From Memorial and Genealogical Record of Dodge and Jefferson Counties, Wisconsin, 
publ. 1894 - Page 17-18
 
The gentleman having the management of the cotton and woolen mills and other 
industries of Beaver Dam are prominent and useful citizens of the section in which they 
live.  Among them is found Mr. McFETRIDGE, who is thoroughly identified with the 
interests of the city and possesses a practical and thorough knowledge of the various 
business enterprises in which he is engaged.  He is a native of Rochester, N.Y., where he 
was born  April 15, 1836, a son of John and Hannah (PACKARD) McFETRIDGE, the 
former of whom was born in Mallymena, County Antrim, Ireland, of Scotch-Irish 
parents.  When a young man he crossed the broad Atlantic to make himself a home in the 
great republic.  He first settled in Troy, N.Y., where he married his wife, Hannah.  Later 
they moved to Rochester, where his wife died when the subject of this sketch was twelve 
years old.  The father never re-married, and his declining years were spent with his son at 
Beaver Dam, where he died in his eighty-fourth year.  In the schools of his native city 
Edward C. received his initiatory education, and upon graduating from the public schools 
he was awarded, among one of three, a free scholarship in the University of Rochester.  
At about the age of twenty  years he began the study of law in the office of Townsend &  
Stuart, of that city, and at a general term of the Supreme Court in 1857 he was admitted 
to the bar.  Later he was admitted to the bar of the United States Supreme Court at 
Washington.  In November 1858, he came to Beaver Dam, where for several years he 
was engaged in the practice of his profession.  In 1866, in connection with his brother, 
James A. McFETRIDGE, he built the woolen mills now known as the Beaver Dam 
Woolen Mills, under the firm name of McFETRIDGE & Co., a firm which was enlarged 
at a later date by John T. SMITH becoming a partner.  In 1886 the business was 
incorporated, and Mr. McFETRIDGE was made president, and Mr. SMITH secretary.
 
In 1869 James A. McFETRIDGE sold his interest in the woolen mill and afterward 
located at Baraboo, Wis., where, in company with a Mr. RICH, he engaged very 
successfully in the manufacture of woolen goods.  In 1881 Edward C. McFETRIDGE 
was one of the promoters and incorporators of the Beaver Dam cotton mills, of which he 
is the vice-president and a director.  He was an active promoter of the water-works, also, 
and the electric-light works of the city, and in many other instances he has shown that he 
is public spirited, ever alive to progress and desirous of the common good.  He was one 
of the original subscribers to the fun which organized the much prized public library, now 
known as the Williams Free Library, of which he is a director.  He was one of the original 
incorporators of Oakwood Cemetery, in the improvement and beautifying of which he 
has always taken an active part.
 
Politically he has always been a Republican, and has taken an active part in National and 
State campaigns, and has filled with ability various official positions.  He was city 
superintendent of schools in the early years of residence here, and later occupied the 
mayor's chair.  He was a member of the county board of supervisors, and in 1869 was 
elected to the office of country treasurer.  He was elected a member of the lower house of 
the Legislature for 1878, and to the Senate for the years 1887-1880 and again chosen to 
the Assembly in 1881.  He took an active part in shaping legislation, and was a member 
of the committee on the revision of the Revised Statues of 1878.  He was chairman of the 
committee on state affairs, and made the minority report of that committee 
recommending the constitutional amendment providing for biennial sessions of the 
Legislature.  The resolutions were adopted by both branches of the Legislature of 1880, 
ratified by the Legislature of 1881, submitted to a vote of the people in November 1881, 
and adopted by a large majority.  He was elected to the office of State treasurer in 1881 
and re-elected in 1884, holding the office for the term of five years.  In 1888 he was 
popularly and prominently spoken of as a candidate for governor.  He has advocated the 
political tenets of the Republican party with unfaltering promptitude, devotion and 
fidelity, and these have won for him many distinctions at the hands of his friends.  His 
first vote was cast for Abraham Lincoln, and in 1872, as a presidential elector, he and his 
associates cast the vote of Wisconsin for the election of Gen. U. S. Grant.  Mr. 
McFETRIDGE was married in Tecumseh, Mich., in October 1861, to Miss Frances A., 
daughter of the Hon. Stillman BLANCHARD, of that place.  They have one child living, 
John C. McFETRIDGE, who was born April 23, 1874.  Mr. McFETRIDGE and family 
are attendants of the First Presbyterian Church, on which he is one of the trustees.  He 
still resides in the same homelike and hospitable house in which he and his good wife 
commenced housekeeping in 1861.  During this long residence he has made a hot of 
friends, both here and throughout the State, and is justly regarded as one of Wisconsin's 
most useful, able and distinguished citizens.

Submitted by:  Carol Holmbeck