WI BIO - Chippewa Co - WITHROW, Charles W.

History of Northern Wisconsin. Chicago: Western Historical, 1881, vol I, p 221

Charles W. WITHROW, agricultural implements, Chippewa Falls [Chippewa County, 
Wisconsin], was born 19 May 1833 in White County, Illinois, and came to 
Wisconsin in 1855. He located at Yellow River Mills,* where he was employed 
for one and one-half years. He followed farming and lumbering for some 
years, and was also with General POPE on the frontier.

Mr. WITHROW came to Chippewa Falls in 1868. He commenced grocery business in 
partnership J. N. WITHROW [related?]. He afterward was interested in a 
planing mill, with three others, for thirteen months, and then engaged in 
lumbering up to 1877. Mr. WITHROW went to the Black Hills [then in Dakota 
Territory, but since 1889 in the State of South Dakota], but returned in 1878 
and opened an hotel. He went again to Black Hills in 1880, but remained only 
a short time. Mr. WITHROW opened his present [agricultural implement] 
business in May 1881.

On 25 June 1851 in White County, Illinois, he [Charles W. WITHROW] married 
Jerusha HARGRAVE [a maiden name?], who was born in White County, Illinois. 
They [Charles W. and Jerusha WITHROW] have four children: (1) Mary C., now 
Mrs. John HOCKENBROCK; (2) Charles H., now in California; (3) Emma, and (4) 
John Henry. Mr. [Charles W. WITHROW] was elected Justice of the Peace in 
Eagle Point [Chippewa County, Wisconsin] in 1859, held that office for four 
years, and was also Town Assessor of Eagle Point in 1861.

[* Clarification of "Yellow River Mills" is provided here. There was no 
community named "Yellow River Mills." One may then wonder, without 
additional evidence provided in the text, if the author meant the "Yellow 
River Mill" or "a mill on the Yellow River." The first possibility is more 
easily clarified. The Yellow River Mill was located near where the Yellow 
River meets the Chippewa River (near Lake Wissota). It was built in 1850 and 
first owned by a Mr. COTTON and a Mr. MOSES, became the property of the 
Gilbert Hedge Company, and operated for about ten years, until all the pine 
timber on the Yellow River had been sawed. The virgin pine was logged first, 
before other types of woods, because of its value in building and for its use 
as masts of ships. The text states Mr. WITHROW came to Wisconsin in 1855 and 
located at the mill. Thus the time context for his employment for one and a 
half years at the Yellow River Mill falls within the decade that this mill 
operated.

Clarification of the second possibility, that Mr. WITHROW worked, not at the 
Yellow River Mill, but at a mill on the Yellow River, is more difficult. 
Nine major tributaries run into the Wisconsin River, one of which is the 
Yellow River (the others are the Riib, Tomahawk, Rib, Eau Claire, Big Eau 
Pleine, Lemonweir, Baraboo, Pine, and Kickapoo), and the Yellow itself has 
numerous tributaries. The Yellow River can be found in at least Adams, Wood, 
Juneau, Chippewa, and Taylor Counties.

There were eight saw mills that sent their logs down the Yellow River to 
Germantown, Adams County, Wisconsin, a town on the Wisconsin River at the 
mouth of the Yellow River, this number of mills being recorded in the 1856 
Wisconsin Handbook. (Handbook of Wisconsin. Chapman. Milwaukee: Milwaukee 
Daily Sentinel, 1856, p 47.)

The very first mill at another mouth of the Yellow River had been built by 
Daniel WHITNEY, at "Whitney Rapids" (now Nekooska, Wood County, Wisconsin) in 
the fall and winter of 1837-1838, according to the account given in the 
History of Wood County, Wisconsin. Two of the mills on this branch of the 
Yellow River were near what is today Pittsville, Wood County, about eighteen 
miles northwest of the villages of Centralia and Grand Rapids (which later 
merged to form Wisconsin Rapids. Centralia was formerly called Frenchtown, 
and was incorporated in 1856.) Those two mills were located on the Yellow 
River in Sections 25 and 34 of Wood Township in Wood County. (Wood County 
was created from part of Portage County in 1856.)

Thus if Mr. WITHROW was employed in a mill on the Yellow River, and not the 
actual Yellow River Mill, then the mills in Adams County, near Germantown, 
and those on Sections 25 and 24, Wood Township, Wood County, represent the 
best possibilities where he could have been employed.] 

Submitted by Cathy Kubly