Lacrosse-Walworth County WI Archives Biographies.....Edwards, George December 1, 1818 - 
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Roxanne Munns rmunns@uwalumni.com April 12, 2007, 7:23 pm

Author: Unknown

GEORGE EDWARDS, lumberman, was born Dec. 1, 1818, at Windsor, Broome Co., N. 
Y. Lived there three years, when his parents removed to Chenango Co., N. Y., 
he being numbered with their household valuables. Here he remained until he 
was 18 years of age, when he started for the West, stopping on the Lodi 
Plains, near Ann Arbor, Mich., where he worked for a short time on a farm. In 
the fall of that year, he traveled on foot all the way from Detroit, Mich., to 
East Troy, Wis., where he worked on a farm for Augustus Smith, at $12 per 
month. In 1839, he made a purchase of a farm of 200 acres, by borrowing money. 
He then worked out by the month, day or job, for two or three years, and 
finally succeeded in building himself a little shanty and purchasing a yoke of 
oxen, when he began the cultivation of his own land. In the spring, he was 
taken sick with inflammatory rheumtism, all alone in his shanty, but was soon 
discovered and sent to East Troy, where his brother resided. He was sick all 
summer with the rheumatism, and in the fall had a severe siege of the bilious 
fever which came nearly proving fatal. His parents came from New York and took 
care of him. While sick, he sold his farm for $1,000. After again gaining his 
health he opened a grocery store in the town of East Troy, and while in this 
returned to his native home in New York, and married Electa S. Edwards. He 
then carried on the grocery business until his health again failed him, when 
he sold out his stock of groceries, and with his wife and one child went to 
Texas, where he remained through a winter, and in the spring returned to East 
Troy. In 1853, he came overland, with his brother, to La Crosse Co., and 
purchased 320 acres of land, near West Salem. He returned to East Troy in the 
fall, remaining there through the winter and in 1854, again came to La Crosse, 
purchased two city lots of C. K. Lord, where he now lives on Sixth street, 
together with property on Front street, which he purchased from F. M. Rublee, 
and in the spring of 1855, moved his wife and family to La Crosse, and during 
that year formed a partnership with B. P. Hart in the hardware business. In 
March, 1859, their store and stock of goods were entirely consumed by fire. 
Subsequently he entered the hardware business alone, following it for three 
years, and was afterward in the same business with Sylvester & Shepherd, and 
then with Chris F. Scharpf, and finally sold and went into the lumber and 
wheat business with James Vincent, remaining with him about six years, and has 
since been in the logging and lumber business, and is the owner of a 
considerable amount of pine lands.

Additional Comments:
From History of La Crosse County, Wisconsin, 1881, p. 750 - 751.
Picture from History of La Crosse County, Wisconsin, 1881, p. 415.

Photo: http://www.usgwarchives.net/wi/lacrosse/photos/bios/edwards249nbs.jpg

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