- ALLEN P. LOVEJOY was born at Wayne, Me., March 21, 1825,
and is the son of Nathan
- LOVEJOY, a pioneer of that State. The family is of English
Puritan origin, and has produced some of the most noted men in
American history. The distinguished Elijah and Owen LOVEJOY,
of Illinois, were of the same lineage, and educated in the same
academy with our subject, who received his education in the Wesleyan
Seminary of Readfield, Me. He was raised on a farm and early
imbued with habits of industry and self-reliance, which have
been among the leading characteristics of his life. At the age
of 18, he taught a public school in his native State, and, in
the year following, was apprenticed to learn the carpenter and
builder's trade, at which he subsequently worked in Maine for
some years, but the larger possibilities of the undeveloped country
of the great Northwest induced him, in 1850, to break loose from
his Eastern home, and come to the promising State of Wisconsin.
At the age of 25 years, he landed in Janesville with a very
small stock of this world's goods, having made the journey from
Milwaukee to Janesville on foot. For nine years after his arrival,
he was engaged in building, and being a superior mechanic, as
well as a man of stern integrity and high business qualifications,
his success was in proportion to his merits. In 1859, he added
to his business a lumber-yard which proved so successful, that
he resolved to discontinue building, and devote himself exclusively
to the sale of lumber, in 1863, 1870, 1874; since then, he has
enlarged his business, until he is the head of several extensive
lumber firms in this State, and is largely engaged in the lumbering
business of Northern Wisconsin, having purchased about twenty-five
thousand acres of valuable pine land there. He is also connected
with various other industries and enterprises in Janesville.
He is a large stockholder in the HARRIS Manufacturing Company,
of which he was elected a Director, in 1870, and President, in
1875, which position he now holds. Mr. LOVEJOY now represents
this district in the State Legislature, having been elected by
a flattering majority, in 1878.
-
- Taken from "The History of Rock County, Wis."
(c)1879, p. 713.
-
- Courtesy of Carol
|