- CHARLES W. STARK. Brought when a boy of six years to Wisconsin
by his parents in 1846,
- the subject of this sketch, Major STARK, now postmaster at
Tiffany, Rock county, has remained ever since a resident of the
county, save the four years when he served in the army during
the Civil war. Entering as a private, he soon won promotion for
meritorious and gallant conduct, and was mustered out an officer.
His career in civil life has been equally successful. He has
actively followed farming through life until quite recently,
and has been prominently identified with local public affairs.
- Major STARK was born at Halifax, Windham Co., Vt., Aug. 5,
1840, son of William H. and
- Clarissa S. (PLUMB) STARK, both natives of Vermont. William
STARK, the paternal grandfather of our subject, was a native
of Connecticut, of English ancestry. He had a family of ten children.
He engaged in farming for half a century at Halifax, Vt., where
he died at the age of about ninety years. James PLUMB, the maternal
grandfather of our subject, was also a native of Connecticut.
He moved when a young man to Halifax, Vt., there engaged in farming,
and died aged about seventy-six years. He reared a family of
eleven children.
- William H. STARK, the father of our subject, was born in
1810, in Vermont, where he received a
- good common-school education and engaged in farming. He served
in the Vermont State militia, and was elected to the Legislature
of his native State. In May, 1846, he came to Wisconsin, and
located in Tiffany. He bought a farm of 208 acres, in 1864 purchased
eighty acres, and later two other eighty-acre tracts, all of
which he improved. Twice he was elected to the Wisconsin Legislature,
and he held a number of the more important local offices; for
many years he was a member of the town board of supervisors,
serving as chairman of the board, and he was also town assessor
and treasurer for many years. He was reared a Presbyterian, but
later became a member of the Universalist Church, which was the
faith of his wife. He died in Tiffany in 1894, aged eighty-three
years and eleven months. His wife died in 1893, aged eighty-three
years. Five children were born to them, three sons and two daughters,
of whom three survive: Juliette Maria; Charles William, our subject;
and DeWitt Q., of Tiffany.
- Charles William STARK was six years of age when, in 1846,
he came with his parents to
- Wisconsin. He attended the district schools, and spent his
youth on the home farm. He had just attained his majority when
he enlisted, Sept. 1, 1861, in Company F, 13th Wis. V. I. In
August, 1862, he was commissioned second lieutenant of the 22d
Regiment, and thirty days later was transferred to the 33d Regiment.
He was promoted to first lieutenant in April, 1863, and in December,
1864, was commissioned captain and transferred to Company E,
of the same regiment, commanding the company until mustered out
and discharged at Madison, Wis., Sept. 1, 1865. For meritorious
services during the campaign against the city of Mobile "and
its defenses" he was breveted major, United States Volunteers,
effected March 26, 1865, receiving his commission a few days
later. He was also acting aid-de-camp and provost marshal during
the last year of the war, serving on the staff of Col. J. B.
MOORE and Col. L. M. WARD. Major STARK witnessed much active
campaigning during his four years' service. He participated in
the siege of Vicksburg; was at Jackson, Miss., in 1863, when
his brigade in ten minutes lost all but 225 men out of 900 engaged;
served throughout the Atlanta campaign in command of a detachment
of the 33d Wis. V. I.; was in the second battle of Nashville
in 1864; and participated in the capture of Old Spanish Fort,
near Mobile, which was taken by assault following a siege of
fourteen days, the brigade to which he belonged being the principal
troops engaged in the assault that resulted in the capture of
the fort at midnight on April 9, 1865. During the siege at Old
Spanish Fort Major STARK had charge of the construction of the
trenches and approaches to the fort, and was highly commended
by Generals A. J. SMITH and E. A. CARR for the efficiency of
his work. He also engaged in a large number of skirmishes. Through
exposure while in the army his right eye was affected so that
he has since lost the sight of it.
- After the war Major STARK returned to his old home at Tiffany,
and engaged in farming. His
- father gave him a tract of eighty acres, to which by purchase
he subsequently added another eighty-acre tract, located in the
southwest quarter of Section 26. This property he farmed and
rented until 1896, when he sold it, well improved. He now owns
the seventeen acres of land in Section 35, town of La Prairie,
on which he resides.
- Our subject married, Jan. 20, 1868, Miss H. Eliza NASH, daughter
of Jefferson and Matilda
- (OWEN) NASH, and by this marriage there was one daughter,
Nellie Matilda, who married Charles H. WEIRICK, of Shopiere,
and has two children, Marion and Maurice. Mrs. H. Eliza STARK
died Oct. 8, 1879. She was a member of All Souls Unitarian Church.
For his second wife our subject married, Sept. 20, 1882, Mrs.
Cora H. HEMMINGWAY, widow of John HEMMINGWAY, and daughter of
Hugh CHAPIN. By this marriage Mr. STARK has three children: Charles
W., Jr., Hubbard, and Cora M. By her former husband Mrs. Cora
M. STARK had one son, Hugh. She died Oct. 8, 1887, aged twenty-seven
years.
- Mr. STARK has been prominent in public life. On Oct. 25,
1865, he was appointed by the
- Treasury Department at Washington, Inspector of Distilled
Spirits and Coal Oil in and for the Second Collection District
of Wisconsin. In the spring of 1868 he was elected town clerk
and held that office two years. He was then elected register
of deeds of Rock county, and re-elected two years later, serving
four years. While filling that responsible office he for three
years was the owner of the Rock County Abstract, and during the
same period he built at Janesville 250 fanning mills. In 1874
he was elected alderman of the Second ward of Janesville, on
the Republican ticket, and he served as such in the common council
of the city until he went back to his farm. Returning to his
farm in 1876, he has followed agricultural pursuits ever since,
in connection with wagon repairing. He has served as assessor
four or five years, and in 1900 was census enumerator of La Prairie
township. Though a Republican in politics, the Major was appointed
postmaster at Tiffany Oct. 28, 1895, during the administration
of President CLEVELAND, which office he still holds. He has been
prominent in politics, and both he and his father have attended
numerous county, Congressional and State conventions. Major STARK
became a member of Good Samaritan Lodge, No. 135, F. & A.M.,
of Clinton, Wis., in 1864, and of Janesville Chapter, No. 5,
R.A.M., in 1872. He is a member of W. H. SARGENT Post, No. 20,
G.A.R., and also of the Society of the Army of the Tennessee,
established at Raleigh, N.C., April 25, 1865.
-
- Taken from "Commemorative Biographical Record of
the Counties of Rock, Green, Grant, Iowa and Lafayette Wisconsin"
(c)1901, pp. 137-139.
-
- Courtesy of Carol
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