Men of Progress. Wisconsin. (pages 9-15 --History) A selected list of
biographical sketches and portraits of the leaders in business,
professional and official life. Together with short notes on the
history and character of Wisconsin

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Men of Progress.

WISCONSIN.

A SELECTED LIST OF BIOGRAPHICAL
SKETCHES AND PORTRAITS OF THE
LEADERS IN BUSINESS, PROFESSIONAL
AND OFFICIAL LIFE.

TOGETHER WITH SHORT NOTES ON THE
HISTORY AND CHARACTER OF WISCONSIN.

EDITED BY ANDREW JACKSON ALKENS AND LEWIS A. PROCTOR
MILWAUKEE:

The Evening Wisconsin Company.
1897.





PREFACE

The Publishers of "Men of Progress" have endeavored to supply a
biography of the men who are active at the present time in the affairs
of the state, and who are conspicuous for the part they play in the
progress of the day. It has been a laborious and difficult task to
interest some men of this character in the work. In such cases the
publishers have supplied the data from sources accessible to them. If
omissions are found of persons entitled to appear in this work, either
on account of inefficient canvass or indifference of such persons,
further editions may be printed with the omissions supplied, if there
appears to be any demand for such.

Page 9

The history of Wisconsin's existence as a state, which will be formally
celebrated in 1898, compasses a period of only fifty years; yet there
are aspects in which Wisconsin is not new. Geologists teach that the
Laurentian formation, comprising the northern portion of her domain, is
the oldest land in the world. Jean Nicolet, Champlain's explorer and
ambassador to the Winnebagoes, came within the borders of Wisconsin in
1634. This was the fourteenth year after the Mayflower discharged her
cargo of Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock. Beginning thus almost coevally with
New England to be a theater of operations for the white man, Wisconsin
had a long and picturesque career as a part of New France, then as a
part of English province of Quebec, and then as a part of the expansive
domain nominally attached to Virginia, which, when ceded to the United
States by the Old Dominion, was erected into the Northwest Territory.
But for the brilliant victory of Gen. George Rogers Clark and Vincennes
in 1778, the tactical importance of which has until lately been
generally overlooked, the vast tract of country from Lake Huron to the
Mississippi might not have been conceded to the United States by the
treaty of Versailles and Paris in 1783. Under the American flag,
Wisconsin was successively attached to the territories of Indiana,
Illinois and Michigan, prior to the year 1836, at which time she
entered upon the independent territorial existence that culminated when
she was admitted to statehood in 1848.

The people of the young republic did not at first appreciate her
richness of their heritage in these parts, and were slow to take
possession. England gave up her hold reluctantly,
prolonging her influence through adroit dealings with the Indian tribes
for some time after she had equitably lost her rights. She held
military occupation of the Fox and Wisconsin waterway--the great
commercial highway between the lakes and the Mississippi--as late as
1815. It was in the following year that garrisons of United States
troops were established at Fort Howard and Fort Crawford, and that
Wisconsin began to be exploited in the interest of Astor's American Fur
company. Meantime, in the southern part of the territory, miners were
making their way into the lead region.

The physical characteristics of Wisconsin peculiarly fit it to support
in comfort and wealth a large population. It is a land rich in varied
natural resources, situated in the heart of a continent, and yet in two
directions a gateway to the sea. Three hundred miles in length from
north to south, and 250 miles in width, its area, exclusive of water
surface, is estimated at 54,450 square miles. Geologists describe it as
a swell of land between three notable depressions--the basins of Lake
Michigan, Lake Superior and the Mississippi. Its lake-shore line
exceeds 500 miles. Its highest summits rise little more than 1,200 feet
above its lowest surfaces. The waters of Lake Michigan lap its eastern
boundary at an altitude of about 578 feet above the level of the sea.
There are few abrupt elevations. The highest general level is within 30
miles of Lake Superior. A remarkable diagonal valley, occupied by Green
bay and the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, traverses the state from cast to
west, not far from the center. The ice of the glacial period, which
invaded the eastern and northern portions of the state, eroded the
basin of Lake Winnebago and the valley

Page 10

of the Rock river, besides forming the depressions now occupied by
2,000 or more minor lakes in the northern and eastern portions of the
state, and piling up the chain of drift hills extending obliquely from
Kewaunee county to the Illinois line, known as the Kettle range. In the
order of their dominance, the characteristic geological formations of
the state, in addition to the Laurentian and granitic rocks, are the
Potsdam sandstone, the Niagara limestone, the copper-bearing series,
the Trenton and Galena limestone, the lower magnesian limestone, the
St. Peter's sandstone, the Huronian iron-bearing series, the Cincinnati
shale and Hamilton cement rock, the latter cropping out in a tract
reaching from the Milwaukee river to the lake shore, immediately north
of Milwaukee.

The soils of Wisconsin are varied, but for the most part highly fertile
and easily tilled. The greater part of the state was originally covered
by forests, but the early settlers in the south and west found
considerable areas of prairie, interspersed with woodland. Oaks,
poplars and hickories were the prevalent trees of this region. Along
the eastern border was an extensive tract of heavy timber--maple, elm
and ash. The northern part of the state was unbroken forest--pine,
hemlock, spruce and hardwoods. Many large water-powers exist in
different portions of the state. The climate of Wisconsin is temperate
and healthful, with summers warm and diversified by light rains and
clear skies, and winters somewhat severe, but relatively dry and
stimulating. The mean summer temperature varies from 70 degrees in the
south to 60 in the north; the mean winter temperature from 25 degrees
to 15 degrees.

Wisconsin in the days of Indian occupation was a land of plenty
abounding in game. Its lakes and streams teemed with fish. It was
famous for its wild rice, which the natives prized as an article of
food. That its aboriginal inhabitants were above the lowest plane of
savagery is indicated by the monuments of the mound builders, and the
copper implements which they contain. Testimony to the same effect is
borne by Jonathan Carver, the first Anglo-Saxon explorer of the region,
who says, describing "the great town of the Saukies," on the Wisconsin
river, which he visited in 1766: "This is the largest and best built
Indian town I ever saw. It contains about ninety houses, each large
enough for several travelers. These are built of hewn plank, neatly
joined, and covered with bark so completely as to keep out the most
penetrating rains. Before the doors are placed comfortable sheds, in
which the inhabitants sit, when the weather will permit, and smoke
their pipes. The streets are regular and spacious, so that it appears
more like a civilized town than the abode of savages. The land near the
town is very good. In their plantations, which lie adjacent to their
houses, and which are neatly laid out, they raise great quantities of
Indian corn, beans, melons, etc."

Two hardy voyageurs. Radisson and Groseilliers, following in the
footsteps of Nicolet, spent the winter of 1654 with the Pottawatomies
in the vicinity of Green Bay, and subsequently made extensive
explorations in Wisconsin, the result of which they communicated to
King Charles II., in the interest of the English fur trade. Père Réne
Ménard. The first of the Jesuit missionaries to enter Wisconsin,
perished in the wilderness of the Lake Superior region, in 1660. Père
Claude Allouez, another of the followers of Loyola, five years later
founded the mission of La Point du Saint Esprit on Chequamegon bay, and
afterward the mission of St. Francis Xavier on Green bay. In 1673 Père
Marquette and Louis Toilet traversed the Fox and Wisconsin waterway and
discovered the Mississippi. La Salle, du L'Hut, Hennepin and Le Sueur
were in Wisconsin between 1679 and 1683. Nicholas Perrot, the
interpreter and coureur du bois, passed through the Wisconsin waterway
in 1685, building forts, so called, and establishing trading posts near
the confluence of the Wisconsin and Mississippi and at other points,
and testing the lead mines opposite

Page 11

Dubuque. As a consequence of his investigations, miners from France
began to work in the lead region in 1699. Hostilities between the
French and the Fox and Sac Indians began soon after the opening of the
eighteenth century, and several bloody battles were fought on Wisconsin
soil, in which the Indians were generally defeated with great
slaughter. Charles de Langlade, who after Pontiac's ware permanently
established himself at Green Bay, becoming the first white settler of
Wisconsin led a force of Wisconsin Indians against the English and the
american colonists on the occasion of Braddock's defeat. English troops
garrisoned the fort at Green Bay in 1761. Jacques Vieau, as agent of
the Northwest company, established trading posts at Kewaunee,
Manitowoc, Sheboygan and Milwaukee in 1795. Milwaukee had at this time
been a seat of trade between the whites and the Indians for more than
thirty years. In 1807, Gen. William Henry Harrison, as governor of
Indiana, made a treaty at St. Louis with the Sacs and Foxes by which
the Indian title to the lands in the Wisconsin lead region was
abandoned. A nw treaty, confirming that of 1804, was made in 1816, and
the United States began the erection of Fort Crawford at Prairie du
Chien, and fort Howard at Green Bay. In 1828 Fort Winnebago was
constructed at the portage between the fox and Wisconsin. In 1832 came
the Black Hawk war, in which 1,000 Indians, under the Sac chief of the
name, who had refused to moved across the Mississippi in accordance
with a treaty stipulation, were pursued by a force of about twice as
many whites--militia and regulars--under Gen Atkinson, and, after two
general engagements, dispersed with heavy loss. Black Hawk sought
refuge among the Winnebagoes, but was surrendered for a reward. Abraham
Lincoln served as a militia captain in this war. Col. Dodge performed
energetic work in the campaign which gave him great prestige among the
settlers. Heretofore the people who come to Wisconsin had been fur-
traders and lead-miners. The Black Hawk war disclosed the agricultural
possibilities of the region, and attracted farmers, lumbermen and land
speculators.

In April, 1836, when President Andrew Jackson appointed Henry Dodge as
the first governor of the territory of Wisconsin, the number of
inhabitants within what now constitute the limits of the state was
11,683. There are few wards in the city of Milwaukee which do not
contain a larger population than that to-day. Half of the people in the
territory were in Iowa county, engaged principally in lead-mining. In
all Milwaukee county, which at that time reached from Lake Michigan to
where madison now stands, and from the Illinois border to what is now
the north line of Washington county, the number of inhabitants was only
2,893. Immigration had until that time come chiefly from the south,
entering the territory by way of the Mississippi river. The tidal wave
of humanity from Ohio, New York and New England, which approached by
way of the great lakes, had just begun to move. In 1840 the population
of the territory had increased to 30,000, and seven years later, when
the convention assembled which framed the state constitution, it was
210.546. Nearly 100,000 more poured in during the following two years.
Such an influx of people into a new country--not due to the feverish
excitement of gold-mining, but to the sober desire to found homes and
engage in the steady pursuits of farming, lumbering and ordinary
business--is without a parallel in modern history. The early immigrants
had been Americans, but in 184 Irish and Germans came in numbers, and
not long subsequent to that time Scandinavians began too appear,
forecasting the composite character which was thereafter to distinguish
the population of Wisconsin.

The energy of the first comers showed itself in various enterprises of
internal improvement, which held forth promise of the early development
of the great natural resources of the state and of opportunities of
wealth for all

Page 12

who should cast their lot in Wisconsin. As early as 1829 there were
efforts to secure government aid for the improvement of the fox and
Wisconsin waterway. The milwaukee and Rock river canal, was projected
with a view of affording slack-water navigation between Milwaukee and
the Mississippi, was planned in 1836, and begun in 1842 by the
construction of a dam and water-power which laid the foundation of
Milwaukee's manufactures. The work was undertaken by a company
chartered by the legislature and aided by a valuable grant of land form
congress. When the enterprise was finally abandoned, a large part of
the proceeds of the land was used to pay the expenses of the convention
which framed the constitution of the state. Later state and federal aid
were obtained for the Fox and Wisconsin improvement, and millions were
expended upon the work, without adequate results, it must be admitted,
though both of these unsuccessful enterprises attracted attention to
the state helped to hasten its settlement. Harbor improvements were
pushed with great spirit at Milwaukee and other ports, and an important
lake carrying trade was early established. Railroad projects were
numerous as early as 1836, but means for their consummation were
unattainable prior to the era of statehood. The Milwaukee & Waukesha
Railway company, the name of which was changed to the Milwaukee &
Mississippi, secured a charter from the legislative assembly in 1847,
and broke ground for the first railway in Wisconsin in the fall of
1849. The first railway train over its road carried an excursion party
from Milwaukee to Waukesha in February, 1851. This road is now a part
of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul system. The beginning of railroad
building in Wisconsin illustrated the magnificent public spirit of the
people of the state. All classes of the community, in the sections in
which the lines were built, subscribed for stock, and, cash being
scarce, stock subscriptions were paid in many cases by service and by
furnishing supplies. "For one entire year," says a chronicler who was
prominent in the building of the pioneer railway referred to above, 
"the grading was paid for the orders drawn upon the merchants, payable
in goods--by carts from wagon-makers by harness from harness-makers, by
cattle, horses, beef, pork oats, corn, potatoes and flour from the
farmers--all received on account of stock subscriptions, and turned
over to the contractors in payment for work done upon the road," When
cash was needed to buy rails, farmers volunteered to mortgage their
farms to procure it. At first these mortgages were difficult to
negotiate. The emergency was met by the city of Milwaukee, which issued
municipal bonds to the amount of $234,000, that were sold at par,
enabling the rails to be purchased for the ironing of the road from
Milwaukee to Whitewater. By 1856 the road was completed to the
Mississippi river. Subsequently there were disagreeable experiences
growing out of the willingness of farmers to burden their homes, and of
cities to incur debt in aid of railway enterprises managed by
unscrupulous or incompetent men. But had it not been for the noble
enthusiasm which prompted these sacrifices in the first place.
Wisconsin's development would have been a plant of slower growth. The
most shameful legislative scandal in the history of the state grew out
of the struggle between rival corporations to secure valuable grants of
land made by congress in 1856 to encourage the building of railways in
the northern part of Wisconsin. Wholesale bribery of members of the
legislature and other influential persons was resorted to in the effort
to secure the grants, and a special joint committee appointed two years
later to investigate the affair reported that "the managers of the
Crosse &Milwaukee Railroad company have been guilty of numerous and
unparalleled acts of mismanagement. gross violations of duty, fraud and
plunder." There are to-day 6,300 miles of railroad in operation in
Wisconsin.

The first banks in Wisconsin, as in other parts of the west, were
swindling enterprises

Page 13

which directed public suspicion and resentment against the banking
business in general. So inimical was the feelings that at several
sessions of the territorial legislature there was appended to every
bill granting a charter a proviso that "nothing in this bill shall be 
construed as authorizing the corporation to transact the business of
banking." The Wisconsin Marine and Fire Insurance company, organized in
the spring of 1839, with its office at Milwaukee, and managed by
Alexander Mitchell, evaded the restriction in its charter, issuing
certificates of deposit redeemable on demand for sums of $1 and upward,
which passed into circulation as currency, and which for many years,
backed by the well-known integrity and business capacity of Mr.
Mitchell, supplied the community with a reliable circulating medium.
The first constitutional convention submitted a draft of a constitution
containing an article making banking unlawful in Wisconsin, and
expressly providing that the legislature should not have power to
confer upon any person or institution any banking privilege. The
proposed constitution was rejected at the polls, and the constitution
under which the state was subsequently admitted to the Union conferred
upon the legislature the power to pass banking laws which, however,
could not become operative without the sanction of a popular vote. In
1852 the legislature passed a general banking law which received the
approval of a majority of the people at the polls and became operative
in the following year.

Wisconsin's strenuous opposition to the enforcement of the fugitive
slave law was one of the factors in straining the tension between the
north and the south, that culminated in the civil war. Wisconsin
clothed the negro with suffrage in 1849. Wisconsin men performed a
conspicuous part in organizing the Republican party. Wisconsin men also
bore a leading part in the granger movement, so called, in 1873, and
passed the first law upheld by the supreme court of the united States
under which, with certain limitations, the rates charged by railway
corporations were held to be subject to control by the states to whose
laws such corporations owe their existence.

Wisconsin furnished to the Federal army during the war of the rebellion
upward of 90,000 men, and her list of dead in that war reached nearly
11,000. The amount expended by the state authorities and the people of
the several counties and towns to support the government in carrying on
the war was nearly $12,000,000.

The period since the war has witnessed marvelous progress in the
development of Wisconsin, one indication of which is furnished by the
expansion of her cities. Milwaukee from a place of 50,000 inhabitants,
has grown to be a metropolis of 265,000. There are fifteen cities of
10,000 or upward, with six of 20,000 or upward, including Milwaukee.
The tide of immigration has not yet ceased to flow, and in now rapidly
developing the northern part of the state. In 1840 the density of
population in Wisconsin was represented by the fraction of half a man
for each square mile; in 1850 there were 5.61 inhabitants for each
square mile; in 1860, 14.25; in 1870, 19.37; in 1880, 24.16; in 1890,
30.98, and in 1895, 35.59. The population of Wisconsin according to the
official enumeration of 1895 was 1,937,195.

Wisconsin's output of manufactured lumber for 1895, the last year for
which official statistics are available, was valued at $34,500,000. Her
output of other great staple manufactures in the same year was as
follows: Flour, $23,700,000; iron, $22,900,000; wood, $19,200,000;
leather, $18,700,000; beer, $17,000,000; paper, $6,200,000; wagons,
carriages and sleighs, $5,300,00; cigars and other manufactured
tobacco, $3,900,000; woolen fabrics, $2,550,000. The aggregate value of
her manufacturing establishments and their products listed in the state
census of that year was $370,000,000, ad the number of men to which
they gave employment was 118,117, indicating a growth of nearly 100 per
cent, in

Page 14

Wisconsin's manufacture during the decade beginning with 1885.

The number of farms in Wisconsin was 136,108 in 1885, and 150,801 in
1895. The total value of the farms in 1895 was $488,754,000, exclusive
of farm implements valued at $12,000,000. Here are significant
statistics showing the amount and value of Wisconsin's leading farm
products for the year 1895: Rutter, 74,600,000 pounds, valued at
$12,310,000; cheese, 52,400,000 pounds, valued at $4,000,000; hay,
2,500,000 tons, valued at $15,800,000; oats, 61,900,000 bushels, valued
at $16,783,000; corn, 26,600,000 bushels, valued at $10,000,000;
barley, 13,700,000 bushels, valued at $6,600,000; potatoes, 10,700,000
bushels, valued at $5,000,000; wheat, 8,500,000 bushels, valued at
$4,223,000. Ten years earlier the wheat production of Wisconsin was
21,000,000 bushels, valued at $4,200,000. The butter product of 1885
was less than half in quantity and value what it was in 1895. Wisconsin
agriculturists have found it profitable to go out of the primitive
occupation of grain-raising, to some extent, and to devote their
energies to the more remunerative industry of dairy farming. The number
of cattle and calves owned in Wisconsin in 1895 was 1,500,000; the
number slaughtered in that year was 366,000, valued at $5,000,000. The
hog crop of 1895 in Wisconsin amounted to 1,182,000 head, valued at
$10,900,000. The sheep and lambs on hand at the close of the year
numbered 1,500,000, of the value of $2,200,000; the number slaughtered,
490,000, valued at $979,000. There were 525,600 horses and mules,
valued at $21,600,000. The farmers of Wisconsin were leaders in the use
of agricultural machinery, which has done so much to lighten human toil 
and lower the price of bread. The lumber industry, which has long
occupied a position in the foreground of Wisconsin's sources of wealth,
will dwindle in relative importance, and a time must come when her
forests of pine will be exhausted, but a new industry of illimitable
possibilities has developed in the northern part of the state. As a
producer of iron ore, Wisconsin, in the census of 1890, stood fifth
among the states, her output being nearly 1,000,000 tons, valued at
$2,000,000. The aggregate value of her mineral products in that year
was $10,000,000, and in that respect she ranked thirteenth of all the
states of the Union. The assessed valuation of real and personal
property in Wisconsin is $600,000,000, being equal to upward of $300
per capita. The real valuation is probably twice as large.

The figures thus arrayed illustrate the material side of Wisconsin's
growth. They may well be supplemented with statistics illustrative of
the intellectual and moral side. Congress by law set apart the
sixteenth section of every township in the state for the support of the
common schools. The school sections comprised nearly 1,00,000 acres,
including some of the best lands in the state, and the proceeds of the
sales of these lands constitute a permanent fund, the income of which
is annually devoted to the purpose of the grant. The state by
constitutional provisions and subsequent legislation added generously
to this magnificent foundation. There are 6,000 free common schools in
Wisconsin, and 150 free high schools, to say nothing of numerous
private and denominational schools and of the thirty-six private
institutions of higher learning. The public school system gives
employment to 12,000 teachers, and is crowned by a system of state
normal schools and a state university of the first rank, with 1,600
students. The state normal schools, seven in number, have had enrolled
during the past year adult professional students to the number of
2,894. No other state has a system of normal schools equal in all
respects to that of Wisconsin. The state institutions for the education
of the blind and the deaf, and for the care of the insane and other
dependent and defective classes, and the Wisconsin Veteran's Home, are
among the evidence of an enlightened benevolence beyond what was known
in Greece or Rome. There are forty-four

Page 15

free circulating libraries in Wisconsin, headed by the Milwaukee public
library, which contains 90,000 volumes. There is also a system of free
district school libraries throughout the state. The library of the
Wisconsin State Historical society, an institution supported by state
patronage, contains 184,000 books and pamphlets, and is one of the most
important collections of its kind in the United States. Since 1895 the
state has maintained a commission to furnish encouragement and
information to communities establishing free libraries. A free public
museum is maintained by the city of Milwaukee, which also contains a
free art gallery erected and supported by he munificence of a private
citizen, Mr. Frederick Layton. The newspaper press of Wisconsin affords
by its extent and character another index to the intelligence of the
people. The first Wisconsin newspaper was The Green Bay Intelligencer,
started in 1833. The Milwaukee Advertiser, the nucleus of The Evening
Wisconsin, was the first newspaper in Milwaukee and the third in the
state, beginning its career in June, 1836. To-day the newspaper press 
of Wisconsin comprises 64 dailies and 475 weeklies. No other community
in the Union is better served with current news and comment than the
people of Wisconsin. There are 3,722 religious organizations in
Wisconsin, and 3,286 houses of worship. The value of the church
property is $14,500,000.

Wisconsin is to-day is a state of 2,000,000 inhabitants. There was a
time when the major portion of its settlers were people from foreign
lands. Never on such a scale and so satisfactorily has the doctrine of
the brotherhood of man been more grandly vindicated than in this great
and flourishing and happy state. Wisconsin's population is rapidly
becoming American, by reason of the increase of the native-born
inhabitants as compared with the number of residents of foreign birth.
The American-born are now to the foreign-born in the ratio
of 7 to 3, the total of foreign-born, according to the census of 1895,
being 523,877, while the total of American-born residents of the state
in the same year was 1,414,038.

There are represented in this book of five hundred biographical
sketches of Wisconsin's Men of Progress, natives of Wisconsin,
Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New
York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut,
Maine, Rhode Island, Maryland, Washington D. C., Kentucky, Virginia,
Mississippi, Canada, New Brunswick, Mexico, England, Scotland, Ireland,
Wales, Prussia, Austria, Bohemia, Hungary, Saxony, Holland, Norway,
Sweden, Finland, Switzerland and Germany.

In the panoramic vista of Wisconsin's past, during the periods of
Indian and French occupation, there is much that is worthy of
contemplation; yet it is a striking fact that the social, political and
commercial institutions of the existing commonwealth of Wisconsin have
no roots in the history of the territory west of the great lakes when
it was a part of New France. Wisconsin's civilization is not French,
but Anglo-Saxon. The tide of immigration which followed the Black Hawk
war of 1832, and which has not yet ceased to flow, brought here people
who were to begin a new era and make the vital history of the state.
There are still living, in hale and cheerful age, some of the men and
women who came to Wisconsin when it was a women who and who contributed
by their toil and fore-thought to the conditions which have brought
forth an empire. Others who have contributed in an important degree to
the glowing result are later arrivals, many of them natives of the
state. The experiences of such men include much that is of general
interest. Biography is sublimated history, and it is a task not
unworthy the historian to preserve for the information of students who
shall come hereafter some record of the lives of Wisconsin's Men of
Progress.

End part 1