Rock County, Wisconsin - Chapter 5, 1879 (part 3 of 3)

From early manhood to the last year of his life, Mr. Tilton was an uncompromising foe to intemperance. He was a powerful advocate of total abstinence, and, by his speeches, sermons and writings, did much good for the cause in, which he toolc so deep an interest. In 1875. he w:is nominateJ for Governor of the State by the Prohibitionist, but he declined the honor, as he did not believe in coupling the temperance question with politics; and again, he could not think that any substantial good could come ofsnoh a political movement.

During the thirty-five years Mr. Tilton was connected witli the ministry, he held a high place in the esteem of his brethren. He was not only an indefatigable worker, and intensely in earnest in doing the work of his JIaster, but in church discipline and government, on all questions of finance and those of a leg il character, his opinions were almost regarded as law; and heuce, by virtue of his zeal, his business capadity and his executive ability, he became one of the first men in the Conference. His death was a severe loss to the church, as well as to the community in which he was known and honored. The afflicted family consists of a wife, two sons - Henry A., of Chicago, and Howard W., city editor of the Gasetle - nnil a daughter, Jennie.

the son of Gen. Joseph Whiton, of Massachusetts, a soldier of the Revolution and of the war of 1812, and was born at South Lee, Berkshire Co., Mass., ou the 2d of June, 1805. During the first thirty years of his life, he continued to reside in his native town, whence he at length removed to the then Territory of Wisconsin to take part in the great and glorious battle of life in that new field of development - the great West. He settled there when the present site of Janesville and its neighborhood was almost a wilderness, and lived for some time the life of a pioneer in a cabin on the broad prairie. He was elected a member of the House of Representatives for the first session of the legislative assembly at Madison. At the next session, he was elected Speaker of the House. During those sessions, he was a frequent participant in debate, and took an active part in enacting the first Territorial code. Up to that time, the laws of Wisconsin consisted of the Territorial statutes of Michigan, and the laws of the Wisconsin Legislature, passed at the sessions at, Belmont and Burlington. The Revised Statutes which became of force on the 4th of July, 1839, were published under his supervision. In 1847, he was a member of the Constitutional Convention which framed the Constitution of the State. On the organization of the State Government in 1848, he was elected a Circuit Judge, and, under the then system, became a Judge of the Supreme Court. He occupied this position until 1853, when the "separate Supreme Court" was established, when he was elected Chief Justice, and re-elected in 1857, and' continued to hold the oflBce until he was compelled to leave it by the disease of which he died.

Chief Justice Whiton was thoroughly identified with almost every prominent event in the history of Wisconsin, both as a Territory and as a State. Throughout the whole period of his residence in Wisconsin, Jhis life was a public life, and he filled political and judicial stations successively with such ability and integrity that the people exalted him from place to place, until he had received the highest honors in their gift ; and the positions with which he was hbnored were ennobled by the lustre of his conduct and character. Amid all the conflicts of party - both in the means by which he attained and the manner in which he discharged the duties of ofi&ce - the purity of his character was ever unsullied by the slightest breath of reproach, or oven suspicion. In the early part of the year 1859, his health began to fail, and it became'manifest to his associates upon the bench that his system was suffering from some malady which, it was hoped, would be but temporary in its effects, and would yield to the invigorating influences of relaxation and home exercises, where the cares and anxieties of official responsibility would not intrude ; accordingly, his associates upon the bench, after much persuasion, induced him to retire, as all hoped, for a short season only, in order to recruit his energies for the approaching term, as well as to complete the unfinished former business still remaining. He left the bench, as was supposed, in the confident expectation of returning to, it again after a short respite at home. Insidious disease, however, had obtained too strong and deep a hold in his system, and about n6on on the 12th of April, 1859, he died at his residence in Janesville, in the house of his own construction, loved and mourned as to few men it has been vouchsafed to be loved and mourned.

Among those officially and professionally connected with him, as well as among his private circle, his death called forth the deepest expressions of sincere regret and sorrow. At meetings of the bar of the Supreme Court and of the Milwaukee bar, as well as those held at the county seats of the several counties of the State, resolutions were adopted indicative of the great general loss felt by the people, as well as the .exalted estimation in which the deceased Judge was most deservedly held by bench and bar. The President of the Milwaukee bar, in the course of a touching tribute to his virtues and ability, said of him : " Were I to name any one sphere of action in his life in which he was most eminently distinguished, and for which he had a peculiar adaptation, I should say it was as a legislator. His varied information, strict integrity, eminent conservatism and finely balanced mind all combined to make him a ready debater and a high-minded and patriotic legislator. But it is useless to name any one sphere when all the positions he ever occupied were filled so ably and perfectly." And another of his intimate associates said: '" On this melancholy occasion, I can hardly trust myself to speak. For years, Judge Whiton has been to me, as it were, an elder brothei*. Our relations have been so harmonious, so uniformly genial, so entirely fraternal, that we have scarcely thought of official relation. During our long association, in deliberation upon matters of the gravest concernment, while discussion has been most free and unrestrained, never an unkind word, nay, not even a petulant expression, has been uttered. All through his official career, he preserved a strictness of propriety which can scarcely be equaled, a conscientiousness which never wavered, a depth of thought and comprehensiveness of the subject-matter ever present, commanding witliout force, controlling without intrusion, clear and unassuming in his high office, great when he least thought of greatness, but great only wherein man can be truly great - because he was wise and good."

was born in Vermont in 1805. His parents removed to the State of New York when he was ten years old, and settled in Monroe County, near Rochester. In that vicinity, he grew to miinhood, devoting himself chiefly, after sixteen years of age, first to teaching and then to mercantile pursuits. In the autumn of 1841, several years after his marriage, he removed with his family to Oberlin, Ohio, where, for five years, he devoted himself assiduously to study, with the manly purpose of supplying, as far as possible, the deficiencies of early education. Ill health obliged him to relinquish his plan of completing his college course, after he had entered the junior year, and he removed to Wisconsin, where he lived fourteen years, carrying on a large farm near Janesville, besides holding several important civil offices at various times, and being prominently connected with the horticultural and agricultural interests of the State.

Mr. Willard came to Wisconsin in 1846, and located some two miles below Janesville, on the east side of Rock River, where he purchased three hundred and forty acres of wild land, upon which he made practical demonstrations of his theories of agriculture. ' As early as 1850, though the country was then quite new, he succeeded by unwearied and continued efforts, in organizing the Rock County "Agricultural Society and Mechanics' Institute," of which he was elected President ; and by liberal contributions of both time and money he succeeded, beyond the expectations of its most sanguine friends, in placing the Society on a permanent basis. Before this Society, in 1853, he, as its President, delivered an able address, which was published in the " Volume of Transactions of the Wisconsin Agricultural Society" for that year.

His success and the ability and zeal he manifested in the interests of agriculture soon pointed him out as a fit person to take a prominent position in the management of the affairs of the State Agricultural Society, and, in the year 1857, he was elected its President, which position he filled with much credit to himself, and to the entire satisfaction of the Society and the people of the State. His efibrts for the promotion of the welfare and usefulness of the Society, were most earnest and devoted, and must be ever gratefully remembered by all true friends of agriculture throughout the State.

In 1859, he changed his residence to Evanston, 111., on account of the superior advantages it offered for the education of his children, and of its proximity to Chicago, where he contemplated entering into business. " I shall never live elsewhere," he said, soon after locating there, " no place ever suited me so well as this."

In the autumn of 1865, he withdrew from the banking-house of Preston, Willard & Kean (with which he had been for several years connected), his health, which had always been delicate, no longer permitting him to engage in business. But his interest in the village, and especially in the Methodist Church, was more manifest than before, now that he was released from absorbing occupations of a personal character.

But for one year he has been missed from his accustomed place in the church and in the social meetings, which no one filled more regularly than he, when it was possible. For one year his feeble frame has endured untold pain, by chill and fever, night-sweats, cough, and all the dreadful symptoms of that most terrible disease, consumption. It crept up slowly, allowing him a daily respite at the first, attacking him with great violence in the early months of summer, pursuing him when he left his home on the lake shore, as the chilly winds of autumn began to blow, and went to his friends at the East, in the old familiar places, hoping much from change of air and scene, confining him constantly to his bed for four months, wasting him to a mere skeleton, and, finally, in untold suffering, wresting away his last faint breath - the earthly side. Not so stands the record, thank God ! upon the heavenly side. Almost from the first, he thought this would be his last illness, and quietly, diligently and wisely proceeded to arrange his earthly affairs. No item, however minute, seemed to escape him. Whatever was of the least importance to his family, whatever friendship or acquaintance, or any of his relations in life demanded or even suggested, ever so faintly, was done by him.

He did not need newly to attune his mind to harmony with the will of God, no matter where it might lead him, through what depths soever of pain and abnegation. But in those months of suffering, he enjoyed a consciousnes.s 0^ the presence of Ms Savior ; consolations from the Holy Spirit ; views of the glory soon to be revealed, such as no pen may describe, no gratitude of ours may equal.

The death of Mr. Willard occurred in the autumn of 1867, and, though for some time anticipated by those who knew his condition, nevertheless, to a large number of his personal friends in the State, it came as a sudden shock.

As a citizen and neighbor, Mr. Willard was a noble specimen of a Christian gentleman. He was honored, for his unwavering adhesion to principle and duty, and for his zeal and liberality in the promotion of all worthy objects, while the graces of his personal character, and his amiable disposition, won for him the love of his fellow-citizens.

The social attentions it was his pleasure always to extend to those who visited him there were but the generous expressions of his characteristic hospitality. His conversation was ever of an exalted character, pure and enriched, with useful and varied information derived alike from books, from men, and from experience and observation, marked also by originality of thought, yet, with an absence of self-assertion or thoughtless or unkind words, that might afflict or wound.

Though his career was characterized by no remarkable achievement, his life was, nevertheless, remarkable for its purity and for its consecration to the best interests of his family and of his fellow-men. ,