- HIRAM L. DAVY. The rule that adversity in youth brings success
in manhood, finds a fitting
- example in the career of Hiram L. DAVY, road contractor and
farmer of Milton, Rock County. The father died when Hiram was
a child, shortly after the family had moved to Rock County from
Canada. The widow and her young children then settled in Milton,
and there, through sturdy effort, the boys grew to lives of usefulness
and influence.
- Our subject was born in Canada Feb. 7, 1858, son of Thaddeus
LEWIS and Charlotte
- (ADAMS) DAVY, both natives of Canada. The paternal grandfather,
Michael DAVY, was a Methodist minister, a Canadian by birth and
of English ancestry. He reared a large family and died at Beloit,
Wis., in 1881, aged eighty years. The maternal grandfather of
our subject, Hiram ADAMS, was also a native of Canada, of English
lineage. He was a lumber merchant, engaged especially in getting
out masts for ships under the Queen's orders. He was born in
1800, reared a large family, and died at Chicago in 1880.
- Thaddeus L. DAVY, the father of our subject, acquired the
trade of a carpenter and joiner, which
- he followed for a number of years in Canada. In the fall
of 1864 he came to Rock County, locating south of Janesville,
and in 1865 he removed to Rock Prairie, in Harmony township,
where he died Aug. 26, 1865, aged thirty-seven years. His widow
still survives, making her home with her children. Both were
Methodists Of their eight children, five are now living: Samuel,
Orrin, Hiram L., and John and Ezra (twins).
- Hiram L. DAVY was six years old when brought by his parents
to Rock County. Shortly after his
- father's death the mother moved with her family to Milton,
where he has ever since remained. Hiram attended the district
and village schools, and when about eighteen he acquired the
carpenter's trade, which he followed for eight or ten years,
engaging also in contract work. He then followed the livery
business for a time, after which he engaged in farming on a tract
of forty acres which he purchased in Milton township. This he
afterward sold and bought eighty acres in wood, which he still
owns. His present residence in Milton he purchased in 1897.
- Mr. DAVY married Sept. 22, 1886, Miss Mary L. WINCH, daughter
of Jeremiah and Fannie M.
- (MONTGOMERY) WINCH. Her mother was born in New York State,
daughter of John MONTGOMERY, who settled in Rock County in 1849,
rearing a large family and living to an advanced age. Jeremiah
WINCH was born in New Hampshire in 1809, and when a young man
came west as a soldier in the Black Hawk war. He was an early
settler in Rock County, where he followed farming until his death,
May 30, 1868, aged fifty-eight years and nine months. His wife
died on Aug. 17, 1895, having almost attained her seventy-ninth
birthday. Both were members of the Methodist Church. They had
four children, Wesley, of Milton Junction; George, of Lima township,
Rock County; Charles, of Fort Atkinson, Wis.; and Mary L., wife
of our subject. Mr. and Mrs. DAVY have one daughter, Alice
May. They are active members of the Methodist Church. In politics
Mr. DAVY is a Republican. He is one of the enterprising and
successful citizens of Milton, and is held in high esteem by
all who know him.
-
- Taken from "Commemorative Biographical Record of
the Counties of Rock, Green, Grant, Iowa and Lafayette Wisconsin"
(c)1901, pp. 843-844.
-
- Courtesy of Carol
|