- WILLIAM HENRY TRIPP, a venerable resident of Rock township,
Rock county, has come to a
- serene and beautiful old age, with the memories of a long
and useful life behind him. He is a true type of the American
farmer; not afraid of hard work, willing to labor and wait, careful
and frugal, and yet generous and open-handed. He has lived to
enjoy the results of industrious and well-spent years, and to
gain and hold the confidence and respect of all who know him.
- Mr. TRIPP was born in Scranton, Penn., Feb. 18, 1821 and
is a son of Stephen and Nancy
- (BENEDICT) TRIPP, natives of Rhode Island and New York, respectively.
Isaac TRIPP, his grandfather, was a native of Rhode Island, where
his ancestors had lived since 1610, was a farmer, and lived to
the age of seventy-three. He served in the Revolutionary war.
He was the father of twelve children. The following appeared
in a Scranton (Penn.) paper of Dec. 12, 1900:
- "It has been ascertained by diligent research by one
of the Tripp family that their name originated in the following
manner: About the middle of the Thirteenth century a party of
Danes overran England and found a lodgement in one of the strong-walled
castles for which the country was noted. An English general of
the family by the name of Howard, and a few brave followers crossed
the moat, scaled the walls of the castle and drove out the Danes.
The king asked the general, 'How did you accomplish the herculean
task?' The answer was, 'We tripped over the moat, tripped over
the wall, tripped up the enemy and drove them out.' Then the
king said, 'Thy tripping was a grand and glorious trip, ' and
he knighted the general forthwith, and said, 'henceforth thy
name and the name of thy posterity shall be Tripp through all
the coming ages.' And Tripp it was, and is, and will be to the
end of time."
- Stephen TRIPP, our subject's father, moved to Pennsylvania
with his father in 1776, the family
- settling in the Lackawanna Valley; they arrived fifteen days
after the promulgation of the Declaration of Independence. There
were only two white families in Providence at that time. They
were obliged to go to Wilkes-Barre even for salt and other necessaries,
and the first store in the Valley, was kept in the front part
of Stephen Tripp's house, by COX & CARPENTER. Mr. TRIPP once
traded 200 acres in the "Notch" for a set of whiskey
stills. He followed farming. His old homestead on the west side
of the road on the hill in Hyde Park (Scranton), is still standing;
the newest portion was built over eighty-six years ago. There
he resided until his death, in 1841, at the age of sixty-five
years. He was a man of affairs, and held the office of justice
of the peace, and various other local positions. His wife reached
the age of eighty-three. They were Baptists in religious faith.
Of the ten children born to Mr. and Mrs. TRIPP, Horace married
(first) Almira STONE, of Abington, and (second) Caroline KEMPTON;
Harriet married Samuel CHURCH; Hannah married Herman DAILEY;
Martha died in infancy; Samuel married (first) Sally BROWN and
(second) Polly HOBBS; Martha (2) died in infancy; Nehemiah married
Margaret INMAN; Polly (Mary) married (first) James HARTLEY and
(second) Isaac ROBBINS; William Henry is our subject; Fanny married
Lewis ARMSTRONG. Only two survive, Polly and William Henry. Mrs.
Polly (TRIPP) ROBBINS was born March 11, 1819, in a portion of
the old Stephen TRIPP homestead built about one hundred years
ago. Her first school teacher was Samuel CHURCH, who afterward
married her sister, Harriet. In 1861 she married James HARTLEY,
of Glenwood, Penn., who died in 1870, and in 1874 she married
Isaac ROBBINS. She is now living quietly in Scranton, at the
home of Charles J. CHURCH, exceedingly well preserved in mind
and body.
- Joshua BENEDICT, father of Mrs. Nancy (BENEDICT) TRIPP, and
our subject's maternal
- grandfather, was born in New York, of English descent, and
lived to the advanced age of eighty-three. He, also, was a soldier
in the Revolution. He was the father of three sons and four daughters.
- William Henry TRIPP was reared on the farm near Scranton,
and farming has been the occupation
- of his life. It is a noble calling, and if loyally followed
may serve to bring the noblest faculties of a man's soul, and
it has been a kindly mistress to this venerable Rock county farmer.
He had a farmer boy's advantages in the district school, and,
being of a thoughtful and observant disposition, has acquired
a very fair knowledge of men and the world as he has gone through.
His period of life has covered some of the most important chapters
of the world's history, and he fully understands the significance
of what he has seen as it was becoming history.
- Mr. TRIPP was united in marriage, Jan.14, 1844, to Miss Delilah
THOMAS, a daughter of John
- and Eliza (OSBORN) THOMAS. Three children were born to their
union: Theodore F., George B. and Hattie H. Theodore F. enlisted
in Company C, 35th Wis. V. I., served at the front two years,
and contracted disease from which he died, at home; he was only
nineteen when he enlisted, and is remembered as an opened-faced
and manly young man. George B. married Ida CLARK, and they have
had two children, Mary L. and Minnie. Hattie H. married J. B.
PORTER; they live in the town of Porter, Rock county, and have
a family of four sons, J. K., Rockwell, Wallace and Liel. Mrs.
TRIPP is a Methodist, and is a lady of excellent character and
standing. Mr. TRIPP belongs to Blue Lodge No. 14, A. F. &
A. M., in Janesville; Janesville Chapter No. 5, R. A. M.; and
Janesville Commandery, No. 2, K. T., and is highly esteemed among
his fraternal associates. He is an ardent Republican, and he
raised the first banner bearing the names of McKinley and Roosevelt
in the late Presidential campaign, hoisting same within twelve
hours after their nomination, in Philadelphia. It was 6 x 14
feet in dimensions, and floated from a 55-foot flag-staff at
his home. Mr. TRIPP hoisted a flag at half-mast on the closing
day and hour of the Nineteenth century, and had it at the mast-head
on the morning of the Twentieth century. Mr. TRIPP has held various
town offices, was chairman of the town board two terms, and was
a member of the General Assembly in 1857, being the youngest
member of that body with one exception. He served in the Legislature
with the late Senator Philetus Sawyer, and ex-Gov. David H. Waite,
of Colorado, who is known as "Bloody Bridle" Waite.
At the time of his friend Sawyer's burial, Mr. TRIPP was unable
to attend the funeral and he hoisted his flag at half-mast. Our
subject has served as trustee for the Institution for the Blind
twenty-one years, proving himself one of the most capable officials
associated with the noble institution, and has been appointed
by six different governors of the State. He was a charter member
of the Central Wisconsin Bank, was its first vice-president,
and a member of its first board of directors. When it became
a National bank he retired from the active management.
- Mr. TRIPP came west in 1851, with his wife and eldest son,
then six years old, and bought his
- present farm, then comprising 200 acres, but now reduced
to fifty acres. It is four miles from Janesville, on the Hanover
road. On this place he has made his home forty-nine years, and
has witnessed the development of what was then a wilderness into
a most charming and attractive country.
- With the TRIPP family is associated the romantic history
of Frances SLOCUM, a distant relative of
- the subject of this narrative, who Nov. 2, 1778, four months
after the Wyoming Massacre, when she was only five years old,
and was not found until sixty years later. She had married a
chief of the Miami Indians, and they came West and lived near
what is now Peru, Ind. There she died, and was buried. Her grave
is now marked by a very appropriate monument, costing seven hundred
dollars, which was unveiled May 17, 1900, in the presence of
three thousand people, two of whom were from Wisconsin - Mr.
TRIPP and Mrs. E. C. POTTER (of Whitewater). The unfortunate
captive had reared a family of children, and had become an Indian
in every sense of the word except her blood. The monument was
unveiled by two great-great-granddaughters of Frances SLOCUM,
Victoria and Mabel Ray BONDY.
-
- [Transcriber's note: The lady that I found this article
for said they knew about this very, very distant relative and
have a picture of the monument.... and, her daughter had recently
given a speech in school about Frances SLOCUM (prior to my even
sending them this info). I just love stories like these... wish
I could find one in one of MY families!]
-
- Taken from "Commemorative Biographical Record of
the Counties of Rock, Green, Grant, Iowa and Lafayette Wisconsin"
(c)1901, p. 185-187.
-
- Courtesy of Carol
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