USA > Wisconsin > Wisconsin, its story and biography, 1848-1913, Volume VII > Part 5
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the same month, so that he literally remained in the legal harness until the close of his life.
Judge Crawford was a most genial and accomplished gentleman, chivalrous in his disposition and of strictest honor and integrity. His heart was attuned to sympathy and he had naught of intolerance or bigotry, as he well understood the springs of human thought and action. Generous and considerate, he was greatly beloved by those who came within the sphere of his benignant influence. He was a man of patri- cian facial lineaments and distinguished bearing, and was the soul of frankness and sincerity, the while his high intellectual attainments and distinctive culture made him a most delightful companion.
Although unwavering in his allegiance to the Democratic party, Judge Crawford was staunch in his belief in the policy of maintaining the federal Union as indestructible, and had his life been spared until the inception of the Civil war it is altogether assured that he would have been found arrayed with Stephen A. Douglas, Matthew H. Carpenter and other representative Democrats in supporting the Union cause.
With his great ability, his wide reputation as an orator, lawyer and jurist, and his popularity with the people, there can be no doubt that had the life of Judge Crawford been spared he would have arisen to great eminence in the nation; and thus his untimely death, in the full blush and development of his powers, was a great misfortune, especially to the state of Wisconsin. His memory has even been held in great esteem and reverence by the members of the bar of his circuit, and no more emphatic evidence of this can be found than in the marked uuan- imity with which the members of that bar, long after his death, joined in making the presentation of his portrait to the Wisconsin supreme court. It having become known that members of the bar of the Fifth judicial circuit were contemplating the presentation of such portrait, to be hung in the court room, with those of the other deceased and distinguished members of that court, Mrs. L. H. Bancroft, of Richland Center, Wisconsin, very kindly agreed to copy the oil portrait of Judge Crawford owned by his daughter which had been painted by the dis- tinguished Stuart, of New York, at the time when its subject was still on the bench, and she completed this task in a manner thoroughly ac- ceptable. On the 17th of November, 1904, the portrait of Judge Craw- ford was presented to the court, the speech tendering the same having been made by Calvert Spensley, of Mineral Point, to whom has been assigned the pleasing duty by the members of the bar of the Fifth circuit. In his opening remarks Mr. Spensley, on behalf of the mem- bers of the bar, expressed to Mrs. Bancroft, who was present, their deep sense of obligation to her for her kindness in furnishing the por- trait without fee or hope of other reward, and at the same time she was made an honorary member of the bar. Chief Justice Cassoday, in behalf of the court, responded to the speech of presentation and
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gave a glowing tribute to the memory of Judge Crawford, whose family was represented by his daughter, Mrs. Wm. S. Ross, and her son, Samuel Crawford Ross, a law student, then at the University of Chicago, and at this writing one of the Assistant Corporation Counsel of the City of Chicago.
In the year 1849 was solemnized the marriage of Judge Crawford to Miss Jane Sweet, a young woman of most gracious personality and of distinctive culture. They became the parents of five children, of whom two are living, Minnie S. C., who is the wife of William S. Ross, of Mineral Point, and John W. who resides in Galena, Illinois. Mrs. Crawford eventually contracted a second marriage and she was sum- moned to the life eternal in 1893, secure in the affectionate regard of all who had come within the compass of her gentle and gracious influ- ence. Concerning her definite data are given in the memoir dedicated to her second husband, J. Montgomery Smith, on other pages of this volume, and thus further tribute is not demanded in the present article. Mrs. Ross, the youngest of the five children of Judge Crawford, is one of the most prominent and popular figures in the representative social activities of Mineral Point, which has represented her home during virtually her entire life thus far. She is a woman whose talents and tastes have been broadened and idealized through definite culture and extensive travel, is influential in religious work, as well as in social and intellectual activities, and was one of the prominent members of the Woman's Club in her home city, when it was one of the Wisconsin Federation of Women's Clubs. She has traveled extensively in Europe, Africa and the Holy Land, as well as in America, and she is possessed of much literary ability, she has given to the public the benefit of her travels in her published work entitled Around the Mediterranean. As the author of this interesting work, she has "gone outside the beaten path" and has given a most original and effective narration of travel and experience. Her husband, William S. Ross, is one of the exten- sive zinc-mine operators at Mineral Point, as was his father, the late John Ross, who was one of the early settlers of Mineral Point, and who has separate mention in this work. William Ross is one of the loyal, liberal and public-spirited citizens of the city and state which have been his home from the time of his birth.
JOHN JAMES ROSS. Wisconsin has been especially honored in the character and careers of her active men of industry and public service. In every section have been found men whose worth and ability have fitted them for leadership in the various vocations, men who have dom- inated because of their superior intelligence, natural endowment, and force of character. Of the older generation few filled a place so large in the field of development and industrial achievement, as the late John James Ross, whose home and whose business interest for so many
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years centered at Mineral Point. While in many ways successful from a material point of view, his name deserves commemoration none the less for his worthy personal services, and his high and influential place among men of prominence in his adopted state. To him belongs the distinctive credit for pioneer work in the development of the lead re- sources about Mineral Point. In that industry he acquired a leadership and success second to none, and as an exploiter of mineral resources, he belongs side by side with those eminent characters who gained national prominence through the development of the lumber interests and the other great natural resources of Wisconsin. All his successes were worthily won, and he ever showed a high sense of stewardship and re- sponsibility in the management of his extended enterprise, and in the application of his wealth. The late John James Ross was an Irishman by birthi, a native of Newton Stewart, County Tyrone, where he was born on the 29th of November. 1819. Reared in his native land, where he had only ordinary educational advantages, at the age of twenty he fulfilled his ambition for a larger career in the new world by taking pas- sage on a boat which landed him at New Orleans. In order to join his brother, who was then a practicing physician at Mineral Point, Wis- cousin, he went np the Mississippi river by boat as far as Galena, Illinois, and then from there staged across the country to Mineral Point, arriv- ing in 1839. Nine years passed after he first came to Wisconsin before the territory became a state and he was thus identified with this sec- tion of the country during its pioneer epoch.
When he reached Mineral Point in 1839, he possessed thirteen gold sovereigns, and this, his sole capital, he laid out in mining lands, and was given a position as ore buyer for James Sproule, a lead smelter, and whose sister he afterward married. From the beginning he proved unusually successful, and his success was not by any means the result of luck or hazard, but more particularly of his skillful judgment and his unerring choice of means and opportunities. His ventures in the mining fields of Wisconsin territory provided him with an experience and training, which peculiarly adapted him for a large field of enter- prise when the great discoveries of gold on the Pacific Coast came to the notice of the country. He and two companions were the first to leave Iowa county, Wisconsin, for the gold fields of California, in 1849. They went by way of New Orleans, and the Isthmus of Panama, and spent one year on the Pacific Strand. Mr. Ross was the first person to bring to Galena a twenty dollar gold piece made from California Gold.
Having returned to Mineral Point where his brother. Dr. David Ross, was practicing medicine, he resumed business as a mining oper- ator, and land investor. For years he was considered the most exten- sive mine operator in the state, and continued actively in that business until his death. As a result of his judicious conduct of the business, his accumulations were steady and gratifying, and with the increase of
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his resources, he continually expanded his scope of operations. Many interesting facts might be found concerning his relations with the lead industry. It should be mentioned that he made a record in the lead market by selling his product at a price as high as one hundred and two dollars per thousand pounds. He sold one lot of lead, mined near his residence, consisting of half a million pounds at seventy dollars and fifty cents per thousand. His interests were varied, and by no means confined to his operations as a lead miner and land owner. As a side issue he took great delight in raising blooded stock, chiefly Durham cattle, Berkshire hogs and Cotswold sheep. He amused himself through his ownership of two noted race horses. Kitty Stacey and Canada, two Kentucky runners.
His active connection with various semi-public enterprises was as beneficial as his private business undertakings were profitable. He was one of the first directors of the Mineral Point and Warren Railroad. He held many local offices, having frequently been honored and always justifying his choice to positions of trust and responsibility. He was one of a committee of three chosen by the county commissioners to order the erection of the Iowa County Insane Asylum, an institution which was long considered a model in the state. He was also one of the commissioners to settle the Iowa County bond debt.
One particular phase of his business practices is of special interest. Throughout his mining ventures he steadfastly refused to pay royalties to other land owners. His preference was always to buy the land outright before taking up his prospecting and development work, and as he was remarkably sagacious, even intuitive, in choosing lands con- taining ores, he was almost invariably successful in every investment he made in mineral properties. At his death he left more than three thousand acres of land in Iowa, Lafayette and Grant counties.
In 1854 the late Mr. Ross married Miss Sarah Sproule, a sister of the wife of his brother, Dr. David Ross. They were the parents of four sons, one of whom died in infancy. The survivors are William Sproule, Samuel and Charles, all of whom reside in Mineral Point.
John J. Ross died of pneumonia at Mineral Point in March, 1899, at the age of nearly seventy years. His death was the signal for a re- newing of the respect and honors which for many years had been shown him during his active career, and he was mourned by thousands as a generous, wise citizen, a hospitable and loyal friend and one who had always shown the highest sense of his obligations to the community. In his immediate family his memory is secure as an indulgent and kind husband and father. Among the men of the earlier generation who did most to develop Wisconsin through its material resources, the name of John James Ross must always stand prominent.
Berg. M. Bryant
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COLONEL BENJAMIN F. BRYANT. On October 1, 1910, Colonel Bryant became commandant of the Wisconsin Veterans Home at Waupaca, succeeding Col. Joseph H. Woodnorth, who had died September 1, 1910. Now in the seventy-sixth year of his life, with a fine record as a soldier of the Union during the war and after more than forty years as a practicing lawyer at LaCrosse, Benjamin F. Bryant finds himself in a congenial position among his old comrades, and for a great many years has been devoted to the interests of the Grand Army organization in Wisconsin. It was in 1887 that the Wisconsin Vet- erans Home in Waupaca county was established, and Col. Bryant was one of the founders and was subsequently for a number of years presi- dent of its board of trustees. This was the first Grand Army Soldiers' Home in the country, and the first to open its doors to the wives and widows of soldiers. It is supported by the Federal and state govern- ment, but its management is under the auspices of the Grand Army.
Not only for his prominence in military affairs, but for many other reasons the career of Benjamin F. Bryant has a significant place in the history of Wisconsin, of which state he has been a resident for forty-five years. He was born at Rockland, Maine, September 3, 1837, of English and Scotch descent, his paternal ancestors having come to New England early in the seventeenth century. Through his mother he is a descendant of Edward French, who settled at Ipswich, Massachusetts in 1636, and the Bryant family was established in that colony about the same time. Col. Bryant was a son of Benjamin and Lucy (French) Bryant. His father, a physician, was born in Maine in 1803, and died in Huron county, Ohio, in 1870. The mother was born in Maine in 1805, and died in 1886. The other children in the family were: John E., Thomas C., Lucy A., Mary E., and Luella S. The sons were all Union soldiers during the war, John E. Bryant hav- ing been captain, major and brevet lieutenant colonel of the Eighth Maine Infantry, while Thomas C. Bryant went out with the Third Ohio Cavalry in 1863, and served until the close of the war as ser- geant.
Benjamin F. Bryant was educated in the public schools of his native state, spent four years at the Maine Wesleyan Seminary at Kemp's Hill, and entered Bowdoin College at Brunswick with the class of 1863. The outbreak of the war interrupted his studies and he did not remain to complete his college course. When his class graduated in 1863 he was fighting with the army of Cumberland on the Chickamauga Campaign. In the meantime the family had moved out to Ohio, where he joined them, and on August 9, 1862, he enlisted in Company A of the One Hundred and First Ohio Infantry. Mustered in as fifth sergeant he saw active service until the close of the war and came out with the rank of captain. The record of his Ohio regi- ment is a vital part of Col. Bryant's individual career and is here
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briefly stated. The regiment left Louisiville, Kentucky, October 1, 1862, in pursuit of the Confederate army under General Bragg. As a result of the arduous campaign, by October 26, Mr. Bryant was the only sergeant left for duty in his company. From that time he acted as first sergeant until January, 1863, when he became first lieutenant. In March, 1864, he was made captain and held that rank until the end of the war. His regiment was always at the front in the army of the Cumberland, and was in every battle fought by that army, with the exception of Missionary Ridge. Its losses at Stone River and Chicka- mauga were especially heavy, and after Chickamauga it could never muster to exceed one hundred and fifty men for duty. At Chicka- mauga nearly one half of the men of the regiment who were engaged were among the killed and the wounded, and in Mr. Bryant's own company the loss was eighty per cent. It is related that towards the close of the Atlanta Campaign, General Jeff C. Davis, in whose division the One Hundred and First Ohio had served at Stone River and Chickamauga while riding by with his staff pulled up his horse, and pointing to a little stack of muskets, less than a hundred, inquired : "What regiment is this?" The colonel replied: "This is the One Hundred and First Ohio, General." "Where in hell are the rest of your men ?" asked Davis. "We left them at Chickamauga, General," the colonel answered. Then General Davis, starting up his horse, said, as the tears rolled down his cheek: "Well, the One Hundred and First always was a damned good regiment."
At the close of the war Benjamin F. Bryant returned to Huron county, Ohio, and read law in the offices of Kennan and Stewart at Norwalk. He was admitted to the bar in April, 1866, practiced for a time at Norwalk and in May, 1868, moved to LaCrosse, Wisconsin. For a period of over forty years, he was an active lawyer at LaCrosse, and one of the oldest and ablest members of the local bar.
During his career at LaCrosse, Col. Bryant was repeatedly hon- ored with public offices. He was appointed county judge of LaCrosse county in 1870, and held that office until January, 1874. In Novem- ber, 1873, he was elected district attorney of LaCrosse county taking office at the expiration of his term as county judge. After that he was twice reelected. For about two and a half years he held the office of pension agent until the discontinuance of the agency at LaCrosse. He was postmaster at LaCrosse for three years from October 1, 1882, to September 1, 1885, going out of office as an offensive partisan dur- ing the administration of Grover Cleveland. For many years Col. Bryant was one of the most active Republicans of Wisconsin, having first got into the service in behalf of the party during the Grant cam- paign of 1868. His prominence in politics was largely due to his readiness and talent as a public speaker. He is a man of scholarly tastes, a fluent writer, and it has been said that probably no man in
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Wisconsin is better versed in the history of campaigns and battles of the Civil war.
His popular rank as colonel came from commissions on the military staff of Governors Washburn and Smith. He joined the Grand Army of the Republic in 1866, in Norwalk, Ohio, and in 1882 became a charter member of Wilson Calwell Post No. 38 at LaCrosse,which he served as first senior vice-commander and was the second commander of the post. In 1887 he was elected senior vice department com- mander of Wisconsin, and in 1890 was department commander of the state. He is also a member of the military order of the Loyal Legion, belonging to the Milwaukee Commandery. Fraternally he has been a Master Mason since 1865, and is the oldest past master of Frontier Lodge, No. 45, at LaCrosse. In religion Colonel Bryant belongs to the Episcopal faith and was for about twenty years a member of the vestry of Christ church in LaCrosse and was senior warden of the church at the erection of the new building in 1898-99. In 1895 Col. Bryant made the formal address at the dedication of the Wisconsin monument on the Chickamauga Battlefield.
In 1864 Col. Bryant married Miss Augusta A. Stevens of Fayette, Maine. She died in January, 1896. In 1899, was celebrated his mar- riage with Mrs. Adaline M. Pierce, who died April 21, 1911. Since the death of his wife, and as no children have blessed his either mar- riage, Col. Bryant has lived in the genial atmosphere of the Veterans Home at Waupaca and enjoys the grateful esteem of all Wisconsin soldiers and hundreds of citizens who have known him as a lawyer, soldier and man of affairs.
LAWRENCE MCGREAL. In Lawrence McGreal Milwaukee has not only a sheriff who gives splendid promise of a worthy official service, but one of the more solid business men of the city, with which he has been identi- fied prominently since 1902. From positions of dependence, Mr. Mc- Greal has made steady advance in the business field, at the head of a number of well established business concerns in the city, any of which is a creditable addition to the commercial enterprise of the community.
Born on January 15, 1862, at Walworth, Wayne county, New York, Mr. McGreal is the son of Irish parents, Martin and Ann (Berry) Mc- Greal, both of whom were born in county Mayo, Ireland. The father immigrated to American shores in 1848, and two years later Ann Berry made her way across to join the man whom she married in Rome, New York, in 1851. The next year they settled on a farm at Walworth and there passed their remaining days, the father dying in 1894 at the age of eighty-three, and the mother in 1888, when she was sixty-seven years old.
The boyhood of Lawrence McGreal was not an eventful one, the home farm being his early environment until he was sixteen years old. He
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attended the district schools to that age, then entered Walworth Acad- emy, where he was graduated in 1881, and in 1884 was graduated from Taylor's Business College in Rochester, New York. Prior to his busi- ness training, he had been engaged in school teaching at Pennfield, New York, during the winters of 1881, '82 and '83, and his ambition to ad- vance beyond the status of a country teacher inspired him to take the course of business training at Taylor's in Rochester. It was his desire to rise above his position and to achieve success in some definite field of enterprise, and he believed the business training requisite to the ac- complishment of his purpose. Soon after he left the business college he entered into his first active association with the world of business as a bookkeeper and cashier for a wholesale produce concern in Rochester, and he continued there until 1888. In 1889 he left his native state and went to St. Louis, Missouri, where he became manager for the Conroy Piano Company, a position which he held from 1890 until 1898. In 1899 he went with the Thomas A. Edison Company, in Orange, New Jersey, and he continued with them as Western Representative until 1902, and on September 1st of that year he opened an exclusive phono- graph store in Milwaukee, both wholesale and retail,-the first estab- lishment of its kind in the city. The business has grown apace since then and is one of the representative concerns of its kind in this part of the country. The house is known as the Lawrence MeGreal Wholesale Phonograph Company, of which he is the sole owner and proprietor. In addition to this extensive business, Mr. MeGreal is president of The Lawrence McGreal Clothing Company, president of the Home Craft Furniture Company, and is a member of the directorate of the firm of C. M. Backus & Company, Brokers, of Chicago.
Mr. McGreal has never been a man who had political ambitions, or who took any inordinate activity in the political work of his district. His present office of sheriff, to which he was elected in the autumn cam- paign of 1912, and to which he succeeded on January 1. 1913, is the first office he has sought or held in his lifetime. He is a Democrat in affairs of National import, but does not carry the tenets of the party into municipal politics. He is opposed to a high protective tariff, and favors progressive legislation in both state and national affairs. He is a member of Lodge No. 46 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, of which he became a member in 1904, and is also affiliated with the Independent Order of Heptasophs, of which he is treasurer of the local branch. He is a leader in civic improvement, and is an active member of the Merchants and Managers Association of Milwaukee, the Citizens Business League of Milwaukee, and socially, has membership in the Mil- waukee Athletic Club.
On June 9, 1903, Mr. McGreal was united in marriage with Miss Helen Gannon, at Hammond, Indiana. She is a daughter of Martin J. Gannon, of Dixon, Illinois, and her family is one that is connected with
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that of her husband by intermarriage. Mr. and Mrs. McGreal were acquaintances from childhood, and at one time the Gannons lived in Rochester, New York, where Mrs. McGreal was born. Four children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. McGreal, as follows: John Martin, born in 1904, and died in 1910; Hugh Berry, born in 1905; Jane Mercedes, in 1908; and Lawrence Gannon, in 1912.
The family is one that is prominently known in Milwaukee society, and Mr. McGreal is regarded as one of the more progressive business men of the city. He is a genial, whole-souled gentleman, who bears an unsullied reputation and has many warm friends in Milwaukee.
PHILLIP GROSS. One of the pioneer business men of Milwaukee, who came from the German fatherland as a young man, and who in the city and state of his adoption has won honors as a man of affairs, and as a loyal and progressive citizen, is Phillip Gross, the founder of the Phillip Gross Hardware Company, one of the leading establishments of its kind in the northwest.
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