- CASWELL, Lucien Beal, for fourteen years member of the National
House of Representatives,
- and known throughout the state as a leader among our public
men in a critical time in our national history, is the son of
Beal and Betsy CHAPMAN CASWELL, and was born at Swanton, Vt.,
November 27th, 1827. The CASWELLs have been more or less conspicuous
in New England for generations. His father was a farmer, and
died when the son was but three years old. His maternal grandfather
was a soldier in the revolutionary army. His mother married for
her second husband Augustus CHURCHILL; and, in 1837, the family
moved to Wisconsin and took up their residence in Rock county,
when Indians were more numerous than white people, and Mr. CASWELL,
though not yet an aged man, has therefore seen the whole of the
marvelous development of the state, in whose public affairs he
has been so conspicuous a figure. Coming to this new country
when he was but 9 years of age, the boy acquired a thorough knowledge
of work, but had scanty opportunities for securing anything like
a liberal education. By persistent efforts of self-culture, however,
he entered Milton academy, and afterward was a student for a
few terms in Beloit College, which institution has since conferred
upon him the honorary degree of A.M. At the age of twenty-three
he began the study of law with the late Senator Matt. H. CARPENTER,
and in 1851 was admitted to the bar. In the following year he
began the practice of law in Fort Atkinson, which has ever since
been his home. His practice has extended to the various courts
of the state, and to the district, circuit and supreme courts
of the United States, embracing many and varied cases of importance.
- In 1855 and 1856 he was district attorney, and in 1863 he
became a member of the lower house of the legislature, in which
there was but the meager Republican majority of three, and the
progress of legislation in aid of the national government in
its struggle with the rebellion was slow and beset with difficulties;
yet Mr. CASWELL's efforts in behalf of the general government
and the Union soldiers were patriotic, unremitting and efficient.
From September, 1863, to May, 1865, he was commissioner of the
Second District Board of Enrollment, and was active in the work
of recruiting the army. In 1868 he was a delegate to the Republican
national convention at Chicago, where Grant was first nominated
for president. In 1872 and 1874 he was again a member of the
state assembly. So efficient was the discharge of his legislative
duties that he began to be talked of as a suitable man for congress,
and in the fall of 1874 he was nominated and elected by the Republicans
of the Second district to the House of Representatives of the
Forty-fourth Congress, and three times re-elected in that district.
In 1882, by reason of a redistricting of the state, his county
was assigned to the First district, and that year he was not
a candidate. He was, however, returned to the Forty-ninth, Fiftieth
and Fifty-first congresses, making fourteen years of service,
with but one hiatus, the longest time that any one from Wisconsin
has served in the house. With a natural aptitude for legislation,
he very soon took a prominent position among the working members
of the house, and came to be known as one who had a firm grasp
of its business and one whose judgment could be relied upon as
based on an intelligent comprehension of the scope of any proposed
legislation. Although not given to brilliant rhetoric, his speeches
always commanded attention and exerted an influence by reason
of the clearness and force with which they presented the question
at issue. Among the important bills which he supported, and which
were passed largely through his influence while a member of the
committees on the judiciary and appropriations, were the Centennial
appropriation, the Texas Pacific railroad as a competing line
to the Pacific Coast, an amendment to the post-office appropriation
bill, which he had in charge, reducing letter postage from three
to two cents; also the bill creating the circuit court of appeals
for the relief of the supreme court, and the bill refunding to
the states $15,500,000 of war taxes, of which he was the author,
and from which Wisconsin received $444,000. In the Fifty-first
congress he was chairman of the committee on private land claims,
reported and secured the enactment of the law establishing the
court for adjudicating the Spanish grants in the western territory.
Many other important measures of wide and varied scope received
his earnest support; and, in brief, it may be said that his long
service in congress was due to the fact that his constituents
realized that few, if any, could serve them and the country at
large so efficiently as he.
- In local affairs he has been an active, enterprising and
most useful citizen. He was one of the
- founders of the First National Bank of Fort Atkinson, in
1863, of which he was for twenty-five years cashier, and is now
vice-president. He organized the Northwestern Manufacturing company,
which now has a capital stock of $200,000, and the Citizens'
State Bank, which was opened in 1884. These institutions have
been of great benefit to the citizens of Fort Atkinson and vicinity,
and his
active part in their creation shows his public spirit and business
sagacity.
- Mr. CASWELL was married on the 7th of August, 1855, to Miss
Elizabeth H. MAY of Fort
- Atkinson, who died January 31st, 1890. Six children survive
her: Chester A., cashier of the Citizens' State Bank; Isabelle,
wife of Guy L. COLE of Beloit; Lucien B., Jr., cashier of the
First National Bank of Fort Atkinson; George Walter, book-keeper
for the Northwestern Manufacturing company; Elizabeth May, married
to Dr. F. J. PERRY of Fort Atkinson, and Harlow O., recently
graduated from Rush Medical College of Chicago.
- Mr. CASWELL has traveled extensively, having made several
visits to the Pacific coast, and, in
- 1891, in company with his sons Chester and Harlow, he visited
Europe and made an extended tour of Great Britain and the Continent.
-
- [Taken from "Men of Progress: Wisconsin" (c)1897
The Evening Wisconsin Company, Milwaulee, pp. 67-68]
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