FRANKLIN B. NORTON - Biography

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This biography appears on page 647 in History of Racine and Kenosha Counties, Wisconsin...
published by the Western Historical Co.: 1879.


FRANKLIN B. NORTON, station agent, W. U. R. R.; Burlington; born in
Ware, Mass., March 5, 1833; his parents at that time moved to Amherst,
Mass. He was educated there, and graduated from Amherst College in 1856;
came West and went into mercantile business, and was engaged in selling
law books one year, and then taught in different schools through
Missouri and Tennessee, for four years; then entered the Theological
Seminary at Andover, Mass.; studied two years, and one year in the
Chicago Theological Seminary, and graduated from there in 1864. He was
then installed as Pastor of the Congregational Church in Kenosha, Wis;
remained till 1866, then went to Janesville, Wis., and officiated as
Pastor, in the Congregational Church; in 1869, went to Oshkosh, where he
was installed as Pastor of the Congregational Church, and officiated one
year, when his health failed, from a brain disease, and he was compelled
to discontinue preaching, and was unable to follow any regular
occupation. He then came to Burlington and located, his health still
being very poor, and he occupied his time in writing editorials for
different papers and periodicals, and collecting statistics of American
industry; was at this time appointed agent for a large mining company,
of Lake Superior, and also the agent of a prominent iron and steel
manufacturing company. In 1873, during the money panic, which affected
the Western States materially, his employers became embarrassed
financially, and he had no occupation. He went into business on his own
account, buying black walnut lumber for Eastern manufacturers, traveling
principally through Illinois, Indiana and Missouri, and continued in
that business till 1875. In the summer of that year, he was taken with
swamp fever, in Southern Missouri, and was dangerously ill. Returned to
Burlington, in June, 1875, but was unable to follow any business till
October 1876, at which time he engaged with the W. U. R. R. Co., and in
May, 1878, was appointed to the position of station agent at Burlington
Station, a very important shipping point for sheep, wool and grain. He
married, in Burlington, in July, 1865, Harriet A. Dyer, daughter of Dr.
E. G. Dyer, one of the first settlers in this county. They have six
children- Alice, Frank, Charles, Helen, Emily and Mabel; members of the
Congregational Church.