- JACOB OSCAR VAN GALDER, now retired from active business
life, and living at No. 105
- Sharon street, Janesville, Rock county, was born in Genesee
county, N.Y., Feb. 6, 1834, a son of Jacob and Rhoda (WILSON)
VAN GALDER, natives of Vermont and New York, respectively. They
had eleven children, of whom our subject is the only one now
living.
- Jacob VAN GALDER began his business career working by the
month in New York, and later
- became a manufacturer of potash. In 1839 he moved to Montville,
Medina Co., Ohio, where he continued the potash business, and
did coopering and other things as opportunity came to him. Some
twelve years later he moved into Michigan, and lived first at
Coldwater and afterward at Hillsdale. About 1850 he came to Wisconsin,
and located in La Prairie township, Rock county, where he bought
400 acres of land, converted it into a farm, and died there some
eight years later, at the age of sixty. He served for a time
in the war of 1812. He was always industrious and thrifty, and
became quite wealthy. His father, Jacob VAN GALDER, was a descendant
of one of four brothers who came to America in the days of the
Puritans. He was in the French and Revolutionary wars, and was
a great hunter. He was a pioneer in western New York, and lived
to be nearly one hundred years of age, spending his last days
at Montville, Ohio. The maternal grandfather of the gentleman
whose name begins this sketch, was a native of New York, and
died in middle life. He was a farmer, a prominent man, and was
known in his neighborhood as "Judge" WILSON.
- Jacob O. VAN GALDER spent his boyhood and youth in Ohio and
Michigan. He helped his
- father clear several hundred acres of land, learned the cooper's
trade from him, and followed that trade a number of years. He
came to Rock county with his parents in about 1849 or 1850, and
continued working with his father until the latter's death. Our
subject's education, begun in Ohio, was continued in Michigan,
and was finished in Rock county. He farmed in that county two
years after the death of his father, and then went to Iowa, locating
at Charles City, where he engaged in teaming and threshing for
three years. He came back to Rock county to let his brother Foster
go to the war. He farmed in La Prairie township for a time, and
then moved to Magnolia, living there four years. Then he came
into Janesville, bought his present home property, and has lived
here ever since. He has been a hard-working and upright man,
and is much respected by all who know him.
- Mr. VAN GALDER and Miss Arlina CRONK, a daughter of Blanner
H. and Nancy
- (ROBINSON) CRONK, were married Sept. 15, 1868. They have
had four children, Edith May, Fannie, Aurilla and Oscar Burr.
Edith May is unmarried. Fannie married Thomas CHRISMAN, and lives
on a farm in the town of La Prairie; they have one daughter,
Helen Aurilla. Aurilla married William JAMES, and they have one
son; they live in Elgin, Illinois. Oscar Burr is unmarried, and
lives at home. Mr. VAN GALDER is a Republican.
- Mrs. VAN GALDER's people came from New York and settled in
the town of Magnolia, Rock
- county, about 1852. Her father died in 1893, when eighty-three
years old, and her mother in 1873, at the age of sixty-eight.
Their family consisted of twelve children. They were farming
people all their lives. Abraham CRONK, the paternal grandfather
of...
-
- [Transcriber's note: Sorry--I don't have the next page]
-
- Taken from "Commemorative Biographical Record of
the Counties of Rock, Green, Grant, Iowa and Lafayette Wisconsin"
(c)1901, p. 76.
-
- Courtesy of Carol
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