USA > Wisconsin > Wisconsin, its story and biography, 1848-1913, Volume VII > Part 6
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In 1868 Mr. Gross started his first hardware store at Third and Chestnut streets under the firm name of Buchholz, Gross & Company, and later established the firm of Gross & Weinsheimer. In 1880 he pur- chased the hardware store of Kieckhefer & Brother, at 110-112 Grand avenue, and 195 West Water street, and at this time his son Arthur E. Gross and his son-in-law, Charles E. Mueller, became associated with the business, which in 1899 was incorporated as the Phillip Gross Hard- ware Company. In 1890 the company moved into its present quarters at 126-128 Grand avenue. The store employs more than one hundred persons ; five traveling salesmen cover surrounding states selling build- ers' hardware, machine shop supplies and automobile sundries to the trade.
It is interesting to note that the locks and trimming hardware for many of the largest buildings in this part of the country, such as the Milwaukee City Hall, Public Library, Majestic Building, First Na- tional Bank, Marshall & Ilsley Bank, and the Second Ward Bank, New Insurance Building and Wisconsin Hotel were and are furnished by the company, which also supplied the hardware for six buildings of the University of Wisconsin and the State Historical Library at Madison, as well as many of the courthouses, postoffices, high schools, city halls, county asylums, etc., throughout Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa.
Phillip Gross was born at Hargisheim, near Bingen, Germany, No- vember 5, 1835. When about 17 years old he left home and set out to seek his fortune in America. He arrived in this country without more than nominal cash capital, but well equipped in self-reliance, industrions habits and a definite ambition. In 1855, after the death of his mother, his father joined him in Milwaukee. One year later, however, the senior Gross moved to New Ulm, Minnesota, where he became one of the pioneer
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settlers of Brown county. There he took a prominent part in defending the settlement from the attacks of the implacable Sioux Indians, and served with special gallantry as a soldier in the Indian war of 1862. He lived in New Ulm an honored and influential pioneer until his death, in 1895, at the venerable age of 86 years.
From the time he began life in Milwaukee as an ambitious young immigrant Phillip Gross has never failed to apply those qualities of industry, integrity and talent for commercial effort, which have been the keynotes to his success. In 1855 he entered the service of what was then the leading hardware house in Milwaukee, and by carefully saving his earnings and continuing industriously in the employ of others for about ten years he eventually was ready for independent venture. While he himself is president and the real founder of the business he has able helpers in the sterling and progressive younger business men, his son and son-in-law. Arthur E. Gross, his son, is vice-president of the com- pany, and Charles E. Mueller is secretary and treasurer. The entire stock of the corporation is controlled by these three administrative officers.
Mr. Gross has led a life of utmost industry and close application, but among his responsibilities and duties in business has never become self-centered, always having a broad and intelligent interest in public affairs, and giving loyal support to measures and enterprises for the advancement of the civic and material progress and prosperity of his home city. He is a member of the Milwaukee Old Settler Club, and fraternally is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows of which he has been a member for forty years.
WILMOT F. MILLER, M. D. By reason of a quarter century's effective work as a physician of Milwaukee, and by long and prominent career in Masonic circles in the state, Dr. Miller has an appropriate place in the history of Wisconsin.
Wilmot F. Miller was born July 6; 1861, in Tamaqua, Schuylkill county, Pennsylvania, a son of Charles F. and Sarah A. (Sowyer) Miller. His father, who was a second lieutenant in the Union army during the Civil war died in 1875.
Fourteen years of age at the time of his father's death, Dr. Miller had hard work to gain an education and fit himself for a profession. Combining physical labor and self study, he finally prepared himself for a university career, and in 1883 entered the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. From the department of Medicine and Surgery, he was graduated with the class of June, 1887. On November 16, 1887, he ar- rived in Milwaukee, which city has since been his home. In a short time he had gained recognition for his standing and ability as a physician, and a number of years ago reached a point where he could concentrate his attention on his favorite and special lines of work. Dr. Miller has
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membership in the Milwaukee County Medical Society, the Wisconsin State Medical Society, and the American Medical Association. In poli- tics a Republican, he has never taken any active part in party affairs.
His Masonic work has been of a very important character. On Sep- tember 16, 1902, he received the thirty-third degree in Scottish Rite Masonry at Providence, Rhode Island. He took his first degrees in Masonry while at College, and was the first student of the University of Michigan to be knighted, becoming a Knight Templar in Ann Arbor Commandery. Since making his home in Milwaukee his connections with Masonry have continued to be prominent. His membership in- cludes Independence Lodge, No. 80, A. F. & A. M .; Wisconsin Chapter No. 7, R. A. M .; Wisconsin Commandery No. 1, K. T .; Wisconsin Con. sistory of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite; and Tripoli Temple of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. To Dr. Miller, more than to any other individual is due credit for the erection of the Masonic building of Milwaukee. He raised the money for the construction of the Temple, was chairman of the Building Committee, and from the beginning of the enterprise until its successful completion, interested himself actively in every detail of the work. Dr. Miller was also first president of the Masonic Home at Douseman, and it was in recognition of his splendid ยท service in the work and upbuilding of the order in Wisconsin that the honorary thirty-third degree was conferred upon him.
From December, 1902, to May 1909, Dr. Miller was Commander-in- Chief of Wisconsin Consistory A. A. S. R. He is also a past commander of Wisconsin Commandery, No. 1, K. T.
Dr. Miller's church is St. Mark's Episcopal. On account of his father's record as a soldier during the Civil war, he has a membership in the First Class of the Loyal Legion. His College fraternity is the Nu Sigma Nu.
On October 8, 1888, Dr. Miller married Miss Anna B. Sherer, of Tamaqua, Pennsylvania, where she was born, reared and educated. Three children were born to their marriage, two of whom are now liv- ing: Wilmot Paul, the older, is now studying medicine in the Univer- sity of Illinois, and in his senior year; Anita Elise is now attending the high school in Milwaukee, where her brother graduated with the class of 1909.
Since Dr. Miller came to Milwaukee in November, 1888, a total stranger, he has gone steadily ahead in his profession, and his position is now in the foremost rank. As a specialist in nervous diseases he has devoted himself successfully to a branch of medical science which is probably the most valuable in the practical relations of the profession in modern life. Though never a leader in civic reforms he has always given his influence and his sympathy upon the side of right and his life and example in Milwaukee have been of the greatest worth, both as a man and as a citizen.
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WILLIAM ANDREW ARNOLD on January 1, 1913, retired from the office of sheriff of Milwaukee county with a record of which both he and the publie may well be proud. Under the system of local government prevailing in most American states, the office of sheriff is easily one of the most important. As the executive court officer and responsible man- ager of the county prison, he has a wide range of duties. During the two years of his term Mr. Arnold distinguished himself for efficiency and an administration in the best interests of law and order. The jail in a county like Milwaukee is a public institution of no small proportions. It has been Mr. Arnold's special pride to maintain the jail not only as a place of secure confinement for the offenders against the law, but also according to the modern standards of sanitation and humanity in prison management. Cleanliness in these quarters has been both the rule and. practice during the last two years, and in many other ways Mr. Arnold has set a standard which his successors will have difficulty in surpassing.
Elected sheriff in November, 1910, Mr. Arnold has the distinction of being the second, and perhaps the first, sheriff ever elected in the United States on the Social-Democratic ticket. So far as can be learned, Butte, Montana, was the first locality where that political honor was first bestowed upon a member of the party.
Mr. Arnold was born in Baltimore, Maryland, March 5, 1855, but has made his home in Milwaukee since he was about one year old, and is accordingly one of the old-time citizens here. His parents were Philip and Eliza Jane (Huheey) Arnold, the former a native of Hesse-Darm- stadt, Germany, and the latter of Scotland, and they were married in Bal- timore. Of the six children in the family William A. and two sisters survive. The father, who was for many years employed in the mechan- ical departments of railway shops, was with the Baltimore & Ohio at Baltimore and after moving to Milwaukee was with the Chicago, Mil- waukee & St. Paul. The parents are both dead and rest in the Forest Home cemetery at Milwaukee. The father died in 1876 and the mother in 1865.
As a boy Mr. Arnold attended first a German school and then the First Ward school of Milwaukee, but though he has during his career never lacked the fundamentals of education and practical learning he was less indebted to schools than to his own experience for his training. After he was ten years old he began working at the painter's trade, and went to school after that only when out of work. He soon got into a printing office, where he did all manner of work, carrying papers, run- ning errands and gradually learning the art of type-setter. In time he became an expert printer, and for many years, through most of his active career in fact, was connected with the Evening Wisconsin, being in charge of the composing room of this paper for a long time. At the time of his election as sheriff he was connected with the local office of
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the Western Newspaper Union, which has thirty offices in different parts of the country.
Mr. Arnold has been a Trades Union member for thirty-five years and still has his card with the Milwaukee Typographical Union No. 23.
While never a practical politician, Mr. Arnold was among the first to adopt the principles of Progressive Republicanism, and was a dele- gate to the convention and a supporter of LaFollette when that distin- guished leader made his first race for the nomination as governor. Then after the campaign of 1902, he parted company with the Republicans, became interested in the Social-Democratic movement and later joined the party, in which he has ever since been a worker. From 1904 to 1908, by appointment, he served on the Milwaukee school board. He was one of the twelve men selected by the circuit court for the city school board, the membership, later in his term being increased to fifteen. As nominee in 1910 on the Social-Democrat ticket for sheriff of Milwaukee county, Mr. Arnold made a unique campaign. Much has been said in recent years about campaign expenses, and in this respect Mr. Arnold's can- didacy was a model, for he did not pay out so much as a five-cent piece to promote his election. He is a man who has never sought office of any kind, and when this nomination was offered to him he accepted and allowed the voters to judge him on his merits.
Mr. Arnold owns a comfortable farm estate of eighty acres in Mara- thon county, this state; and that is to be his permanent home beginning with 1913, on leaving office. Mr. Arnold was one of the incorporators of the Mutual Building and Savings Association of Milwaukee, which was organized in June, 1892, and has capital stock of five million dollars. At the present time he is treasurer and director of this important com- pany. He and his wife are members and he is on the official board of the Park Place Methodist Episcopal church at Milwaukee.
Mr. Arnold was married in Milwaukee, June, 1884, to Miss Olive M. Jeffrey. She was born at Lisbon in Waukesha county, a daughter of English parents, and has spent most of her life in Milwaukee. The home circle consists of two daughters and one son, Grace, Philip and Sue. Miss Sue is a graduate of the East Side High School. Philip completed his education with two terms of work in the agricultural department of the State University, and is now managing with much success his father's home farm in Marathon county, where the family home is located, since the removal from Milwaukee.
ANDREW J. FRAME. A brilliant British critic recently observed that the noisiest instrument in a band is the hollow drum, and then pro- ceeded to elucidate his dictum by explaining that the subjects of greatest clamor among the English public were really hollow and relatively unimportant, while affairs of real pith and moment and of immediate concern to the common welfare passed almost unno- Vol. VII-4
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ticed in the popular turmoil. The philosophy is not without its whole- some applicability on our side of the Atlantic. No doubt much of the agitation and discussion from press and orator that mark our modern "era of progress" are loud and attention compelling, but to a large degree are sound and fury, signifying nothing, and really divert the mind from the true substance that passeth show. It will prove edifying to the readers of these volumes to consider in the fol- lowing paragraphs the career of a Wisconsin man who may properly be called an apostle of conservatism and of intrinsic solidity, one whose long and useful life as a banker and fiancial authority has been devoted to strengthening and upholding the fundamental structure of commercial integrity in the face of every thunderous assault, whether under the guise of popular progress or more exclu- sive reactionism. In the following article on the career of Andrew J. Frame, of Waukesha, the purpose is less to make a story than to pre- sent those facts which will indicate his varied influence on the mod- ern system of American banking and the remarkable esteem in which a "country banker" is held by conspicuous financiers and business men all over the nation.
The life and services of Mr. Frame may properly be considered under two heads, first, "as a Waukesha banker and citizen," and sec- ond, "as a national authority and publicist in finance and economics."
On May 2, 1912, the Waukesha National "Bank celebrated the Golden Anniversary of Andrew J. Frame, who at that date closed his fiftieth year of continuous, faithful and successful service in the bank. It was an occasion remarkable not only for what it signified as an exceptional and rare event in a human lifetime, but was probably unique in Wisconsin banking because of the participation through let- ters, telegrams, personal greetings, and tributes of the press, on the part of so many distinguished individuals from every part of the country, and many of them of national and international fame as financiers and men of affairs.
The summary view of the career of Mr. Frame is contained in the greeting sent out by the directors of the Waukesha National Bank on the occasion of this Golden Jubilee. The first reason assigned for making the fiftieth anniversary of Mr. Frame's connection with the institution an occasion for congratulation and celebration was briefly stated as follows:
"The chair he occupies is located within fifteen feet of the spot where his father as a blacksmith blew his bellows from 1840 to 1844. This was the year of Mr. Frame's birth, and the banking office is but one hundred and fifty feet from where the one-room log cabin stood in which he was born. The same year his father died, leaving a widow and two sons, Henry M. and Andrew J. They all knew by experience the hardships of pioneer days. By dint of strict economy
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the widowed mother gave both boys such education as the village schools offered.
"On May 2, 1862, Andrew J. entered the pioneer Waukesha County Bank as office boy. He made the interests of the bank his interest, and through his diligence he soon rose to bookkeeper, then teller, and on May 22, 1865-a few days after the Waukesha County Bank, organ- ized in 1855, was reorganized as the Waukesha National Bank,- he was appointed assistant cashier. On January 9, 1866, he was appointed cashier, being then but twenty-one years of age. He prac- tically had full charge of the bank from that date, but often sought the sound counsel and advice of his superiors who were otherwise engaged. Mr. Frame and Senator William Blair held the positions of cashier and president respectively, from 1865 to 1880, when Senator Blair was called to his final rest. Mr. Frame then succeeded to the presidency, which honor he has since enjoyed."
Andrew J. Frame was born in Waukesha, February 19, 1844. Max- well and Jane (Aitkin) Frame, his parents, were natives of Ayrshire, Scotland. The father, a blacksmith by trade, came to America, in 1836, locating first in Fowlerville, New York, and later in Waukesha, with which place the family has ever since been intimately connected. Maxwell Frame died in 1844, the year of Andrew's birth, leaving besides his wife and infant son, an older son, Henry M., who was also practically in his infancy. The death of the father threw the boys on their own resources at an early age, but with the characteristic Scotch independence they declined offers of assistance from friends and relatives and set out to make their own way in the world. The mother is said to have been an excellent economist, exercising great skill in making her limited resources serve the best purposes in the family welfare and her precepts and influence were of great value to the boy who was in time to become the leading banker of his home city. After attaining a good fundamental education in the schools of Waukesha, he entered the bank with what progress has already been noted.
As a resident of Waukesha, apart from his place as a banker, Mr. Frame has been a fine type of the public spirited citizen. He has been largely instrumental in the upbuilding and prosperity of Waukesha, and is always ready to aid any movement for the betterment of the city in its moral and material interests. His vigorous efforts will be long remembered and appreciated in connection with the movement to prevent the piping of the water of the Waukesha Springs to Chi- cago, a scheme which would have robbed the village of much prestige as a place of resort. Mr. Frame has served as a member of the board of trustees of Waukesha, and has been active in promoting municipal improvements generally. From 1872 to 1899 he was a member of the school board which is a longer period of service than has been credited
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to any other person in that public capacity. He is one of the trustees of Carroll College, of which he has been treasurer since 1882. He is also a trustee of the great Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Com- pany of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Besides his banking interests he has been officially or otherwise connected with most of the local inter- prises tending to upbuild Waukesha. He belongs to the American and Wisconsin Bankers Association, is a 32nd degree Mason, and a member of the Waukesha and Milwaukee Clubs. In politics he has always been a Republican, believing in the economic principles so long supported by that party, and a few years ago was candidate for congress in the new fifth district. As Mr. Frame has said in one of his public addresses, he once came within a thousand dollars of going to congress, the only obstacle to his election being his conscience.
In his domestic life Mr. Frame has been equally as successful as in his business career. In 1869 he married Miss Emma J. Richard- son, only child of Hon. Silas Richardson, a descendant of General Israel Putnam. Her charming personality has pervaded the home, making it an ideal one, and on the occasion of the recent Golden Jubilee, one of the letters of congratulation received by Mr. Frame was particularly pleasing for the fact that the writer demanded that a share of the distinguished honors bestowed upon Mr. Frame should also go to his noble wife, whose companionship and counsel had been such important factors in his career. Mr. and Mrs. Frame have reared a family of three sons and one daughter.
The career of the Waukesha National Bank under President Frame and throughout his connection therewith has been one well character- ized by the phrase: "Time tried, tested and found solid," and it has been a bank which has given the facilities of support and helpful strength to the general business community, but at the same time has always maintained a policy of conservatism and enduring power.
When Mr. Frame first became connected with the institution, its deposits approximated thirty thousand dollars. The increase in depos- its at ten-year intervals since that time is shown by the following figures : In 1872, $166,829.97; in 1882, $553,064.01; in 1892, $911,923 .- 28; in 1902, $1,784,997.27; and in 1912, $2,326,850.44.
The Waukesha National Bank now occupies one of the handsomest and best equipped banking structures in the state. The original bank building was erected in 1855 at the beginning of the institution's his- tory. It continued to serve the purposes of the bank until 1901, at which time the present building was erected.
The original organization occurred in 1855 under the title Wauke- sha County Bank, with a capital of $25,000.00. On January 1, 1856, the bank carried deposits of $53,000.00, a high mark for that time. The bank as a state and then as a national institution has weathered three great panics- 1857, 1873 and 1893,-without suspending cash
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payments, but meeting every demand promptly and emerging from each crisis in a way that shows the practical management of the bank does not belie its motto: "Stronger than ever."
Concerning Mr. Frame's career as a bank executive and the esteem in which he is held by American bankers and business men every- where, it is hardly necessary to speak at length. On the recent Golden Jubilee there was published in the Metropolitan Press and local papers, and written in hundreds of personal communications from Maine to California, a mass of evidence that would justify the highest praise of Mr. Frame as one of the eminent American bankers. For the purposes of this article, an attempt has been made to exercise judi- cious selections from this aggregate of testmony, and in the follow- ing paragraphs the effort has been directed toward quoting the most pertinent sentences which will assist in a proper estimate of this Wau- kesha citizen in banking and civic circles.
Among the tributes to Mr. Frame on the occasion of the Jubilee, must first be mentioned the handsome gold loving cup, presented by the directors and employes of the bank in token of their "love and esteem." The personal congratulations and tributes are of course too numerous to be even referred to individually. Many of the largest banking houses of the world tendered their felicitations on that day. The floral tributes were magnificent, and beside financial and business organizations, many of the most eminent leaders of American finance were among those who sent their greetings to this Waukesha pioneer banker.
Concerning his career one of the leading bankers of Milwaukee said : "The temperate, conservative influence which you have been able to exert in the financial affairs of the nation has been a great value to the whole community."
A New York banker said: "The name of Mr. Frame and that of your institution seem inseparable and both are known most favorably to the banking fraternity of the country. . . . His clear thought on financial matters expressed so often has been of decided help to the bankers the country over."
James G. Cannon, president of the Fourth National Bank of New York City, and former comptroller of the currency, added a special tribute: "You have attained unusual distinction in the banking world, in which you have long occupied a justly proud position, and the many messages of good will which you will receive at this time from all parts of the country are richly deserved, as what you have achieved has been the result of sterling qualities both of heart and mind. As one of your warm friends, the writer is most pleased to add his tribute of respect and esteem, and to wish for you many years of health and happiness."
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