- RUSSELL BROUGHTON, M.D., Brodhead, Wis., member of G.A.R.
Post No. 90, was born
- May 16, 1842, at Racine, Wis. He comes of stock which dates
its origin in America to forbears who were a part of the earliest
history of the country, and incorporated themselves with its
most permanent institutions, and their descendants have sustained
the lustrous prestige of their ancestors. One of them states
that the "Three BROUGHTON Brothers, named Waite, John and
Thaddeus, came from England to America. That subsequently the
two latter returned to England unmarried and the former remained
and settled in America, and from him sprang all of the numerous
family of BROUGHTONs now to be found in America."
- John and Amanda (GRIFFIN) BROUGHTON, the parents of Dr. BROUGHTON,
were both
- natives of Rensselaer Co., New York, the father being born
May 6, 1817, and is the son of a Baptist minister, named Russell
BROUGHTON, who married Hannah PHILLILPS, surviving until the
age of 92 years. John BROUGHTON followed the business of a millwright
and removed to Racine, Wis., in 1841, removing thence, in 1842,
to Albany, Greene Co., Wis., where he is still living on a farm;
he was the third settler in the township and encountered all
the privations of the average pioneer, clearing his farm from
the primeval forest, living in homely style and rearing his children
as became his character and record, which have erected for him
the best possible remembrance - the permanent respect and admiration
of the people among whom he has lived and struggled. He served
his generation as Chairman of the Board of Supervisors many years
and in several other official positions requiring the highest
order of judgment and executive ability, such as is a necessity
in the formative period of a municipality. His first experience
as a Badger State agriculturalist was in the total loss of his
first crop by inundation, and he leased land 18 miles from his
home, whither he went daily or camped out. The mother was born
in 1820 and is one of 10 children, all of whom are living, the
youngest being 55 years old.
- Dr. BROUGHTON comes of stock on both sides remarkable for
tenacity of life, his paternal
- grandsire dying at 92 and his maternal grandparents at the
same age. Until he was 19 years old he passed his time in the
vocations and ways of the average son of the pioneer settlers
in Wisconsin. In 1861 he became a student at Milton College,
paying the expenses of his course by teaching at intervals and
was within one term of being graduated when he entered the army.
May 10, 1864, he enlisted in Company C, 40th Wisconsin Infantry;
was mustered at Camp Randall, Madison, and went at once to Alton,
Ill., and to Memphis, Tenn., the regimental headquarters until
the command was discharged. He performed detached duty as train
escort and on guard at Vicksburg, Holly Springs, Wolf River,
Hatchie and New Granada, as the emergencies of the locality demanded,
and was at Memphis when Forrest made his raid. All that the experience
of the doctor lacked was the one item of blood; all the other
concomitants of service on the borders of rebellion were abundant.
Stress of some kind, privation and disease were the order of
things, and when Dr. BROUGHTON was mustered out, Sept. 16, 1864,
he was ill in his bed. He passed a year in recuperating and after
teaching a year of school went to Milwaukee and entered the Commercial
College of R. C. Spencer, whence he was graduated in 1865. He
conducted a select school at Albany the following winter and
in the spring went to Conover, Iowa, and operated one year in
a warehouse. In 1866, he returned to Evansville, Wis., and entered
upon the study of medicine under Drs. EVANS and SMITH, also matriculating
at Rush Medical College in Chicago, devoting three years to unremitting
preparation for his profession and took his degree at that institution
Feb. 3, 1869. He has conducted his interests as a medical practitioner
at Brodhead since he first assumed the dignities of his profession
and has steadily won his way in business and in the estimation
of his patrons and friends, as a careful and conscientious disciple
of medicine and as one who recognizes above all other considerations
his relations with his kind. No more popular or influential member
of society exists in Brodhead and all, whether comrades, friends
or beneficiaries of his skill, are certain of sympathy in trouble
of whatever character, of good fellowship in social hours and
of thorough reliability in whatever emergency in Dr. BROUGHTON.
The honest biographer of a man is always just, as such work lives
after both; this must relieve this generation whose fancy leads
it to suspect fulsomeness in the adequate delineation of a man
who has not yet become a memory.
- Two days prior to his graduation, Feb. 1, 1869, he was married
to Julia A., daughter of Daniel
- and Ellen (BEMIS) SMILEY; the wife was born Jan. 9, 1846,
at Janesville. Her father was born at Chautauqua Co., New York,
in 1812, was a miller by calling, married in his native State,
and in 1839 joined the pioneers of the Badger State, buying land
in the vicinity of Janesville and later became interested in
the mining regions of Wisconsin. Finally he located on a farm
near Albany, where he passed his days in prominent usefulness.
He was one of the first County Commissioners; was Po__ Commissioner
18 years, and in 1865 was elected to the Assembly. He acted as
Assessor and in other official capacities, and died Feb. 20,
18__, leaving a wife, four daughters and two sons. The mother
belonged to a prominent and influential family in Chautauqua
county. Dr. and Mrs. BROUGHTON have two sons, named William Simmons
and James Russell, the former born Jan. 23, 1874, and the latter
Nov. 12, 1876. With the exception of one year, Dr. BROUGHTON
has served his Post as Surgeon since its organization; he has
been a member of the Masonic Order since 1867, advancing to the
degree of Royal Arch Mason. He belongs to the State Medical Society,
and has served as Medical Examiner of the Pension Board at Brodhead.
He is the second of eight children born to his parents, all of
whom survive, and are named John A., Albert, William, Mrs. Delilah
ENFIELD, Eugene, Russell, Hannah and Mrs. Harriet GRAHAM.
-
- From "Soldiers' and Citizens' Album of Biographical
Record Containing Personal Sketches of Army Men and Citizens
Prominent in Loyalty to the Union" by H.O. & M.A.W.
Brown. Chicago, Grand Army Pub., Co., (c)1890, p. 233.
-
- Courtesy of a transcriber.
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