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Gerrit Thorn
Gerrit T. Thorn, for many years one of the
leading lawyers of the interior of the state, was born in La Fayette, Onondaga
county, N. Y., on the 20th of July, 1832, the youngest son of Jehiel Thorn, who was also a native of New York, having
been born at New Baltimore, Green county, November 29th, 1793, the youngest of
the family. His oldest sister married Peter Vanslyke,
a soldier of the revolution, who was severely wounded by the Waltmeyer men, a band of Tories infesting the borders
during the revolution, and he was afterwards known as Gen. Vanslyke.
The name was originally Thorne, but Gerrit's father dropped the final "e," although
other members of the family retain it.
Gerrit's father and his two brothers were
soldiers in the last war with Great Britain and were stationed at Brooklyn Heights,
N. Y. The former died near Syracuse, N. Y.,
Gerrit T. Thorn, after a thorough
education in public and private schools, having given especial attention to
mathematics and civil engineering, at the age of sixteen, entered the office of
Isaac W. Brewster, a lawyer, who was practicing law in the village of
Jamesville, near where he was born. He was also postmaster, and young Thorn
became his clerk and deputy, which position he held for nearly a year.
It was while he was thus engaged
that he made up his mind to study law, and when he became of age to go to
Wisconsin. One of the old citizens of the village received from Wisconsin The Watertown Chronicle, which was then
published by Jonathan E. Hadley, and while Gerrit was
thus clerking in the post office, he was allowed to take this paper and read
it. The reading of this paper, and the accounts that it gave of Wisconsin, was
what first awakened his interest in the west.
The constitution of Wisconsin, when
it was adopted by the people, was published in The Watertown Chronicle, and it was the reading of that instrument,
which was the first legal document he had ever read, that turned his attention
to the study of law. In the spring of 1849, after there had been a change in
the administration, and Gen. Taylor became president, Gerrit
lost his position as clerk in the post office and returned to his school books
again until July, 1850, when he went to Rome, Bradford County, Pa., and took a
position as clerk and bookkeeper in a large country store owned by the Hon.
Henry W. Tracy, afterwards a member of congress, and Judson Holcomb.
In the fall of 1851, he took a trip
down the Susquehanna river, intending to go to Meadville to attend Alleghany College, where his brother James was then
attending, but getting stormed in, he went back through the mountains to Town
Hill, Luzerne county, Pa., and there taught a select
school, commencing in November, 1851, and remained there until the spring of
1852, when he returned to his old home in New York. In 1852 and 1853 he
attended the Yates Polytechnic Institute at Chittenango, Madison County, N. Y.,
for the purpose of preparing for college.
His health having become somewhat
impaired he abandoned studies for a time, and in the last week of April, 1854,
on a stormy afternoon, he landed on the old wharf, from a lake steamer, in
Milwaukee. The following summer he spent most of his time on a farm in Dodge County,
but made several excursions on foot through Dodge, Jefferson, Waukesha, Dane,
Columbia and Fond du Lac counties, enjoying the
sights of the beautiful prairies and oak openings. The next winter he taught
school at the village of Columbus, and the Second ward school in Watertown, the
following summer.
While at Watertown, in the summer of
1855, he resumed the study of law in the office of the Hon. Samuel Baird, and
after the close of his school, in September, 1855, he went to the village of
Juneau, Dodge County, and entered the law office of the Hon. Charles Billinghurst, then a member of congress. While at Juneau,
he was deputy register of deeds, under Paul Juneau, and was also, for more than
a year, deputy clerk of the circuit court of Dodge County.
He continued his legal studies in
Dodge and Jefferson counties until 1858, when he was admitted to practice, and
opened his first law office at Juneau in the fall of that year. In May, 1859,
he went to Jefferson, and practiced there for ten years, with excellent
success, gaining a reputation as a skillful lawyer and an able advocate. While
a resident of Jefferson, he founded and named The Jefferson Banner, a Democratic paper, and was its political
editor for three years, making it one of the leading journals of that party in
the interior of the state. This editorial work, however, was entirely
subordinate to his law practice.
After the firing on Fort Sumter in
1861. Mr. Thorn
made one of the first war speeches in the city of Jefferson, and helped to
raise Company E of the Fourth Wisconsin infantry, more than half of the company
being raised at that first war meeting.
He then had a strong desire to
enlist, and was only restrained from so doing by reason of the delicate health
of his wife, to whom he was married in May, 1859. He continued to give his aid
and help in securing recruits for the Union army, until the following year,
when he enlisted himself in August, 1862, and was soon after commissioned
lieutenant colonel of the Twenty-ninth regiment of Wisconsin infantry. The
regiment immediately went into camp at Madison, and the last of October, 1862,
was ordered to the front, proceeded at once down the
Mississippi river, and encamped, on the 7th of November, on the eastern bank of
that river opposite Helena, Arkansas. The regiment remained there during the
winter, and performed picket and outpost duties, being stationed for a time at
Friars Point, below Helena, and afterwards made an expedition up White river to
Duvals Bluff, Ark., the latter part of January, 1863.
After this expedition the regiment
returned to Helena, and was stationed five miles out on
Col. Thorn has literary tastes and
has been greatly interested in educational matters. While a resident of
Jefferson, he was one of the leaders in founding the Jefferson Liberal
Institute, drew up its charter, and was president of its board of trustees the
first two years of its existence. At the laying of the corner stone of this
institution he delivered a very able address, which was published at the time,
in which he clearly and forcibly set forth what should be the aim and scope of
a public educational institution. The Liberal Institute buildings and property
have since been purchased by the city of Jefferson, and are now used as its
high school.
During the years of 1867-8, Col.
Thorn represented Jefferson County in the state senate, and was member of the
committees on federal relations, railroads and claims. He was also at that time
the youngest member of the senate. During his service in that body he delivered
an eloquent and stinging rebuke to a certain "Copperhead" senator who
had spoken sneeringly of the Union soldiers. For this speech he received many
congratulations from patriotic men of all parties. In January, 1869, he removed
to Fond du Lac, and while a resident of that city he
was elected to the legislative assembly, serving on the judiciary committee and
the joint committee on charitable and penal institutions. As a legislator he
was alert, a ready debater, quick and accurate in judgment and in the details
of business.
Politics and party scheming have
always been distasteful to him. All public positions that he has held have come
to him without his seeking. His devotion is to his profession, general
literature and history.
In 1873, Col. Thorn's health not
being good, he sold out his business and library to James F. Ware, and went to
Maryland, and was most of the time in Washington during the following year. In
October, 1874, his health having very much improved, his desire to return to
Wisconsin became irresistible, and he returned and opened a law office in the
city of Appleton, where he had large practice and was accounted one of the
ablest lawyers in that circuit. In the winter of 1877-8 he became very severely
afflicted with rheumatism and was unable to attend to any business. He was
advised by his physicians that a change of climate would be beneficial, so in
the fall of that year he sold his business at Appleton, with the intention of
wholly giving up practice.
He then went to Nebraska and spent
four years on a farm. In March, 1883, he went to California, and his family
returned east to Valparaiso, Ind. After
reaching California, he spent some months there and in Oregon, and, in June of
that year, went to what was then Washington territory, and remained in the
Puget Sound country and British Columbia, until September, 1886, when he
returned again to Wisconsin, being among the first passengers who came over the
new Canadian Pacific road through to Winnipeg in Manitoba, and thence home.
Having become reinvigorated by his rest and change, after returning to the
state, and spending one winter in Milwaukee, he settled in New London, where he
resumed his law practice.
He has always been a Democrat in
politics, was a Democratic candidate for presidential elector in 1864, and a
delegate to the national Democratic convention assembled at New York in 1868,
that nominated Horatio Seymour for president.
Col. Thorn has been twice married.
His first wife, whose death has already been mentioned, was Miss Maria Bicknell
of Vermont. She was a teacher in the Fox Lake, Wis., high school, and a lady of
much culture.
Col. Thorn has delivered several
public addresses which have stamped him as an eloquent, patriotic man, and a
man of thought and scholarly tastes. A Fourth of July oration at Chilton, in
1876, was an eloquent tribute to our free institutions and to Christianity,
which he declares to be the foundation of all true liberty.
Men of Progress: Wisconsin, edited by Andrew J. Aikens and Lewis A. Proctor, Milwaukee, The Evening
Wisconsin Company, 1897.
