BIOGRAPHIES: W. C. PEASE, Cumberland, Barron County, WI

====================================================================
USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information 
on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as 
this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may 
NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or for presentation by other 
persons or organizations.

Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes 
other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file 
contributor, or the legal representative of the contributor, and contact 
the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent.   The submitter 
has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently 
for free access.

This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by:  
Barron Co. WIGenWeb coordinator on 15 July 2002	
====================================================================

**Posted for informational purposes only - poster is not related to the 
subject of this biography and has no further information.

W. C. Pease, physician and surgeon, Cumberland, Barron county. To write the 
history of the Chippewa Valley and not give Walter C. Pease more than a 
passing notice, would be utterly impossible, as he is closely identified 
with its past as well as its present history. He was born in Lorain county, 
Ohio, June 27, 1837, a son of Peter P. and Ruth H. (Crocker) Pease. His 
father's parents were Phineas and Betsy (Lawrence) Pease, the former of 
Stockbridge, Mass., and the latter of Irish parentage. His mother's parents 
were Walter and Hulda (Totman) Crocker, the former of Scotch descent and the 
latter of English parentage but of American birth. Eleven children were born 
to Mr. and Mrs. Peter Pease, of whom our subject was the sixth. Seven of them 
are now living. Peter P. Pease was the pioneer settler in Oberlin, Ohio, and 
was one of the board of directors of Oberlin college until his death.

W. C. Pease spent his early life in Oberlin, Lorain county, where he obtained 
his schooling in the common schools of that period. He came to Dunnville, Dunn 
county, Wis., in 1859, and commenced the study of medicine with his uncle, Dr. 
Crocker, of that village. In 1861 he removed to Menomonie and was the first 
physician to locate there. His worldly possessions then consisted of one shirt, 
besides the clothes he wore, and one dollar, which he had borrowed from his 
uncle. He continued in active practice until 1866, when he went to Ann Arbor, 
Mich., and took a full course of lectures, then returned to Menomonie and took 
up his practice again. In 1872 he went to Philadelphia and attended the 
Jefferson Medical College, from which he graduated in March, 1881, when he came 
to Cumberland, then the terminus of the Northern Wisconsin railroad. Mr. Pease 
was one of the first physicians in Cumberland, and in this county, coming from 
Menomonie to John Quaderer's camp (now Barron), Rice Lake, Hay River, and other 
logging camps, on horseback to attend the sick, at as early a date as 1862, when 
there were only Indian trails to follow. He was the first physician in Rice Lake, 
when the Knapp, Stout Lumber Company first began operations at that point, and 
traveled sixty miles through dense forests, and forded streams to make the trip 
from Menomonie. Upon one of his trips from Menomonie to Rice Lake he left there 
at nine o'clock, p.m., a cold December night, with the ground frozen hard, and 
had to break the ice in Red Cedar river, in order to cross, and when going out 
of the river broke the axle of his buggy and had to stop, and with a pocket knife 
cut a sapling with which to splice it. After an hour of alternate walking and 
riding he reached Poplar creek, where he borrowed a lumber wagon to go to Barker's 
camp, and from there to Rice Lake. He returned over the same road the same day to 
Menomonie, which shows of the hardships that fell to the lot of the early physicians.

May 1, 1862, Dr. Pease married, at Menomonie, Miss Margaret A. Evans, of Kenosha, 
Wis., and this union has been blessed with four children, namely: May (Foote), 
Herbert A., Peter Lawrence and Grace Alice. Politically, he is a firm believer in 
the doctrine of the democratic party. He was alderman from the Third ward on the 
first city council, and was on the committee that drew up the ordinances. In 1888 
he was elected mayor of Cumberland. He is health officer and city physician, and 
has been surgeon of the C., St. P., M. & O. R. R. since 1881, and is chairman of 
the examining board for pensions. Mr. Pease is a member of Masonic Lodge No. 223, 
of Cumberland, and a pioneer Mason of the county, having instituted and installed 
the lodges at Barron, Shell Lake, Clear Lake and Cumberland, and was D. G. M. of 
the Masons for Wisconsin in 1879. At present he has one of the comfortable homes 
of Barron county, which is beautifully located on the banks of Beaver Dam lake, and 
is surrounded by his children and grandchildren, where he hopes to spend the 
remainder of his days.

-Transcribed from the "Historical and Biographical Album of the Chippewa 
Valley Wisconsin, 1891-2", page 458 & 461.