BIOGRAPHIES:  Hon. Vivus Wright DORWIN, Durand, Pepin Co., WI

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Submitted by Nance Sampson, Pepin Co. Archives File Manager on 12 January 2004
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**Posted for informational purposes only - submitter is not related to the
subject of this biography and has no further information.

Hon. Vivus Wright Dorwin, farmer and miller, P. O. Durand, was born at 
Champion, Jefferson county, N. Y., January 15, 1832, and is a son of William 
and Elizabeth (Wright) Dorwin.  The Dorwin family in America are descended from 
two brothers, Ephraim and Samuel, who came from England and settled in 
Connecticut about 1700.  Samuel Dorwin had ten sons and four daughters.  Amos, 
the youngest and grandfather of our subject, died at Lansboro, Mass., in 1798. 
He had seven children of whom William was the third.  After his death his widow, 
Hannah (Meade) Dorwin, married Mr. Kent, by whom she also had three children.  
William Dorwin was born at Lansboro, March 17, 1787.  He learned the blacksmith 
trade, and when twenty years of age went to Champion, where he was married and 
had three sons:  Sylvan A., William G. and Vivus W.  Mrs. Elizabeth Dorwin's 
father was an officer in the Continental army, and William Dorwin served in the 
war of 1812.  Mrs. Dorwin died in April, 1843.  Her husband afterward married 
Polly Sherwood, who died in 1859, while Mr. Dorwin's death occurred August 8, 
1873.

The subject of this sketch attended the common and a select school, and began 
teaching at seventeen.  He married, March 15, 1854, Helen, daughter of William 
and Mariette Van Hoesen.  Eleven children blessed this union:  William V., 
Helen I. (Mrs. A. Odell), Harriet M. (Mrs. S. Brown), Marcellus, John, Lillian 
(Mrs. William Averill), Edward S., Laura, Ella C., Mary and Roscoe L.  Soon 
after his marriage Mr. Dorwin removed to Jackson township, Adams county, Wis., 
and in 1856 came to Durand township, bringing his family and household goods in 
wagons drawn by oxen.  A few settlers had already located here and a few fields 
of wheat had been sown, but the nearest grist-mill was at River Falls.  Realizing 
the future as well as the present demand, Mr. Dorwin purchased the mill on Bear 
creek and, as soon as practicable, began the erection of a mill.  He bought his 
machinery in Milwaukee, and it was shipped to Alma by way of Chicago and Dunleith, 
Ill., then drawn by ox teams.  The machinery arrived late in the fall of 1856, and 
the mill was put in operation the following July.  Although the dam has several 
times been carried away by high water, and the mill once destroyed by fire, the 
business is still extensively carried on by the V. W. Dorwin Milling Company.  
The family lived in a tent until a log house could be erected.  A few feet from 
the door a well was dug, and in the sand thrown therefrom the juvenile Dorwins 
found abundant material for sport and amusement.  After discovering the tracks 
of a huge bear in this sand, however, Mrs. Dorwin kept an anxious and watchful 
eye upon her offspring.

In 1862 Mr. Dorwin organized Co. G., Twenty-fifth Wisconsin volunteers, and was 
commissioned captain thereof.  The company was formed chiefly of men in Pepin and 
Buffalo counties.  They were first sent against the Indians in Minnesota, and later 
were stationed at Vicksburg and on the Yazoo river.  In September, 1863, Mr. Dorwin 
was obliged to resign, on account of sickness which nearly cost him his life.  In 
1869 he purchased a farm, and in 1872 removed thither, where he has since resided.  
He owns over 400 acres of land, and is extensively engaged in dairying and breeding 
Red Polled cattle.  In 1872 he built a cheese factory near the mill, and in 1891 
another on his farm.  In 1865 he built a carding-mill in connection with the grist 
mill.  In politics he is a stanch republican, and has served as chairman of the 
board of Durand township (which included the city of Durand until 1887) for nineteen 
years, and has been four times elected to the assembly.  He is a member of the 
G. A. R., and a citizen whose example and influence are felt far and near.

-Transcribed from the "Historical and Biographical Album of the Chippewa Valley
Wisconsin, 1891-2," pages 462 & 463


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