Men of Progress. Wisconsin. (pages 149-184) 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.

========================================================================
USGENWEB ARCHIVES 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.

     This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by:
     Kelly Mullins, kellyj@snowcrest.net
========================================================================

Page 149 continued

HILL, Warren Brown, M. D., who resides, at 186 North avenue, Milwaukee,
is the son of Avery Hill, who was by occupation a builder, and one of
the largest contractors in the early days of Milwaukee. He, with his
partner, Mr. Rudd, built the old depot of the Milwaukee & La Crosse
railroad, which stood on the corner of Chestnut and Third streets, and
many other of the early important buildings. He was an influential
member of the original volunteer fire department; and, in many other
respects, was a notable citizen,

Page 150

[image: WARREN BROWN HILL.]

impressing his personality upon those with whom he had to do, and
contributing much toward shaping affairs in those beginnings of the
city. Dr. Hill's mother was Angeline L. Brown who came to Milwaukee
with her parents in 1835, and was one of the first white children, as
her mother was the first white woman to live in what was then a mere
pioneer settlement. She is still alive, and the whole progress of the
city, from the time it was an Indian camp to the present, comes within
her recollection. Her father's name was Samuel Brown, who was one of
the most prominent of the early settlers in Milwaukee. In ante-bellum
days he was an ardent abolitionists, and is said to have been connected
with underground railroads.

Dr. Hill was born in Milwaukee, and was educated in the common and the
high schools of the city; and, at the age of sixteen, moved to Iowa,
where he began his career as a school teacher when but eighteen, and at
the same time commenced the study of medicine. At the age of twenty he
went to Colorado, to work on the Denver & Rio Grande railroad, in the
capacity of a surveyor. After some time spent in this work, he returned 
to northern Iowa and resumed his vocation as a teacher, continuing there 
until 1889, when he removed with his family to Baltimore, for the 
purpose of completing his studies in medicine, in the medical department 
of the Baltimore university. From this institution he graduated in the 
spring of 1892, and in August thereafter he returned to his native city 
to begin the practice of his profession. Soon after establishing himself 
in Milwaukee he was elected a member of the Brainard Medical society; 
and he was one of the physicians who united, in 1892, in the 
organization of the Practitioners' Society of Milwaukee. In 1893 he 
became a member of the American Medical association; was elected 
secretary of the section materia, pharmacy and therapeutics of that 
body, in 1895, and in 1896 was elected chairman of the section. He has 
been an active member of the State Medical society since 1893; and he 
is, also, a member of the Fox River and the Northwestern Medical 
societies. In 1894, when the Milwaukee Medical College was organized, he 
was chosen secretary of the board of directors, and elected to the chair 
of material medica and therapeutics, which position he has held ever 
since.

BROWN, William Augustus, one of the stirring and successful young
business men of the thriving city of Marinette, is the son of Augustus
C. Brown, who was at different times engaged in the lumber, mining and
banking business, in all of which he was eminently successful. He was
the son of William and Lucy Brown, was born in Fort Ann, N. Y., in
1834, and died in 1890, leaving a large fortune. He married Permilia A.
Gould, the sixth daughter of Oliver and Lydia Gould, who was born in
the town of Dutton, Penobscott county, Maine, in 1833. The Goulds were
prominent and highly respected people in eastern Maine.

W. A. Brown, together with his twin brother, Charles S. Brown, was born
in Marinette,

Page 151

Wis., on the 9th of September, 1864. His education was begun in the
public schools of Marinette and continued in Lake Forest University
through the years 1879-80-81. Leaving the university in his junior
year, he learned the trade of machinist, after completing which he
worked some years in the Marinette Iron works--an admirable experience
for a young man--and then took the position of book-keeper in the
Stephenson National bank. In 1890 he bought a majority of the stock of
the Marinette Soap Co., and has been the president and manager of that
organization up to the present time. In 1897 he assisted in organizing
the Smith, Thorndike & Co. of Milwaukee and Marinette, successors to
Mendel, Smith & Co., one of the oldest and largest importers and
wholesale grocery houses in Wisconsin. Recognizing his executive
ability and keen business foresight, the stockholders honored him by
making his vice-president of the company and manager of the Marinette
branch of the business. He is largely interested in mining and is also
a director in the Stephenson national bank of Marinette, and the First
National bank of Menominee, Mich., and a stockholder in the National
Exchange bank of Milwaukee.

In politics Mr. Brown has been a Republican since attaining his
majority. He is chairman of the Marinette county Republican committee,
a member of the Republican state central committee, and is recognized
as one of the bright young leaders of his party in the state. He is one
of the regent of the state normal schools of Wisconsin, having been
appointed in 1859. He was chief consul of the Wisconsin L. A. W., 1859-
6.

He is a member of Olive Branch Lodge, No. 250, F & A. M.,; Marinette
Chapter, No. 57, R. A. M., Marinette Commandery, K. T.; Wisconsin
Consistory; Saladin Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., and of the Grand Rapids,
Mich., Shrine. He is also a member of Marinette Lodge, No. 72, K. of
P., and of the Milwaukee club.

[image: WILLIAM AUGUSTUS BROWN.]

He is not a member of any religious organization, but his family attend
the Presbyterian church.

Mr. Brown was married, in 188, to Miss Grace Wright, daughter of Dr.
Isaac and Rachel Wright of Neenah, Wis. I our children have been born
of this union--Florence, A. C., Irene and William Walker.

BRUNCKEN, Ernest Theodore John, assistant city attorney of Milwaukee,
is the son of a land owner or gentleman farmer at Feldhausen, Grand
Duchy of Oldenburg, germany, who was in easy financial circumstances
until he lost his fortune through business reverses. Mr. Bruncken's
mother, whose maiden name was Anna Betty Schaer, had some literary
ability, published some sketches in low german, and also a book, in
German, on household matters, entitled "Die Hausfrau, Gattin und
Mutter"--(The Housewife, Wife and Mother). His father's family were
land-holders from time immemorial in the Friesian territory of
Budjahdingen, on the shore of the German ocean in the Grand

Page 152

[image: ERNEST THEODORE JOHN BRUNCKEN.]

Duchy of Oldenburg. Ernest Bruncken's great-grandfather was conspicuous
during the Napoleonic invasion of Germany as head of an organization
for evading the prohibition of the importation of goods from England
and her colonies which was imposed upon Germany by the French. This
kind of smuggling was considered at the time as patriotic as it was
profitable. Mr. Bruncken's grandfather on his mother's side was a
native of the province of Hanover, and in the war of liberation, in
1813, served as an officer in the celebrated "Freicorps" of Luetzow.
After the war he settled in Bremen, and soon after was appointed to
high office in that city, which he held the remainder of his life.

Ernest Bruncken was born in Feldhausen, parish of Langwarden,
Oldenburg, Germany, on the 16th of February, 1863. He took a course at
the gymnasium at Eisenach, Thuringia, Germany. In 1878 he came with his
parents to Milwaukee, and went to work in a printing office, first in
Milwaukee, then in Medford, Wisconsin. He next took up newspaper work
in Chicago, and afterward on the Evening Wisconsin in Milwaukee,
studying law at the same time, during his spare hours. In 1891 he passed 
the required examinations and was admitted to practice. In 1895 he was 
appointed assistant city attorney, and that position he now holds.

He has always been a Republican in politics, has taken an active part
in the local campaigns since 1888, has spoken extensively in Republican
meetings, has been a delegate to many conventions, including the state
convention in 1896, where he seconded the nomination of Emil Baensch
for governor.

He is a Mason, a Turner, member of the Parkman club, Wisconsin
Historical society, Wisconsin Academy of Science and the American
Historical association. He is also a member of the Grand Avenue
Congregational church.

December 28th, 1893, he was married to Miss Emma Nohl of Milwaukee, and
they have one child.

Mr. Bruncken has a decided taste for literature, especially of a
historical nature, has published a number of historical papers in
magazines, and is now working on a book of a more extensive character.
There is a promising future before him which he will doubtless realize.

MONAHAN, James Gideon, was born on a farm in the town of Willow
Springs, four miles north of Darlington, La Fayette county, Wisconsin,
January 12th, 1855. His father, Joseph Monahan, was born in Franklin
county, Pennsylvania, in 1822, the youngest son of John Monahan, who
came from county Monaghan, Ireland, in 1798, he being the son of
William Monahan, whose wife was Miss Mary Murdock, a daughter of John
Murdock, who taught Robert Burns to read and write. John Monahan
settled in Pennsylvania and married Elizabeth Stitt, the daughter of a
German father and a Scotch mother. The fruit of this union was a family
of five sons and three daughters. The Monahan family left Pennsylvania
in 1839, and moved first to

Page 153

Kentucky, thence to Indiana, thence to Illinois, and reached the lead
regions of Wisconsin in 1843. They purchased land and began to follow
agriculture, which, as a rule, was the life occupation of all the
brothers. In 1852 Joseph Monahan was united in marriage to Miss Nancy,
the eldest daughter of Elias and Elizabeth Pilling, who had come from
England to Wisconsin in 1830. Mrs. Pilling, assisted by Mrs. Lucy Ray,
organized and conducted, in a log school-house in Willow Springs, the
first Methodist Sunday school ever held in the then territory of
Wisconsin. There were born to Joseph Monahan and his wife a family of
six children, two of whom died in infancy, and one daughter died after
reaching the years of womanhood. The children now living are Mrs. Retta
Cone of Darlington, Wis., Miss Olive Otis of Denver, Colorado, and the
subject of this sketch. Mr. Monahan's father died in Darlington, in
September, 1887. His mother still resides there.

Mr. Monahan's boyhood life differed but little from that of other boys
of that section of the state. He attended the district school in the
winter, and worked on the farm in the summer until he was nineteen
years old, when he entered the Darlington high school, and completed
the course of study in two years. He then entered the office of the
late H. S. Magoon and began the study of law, teaching school in the
winter and reading law in the summer, and was admitted to the bar in
December, 1878. Soon after this he formed a partnership with the late
Moses M. Strong, and for a year lived at Mineral Point. In the summer
of 1880 he returned to his old home at Darlington; and, soon after, a
vacancy occurring in the office of district attorney, he was appointed
by Governor Smith to fill the vacancy. In the following November he was
elected for a full term, and in 1882 was re-elected, being one of two
Republicans that in La Fayette county out-rode the Democratic cyclone
of that year. In May, 1883, Darlington was visited by a disastrous
fire, and among the property destroyed was the plant of The Darlington

[image: JAMES GIDEON MONAHAN.]

Republican. Some trouble being found in starting the paper again, Mr.
Monahan was induced by some of the party leaders to buy a half interest
in it, and for two years he was associated with Ed. H. Bintliff in its
publication, under the firm name of Bintliff & Monahan. In 1885 Mr.
Monahan purchased Mr. Bintliff's interest, and since that time he has
been the sole proprietor of this old Republican landmark in
southwestern Wisconsin.

On September 14th, 1886, Mr. Monahan was united in marriage to Miss
Helen, daughter of the late Captain L. B. Waddington. They have one
son, Homer W., who was born October 4th, 1889. They have a handsome
residence on Keep street, and in that home love, peace and happiness
reign supreme.

Mr. Monahan became a Mason when twenty-two years of age, joining
Evening Star Lodge, No. 64, at Darlington, and is now serving his sixth
year as W. M. of this lodge. At the session of the grand lodge, held at
Milwaukee in June, 1897, he was elected deputy grand master of the
state. He is also a member of Darlington Chapter, No. 50, R.

Page 154

A. M., Wymodaughsis Chapter, No. 93, O. E. S., Knights of Pythias,
Knights of the Globe and Modern Woodmen.

In politics he is a Republican, and has always been a active in
advancing the interest of his party. He was a member of the Republican
state central committee from 1884 to 1888; was a delegate to the
national Republican convention in 1888, and has attended every
Republican state convention for the past fifteen years. Since 1884
there has never been a campaign that he has not been called upon to
take the stump, and his party has never asked his services in vain. As
a campaign orator he has but few equals. At the Republican state
convention, held in Milwaukee in July, 1896, a great ratification
meeting was held at the Exposition building, under the auspices of the
Republican Editorial League of Wisconsin. Mr. Monahan presided at this
meeting, and on taking the chair made a speech that not only aroused
the enthusiasm of the ten thousand people present, but electrified the
country. The speech was copied in all the leading Republican papers,
and the orator was flooded with congratulatory letters from all parts
of the nation. At a meeting of the Wisconsin Republican Editorial
league held the morning after this ratification, he was unanimously
elected president. During the campaign of 1896, under the auspices of
the national committee, he was on the stump for seven weeks, speaking
in Illinois, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota,
returning to Wisconsin for the last week in the campaign.

He possesses a cheerful disposition, and bears an unblemished record
for honesty and truth. He even clings tenaciously to the old adage that
a man can be honest in politics as well as in business. He is not a
member of any religious organization, but, with his family, attends the
Congregational church.

In 1894 he was a candidate for governor, and received the united
support of the First congressional district, but was defeated for the
nomination by Wm. H. Upham.

ROWELL, John S., well known as a manufacturer of Beaver Dam, is one of
those men who, in making their own fortune, have been of great service
to their fellow men. Without more than the limited opportunities for
acquiring an education which are afforded by the country school, and in
the face of great obstacles, including much hard work, he has built up
one of the largest manufactories of the state, and gained for himself a
comfortable fortune. He was born in the town of Spring Water,
Livingston county, N. Y., April 1st, 1827, the son of John and Sarah
Moore Rowell. Their home was one of comparative comfort, but made so by
their industry and economy. Thus the children early learned the
advantages of an economical management of resources and the benefit of
individual effort. Young Rowell secured a practical education in the
district school and the school of experience, of which latter he was
early a student, and while a boy displayed much mechanical ingenuity.
When but fifteen years of age he had become an expert in the art of
making plows--both the iron and wood-work. In 1843 his father removed
to Wisconsin, but the boy stopped in Goshen, Indiana, where an older
brother lived. In a few months he followed the family to Wisconsin, but
returned to Goshen, where he remained until he was eighteen years old.
His brother, who had become connected as part owner in a plow factory,
advised him to engage in the same business. His entire capital
consisted of a rifle and forty dollars of borrowed money. All of this
he invested in flour at three dollars per barrel, which he sold for
four dollars a barrel,taking his pay in plow castings. He then began
the construction of a shop for the manufacture of plows, doing all the
work himself--cutting the timber, preparing a flume and race for a
water power, putting in a wheel, shafting and pulleys, and all without
the aid of any one, except when the building was raised. A gentleman
passing through the place and hearing of the boy's heroic efforts to
start a factory, offered to give him an old

Page 155

boiler for a cupola if he would go to Fort Wayne for it, a distance of
sixty miles. The boy readily accepted the proposition, hired a team,
provided himself with rations of bread and sausage, drove the long
distance and brought back the improvised cupola. This factory proved a
success, and in the course of three years he accumulated $1,500, which
was doing well for those times. The records of industrial enterprises
will be searched in vain for a narrative of similar heroic and
successful efforts of an unaided boy. He now gave up the business,
visited Hartland, Wisconsin, then returned to Goshen, and went into
business with his brother, made some money there, then came again to
Wisconsin, and finally located in Beaver Dam, where he has since
remained. He began the manufacture of agricultural implements in a
small way, which has been steadily increased until now the value of the
output is a quarter of a million dollars annually. Among the machines
manufactured is the Tiger threshing machine, which has a wide sale,
principally in Russia. The business was incorporated in 1888, with a
capital of $100,000, and his two sons are stock-holders with him. They
are now the active managers of the business. Mr. Rowell holds some
twenty patents for improvements in his machines, and is still president
of the company and director of its affairs. He is a stock-holder and
director in the Beaver Dam Cotton Mill company, also a director of the
Beaver Dam Electric Light company, the Malleable Iron company, and
president and director of the First National bank of Beaver Dam. He
delights in the fine driving horses, and has owned some notable for
their speed, and for their general excellence in other respects.

Mr. Rowell has been twice married, first on January 1st, 1850, to Miss
Mary M. Ball of Virginia, who died in 1891. She was the mother of five
children: Theodore B. and Samuel W. Rowell, who are now interested in
business with their father; Elizabeth, who was the wife of Lyman
Barber, and died in 1880; Lillian, wife of Ernest Munger of Waupun;
JOHN S. ROWELL.
Florence Belle, married to Robert Hopkins of Milwaukee, Mr. Rowell's
second marriage was to Miss Mary Schiller of Beaver Dam.

He is a Republican, but has not mingled much in politics. He served two
terms as mayor of Beaver Dam, and twice as alderman.

Mr. Rowell has done much toward the industrial development of the
state, is a generour, public-spirited man, and highly respected by the
men in his employ, which is one of the highest tributes that can be
paid a man.

DOWNS, Daniel L., physician and surgeon in the Union army, legislator
and county judge, who resides in Richland Center, was born in Trumbull
county, Ohio, December 2nd, 1824. His father was Lyman Downs, a farmer
in comfortable circumstances, and his mother, Esther Woods Downs. His
education was obtained at the county school and at the academy at
Belvidere, Illinois, from which he graduated in 1844. In 1846 he
entered Rush Medical College, and completed the course in 1847. In 1850
he settled in

Page 156

[image: DANIEL L. DOWNS.]

Richmond, now Orion, Richland county, Wisconsin. Upon the formation of
the Forty-sixth regiment of Wisconsin volunteer infantry, he was
appointed surgeon on the regiment, and served with it to the end of the
war. In 1858 he took up his residence in Richland Center and engaged in
the drug business under the firm name of D. L. Downs & Co. This
business he conducted until 1878, when he retired from it.

Mr. Downs was a Democrat up to 1860, when he joined the ranks of the
Republicans, and has acted with them ever since. He has had quite an
extended and varied experience in public life. In 1855 he was a member
of the legislature from Richland county, and for the years 1859 and
1860 he was county treasurer. He was a member of the state senate for
the term of 1876 and 1877, and a presidential elector in 1876, casting
his vote for Hayes for president. In 1880 he was elected county judge
of Richland county, and has held the office to the present time. At the
spring election in 1897 he was again re-elected, for the term beginning
with the year 1898.

He is a member of the Grand Army of the
Republic, and is commander of the Wm. H. Bennett post, No. 33. He is
also a Mason being a member of the Richland Lodge, F. & A. M., No. 66,
and of the Grand Lodge of Masons, and was junior warden in 1864.

In religious faith he is a Congregationalist.

Judge Downs was married, in 1850, to Mary D. Cowen. They have four
children--Hubert L. Downs, Mrs. A. Downs Black, J. Lee Downs and Eno
Downs.

His long tenure of the county judgeship, and the numerous other
official positions which have been conferred upon him, are evidence
that his fellow citizens regard him as a man of integrity and ability,
and a capable and faithful official.

HOYT, Frank Mason, a native of Milwaukee and a lawyer of prominence, is
the son of Charles Mason Hoyt, who was born in Rush, Monroe county, New
York, on the 27th of August, 1827. He received an academic education,
came to Wisconsin in 1849 and settled in Milwaukee. He was by
occupation a merchant, but studied law and was admitted to the bar in
Milwaukee, though he never engaged actively in the practice of his
profession. He was sheriff of Milwaukee county in 1864-5, member of the
common council in 1868, and a member of the assembly from the Fourth
district (the old Fourth ward) in 1871, and died in May of the same
year. Charles M. Hoyt's father was a native of Connecticut, but was one
of the earliest settlers in Rochester, New York. The family is supposed
to be of Dutch origin, as the name was originally Van Hayt. Mr. Hoyt's
mother was Katherine Robinson, of English descent, her father having
been a native of Great Britain.

Frank M. Hoyt was born in Milwaukee on the 25th of August, 1853. He
received his early education in local schools, and attended for a time
Prof. Kersteiner's school, which subsequently became Markham's academy,
from which he and many of the youths of

Page 157

Milwaukee in the 60's were graduated, and in which they received most
valuable training under that born educator Prof. Markham. In the fall
of 1869 he entered Beloit College, becoming a member of the class of
1873, with which he remained two years. He next taught school in Ionia
county, Michigan, during the winter of 1871-2, and at the close of his
school, he entered the insurance office of Crampton & Dodge of
Milwaukee. But the young man had his eye on the legal profession, and,
as the first step toward the realization of his ambition, he joined the
law class of Michigan university, remaining with it during the college
year of 1874-5. He then entered, in the fall of 1875, the law office of
Mariner, Smith & Ordway as a student. A year later he has studying with
the firm of Cotzhausen, Smith, Sylvester & Scheiber. He passed his
examination in 1877, and was admitted to the bar. In 1882 he formed a
partnership with David S. Ordway, under the firm name of Ordway & Hoyt.
This partnership lasted for three years. In the years 1891-2 he was a
member of the law firm of Quarles, Spence, Hoyt & Qaurles. From 1895 to
1896 his firm was Hoyt & Ogden, and since March, 1896, Hoyt, Ogden &
Olwell. In the intervals between the above partnerships he was
practicing alone.

Since the spring of 1895 he has been one of the standing masters in
chancery of the United States district court, and acted as such in the 
foreclosure cases of the Wisconsin Central, Green Bay, Winona & St.
Paul, and the Milwaukee city railways.

Possessing a thorough knowledge of the principles of law, familiar with
local and general statutes, an advocate of more than usual ability, he
has won very general recognition in the profession, and is considered
one of the leaders among the younger members of the Milwaukee bar.

In politics Mr. Hoyt is a Democrat, and in the campaign of 1896 was one
of his party who stood for the gold standard. He never held office
other than those in party organizations.

[image: FRANK MASON HOYT.]

He was one of the secretaries of the State Democratic convention in
1884, secretary of the Milwaukee Democratic county committee, and for
two years its chairman. He is a member of the Kilbourn Lodge and
Chapter of Masons, and of the Deutscher and the Milwaukee Country
clubs. Religiously he is a Presbyterian and a member of the Immanuel
church.

He was married November 10th, 1880, to Hattie P. Jones of Milwaukee,
and they have two children living--Annette, aged nine years, and
Constance, aged five.

LOSEY, Joseph W., for years one of the ablest and most prominent of the
members of the La Crosse bar, is a native of Pennsylvania, having been
born in Honesdale on the 30th of December, 1834, the son of Ebenezer T.
and Lucy Walton Losey. His primary education was received in the common
schools of Honesdale, and he was prepared for college in the Honesdale
Academy. In 1854 he entered Amherst College, and was a student there
during that and the following year. Coming to

Page 158

[image: JOSEPH W. LOSEY.]

La Crosse in the spring of 1856, he entered the office of Denison &
Lyndes as a law student, and, in October of the following year, he was
admitted to the bar. At the election a month thereafter,he was chosen
district attorney, and re-elected at the expiration of his term. In
1860 he was elected city attorney of La Crosse. Mr. Losey began
practice in connection with the firm of Denison & Lyndes, and upon its
dissolution he succeeded Mr. Lyndes as the junior partner,continuing so
until 1861, when the firm of Cameron & Losey was formed. This firm
prospered from the start, and had the unusually long life of twenty-
eight years. Mr. Cameron withdrew in 1889, and the present firm of
Losey & Woodward succeeded.

Mr. Losey's long career in La Crosse has been one highly honorable to
him both as a lawyer and citizen. As a lawyer his reputation for legal
learning and for ability as an advocate has extended throughout the
state, and he has been engaged in many of the most important cases that
have come before the courts in the northwestern and northern part of
the state. As a citizen his course has been characterized by liberty, 
public spirit and a devotion to the best interests of his adopted city 
that has yielded to no obstacles which energy and a wise foresight could 
overcome. He was active in the securing of such public improvements as 
water-works and facilities for street lighting, and has steadily 
encouraged its industrial development. He was twelve years a member of 
the city council, and gave much of his time and thought to city affairs 
to the great advantage of the public. He is a Democrat, but has mingled 
little in the struggles of party.

He is general attorney for the Chicago, Burlington & Northern Railroad
company, and local attorney for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul
Railway company.

He was married in La Crosse, in 1859, to Miss Florence T. Lehman, a
native of Germany, and six children have been born to them, two of whom
died in infancy.

Mr. Losey has always been a student, not alone of law books and cases,
but of public questions, and has found time for the pleasures derived
from the perusal of standard and current literature. It is to his habit
of study that he owes his power and influence as a man and lawyer.

HEINE, Friedrich Wilhelm, an artist by profession, is a native of that
great center of the book-publishing business--Leipzig, germany, where
he was born on the 25th of March, 1845. His parents were Carl Friedrich
and Amalia Heine, both of whom are deceased, the latter in 1882, and
the former in 1884.

After receiving a good, practical education. F. W. Heine took his first
steps in art, in 1859, as a copper and steel engraver, under the
direction of L. Sichling of Leipzig. From 1861 to 1866 he was designer
for the word-renowned house of Otto Sparner of Leipzig. During this
engagement he produced many illustrations for books, magazines and
papers, which had a wide circulation, and did much toward spreading and
maintaining that city's reputation as the greatest book-publishing

Page 159

center of the world. During the next four years Mr. Heine was a student
in the art school in Leipzig, under the direction of Professors Hennig
and Jaeger. This was followed by two years in the art school at Weimar
as a special student of Prof. Paul Thuhman. From 1872 to 1885 he
followed his profession in the great art center of Dresden, the last
six years of which he was president of the "Dresdner Aquarell-Abend."

In 1885 he came to Milwaukee, in "the land of golden freedom," and in
188 he established his art school and water-color studio, where, up to
the present time, over two hundred and fifty students have received
instruction.

He is also interested in the Stirn & Kasch Art Printing company, of
which he has been president.

In the campaign of Prussia against Austria of 1866, Mr. Heine
accompanied the Prussian army in the important position of war
correspondent and sketch artist of "Ueber Land and Meer" and "Die
Gartenlaube," the leading illustrated papers of Germany. In the
campaign of 1870-1, in the Franco-Prussian war, Mr. Heine was present
as the field artist for "Die Gartenlaube," and was an eye witness of
the battles of Gravelotte, Noart, Beaumont and Sedan--was at the siege
of Paris, in the sorties at Le Bourget, Champigny and Montretout, was
with the advance in the triumphal entry into Paris, and present at the
crowning of the Emperor William at Versailles.

Among the pictures painted by Mr. Heine is the 'Triumphal Entry of the
Prince-Royal Albert into Dresden at the head of his troops," for which
he won the first prize in competition. It now adorns the council
chamber in the city hall of Dresden. He also painted four mammoth
battle pieces for the Duke of Brunswick, representing the heroic deeds
of the Brunswick troops in the Franco-Prussian war.

In Milwaukee he made the sketches for the four large panorama
paintings, The Battle of Chattanooga, The Battle of Atlanta, The
Crucifixion of Christ, and Christ's Entry into

[image: FRIEDRICH WILHELM HEINE.]

Jerusalem. In the painting of these panoramas he was associated with
several other artists of distinction.

In mural and other interior decorations he has accomplished some
notable work. The plans for the decoration and for the furniture of the
restaurant known as the "Kuenstlerheim" (Artists' Home) wer his
production, as was also much of painting. There is also some of his
work in the dining-rooms of the residences of S. C. Herbst and Ernst
Borchert, which illustrates his taste ind design and his skill in
execution. Other examples of his artistic skill are to be sen in seven
large wall paintings in the Pabst theater cafe, and eight mural
paintings in the Eldelweiss restaurant. As a decorator of interiors Mr.
Heine has won a reputation based upon artistic merit, as may be judged
by those who study his work as illustrated in examples to which
reference has been given.

Mr. Heine was married in Germany, in 1875, to Anna Helene Koenig of
Merseburg, and they have two sons and one daughter. The son, Rudolf
Ernst, has been a student of electric engineering in Madison since
1894.

Page 160

[image: HORACE ALONZO JAQUES UPHAM.]

UPHAM, Horace Alonzo Jaques, the only surviving member of the old and
honored law firm of Wells, Brigham & Upham, is the son of Don A. J.
Upham, who was one of the pioneer lawyers of Milwaukee, and for thirty
years one of the leaders of the bar. Although he passed from the scene
of his earthly career nearly twenty years ago, many of the older
residents of the city will remember him as a scholarly man, and having
little taste for the struggles and strifes of party. The Upham family
is one of the oldest in New England, and is traceable to John Upham,
who came from the west of England to Malden, near Boston, some sixty
years after the landing of the first colonists at Plymouth Rock, and
most of those bearing the name in this country are descendants from the
same stock. D. A. J. Upham was born in Windsor county, Vermont, in
1809, was fitted for college at Chester, Vermont, and entered Union
College, from which he graduated in 1831, at the head of his class,
which numbered about a hundred. Choosing the law as his profession, he
paid his expenses while pursuing his legal studies by teaching
mathematics in Delaware College, and writing editorials for The Delaware 
Gazette, of which he afterwards became editor and proprietor. Admitted 
to the bar he began the practice of law in Delaware, but in 1837, 
concluding that the west was the field of promise for young men, he came 
to Chicago; but, not liking that place, he finally made his home in 
Milwaukee, where he became conspicuous as a lawyer, and as an 
enterprising man of affairs, being connected, as counsel, with some of 
the noted litigation of the day, and interested in enterprises of the 
ambitious young city. He was a member of the third legislative assembly 
and president of the first constitutional convention. He was also the 
candidate of the Democratic party for governor in 1851, in opposition to 
L. J. Farwell, the Whig candidate, but was defeated by a small majority. 
He was twice mayor of Milwaukee, and four years United States district 
attorney for the district, which then embraced the whole state. Mr. 
Upham's first case of importance in the territory illustrates the 
difficulties in the transaction of business in those days, and how far 
the state has advanced in the space of one generation. Mr. Upham was 
applied to take an appeal to the territorial supreme court to enjoin a 
judgment sale of a large amount of property in Milwaukee. Two of the 
judges were out of the territory, and the third one, Judge Dunn, lived 
in the extreme southwestern limit of the territory. The only thing to be 
done was to appeal to him, but this involved a ride on horseback of some 
one hundred and seventy-five miles. The time was short, but Mr. Upham 
made the trip, secured the injunction, and, by riding day and night, 
returned one hour before the sale was advertised to take place. Some of 
Mr. Upham's experiences on that trip were thrilling, and even perilous, 
including a struggle to escape a widespread prairie fire, and would read 
strangely to those who are familiar only with the facilities for travel 
and the transaction of business of the present day in Wisconsin. After 
thirty years of active

Page 161

life in his profession he retired from it, and spent his closing years
in the recreation to be found in literature and science, for which he
had the taste of the scholar and the man of culture.

Mrs. Upham, mother of H. A. J. Upham, was Elizabeth S. Jacques,
daughter of Dr. Gideon Jaques of Wilmington, Delaware, who represented
one of the oldest families in New Jersey, descended from the first
Huguenots that settled in this country.

The children of this family are five in number, three daughters and two
sons. The oldest of the sons, Col. John J. Upham, is a colonel in the
United States army. The younges is H. A. J. Upham, the subject of this
biography, who was born in Milwaukee, August 14th, 1853. He followed
the usual course of American boys through the public schools,
graduating from the Milwaukee High School in 1872. The year following
he received the diploma of the Milwaukee Academy, and in 1875 he
graduated from the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor. Returning
home, he began the study of law in the office of Wilson Graham, and
later continued it in the office of Jenkins, Elliott & Winkler, the
senior member of this firm now being judge of the United States circuit
court for this court. He was admitted to the bar in 1877, and in 1879
he became connected with the law firm of Wells & Brigham, which was
organized in 1852, and the firm name became Wells, Brigham & Upham, and
has so remained up to the present time, although the original members
of the firm are now no more, Mr. Brigham dying suddenly only a short
time since. The firm, through all its history, maintained a reputation
for conservatism and a policy in keeping with the best traditions of
the profession, the introduction of new life and new methods by Mr.
Upham's accession in no whit changing, but rather adding to its long
established reputation for probity and honorable dealing. Mr. Upham
from the date of his entrance into the firm, has been a very active
force in all its work, and of late years has carried the burden of its 
extensive business, which involves the care of estates, the guardianship 
of trust funds, investments for clients, the handling of cases involving 
the laws respecting corporations and commercial transactions--in short, 
the most responsible, and in many respects the most important in the 
whole range of the legal profession. That Mr. Upham has been equal to 
these onerous duties is shown by the confidence placed in him by his 
clients and by the result of the litigations which he has conducted. 
Perhaps the most notable suit of which Mr. Upham has had charge is that 
of Hawley vs. Tesch, which involved some four hundred thousand dollars; 
in which, after years of legal struggle, judgment was finally entered 
for the clients of his firm, and property and money amounting to that 
sum was recovered for the Hawley heirs.

Mr. Upham was married, in 1889, to Miss Mary L. Greene, daughter of the
late Thomas A. Greene, long one of the most prominent and respected
merchants of Milwaukee. They have two children, Elizabeth Greene and
Mary Greene Upham. Mr. Upham is a man of broad culture, of liberal
sympathies in the best sense of that phrase, and of high personal
character.

ERICKSON, Halford, a resident of West Superior, and state commissioner
of labor, census and industrial statistics, was born in Sweden, July
7th, 1862, and is the son of Erick and Anna Halfordson, both of whom
are still living in Sweden. His father is a farmer in good
circumstances and well educated. The grandparents on both sides were
farmers.

Young Erickson attended the common school in Sweden, and came to the
United States in 1882, when twenty years of age, making his home in
Minneapolis, Minn., where he took a course of study in the academy.
Though a foreigner and new to American schools and educational methods,
he had no difficulty in keeping up with his class, and in acquiring a
practical supplement to the education

Page 162

[image: HALFORD ERICKSON.]

received in his native country. After leaving school, he took the
position of warehouseman with a railroad company, gradually working up
toward a more responsible position, until 1888, when he went to West
Superior as cashier in the freight department of the Chicago, St. Paul,
Minneapolis & Omaha Railway company. Mr. Erickson was in the employ of
this company from 1883 to 1890, when he was, while in the company's
service, elected register of deeds of Douglas county. This position he
held four years, or until he was appointed by Gov. Upham, in 1895,
commissioner of labor, census and industrial statistics. This office he
now holds, with headquarters at Madison.

Politically Mr. Erickson is a Republican; and, while not a partisan or
especially active in party work, he has given evidence of the sincerity
of his political faith by such work for the promulgation of Republican
principles and the success of his party as any citizen may and should
perform.

Mr. Erickson was married, in 1889, to Anna Carlson of Minneapolis, and
they have one child.

BRYANT, Benjamin French, one of the most accomplished members of the La
Crosse bar, was born in Rockland, Maine, September 3rd, 1837. His
father was Benjamin Bryant, a physician, whose ancestors were of
English and Scotch extraction, and were related to the Bryants of
Massachusetts, the first of the race coming to this country in the
seventeenth century. On the mother's side Col. Bryant is also of
English descent. His mother's name was Lucy F. French, and she belonged
to one of the most sturdy and patriotic families of New England. Ezra
B. French, a member of congress from Maine and second auditor of the
treasury from 1861 to 1879, was a cousin of Col. Bryant's mother. The
first of the family to come to this country was Edward French, who came
from England and settled in Ipswich, Mass., in 1636. Col. Bryant's
grandparents on both sides moved from Massachusetts into Maine when
that country was a wilderness, cleared them farms there, and there
lived all the remainder of their lives.

Col. Bryant attended the common schools of his native state until he
has seventeen years of age, when he entered the Maine Wesleyan Seminary
at Kent's Hill, Readfield, Maine, where his parents had been educated
before him, and where he attended six months a year for four years.
There he was fitted for teaching and for college. He entered Rowdoin
College, Brunswick, Maine, class of 1863, but left the institution at
the end of his sophomore year. Going to Huron county, Ohio, whither his
parents had moved in 1856, he began the study of law, but had continued
it only a few months, when the excitements of the great civil war
turned his attention to the needs of the country, and he enlisted
August 9th, 1862, in the 101st Ohio infantry, and was mustered as fifth
sergeant of Company A. The regiment was ordered south in September,
joined Gen. Buel's army and made a force march to Perryville, where
young Bryant got his first taste of real war. After that he
participated in the battles of Stone River, Knob

Page 163

Gap, Liberty Gap, Chicamauga, and numerous other sharp, but less bloody
engagements. He was promoted to first lieutenant in January, 1863,
after the battle of Stone River, and captain in March, 1864. At the
battle of Chicamauga he was in command of the company, and lost in
killed and wounded twelve of the fifteen men whom he led into the
battle. He was the only officer in the company, and of the fifteen men
engaged six were killed and six wounded. He was mustered out of service
June 20th, 1865, the close of the war. Col. Bryant's two brothers were
also in the war, John E. Bryant being a captain in the Eighth Maine
infantry, and Thos. C. Bryant a private in the Third Ohio cavalry.

Upon the close of his military service, Col. Bryant returned to his law
studies in Norwalk, Ohio, and was admitted to the bar there in April,
1866, and at once began practice, continuing it for two years, when he
removed to La Crosse, where he has resided since May, 1868. While not
seeking the ordinary office, preferring the uninterrupted practice of
his profession, he has been in a measure pressed into the service. He
was county judge of La Crosse county four years--from 1870 to 1874--
district attorney for three terms of two years each. He was United
States pension agent from 1875 to 1877, and postmaster of La Crosse
from 1882 to 1885. Col. Bryant was a member of the staff of Gov. C. C.
Washburn, and of Gov. Wm. E. E. Smith, with rank of colonel.

Col. Bryant is a charter member of Wilson Colwell Post, No. 38, of the
Grand Army of the Republic of La Crosse, having joined it in 1882, and
has been post commander, senior vice-president commander and department
commander. He became a member of the Loyal Legion in 1890, at the
Milwaukee Commandery.

He is an Episcopalian and a member of the vestry of Christ church, La
Crosse, and has been such for many years.

July 12th, 1864, he was married at North Fayette, Maine, to Miss
Augusta A. Stevens

[image: BENJAMIN FRENCH BRYANT.]

of that place. She died January 4th, 1896. They had no children.

Col. Bryant has been an earnest Republican and has done much campaign
work as an evidence of his faith in the principles of his party. He is
a speaker of rare gifts, equally ready and happy in his manner, whether
speaking extemporaneously or after deliberate preparation. He is a man
of scholarly and literary tastes, and his addresses, whether made to a
popular assembly or to a jury, illustrate these characteristics, and
make him an entertaining and instructive speaker.

ELSER, John, whose residence is at 472 Cass street, is the son of John
and Margaret Rabel Elser, who came to Wisconsin from Germany in 1853,
and settled on a farm in the town of Lake, Milwaukee county, where they
have ever since resided. John Elser, the younger, was born in
Koenigreich, Wurtemberg, Germany, in the year 1835. He has been a
resident of Milwaukee since 1850. In 1868 he established a meat market,
which he has conducted ever since, meeting with unusual

Page 164

[image: JOHN ELSER.]

usual success. Careful in the management of his business, possessed of
that sagacity which is sometimes the most productive of capital, and
serving his customers in a manner to command their confidence and
insure their continued patronage, he has built up a business of large
proportions, which promises indefinite increase and very substantial
returns.

Mr. Elser was married to Miss Franziska Auer, in 1869, and his family
consists of his wife and seven children.

TENNEY, Charles Kent, was born in Madison, Wisconsin, on the 19th of
April, 1848, and, with exception of about a year's residence in
Missouri, has resided in that place ever since. His life has
encompassed the whole period of our statehood, and he will celebrate
his semi-centennial with that of the state. Mr. Tenney comes from New
England stock on his father's side, his ancestors having immigrated
form England and founded the town of Rowley, Mass., about 1632. His
paternal grandmother, Sylvia Kent, was a cousin of the eminent
Chancellor Kent, hence his middle name. His mother's ancestors were from 
Holland and settled near Pittsburg, Pa., at about the close of the 
revolution. His father, Major Horace A. Tenney, came to Madison in 1845, 
and had much to do in shaping the early policies of the state. Next to 
William E. Cramer of The Evening Wisconsin, he is the oldest living 
pioneer editor. With the late John Y. Smith, he was editor and 
proprietor of The Madison Argus, then the leading paper of Wisconsin, 
was elected territorial printer, reported the official proceedings of 
the constitutional convention, was the first chairman of the Republican 
state central committee, was state comptroller while the office existed, 
was in the legislature in 1857, was one of the first regents of the 
state university and chairman of its executive committee, was one of the 
original members of the State Historical society; was assistant state 
geologist and helped to make the first geological survey, was 
commissioned a major in the regular army by President Lincoln and 
assigned to duty as a paymaster, in which capacity he was at Vicksburg 
during the entire siege,and afterwards at New Orleans and on the Red 
river expedition. After the close of the war, with the exception of two 
years in the United States mail service, he was employed as editor on 
leading papers of Chicago, St. Paul and Milwaukee. He and the late Gen. 
Atwood were authors of a book entitled "Fathers of Wisconsin." Latterly 
he has been taking a rest on his farm near Madison.

When C. K. Tenney was about seven years of age his parents moved to a
farm just west of Madison, and his first schooling was in the district
school, taught by Miss Jerusha Noonan, sister of the late Josiah L.
Noonan, one of the first editors of the territory. At the age of
thirteen years, he left home and has ever since provided for himself.
In 1861 he entered the office of the State Journal, at Madison, and
there learned the printer's trade. Three years later he matriculated at
the state university, but left it at the end of the sophomore year,
entering the office of his uncles, H.

Page 165

W. & D. K. Tenney, in Madison, as a student of law; and the day he was
of age was admitted to practice. Soon after this he located at
Carthage, Missouri, for the practice of his profession, and, while
there, he, with a son of S. D. Carpenter, started the publication of
The Carthage Patriot. At the solicitation of relatives, however, he
returned to Madison in about a year and resumed the practice of law
with H. M. Lewis, then United States collector of internal revenue, and
J. C. McKenney, afterward United States attorney. Mr. Tenney is now
alone in the practice of his profession, and in the enjoyment of a fair
clientage.

In September, 1870, Mr. Tenney was married to Miss Anna Baldwin of
Everett, a suburb of Boston, whose ancestors date back nearly to the
landing of the Pilgrims, and whose grandfather witnessed the battle of
Bunker Hill from the roof of his father's barn. Genial in disposition
and of generous impulses, she is the ideal mother, and makes her home
the full realization of all the word implies. Four children have been
born to them, two of whom are now living--Charles H., a lawyer, and Wm.
D., a book-keeper, both residents of Madison.

Excepting that of city attorney, Mr. Tenney has held no political
office of prime importance and aspires to none. Though not active in
party politics, he takes a keen interest in public affairs, writes
frequently for the papers on important questions, and occasionally
indulges in a magazine article. Since the war he has acted with the
Democrats, but in the recent election refused to accept their party
platform and candidates and voted with the Republicans.

As a lawyer he is careful and conservative, and prefers settlements of
controversies to litigation, where the interests of his clients will
not be compromised thereby.

His long residence in the capital city has familiarized him with every
detail of growth and history. The primitive forests and unbroken
prairies, the ox teams and the white

[image: CHARLES KENT TENNEY.]

covered emigrant wagons and the rattle of the Frink & Walker stage
coach, which brought our pioneer statesmen together, are living
realities to him. The prominence of his father brought his frequently
in contact with officials, and he knew all of our governors and state
officers from the days of Gov. Dewey to the present time; and if any
one should ask him which of Wisconsin's governors was the greatest, he
would answer "Alexander W. Randall, afterward minister to Rome and
post-master-general."

DANIELSON, Peter, a resident of Medford, and the editor and proprietor
of the Taylor County Star and News, was born November 20th, 1863, near
Waupaca. His father, Christian, and his mother, Albertine Munson
Danielson, were natives of Norway, where they were married and whence
they came to Wisconsin in 1863, settling in Waupaca county, on a farm.
There they remained until 1873, when they removed to Medford, Mr.
Danielson engaging in a general mercantile business, in which he was
highly prosperous until the death of his

Page 166

[image: PETER DANIELSON.]

wife, which occurred in April, 1877. After that he retired to his farm
near Medford, where he died in October, 1896. Mr. and Mrs. Danielson
were honest, rugged, industrious people, of whom America has received
many from the rugged northland.

Peter Danielson's early instruction embraced three terms in the first
schools established in Medford, which at that time were in a very crude
state of development. However, by close application to the branches
that were taught, he managed to secure a fair common school education,
supplemented by extra studies at other times. In 1879 he commenced
learning the trade of printer in the office of the Taylor County Star
and News, under E. T. Wheelock, now editor and proprietor of the Wausau
Daily Record. After the close of the political campaign of 1884, he
went to Glidden, Ashland county, and conducted The Glidden Pioneer for
a period of four years. At the end of that time he returned to Medford
and re-entered the employ of Mr. Wheelock, with whom he remained until
January 1st, 1895, when, through purchase, he became the editor and
proprietor of The Taylor County Star and News, which he has successfully 
and profitably conducted to the present time.

Mr. Danielson is a Republican in politics, is chairman of the
Republican county committee and conducted the campaign of 1896 in
Taylor county, which resulted in doubling the Republican majority in
that county. His labors, however, were for the good of the cause which
he favors, for he has never held a political office and was never a
candidate for one.

April 24th, 1894, Mr. Danielson was married to Miss Nettie J. Hobbs,
and they have two children, a daughter, Ina E., and a son, Edgar Delos.

BARTLETT, Edwin Wilcox, M. D., whose residence and office are at 420
Jefferson street, Milwaukee, came to the city in 1870, and established
himself in his profession, with special reference to the diseases of
the eye and ear, since which time the business has grown to great
proportions, and his reputation as a specialist has extended beyond the
limits of the city and state. Dr. Bartlett is the son of Elias
Bartlett, a farmer in Vermont, and of Eliza Wheelock Bartlett, and was
born in Jericho, Chittenden county, Vermont, December 10th, 1839. His
education was begun in the public schools in his native state, and
continued in Underhill Academy and the University of Vermont, from
which institution he graduated in 1866. He then pursued a course of
medical studies, not simply for the purpose of procuring a diploma and
opening the way to professional employment, but in order to become
thoroughly and scientifically familiar with disease in its various
phases, and the most approved methods of its treatment--in short, to
secure the mastery of disease as far as is possible to human knowledge
and professional skill. He was assistant physician and surgeon of Kings
county hospital, Flatbush, New York, for eighteen months after his
graduation. He then spent two years in the medical schools

Page 167

of Paris, Vienna and London. Since his establishment in Milwaukee he
has spent one year in Berlin and Vienna in the study of subjects
connected with profession, and has always kept himself thoroughly
informed as to the progress of knowledge and discovery in all branches
of the science in which he is especially interested.

Within two years after opening his office here his practice required a
private hospital. This was secured, but the business, within five
years, exceeded the capacity of this institution, and the present
hospital and residence were erected, the former having a capacity for
forty patients. This has been filled, oftentimes to its entire
capacity, and immense numbers of patients have been treated, and very
many operations performed. The benefits conferred upon a community by
such an institution are not entirely measured by the charges for the
service rendered, but extend far beyond any such considerations, and
may properly be regarded in the nature of public benefactions. So long
as suffering humanity may be relieved and rendered self-helpful or
self-sustaining, hospitals, whether public or private, may be regarded
as something more than mere schemes for money-making.

Dr. Bartlett has found time amidst the cares of his arduous profession
to devote to public interests. He was for five years a member of the
Milwaukee school board, occupying positions on its most important
committees, and taking an intelligent and helpful interest in the cause
of public education. He has been an enthusiastic member of the Natural
History society of Wisconsin for many years, and has done much to
advance its interests and extend its usefulness. He has been an active
and intelligent member of the board of trustees of the public museum,
and is now its president. He was one of those who raised the $12,000
necessary to secure for the museum the Ward archaeological collection
which now occupies Lapham Hall in the museum. The doctor has long been
an interested student of the natural sciences, and

[image: EDWIN WILCOX BARTLETT.]

his knowledge and personal interest may be counted on to do much toward
the proper installment of the museum in the new building when it is
completed.

Dr. Bartlett was married to Helen F. Ball in 1874, and they have a
daughter and three sons.

WIRTH, Andrew Charles, a resident of Milwaukee, is the son of John
Wirth, who was engaged in the shoe business in Syracuse and Utica, New
York, from 1848 to 1859, but came to Wisconsin in the year last named,
and was engaged in the same business in Kenosha and afterward in
Racine. He enlisted for the army in 1863, but the examining physicians
rejected him, and he returned to Kenosha. In 1871 he moved to Fond du
Lac, where he died, in 1891, at the age of seventy-one years. A. C.
Wirth's mother was Margaret Rock, a descendant of the Rock family, 
prominently identified with the mail service in Germany before the days
of railroads. She died in 1875, at the age of forty-six.

A. C. Wirth was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, November 24th, 1864. He
attended the

Page 168

[image: ANDREW CHARLES WIRTH.]

public schools and a German Methodist school until he was eleven years
of age, when he was adopted by a farmer in Lomira, Dodge county, his
parents having previously moved to Fond du Lac, where his mother died.
Not liking his foster-father he ran away the following year, and found
employment with a farmer in Markesan, at five dollars per month. In the
course of the summer he earned thirty dollars, with which he bought
clothes and books, and attended the district school during the winter,
doing chores for his board. With this farmer, one James Quick, he
remained until he was sixteen years of age, when he went to Fond du Lac
and served an apprenticeship, in the meantime attending a night school
and also studying music. He learned to play and prompt for dances, and
in this way earned money, which he saved in the hopes of eventually
entering the university. He went to Madison with this end in view, but
sickness soon took all of his accumulated means, and he gave up his
purpose of securing a liberal education. Having acquired some
proficiency in playing and prompting for dances, he determined to fit
himself for teaching dancing, and with this purpose he visited many
prominent teachers of the art in the United States and Canada; and,
finally located in Milwaukee as a master of dancing. He has now, for
some years, been very successful in the work; having classes in
Milwaukee, not only, but in other leading cities of the state. He has,
during the season, had three adult and two juvenile classes in
Milwaukee, and they have sometimes numbered as high as three hundred
pupils. He is a member of the National Association of Masters of
Dancing, and has held all the offices within its gift. He is considered
one of the most successful teachers of the art of dancing in the state.
He is a composer of dance music, and has written a book on dancing,
which has been extensively sold.

Mr. Wirth was married on the 8th of October, 1889, to Miss Jennie E.
Keyes, a descendant on her mother's side of the Carpenter family, one
of the oldest in New England. They have had two children, one of whom
died when fifteen months old.

He is a member of the Independence Lodge, No. 80, and Wisconsin
Chapter, No. 7, of the Masonic order. He is also a member of the
Iroquois club. Agreeable in manner, an enthusiast in his vocation,
popular with those with whom he comes in contact, he is a good example
of what one may accomplish with energy and a definite purpose.

BACON, Edward Payson, for many years one of the leading grain
commission merchants of Milwaukee, was born in the village of
Irelandville, Steuben (now Schuyler) county, New York, on the 16th of
May, 1834. His father was Joseph F. and his mother Matilda Bacon, nee
Cowles. His ancestors on both sides, for many generations, were of
sturdy New England stock the earliest maternal ancestor in this country
being John Cowles, who came to Massachusetts from England in 1635. Mr.
Bacon's paternal grandfather

Page 169 

was a fife-major in the revolutionary army; but, like most of his
compatriots, he emerged from the long conflict poorer than when he
entered it, and there was little with which the family could begin the
new life in the freed land. Mr. Bacon's father was brought up on a
farm, but on coming of age learned the tailor's trade, which he
followed for some years. When young Bacon was but four years of age,
his parents removed to Geneva, Ontario county, New York. The straitened
circumstances of the family rendered it necessary for the boy to enter
early upon the work of contributing to the material resources of the
family; and, in consequence, his education was often interfered with,
albeit he was fond of books and made the most of his opportunities. At
ten years of age he was placed with a farmer, where he was to have
remained for six years; but there was dissatisfaction with the
treatment of the boy, and after one year he was taken home, and resumed
his attendance upon school, doing such work as he could, out of school
hours, for the family's assistance. He was interested in religious
subjects at an early age, and conceived the purpose to become a
minister; but his lack of means prevented him from continuously
pursuing his studies, and ultimately compelled the abandonment of his
purpose in this direction. From the age of thirteen to fifteen he was
clerk in a county store, where he learned something of business methods
which was of advantage to him in after years. At this time a cousin of
his, Rev. Augustus W. Cowles, who was pastor of a church in Brockport,
N. Y., offered him a home with his family, which he gladly accepted,
and entered the collegiate institute of that place. The illness of his
father, however, compelled his return home when he had scarcely
completed a year at the school. The kindness of his cousin was
nevertheless fully appreciated and rewarded in after years. He resorted
again to a clerkship in a store in Brockport to meet present
necessities. Here he remained for a year or more, when he took a
position as clerk in the freight

[image: EDWARD PAYSON BACON.]

office of the New York & Erie railroad at Hornellsville, N. Y., the
road having just been opened to Dunkirk. In this position he at once
gained the confidence of the officials, and he was rapidly promoted in
the service, being transferred successively to Corning, to Elmira, and
to New York City, remaining a year in each place. While in New York
City he held the position of chief clerk in the general freight office
of the company, having charge of the accounts of the agents of the
entire road. In 1855, upon the completion of the Michigan Southern &
Northern Indiana railroad to Chicago, he was offered and accepted the
charge of the company's freight office in that city, the position
offering more opportunities for promotion than the one which he
occupied in New York City. The following year he was appointed freight
agent of the Milwaukee & Mississippi railroad at Milwaukee, now the
Prairie du Chien division of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway;
and, upon the completion of the road to Prairie du Chien, he was made
general freight agent. He continued in the service of this company and
its successors for nine years, filling successively

Page 170

the offices of auditor and general ticket agent. He organized and
systematized the methods of business in these departments, and those
methods are still followed by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul company
not only, but by many of the other western roads. He also invented the
ticket case for coupon tickets now in general use, and the patent upon
this was a source of large revenue until it expired in 1880.

Mr. Bacon retired from railroad business, in which he had gained an
enviable reputation, in 1865; and, with Lyman Everingham, then freight
agent of the Milwaukee & La Crosse Railroad company, formed the grain
commission firm of Bacon & Everingham, which at once entered upon a
prosperous career, that continued for nine years, when, owing to a long
continued illness of Mr. Bacon, the firm was dissolved, and he devoted
a year to travel, by which he found his health fully restored. Desiring
to resume business, for which he had shown great aptitude and in which
he had been signally successful, he joined Timothy W. Goodrich in the
reorganization of the wholesale grocery firm of Goodrich & Terry, the
junior member of the firm having died. The name of the new firm was
Bacon, Goodrich & Co., the other member of the firm being Allen
Johnson, who lost his life in the Newhall House fire. This business,
however, was not congenial to Mr. Bacon, and in 1877 was dissolved, the
business closed up, and he formed a partnership with Oren E. Britt,
then general freight agent of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway
company, and M. P. Aiken, the firm name being E. P. Bacon & Co. In
1880, however, Mr. Britt, having been permanently disabled in a
railroad accident, retired from the firm, as did also Mr. Aiken, who
wished to establish himself in business in Chicago. Mr. Bacon conducted
the business alone until 1890, when Geo. H. D. Johnson and Geo. W.
Powers, employes of his for years, were admitted into partnership. The
business which is one of the largest of its kind in the west, has
always stood in the front rank in commercial circles,
and its vigor and character are not impaired, but rather enhanced by
years.

Mr. Bacon has been an active and influential member of the Milwaukee
Chamber of Commerce for thirty years, ten of which he was a member of
the board of directors, two vice-president and two president. He was
the leader in the contest inaugurated by the Chamber of Commerce to
secure for Milwaukee equitable treatment from the principal western
railroad companies having their terminals in Milwaukee and Chicago;
and, after a struggle of several years duration, important concessions
were secured. He has frequently represented the chamber in commercial
conventions, and before congressional committees in opposition to the
free and unlimited coinage of silver, and anti-option bill and other
bills deemed injurious to the freedom of commercial transactions. His
arguments had great weight with the committees, and contributed largely
to the defeat of the bills. His also represented the chamber for a
number of years in succession in the national board of trade, and was
vice-president of that organization for four consecutive years, being
elected annually thereto for that time. He secured the adoption of some
important amendments to the rules of the chamber while member of the
board of directors, and in many ways contributed to the promotion of
its interests and the improvement of its business methods.

At the time of the great fire in Milwaukee, October 28th, 1892, he
rendered effective service as head of the committee for raising and
dispensing funds to sufferers by the fire, all of whom, some twenty-
five hundred men, women an children, were provided with comfortable
quarters within twenty-four hours after the calamity.

Mr. Bacon, upon coming to Milwaukee, united with Plymouth
Congregational church, but some sixteen years thereafter he transferred
his connection to Immanuel Presbyterian church, of which he has ever
since been an active and useful member, having for a number of years
been a trustee of the society,

Page 171

and one year president of the board. He was active in measures for
relieving the society of a debt, incurred in the construction of its
splendid edifice. He was one of the prime movers in the organization of
the Young Men's Christian association of Milwaukee, has been vice-
president and president of it, and very efficient in all efforts for
its enlargement and benefit, and in securing the commodious building
which it now occupies. He is one of the trustees of Beloit College, and
active in aiding young men to secure an education.

Mr. Bacon was married on the 18th of May, 1858, to Emma Rogers Hobbs of
Paterson, New Jersey, but lost this most estimable woman by death on
the 21st of August, 1892. Four children were born to them, the oldest
and youngest of whom died some years since. Of those living Lilian, the
elder, is the wife of Rollin B. Mallory, and Frank Rogers, the younger,
is under business training in his father's office. Mr. Bacon was
married, in 1895, to Mrs. Ella C. Baird of Pelham Manor, New York.

REID, James William, agent for the Milwaukee district of the Prudential
Life Insurance company, is the son of James Reid, who was born and
lived all his life of eighty-four years in Kincardineshire, Scotland.
His wife, the mother of the subject of this sketch, was Elizabeth Read,
a farmer's daughter of the same county. They had a family of three sons
and one daughter, of which James W. Reid was the youngest. Both parents
were thoroughly Scotch, and it is hardly necessary to say, were strict
Presbyterians, and believed in giving their children a good education,
fitting them for earning an honest living, which the parents held could
not be secured in any way which did not involve honest and intelligent
work.

James William Reid was born in the Scotch home in 1850, and being the
youngest of the family, his mother wished him fitted for some
profession, but his father was opposed to this

[image: JAMES WILLIAM REID.]

and kept him at work on the farm. After leaving the public school, he
attended classes in the evening, meantime watching for an opportunity
to get away from home and into the great world of affairs. At length,
through an accident, his way was opened. Falling from a horse, he was
disabled, for a time, for hard work, and he was allowed to learn the
business of clothing and drapery in a large general store. Here he
served an apprenticeship of four years, at the conclusion of which his
father gave him $250.00 and told him to make his own way in life. Like
other young men, he had an ambition to see the world; and, as he never
had been accustomed to have much money to spend, he thought, with the
few dollars he had saved from his own earnings, and with the gifts from
his father, that he was almost independent. Accordingly, he began
business on his own account, but soon found that he did not have
sufficient capital to carry it on successfully. Abandoning mercantile
business, he secured a position as bank accountant, and, in addition
thereto, an agency from the Scotch Provincial Life Assurance company,
which, at that time was given to any

Page 172

one connected with a bank, or had an office where the people who wanted
insurance could apply, for there was no canvassing in the business
then. That was his first experience in life insurance, and he concluded
that it was a business in which he would succeed. He, therefore,
devoted his energies to the study of business methods and the acquiring
of a knowledge of human nature.

In 1877, he was married to Annie Duncan, daughter of Alexander Duncan,
a farmer of Kincardine. The following year he went to England where he
remained ten years. In the beginning of 1888 the sailed for New York,
leaving his family behind until he should determine whether he wished
to make the "new world" his home or not. He thought that, with his will
to work, he would find larger scope here to rise in his chosen calling.
He landed in New York without a friend, and without letters of
introduction beyond those of reference. He spent two days in looking
about the city; and, on the day, he applied for an agency with the
company he still represent, and was successful, being appointed to
Rockland county, on the Hudson. Within six months, so successful was
he, his agency ranked first of those in that region. In January he was
appointed assistant superintendent in New York City; here he met with
success also, and in August of the same year, was transferred to
Albany. Satisfied with his prospects, he sent for his family, and took
up his permanent residence in the United States. After two years in
Albany, he was appointed to the superintendency of the Middletown, N.
Y. district, and during the time the was there he ranked second among
all the company's agents for the amount of new business written. So
pleased was he with the results of his work that he decided to remain
there. But at that time the Milwaukee district, the only one which the
company had opened in this state, had become so disorganized, that a
change was deemed advisable, and he was offered and accepted the
superintendency. He set to work and organized a staff of agents
that, in 1893, produced almost double the amount of business of any
other district in the twenty states in which the company is
represented. The business of the company has grown rapidly; and, during
the four years that Mr. Reid has been in Milwaukee, two regular offices
have been established, one in Oshkosh and another in Racine, and five
branch offices, including Janesville, Beloit, Sheboygan, Eau Claire and
Chippewa Falls.

The company has now about twenty thousand policies in force in this
state, and, during the year 1896, paid claims to 220 families, thereby
benefiting at least one thousand persons. There are now about one
hundred employes connected with the agency staff in Wisconsin, and Mr.
Reid wishes no better field for his work this state affords, and he
intends to make Milwaukee his permanent home.

Mr. Reid is a member of Immanuel Presbyterian church, and like the
majority of his countrymen, is thoroughly attached to the Presbyterian
denomination. He belongs to Kilbourn Lodge, No. 3, F. & A. M., and has
been three years treasurer of the Wisconsin Association of Life
Underwriters. He is also a member of the Prudential Old Guard, an honor
bestowed by the company after five years' honorable service.

In politics he is a Republican and a thorough protectionist, for the
country's sake.

He as one son, George Duncan Reid, who is now one of his assistants.

BACH, Christopher, or Chr. Bach, as he usually signs his name, resides
at 1216 State street, Milwaukee. He is the son of George Bach, a fresco
painter of Nierderhone, province of Hesse Cassel, Germany, and of
Catherine Bach, nee Wollenhaupt, also of Germany. Christopher Bach was
born on the 24th of March, 1835, at Niederhone, Germany, and attended
the local parochial school up to the age of fourteen years, when,
displaying a decided talent for music, he became a pupil of

Page 173

the celebrated Prof. Phillip Muskat, musical director at Eschwege, and
later continued his studies under Prof. Kraushar at Cassel, both
prominent musicians at that time. With these masters he studied
principally harmony and counterpoint; but, at the same time, he learned
to perform on a number of different instruments, chief of which were
the violin and the trombone. In 1855 he came with his parents and
relatives and settled in Milwaukee; here he continued his musical
studies with Edward von Sobolewski, a prominent musical director from
Berlin and Koenigsberg, who had located in Milwaukee, with whom he
completed his studied in thorough base and musical composition. Upon
reaching Milwaukee, he found himself without funds, and earned his
first dollar by performing on the viola in a string quartet.
Immediately upon this beginning, he took the position of cornetist in
Theodore Knoll's band, at that time the principal band in Milwaukee,
consisting of twelve men. In these positions, however, his chances for
success were too limited; and, full of ambition and artistic
enthusiasm, he organized, in October of the same year, the first string
sextet, taking the position of director and first violinist. At the
start he considered it his mission to present to his audiences only the
better class of music; and his efforts in this direction were
recognized to the extent that he was busily engaged furnishing the
music at all leading private and public receptions and club
entertainments. In 1864 he accepted the position of musical director in
McVicker's theater, Chicago, where he served one highly successful
season. His love for Milwaukee, however, induced him to return thither
in 1865, where he then inaugurated his popular Sunday afternoon
concerts. These concerts he has continued without interruption every
Sunday during the winter season up to the present day. Ever since
Milwaukee has had a German theater, Mr. Bach has held the position of
musical director therein, and is at present serving in that capacity in
the Pabst

[image: CHRISTOPHER BACH.]

theater. Mr. Bach's reputation as a thorough, all around conductor, is
national, and has brought him requests for his services from all parts
of the country, many of which he has been compelled to decline. He
several times directed at the World's fair in Chicago, and at the
industrial expositions in Milwaukee, St. Louis and Kansas City he has
several with great satisfaction to visitors, as well as at most of the
festivals of the North American and Northwestern Sangerbunds. At New
Orleans, in 1890, with his own orchestra of seventy performers, he
achieved an overwhelming success, conducting both the orchestra and
vocal numbers of the programme.

Mr. Bach is a very prolific writer and composer, having composed
hundreds of marches, overtures, concertos, etc., and several comic and
serio-comic operas, as for instance "The Strike" and "Mahana." Hundreds
of his compositions are in print and are being performed both in this
country and in Europe. He is also a superior arranger of music for both
orchestras and military bands, and has orchestrated, principally for
his own use, a large number of standard and classical piano

Page 174

compositions. He has been the tutor and director of several new musical
directors of more or less prominence, such as Clauder, Kretlow, Thiele
and others; of a large number of solo performers on different
instruments, as Hutchins, Bode, Wilder, Basse and Tetzner, who now
occupy leading positions in such prominent bands as Sousa's Herbert's
and Brook's; of his own sons Gustave and Hugo, the former at present
principal violinist in Damrosch's orchestra, and the latter leader of
Bach's solo quintette in Milwaukee; and of a large number of scholars
in vocal culture and musical composition.

Mr. Bach, though a Republican by choice, is in no sense a politician.
He is a member of a large number of clubs, societies, lodges etc, and
in these he finds such recreation and social enjoyment as his
professional duties will permit. He is a Lutheran by birth, education
and inclination, but is not a member of any particular church.

He was married to Miss Marie Riemann in Milwaukee on the 21st of
October, 1856, and they have four sons and two daughters, namely:
Gustave, Hugo, Bernhardt and Christopher Bach, Jr., and Mrs. Oscar R.
Pieper and Mrs. Robert Schmidt.

SMITH, Augustus Ledyard, one of Appleton's most prominent citizens, was
born in Middletown, Conn., on the 5th of April, 1833. His father,
Augustus W. Smith, LL.D., was a native of Newport, N.Y., one of a
family of prominence in social and educational circles. He was a
graduate of Hamilton College, and from 1826 to 1830, was principal of
Cazenovia, N. Y., Seminary. In 1831 he was elected to a professorship
in the Wesleyan University of Middletown, and was associated with Dr.
Wilbur Fisk in the organization and management of that institution. He
retained his professorship in the university until 1852, when he was
made its president. In 1857 he resigned his position as president of
the university and received from President Buchanan the appointment
to the vacancy in the professorship of mathematics in the United States
navy, and was assigned to duty in the United States Naval Academy at
Annapolis. He held this position till his death in 1866. Dr. Smith's
ancestors are from England and among the earliest settlers in
Massachusetts. His grandfather, Eldad Smith, served with the minute men
who went from Hartford to the relief of Boston on the Lexington alarm,
and was subsequently school commissioner for the state of Connecticut.
The mother of Augustus Ledyard Smith, the subject of this sketch, whose
maiden name was Catherine Rachel Childs, was a descendant of
revolutionary stock. Mr. Smith is the great-great-great-grandson of
Timothy Childs and Hannah Chapin Sheldon, who was at the massacre at
Deerfield perpetrated by the French and Indians in 1704, and was
carried prisoner to Canada. Their son, the great-great-grandfather of 
Mr, Smith, Capt. Timothy Childs, led a company of minute men from
Deerfield to Boston on receiving the news of the battle of Lexington,
and his son, Dr. Timothy Childs, Mr. Smith's great-grandfather, was a
lieutenant of a company that left Pittsfield, Mass., on the same
occasion. He was also a surgeon in Col. Patterson's regiment, which
went from New York on an expedition to Canada, and remained with the
army until the surrender of Burgoyne in 1777. Mr. Smith's great-
grandmother was Rachel Easton Childs, the daughter of Col. Easton of
Pittsfield, Mass., who raised a Berkshire regiment and was second in
command under Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga, May 9th. 1775. His great-
grandfather was major Benj. Ledyard, who is said to have raised the
first company in New York City, where he resided, for service in the
war of the revolution, which was called "Hairy Caps." He served a long
time and was promoted to a majority. Catherine Foreman, his wife and
great-grandmother of Mr. Smith, was a daughter of Col. Foreman, a hero
of the revolution, and both Benj. Ledyard and Col. Foreman were charter
members of the Order

Page 175

of Cincinnati. Col. Ledyard, who fell at Groton, Conn., was of the same
family.

Augustus Ledyard Smith was brought up and educated in his native town,
graduating at the age of twenty-one at the Wesleyan University of
Middletown. Coming to Madison, Wis., soon after, he accepted the
position of tutor in the University of Wisconsin, and held it for two
years, when he became connected with the state school land office. He
also accepted the office of secretary and treasurer of the Fox and
Wisconsin Improvement company--a company formed for the purpose of
improving the navigation of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers from Green Bay
to the Mississippi river. To this company the state transferred the
lands granted it by the general government, stipulating that upon the
completion of a navigable route from Green Bay to Portage City, the
title to the lands should pass to the company, and that a part of them
might be sold on condition that a portion of the proceeds be devoted to
the improvement. The remainder was to be the property of the company.
Mr. Smith represented both the state and the company--a very
responsible position, one requiring both ability and fidelity in large
measure. The work was completed as far as Oshkosh, when the disturbance
of business consequent upon the breaking out of the civil war caused a
suspension of the work of the company. Mr. Smith accepted an assistant
professorship in the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, and,
removing to Newport, Rhode Island, was assigned to duty on the frigate
Constitution. In 1863, the affairs of the company having improved, work
was resumed on the upper Fox river, funds therefor being obtained
through the sale of bonds secured by mortgage upon the property of the
company. Mr. Smith's services were in requisition again, and, resigning
his position in the naval academy, he returned to his old one with
company. Three years after this the mortgage bonds of the company were
foreclosed, the purchasers of the property organized the Green Bay and
Mississippi Canal

[image: AUGUSTUS LEDYARD SMITH.]

company, and Mr. Smith has been its secretary, treasurer and general
business manager up to this time.

In 1870 he organized the First National bank of Appleton, and was its
president until the close of 1891. He was president and one of the
original members of the Appleton Iron company until the destruction of
its works by fire in 1887. He was leader in the organization, in 1881,
of the Appleton Edison Light company, which was the first organization
in the world to distribute light for commercial purposes from a central
station. The electricity is generated by hydraulic power, and the
enterprise has been profitable from the beginning. The company now owns
the streets railway system, which it operates in connection with the
lighting. Three years ago Mr. Smith was elected vice-president of the
National Association of the Edison Illuminating companies.

In politics Mr. Smith is a Democrat, and has been the standard-bearer
of his party at different times, but is not known as a strong partisan.
He has served as mayor and councilman of Appleton, and state senator
from

Page 176

the Appleton district. In the senate he was on the committees on
education and incorporations, displaying unusual aptitude for
legislation, and proving of especial service in promoting and directing
the measures for the reorganization of the university. While a member
of the senate, Gov. Fairchild appointed him regent of the university,
and this position he held for six years. He was also trustee of
Lawrence University at Appleton for many years, and is trustee of the
Wesleyan University at Middletown, Connecticut, his alma mater. He was
president of the Wisconsin board of World's Fair managers, and took a
deep and active interest in that great exposition. He was Democratic
nominee for congress in 1884, but the Republican majority in the
district was too large to be overcome, although he greatly reduced it.

His interest in the growth and prosperity of the city of his home has
always been conspicuous, and several years ago he established the
Appleton Athletic Amusement association, embracing a reading-room,
gymnasium, and rooms for recreation and for receptions, the expense
being largely borne by himself, and the greater part of a large
building owned by him being devoted to the use of the association.

Mr. Smith was married in October, 1860, to Miss Edna Taylor of Chicago,
but formerly of Madison. Two sons were born to them: Augustus Ledyard
Smith, Jr., general manager of the mills of the Manufacturers
Investment company, and Franklin Taylor Smith, an attorney of
Milwaukee. Mrs. Smith died April 3rd, 1894, greatly lamented by those
who knew of her many admirable qualities.

Mr. Smith has a fine residence overlooking the beautiful Fox river,
where are gathered a choice library, beautiful pictures and many other
things indicating intellectual culture and refined tastes.

He is an attendant of the Congregational church, and a liberal
contributor to whatever tends to promote the social, moral and
intellectual growth of the city.

NEILSON, Walter Hopper, M. D., a well-known physician, editor of the
Milwaukee Medical Journal, and prominent in connection with the
founding and conducting of the Trinity hospital of Milwaukee, traces
his lineage to an immigrant from Scotland to Quebec in the latter part
of the eighteenth century, and to immigrants from France more than a
hundred years earlier. His father, Cornelius B. Neilson, was born in
Val Cartier, province of Quebec, on the 12th of August, 1835, but came
to Granville, Milwaukee county, in November, 1860, settling on a farm
which he has occupied ever since, and is now in the enjoyment of the
natural results of enterprise and industry. On November 17th, 1856, he
was married to Margaret Ireland, and they have eight children, all of
whom have been carefully fitted for and are creditably doing the work
of life. For thirty-five consecutive years the family name appeared
upon the roll of the district school, and the success of its members is
testimony to the efficiency of the public school system. Something more
than a century ago, John Neilson, a man of literary tastes and business
sagacity, came from Scotland, and, settling in Quebec, established the
Quebec Gazette, which, under his editorship became a flourishing and
influential journal; and, from this and a publishing business which
grew up with it, he amassed a considerable fortune. In social and
political life he early took a prominent place, became a member of the
Canadian cabinet, and was a delegate to the court of St. James in
behalf of the colony. He was a friend of the Indians, was noted for his
charities, and met his death while ministering to the fever-stricken
emigrants from the famine districts of Ireland. He married a French
lady of the name of Hubert, whose ancestors came from Paris in 1650,
their descendants taking a prominent place in the early clerical and
professional history of Quebec. His eldest son, William, married
Margaret Cassin, an accomplished woman of Irish parentage, and settled
on a concession of land from the

Page 177

crown, granted in consideration of valuable service, and there they
lived the life of the landed gentry of Great Britain, dispensing a
hospitality which made them noted throughout the country. Here eleven
children were born, of whom seven reached adult age, the mother dying
at the early age of thirty-seven, while the father died in 1894 at the
age of eighty-nine. The eldest son of this family was Cornelius, father
of the subject of this sketch. His mother, Margaret Ireland, was the
daughter of Hopper Ireland and Margaret Watt, a Scotch lady. Mr.
Ireland was a native of Yorkshire, England. He came to Canada when a
young man, and settled in Val Cartier. There were eleven children in
this family, and their descendants are scattered from the St. Lawrence
to the Pacific. The parents died in Ontario, a few years ago, at the
age of eighty-nine and eighty-seven, respectively.

Dr. Neilson was born on the 4th of September, 1857, in Val Cartier,
Quebec county, by the side of the Jacques Cartier river, in the shadow
of the mountain that shuts in the vale. He attended the district school
in Granville during the winter terms, work on the farm occupying the
spring and summer months. Some of the teachers were excellent, two of
them--Messrs. Shaughnessy and Sullivan--afterward becoming principals
of Milwaukee schools. In this primitive school enough education was
obtained to enable him to pass an examination for a third-grade
teacher's certificate. One winter he spent in teaching a district
school, and in this way his first money was earned, excepting three
dollars obtained in cutting wood at fifty cents per cord. In 1876 he
entered the University of Wisconsin, where he spent two years, which he
says were of exceeding interest and profit to him, and where he was a
member of the Athenean Literary society. After leaving the university
he spent one year in studying medicine in the office of Drs. Marks and
Ladd, and in the year 1879 entered Rush Medical College, Chicago, from
which he graduated in 1881, having spent his

[image: WALTER HOPPER NEILSON.]

vacation as intern in the Milwaukee county hospital. Soon after
graduation he received the appointment of physician to the construction
department of the Milwaukee, Lake Shore & Western railroad. This
professional experience he regards of special advantage, as it gave him
confidence and self-reliance. This position was resigned after six
months, to enter upon the practice of medicine in Milwaukee. The first
two years in this work he had the experience of most young physicians--
business came slowly, and sickness followed with its disheartening
influence; but at length health returned, and with it business rapidly
increased.

In 1888 Dr. Neilson, in company with Dr. W. H. Earles, purchased the
homestead at the corner of Ninth and Wells streets, remodeled and
fitted it up for a general hospital; and, September 1st, 1889, the
first patient was received. That fall he went to New York for
postgraduate study, and three months were spent in clinical work in
hospitals of that city. In 1891, he, in conjunction with other
physicians, established the Trinity Hospital Training School for
Nurses,

Page 178

and he was elected president, as he was of the Practitioners' society,
formed the following year. In 1893, he, with Dr. Earles, established
the Milwaukee Medical Journal, of which he is the editor. He was also
active, with others, in establishing the Milwaukee Medical College and
School of Dentistry, was elected one of the directors and professor of
the principles and practice of medicine and clinical medicine. Dr.
Neilson does not claim to have made any discoveries, but to have kept
abreast of the best thought and practice of his profession; and he is
now in the enjoyment of a fairly lucrative business.

Dr. Neilson has generally affiliated with the Republican party, but is
in no sense a politician. He is a member of the American Medical
association, and of the leading medical societies of the state. He is
also a member of the St. Andrew's society, and an attendant at Calvary
Presbyterian church.

He was married December 29th, 1881, to Miss Clara Thomas of Milwaukee
county, a daughter of one of its pioneers. They have two sons, George
Whittier and Walter Roland. The doctor and his family live plainly in
an old-fashioned house surrounded by native forest trees, and amid
these they strive to keep as close to nature as it is possible to do in
a great city.

HINKLEY, Francis Daniels, chief grain inspector the Milwaukee Chamber
of Commerce, was born in what is now Eagle, Waukesha County, Wisconsin,
on the 18th of October, 1842. He is the son of Ahira Rockwell and Mary
Cutter (born Daniels) Hinkley of Lebanon, New Hampshire, and Eagle,
Wisconsin. Mr. Hinkley traces his ancestors back to residents of
Connecticut, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, to immigrants from County
Kent, England, who came over to Plymouth colony in the ship Hercules in
1635. Young Hinkley received such education as the local school of
Eagle could give him, and one year at the academy at Milton, Wisconsin.
This education was about what an eighth grade pupil of Milwaukee public 
schools would have upon completing his course. And when he was yet 
barely of age, he began teaching a district school in Monticello, Green 
county, Wisconsin, and thus earned the first money that he could really 
call his own. In April, 1864, he removed to Monona, Clayton county, 
Iowa, and engaged in the grain and shipping business. There he remained 
until 1874, when in the fall of that year he moved to Milwaukee, became 
a member of the Chamber of Commerce, and has been a resident of the city 
continuously since. He has been engaged in the general business of the 
board; has served as a director and vice-president of the chamber, and, 
in 1889, was elected chief grain inspector, which position he still 
holds.

Mr. Hinkley has no military record from the fact that he was physically
disabled for military duty by reason of an action at the beginning of
the war. He has never held any office, nor ever been a candidate for
one. Outside of the precincts of the Chamber of Commerce, he has always
taken great interest in the pursuits relating to the farm, especially
stock-breeding; and, for many years, has been a breeder and owner of
registered Jersey cattle and of horses. Of late years he has been
interested in grain farming in South Dakota, where he has a farm of
several hundred acres under cultivation, near Aberdeen.

Mr. Hinkley's father is one of the old settlers of Wisconsin, having
reached Milwaukee on the 18th day of August, 1836. He came up from
Detroit on a small schooner, which was loaded with lumber and butter,
and carried three passengers beside himself. Remaining in Milwaukee a
few weeks, he went into the country as far as Eagle, Waukesha county,
and made a land claim on Eagle prairie, and returned to Milwaukee,
where he spent the winter of 1836-7, working upon new buildings in the
then rising village. Returning to Lebanon, N.H., in the fall of 1837,
he married Mary Cutter Daniels, daughter of Captain Daniels, and, in
1838, with his wife

Page 179

and a few household goods, he came again to Wisconsin, taking up his
residence on his claim on the beautiful but wild Eagle prairie, where
he has ever since resided, and where he and his wife are passing the 
calm evening of their days, in the full possession of all their
faculties, at the age of eighty-seven and eighty-four, respectively--a
source of pride to their children, and an example of what New England
heredity, a temperature life and a good conscience can do for the
prolongation of life and the multiplication of its blessings. Mr. and
Mrs. Hinkley are both from old New England families, the grandfathers
of both having been soldiers in the Revolutionary war. Through the
marriage of the earlier Hinckleys, Mr. Hinkley inherited the blood of
the Lathrops, Breeds, Palmers, and that of Captain George Dennison, all
of good colonial stock. Thomas Hinckley was governor of Plymouth colony
the greater part of the time from 1681 to 1692, and was the son of the
immigrants Samuel and Sarah Hinckley, and brother of Ensign John
Hinckley, from whom this branch of the family is descended. All the
earlier Hinckleys used the "c," but F. D. Hinkley's father dropped it,
thinking it, from his practical turn of mind, superfluous.

The elder Mr. Hinkley was one of the original directors of the old
Milwaukee & Mississippi railroad, and aided materially in its earlier
construction. He and his family have always had the privilege of free
transportation over what is now the Prairie du Chien division of the
Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul road, in pursuance of a contact made at
the time the old Milwaukee & Mississippi company obtained the right of
way through his farm.

The elder Mr. Hinkley and his wife have been members of the Methodist
church for nearly seventy years. Mr. Hinkley, senior was a thorough
going Whig in politics; and, since the decline of that party, he has
been an equally strong Republican. He has little patience with his son,
the subject of this sketch, who, in the recent campaign, was

[image: FRANCIS DANIELS HINKLEY.]

found in the ranks of the free silver Democrats.

F. D. Hinkley was married October 8th, 1873, to Sarah Anna Dean,
daughter of Charles A. and Lucretia French Dean, and they have five
children namely: Lucretia French, Anna Dean, Marie Gardiner, Cora Case
and Ahira Rockwell.

VRCHOTA, John M., city clerk of La Crosse, was born in the village of
Brana, county of Budweis, Bohemia, May 22nd, 1863. His father, W. F.
Vrchota, is a tailor by trade and has been in the employ of T. D.
Servis in La Crosse for the past thirty years. His mother was Mary
Elizabeth, nee Mejdrech. She died April 15th, 1895. Carl Mejdrech, his
mother's brother, was in the military service of the empire of Austria-
Hungary for ten years, and after that held a government clerkship at
Trebon, Bohemia, for thirty years. He came to Chicago some five years
since, and is now teaching music there. John M. Vrchota came with his
parents to La Crosse, from Bohemia, in 1867, when he was but four years

Page 180

[image: JOHN M. VRCHOTA.]

old. There he received a public school education, which was supplemented
by course in a commercial school. After this he was thrown largely upon
his own resources, and very soon showed his entire ability to take care
of himself. His first regular employment was that of a book-keeper for
a wholesale tobacco house, and after this he kept books for the La
Crosse-Mississippi River Towing company and the John Gund Brewing
company. The duties of these positions he discharged acceptably, and
from 1889 to 1892 he was clerk of the Board of Public Works of La
Crosse. By this time he had begun to take a decided interest in public
affairs and had from early youth allied himself to the Republican
party, becoming an active member of the City Republican league. In the
spring of 1895 he was elected city clerk and re-elected in April, 1897,
on the Republican ticket by a large majority, although La Crosse is a
Democratic city--a fact which speaks loudly for his popularity.

Mr. Vrchota has been frequently sent as a delegate, to city, county and
congressional conventions, and was a delegate from La
Cross county in the last state convention to nominate state officers,
held in Milwaukee in August, 1896. He is one of the political leaders
among the Bohemians of our state.

He is a member of the Winneshiek club, the Deutsche Verein, La Crosse
Lodge, No. 27, Knights of Pythias; La Crosse Lodge, No. 300, Benevolent
and Protective Order of Elks and Gateway City Camp, No. 360 Modern
Woodmen if America.

Mr. Vrchota was married on the 17th of May, 1887, to Marie Josephine
Havlicek, and five children have been born to them--all girls.

ESTEE, James Borden, manager for Wisconsin of the National Life
Insurance company of Montpelier, Vermont, was born in Milton, Rock
county, Wisconsin, February 8th, 1856. His father is a farmer in
comfortable circumstances. Of deep religious convictions, the bent of
his mind has been toward the religious and educational improvement of
his community, and naturally he has gained public confidence and
respect for his integrity and unselfish devotion to the public good.
Mr. Estee's mother's maiden name was Lucretia S. Green, a woman of
strong, practical sense, deeply attached to her children, and taking
great pride in the family standing. She was ingenious and inventive,
and had ability and desire to accumulate property.

The paternal grandfather, Azor Estee, was a Baptist clergyman, well
known in New Jersey and eastern New York. The maternal grandfather,
Winter Green, was a prosperous farmer at Berlin, New York. The Greens
trace their lineage back to colonial days.

When James B. Estee was but two years of age, his parents removed from
Milton to a farm to the north of Peoria, Illinois. Here his youth was
spent, attending the district school when it was in session, and of
which he remembers little except its inefficiency. His schooling was
supplemented and greatly aided by instruction from his father, which
was given early and late, and oftentimes when the latter

Page 181

was engaged in his daily labors, and the boy was seated conveniently
near. He had great aptitude for study, and his father an inclination to
encourage and direct it. Not being able to send his boy away to school,
Mr. Estee told his son, when sixteen years of age, that he would give
him this time provided he would earn money and pay his way at school.
This offer was accepted; and, having earned something during the
summer, he entered the Peoria normal school in September, 1872, and
graduated there from in June 1875. Immediately after his graduation he
attended a summer school of science, conducted by Prof. Wood the
botanist, and a number of other distinguished scientists. From 1875 to
'80 he was engaged in teaching, and at the same time pursued a wide and
varied range of reading and study, history and science being his
favorite topics. During the summers of these years he attended
teacher's institutes and summer schools, thus adding much to his store
of knowledge and to his equipment for teaching. At this time he began
the study of medicine under the direction of Dr. William Borden of
Milton, Wisconsin, a cousin of his mother, and was thus qualified to
enter Rush Medical College. In 1880 he attended one term at the normal
school in Valparaiso, Indiana. In the fall of that year he entered the
Normal University, Illinois, and by hard study completed the course in
one year, receiving diploma in May, 1881. While in this institution he
carried off the prize for oratory, and was chosen to represent the
school in the state oratorical contest. During the summer of 1881 he
received private instruction in Latin from Prof. Edmund J. James, now
of the Chicago University. During the two following years he pursued a
course of private study; and in the fall and winter of 1883-4 he read
law, in connection with his regular business, in the office of Chapin,
Dey & Friend, in Milwaukee. In following this rapid sketch of the
career of an ambitions student, one cannot refrain from the reflection
that while the business of insurance has gained an accomplished agent
in Mr.

[image: JAMES BORDEN ESTEE.]

Estee, scholarship and the class-room have suffered a serious loss. His
scholarly tastes, however, have not been lost in the rush of business,
but the continues, as time and opportunity offer, to make excursion
into the varied fields of literature, and to gather of their choicest
fruits.

Mr. Estee came to Wisconsin in the late summer of 1878 to assume the
principalship of the public schools of Edgerton. At the end of the year
he returned to Illinois, where he remained four years engaged in study
and teaching. Coming again to Wisconsin, he was in business in
Milwaukee for a year, and then went to Dakota, where he was engaged in
banking and had other interests for three years. Returning to Milwaukee
in 1887, he has since made it his home, and been steadily identified
with its material interests.

Mr. Estee began when a boy to earn money for his own individual
expenses and for his schooling, his first efforts being in trapping and
raising chickens, and then in teaching, in all of which he was a
pronounced success. His first salary as teacher was forty dollars per
month, and from this it increased to one

Page 182

hundred and fifteen dollars; and he received, in addition, may
testimonials from school officials as to the excellence of his work. As
an evidence of his scholarship, he passed the examination for state
teacher's certificate, both in Wisconsin and Illinois, being one of
three successful candidates out of fifty in the former state, and one
of seven out of seventy in the latter.

He has been connected, as agent, with the Equitable Life Insurance
company, the Iowa Life, and is now general manager for Wisconsin of the
National Life of Montpelier, Vt. In these positions he has had the
commendation of the companies for the ability and integrity with which
he has represented them.

M. Estee is a Republican, and during his residence in Dakota he was
actively engaged in political affairs. He was a delegate in every state
convention, and every convention of his county during his three year's
residence in the territory. He was also a member of the state central
committee and chairman of his county committee. He was clerk of the
district court of Sanborn county, and United States court commissioner
for the Second judicial district of Dakota. He wa also appointed
superintendent of census returns for Sanborn and Jerauld counties.
Since leaving Dakota he has retired from active participation in
politics, and devoted himself assiduously to business.

He is a prominent Mason, being a member of Lafayette Lodge, No. 265, F.
& A. M., of which he is a trustee; Calumet Chapter, No. 73, Wisconsin
Commandery, No. 1, K. T., Wisconsin Consistory and Tripoli Temple. He
is also a member of the Calumet club and of the Wisconsin Life
Underwriter's association, of which he was three times elected
secretary, and is now president, and has three times represented it in
the National association.

He was a member of the Baptist church when a boy, but has not been a
regular attendant in recent years. He was married, August 16th, 1883,
to Miss Addie Gillan of Colfax, Illinois, and they have three children-
-Rush G., Wanda and Lorraine.

BRADLEY, Charles Trueworth, for fifty year the senior member of the
firm of Bradley & Metcalf, the oldest and one of the largest
manufacturers of and dealers in boots and shoes in the northwest, was
born at Haverhill, Massachusetts, January 5th, 1818. Among the
emigrants to New England was Joseph Bradley, who came from London,
England, in 1635, and settled in Haverhill, where he was in command of
one of the forts at the time of the massacre there in 1697, and where
his wife was taken prisoner by the Indians, after she had bravely
participated in the defense of the settlement. She remained in
captivity two years, when she was redeemed by her husband. She
afterwards received from the general court a grant of two hundred and
fifty acres of land as recognition of her bravery and as some
compensation for here sufferings while in captivity. This land is still
owned by the family. One of the descendants of this brave couple was
Enoch Bradley, who was a large land-owner and banker. His son, Enoch
Bradley, Jr., married Abigail Hildreth, the daughter of Dr. Samuel
Hildreth, and this couple were the parents of Charles Trueworth
Bradley, who was their third son. This Enoch Bradley was man of
prominence and great public spirit. He was the founder and trustee of
Haverhill Academy, and filled many offices of honor and trust with
great acceptance. He gave at his home in Haverhill the first
celebration of the Fourth of July. On his maternal side Charles T.
Bradley was a descendant of Sir Richard Hildreth, who was born in
Woburn, England, in 1612, and came to Massachusetts in 1650. He was a
physician by profession, was a surgeon in General Gates' army and was
present at the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga. Dr. Hildreth was
afterward surgeon on board an American frigate, which was captured by
the British, and the doctor held a prisoner until the close of the war,
when the was sent home to Haverhill. The sons of this brave Englishman
were all physicians of note, and the family has long been prominent in
literary and public life in

Page 183

New England. With such brave, patriotic and capable ancestry, it is not
strange C. T. Bradley should have gained the prominence in business and
municipal affairs that he did. He was educated at the schools of his
native place and at Phillips Acadamy, Exeter, N. H. He early displayed
a taste for business, and his first essay in that line was a s clerk in
the store of Bradley & Hersey, who manufactured and sold boots and
shoes, the senior member of the firm being elder brother. Though but 18
years of age, he showed such ability for business that he was soon
given charge of the store, the proprietors attending to the
manufacturing. Two years later he became an employe of the firm of
Hersey & Whittier, and while with this firm, made the acquaintance of
Spofford & Tileston of New York City, and, in March, 1839, went to
their employ. In October following the firm sent him to New Orleans to
take charge of their business in that city, which he managed with
consummate skill, and with such fidelity that he gained the firm's
confidence to the extent that he often had in his possession the firm's
money to the amount of a hundred thousand dollars, for which they had
no security beyond his honor. Mr. Bradley returned to New York in 1840,
and in February, 1843, associated himself with W. H. Metcalf, also in
the employ of Spofford & Tileston, and the firm of Bradley & Metcalf
began business in Milwaukee, Mr. Tileston furnishing the new firm with
a letter of credit for nearly ten times their capital. Thus began a
business that prospered continuously from the start, and before the
firm was dissolved by death it was the oldest in the United States
conducted without a change. One of the secrets of the success of the
firm was the fact that it at once established a reputation for making
the best boots and shoes in the market. Both Mr. Bradley and Mr.
Metcalf early gained the entire confidence and respect of all who knew
them, whether personally or by reputation, and this confidence was
never lost or shaken. Such a character is a capital which financial
panics

[image: CHARLES TRUEWORTH BRADLEY.]

will never disturb. In all his long and prosperous career he was the
head and director of his extensive business, familiar with all its
departments; and, while he had capable and trustworthy men in his
employ, he never left its management wholly in their hands. Although
the extensive business of this firm would have bee considered more than
enough for the oversight and management of one man, his care and
attention were not wholly absorbed by it. He was president of the
Milwaukee National bank for more than twenty years, and to his
presidency was due in large measure the public confidence which it
acquired and long maintained. He was also one of the commissioners of
the Milwaukee public debt for many years; and no man was more highly
esteemed in business circles than he.

Mr. Bradley and Mr. Metcalf, his partner, gave to the city statue of
the first settler of Milwaukee, Juneau, which stands in Juneau park;
and in other ways he contributed much to the improvement and adornment
of the city, and was ever a liberal patron of art in all its various
forms. Among his sources of

Page 184

recreation was a farm of a section of land near the city, which he had
brought to a high state of cultivation, and where he raised fine stock,
and thus furnished an object lesson in good farming.

He gave the organ, costing ten thousand dollars, to St. Paul's church,
and was a liberal contributor to its building and general funds.

On the 15th of November, 1851, Mr. Bradley was married to Miss Walker
of Worcester, Mass., who died in 1887. He was married a second time, on
the 7th of August, 1888, to Miss Braun of Sheboygan, who survives him.
There were no children from either marriage. His home was one of social
refinement and hospitality. Mr. Bradley died in 1893, in the seventy-
sixth year of his age and the fiftieth of his business firm. Milwaukee
has had few, if any, business men whose memory will be longer of more
warmly cherished than that of Charles T. Bradley.

END PART 6