 |
- LEWIS ALEXANDER PLATTS, who for many years has been one
- of the foremost men of the Seventh-Day Baptist denomination,
is a native of Clarke county, Ohio, and was born February 21,
1840. He is the eldest of five children born to David Rittenhouse
and Angeline (DAVIS) PLATTS, the former a native of New Jersey
and the latter of Virginia. Their other children were Benjamin
K., who enlisted in Company K, Fifth Wisconsin Infantry, and
died while a prisoner of war in 1862, in Virginia; Corliss I.,
who was a member of Barstow's Third Cavalry Regiment and died
while on scouting duty in Arkansas in 1862; Sarah Eleanor, who
married Captain George W. CLEMENT, and died at Welton, Iowa,
in 1870, and Willametta J., who is married to Mr. John H. BABCOCK,
of Milton, Wis.c
|
- David R. PLATTS settled in Green Lake county, Wisconsin,
with his family in 1845. He was a
- cabinet maker and farmer by occupation. He died in Harrison
county, West Virginia, in 1877, at the age of seventy-two years.
His wife had died two years previous to that time in Farina,
Ill., at the age of sixty. She was a woman of intense religious
nature and deep religious convictions, and the influence of her
teachings and godly living in her family, first turned the mind
of our subject to the gospel ministry, in which he has so long
been a leader.
- Lewis A., after finishing his preliminary studies, attended
Milton college, where he was graduated
- with the class of 1864; two years later he received a degree
form Alfred university, in the state of New York, and in 1871
was graduated from the Union Theological seminary, New York city.
While a student, he served the Seventh-Day Baptist church at
Friendship, N.Y., as pastor, and from 1868 to 1876 held the pastorate
at Newmarket, N.J. From 1876 to 1882 he was a pastor at Westerly,
R.I., and during the next ten years edited the "Sabbath
Recorder" at Alfred, N.Y. From 1892 to 1896 he filled the
chair of church history and homilies at Alfred university, and
since the year last named has served as pastor of the Seventh-Day
Baptist church at Milton. In 1886 Mr. PLATTS received from Alfred
university the degree of Doctor of Divinity, and stands as one
of the strong men among the representative men of his denomination.
- Dr. PLATTS has never been on the "waiting list."
His services have always been sought, and his
- calls for labors outside his regular work have been and are
many. He was two years president of the village board of Alfred,
N.Y., and also vice president of the University bank, and for
seven years president of the building and loan association of
that village. He was for a short time president of the board
of trustees of Alfred university, and is vice president of the
board of trustees of Milton college. He was for six years recording
secretary of the board of managers of the Seventh-Day Baptist
Missionary Society, at Westerly, R.I.
- Dr. PLATTS is alive to all that pertains to the good of his
fellows and the result of his earnest
- work and Christian living is shown in the lives of those
who have come within the range of his influence.
- In 1864 he married Miss Emma, daughter of Jesse and Dency
(BLIVIN) TEFFT, of Almond,
- N.Y. Mrs. PLATTS is of New England ancestry. She was graduated
from the teachers' course of Milton college in 1864, and in 1866
form the philosophical course at Alfred university, which institute
conferred on her the degree of Master of Arts in 1873. Since
1898 she has been an instructor in French language and literature
at Milton college. Dr. and Mrs. PLATTS have three children, viz.:
William Whitford, of Milton; Jesse Allison, who is pastor of
the Presbyterian church at Bellfonte, Pa., and who married Miss
Emily Ophilia MAXSON, of Elmira, N.Y., and Lewis Arthur, a doctor
of dental surgery at Chicago, who married Miss Alice Leona DAVIDSON,
of Milton.
|
-
- Taken from "Rock County, Wisconsin, Vol. II"
by William Fiske Brown, (c)1908, pp. 857-858; lithograph p. 680.
-
- Courtesy of Carol
|