USA > Wisconsin > Wisconsin, its story and biography, 1848-1913, Volumr VI > Part 22
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Adelbert Deleglise is unmarried and resides in Antigo.
Alexius L. Deleglise, the youngest son of the five living children of his parents, is city engineer of Antigo, and is one of the prominent young men of the city. He is a widower and has three children, Margaret, Irene and Germaine. The family, from first to last, has enjoyed the con- fidence and esteem of the best people of the county, and their place as pioneers of the city and country is not less pronounced than is their
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standing in the matter of citizenship of the most helpful and uplift- ing order.
GEORGE H. GORDON, the senior member of the law firm of George H. Gordon, Law & Gordon, is the leading corporation lawyer of his section of Wisconsin. He is a director of the National Bank of La Crosse and the counselor of many of the largest local manufacturing, commercial and public service corporations.
His partner, Mr. D. S. Law, at present district attorney of La Crosse county, is the son of one of the city's pioneers, the late David Law, who was a man of large and original ability and force. The junior member, Robert D. Gordon, eldest son of the senior member of the firm, is a grad- uate of 1911, of the Law Department of Cornell University.
George H. Gordon is a Republican and has been district attorney of La Crosse county, an alderman of the Sixteenth Ward, and, during the administration of President Taft, he was United States District Attor- ney for the Western District of Wisconsin.
This is a brief schedule of results. Mr. Gordon's career is more interesting in its development than this outline would suggest. He is the son of two good, old fashioned Presbyterian Scotch people, William M. and Jane Barnes Gordon, who came to this county sixty-one years ago, and lived the lives of sincerity and independence for which they were both born, and which exemplified the stiff-necked rules of the genu- ine Covenanter. After a short stay in Waukesha they moved to what was then North La Crosse, where George, their third child, was born, in 1860, July 3rd. William M. Gordon worked at his trade of machinist until he had accumulated a sufficient competence to maintain himself and wife when he retired. He died in 1910. She had preceded him by three years.
North La Crosse was a sandy little sawmill village, and by the time George was big enough to go to school the sorting and rafting of the great output of logs that came down Black River, was done within a four mile stretch of river, beginning at the old main sorting boom just above Onalaska, and ending at the upper limits of North La Crosse.
All the boys in the neighborhood used, in those days, to quit school and take to the river in the spring, like ducks. They became very expert log riders, and boys of sixteen and even younger, could command from $3.00 to $5.00 a day during the season's rush, after "the spring drive."
George H. Gordon was one of these boys. He went to school in the winter and "worked on the river" in the summer, until he was about eighteen, when, largely through the interest taken in him by a fellow riverman of mature years, who was a great reader and a man of intelli- gence and sense, George was inspired to look for a field of life-work with possibilities beyond manual labor and day wages. He determined, under the advice of his mentor, to become a lawyer, and entered the law office
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of Wing & Prentiss, where he read law and became a law clerk, serving faithfully for four years, when he was admitted to the bar.
In 1882 he began to practice with the late Judge Thomas A. Dyson, as a partner, continuing with him until 1886, when he formed a new partnership with William L. Crosby, under the firm style of Crosby & Gordon. This was a happy and fortunate arrangement for both of these young men. Mr. Crosby, a man of large ability, was ambitious as well as thorough and capable. His death in 1892 cut short a career of useful- ness and prominence for his firm, and Mr. Gordon was left alone until January 1, 1898. Then he was, for a few years associated with John J. Fruit, an agreeable and successful co-partnership, which was sev- ered by Mr. Fruit's going upon the bench, in 1901, and from 1901 until the present firm was organized in 1913, Mr. Gordon practiced alone. He now expects his second son, Stanley, who will soon graduate from Cornell, to join and become a working force in the firm.
Mr. Gordon has made his way to a leading place among the lawyers of Wisconsin without any adventitious assistance. He is not spectacular and he has sought success with none of the artifices of the popular de- claimer. He has practiced law, day and night, year in and year out, not with a view to making a reputation, but with the courage and deter- mination of a man who starts, bare handed, to compel success by deserv- ing it. Downright in his opinions and "straight from the shoulder" in his way of expressing them, he is calculated neither by temperament nor experiment, to be patient with humbug. He never practices it himself and he makes short shrift of it in others.
When a question of right or wrong confronts him he does credit to the uncompromising stock from which he came. But he is in no sense a narrow man. He has good sense and plenty of good humor, is very; much alive to the present, and with a dead-in-earnest style and method. he is nevertheless tolerant, gentle, discriminating and faithful in his friendships, the sort of a man the poor devil is never afraid of, and from whom the rich and great expect no obsequiousness. In short, he is a broad, well seasoned specimen of the self-made and righteously success- ful American citizen, self-respecting and compelling the respect of other men of strength, ability and character.
On January 24, 1885, Mr. Gordon was married in La Crosse, to Miss Stella G. Goddard, daughter of L. M. Goddard, and to this union there have come four children, Robert D., born March 25, 1888; Stanley, December 25, 1890; Margery, January 20, 1894; and Donald, March 6, 1903.
GEORGE CRAIG COOPER. Personal achievement is something in which everyone, normally constituted, takes justifiable pride, but there are few individuals who do not also value an honored name and untarnished reputation inherited from forefathers. In America patriotism has ever
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been placed on a pedestal and the recital of military prowess in an an- cestor naturally brings a glow of appreciation which is as pure a senti- ment as can be cherished by one who is, himself, a leader of the people. The ancestral line of George Craig Cooper exhibits not only patriotism and military valor, but other qualities which have contributed to the upbuilding of the sections in which the Coopers and their kindred have made their homes.
George Craig Cooper was born in DeKalb county, Illinois, May 26, 1860, and is a son of James C. and Margaret E. (Newton) Cooper, The father was born at Sterling, New York, and was a son of George C. Cooper and a grandson of William Cooper. James C. Cooper had not the robust health of his military ancestors, his life covering but thirty- six years, three of his five children surviving, George Craig being the third in order of birth. He had engaged in agricultural pursuits both in DeKalb and Lee counties, and also was identified with merchandis- ing in Illinois, whence in 1848 he had accompanied his father, who died there fourteen years later. His father, William Cooper, took part in the battle of Oswego, in the War of 1812, afterward moving to New York. He married a daughter of James Craig, who had come from Ireland prior to the Revolutionary war and settled at East Salem, Washington county, New York, and subsequently served with the colonial army un- der Colonel Alexander Webster. His name has been preserved in the family, accounting for the Craig in the name of George Craig Cooper of Superior. The mother of Mr. Cooper, Margaret E. (Newton) Cooper, was born at Racine, Wisconsin, and yet survives. She is a daughter of Rev. Daniel and Elizabeth (Walker) Newton. The former was born in New York, and became a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and as a pioneer in this denomination in Wisconsin came to Racine in 1835. His long and useful life was closed in his eighty-ninth year, at Seville, Ohio. He married Elizabeth Walker, who was born in 1816, in Illinois, immediately across the Mississippi river from St. Louis, Mis- souri. Her father, David Walker, was born in North Carolina and moved from that state to Tennessee, from whence he became a soldier under General Jackson and fought at the battle of New Orleans, in 1815. After, with pioneering spirit, he moved to Illinois, then practically a wilderness, and in 1826 became the owner and builder of the first house on the site of the present city of Ottawa, in LaSalle county, having pre- viously lived for a time as the first settler in St. Clair county. David Walker married Phoebe Findley, who was born in Wythe county, Vir- ginia, a daughter of a Revolutionary soldier who died at the battle of Cowpens, while serving under General Morgan. Rev. Jesse Walker was a brother of David Walker, and it is said that he preached the first Methodist sermon ever delivered in Chicago, Illinois.
George Craig Cooper received his early education in the public schools of De Kalb county, Illinois, following which he entered the sem-
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inary at East Paw Paw, Illinois, and after graduating from that insti- tution, took up the study of law in the office of Samuel Richardson, at Ottawa. On May 22, 1882, he was admitted to the bar and at once lo- eated in practice in Huron, South Dakota, where he followed his profes- sion during the next nine years. Mr. Cooper came to Superior in 1891, and here he has continued in the enjoyment of a large and remunerative clientele, at the present time maintaining offices in the Wisconsin build- ing. He has been connected with a number of cases which have given him deserved standing at the Wisconsin bar. He has long been identi- fied with Democratic politics. While living in South Dakota, he served one term as assistant county attorney, and in 1889 became a member of the constitutional convention that framed the constitution for the state of South Dakota. In 1900 he was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, supporting the Hon. William Jennings Bryan, and in the same year became the candidate of his party for the office of attorney general of the state. A prominent Elk, he holds membership in Supe- rior Lodge No. 403, and in 1900 served as exalted ruler of his lodge. As a diversion from his arduous labors in his profession, Mr. Cooper is engaged in the breeding of full-blooded Guernsey cattle, and now has a herd of thirty animals on his fine dairy farm, one of the finest herds and handsomest dairy farms to be found in the Northwest. His varied attainments, his forceful nature and his unflagging persistence have made his every venture a success, and in his profession, in business and in social circles he is recognized as one to whom others look for leader- ship.
In 1892 Mr. Cooper was married to Miss Minnie McCullen, who was born in Canada, a daughter of Alexander McCullen, of Wessington, South Dakota.
JOHN T. MURPHY. It is in the field of journalism, perhaps, that men become most widely known, not always as personalities, but as influences, their printed thoughts reaching thousands where their spoken ones could be heard but by comparatively a few. It is for this reason that the self- imposed obligation of the journalist is of exceeding weight, and there have been times when a newspaper has forced reformatory legislation, and even been the medium of changing public policies. From academic halls, John T. Murphy, president of the Evening Telegram Company, of Superior, entered into newspaper life, and has continued to be prom- inently identified with the same to the present time. Other voeations have attracted him for short periods, but he has always returned to the calling which he chose as his field of endeavor in young manhood, and today he is recognized as one of the leading figures in the newspaper world of the Northwest. Mr. Murphy was born at Deerfield, Massachu- setts, September 7, 1860, and is a son of Daniel and Abigail (Guiney) Murphy.
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Daniel Murphy, a native of Cork, Ireland, emigrated to the United States in his youth and for many years was employed on the construc- tion of the famous Hoosac Tunnel. Later he was identified with numer- ous other large engineering enterprises in the east, but for some years prior to his death, which occurred at North Adams, Massachusetts, when he was seventy-four years of age, he lived a retired life. His widow still survives and makes her home in the Bay state.
John T. Murphy received his preliminary educational training in the public schools of North Adams, and subsequently attended Drury Academy, from which he was graduated. He early turned his attention to work of a journalistic nature, becoming initiated into news- paper life in Boston, then, as now, one of the leading literary centers of the country. In 1886 he turned his face toward the west, and for a time was engaged in real estate operations in Kansas City, Missouri, but subsequently returned to his native state and became manager of the North Adams Transcript. He was later on the staff of the Boston Globe and other large eastern metropolitan newspapers, and was identi- fied with the New England Associated Press, but in 1888 came to Supe- rior, Wisconsin, and for a time was engaged in real estate deals and other large speculations. Eventually, with W. E. Haskell, then mana- ger of the Minneapolis Journal, afterwards manager of the New York Journal and Boston Herald, he founded the Evening Telegram, with which he has been connected in one capacity or another to the present time. Later this newspaper became the property of the Land and River Improvement Company, but in 1896 Mr. Murphy organized a new cor- poration, known as the Evening Telegram Company, and with himself as president of the concern has continued to publish the newspaper, now one of the leading publications of the state. Although his chief interests lie in this connection, Mr. Murphy has of late years devoted much of his time to copper and iron lands, and is also president of the Berkshire Realty Company, a company dealing in Superior real estate. He has become widely known in business circles, and has ever been prominent in movements tending to advance the welfare of his adopted city.
. In 1890 Mr. Murphy was married to Miss Margaret Hyland, a native of Fort Edward, New York, who died in 1892, at the age of twenty-two years. In April, 1901, Mr. Murphy was married to Elizabeth M. Flynn, of North Adams, Massachusetts. In political matters a Re- publican, Mr. Murphy has ever been prominent in the councils of his party, although he has never desired personal preferment, and his near- est approach to serving in public office occurred in 1900 and 1908, when he was in each year one of the delegates from Wisconsin to the National Republican Convention. He is a member of a number of social organi- zations in Superior, displays a commendable willingness to give his aid and influence to the movements which make for education, morality and good citizenship, and has a wide circle of friends among all classes.
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FRANK H. POEHLER. Perhaps no state in the Union is more thickly populated with people of German birth or ancestry than is the great state of Wisconsin, and the town of Prairie du Chien is especially in that respect. It is undeniable that the citizenship of the German is of the highest type, and it follows that the community that has been settled by the sons of that nation will be marked by the sturdy progressiveness that characterizes its people. Prairie du Chien, then, may be regarded as one of these fortunate communities possessing a generous proportion of men of that type, and not the least among these is its mayor, Frank H. Poehler. Not only has he distinguished himself by his service to his community from time to time, but he has played a most important part in the business and fiscal enter- prises incident to the growth and prosperity of the city, and it is eminently fitting that some manner of tribute be paid to him in a work of the character of which this publication partakes.
To follow his career with more or less of detail, is, then, the object of this somewhat brief review. He was born in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, on November 15, 1860, and is the son of H. C. and Sophia (Green) Poehler, concerning whom some mention is made here as follows. Both parents were natives of Germany. The father came to America in 1856 and located at once in Prairie du Chien, being one of the pioneer settlers of Crawford county. He set himself to whatever occupation he could find, and until 1870 was employed as a teamster. In the year mentioned he found himself sufficiently in- dependent to gratify a long cherished ambition,-that of opening a general merchandise store in the community. He prospered in his undertaking, bringing to bear upon the conduct of the business all his native thrift and an excellent business judgment, and when he died in 1901 he was counted one of the financially independent men of the city. He was a man of the highest integrity, and his standing in his home community was one of the most pleasing order. Long a member of the German Evangelical church of Prairie du Chien, he reared his family in that faith, and played an important part in the activities of the church body in his home town. By his marriage with Sophia Green were born three children, two of whom survive,- Frank H., of this review, and Mrs. T. P. Cargille, now a resident of Tennessee. The mother of these children died in 1881, twenty years prior to the passing of her husband.
Frank H. Poehler received his education in the schools of his native community, and when he had finished with his high school course he entered the business with his father, and thereafter con- tinued to be so identified. He learned the principles of business from his father, who was a most efficient instructor, and when the elder gentleman died he left the concern in the hands of his son, secure in the knowledge that it would be carried on successfully and
F. H. Pokles
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profitably as long as his son continued to be identified therewith. The young merchant carried on the business until 1908, when he sold out, and has since devoted his time to a varied collection of interests. He has always been found interested and associated with the leading enterprises launched in the city, and as a promoter of new activities as well, he has figured prominently. The best interests of Prairie du Chien have always been close to his heart, and he has spared no effort to establish and make solid enterprises that seemed to promise some- thing to the ultimate growth and development of the city. He was one of the organizers and promoters of the Prairie du Chien Sani- tarium, an institution of the greatest benefit to the community, and he is at the present time a director of the Crawford County Bank.
Civic and political matters have always claimed a generous share in his interests, and Mr. Poehler has given the most praiseworthy service to his community during three years' service as an alderman, and is now in the midst of his service as mayor of the city, to which office he was elected by a pleasing majority on April 2, 1912. His administration thus far has been marked by a service of the same order that is characteristic of a man of his ideals and integrity, and he has amply justified the wisdom of the people in calling him to such an office. Mr. Poehler is a stanch Republican, and has given worthy service to his party throughout his more mature years.
His fraternal relations are represented chiefly by his membership in the Masonic order, in which he is affiliated with the A. F. & A. M., Blue Lodge and Chapter.
Mr. Poehler was married on April 25, 1885, in Prairie du Chien, to Miss Louisa Stuckey, the daughter of an old pioneer family of Crawford county, and to them have been born three children,-Mabel, Nellie and Helen.
RAMUS ORSTED GOTTFREDSON. In the death of Mr. Gottfredson in 1901, the city of Kenosha lost a successful merchant, a valuable and use- ful citizen, and a man of whose success in life was not only large, but was earned by qualities of character which are always admirable.
Ramus Orsted Gottfredson was born January 17, 1828, so that he was seventy-three years of age at the time of his death. His native land was Denmark, and his parents were Gottfred and Maria Gottfredson. Common schools in Denmark supplied him with the foundation of his literary education, and at the age of fourteen he went to Haderslaben in Schleswig-Holstein, where he spent six years as an apprentice at the watchmaker's trade .. The watchmaking trade gave him his introduc- tion into independent business and it was as a jeweler that he afterwards built up a fortune in Wisconsin. After finishing his apprenticeship he spent six months working at his trade in Copenhagen and then was employed by a maufacturer of ship chronometers. Finally the Revolu-
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tion in the German states and provinces broke out during the forties, and he found employment in the office of a wholesale jewelry firm at Hamburg until 1850.
It was in that year that Mr. Gottfredson left the old country and took passage on board the barque North America, which after twenty- eight days of sailing dropped anchor in New York Harbor. A few months after his arival in America he was working in Albany, New York, at nine dollars per week and his board. On April 12, 1850, how- ever, he arrived in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and here got a contract with W. O. Bush, who was to furnish him his board and wages of ten dollars per week as manager of a stock of jewelry, and in addition was to get one-half of the profits. The first week of 1851, he and his brother bought out the stoek from his employer, for four hundred dollars. In a short time he had acquired ownership of the entire business, and had just paid off all his obligations to his brothers and others, when a robber broke into the store one night and stole four hundred dollars worth of goods and money. That was a severe blow at the time, and it seemed likely to embarrass him for some time. However, Mr. E. W. Pratt, the man who had supplied his stock of goods on hearing of his misfor- tune sent him at onee nine hundred dollars worth of new stock, and thus practically launched him in business again. Mr. Gottfredson after this misfortune had a very successful year, and his total business for twelve months was about six thousand dollars. Prosperity now seemed to smile upon him, and for over thirty years he continued in the jewelry business, and from a beginning in a small rented store which had only one win- dow in front in 1888, he constructed a fine two-story briek block and one of the best establishments in the retail business district of Kenosha.
In Kenosha on February 5, 1856, Mr. Gottfredson married Hen- rietta V. Fry, who was born in Canada. The two children of their marriage are Esther R. and Alice B. Their mother died in 1861, and in the following year Mr. Gottfredson married Josephine T. Tubuse, a native of Ohio. In 1859, they erected a suitable home on Park avenue, where Mrs. Gottfredson still resides. In the building of that home Mr. Gottfredson made a deal whereby he exchanged watches and other jew- elry for the material and work of construction.
In religious affairs he belonged to the Danish Lutheran church and helped build a home for that society and also aided in the erection of the German Lutheran house of worship. In politics he was a Republi- can, and was affiliated with Kenosha Lodge No. 47 of the Masonie Order, in which he was raised, and in 1852 joined the Odd Fellows. For the long period of fifty-five years, Mr. Gottfredson was engaged in the jew- elry business and by his thorough knowledge of every detail, his excel- lent choice of investments, and careful handling of stoek, built up a generous fortune, which his widow has employed for much kindly charity and benevolence in her home city.
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HON. P. II. SMITH. While serving his second term as a member of the Wisconsin State Senate, and after a long career in business affairs in Sheboygan county, Patrick Henry Smith died on January 22, 1884. The life of Senator Smith had many points of interest. IIe was a pio- neer of Wisconsin, having located in the territory a few months before its admission to the Union. A young man at the time, commanding the resources only of a strong character and industry and good judgment, he was for more than thirty years identified with mercantile affairs in his home city of Plymouth, and at his death left one of the largest estates ever probated in the county. While prosecuting his business affairs with singular ability, he was never neglectful of his duties to home and state. His death occurred at a comparatively early age, and in spite of a semi-invalidism which clouded his last years, he accom- plished much that made his career memorable in the annals of his county and state.
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