- CHARLES BLACKMAN. Charles M. BLACKMAN was born in Bridgewater,
New York,
- on October 10, 1833. He was the son of Alva and Almira (BRIGGS)
BLACKMAN, who spent their lives engaged in agricultural pursuits,
moving from New York to Wisconsin in 1846, when their son, Charles
M., was thirteen years old, and settled in Johnstown, Rock county.
Alva BLACKMAN became the owner of a large farm on Rock Prairie,
in the vicinity of Johnstown. Both the parents were form old
New York families and received good educations. Three children
were born to Alva BLACKMAN and wife, namely: Henry Harrison,
Charles M., the subject, and Harriet Almira.
- Charles M. BLACKMAN grew to manhood on the home farm in Rock
county, where he
- assisted with the general work about the place and he attended
the common schools there. When a youth he came to Whitewater
and entered the employ of Marsh & Partridge, dealers in general
merchandise, and while in the capacity of clerk for this firm
he mastered the ins and outs of merchandising, and in the year
1856 he went to Stoughton, Wisconsin, where he remained until
1863, engaging in the mercantile business for himself during
those seven years. He had built up a good business, but, seeking
a wider field for the exercise of his talents, he returned to
Whitewater, where he and Sanger MARSH organized the First National
Bank, which opened for business January 2, 1864. This was the
second national bank in Wisconsin, and which, because of its
clean and careful management, has earned a high and honorable
position among the banking institutions of the country. And
Mr. BLACKMAN became an ideal banker. He carried his sound and
popular institution safely through every financial panic since
the Civil war. Any business man knows what this means, and can
thus understand something of the exceptional finical ability
of the subject. During the past fifty years Mr. BLACKMAN assisted
many business men, not only in prosperous times, but also in
periods of financial depression and danger. He had many large
transactions with men outside of Whitewater and gained some of
his warmest personal friends on a strict business basis, and
in conservative business relations.
- On August 13, 1860, Mr. BLACKMAN was married to Mary E. BILLINGS,
a representative
- of one of the prominent old families of Whitewater, and here
she grew to womanhood and was educated and proved a worthy companion
and helpmeet. Four children blessed this union, namely: Edith,
wife of F. K. SANDERS, president of Washburn College at Topeka,
Kansas; Jessie, wife of William H. BREESE, a business man of
Portage, Wisconsin; Mary, wife of Rev. H. T. SELL, formerly of
Chicago, now of Jacksonville, Florida; and T. M. BLACKMAN, of
Whitewater, who is vice-president of the bank of which his father
was so long the head. These children all received the advantages
of good educations and are well situated in life.
- r. BLACKMAN was always ranked among the county's foremost
citizens. Every worthy public
- cause had his sympathy and support in a substantial way.
For the sake of some unpopular movements he often was in the
minority, and sometimes alone. His unconscious influence was
even then so great that his presence, without a word, was sufficient
to rebuke, and, at times, silence a false public measure. In
any case no one dared to approach him to advocate a wrong thing
in public life. His example was his argument. He was always
prominent in temperance work.
- Mr. BLACKMAN was well known as a worker in the interest of
the Young Men's Christian
- Association and Sunday school conventions, especially in
his earlier years, and in later days in the home mission work
of the Congregational church in Wisconsin, he having been an
active and influential member of that denomination and a liberal
supporter of the local church, in fact, a pillar in the same
for many years. He was a religious man through and through,
and believed in carrying his religion into his everyday life.
His was of the workable and working type of religion of which
the world stands in so much need. The Christian church with
him was at the center of all good, public or private.
- As president and director for years of the State Young Men's
Christian Association, as trustee of
- Beloit College, as treasurer and director for a period of
nineteen years of the state home missionary interests, and for
a period as Wisconsin member of the board of directors of the
National Home Missionary Society, to say nothing of other positions
of honor and trust, his circle of devoted friends and admirers
was unusually large.
- Mr. BLACKMAN was successful in a financial way and through
his unaided efforts accumulated
- a competency. He had a commodious and attractive home in
Whitewater which was known as a place of hospitality and good
cheer and here he was summoned to his reward on a higher plane
of action on Friday, April 19, 1912, in the seventy-ninth year
of his life, thus going down in the mellow Indian summer of his
years like a sheaf fully ripened, and with every assurance of
another and more glorious springtime in another world than ours.
-
- Taken from "The History of Walworth County, Wisconsin,
Vol. II" by Albert Clayton Beckwith, (c)1912, pp. 880-882.
-
- Courtesy of Carol
|