USA > Wisconsin > Wisconsin, its story and biography, 1848-1913, Volumr VI > Part 25
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William E. Wagener grew to manhood in the city of his nativity, here securing his preliminary literary training in the public schools. After graduating from the high school in 1902, he became a student in the law department of the University of Wisconsin, at Madison, and in 1906 was graduated therefrom with his degree. In the same year he was admitted to the bar, and after a short practice at Sawyer returned to Sturgeon Bay and opened his present offices, located over the Bank of Sturgeon Bay. He has succeeded in building up an excellent profes- sional business, and his reputation among his fellow-practitioners is high. Like his father, he is a Democrat, and in 1908 he became the candidate of his party for the office of city attorney. In the election which followed he received a handsome majority, succeeded W. E. Garde in the office, and has continued to discharge the duties of his position in an eminently satisfactory manner. Aside from his law practice, Mr. Wagener's activities are devoted to the real estate busi- ness, and he is now president of the Door County Land Company, of which he was one of the organizers.
In 1909, Mr. Wagener was united in marriage with Miss Lucy Rys- dorp, of Sturgeon Bay, and two children have been born to this union : Dorothy Dean and Ruth Isabelle. The pleasant family home is located on Cedar street, near the hospital.
F. S. ROBBINS. One of the greatest lumbering and manufacturing industries of northern Wisconsin, the Robbins Lumber Company of Rhinelander represents in a large degree the successful outcome of one man's energy, ambition and enterprise, protracted through a series of years from a time when he was a raw recruit in the lumber woods of Michigan. F. S. Robbins, president of the company has an inter-
Jis. Problémo
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esting career, though it must be realized largely in comparing his early beginnings with his later success, for like many of the veteran lum- bermen he is extremely modest as to his own part in his life's record.
The Robbins Lumber Company are manufacturers and wholesale dealers in all kinds of lumber, and particularly in hardwood flooring. Their chief plant and offices are at Rhinelander. Mr. Robbins estab- lished the business here in 1886, only a few years after the town was laid out. The extent of the business is more easily comprehended when it is stated that the company owns and operates a very complete system of narrow-gauge railroad, with a mileage of forty-six miles, running from Rhinelander to Sugar Camp north, and within six miles of Eagle River. Another branch runs from Pine Lake to Eagle Chain of Lakes, and another branch to Virgin Lake and Lake Julia. The general equipment of this railroad comprises one hundred log cars, five box cars, one passenger coach, four locomotives, two moguls, one consolidated and one single top, four-wheeler engines. During the winter seasons in the woods, the company employs five hundred men, and keep about one hundred and thirty in the woods during the sum- mer. Some one hundred and fifty hands are employed in the sawmills and planing mills. At Rhinelander is located a large mill and a planing mill, and also the factory for hardwood flooring.
Mr. Robbins established this business with Mr. S. H. Baird, under the name of Baird and Robbins. Later Mr. Baird retired, and W. H. Brown came in as partner. The business was incorporated December 3, 1894, as Brown & Robbins, and on February 1, 1901, the name was changed to the Robbins Lumber Company, with Mr. Robbins as presi- dent and treasurer. R. D. Caldwell is vice-president, and Hattie Mc- Indoe is secretary. Mr. Robbins is one of the veterans of the lumber business, having become identified with it in Michigan in 1868, and moving from that state to Wisconsin in 1896. Among his other inter- ests he is half owner in the Rhinelander Lumber and Coal Company, a large retail concern.
F. S. Robbins was born in Potter county, Pennsylvania, May 5, 1842, a son of James G. and Olive E. (Slade) Robbins. His father, who was a farmer, moved out to Michigan, and in 1856 located in Osceola county, where his was the first family to make permanent settlement. In that section of the state the father entered government land, paying seventy-five cents an acre for it. That continued to be the home of the Senior Robbins until his death at Crapo in Osceola county. Mr. F. S. Robbins gave the name to the village in which his father died, thus honoring the name of Governor Crapo of Michigan. Thirteen years old at the time of the family's removal to Michigan, F. S. Robbins grew to manhood there, lived on a farm, and had a fair education. He was still under age when the Civil war came on, and in April, 1862, he enlisted for the cause of the Union in Company F of
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the Third Michigan Volunteer Infantry, and saw two years of active service in the war. After the war he spent two years in the southwest along the Rio Grande River, after which he returned to his old home in Osceola county, and began farming on a place adjoining that of his father. Not long after that he got his first regular experience as a lumberman, when he began logging on the Muskegon River, and from that time to the present has been identified with every phase of the lumber industry.
In 1866, Mr. Robbins was married to Emma B. Haymond of Car- margo, Mexico. However, she was born and reared in Fairmount, West Virginia, though Fairmount at the time was in Old Virginia. Mrs. Robbins is the mother of three children : Howard G., in the timber business at Spokane, Washington, and president of the Spokane Paint & Oil Company ; Hattie L., the wife of Dr. T. B. McIndoe; and Minnie R., the widow of Charles S. Chapman. Fraternally Mr. Robbins is affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
JOSEPH MELCHOIR SCHAUER, in the course of his active and diversified life, has steadily risen from a humble clerkship in a clothing store, through various positions connected with the railroad industry to the position of general manager and secretary of one of Sturgeon Bay's leading enterprises, the Dorr County Land Company. He has shown himself a thoroughly competent man of affairs and a useful and genial member of social circles, and in the management of his various ventures has brought into play tact, prudence, integrity and courtesy, each in its way a superior excellence.
Mr. Schauer is a native of the Badger State, having been born on his father's farm at New Franken, Brown county, January 16, 1871, and is a son of Melchoir and Clara (Lercheidt) Schauer. His parents were among the pioneer settlers of Brown county, where the father took up a homestead from the Government at a time when there were but three or four houses in the hamlet of Green Bay, and there they continued to spend their lives in the occupations connected with the successful tilling of the soil. They were the parents of thirteen chil- dren, of whom eight now survive: Lawrence; Anna; Lena, who became the wife of Alphonse Lemensc; Gertrude; August; Peter; Catherine, and Joseph Melchoir. Like the majority of farmer's sons of his day and locality, Joseph M. Schauer divided his boyhood days between as- sisting his father in the work of the homestead and attending the dis- triet schools, the latter during the short terms of the winter months. Later he was given further training in the business college at Green Bay, and having tasted of the excitement of city life he did not feel satisfied to return to the simple duties of the farm. Accordingly he secured a clerkship in a Green Bay clothing store, but one year sufficed to satisfy him that he had not yet found his proper field of endeavor, and he sub-
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sequently entered the employ of the Green Bay & Western Railway, being in charge of the station at New Franken for two years. He was later transferred to the station at Grand Rapids, where he continued one year, and succeeding this went to Algoma, Wisconsin, as station agent for the Ahnapee Western Railway (now the Green Bay & West- ern) and after being there three years was transferred to Sturgeon Bay. Here he experienced seven years as station agent and one year as a mem- ber of the auditing department, but constant and arduous work had broken his health, and for one year he was forced to live retired from all business activity. When he had recuperated, he looked about for an occupation which would allow him some freedom in the open air, and eventually chose the real estate business, having recognized an op- portunity to become a broker at Sturgeon Bay. From that time his success was assured. He became eminently successful in his new line, won recognition in realty circles, and when the Door County Land Com- pany was organized in 1909, he invested his capital as a stockholder and was made secretary and general manager of the concern. This firm was incorporated December 20, 1909, with $15,000 capital, its first busi- ness being done in connection with the disposal of the Decker Estate. It has enjoyed a rapid and continuous growth, and at this time owns over 32,000 acres of improved and unimproved land in Door county, in- cluding cherry orchards, fruit lands, city realty, farms, etc. The firm deals in abstracts of title; buys, sells and exchanges real estate; makes loans and investments and buys and sells on commission, and a specialty of the business is the sale of farm and fruit lands on easy terms. The company occupies handsome offices in the Bank of Sturgeon Bay build- ing, and the officers at this time are: W. E. Wagener, president; J. A. Spalsbury, vice-president; J. M. Schauer, secretary and manager, and Henry Graass, treasurer. Mr. Schauer has devoted his entire attention to the development of this venture, and his untiring efforts have brought it to the forefront among Wisconsin land companies. This success has not been gained by any doubtful methods. He has passed through his ordeal "with no smell of fire upon his garments." He staked his hopes of success upon his adherence to the strictest integrity, the best stand- ards of business honor. Among his associates he is known as a man of excellent judgment whose grasp of business problems is firm. And as he has won their confidence by his business ability, so has he won their friendship by a pleasant and genial personality.
In June, 1896, Mr. Schauer was married to Miss Josephine Welniak, of Algoma, Wisconsin, and this union has been blessed by the birth of two bright and interesting children : Genevieve and Leo. Mr. and Mrs. Schauer are members of the St. Joseph's Roman Catholic church, where Mr. Schauer formerly served as a member of the board of trustees. His fraternal connections include membership in the Catholic Order of For- esters and the Knights of Columbus.
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WILLIAM F. MCCAUGHEY. The field of Life Insurance in Wisconsin has no abler, or more energetic representative than the General Agent of the Northwestern Mutual Life at Racine. Mr. McCaughey has had a wide and varied experience in business affairs beginning when he was a boy as clerk in a Cincinnati Dry Goods House. Later, he became interested in and devoted fifteen years as General Secretary to the work of the Young Men's Christian Association. Something more than thir- teen years ago he entered the field of Life Insurance. He possesses the energy and address, which are so requisite to success in this department of work, these qualities are also reenforced by his enthusiasm for, and faith in, Life Insurance as one of the essential requirements of modern life.
William F. McCaughey is a native of Ohio, where his parents were' among the early settlers. He was born in Akron, June, 1861, a son of Rev. William and Lucy Alter McCaughey. His father is a native of Ohio and his mother of Virginia. The father devoted the best years of his life, a period of half a century, to the ministry of the Presbyte- rian Church. He is now living retired in his eighty-fourth year, one of the honored workers of his profession.
Mr. McCaughey became identified with Life Insurance in 1901, when he became District Agent of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company at Janesville, Wisconsin. Two years later, in 1903, he estab- lished his office in Racine. In 1907 he was made General Agent and the supervision of ninety agents working in fifteen counties in the south- ern part of the state were placed under his jurisdiction. The Home Office of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company is in Mil- waukee and it is one of the best known of Wisconsin's corporations.
Fraternally, he is one of the leading Masons, being a member of Racine Lodge No. 18, F. & A. M .; Orient Chapter, R. A. M .; Racine Commandery No. 7, K. T .; Tripoli Temple of Mystic Shrine of Mil- waukee, and has attained to the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite. He is also affiliated with the Racine Lodge No. 252 of the Elks and the local lodge of the Knights of Pythias.
In 1905 Mr. McCaughey organized the Six O'Clock Club, which was in 1912 reorganized into the Commercial Club of Racine. He was, in 1913, elected President of this organization.
Both in Life Insurance circles and socially, he is one of the well known and popular citizens of Racine.
HORATIO V. GARD. An enumeration of those men of the present generation who have won distinction and public recognition for them- selves, and at the same time have honored the community to which they belong, would be incomplete were there failure to make reference to Horatio V. Gard, city attorney of Superior, and for twenty years one of the prominent representatives of the legal profession in this
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city. A man of high intellectuality, broad human sympathy and tol- erance, and imbued with fine sensibilities and clearly defined principles, he also possesses the executive capacity necessary to the capable discharge of the duties of his official position, and the signal services he has rendered Superior have gained for him a recognized position in public and professional life.
Horatio V. Gard is a native Illinoisan, born in Clark county, Decem- ber 30, 1862, and is a son of Allen T. and Martha A. (Garner) Gard, na- tives of Licking county, Ohio. Allen T. Gard received good educational advantages in his youth, and early adopted the profession of school teacher, although he was reared on a farm. After his marriage, which took place in Ohio, he made removal to Clark county, Illinois, in 1861, and for forty-two consecutive years continued to be one of the best- known educators in the Prairie State. He was also well known in public life, serving as Township School Treasurer for eighteen years and as justice of the peace for twelve years, and was highly esteemed wherever known. His political belief was that of the Democratic party, and fraternally he was affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. His death occurred in 1907, when he was seventy-seven years of age, while his widow still survives, and has reached the advanced age of eighty years. Of their six children, five are living. Horatio V. was the third in order of birth.
Mr. Gard was given a good educational training in his youth, early studying under the preceptorship of his father, and subsequently attending the normal school of his native locality. He commenced his law studies in the law department of the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, where he received his degree in 1892, and soon thereafter was admitted to practice before the bar. Coming to Superior the same year, he established himself in practice, and since that time he has become known as one of the ablest legists of the Douglas county bar, , being attorney for such well known concerns as the United States Na- tional Bank, the Bank of Commerce and the Webster Manufacturing Company. He is a close student and faithfully observes the unwritten ethics of the profession, having the respect of his confreres and the confidence of the public at large. Anything that affects the material welfare of his adopted city or its people at once enlists his active and intelligent interest, and he has always allied himself with movements calculated to make for progress or advancement along the lines of education, morality and good citizenship. For one term he served as a member of the library board. As a Democrat of long standing, he was appointed police commissioner of Superior, but after three years resigned to accept the office of city attorney, to which he was appointed in May, 1912. In his official capacity he is rendering able service, and his record is that of a conscientious and faithful public servant. He
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maintains well-appointed offices at No. 201-3 Bank of Commerce Building.
HERMAN GROSS. The business career of Herman Gross in these parts has been of ever upward progress, and from a very small beginning he has evolved a success worthy of the name. Today, as a member of the firm of Gross & Neergaard, manufacturers and dealers, his place in Kenosha business circles is most secure, and his plant and factory is known for one of the principal ones of its kind in the city.
Mr. Gross is not a native American, but was born on May 19, 1860, in Norway, coming to these shores when he was twenty-two years old, the year 1882 marking his advent into American life. He stopped a short time in Chicago, and in 1884 came to Kenosha, here engaging in contracting and building for a brief period, and then entering the employ of the Grant Planing Mill. For sixteen years Mr. Gross con- tinued to be identified with this representative concern, and then he built a new mill, operating it on his own responsibility under the name of the Kenosha Sash & Door Co. for six years. In 1904 the present partnership of Gross & Neergaard was formed, Arthur Neergaard joining him in the business, and since that time the concern has been run on a successful basis under their united names. They manufacture and deal in sash, doors, mouldings and interior finishing, and have an immense trade in these parts. Their plant is at the corner of Park and Valentine streets, and is one of the best conducted factories to be found hereabouts.
Mr. Gross is one of the most successful Norwegian manufacturers of Kenosha, and his place in business circles is in every way worthy of his enterprise and activities in the years that he has been here engaged in the business.
On September 4, 1886, Mr. Gross was married in Kenosha county to Miss Alice Morehouse, a daughter of Louis and Hannah Morehouse. Eight children have been born to them, five of whom are living and are named as follows: Harry; Dora H .; William H .; Norman M .; and Edna N. Gross.
ALEXANDER IVEY. Since 1878 Lancaster has been the business head- quarters of Alexander Ivey as well as his place of residence, and he has long since come to be recognized as one of the substantial factors in the business and civic life of the city. Merchandising has consti- tuted his main activities, and he has taken a foremost place among the merchants of the community, while his citizenship has long been recog- nized as being of the most dependable order. A veteran of the Civil war, he gave long and valiant service in Company D Seventh Wiscon- sin Volunteer Infantry. He went from North Carolina to Camp Ran- dall at Madison to enlist and he participated in a number of the vital
alexander Jury
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engagements of the long and bitter conflict, suffering the loss of a leg at Gettysburg.
Born in Cornwall, England, on March 10, 1837, Alexander Ivey is the son of Joseph and Miriam (Eudey) Ivey, both natives of Cornwall. The father, who was a captain in the Cornwall mines, came to America in 1837 with his wife and infant son, Alexander, of this review, and located at York, Pennsylvania. He there engaged in mining, the busi- ness in which he had been bred in his native land, and continued thus until he lost his life in the Henrietta mines at York, when a drift fell upon him. It is a singular fact that the father of Mrs. Ivey, Alexander Eudey, who was also a mining captain, came to America and located in California, there losing his life in a mining shaft, in much the same manner as did Mr. Ivey.
The widowed mother of Alexander Ivey later married one Josiah Tremelon and settled in Virginia. One child was born to that union, -a daughter, who is now deceased. The mother died in 1847 at the family home at Harrison, Wisconsin. In 1846, however, the fam- ily had removed to North Carolina and in the same year moved to the state of Wisconsin, locating in Rockville, Harrison township, in Grant county, and settling in a log cabin that the head of the family, Josiah Tremelon, built. They had a small and not overly productive farm, mostly wild land and heavily timbered, and many difficulties were ex- perienced by them all. The death of the mother caused the removal of young Ivey to the home of an aunt in Rockwell, and until his twenty-first year he made his home there. His early education was extremely limited, but in 1857 he attended Platteville Academy for a time, and then started out to make his own way. He first secured work as a clerk in a general store in British Hollow, Grant county, and there continued for a year. He then turned his attention to mining, the instinct of generations of mining men coming to the front when activities in the lead mines of Grant county came on. In 1855 he made a trip back to North Carolina, remaining until 1861, when he came back by way of Baltimore, at a time when the Civil war troubles were beginning to take shape and form in the south. He witnessed some riotous scenes in the south, and soon returned to British Hollow, where after a brief interval he enlisted for service in Company D of the Seventh Wisconsin Infantry, on September 9, 1861. He was a participant in many hard fought engagements in the Army of the Potomac until the battle of Gettysburg. He was severely wounded in that engagement on July 1, 1863, his wound necessitating the ampu- tation of his leg at the knee cap and he was then discharged from the service because of disability, his discharge coming on May 14, 1864. He was active in the engagements at Janesville, Virginia, Second Bull Run, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Virginia, Chancel-
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lorsville, Rappahannock Station, White Sulphur Springs, Virginia, and Gettysburg.
Upon his return from the war, Mr. Ivey after a short time fitted himself out with an artificial limb and once more resumed the prosaic duties of clerk in a general store in British Hollow, and continued there until he came to Lancaster in 1875 and identified himself with the mercantile business of this city as proprietor and owner of an establishment. His years of active life in British Hollow were filled with service and he was a staunch and true citizen there as he has ever been in Lancaster. In 1866 he was elected town clerk of Potosa and also held the office of Justice of the Peace, serving for six years, when he withdrew from public service and confined his attention to the mercantile business in British Hollow with John B. Wilson, under the firm name of Wilson & Ivey. They continued thus for two years, after which Mr. Ivey continued alone until 1869, when William E. Webb became his business partner. In 1874 Mr. Ivey was elected treasurer of Grant county, and in that year he removed to Lancaster, the county seat. He served four years as county treasurer, being re-elected for a second two-year term. Here he has since made his home, and has car- ried on a mercantile business of splendid proportions. Mr. Ivey still is associated in his business with Mr. Webb, under the firm name of Ivey & Webb, and the two are well established in the confidence and esteem of Lancaster citizens, as well as those of adjacent towns.
On the 4th day of March, 1865, Mr. Ivey was married to Miss Annie Eustice, a daughter of George Eustice, of British Hollow. They were early settlers of the place, and natives of Germany, whence they emi- grated in their young days. Seven children were born to these par- ents, all of whom are living, and who are named as follows: Miriam ; Joseph E .; Mildred; Ned Wheeler; William LeRoy; George Earl ; Alexander.
Mr. Ivey is a stanch Republican, and has long supported the prin- ciples of that party. He has served Lancaster as alderman; as well as in other offices, and in all his official connections has given worthy service. He is a member of the G. A. R., and was for two and a half years commander of Tom Cook Post No. 132. In 1882 he was appointed quartermaster of the post. He is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and has served as secretary of Lancaster Lodge of the order.
LEWIS CASS BARNETT. The subject of this sketch, son of William Barnett, was born of Scotch-Irish lineage at Greensburg, Ky. Here his grandfather settled in the year 1780, having been a soldier in the War of the Revolution. His boyhood was passed in that town in attendance at the public schools. In 1864 the family moved to Rock Island, Ill. He attended the preparatory schools in Rock Island and Davenport
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