Profiles In History

Patrick J. Gaffney, also known as P. J., was born on July 2, 1879, in Mitchell, Ontario, Canada. He came to the U.S. as a boy, arriving in the Northwoods of Wisconsin in 1896 at the age of 17. …

Grant Cook was born in 1872 in Binghamton, WI which is about 20 miles inland fromGreen Bay, near Black Creek.His father, Lyman Cook, and his partner George Dickenson ran a general store in the village of Norie and there was a younger brother named Jay. …

In 1888, eighteen year-old Jasper Roderick moved from New York with his parents and two brothers to Eagle River looking for new opportunities after having moved from Canada to New York, from New York to the Dakota Territory, …

One of the Northwoods earliest pioneers

Daniel Gagen, after whom the township of Gagen was named, and who was familiarly known as “Dan” Gagen by the inhabitants of not only Oneida County, but all over the Northwoods. …

Lawyer, land and timber speculator, father, civic leader

The Sanborn family moved from Swanton, Vermont to Antrim, Ohio in 1860 where George W. Sanborn (George F.’s father) contracted to build the Ohio Central Railway; …

Mort Cook’s father, L.J. Cook, first came to Eagle River in the spring of 1883. He and his partner, George Dickinson, were looking for a new location for their general merchandise store. They knew that the railroad was coming to town and the logging business was booming. …

Dave Frankel was a true entrepreneur before the word was popular. Dave was born in Eagle River in 1887 to Mose and Caroline Frankel, both born in Russia. The date they arrived in Eagle River is not certain but Mose operated a dry goods store on Wall Street about 1900. …

Rose Marie Weil was a woman ahead of her time.  She was both a military veteran and a trained nurse during World War I.

She was born in Chicago in 1890.  Her father was an immigrant from Bavaria, …

Frank Carter Sr was born in Eagle River on February 3, 1892, the first born to Lester and Geneva (McIntyre) Carter. After high school (1910) he taught at Bohemian School for one year and then attended Marquette Law School. …

Finn Lawler, one of the best-known pioneers in Vilas County, was born in New Brunswick, Canada in 1849. He left Canada at the age of 18 and arrived in Wisconsin three years later. After a series of jobs in Oshkosh, …