success to the late Peter MeGeoch were sterling integrity of purpose, great circumspection, indomitable perseverance, and a valiant courage which makes for self-reliance and worthy achievements. He was but a youth at the time the family home was established in Wisconsin in pioneer days, and it was through his own resolute purpose and great individual ability that he rose to prominence as one of the substantial capitalists of this state, even as he was broad-minded and public-spirited in his civic attitude and contributed generously to measures and enterprises in behalf of the civic and material welfare and progress of the great commonwealth, in which his interests continued to be centered until the time of his death, and to which his loyalty was of the most intense order. He was honored and esteemed by his fellowmen, and was one of the representative and influential business leaders and citizens of Milwaukee for many years prior to his death, which event was a great loss and a sorrow to the community which he had dignified and honored by his character and achievements. He died at the beautiful fam- ily homestead in the town of Wauwatosa, Milwaukee county, on the twenty-seventh of November, 1895, and was sixty-two years of age. Such was the character of the man and such his achievements in the world that it is fitting this publication should contain a brief record of his career and a tribute to his memory.
Mr. MeGeoch was born in Scotland, February 16, 1833, of a good
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old Scotch family. His parents were sterling pioneers of Jefferson county, Wisconsin, where they established their home nearly half a century ago, and where the father was a prosperous farmer in the vicin- ity of Waterloo and where both lived and died. Peter McGeoch was a youth at the time of the family emigration from Scotland to Amer- ica, and the greater part of his schooling was gained in the United States. An alert and retentive mind, admirable personal poise and singular maturity of judgment characterized him as a youth, and through long and close association with men and affairs he rounded out what may consistently be termed a liberal education, for he had marked facility for the absorption and assimilation of knowledge, and in the application of the same in connection with practical duties and responsibilities of life. He was a resident of Wisconsin, for a period of forty-two years before his death, and in his youth proved his father's effective and valued helper in the work and management of the old homestead farm in Jefferson county. There also he gained his first experience in the handling of grain, and finally engaged in buying and shipping this commodity in an independent way. Thus he was deflected from the career of a farmer to that of an alert and constructive business man, and the great success which he gained fully justified his final choice of vocation. In the wheat commission trade he finally became associated with the late Nelson Van Kirk, and for a time they main- tained their headquarters at Madison. In 1862 they moved to Milwau- kee, and for many years thereafter Mr. MeGeoch was one of the most influential and prominent figures in the commission business in this city, as well as a leading member of the Milwaukee Chamber of Com- merce. In the course of time he amplified his operations by the addi- tion of a pork-packing business, and his establishment in that line was for some time recognized as one of the largest and most important in the entire Union. After the historic lard deal in which he was con- cerned, he retired from active membership in the Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce and the Chicago Board of Trade, in order to give his attention to his extensive property interests and private business. He bought from Isaac Ellsworth, the Milwaukee City Railway lines, which he extended and otherwise improved, and in 1889 disposed of this property at a good profit. He became one of the best known citizens of the Wisconsin metropolis, and his speculative dealings in wheat and land were so large and diversified as to give him at one time nearly as great prestige in Chicago, as in his home city.
Mr. McGeoch was proud of Milwaukee, and took a lively concern in the city's prosperity and progress. At the corner of Milwaukee and Michigan streets he erected the large brick block known as the Me- Geoch building, and it was his desire to leave this fine structure as a monument to his memory. During the process of its erection he de- lighted to take his friends through the building and direct their atten-
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tion to its superior architecture and effective arrangements and appoint- ments. It is said that when he instituted the erection of this substan- tial building he obtained from Robert Elliot a promise to erect at some time a fine office building on the opposite corner, his desire being to attract business to that section of Michigan after the opening of the new postoffice in the vicinity.
The nature of Mr. MeGeoch was entirely free from intolerance, he was considerate and kindly in his associations with others, no matter what their station in life might be. His practical generosity and char- ity found many objects upon which to lavish attention, and he was specially unselfish and liberal in timely assistance to younger brokers in the stock and grain market. In times of panic he saved in this way many young men from disaster, and though none but the recipients and himself knew of his aid and counsel at the time, those who received succor from his generous hand have since given definite expression to their appreciation and enduring gratitude. Genial, direct and sincere, Mr. MeGeoch won many staunch friends, and in social relations was a gracious figure. Mindful of the fine sports of his native land, he natu- rally became one of the early members and enthusiastic spirits of the Milwaukee Curling Club, in which he was for a long period the main- stay, especially in its contests with the Chicago Curling Club. He ac- cumulated a large fortune, and became one of the capitalists of the Wisconsin metropolis, but always showed a high sense of stewardship and an appreciation of the duties and responsibilities which wealth brings to a man of integrity and honor. In addition to his fine home- stead on National Avenue in Wauwatosa township, he owned various real estate, and other property interests in Milwaukee, and also was the owner of an extensive and valuable farm near Lake Mills in Jeffer- son county. He was an intimate friend of the late Alexander Mitchell and other prominent men of the state, and Mr. Mitchell often visited the beautiful McGeoch homestead on the National avenue drive. He was well known to the leading business men of Chicago and the late Philip D. Armour expressed deep regret and sorrow when he learned of the sudden death of Mr. McGeoch.
Mr. MeGeoch married Catherine Ellen Harvey, whose death oc- curred December 3, 1885, the day following the fiftieth anniversary of her birth. After a year's absence in California, she had returned to her home at Wauwatosa, where she died. She was a woman of most gra- cious personality, and a popular factor in the social activities of Mil- waukee. She endeared herself to all who came within the sphere of her gentle influence and her memory is revered by all who knew her. Mr. and Mrs. McGeoch became the parents of five children: Eda Me- Geoch Martin, who died in November, 1882; Clara, who died November 24, 1908; Alma, who died January 6, 1910; Mrs. John W. Flint of Vermont : Arthur N. McGeoch of Milwaukee.
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ARTHUR N. MCGEOCH. The only son of the late Peter MeGeoch, and one of the most prominent and influential figures in connection with real estate operations at Milwaukee, Arthur Nye McGeoch is well upholding the high prestige of the family name. He is president and treasurer of the MeGeoch estate, with offices at Fifty-third and National avenue, where he erected a substantial cement block building for this purpose, the same being of attractive architectural design, and of most modern appointments, and being situated in West Allis, one of the fine suburban districts of Milwaukee, and one whose development has been greatly pro- moted by Mr. McGeoch, who is executive head of the real-estate agency of the McGeoch estate, the Central Improvement Company, and the Soldiers' Home Heights Company. Mr. MeGeoch has control of a large amount of valuable realty in and near Milwaukee, and has been a prime factor in securing the admirable manufacturing industries in West Allis and West Milwaukee in conjunction with the desirable properties owned by the McGeoch Estate, and developed into desirable residence districts under his progressive management. In the various factories in this locality, employment is now given to more than twenty thousand men, and Mr. McGeoch is giving special attention to supplying desirable homes to this worthy class of citizens at most reasonable and advanta- geous terms.
He is one of the aggressive and successful representative real estate men of Milwaukee, loyal to his native state and home city. and ever ready to do all in his power to further the social and industrial advance- ment and prosperity of the community. He was born and reared in Milwaukee, and in that city his circle of friends is coincident with that of his acquaintances. He is wisely administering the affairs of the large family estate, and his enterprise and progressiveness have definite influence in the furtherance of local interests. as well as the general prestige of his native state.
ALEXANDER MITCHELL. The first president of the Chicago, Milwau- kee & St. Paul Railroad, an office which he held from 1863 until his death on the 19th of April, 1887, Alexander Mitchell as a banker and great business executive was the foremost man of his time in Wiscon- sin and had few equals among the great financiers of the United States, with whom he was intimately associated. In a memorial address delivered by Dr. James D. Butler before the Wisconsin His- torical Society January 5, 1888, on the subject "Alexander Mitchell, the Financier," the author gave a brief resume of what Mr. Mitchell had accomplished in the financial world, and the language of that address will probably convey more clearly than in any other manner the splendid achievements for which Wisconsin is indebted to Alex- ander Mitchell.
"It was near the first summer days of 1839 that Alexander Mitchell
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first saw Milwaukee. He came hither to serve as secretary of an insur- ance company, so called. The first proof discoverable of his presence in that village of perhaps twelve hundred people, and which contained no frame house more than five years old, is a ten-line advertisement in the Advertiser of June 15th. In this he notifies the insurance stock- holders that payment of ten dollars on each of their shares must be made on the 1st of August, at the company's office in Milwaukee. On the 13th of August the Sentinel, then beginning its third year, inserted the following notice :
" 'Insurance .- The Wisconsin Marine and Fire Insurance Company has commenced business in Milwaukee, and are ready to enter into contracts of insurance at low rates of premium. The company will also receive money on deposit, and transact other moneyed operations in which by their charter they are allowed to engage.
'Alex Mitchell, Secretary.'
"Such amid an office outfit costing $280.44, was the birth of an institution that was for more than a decade the only bank in Wiscon- sin,-which for a generation held in its vaults a third of the Milwaukee deposits, and which gave Alexander Mitchell a colossal fortune as well as more than national fame as a financier. According to the rise and progress of this establishment, if we can pluck -out the heart of its mystery, will reveal to us where lay the great strength of the finan- cier we now commemorate."
Alexander Mitchell was born October 18, 1817, at Mill Fortrie, a farm about a dozen miles from Aberdeen, Scotland. His father, John Mitchell, was of English descent, while his mother was Scotch. Hav- ing lost his mother while yet a child, he grew up under the care of his father and elder sister, and never attended any school save that of his native parish. When little more than half through his teens he became a law student in an office at Aberdeen, and two years afterward he appears in a bank at Peterhead-a score of miles north of the city where he had plodded in legal elements. In these years of juvenile training some germs of his characteristics in manhood must have been manifest, for he had scarcely reached his majority when, on the recom- mendation of an Aberdeen legal firm, Adam & Anderson, he was invited to America by George Smith, with the promise of a position here. In 1838 Mr. Smith, a Scotchman then living in Chicago, had secured the charter for the Wisconsin Marine & Fire Insurance Com- pany, which was organized in the spring of 1839. In territorial days of the northwest the many failures of irresponsible banks rendered the people exceedingly hostile to banking institutions, and when the Wis- consin Marine & Fire Insurance Company was organized there were certain limitations in the charter regarding carrying on a general banking business, but those limitations were practically annulled by the language of the bill. The act allowed the company, besides insur-
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ing on ship and shore, to receive money on deposit, give certificate, loan on the same terms as individual and employ its surplus capital in the purchase of stock or other moneyed operations, "provided noth ing herein contained shall give banking privileges."
Mr. Mitchell came to America in 1839, a Scotch novice not yet twenty-two, and became associated with the Wisconsin Marine & Fire Insurance Company in the capacity of clerk. Says Dr. Butler further: "The Smith Insurance Company, to save appearances, issued a few policies against accidents by fire and flood, but its principal dealings were of another nature. Multitudes were then first seeking farms west of Lake Michigan rather than amid the agnes of Indiana. Homesteads ought to have been free to such a yeomanry, but in fact payment was exacted by the government for every acre, and that in advance,- yes, at times in gold and silver. Such payment many settlers could not make, and yet if once masters of a farm their labor would soon double its value,-while its unearned increment, resulting from the growth of the country, often swelled to ten times its original cost. Much of the Mitchell business very naturally became buying such farms as incomers had picked out, under contract to deed them to such incomers at the end of four years, or sooner, at a moderate advance upon the govern- ment price. Thanks to the intermediary purchaser hundreds obtained a 'start in life otherwise impossible. Their debt to him in this regard is still held in grateful remembrance at many a farmer's fireside.
"Another branch, of the Mitchell business which soon became gigantic was issuing certificates of deposit. The date of the earliest output cannot be ascertained. Abont six months after he opened his office, that is in March, 1840, the amount in circulation was less than five thousand dollars ($4,819). But within ten years it had run up to a full million, and for years after it still grew. These certificates had the similitude of bank-notes, they were of silk paper, and were engraved by Durand & Co., New York. They bore on the left an Indian, and on the right a female figure pointing to something on a shield. They promised payment on demand, and they never failed to be paid on presentation. This was more than could be said of any bank-notes that had ever been put forth, either in Wisconsin or in the neighboring states, or by any bank in New York except the Chemical.
"Thus all things worked together for good to the Scotch adven- turer. Although he did not admit that he had a bank at all, he had all its parts,-and what was more, his was the only bank in a region twice as large as Scotland. The Mitchell business grew still faster. The hour had come and the man. He saw his opportunity and made the most of it. His deposits,-say rather silver certificates,-which in 1840 were bnt $6,000, within a dozen years had augmented to a million and a half. His success was so enviable that others undertook to tread in his steps. It turned out, however, that following his wisest move-
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ments proved as foolish for them as Pharaoh's following the Israelites into the Red Sea was for him. Within his circle none might walk but he.
"Within fourteen years the institution-call it what you will-in which he as clerk had been paid less than a hundred dollars a month- was all his own. Smith, with all the home-keeping Scots who had backed him, was bought out-all the shares and the prestige of the establishment-all had become Mitchell's. But let it not be supposed that our banker, though monarch of all he surveyed, had been walking a primrose path. There were many so-called runs which rushed upon him like torrents or cataracts. Panics, fomented by distant rivals or by neighbors who hoped to rise by his ruin, would seize depositors. Then steamers would suddenly land crowds, all calling for coin. Still larger swarms from the country would throng in. In 1849 Chicago and Detroit combined to crush the only formidable opposition their bank- ers encountered in the northwest. Whatever Mitchell certificates the conspirators could accumulate were concentrated for payment in Mil- waukee on the day after Thanksgiving, simultaneously with the announcement that Smith's bank-the Chicago fountain of all the Mitchell monetary streams had shut up. The report appalled Wis- consin depositors like thunder in a clear sky. But Mr. Mitchell denied its truth, hurried swift riders to Chicago, so that Smith expressed specie by both land and lake, while Mitchell paid up all comers till banking hours were over, and then made his cashier, David Ferguson, keep on paying till bed-time. People laughed at their own fright when they learned that Smith's bank had been closed on no week day but Thanks- giving. The raid blew over, leaving nine-tenths of the certificates still outstanding. Mr. Mitchell's strategy was on the inside track and interior line. Nothing heightened his prestige more than these cyclones, which proved him to be invincible."
To those who are at all familiar with the history of early banking in the United States, the statement that the millions of dollars' worth of bank notes issued by the Mitchell Company were always redeemed in specie upon presentation is the highest tribute to the integrity of Mr. Mitchell as a financier. There were only two or three banking institutions in the entire country which did not at some time or other suffer depreciation of their notes or temporarily refuse payment upon their paper currency. Notwithstanding his notable integrity in the midst of hundreds of unstable banks, attacks from almost every source were made upon Mr. Mitchell, and he had to fight all the time to ward off the blows of envious competitors and of ignorant, though perhaps well meaning, legislation. In 1844 a bill was passed by the territorial legislature to repeal his company's charter, but the validity of the act was disputed under a decision of the supreme court, and
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in spite of the long litigation that followed the credit of the institu- tion remained unimpaired.
Says Dr. Butler: "After fourteen anti-bank years, an act of 1852 authorized what was styled 'free banking' and flooded the country with bank paper, much of which became worthless and was justly branded as 'wild-cat' and 'stump tail.' When this general act came in force Mr. Mitchell called in his circulation, paying gold, unless its equivalent was preferred, for every dollar. Then, adding the monosyllable 'Bank' to his insurance title, he formed the first bank- ing institution in Milwaukee, as Mr. Marshall had formed the first one in the state at Madison. At this juncture of transformation the vast amount afloat-running up into millions-would have tempted many a financier to repudiation. No one suspected Mr. Mitchell of such a thought. Most bonds and bank bills depreciated; his prom- ises never did. They were a bond lighter than air, but they were stronger than iron. The wisdom and honesty which had marked his career in the pre-bank era, with the reputation and wealth then acquired, enabled him afterwards for thirty-three years to stand easily first and foremost among all the bankers who during that gen- eration have arisen in the northwest."
The railway enterprises which shared with banking the last third of his life merely gave new and wider scope for the workings of the financial genius of Alexander Mitchell. Railroad building in Wiscon- sin dates from 1849, but fourteen years thereafter its principal lines were bankrupt, fragmentary, and worst of all for Milwaukee they were on the point of coming under the Northwestern, which would have sucked the abundance of Wisconsin from every corner between lake and river and poured it into Chicago, leaving Milwaukee bereaved of the commerce of its own state. To avert such a consummation, to secure for Milwaukee her own back country-to turn the railroad chaos into a cosmos-one whole, consolidated of parts harmonious and helpful, was the high aim of Mr. Mitchell. For this end he obtained the mastery of a nucleus which developed into the St. Paul Road, and added to it the Watertown and Horicon, which he already controlled. By this movement nearly the whole business of these lines was brought into Milwaukee instead of being diverted as before at Milton and Minnesota Junction. Next securing the Prairie du Chien and McGregor Western, he extended that line northward in 1867 to St. Paul and Minneapolis. He thus made the name of his road the St. Paul, no longer a misnomer, and completed the first bond of iron connecting the Twin cities of the northwest with Milwaukee and Chicago. His consolidation of Wisconsin roads and concentration of them in Mil- waukee he was on the point of supplementing by the purchase of the line from Milwaukee to Chicago. This purpose being thwarted by eastern directors, the connections of his system with Chicago were at
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