Richard Valentine (block 276)
Richard Valentine was a telegraph operator and owner of a telegraphy school in Janesville. Some of you might remember that George Parker worked at this school for a time. Anyway, Valentine was always interested in communications. At one point he went to Chicago to see the work of Elisha Gray, who had been experimenting with sending sound over wire. Valentine was fascinated by Gray's work, and sometimes told a story about seeing a pair of young boys with fruit cans in their hands, and a string attached to the center bottom of each can, stretched across the street. He took the can out of one boy's hand and spoke into it, then talked to the boy across the street. He claimed that this primitive tin can telephone gave him the inspiration for a method of electrical speech transmission. Of course Valentine and Gray weren't the only ones working on this idea, Alexander Graham Bell also filed a patent for an "electric speaking telephone."
William Baines (block 276)
It's hard to miss this tall white obelisk dedicated to the Bladon and Baines families. William Baines was a pioneer of Rock county, born in England in 1830, where his family farmed. When he was around twenty years of age he came to the United States, originally to New York, where he married. They later loved to Ohio, and then to Rock county, settling on the farm that originally belong to the family of Frances Willard (where Cedar Crest is now located). He made many improvement and became a successful tobacco grower.
He and his wife raised five children, some of them becoming successful tobacco traders.
Allen Perry Lovejoy and Julia Stow Lovejoy (block 275)
This beautiful monument under shade tree belongs to the family of Allen Perry Lovejoy and his wife, Julia Stow Lovejoy. If you are familiar with Janesville, you probably know their beautiful house in he Courthouse Hill area, at one time converted to use as the local Y.W.C.A. The Lovejoys were from Maine, and Allen was trained to be a joiner and carpenter there. When he was 25 years of age he traveled west to Milwaukee, then Beloit, and finally Janesville where he went into business for himself working as a carpenter and builder. In 1860 he opened a lumber yard here, gradually expanding into nearby communities such as Mt. Horeb, Dodgeville, Barnveld and Stoughton. He invested wisely and over time his lumber interests included land in Oregon, Louisiana and California. And it was not just lumber - he became a partner with James Harris after a fire destroyed the Harris factory. Lovejoy became president of Harris Manufacturing and later Janesville Machine Company. He was also the director of the First National Bank in this city, and later still a stockholder in Milwaukee's Marine National Bank and Superior's Bank of Commerce. He also invested in various other Janesville businesses such as the Cotton Mills and Monterey Flouring Mill. He also served in politics, being elected in 1878 to the state assembly, and a few years later to the state senate. He was also the 22nd mayor of Janesville.
His wife was remarkable on her own. Two decades younger than her husband, she was originally from Connecticut. A teacher by profession, she taught both in the east and in Denver. She met her future husband in Janesville when she was here visiting her sister and brother-in-law. Mrs. Lovejoy was founder of Janesville's first kindergarten, first regent of the local chapter of the D.A.R., and was instrumental in starting the city's first hospital. For many years she served on the board of the Janesville Public Library. She and her children set up the Lovejoy Memorial Fund to help pay operating costs for the Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.Ca.
Thomas Jefferson Ruger (block 288)
Reverend Thomas Jefferson Ruger, like many of Rock County's early pioneers, was originally from New England, born in 1804. He was studious did well in school and attended a liberal arts college with a Master of Arts degree. He began his professional career teaching at Wilbraham Academy and later became president of Wesleyan Seminary in Lima, New York, which eventually became Syracuse University.
Ruger was ordained a priest of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and worked in that capacity in the East for several years. In 1844 he met Bishop Kemper, whose diocese included the upper Midwest. Kemper urged Ruger to travel west, and Ruger agreed, coming to Janesville in 1844 and organizing Trinity Episcopal Church. He also helped with the establishment of the Janesville Academy. Eventually he retired to a farm outside town with his wife Maria. Together they had raised four sons and three daughters, one of whom married George Dunbar, and the other who married JR.R. Pease.
John J.R. Pease (block 268)
Pease first came to Wisconsin in 1840; he surveyed most of early Janesville. Later he studied law with Judge Whiton, who became the first state supreme court justice. Always interested in education, he helped found the Janesville Academy in 1844, and later when he became mayor, he helped establish two elementary schools and a new high school. In addition, he was on the board of directors for Oak Hill cemetery at the time the old cemetery was moved to make room for the new high school in what is now Jefferson Park. A forward looking man, he advocated for rail service in this city, and served on the board of directors for Rock County Bank and Northwestern Mutual Insurance Company.
George Ward Dunbar (block 268)
Like Thomas Ruger, George Dunbar was an Episcopal priest, born in New York state. He served in the East several years before coming to Janesville after his first wife, Emma, died. In 1876 he married a second time, this time to Adelaide Ruger. Perhaps at the urging of his new in-laws, George Dunbar was commissioned chaplain to the US Army about ten years after the end of the Civil war. He headed out to Fort Concho, in Texas. Life there was isolated, dangerous, and hot. At the fort Dunbar served as schoolmaster and chaplain. By 1880 he was transferred to the Dakota territory, to Fort Yates, a place now part of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. At the end of his career he was chaplain at the Presidio in San Franciso, and also at Alcatraz, which was a military fortress in San Francisco Bay. By 1897 Dunbar retired to Janesville, but at the end of his interesting life had moved in Washington D.C, where he died in 1914.
William Fink Palmer (block 167)
If you have ever visited Janesville's Palmer Park you can thank William Palmer, since he donated the land to the city. Palmer had been an insurance salesman, and all I really know is that when George Parker was starting up his pen manufacturing company he was strapped for cash. Palmer wrote Parker a check for $1,000 and became a partner in the fledgling enterprise. A fine investment!
Chester Dubes (block 167)
William Mills Battle (block 259)
This simple stone marks the resting place of a man who lived an eventful life. He was born in Massachusetts in 1819, the youngest of four sons in a wealthy farming family. One of Battle's older brother was a disgrace, drinking and gambling away much of the family fortune and good name, so much so that they moved out of the area to Ohio. It was William's early ambition to restore his family's reputation and finances. He inherited just twelve acres of land from his grandfather, and despite a spinal deformity which prevented him from engaging in traditional farming, he developed his skills as a cattleman, raising and selling quality beef. His shrewd business acumen helped him to increase both his land holding and his fortune, allowing him to raise a family in the Buckeye state. Then came the financial crash of 1875, which caught him unaware and cased him to lose his fortune. This was a cruel blow, so much so that he left Ohio and brought his family to Janesville in 1877, and later to DePere, where he managed a hotel. He eventually returned to Janesville, where he lived out the final years of his life, if not in wealth, at least in honor.
George Safford Parker (block 250)
The modest headstone in this family plot belong to the family of George Safford Parker, founder of the Parker Pen company. Parker was a native of Shullsburg, and a graduate of Valparaiso in Indiana. When he came to Janesville it was to first learn, and later teach telegraphy at Valentines School of Telegraphy. He was also a pen salesman for the John Holland Pen Company, also here in Janesville, and whose pens apparently often leaked or needed repair. Parker tinkered and experimented and ended up inventing a better and more reliable pen, the Lucky Curve. The new Parker Pen company started small in producing these pens, with the help of the infusion of money from William F. Palmer, and had offices in various buildings around Janesville, until 1919 when Parker Pen built its own headquarters at the intersection of South Division and East Court streets. Over the years the Parker Pen company became an international success, with innovations such as the iconic Big Red pen, the vacumatic pen, and Quink, a special brand of quick drying ink.
John Meek Whitehead (block 253)
John Meek Whitehead was born in 1852 in Illinois, where he attended local public and prep school, and then when he was 25 he graduated from Yale, where he was school chums with William Howard Taft. He taught for a time, entered law practice in Chicago, married and began a family. By 1883 Whitehead had located in Janesville, where he operated a law office. He also had an impressive life of public service, serving sixteen years in the state senate., and helping to plan the new state capitol building after the original one was destroyed by fire. In Janesville he was president of the YMCA, and head of the library board of directors. He also was a longtime curator for the Wisconsin State Historical Society.
George Wise (block 251)
I was interested that George Wise's monument has a second name in quotes under his name - "Bill Baxter." Who was that? Wise was English by birth, and emigrate with his mother when he was a child originally to Chicago, and later to Albion. He tried his hand at a number of professions - farming, manufacturing carriages, house painting, running a temperance pool hall. None worked out. Finally he turned to photography, and had a successful studio for many years in Janesville. How about Bill Baxter? After Wise died of a stroke, his obituary revealed the answer. For years George Wise wrote poetry published in the Janesville Gazette and other publications under the pen name "Bill Baxter."
Joseph M. Bostwick (block 160)
You will need to cross the road and head back toward the chapel for the final stop on this walk, that of the founder of Bostwick's department store, Joseph M. Bostwick. The Huling name is the one you'll see first, and Bostwick is on the other side of the monument.
Joseph Bostwick was another transplant from New England; he came to the area when he was a teenager with his parents. Here in Rock county Joseph went to work in the general store of Bailey and Dimock, where he learned the ins and outs of general merchandising. He also worked for other merchants, and eventually formed a partnership with O.K. Bennett, under the name Bennett and Bostwick. Around this time the way people liked to shop was gradually changing, and general and dry-goods stores where the customer might haggle, and where the owner would select merchandise for the customer from a list, were being replaced by department stores that stocked a wide variety of goods, where prices were set, and the customer could browse. Think something like Macys, or Marshall Fields. J.M. Bostwick opened Janesville's first department store, and was for many years respected for quality goods and money-back guarantees. J.M. Bostwick and Sons had a reputation for quality and good value.
One cold January day in 1909 J.M. Bostwick went out for a pleasant evening at the local Elks club, and dropped dead of a cerebral hemorrhage aad stroke. His funeral was hugely attended and afterward his sons took over the business and expanded it further. Bostwicks was a downtown fixture for years, until 1973 when the Janesville Mall opened, and it was clear that people's shopping habits were changing once more Bostwicks closed its doors forever in 1978.
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