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Carpenter, Levi D, a Representative
from New York; born in Waterville, Oneida County, N.Y., August 21, 1802;
attended the public schools; studied law; was admitted to the bar and commenced
practice in Waterville, N.Y.; supervisor of the town of Sangerfield in
1835; elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-eighth Congress to fill the vacancy
.caused by the resignation of Samuel Beardsley and served from November
5, 1844, to March 3, 1845; was not a candidate for reelection in 1844;
resumed the practice of law in Waterville, N.Y., and died there October
27, 1856; interment in the City Cemetery.
Harmon
A. Christman was born April 24, 1830, in Floyd, Oneida County, NY.
His parents were Abram and Betsy (Carpenter) Christman. In 1860,
Abram Christman came west to live on a farm in the town of Clinton, where
he died in 1879. Their son, Harmon grew up at Oriskany, NY.
About 1852, he came to Turtle, "prospecting;" and finally he bought from
Mrs. Erckenbrach the present Chrisstman farm on the Shopiere Road.
On April 7, 1857, Harmon Christman married Miss Ann Milner, daughter of
Benjamin and Hannah (Holland) Milner, who came from England to this country.
She was born August 14, 1833 at Oriskany, NY. In February 1859, Mr.
and Mrs. Christman came to their house on 135 acres in Section 8 of Turtle.
Jane Milner, sister of Mrs. Christman, married James Raymond, and her brothers,
William and John, also came here. William lived on the Mack homestead
and John Milner and William Andre had the Florey homestead.
The children of Harmon and Ann (Milner) Christman
were Farmer, Alta, and Harrison. Farmer married Miss Emily Crall.
He died in Seattle in 1913. The children of Alta (Christman) Sweet
of Arlington, DC., are Russell, in Wyoming; Vivian in New York City, and
Beatrice in Washington, DC. The wido of William Milner lives in Winter
Haven, Fla. Harrison married Miss Sadie Conroy. Mr. and Mrs.
Harmon Christman raised excellent stock and horses of which he was very
proud. He was one of the leading farmers of Turtle in his time.
Centennial History of the Town of Turtle,
Rock County, Wisconsin 1836-1936
THE HISTORY OF SAUK COUNTY WISCONSIN 1880
published: Chicago: Western Historical Society
SOME OF SAUK COUNTY'S ILLUSTRIOUS DEAD
Page 432
ICHABOD CODDING, was born at Bristol,
Oneida, Co., N.Y., September 26, 1810. At the age of seventeen, he entered
the the (sic) academy at Canandaigua,
where he remained three years in the capacity
of pupil and teacher. While there, he had for fellow-student Stephen
A Douglas, whom he in later life encountered in political debate on the
prairies of Illinois. On leaving the academy, he entered Middlebury
College, and, while there, commenced his career as an Anti-slavery lecturer,
and in so doing incurred the displeasure of those in authority in
that institution, on account of which he voluntarily left without completing
the course. After that, his persecutions in that behalf came fast
and more trying, until he had received violent treatments at the hand of
pro-slavery mobs on no less than forty
different occasions. He early espoused
the temperance cause, and delivered nearly one hundred lectures on that
subject before arriving at the age of twenty-one. At this time, the
doors of the churches were closed against the temperance lecturer, and,
to use Mr. Coddings own expression, "the pioneers in the temperance cause
had to get their hearing in the churches by printing pamphlets and throwing
them over the walls of Zion from the outside." A great deal of light
has since been infused into the church after similar means. After
leaving college, he was employed by the Anti-Slavery Society to lecture
in the New England States. He came West in 1843, stoutly maintaining
his opposition to slavery. He was ordained a minister of the Congregational
Church at Waukesha in 1846, Own Lovejoy officiating as one of the
ministers on that occasion, in whose behalf Mr. Codding afterward had the
honor of declining a nomination for Congress. Mr. Codding also declined
a like nomination on another occasion. His extensive researches and
investigations soon led him to change his religious views, and placed him
outside the so-called orthodox churches. As a religionist, he may
be classed among that branch of the Unitarians represented by Theodore
Parker. He held, like Thomas Paine and many other men of deep thought,
that there is a religion arising from man's relation to God and his fellow-man
not dependent on written revelation. The one-ideaism of his life
was to plant himself on the broad platform of eternal truth and justice,
and defend it against all assailants. His discourse was argumentative,
sometimes eloquent. Although not a politician, the Republican party
had no abler advocate than he, and he especially endeared himself to the
thinking people
of Baraboo during his four years' residence
among them for his righteous denunciation of secession. His
death occurred on the 17th of June, 1866, upon the eve o of his intended
departure for Bloomington, Ill., where he was under engagement to preach.
To Ichabod Codding, Chief Justice Chase once paid this tribute: "I have
heard Webster, Clay and most of the great orators of this country, but
none of them could equal Codding. When I say greatest orator, I wish
to qualify the expression. Many may be ranked higher by the usual
standards, but by the standard which, after all, should measure the power
of oratory - that of effect produced upon a large and promiscuous audience
- Codding surpassed any speaker I ever heard."
© 2004 Linda Wright. Reprinted with
permission.