Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1921-08-25
Col. James S. Alban and Family,
Former Residents at Sank Re
sided in Village
REPUTED DISCOVERER
OF DEVILS LAKE
Congressman and Others Buried in
Little Cemetery Mile From the
Hamlet
BY o. D. RRANDENBURG

BY o. D. BRANDENBURG
I Plover, close to the geographic cen
or of the state, in Portage county
I'd exactly ninety miles due nortG
ON Manson. is a dGCadent VII age
# dwindhLg population. No industries
o houses except such as have grad
ally weathered to a dingy black, YET
ixty years ago, and earlier, it was
thriving place of humming mills
9th flour and lumber, a river town
[ flourishing quality with giant for
is all about. Now the village con
ms but 316 souIs,-the main street
bit more desolatc than the one pic
qped with cold appreciation in a
ent novel,
Altogether the most interesting
9ature of the present day Plover is
poor little cemetery amid the SANDS
id the weeds a mile outy-so far
ay from the last habitation as to
.emplify the exalted hopes OF an
expanded municipality cherished by
re sanguine founders. Here at least
one congressman and heroic col
ell who fell at Shiloh, several sena-
lr2 and assemblymen, no less than a
ageous sheriff shot to death by a
Dorado. Here too is the dishonored
ave of the murderer and his evil
other both fit victims of rude lynch
".
y * *
And Plover becomes linked rather
lseIy to our capital city, for were
t both Luther Hanchett and DR.,
9xander Stewart McDill, both con-
ssmen. and James 0. Raymond,
est of north Wisconsin lawyers, resi-
is of Madison through several leg
tive sessions, and did not DR. Nc
ILL., die while superintendent of tile
endota insane hospital? All were
IN Of note.
suther Hanchett dying at Plover
1862, was only 81, yet he had served
erm in congress (1861-2) from the
addison district, then extending
TIL to central Wisconsin and had
3E. rejected. He had been a state
fator two terms had achieved dis
ctiOn at Washington by his radical
,ocacy of the confiscation of all
Ell property, slaves included. He
brilliant speaker, easy, fluent.
th was due to brain fever.
Eatchett was born in Portage coun-
Ohio, in 1926 admitted to the bar in
6, practiced till 1849 at Fremont
II the home Of Rutherford B. Hayes,
hen, Wisconsin having been lad-
ted 7to statehood, came to this
&c, located in the county bearing
same name as that from which
had migrated He engaged in lum-
ng and mining, practicing at the
also, and was county attorney
years.
- 50 81
TRANCE to relate, his widow, Mrs.
india Alban Hanchett, widowed
in still later, survives at 81, resid-
luxuriously in a spacious home,
3t-faced. gentle, serene, with de-
ID daughter of the distinguished
wn family at Rhinelander.
err second husband, James o. Ray
d. also a lawyer of quality, died
S97, aged Sc. He easily was one
the leading practitioners in his
ion. Born in 1881, he studied law
New York state, but in 1855 was
en-. E. S. Bragg's office at Fond
Lac, going to Plover in the fall
being admitted to the bar the
wing year, and at once chosen as
let attorney. In 1865 he became
assemblyman, and the same year
to the front as lieutenant in
SD Wisconsin regiment, seeing
70 service. In 1857 at Canton,
later McKin1ey's home-he
led Mary Eliza Harris, and she,
at % years in 1864, he in 1867,
led Mrs. Lucinda Alban Hanchett
wv for five years of his former
partner. Her second widowh0od
low continued through twenty
years BY each husband she was
mother of several children. In
Raymond lot are several graves
of Edith NJ, daughter of J. O..
"a. E. Raymond, "who died No
Der 13, 1853. aged four years,
IS S., a son, who died December
S64, aged four months. anI Mary
the young wife and bereaved
Ter.
the Hanchett plot is but one
!e grave, that of Luther,-at least
Their legend but his appears on
monument
almost more remarkable than
Raymond's brilliant matrimonial
nturing is the fact that she is the
liter of Col. James Shane Alban,
d at Shiloh April 6, 1862, while
ing his regiment, the 18th Wis
n infantry -A1ban was the first
,anent white settler, with a family
aux county dec. 20, 1889 and
aeputed discoverer of Devils lake.