Lacrosse-Pierce County WI Archives Biographies.....Taylor, Lute A. September 14, 1834 - November 11, 1873
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Author: Unknown

LUTE A. TAYLOR was for some years a resident of La Crosse. He was one of the 
founders and the editor-in-chief of the La Crosse Daily and Weekly "Leader", 
afterward consolidated with the "Republican", and issued as the "Republican 
and Leader". Mr. Taylor was born in the village of Norfolk, St. Lawrence Co., 
N. Y., on the 14th of September, 1834. His father, Adolphus Taylor, was a 
prominent Congregational minister, who died when Lute was but 8 years of age, 
leaving a wife and five children, entirely unprovided with means of support. 
Thus Lute, at a very early age, was thrown upon his own resources. At 12 years 
of age, he went to live on a farm with a brother-in-law in the adjoining town 
of Madrid. From this time until the fall of 1856, when he removed to the West, 
he was engaged at work on a farm or teaching school, when he became old 
enough, in the summers, and attending school during the winter months. He 
received a thorough common school education, and also attended the academies 
at Potsdam, N. Y., and at North Bridgewater, Mass. He was always a prominent 
member of the lyceums and literary societies connected with the schools which 
he attended; wrote occasional articles for the village newspapers, and early 
attained a marked local reputation for his fine literary tastes and 
acquirements. In the fall of 1856, he moved to River Falls, Pierce Co., Wis., 
and on the following June, in company with his younger brother, Horace A. 
Taylor, he established and issued the first number of the River 
Falls "Journal". Two years later, his brother retired from the paper, and in 
the spring of 1861, Lute removed his printing office to Prescott, Wis., where 
he published the Prescott "Journal" until 1869. In August, 1869, he removed to 
La Crosse, and became one of the publishers and the editor-in-chief of the La 
Crosse "Leader", which position he filled until a short time prior to his 
death. He retired from journalism with a view of entering the lecture-field, 
and at the time of his death he had a new humorous lecture partially written, 
and had made several engagements to deliver it. When the bureau of Internal 
Revenue was organized, Mr. Taylor was appointed Assistant Assessor for several 
northwestern counties, and shortly after he was promoted to the assessorship 
of the Sixth Congressional District of Wisconsin. This office he held until 
its abolition in 1873. When La Crosse was designated as a port of entry, Mr. 
Taylor was appointed Surveyor of the port, which office he was filling at the 
time of his death. Mr. Taylor died at his home in La Crosse, after a brief 
illness, of congestion of the lungs, on the 11th day of November, 1873. No 
citizen of La Crosse, and perhaps none in Wisconsin, was more widely known or 
universally beloved than Lute A. Taylor. His reputation as a brilliant 
essayist upon social topics, a genial humorist, and a vigorous and convincing 
political writer, was wide-spread, reaching far beyond the circulation of the 
influential journals with which he had been connected. All who knew him were 
his friends, and many had learned to love him who had never seen his kindly 
face. Once seen, he was never forgotten. Men and women in all ranks of life 
were proud to be counted as his friends. He was a welcome guest in every 
social circle. He carried sunshine and good cheer wherever he went. "His 
presence was a festival." He was a lover of his kind - a student of men. The 
demands of business nor the pressing responsibilities of public office could 
not check or divert his interest in the welfare and improvement of those 
around him. He possessed the kindliest sentiment and the broadest charity. His 
humanity was unbounded and overflowing. No lines of party, sect or condition 
circumscribed his sympathies. His heart and his purse were open to every tale 
of distress. His hand was ready and his pen inspired to aid every promise of 
gentler policies, of purer morals, and of wider benevolence. He struggled, 
only those who enjoyed his intimate companionship knew how manfully, to live 
on the place of his own noble ideal, and when he fell, as fall he sometimes 
did, below his aspiration, the bitter pangs and galling bitterness of the 
disappointment were bravely endured in his own uncomplaining breast. Thought 
his feet went sometimes astray, his heart was right, and the constant desire 
of his life was to attain noble ends. Lute Taylor was a natural man. No 
conceit or affectation marred the charm of his presence. He was old-fashioned 
in his ways - frank, simple, sincere. He was social in a pre-eminent degree. 
He had a sympathetic soul - a personal magnetism that drew all to him. He was 
above bitterness toward his opponents, was never the slave of party, nor gave 
unquestioned sanction to measures, no matter how popular, until satisfied of 
their soundness. He was kind, charitable, "generous to a fault." His heart was 
as big as his brain. He had no unworthy ambitions nor shallow friendships. His 
buoyant spirits, good natures, charity and hopefulness pervaded the whole 
circle of his influence. In the social circle, and in the more intimate 
companionship of friends, his surpassing wit, kindly humor and cordial 
manners, gave him an easy pre-eminence. Lute Taylor was distinguished for his 
fine literary abilities, no less than for his charming social characteristics 
and generous qualities of mind and heart. He stood in the very front rank of 
journalists and writers. He was distinguished by keen wit, a bright and 
vigorous style, and great range of subjects. He was a poet by nature and 
sympathy, although he seldom wrote verses; a philosopher who always looked 
upon the bright side of human nature; a humorist whose sarcasm was cutting but 
not unkind; a man of real genius without egotism. His sayings glowed with a 
freshness of novelty and originality. His pen was tipped with the living fire 
of an inspiration born of true genius and humor. No one appreciated more fully 
the limitations of mirth - the keenness of ridicule - the sharp point of 
satire, or the more powerful weapon of truth presented in attractive forms. As 
a journalist, he lacked only the opportunity to have won for himself a name 
second to none in the land. He was a genuine literary artist, and many of his 
paragraphs were as perfect as pearls. The most exquisite imagery was his, the 
profoundest philosophy, the keenest wit, the noblest sentiment, the drollest 
humor, all were his. When in his richest moods, his sayings were like a 
benediction. He was quick of apprehension, ready at repartee, fertile in 
imagination. Many of his brightest gems became current coins in the best 
newspaper literature of the day. He was greater than his opportunities. It is 
not just to judge him simply by what he did, but rather by what he was able to 
do. He was never fully brought into action. He gave sure signs of great 
things. What he really accomplished was but a fragment and a prophecy of what 
he might have wrought out under more favorable surroundings. His day closed 
before noon. Much of the morning was spent in careless play, and the later 
hours in which sterner work was to be done never came to him. In his early 
death, La Crosse lost one of her most eminent and beloved citizens, his 
profession one of its brightest minds, and humanity everywhere a generous, 
loving and hopeful friend.

Additional Comments:
From History of La Crosse County, Wisconsin, 1881, p. 799 - 800.

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