Clark County, Wisconsin Lumber Barron

Cyrus Woodman (1882 ca.)

Cryus Woodman wrote, "I was born June 2, 1814, in Buxton, in the then District of Maine on the Northwesterly part of Lot 12, of Range D, in the second Division of Lots in said town, in a house still standing, which was once the property and probably built by Mr. Snell Wingate."  He was Christened September 25, 1814 in the same town.

In 1836, he graduated from Bowdoin College.

He left his native Maine to devote himself to promoting and developing enterprises in the Western reaches of the United States, including Clark Co., Wisconsin.  He was conservative in business, a Universalist in religion, and a Democrat in politics.

The first government entry in Clark County was made by Isaac S. Mason in Section 35, in the Town of Weston, on Sept. 1, 1848.  From that time on for nearly fifty years the records of deeds in the Register of Deeds office were filled with the names as grantee of loggers in Clark County.  Prominent among these names we find those of W. T. Price, Samuel F. Weston, Cyrus Woodman, C. C. Washburn, William W. Crosby, Moses Clark, Lincoln Clark, Wm. T. Foster, Andrew Shepperd, Robert Ross, N. B. Holway, Abner Gile, Amos Elliott, James Hathway, Levi Withee, Geo. L. Lloyd, Abner Coburn, Jacob Spaulding, James Hewett, Root & Thompson and many others.

In the 1850’s the largest owners of land in Clark County were Cyrus Woodman and Samuel F. Weston.  Woodman was by far the largest land owner of any one who ever owned land in the county, having taken land in nearly every one of Clark County’s 34 townships.  As many as 12 sections in the Town of Seif, 5 sections in Hendren, 4 sections in Loyal, 7 sections in Weston, 15 in the Town of Eaton and 10 in the Town of Washburn.  These figures were taken at random from the records and lesser holdings in every town in the county but two.  (A section is one mile square or 640 acres).

Cyrus Woodman (1862 ca.)

Cyrus Woodman forged a partnership, which endured formally for eleven years with Cadwallader Colden Washburn, another expatriate who was born in Livermore, Androscoggin County, Maine.  The firm of Washburn and Woodman quickly subordinated the practice of law to the purchase, management and speculation of land, both farmland and timberland.

Being the first member of the Woodman family to collect his ancestral genealogy, he began corresponding with Joshua Coffin, a noted historian on the early settlement at Newbury, who sent him what family history he had regarding the Woodmans.  Cyrus made arrangements to have it printed by Mr. Coffin in 1855 and it was titled, "A List of Some of the Descendants of Mr. Edward Woodman".  It was the firs genealogy of the American Woodmans.

Cyrus moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts in the fall of 1863 where he died March 30, 1889, of heart failure and was buried in April at Buxton, Maine.  His wife, Charlotte (Flint) is also buried there.

The Woodmans of Buxton, Maine

In a genealogy and history, written by Cyrus Woodman, of the ancestors and the descendants of three brothers, Joseph, Joshua, and Nathan woodman, Cyrus described himself:

"Cyrus was graduated at Bowdoin College in 1836. In October, 1836, went to Boston, and entered the office of Hon. Samuel Hubbard as a student at law. After remaining there a few weeks, he entered the office of Hubbard (Wm. J.) & Watts (Francis O.). Entered the Harvard Law School in October, 1838. Admitted to the bar in Boston, July 9, 1839, and opened an office there in company with George Barstow, Esq. Left Boston, Dec. 13, 1839, for Illinois, as Assistant Agent of the Boston and Western Land Co., under an engagement to remain in the service of the Company one year. Mr. Wm. S. Russell, of Plymouth, Mass., was the Agent, and the journey was made in his company, by the way of Baltimore and Wheeling, and thence down the Ohio River to Evansville, Ind., where they left the steamboat and pursued their way by land to Hillsboro, Ill., where they arrived January 1, 1840, having made the journey as rapidly as they well could.

"Remained there about a week, and then started for their destination, Winslow, Stephenson County, Illinois, where they arrived Jan. 14, 1840.

"In about six months thereafter, Mr. Russell returned to Boston and resigned his agency on account of ill health. Mr. Woodman succeeded him as agent, and remained in that capacity until the fall of 1843, when the company was dissolved.

"In the summer of 1844, he entered into partnership with C.C. Washburn, of Mineral Point, Wisconsin, who was afterwards a representative in Congress from that State, a Major-General in the late Civil War, and now (1872) Governor of Wisconsin. This partnership continued very happily until March 1, 1855, when it was dissolved by mutual consent.

"Mr. Woodman was married, Jan. 5, 1842, at Tremont, Illinois, to Miss Charlotte, daughter of Deacon Ephraim Flint, of Baldwin, Maine. Began housekeeping at Winslow, Illinois, in the summer of 1842. Moved his family to Mineral Point in the fall of 1845.

"In the fall of 1861, was nominated as a member for the lower house of the Wisconsin legislature, without solicitation, and without acceptance of the nomination, was elected. Resigned his office, before taking his seat, on account of business engagements out of the State.

 

Census Records

Land Records

Sherwood Township, Clark Co., WI  [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]

Genealogy

Father: Joseph Woodman b: 7 Apr 1783 in Buxton, Maine
Mother: Susanna Coffin b: 20 Feb 1783

Marriage: Charlotte Flint b: 9 Apr 1814 in Baldwin, Maine
Married: 5 Jan 1842 in Tremont, Illinois
Residences: They settled in Winslow, Illinois; Mineral Point, Wisconsin; and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Children

Mary Woodman b: 11 Dec 1842 in Winslow, Illinois, never married, d. 7 Apr 1928 in Portland, Maine.
Frank Woodman b: 26 Sep 1844 in Winslow, Illinois, d. 2 Aug 1845.
Frank Woodman b: 26 Sep 1846 in Mineral Point, Wisconsin, Graduated at Harvard 1869, Mill Owner & Businessman in Charleston, West Virginia.  He married Nannie Maria Cotton (b. 6 Apr 1856) 15 Oct 1884.
Walter Woodman b: 17 Sep 1849 in Mineral Point, Wisconsin, d. 9
Sep 1850 in Mineral Point, Wisconsin.
Walter Woodman b: 30 Aug 1852 in Mineral Point, Wisconsin, Graduated Harvard University 1875 and Harvard Medical School 1883, due to a train accident resulting in poor health, practiced medicine only a short time.  He was cremated and his ashes were scattered in September 1928.
Edward Woodman b: 5 Oct 1855 in Mineral Point, Wisconsin, Graduated Harvard University 1877 and Harvard Law School in 1881.  Practiced law at Portland, Maine.  October 24, 1883, he married Caroline Bowers (b. 4 Oct 1856 at Lynn, MA).  Was buried in Evergreen Cemetery, July 1939.

Sources

Biography on the life of Cyrus Woodman, see "Westernized Yankee: The Story of Cyrus Woodman," by Larry Gara, published in 1956 by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.  1891 History of Clark & Jackson County, WI; 1918 History of Clark County, WI.

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