BIOGRAPHIES:  Artemus W. KINGSLEY, Sumner Township, Barron County, WI

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This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by:  
Victor Gulickson <vic@indy.net>  14 March 2000	
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Artemus Ward Kingsley, a substantial citizen of Section 20, Sumner Township,
was born in Juneau County, Wis., Sept. 20, 1853, the son of Elias and 
Patience (Broadway) Kingsley. These worthy people, natives of New York State,
started out in the forties, and reached Racine by a sailboat trip on the 
Great Lakes. Five years later, in 1851, they came westward to Juneau County, 
and there located in the wilderness. Baraboo, the trading point, was 30 miles 
away in Sauk County. The trip with an ox team, taking grain to market and 
bringing back provisions was a long and tiresome one, and sometimes beset 
with danger. When groceries were running low, and the trails were impassible 
to teams, some member of the family had to make the trip afoot, bringing 
supplies home on their shoulders. Here the parents spent the remainder of 
their lives, and developed a good farm which became a part of a flourishing 
and prosperous community. Artemus was the youngest of thirteen children, and 
is the only one of the family now living. His early schooling was limited, 
but, having an aptitude for books, he has studied and read deeply by himself, 
and has acquired a broad fund of information. He learned farming from his 
parents, and has devoted his life to that pursuit. In 1882 he came to Barron 
County, and secured a tract of land in Section 27, Sumner Township. This land 
he has cleared and cultivated, erected a good set of buildings, and developed 
and improved a good place, which he later sold. For many years, while working 
a part of the time on his farm, he was identified with the lumbering industry. 
He has logged, worked on river drives and in the sawmills, and has been 
familiar with every phase of the lumbering industry in this locality. It is 
interesting to note, historically, that he scaled the first lumber that went 
to Canton from the old Sumner Township. He has been active for many years in 
public life, and in the old days, before the primary laws were enacted, was  
a delegate to numerous conventions and sat on various committees. He is 
assessor of Sumner Township, as he has been at intervals for a long period,  
and gives general satisfaction by his knowledge of local conditions and
values, and his absolute justness and fairness. Those qualities of fairness 
also marked  his  administration  as  a  justice  of  the peace. Mr. Kingsley
married Matilda Murray, who died in 1895 at the age of forty. Mr. and Mrs.
Kingsley had two fine sons. Norman W. lives in the eastern part of Wisconsin.
Percy, the foster son of Eugene Silas Lowell, and known as Percy Lowell, is
one of the leading young men of this part of the county.

--Taken from: History of Barron Co., Wisconsin, H. C. Cooper, Jr., &
Co., 1922, pg. 406.