Elkhorn City

Elkhorn City

John Starr Rockwell was in 1836 a clerk in the government's newly established land office at Milwaukee. He learned there, officially and extraofficially, something of use to himself and to his brother Le Grand, then in his twenty -fifth year, who had come from Butternuts, Xew York, with a fair amount of means, to look well about him for a suitable village site. The brothers, with Horace Coleman, formed a partnership for the settlement of a county seat. In February, 1837, Le Grand and Air. Coleman left Milwaukee, but not in quest of mill-site, lakeside, or other special gift of nature to man. They knew by common report that good land could be found in nearly every section of southeastern Wisconsin, and the immediate object of their search was a township corner-stake. Though as yet unnamed and unorganized. Walworth count)- was already more than a bare possibility as to its position, form, and dimensions; for, men of many political and speculative devices gathered at Milwaukee in the earliest existence of the territory of Wisconsin.

These two speculative geometers found the embryo county's centre of gravity in a bit of bog, at the meeting-point of four townships. Then they returned for materials, tools, and supplies for settlement. Mr. Coleman's faith in the enterprise grew lukewarm and he withdrew from it. and soon appeared at Spring Prairie. Mr. Rockwell formed another partnership quite readily, and on February -'7th was at the pivotal stake again, lie came for himself and brother; Milo Edwin Bradley for his father. Daniel Edwin; Albert Ogden for Lewis John Higby, who afterward bought in section g of Richmond. \t Spring Prairie they induced Hollis Latham, who had lieen there a few weeks, to go with them The company pre-empted four quartersections and built a cabin in the * ieneva quarter. Mr. Latham chose his home in the same quarter, while Rockwell and Ogden made theirs in the Delavan quarter. The company yielded its claim to the Sugar Greek quarter in [839, when the county commissioners selected a quarter-section for the county's buildings,

It was thought that until it should be needed for county-seal and metropolitan use- the company's square mile, as a greal dairy-farm, would soon bring fair returns for the money, work, and hope invested. In this these men were too far-sighted by forty years; but their city is now at the centre of one of the leading dairying counties of the state, and is a shipping-point for a much larger area than the company's square mile. In May a framed house was built of Geneva-sawn oak, eighteen feet by thirty feet, one and one-half stories high. During court terms this became a boarding house, but not until Mi- Latham had married Daniel E. Bradley's daughter. Mrs. Lemira Lewis. The settlement of the proposed county-seat was in a special way confirmed at the new house by the birth of Le Grand Latham. January 4. 1839. But the young city had not been childless. Mrs. Latham had a daughter of her first marriage, Elizabeth Ann Lewis ( 1 828-1888). who in 1848 married Phineas C. (1824-1887). son of Andrew Gilbert and Calmy Butler. Henry, youngest of the large family of Daniel E. Bradley and Betsey Sturges, was a year or two older than his niece. Milo E. Bradley and wife Nancy had seven children, though not all of them as yet born. This family soon settled in section 1 of Geneva, and some years later moved to La Crosse county.

Colonel Phoenix, crossing the prairie southeast of the Rockwell settlement, had found a pair of antlers which he hung on a tree to mark a point in his trail between Spring Prairie and Delavan. This slight circumstance soon named the prairie, the village, and the northwestern quarter of the county. This extension of the name sometimes makes it difficult or impossible to determine whether persons named in other than land records were or were not of the village.

In 1838 Sheldon Walling (1705-1875) and wife, Anna Peets (1798- [875), came from western Xew York to section 7 of Geneva. The next year Mr. Walling, having become sheriff, moved into the village, where he and his sons Fred and George went into retail business. The father was a tanner. In 1839 Edward Elderkin and Horatio S. Winsor came to practice law. Elderkin bought a farm in the south half of the Geneva section, hi 1840 Moses Bartlett, William Coulson, John- Hall, Henry II. Hartson. Hudson Van Brunt, and George Watson came, bul nol all of them to leave of themselves a clear memory. In 1841 Richard Beals 1 17N1 1S551 and son Isaac F. ( 1814-1891 l, Geoi Gale, Phineas M. Johnson, Levi Lee. Zenas Ogden: in 1842, Booth B. Davis and James O. Eaton: in 1843 Adelaide C Beardslev. Dexter Dewing and son Geprge, Sanford and William ( ). Garfield, William E Gregory, Charles N. Meigs Capt. George and Dr. George II. Young, were among the arrivals. Some of these men owned land in adjoining towns. Others of the earlier villagers were Philo Baird, Curtis Bellows, Lewis S. Bemis. Reuben R. Brown, Alexander S. Brown, Zophar Chittenden, Russell Crandall, lohn Cromlev, Anthonv Delap, Eli K. Frost, John Gillespie,

Peter Colder, Xoah Harriman, David Hartson, Horace N. Hay, Dr. Samuel W. Henderson, Edwin Hodges, George Humphrey, Samuel Mallory, John Matheson, Job O. Matteson, Orrin Maxham, Lot Mayo and sons Andrew and Samuel, Urban D. Meacham, Alonzo Piatt, Davis Reed, Wyman Spooner, William L. Stowe, Levi Thomas, Samuel and James L. Tubbs, Dr. Eleazar and Francis A. Utter, Lucius Wilmot, Edward Winne.

Lewis Shepard Bemis (1819-1890), sun of Allen Bemis and Edna Shepard. came from Niagara county. Xew York, with wife Olivia ( 1825- 1904). daughter of Dexter Dewing. About 1850 he became landlord of the Exchange Hotel, and after 1857 went into like business at Milwaukee.

Zophar Chittenden (1823-1894) came from Ohio, a carpenter and joiner, and built several of the better houses of the time, in the village and for prosperous farmers. He left after 1857 and died at Kalamazoo.

John Cromley ( 1 822-1899) was a master shoemaker. He made the overland trip to California and return, and his general usefulness and comradelike quality shown in the expedition and at the mines were gratefully appreciated by his companions. At home, too, he was one of the truest and kindest of men.

Anthony Delap ( [813-1896) was a blacksmith, with other capabilities. He built a good house, which be sold to Levi Thomas and then passed over to East Delavan neighborhood.

James O. Eaton married January 1, [843, Mary Miranda Dwinnell, a sister of the pioneer-preacher-chronicler of Lafayette. He opened one of the earliest general stores in the village.

Sanford Garfield ( [793-1872), son of Solomon, Jr.. was a cousin of President Garfield's father, lie married Clarissa Oakley (1795-1883). He was a shoemaker, and came here from Otsego by way of Chautauqua county.

William Oakley Garfield 1 [819-1888) was born in Vermont; learned his lather's calling - shoe-making and came with him in 1842. [lis wife, Fidelia ( 1822-11)10 ). was a daughter of Dexter Dewing.

William E. Gregory came with more than average means, bought a farm in the Lafayette quarter, and died soon afterward. His son, William Eliot Gregory, about [857 went to Galveston, where he was for several years a successful business man. with some railway interests. Mis occasional return was welcomed by old friends. I Ms younger son, \s.qih. remained here till his death, about [875.

Xoah Harriman (1805-1903), born in Vermont, bought a farm nearb) in Lafavette, and preached as a licensed exhorter. His wife was Lucinda Davis (1797- 1 891).

Horace Noble Hay was for a few years Otis Preston's partner in retail business. Air. Preston mentioned him as one who gave much attention to his dress and personal appearance. He owned a farm in Lafayette. In 1852 he started for California, and died of yellow fever, at sea, on his way out. His wife was Margaret Fuller.

Dr. Samuel Wirt Henderson (1817-1857). son of Dr. John M. Henderson's first wife. Rebecca, daughter of Samuel Wirt, was born at Willoughby, Ohio. He married Rebecca, daughter of Nathan Hicks. He was accounted a skillful physician and surgeon A jump from a wagon to hard ground resulted in inflammation of the bowels and in death after a week of pain. He understood his case from the first.

John Matheson (1820-1895), son of John and Jessie, was born in one of the joint counties of Ross and Cromarty, Scotland ; apprenticed to a tailor at Inverness; came to Lafayette in 1840; opened a shop and store at Elkhorn; married Loretta (1827-1903), daughter of Rev. Luther Lee.

William Lyman Stow e I 1821-1891 ) was born at Stowe. northeastern Ohio. He married Lavina. daughter of Philip and Mary Mink, of Walworth, in 1851. He was a cabinet-maker and house-joiner.

Samuel Tubbs (died in 1861) and wife. Polly Frost (1785- 1875), were natives of Connecticut who settled at Augusta, New York, and lived a short time at Chagrin Falls, Ohio. A son. Isaac P., died at Elkhorn in 1859, aged fifty. A daughter. Martha, wife of Nicholas George Bowers, and two daughters were successively wives of Lot Mayo. Mrs. Tubbs was nearl) related to Alvah J. and Eli K. Frost.

Edward Winne ( [815-1886) was son of a rich man of Albany, and was at once a business man (in lumber and grain) at Elkhorn and a farmer of section 4. Geneva. The hard times of 1X57 sent him to northeastern Iowa. He died at Bozeman, Montana. ' His wife, Lydia Maria Chapman, was married November 6, 1844; died at Waverly, Iowa, in [892. Mr. Winne's father left to him his hooks, and for many years these constituted the large 1 private library at Elkhorn.

Having chosen his villagi te settled on it. and named it from Colonel Phoenix's trail-mark, and a vote of the county in [838 (confirmed by leg lative act) having made it the county-seat. Mr. Rockwell's next great care was to lav out a few streets ahout the park and set < >ff tin I blocks into home lots. As at first platted the village was wholly on the county's quarter-section. Edward Xorris, the county surveyor, laid out the streets, blocks and lots, and Mr. Rockwell was appointed county agent for sale of lots. There were five parallel streets, running northward and southward. Beginning with East street, on the section line, the others are Washington, Wisconsin, Broad and Church. Beginning near the intersecting section line, the streets running from east to west are named Park (then called South), Walworth, Court, Jefferson, and North. Court, Wisconsin, Walworth, and Church streets bound the park, which overlies or cuts in twain Broad street. All these and the newer streets are four rods wide, except Walworth and Broad, which are six rods wide. These two streets were designed for business uses, but a hotel built at Wisconsin and Walworth streets diverted business from Broad street. No alleys were considered in the original plat nor in the several additions.

Rockwell's first addition enlarged the village by a narrow tier of blocks eastward, and by a row of blocks southward, to Rockwell street. After 1854, when coming railways filled men's minds by day with hopes and their dreams by night with visions of cities rising like exhalations, bringing wealth in front-foot values to each lucky lot owner, Colonel Elderkin laid out his addition southeastwardly and gave Jackson, Wright and Frank streets to the village map. Arm ild's addition, eastward, was laid out by the heirs of Giles Thompson Arnold of Victor, New York, who had bought a quarter section and had soon afterward died. Levi Lee's addition and the smaller Edwin Hodges addition, westward, lay within the area of village growth. Booth B. Davis' addition, northward, gave a few more streets and avenues, and grew somewhat more slowly into valuable lots. The rather premature Squire Stanford and Heman II. Harrison additions lie northwestward and are but thinly settled, and much like' them, except as to Walworth street, is the farther westward Devendorf, Mallory and Spencer addition. Dr. Devendorf was of Delavan. Samuel Mallory was a substantial and reputable citizen, but not a real-estate "boomer." David I'. Spencer became too well known to bankers and depositors in three states, lie was at Elkhorn less than two years. Finally, there were the abortive Centralia and Byzantium additions, the first far to eastward, the other across the railway, southward. Both were the unsubstantial creations id" Otis Preston's restless mind

A village straggling into four sections, in as mam towns, soon found it inconvenient to divide its little squad of voters among four polling-places on election days and its yearly accounts with the county government equally troublesome at the record offices. A legislative act of February 27, 1S40.

relieved this situation by creating a new town from section 1 of Delavan, section 6 of Geneva, section 31 of Lafayette, and section 36 of Elkhorn. As the new town received the name of its village, the older Elkhorn became Sugar Creek. In 1856 the village was chartered and its limits made coextensive with those of the town, the whole constituting also one school district. In 1897 a general law made Elkhorn a city of the fourth class, its population being then above fifteen hundred and below ten thousand. With tin- last change disappeared the time-honored April town meeting, which regulated the corporate revenue and outlay by viva voce vote of electors present at the hour appointed; and with it went the Jul}- school meeting, which in similar purely democratic way disposed yearly of the affairs of the village considered as a school district. The change of four villages of tins county to cities has brought more power to the local administrations, broader and more efficient systems of public improvements, and, of course, greater cost to taxpayers.

The city of Elkhorn lies above sea-level, at the railway station 996 feet, at the court-house 1,031 feet, at points in the farthest northwest quarter 1,038 feet. It was for long supposed and said that it is on the highest ground in the county, which is nearly true, but not so nearly as to warrant the slight misstatement. Sharon and Walworth villages are nearly as high and the Yerkes Observatory is on ground higher by twelve feet. The point in the short high ridge of section 19, Geneva, is about one hundred feet higher than any part of Elkhorn. The rise from the station northward to Park street is of nearly uniform slope. The greater part of the city is built on practically level ground. The surface of the town was mostly of blackprairie mould, a spade-thrust deep, which gave rise to a harmless sarcasm; in effect, that sixteen fine cornfields weie spoiled to make a needless city. The gravel next below is so mixed and underlaid with clay as to make the natural surface drainage worse than that of any city or village of the county, excepting Walworth. But it has become practicable, after many years. In secure dry cellars for new buildings. Good sewers are possible whenever the citizens are able and willing to bear their cost, as there is a lair descent southward to Jackson's creek. A once considerable pond or marsh in the northeastern quarter has so far shrunk as to leave but twenty-five acres, at the northern line, slightly under water.

Churches And Schools

Religion and secular education came hand in hand. A Methodist society was formed about 1841, and before the end of that year the Episcopal society began its long pioneer period. The Congregationalists organized in 1843, the Baptists in 1852, the Catholics in E&48, the Evangelican Lutherans in 1870, the Universalists built a church in 1874. the Lutherans of the Ohio synod separated in 1898 and built a church. In 1856 the Methodists built a large church of brick, which was burned in [859. They rebuilt of wood, afterward encased with brick, and have continued to improve their home within and without, and they first bought and then built a parsonage. St. John's, Episcopal, was built about 1855, of wood, extended in 1858, re-built of brick during the rectorship of Mr. Pullen - having first built a rectory. Extensions and improvements succeeded, and an organ, altar, baptismal font, and stained windows have given the church some distinction in appearance. In 1858 the Congregational am! Wesleyans jointly built a church, which in 1882 gave way to a suitable brick building, creditable to the liberality and good taste of its owners. (The Wesleyans long ago retired from the partnership, and have been absorbed by other societies). A parsonage was soon added to the Congregational property. Like their Methodist, Episcopal, and Baptist brethren, they own a dining-hall on the fair ground. The Baptist church, built in 1853 of wood, roomy and comfortable, was pulled away in 1885 and a brick church took its place. This was largely rebuilt in 1897 and made a thin,? of beauty. In Kn'7 it was so far injured by tire that it was built anew, and new seems likely to meet all needs for a generation to come. The Catholics had for several year- held fortnightly service in a mission chapel. In [880 they built St. Patrick's church of brick on a fine lot prudently acquired at a favorable opportunity some years previously, and upied it until too;, when it was pulled down and built anew with enlargement and improvement \ good house for the priest was built soon after the firsl building was finished. There is much in the story of this ciety's early struggles and of the things it has accomplished without noise to move tin- mind to sympath) and admiration. The older Lutheran church was built, of wood, in 1 88 | on the site of a house built for a select school. It odern village style, and i- both sightly and comfortable. In the naturally and rightly memorable to the surviving toilers, and incidents of these patient struggles are yet told. Such trials of body and spirit are part of the common experience of newly planted and for long but slowly-increasing communities and institutions. Each congregation still knows and feels the disproportion of its means to its great aims ; but Episcopal rectors no longer swim swollen streams and labor through not less formidable mud to meet communicants in a pioneer's little dwelling, nor do gray-haired Catholic priests plow or plunge through otherwise unbroken road from Delavan to Elkhorn to hold fortnightly service in a chapel little more sightly or comfortable than a barn.

The story of schools has points of resemblance to that of churches; but the great difference is that churches are built and maintained by the voluntary sacrifices of the few, while the schools quickly become the care of the body politic and are upheld by taxation which exempts no man for his unwillingness. The rise of neither institution is by sudden flight. Each moves always forward, through difficulty and delaying circumstances, by uneven steps, toward its always far-ahead object. Private schools at Elkhorn, taught by Lydia Carr, Mary S. Brewster, Adelaide B. Beardsley, Colonel Elderkin, and others whose names are lost to local memory, were followed in 1840 by a public school. Its house was built on a lot reserved for its purpose from the county's quarter section. It was twenty feet square, and afterward remembered as the "old oak school-house." In 1850 a larger house was built on the same lot, of native brick, two-storied, without outer ornament, substantial, homely, and comfortable. This house was not neglected by prudent school boards, for it was occasionally painted as to its wood-work and its rooms, vestibule and stairway, whitewashed yearly as to ceilings and walls. Its construction admitted such extensions and alterations as to make it a neat old-fashioned dwelling for Doctor Reynolds, and after him Belden Weed. Ex-Sheriff Derthick now lives where soldiers, civil officers, business and professional men, and other merely useful and excellent citizens, many of whom are yet living between Michigan shore and Pacific coast, learned the three R's and something besides, and laid broad bases for their maturer lives.

A new school house was built in 1X57, in Arnold's addition, fronting Jackson street, and at the head of Walworth street. It was adapted to the needs of four grades. Its ample ground has now a fine growth of shade trees. A two-storied addition was built in 1882 and burned with the whole structure in 1886. For a year the departments divided themselves among nearly a dozen temporary refuges. The new building with furnishing cost twenty-five thousand dollars. Increase in the number of pupils and departments, arising from the admission of pupils from other towns, made another building needful. This was supplied, at a cost of thirty-five thousand dollars, in 1906, by a separate house for the sole use of the high school, built a few feet from the older house. Both are steam-heated and electric-lighted. The total value of ground, buildings, and equipment is about seventy-five thousand dollars. Nominally a high school for some years, a resolution of the school meeting of July. 1876, made this institution really so by directing a slight rearrangement of study-courses and other compliances with the rules of the state superintendent's office, where the subsequent work of the school has been acceptable.

A full list of teachers cannot now be shown, for such record as was made was cared for but shabbily by often-changing clerks. It is learned from records and somewhat uncertain memory that there were Levi Jackson, Mary S. Brewster, and Lydia Carr in 1841 ; Emeline McCracken in 1842; Adelaide C. Beardsley 1844; Eli K. Frost and Helen Mar Cowdery 1849; Alvah J. Frost 1850; William P. Frost about that year. Miss Brewster became Mrs. Edward Pentland, Miss McCracken was married to Edwin Wallis Meacham, ami Miss Cowdery to Darius Ionian.

After these the record is rather less broken: James 15. Tower.* Benjamin C. Rogers* and wife, and Selinda J. Gardner in 1851: William C. Dustin,* Mrs. Flora M. l'ratt. Harriet Leonard in 1852; M. W. Carroll.* Pamela A. Darling, Mary Louisa and Sarah F. Patton in 1853; Matthew Waldenmeyer,* Julia Stevens, Mi-ses Morrill and Swain in 1854; J. C. Plumb,* Stephen Sibley,* Henry D. L. Webster,* Sarah J. Allen. Ellen I'.canlsley in 1855; George M. Dewey,* Robert M. McKee,* J. J. M. Angier,* feanette Henderson, Mr-. Laura Young Plumb, Mr-. Jane E. Utlcy in 1856; '). Sherman Cook,* Emily IX Carpenter, Harriet Marion Perkins, Nellie Young in [857; Orlando M. Laker. Helen Chamberlin, Susan M.

Golder, Eliza G Irich, Melvina Vienna Hawk- in [858; Everett Chamberlin.* Minnie Hubbard, Sarah Ponsford, A. I. Wheeler in [859; Zeruiah Adkins, Elvira Chapman. Aristine Curtis, Philena Tuttle, Flavius Josephus Harrington in [860; Emerson Peet* in [861 ; \. M. Case,* T. X. Wells.* Helen E Selden in 1862; Charles W. Cutler.1 Lydia Malvina Aldrich, M. C. Bennett, Mary Holley in [863. Asterisks 'lenote principals. Some of these teacher- were more than once employed. Mr. Plumb stayed long enough to marrj Laura Young, who remained after lie left the school. Mr. Sibley was a son of John Sibley, of Bloomfield. Mr. McKee married Mrs. fjtle) Miss Henderson became Mr-. Chipman V Holley; Miss Perkins,

Mrs. Frank Leland; Miss Hawks, Mrs. Horace L. Arnold; Miss Aldrich, Mrs. Dyar L. Cowdery; Miss Allen, Mrs. Alanson H. Barnes. Messrs. Chamberlin, Cutler and Harrington were soldiers of the Civil war.

Loss of record prevents further enumeration of subordinate teachers, but the succession of principals from 1864 to 1912 is fully known: Mr. Cutler in 1864, William Elden 1865, Augustus J. Cheney 1866. In September, 1867. the school was reorganized with four grades and began its work with Mr. Cutler at its head, Charles N. Bell 1869 (his term completed by Orvie G. Taylor), W. A. Delamater 1871. Edward H. Sprague 1873. David H. Flett 1877, Adelbert I. Sherman 1879, Howard L. Smith 1881. F. G. Young 1883, Dexter D. Mayne 1884. Robert Fayette Skiff 1889, John T. Edwards 1890, Charles D. Kipp 1894, Thomas J. Jones 1900, John Dixon 1907 to 1912. Messrs. Bell, Flett, H. L. Smith, and Sprague became lawyers. Mr. Baker has for many years been treasurer of the Merriam Company, publishers of "Webster's Dictionary." At the opening of the public library he gave to it a copy of that work. Messrs. Mayne, Edwards, and Jones were called to higher or wider usefulness in their profession.

In 1856 Edwin. Hodges built at Park and Church streets for the use of a select school. The teacher list was not long, and Lorenzo Dow Hand, Harriet M. Perkins. Everett Chamberlin, J. F. Mack, and Anna Friend are most easily remembered. In 1858 Robert M. McKee opened a school for one year, in Preston's Centralia block.

Business Interests

Business at Elkhorn began in 1838 at Mr. Rockwell's store, and by 1842 Booth B. Davis and James O. Eaton came, each to add to increasing trade the enlivening element of competition. John Matheson came about that time from Inverness, and advertised himself as a fashionable tailor. By [850 his brother, Finley Matheson. advertised a stock of hats and caps and also first-rate port wine and brandy for medicine only. He had but lately come from Demerara and therefore knew how to buy medicinal liquors and wines. Reuben Harriman was making and dealing in boots and shoes. Walling & Son advertised harness-maker's goods and carriage trimmer's works. Ed ward Elderkin, George Gale. Urban D. Meacham, and VVyman Spooner were resident lawyers. Samuel \V. Henderson and George II. Young were the home physicians. Levi Lee had Elkhorn brick in any quantity and of excellent quality for sale. At the end of bis term as sheriff, in 185 1, Otis Preston went into general retail business with Horace X. Hay as partner, and later with Benjamin F. Pope. He remained in a steadily decreasing business until his death, in 1890, and hoped to the end for himself and

There were other men in business before the dawn of the railway period, but changes were frequent then as later and dates are uncertain. Among these were George Bulkley and Edwin Hodges, each of whom had various speculative enterprises in hand. Mr. Hodges was generally prudent and Mr. Bulkley was sometimes less prudent. The business career of each closed . in total failure.

Banks And Bankers

From earliest years there were money-lenders and petty brokers. The demand for money was pressing and constant. Two to three per cent monthly was readily obtained, even when the security offered was the best that the time and place admitted. The products of Wisconsin as yet brought insufficient money from eastern cities, and a currency that would pass within the state was thought much better than none. The statute permitted the creation of banks of issue, and the notes of these local conveniences were based upon rather than secured by deposit of depreciated bonds of other states, as Tennessee, Missouri, and California. A few of these banks, no doubt, were of the "wild-cat" variety from their beginning. Most of them became so, in effect, when such test as that of 1857 was applied.

An advertisement in the Elkhorn Independent, in 1855, called for some man having knowledge and experience as a hanker to come and help. David I). Spencer, of Ilion, Xew York, heard and answered the Macedonian cry. and in the next year the Bank of Elkhorn, with capital of twenty-five thousand dollars, was organized with Mr. Rockwell as president and the wise man from the East as cashier. One of the pleasantest, mosl winning fellows was Spencer; but a year of his partnership was enough for Mr. Rockwell. who was one of the sanesl and safest of business men. He retired and with his brothers and brother-in-law formed a private banking house. Dr. Jesse 1 \lilU followed him in the presidenc} of Spencer's bank. The Doctor was one of the best of men, bu1 singularly simple-minded in business affairs of more weight than those of a village retailer. This he had shown as a state . and showed again, after several years, in an autobiographical sketch asked of him for inclusion with Mr. Dwinnell's projected county history. Such a man would be a bank presidenl very much to Mr. Spencer's mind. Within little more than a month from ibis change, and while the monetary panic of thai year was yet but a da\ or two old, the bank was closed - by

Spencer's neglect to unlock the front door - without the demand at its counter of a dollar by depositor or note-holder. Within a day or two more, at the demand of directors and stockholders, the cashier unlocked the door and, opening the old-fashioned Herrick safe, he pulled a drawer and showed thirty-one big copper cents and coolly told his employers that there was the entire coin asset of their bank. His last act as cashier had been to receive as a special deposit, from a widow of Spring Prairie, six hundred dollars in gold. He made such restitution as his small interest in local real-estate enabled, and was permitted to go forth to gain further experience in Georgia, in Grundy county. Tllinois, and at Chicago, and then lived a few wears, selfexiled to Europe, as a philosophical observer of fiscal systems abroad.

Doctor Mills was followed in the presidency by John Alexander Pierce in 1858 and J. Lyman Edwards in 1861, and George Bulkley became cashier. Early in 1865 Messrs. Edwards and Bulkley, with William H. Conger, Amos Fellows. Osborn Hand and Robert T. Seymour, constituted the directorate of the First National Bank of Elkhorn, into which concern the old bank was merged with some changes in ownership. Tn the fall of 1869 it was found that in the cashier's private speculation he had made the bank liable for his loss: for he had used its credit in a manner forbidden by federal law and by the customs of scrupulous and careful bankers. Mr. Bulkley, whose business ability had been estimated rather extravagantlv, may have Urn judged even more harshly than he deserved. It might seem that he was much the great loser, for he lost his own money and other property. his friends, and his family. For nearly a quarter-century he had been an appreciable force in local business and in town affairs. He faced the situation squarely until all possible adjustments had been made, and then went to Kansas; but it was too late to begin at bottom and build himself anew. One true friend, his sister Amanda, remained to his end. She had small means for her own support, but was resourceful and resolute, and she placed her abilities at the service of the family which had cast him off, and then went for a time to Kansas to make a home for him and to give such aid and comfort as a capable and faithful woman might.

Mr. Conger became cashier until his death in 1895, when he was followed by Fred W. Isham. The latter's resignation in 191 1 served to promote Henry D. L. Adkins. who began as a boy, under his grandfather's wise instruction, to serve a long apprenticehood in the business of banking. Mr. Conger was son of a prosperous farmer of Dutchess county, and was well bred to farm work though he did not permanently harden his hands. His education was but rudimentary and neither that nor his habit of life had fitted him for the daily routine of banker's business. He was twice imposed upon by clumsy forgeries, both of which were detected and punished. But in 1869 he was a man for an emergency. Men knew him as a man of undoubted integrity, having a high sense of personal and commercial honor, a man of courage to face disaster, a fair judge of real-estate values and having a wide personal acquaintance within the circle of his business; and he had a large interest in the bank. He was just-minded in most matters, public-spirited, of equable temper, and an excellent neighbor. Besides, he wisely leaned on Henry Adkins, who served long and well as bookkeeper and teller, as to the conduct of the bank's business. He found the bank marly moribund and left it sound and full of promise of great length of years. Its deposits now amount to six hundred thousand dollars.

In 1885 William J. Bray and Edmund J. Hooper came from Palmyra, bought and fitted a building, and opened a banking house, under the state laws The next year they admitted to their partnership Winsor S. Dunbar, John G. Flack, Asa Foster, George Hutton, Robert J. and Thomas E. Lean, John Oslock. and Frederick Winters, and formally organized as the State Bank of Elkhorn, its capital twenty-five thousand dollars. In 1899 Thomas J. Sleep became president. In 1909 Mr. Hooper, who from the first had been cashier, retired from the bank and Miss Amanda Winters, assistant cashier, served in his stead. In 1910 Mr. Hooper came again into the bank as president with Laurel W. Swan as cashier. There are now twenty-seven stockholders. The deposits amount to nearly four hundred thousand dollars.

Brick And Tile Making

Local brick-yards were everywhere wanted, though their product might be narrowly limited as to quantity and far behind the once famous Milwaukeean article in color and quality. The roads were laid out rather than made, and for half n\ the year nearly impassible for heav) carriage. There were indications of brick-clay in the western side of the village, much of which material was on Levi Lee's domain. 11 is numerous enterprises called for something brick-shaped, and he therefore opened a pit along the line of Jefferson street. Some men have said that his clay was of fair quality for its purpose, but as to this there has been -cme doubting, for the product of raried from rather hard to the softness of crayon. Men whose reverence for Mr. Lee could nol be called idolatrj were used to say that at each firing he would count and la) oul a fixed number of rails or sticks Oi 1 iod, and when these were burned the bricks were baked. lie sold

When railway prospects hastened the village growth, and men began to add each morning another dollar to yesterday's front-foot price of their real estate, it was found that more bricks were needed. Nathan Sexton, who had come to a farm west of the village, found it worth while to lease a bit of Albert Ogden's land along Walworth street, two long blocks southward from Lee's works. The clay was of better quality, and Mr. Sexton knew how to make brick. Baird & Ogden (the latter a brother of the pioneer) worked this yard for a year or two each side of 1856. Mr. Sexton resumed the work with George Burpee as a partner. The latter continued this industry until his death in 1876, after which followed a period of inaction.

Edward H. Sprague took the old yard in hand in 1886, and calling his brother, George B. Sprague, from Lancaster, they began a systematic production of bricks and drain tiles by providing coal-burning furnaces, engine, pug-mills, engine-house, and sheds, and with all these went and still goes Mr. Sprague's personal supervision. Of late the demand for home-made bricks has become visibly less than formerly, but that for drain-tiles is likely to be for some years actiye.

Edwin Daniels owned or had invented a quick process of leather-making by the use of terra japonica. In 1S57 William Walker, a harness-maker, built a tannery, with six vats, in East street, between Court and Walworth. The Walker & Daniels leather (mostly sole-leather) found for a season a fair home market. Men who wore it found that whenever it was wet through it stained through stockings and gave their feet a beautiful deep Mongolian complexion. The tannery had not come to stay, and in a few more years the building was moved around the next southward corner to serve temporarily as a chapel. Its latest use to mankind was as a shop where William Allen Barnes wrought with brain and hand on his models for improved cornharvesters and propellers for ocean-navigation ; and then it was burned in 1902.

George Watson, in 1852, built the brick shop at Court and Washington streets and made wagons and buggies. About 1855 he gave place to Josiah W. Gaylord and Isaac Stoner, respectively wheelwright and blacksmith and both good workmen. The all-ruining and far-dispersing panic period dissolved the firm and reduced Edward McDonald, its successor, and the shop to repair work, chiefly, until 1870. Nelson Hanson then resumed wagonmaking with Frederick Opitz at first as his blacksmith and then as his partner. This firm, too, passed away and a blacksmithy remains. Nearly contemporary with the brick shop was the white shop at Walworth and

Washington streets, built by Edward Winne, who worked at nothing but attempted .several other enterprises, none of which returned his investment. He employed wrights, smiths, painters, and trimmers until the business had lived out its short lite. In 1857 Bernard Malachi Madden and William Van Gasbeck, woodworkers, George Clary and Henry J. Shaver, smiths, and Dexter Witter, trimmer and painter, formed the Elkhorn Carriage Company. They were good workmen. Madden one of the best in the state, and they deserved the success which their time denied them.

In 1851 Joel A. Daniels and Moses Hemenway, both of Winnebago county, Illinois, bought about an acre of Colonel Elderkin's land, nearly opposite the fair-ground and on the margin of the broad, shallow pond - now dry enough for corn fields. They built and equipped a steam grist-mill. but their capital was small and their flour not of highest quality. The property changed ownership more than once, and the mill was most of the time idle, until i860, when Mr. Hodges leased and refitted it. George W. Ellis came as miller and in no long time as temporary owner. His was the last attempt to make Hour by steam power.

I). Mansfield Stearns built and equipped a wind-mill, near the northern end of Wisconsin street in 1870. The breezes were found too unsteady and lawless for profitable use as mill power. After him came Nathaniel Pitkin, "a gentleman, sir. and a scholar, sir; you see, sir." He ground feed for two or three years, after which Charles Beetow had a term at the hopper. Then the wheel was blown away and the building was left to the tooth of time.

About t866 Osmer C. Chase, Nathaniel Carswell, and Clarence E. Remer refitted the steam mill building for cheese-making. The business was continued by Carswell & Wiswell, and in i88j b) George X. Wiswell. Late in [883 the building was burned, leaving only its stone foundation and its stout brick walls. On these Waller A. West began in January, 18S4. to reestablish a slowly, steadily growing enterprise. In March he was ready for business, and with John H. Harris the firm of Harris & West began a prosperous career. In [900 Miner >\ Thompson took the old works, and Harris & West in [904 began their works near the railway station, and these have since been greatlj extended. The building was designed and equipped Eor latest and best methods of making Elgin butter ami plain and fancy cheeses. Their little eh- have reached the Mohawk valley, and other

11 are not barred againsl them. The latest extension, for condensing milk, is nearly ready for its work. This factory is one of nine now owned by John II and George I'.. Harris, George D. Puffer (of Waukesha), and

Walter A. West, incorporated as the Wisconsin Butter and Cheese Company. The estimated value of the works at Elkhorn is one hundred thousand dollars

Religious Societies

About two dozen persons, of fourteen families, met in December, 1852, at the court house and organized a Baptist society, choosing Rev. Thomas Bright as pastor. He lived on his farm, about a mile from the park, within the town of Geneva, a circumstance which often enabled him to be useful in emergencies, long after his pastorate ended. George W. Gates came in 1856, Thomas Brande 1858, John H. Dudley, Joseph E. Johnson 1866, Levi Parmly, Francis M. lams 1869, Arthur L. Wilkinson 1870, Ferdinand D. Stone 1873, George A. Creissey 1874, Sylvester E. Sweet 1879, Henry A. Buzzell 1885, J. Russell Baldwin 1892, Charles Carey Willett 1896, Henry Clay Miller 1901, Warren Hastings McLeod 1903, J. Hector Miller 1906, Charles A. Hemenway 1908.

For several years the Catholics of Elkhorn and its vicinity seemed a nearly negligible element of local religious life, but good grain was sown early and in 1848 Rev. Francis Prendergast came from the mission at Delavan to hold services at Michael Fahey's. Services were held occasionally at the court-house. The parish was poor but steadfast, and the general increase of population from 1854 to 1857 brought gain in numbers to this as to the other churches. About 1861 a lot was bought at Walworth and East streets, and a disused tannery building was moved from a half-block away and fitted decently for temporary use. Thereafter until Rev. John William Yahev came in 1878 as a resident priest, the clergy of St. Andrew's came fortnightly from Delavan to minister at the altar of St. Patrick's. Another and in most ways more desirahle lot had been bought, at Walworth and Church streets, on . which two large churches have successively been built, the first one having been used twenty years. In 1886 Rev. Michael Luby came for one year's service, and in 1887 Rev. James Nicholas closed for the present the list of resident priests of St. Patrick's.

Rev. Amnon Gaston, then of Delavan, organized the Congregational society at Capt. George Young's hotel, in 1843. ami gave it part of his time as pastor. David Pinkerton came in T844. Samuel E. Miner 1847, Jedidiah D. Stevens 1852, Lyman Huggins Johnson 1857. John Babson Linn Soule i860, Stephen .D. Peet 1865, Calvin Carlton Adams 1 [813-1906) in 1867, Alba Levi Parsons Loomis i8f>8, Peter S. Yan Nest (1813-1893) in 1872. Joel Gleason Sabin (1821-1897) in 1874. Ilanford Fowle 1878,

To found the Episcopal parish of St. John in the Wilderness was in 1841 the work of Revs. James Lloyd Breck, William Adams, a son-in-law of the bishop, and John Henry Hobart. all named often by the older members, though the last named is nowhere found in parish or public record. He was a son of the bishop of his name, and it is known that he was in 1865 rector of Grace church. Baltimore. Tt is likely that he was of Bishop Kemper's staff of serviceable young mission workers, sent where and when occasion needed. For many years rectors at Delavan supplied Elkhorn's frequent need. The succession of rectors as shown by parish books was John McNamara in 1848 and again in 1858. William S. Ludlum 1851. Gerrit E. Peters 1X53. Henry M. Thompson 1856, Joseph H. Nichols 18 - . Joseph C. Passmore 1861, ('. T. Seibt, Alexander F. W. Falk, Charles N. Spalding, George W. Dean 1 these five last named were professors at Racine College, holding Sunday service between 1861 and 1S71), George W. Harrod 1872, Edward Huntington Rudd [873, Charles Melvin Pullen [875, Henry Hughes [881, Charles Holmes (from Delavan) 1882, Luke Paul Holmes 1888, William B. Thorn [892, Edward A. Bazett- Jones, 1894, Charles N. Spalding [896, John Welling Areson 1898, Philip Henry Linley 1901, Arthur J. Wescott [904, Elijah Hedding Edson [906, Alan Grant Wilson 1910, Freeman Philip O. Reed 101 c. Hates indicate beginning of each rectorship. ^.s in the other churches, the pastor was not always followed immediately by his successor.

An Evangelical Lutheran society was formed in 1870 with Rev. Heinrich P. Duborg as nonresident pastor. Rev. Johannes |. Meier, who came about [875, brought his family in 1870, and was succeedad by Wilhelm Buehring in [879, Johannes Dejung 1882, Timotheus J. Saner. 1886, Carl H. Auerswald [893, Christian Gevers 1898 to the present time. Before the end of Mr. Auerswald's pastorate a division of the society occurred, and a new church was built in 1898. Its resident pastors have been Hugo Stubenvoll 1898, Karl ( ). Salzmann [901, Heinrich Cull 1902. Carl Hammer 1905. Since 1007 the church service lias been supplied by Herman Lindemann and August Kohlhoff, of Burlington.

In [852 the Methodist Episcopal society began its roll of resident clergy with the name of Joseph C, 1 'ana. .after whom John Tibbals 1853. D. B. Vnderson [854, Levi Lee [855, Russell P. I.aw'ton 1856, Stephen Smith

Of clergymen remembered as church-builders were Messrs. Barrett, Barry, Bright, Buzzell, Dejung, Luke P. Holmes. Johnson, Lee, Nicholas, Peters, Pullen, Vahey, Willet. Mr. Johnson had been bred to the use of hawk and trowel and he plastered every yard of the ceilings and walls of the church built in [858, having Bro. Osborn Hand to carry mortar. A few years later he left the state, the pulpit, and his young family. Messrs. Pullen and L. P. Holmes worked on church and rectory with hands well hardened to the use of saw, plane, hammer, and the ruder tools of labor. Fathers Vahey and Nicholas were practical architects, and Mr. Willett devised and supervised the extensive alterations of his church. Mr. Lee made the brick for the church of 1856. Mr. Dejung was also a bee-keeper, and often sat with book and pipe among his swarms. Mr. Barry had been state superintendent of schools and also chaplain of the Fourth Wisconsin Infantry. While in military service he said or wrote that he had been preaching universal salvation for many years, but was at last convinced that hell was just then a military necessity. Messrs. David R. Anderson, Crandall, Cressey. Lochridge, Stratton, Sweet, and Vahey also served in the Civil war. Mr. Sedgwick was an amateur telescope-maker, and owned a portable observatory, from which might be seen the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. He had been a telegrapher, and was serviceable in 1882 as a "scab" operator during a strike of telegraphers. Henry DeLancey Webster, Universalist, wrote lyrics for his namesake's music. Prof. J. P. Webster was not his relative, but he had W. Lyman Stowe and Mrs. Levi Lee among his cousins.

George Gale, with Francis Asbury Utter, a printer from Towanda, Pennsylvania, began business June 2, 1845, on the upper floor of the Booth R. Davis (brick) store, with a half-medium press and a few pounds of type. The arrival of a newspaper press was delayed for five months, lint the office began work at once. Its first job was to print blank forms for the circuit clerk's use. Mr. Gale set about printing the first of several editions of his book of legal forms which was finished in the following April. Friday, August 8, 1845, the Western Star rose above the near eastern tree-tops, the first newspaper in the county. Seven numbers were printed with new type on good paper about the size of a quarter-sheet auction bill. A larger press was needed and in November Mr. Gale bought of Hon. John Wentworth ("Long John") the old "pioneer press" on which the Chicago Democrat had first been printed. The Star was then enlarged to "a wide twenty-column folio." Mr. Gale had no mind in indulge in editorship as a pastime or as a means to raise himself to "chairs or seats of civil power." He had advanced the monev and had seen the enterprise fairly in motion, toward success, when he sold his interest, in April, 1846, to his partner's father, Dr. Eleazar R. Utter, who assumed the editorship. A few years later Charles Utter, another son, became owner, the father remaining as editor. The paper, politically. was for Free Soil. About 1854 Charles seems to have retired and his father and brother, having become administration Democrats, changed the name of the paper to Walworth County Reporter. The week after the election of 1856 they sold their office equipment to Densmore & Hotchkiss and in the next spring removed to Trempealeau county.

In some way under Mr. Rockwell's patronage or by his inducement Edwin A. Cooley came in 1SS4 and for two years, more or less, published the Walworth County Democrat, and then went away into the mysterious North or Northwest. Mr. Rockwell, the Drs. Henderson, Lot Mayo, and Judge Cowdery were of that "old guard" of their party which was as unchangeable as the laws of the universe.

a dailv paper at Galesburg. Illinois, to ownership and editorship at Elkhorn. He was a clear, vigorous writer and a businesslike manager, neither courting nor finding great personal popularity ; but he gave the paper some weight among Wisconsin newspapers. In December, 1877, he sold the office to James Wiley Sankey, from Holden, Missouri. Mrs. Dora Jemima (Peck) Sankey undertook the triple labor of editing the paper, caring for her baby, and nursing her dying husband. In December, 1878, Mr. Sankey died and in January, 1879. Mortimer T. Park, from the normal school at Oshkosh, and his cousin, Curtis R. Treat, a young printer from Clinton, took possession of a revised and improved Independent. In July, Mr. Park became its single owner. In January, 1882, he admitted to partnership his excellent foreman, Eugene Kenney, and in April of that year Major Shepard S. Rockwood bought and edited the paper for one year, when Park & Kenney resumed ownership. In 1899 Francis H. Eames was added to the firm. In 1902 Mr. Kenney retired; and in 1904 Mr. Park retired, making way for the present firm of Eames & Snyder. The press has aforetime been likened to a lever which moves the world. The Independent's press, pen, and shears have raised three editors and a foreman to places in public service : Mr. Leland to a seat in the Assembly in 1873 and to the consulate at Hamilton, Ontario; Mr. Cowdery to the county clerkship; Mr. Park to the assistant's desk in the office of the secretary of state (at Madison), 1882 to 1890, and to superintendency of the state's school at Sparta and Mr. Snyder to the postmastership at Elkhorn. While Mr. Park was at Madison a series of substitute editors performed his work at the home desk. Of these Mr. Dewing, mid-84 to the end of '88, was the fittest and most acceptable. Del. C. Huntoon, a semi-Bohemian from the Detroit press-gang, served until Mr. Park's return, in 1891. He was a pleasant fellow, fairly versed in Michigan politics, a client of Senator Palmer of that state, and an ex-inspector of consular agencies in Ontario, where he became a brother-in-law of Rev. Charles 11. Frazer, who was a clergyman, in turn, of three denominations: Baptist, Congregational, Episcopal.

It may be noted that at some time after the Civil war Mr. Leland occasionally used a thin device for dividing the Delavan paper's patronage in the southwestern towns. This was to print part of his edition as the Darien News, differing from his paper at Elkhorn only in its heading and in a column of matter, local to that village, supplied by Orvellus 11. Gilbert. About 1X70 he tried this ingenious plan at Lake Geneva. He thus hastened the event that he tried to forestall, the establishment of a paper permanently (20) at that city. His successors had better business judgment, and in 1892 Park & Kenney's better taste restored the name of Elkhorn Independent.

Local chroniclers have incorrectly included among Elkhorn newspapers the Conservator, of which one pamphlet number was published in 1857, and the Live Man. which broke out irregularly between 1864 and 1868. Both of these were planned and edited by Otis Preston and reflected bis extravagant faith in the creative power of advertising. Both were printed at the office of the Independent and might have been regarded as special editions of that paper, the Conservator to advertise village lots at Elkhorn to all the nations of the earth, the Live Man to advertise Elkhorn dealers to all the buyers of the county.

With the business panic of 1873 came Isaac B. Bickford from Ogle county, Illinois, to supply the political cave of Adullam with a county "organ." He brought a slender stock of type-metal, but no press. October 18, 1873, and for twenty weeks thereafter, the IVahvorth County Liberal was printed on the Independent's press. Eight weeks later, when Bickford appealed to the county committee for the sinews of war, that body decided to buy the little he could sell, and to install Beckwitb & Kennev in his stead. Editorially, the paper had been composed of, say, seven parts Bickford, seventeen parts Spooner, and seventy-six parts Preston. Hence, it seemed as if the Live Man hail been called back. Preston's peculiar oratory, reduced to paper and ink, lost the wizardry of his vehement delivery and neither convinced nor entranced but sometimes puzzled his readers. Governor Spooner gave the paper the little distinction it ever earned. His privately spoken criticism of the new editorship was caustic, kindly, and not unprofitable. In the following summer Henry H. Tubbs was added to the firm. But for two somewhat memorable events the later history of this paper is not in itself interesting.

One of these was its exposure of some rather excessive severities of discipline at the State School for the Deaf. Phis was on information derived From three of the teachers The published statements, which made more fluttering within the school and at three newspaper offices of the county than elsewhere, were investigated, and a very judiciously prepared report of the state board of charity and reform soon restored public confidence in the school, though nobodj was specifically blamed. The principal resigned at the close of the school year; but, excepting Rev. Thomas Clithero, who preferred the pulpit to the school room, all the teachers kept their places. The principal was a gentleman, with a dyspeptic's temper, eminent in his profession, and he was quickly called to further usefulness in an Eastern institution.

The other event was the total destruction of the Liberal office building, uninsured, with all its contents, also uninsured, by a fire which broke out almost as suddenly as if by explosion, at nearly midnight of July 2, 1875. James R. Browne, of Racine, had owned the building and Messrs Perry G. Harrington, Albert Ogden, Stephen G. West, and Samuel A. White owned the hand-press on which the paper had been printed. The publishers acquitted themselves of carelessness and the property of spontaneous combustion. Kenney went to the Independent office as its foreman and in time became its part owner. Tubbs returned to compass, transit and level. The fire had left nothing but the name of the paper and the editor's memory of its subscription-list. Changing the name to Elkhorn Liberal and making the paper Democratic, the Beckwiths printed twenty-five numbers, the last one dated January 7. 1876. From its beginning this paper had derived half of it- support from Republican patrons, one more proof of the kindly, tolerant spirit of the people of Walworth.

An incident in the Liberal's business was a contract, for six months, with Rev. George Willis Cooke, then of Sharon, to print his Liberal Worker bi-monthly. Its purpose was to promote a provisional union or alliance of several shades of unorthodox religion or philosophy. Some of the ablest preachers of two states contributed their freshest sermons, and the quality of its editorship may be inferred from the fact that the Houghton Mifflin Company afterward employed Mr. Cooke as editor and critical annotator of their new editions of Emerson's and Browning's works, and of other modern classics.

Several members of the Prohibitionist county organization found it expedient to encourage the establishment of a newspaper in its interest. A stock company was formed, a printing office equipped, and April 17, 1891, Charles E. Badger, a good job printer, put forth the first number of the Walworth County Blade. In the fall of 1896 Henry H. Tubbs, a practical printer and a stockholder, took upon himself the duties and difficulties of the office, and afterward acquired its ownership. In a few of his several absences from home (in railway work as a civil engineer) the office was leased temporarily, and on other such occasions Mrs. Helen M. A. Tubbs managed its business and editorship. Late in 1905 the Blade was discontinued and the office was sold to a short-lived management which changed its name to Tribune and made it a semi-stalwart Republican paper. Returning in 1906 to the Tubbs ownership, its material was sold and sent out of the countv. Hi- war'- experience with the Liberal hail foreshown Mr. Tubbs clearly that the Blade could live only by his personal labor and continuous self-sacrifice; and his single-minded, whole-hearted belief in the justice of the cause thus espoused was the one source of his tenacity of purpose. It may well be doubted if another person in the county would have carried the paper half way through its sixteenth volume. Mr. and Mrs. Tubbs closed their business without debt or shadow of dishonor, and their almost heroic resoluteness, with their personal qualities, enabled them to keep old friendships and to gain the respect of men who were politically antagonistic. Mr. Tubbs once received the compliment of a congressional nomination by his party.

Town and village affairs had been administered from 1846 to 1892 by a board of three supervisors, and from 1857 under a special charter. An election was held May 3, 1892. under a general law of 1887, for a village president and a board of six trustees. Harley C. Norris was president until he became mayor. The twenty-one citizens who served as trustees were Otto Arp 1894-5, George W. Bentley 1896, George B. Cain 1896, Augustus F. Desing 1893, Charles Dunlap 1893-7, Egbert Francis 1892-3, S. Clayton Goff 1892-6, John Hare 1897, Fred W. Isham 1894-5, John Keeffe 1893, LeGrand Latham 1892, John Morrissey, of Church street, 1892-3, Herman Nappe 1896, Thomas H. O'Brien 1892. William O'Brien 1897, John J. Slattery 1897, Thomas E. Slattery 1892. George B. Sprague 1894-6, DeWitt Stanford 1897, August Voss 1894-5, Philip S. Wiswell 1897.

Hon. Joseph F Lyon discovered or remembered, in [897, that chapter 326, laws of 1889, had made Elkhorn, as well as many villages, a city of tin' fourth class, whereupon an election for city officers was held May 3, 1897, and three days later Governor Scofield's proclamation completed the efflorescence from the village bud to the perfect flower of the city. The first board of aldermen was: First ward, Augustus F. Desing, William O'Brien; second ward, Samuel I'.reese, Jr., Charles C. Gaylord ; third ward, F. Maxwell Porter, DeWitt Stanford. The new order began June 1, 1897.

Chairman oi the village board during the period of count] commissioner government: William 11. Conger [862, '68-9; Horatio S. Winsor 1863, '66; Edwin I lodges 1864-5, ()7-

County Members For City

Mayors: Harley C. Xorris. 1897, 1902; John Dunphy (elected). [898; DeWitt Stanford. [898; Dr. George H. Young, [899, [906; Dr. William II. Hurlbut, [900; George Edmund Pierce. 1901; Jay Wright Page. [904; S. Clayton Goff, [908, [910; Herbert Eugene Hartwell, 1912. Mayor-elect Dunphy declined service and Mr. Stanford, as president of the council, acted for the year. The first five elections were for one-year terms. Tn 1902 and since the official term has been two years. Messrs. Dunphy, Page and Young are Democrats. A health officer, city clerk, street commissioner, weed commissioner, marshal, six school commissioners and nine library directors are appointed by the mayor with consent of the council.

Justices Of The Peace

office. Hence, the officers-elect who qualified within that period are only determinable in part and that from a great mass of loose papers.

Postmasters for Elkhorn have been LeGrand 1\ ckwell, 1838; Edwin rlo ges, [849: Lot Mayo, 1853; Henry Bradley, 1861 ; Wilson D. Lyon, 1886: Henry Bradley, 1890; Albert C. Beckwith, 1894; Thomas William Morefield, [898; John 11. Snyder. Jr., tqii. In July. 1874. the office was placed in the third class, but important changes in postage rate- reduced it in July, [875, to the fourth class. It became a third class office in July. [882, and a second-class office in [907. In 1908 a ten-year contract of the department with Edward IT. Sprague removed it to its present place, at Walworth and Broad streets. This office is the center of seven free deliver) routes. which so operated as to discontinue the postoffkes at Cowers, Fayetteville. Jacobsville, Lauderdale, Millard and Tibbets, and to divide with Lake Geneva routes the business of Como and East Delavan.

Public I In I I Iks

For man) years it was generally felt that the village would be nearly helpless in case of any considerable fire. \.bout [892 a rather loosely presented proposition 1-. provide one or more public wells was rejected at a special election In [894 the village board, acting on its own judgment, employed F. M. Gray, of Milwaukee, to drill at the fool of Broad street, near the railway n. This work was finished earl) in [895, an exhaustless supply of pure been found at 1.050 feet. Passing through the drill the drill mel Cincinnati shale ai 225 feet, Trenton limestone at 412 feet, Si Peter's sandstone at 665 feet, Magnesian limestone at 700 feet, Potsdam sandstone at 950 feet, red sandstone at [,025 feet, and thence in that stratum 25 feel to the bottom of the boring. Watei rose to a point 147 feet below the surface.

At a special election, June 4, [895, it was decided by two-thirds of the voters to issue honds to the amount of eighteen thousand dollars for construction and equipment of a system of water works. N. F. Reichert, of Racine, began July gth the work of building power house and stand pipe, and of laving street mains. All this led to reorganization of old firemen's companies, and President Norris named Clarence N. Byington, George B. Cain, Aug. F. Desing. Will G. Fowlston, S. Clayton Goff. Herbert E. Hartwell, David Lowrv, Will P>. Lyon. Alonzo C. and Vernon H. McKinstry, Will E. Magill, John Morrissey, John and Will Morrissey, W. Chr. Nuoffer, Will O'Brien, Jr., Albert J. Reed. John Russell. Frank H. Stafford, with instruction to form a hose company. This body was increased later to fifty men. and then divided into two hose companies and a hook and ladder company. The chiefs of the fire department, since [897, have been Will B. I. von, F. Maxwell Porter, George O. Kellogg, Will Morrissey, Will E. Magill, Fred B. Magill, George E. Burpee, George II. Farrar, Michael Morrissey, and, at present. Will E. Magill again This department quickly became efficient for service, and also for competitive drilling at various points in the state. The Magills have won personal distinction on these latter occasions.

In 1898 it was determined at another special election to light the streets with electric lamps, under city ownership of the system. Bonds were issued to the amount of ten thousand dollars. Both these and the water bonds were taken at home and at a small premium. In 1907 the council created an electric light and water commission of five members for management of these public utilities, the mayor and one alderman with three citizens not of the council. The first and only appointed members were John 11. Harris. Jay W. Page and Charles Pieplow.

A public library was among the good things of which Judge Gale and other men of 184O had dreamed. A few wretched attempts were made, from time to time for a half century, to create such an institution. In lanuarv. [900, Edward II. Sprague, then about to improve bis lots at Walworth and Broad streets, called a meeting at his public hall in order to disclose his matured plan for a practically fire-proof building which should serve, among other uses, for an "opera house" and a library room. On petition of a large majority of citizens the city council passed an ordinance to establish such a library and contracted with Mi'. Sprague for the use of a specially prepared second floor in part of his building for a term of lifts years.

Charles Edward Sprague (1871-1892), the namesake of this library, was eldest son of the owner of the building, lie was his father's confidential friend, and the two had day-dreamed together of plans for making such an institution at Elkhorn practicable. Mr. Sprague contributed about one hundred volumes, of his own selection and of permanent value. Besides these and seven hundred volumes from the government's printing office, the library was opened September 2, 1901, with, say two hundred and fifty books acceptable to general readers, and bought by public subscription. A few weeks later Presidenl Dewing, of the directory, in behalf of himself and Miss Melvina, his sister, gave six hundred and fifty volumes from the private collection of their brother. Myron E. Dewing. These are shelved together as the "Dewing Collection," and are still a most valuable part, as to their contents, of nearly four thousand volumes now in possession. Mrs. Elizabeth Dixon Dewing has since added about fifty volumes to the original collection. A few years ago the "public documents" were turned over to the County Historical Society.

This library was instituted under statutory sanction. In 1900 Mayor Hurlbut appointed a board of directors: Mrs. Anna W. M. Flack, Mrs. Carrie E. Medbery, Alonzo C. McKinstry, for one year; Miss Jesse L. Sprague, Jay F. I. yon. Albert C. Beckwith. for two years; Ely B. Dewing. Jay W. Page, John II. Harris, for three years; Miss Sprague, Beckwith and Page are still members; Mrs. Elizabeth Stanton Forbes. Fred W. Isham, Dr. Edward FCinne have been members; and Miss M. Medora Hurlbut. Mrs. Catharine Monahan Porter, Orland Carswell, Will E. Dunbar, Grant D. Harrington and Charles H. Nott are of the present board. The presidents have been Dewing, Page, I. yon and Harrington. The librarian was Mae Irene Ferris, and is Edna Lorene Derthick.

A chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution was instituted in 1010. with Margarel Medora Hurlbut as regent. She was succeeded in ign by Mrs Ruth Eliza (Wales) [sham. There are fourteen members, and many eligibles live within the chapter jurisdiction.

In the infancy of the village a little burial ground was set off in Wisconsin street, near North street. This was soon abandoned and a new ccmcterv was badly laid out at the eastern end of Court street. This, too. has been vacated and its area added to the fair ground, In 1 S74 a few really publicspirited citizens moved to far better purpose. The ground was bought, near the western end of Jefferson street, and was named Hazel Ridge. William M. R French, landscape architect, of Chicago, made the plan, which nature. time, and human ran have beautified. Its present area is about thirty-four derdale, Conger, Lucius Allen and Carswell. Superintendents: Jones, Henry D. L. Adkins and Harley C. Xorris. Secretaries: Johnson, Dyar L. Cowden-, S. Clayton Goff. Treasurers : Conger, Jones, Lyon and Adkins.