WI BIO - Dane Co - WAKELEY, Charles Thompson
Biographical Review of Dane County, WI. Chicago: Biographical Review Pub. Co. 
1893, Vol II, pp 509-512, 610-611

Charles Thompson WAKELEY, of Madison [Dane County], Wisconsin, was descended 
on both sides from ancestors who settled in America in early colonial times. 
The more recent branches resided in Connecticut, where their generations were 
born and raised to the time of his parents, who removed from that State 
[Connecticut] during the last war with Great Britain to eastern New York, 
where they [Solmous and Hannah (THOMPSON) WAKELEY] were married. Both 
grandfathers were patriotic soldiers of the Revolution, one of whom, Henry 
THOMPSON, clubbed his musket at the age of sixteen years, at the battle of 
Bunker Hill.

Solmous and Hannah (THOMPSON) WAKELEY, the parents of our subject, were 
natives of Litchfield County, Connecticut, the latter being a descendant of 
Anthony STODDARD, the ancestor of Presidents EDWARDS and DWIGHT of Yale 
College. After marriage they removed from eastern to central and later to 
western New York, having lived at Buffalo [Erie County, New York] before it 
was much rebuilt from he ruins of its burning in the last war. They 
afterward removed to Boston, in the same county, Erie [NY], where Charles 
Thompson WAKELEY was born, 17 December 1827. Another son, William Pitt, was 
born there two years later [1829].

In 1836 the family, consisting of parents [Solmous and Hannah WAKELEY], three 
sons and two daughters, removed to Lorain County, Ohio, going by Lake Erie 
from Buffalo to Cleveland. The panic of that year had prostrated the 
father's business of shoes, leather, and tanning, and a new start had to be 
made and a new country found. New England pluck, industry, and intelligence, 
combined with former experience in a new country, were equal to the 
undertaking. The location was made in the "Western Reserve" of Ohio, so 
called, apparently "reserved" for New England people, and their principles 
and habits, which the settlers there generally possessed. They were 
Puritans, whether with or without the Puritan religion. Oberlin College was 
located near, and was the controlling spirit in politics and religion. That 
institution was founded upon a diet, for its disciples, of Graham bread and 
milk and water. There was, however, no milk and water, but strong meat in 
their puritanical religion and abolition politics from the time of TAPPAN and 
GARRISON and the underground railroad to Canada, up to the time of LINCOLN, 
GIDDINGS, and emancipation. The pupils of Oberlin swarmed as teachers, and 
the common schools were god within a great radius. Oberlin was also an 
original coeducational college. The elder daughter of the WAKELEY family 
graduated there in the full classical course about 1846. The common schools 
were then supported by the self-imposed taxes of the districts, the teachers 
boarding around. They gave other children of the family an education in 
English through the higher branches, the elder son adding a good Latin 
education at the village academy, also reading law. [p 510]

From Ohio the family removed to White Water [Whitewater, Walworth County, 
Territory of Wisconsin]. The father [Solmous WAKELEY] went there in 1841, 
riding on horseback, and bought a farm and village home. It need be scarcely 
mentioned in this history, for it was the common lot of all, that he passed 
heedlessly through Chicago without buying it. [That area had an accepted 
reputation among prospective settlers for mud and fevers.] Returning to Ohio 
and preparing for final removal, in the summer of 1842 he came with the 
younger daughter, Lucy, and [his son] Charles, in company with other 
families, to his new home, all the way in wagons. Such a journey to the West 
in those days was, in many respects, delightful and romantic. The gloom of 
the heavy forests, then very little cleared, gradually gave way to the sunny 
openings of orchard and sand flowery prairies, and made it seem like an 
escape. The prairies were still in their wild state, being avoided by the 
first settlers, and only taken up as the last chance. Michigan presented the 
first sight of the wonderland of prairies to the western movers, and by their 
beauty and genial climate, that State had lost some of its bad reputation as 
a fever and ague country, and was then in the van of Northwestern progress. 
That State [MI] furnished the only two railroad tracks seen on the route by 
our emigrants. The general community in these days shared the opinions of 
the flatboat men from the rivers and the sailors from the lakes, that these 
so-called railroads would only be pretty playthings, which would never be 
able to drive a boat from the lakes, or a covered freight wagon from the 
land. The roads were then white, or white and black, with prairie schooners 
all the way from the wheat farms of Ohio to the lead mines of Wisconsin and 
Illinois, headed to and from the great lakes, loading and unloading the 
vessels with their freights, and now and then headed westerly in long trains, 
carrying emigrants and thus robbing the vessels of their freights.

On 02 June 1842, Charles T. WAKELEY thus arrived in White Water then, as now, 
one of the prettiest and most enterprising towns of the State. [At that time 
Whitewater, Walworth County, was in the Territory of Wisconsin; WI became a 
state 29 May 1848.] The following year [1843] the remainder of the family 
came to that village by the lake route from Cleveland to Milwaukee. Solmous 
WAKELEY and wife resided in White Water until the former's death, which 
occurred at Madison [Dane County, Wisconsin], in 1867. He [Solmous WAKELEY] 
was elected a member of the first constitutional convention, was twice a 
member of the Assembly, and for a series of years County Supervisor. He was 
originally a Jackson Democrat, and was one of only seven to vote for his hero 
in Boston [Erie County], New York. He became an original Republican, was 
vice president of their first State convention, and president of their first 
Congressional convention of the his district. His wife survived him seven 
years, residing after his death with her older son, Judge Eleazer WAKELEY, in 
Omaha, Nebraska, where he had removed in 1867, from Madison. [Nebraska 
became a state in that year.] He [Solmous WAKELEY] has since resided there, 
engaged in the practice of law and as District Judge, having also served as 
United States Judge of Nebraska, in Territorial times. In Wisconsin he was a 
member of the last Territorial Assembly and was State Senator.

Charles commenced his main life-work, while a mere boy, in White Water and 
somewhat by chance. In 1843 he was employed as Assistant Postmaster. The 
Postmaster being a practicing lawyer, and there being but one mail a week 
each way, a year's time was put in by the young assistant in industriously 
reading the law books which were in the office. Indeed, in those days books 
were scarce, and it was the universal practice to read all books within 
reach. In 1844 he [p 511] dropped this thread of life, and went to Galena 
[Jo Daviess County], Illinois, to learn the printer's trade with Horace A. 
and Henry W. TENNEY. They were friends in Ohio, and were in that city 
publishing the "Jeffersonian." Galena was then the principal shipping point 
from the lead mines of Illinois and Wisconsin, by way of the Fever and 
Mississippi Rivers. [The Galena River was known as Fever River.] During his 
work as printer Mr. [Charles] WAKELEY continued the study of Latin, commenced 
under his brother in White Water, and which was very useful to him in the 
university. "Fever" River was a significant name, and fever and ague shook 
the apprentice loose from its banks in a few months, and he returned to 
Wisconsin. The TENNEYs also soon came to Madison [Dane County], where they 
conducted the "Argus." In 1846 Mr. [Charles] WAKELEY came to this city and 
resumed his position with the TENNEYs, remaining in the printing business in 
connection with attending the university until 1852, when he was elected 
State printer. He then taught two years in the Madison Female Seminary. 
During this time, in 1848, as soon as the preparatory department of the 
University of Wisconsin was organized, and on the very first day Mr. 
[Charles] WAKELEY was one of less than a score of young men to make the first 
class, under Professor John W. STERLING.

This great seat of learning was then, and for four years after, located in 
the lower story of the Female Seminary building, the present sight of the 
high school building, although the loci of some of its departments were 
various and temporary. Professors' private rooms, hotel parlors, law 
offices, and students' rooms were some of the grand and imposing "seats" up 
to 1852, while alma mater boarded around. In the last named year she [the 
University of Wisconsin at Madison] commenced housekeeping in her present 
quarters, having only the north dormitory building for students' rooms and 
all departments, and it was ample. Mr. [Charles] WAKELEY was one of two to 
carry forward without loss of time the first classes of that institution to 
the time of its first graduating class, in June 1854. At that time, with 
Levi BOOTHE, now of Denver, Colorado, as an only classmate, he graduated as 
the valedictorian. In his address he [Charles] strongly condemned the 
compulsory study of Latin and Greek, especially the latter, in the college 
course, outlining courses similar to those now generally selected, and asking 
for the freedom of choice now secured. In 1855 there was no graduating class 
in the university. In 1856 there was a class of four, and since that time 
there have been classes every year. So, for two years Mr. WAKELEY 
constituted one-half of the alumni of the University of Wisconsin, and, with 
his classmate, made the university two years older as an alma mater than it 
would have been without his work. For the first five years he was a 
participant, with scarcely an exception, in all public exercises of the 
university. In 1849 he was editor and reader of the first literary paper; in 
1850 was one of the authors of the constitution of the first literary 
society, the Athenean, and, after Professor STERLING, its first president; in 
1857, he received it first diploma as A. M.; and in 1862 was the first 
president and orator of the Alumni Association. John H. LATHROP, Chancellor; 
John W. STERLING, O. M. CONNOVER and J. Pearl LATHROP, professors, and 
Stephen A. CARPENTER, tutor, constituted the faculty of the university during 
that time. Professor STERLING, the last survivor, died in 1884. They were 
all great scholars, and good and true men.

In 1854-1855, Mr. [Charles] WAKELEY read law in the office of Chauncey ABBOTT 
and Julius T. CLARK [p 512], in Madison, and in the latter year was admitted 
to the bar. He resided in Madison [Dane County, Wisconsin] and practiced law 
industriously until 1865; served as District Attorney from 1863 to 1865; and 
as City Attorney for several years. His partners in succession were Judge J. 
Gillett KNAPP, Henry E. FRINK, Daniel K. TENNEY, Judge Samuel CRAWFORD, Hon. 
William F. VILAS, and Judge Eleazer WAKELEY. During 1865 he was in the East, 
and was in Ford's Theater, at Washington, when President LINCOLN was 
assassinated. He had a close and clear view of all that took place, heard 
and located the pistol shot, saw the tragically theatrical pose with the 
dagger, the stumble in striking down on the stage, breaking the ankle, and 
heard most distinctly and unmistakably both the exclamations of BOOTH, "Sic 
semper tyrannis" and "Revenge for the South," and the classical, critical 
observer noted that the criminal blew away the last vestige of dust from his 
imagined bed of glory by accenting "tyrannis" on the first syllable. While 
at Washington, Mr. [Charles] WAKELEY also witnessed the last great imposing 
act of the war, the review of the troops as they passed along Pennsylvania 
Avenue, fresh and joyous, at a five-mile gait, to hear on reaching home in 
every loyal State, "Boys, we welcome you home!" Mr. [Charles] WAKELEY was an 
original member of the Governor's Guard of Madison, which unanimously did its 
duty in setting up a striking uniform and inspiring brass band, and by a 
large quorum adjourned to the war, and furnished nearly 200 of the higher 
officers; the minority helping some at home. He [Charles WAKELEY] was 
chairman of the committee raising quotas for the precincts of the county; was 
an original member of the Madison Literary Society, now grown to the Free 
Library Association; and with Horace RUBLEE and David J. POWERS made the 
first selection of books. For the purchase of these the ladies of the city 
very successfully conducted annual strawberry festivals, which overbalanced 
the ledger against the deficit produced by the courses of "popular" lectures, 
which that society was the first to provide for the city.

In 1867 Mr. [Charles] WAKELEY was married to Mrs. Julia Elizabeth DE LA 
VERGNE, of Providence [Providence County], Rhode Island, a granddaughter of 
Robert and Elizabeth STERRY. He [Charles WAKELEY] resided for seventeen 
years upon his farm in the city, doing a fair law business, was for a few 
years County Supervisor, and assisted efficiently in building the new 
courthouse. Since 1884 he has held the office of Justice of the Peace of 
Madison, continuing also the practice of law, in which his specialty is 
United States Patents. Mr. WAKELEY is a prominent and esteemed citizen of 
Madison, whose career has been a series of benevolent and valuable services.

Submitted by Cathy Kubly