Bio: Marston, Stephen (1881)

Contact: crystal@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Marston, Randall, Wyman, Greeley

----Source: History of Northern Wisconsin (Eau Claire County, Wis.) 1881, pages 327-328

STEPHEN MARSTON, Eau Claire, was born in Kennebec Co., Me., Aug. 9, 1821; moved to Eau Claire from that State in 1856, bringing his family, a wife and one child, in a buggy with one horse attached the entire distance, save an occasional change of the whole outfit to boat and railway. He commenced mercantile business in Eau Claire in 1857, after having gone to Cincinnati to procure a stock of goods, seventy-five tons of which were shipped on to and brought, including himself and family, by one boat, the Isaac Shelby, from Cincinnati to Eau Claire direct. Among this stock was the first lot of furniture ever brought to the place for sale. Upon reaching Eau Claire there were no storehouses into which the goods could be unloaded, and Ihey had to remain on the river bank till one could be improvised. In 1860, he bought the saw and pinning mill built by Adin Randall, the only planing mill then in the place, which he operated in connection with mercantile business until 1872, when he sold the saw-mill to Ingram & Kennedy, after having built a building, into which he moved the planing mill and sash and door machinery, which is still the only planing mill on the west side the Chippewa River, and which he is still operating. In 1869, he bought what is known as the Dells flour mill, situated three miles from Augusta, in Eau Claire County, one-half of which he still owns. Mr. Marston was engaged in general mercantile business from 1857 till 1872. He brought, in 1856, from Maine, with his other goods, the first piano ever brought into the Chippewa Valley. In 1860, he built the largest store building in the county, 30x80 feet, three stories and basement, the upper story of which furnished Eau Claire the only public hall for ten years. He has built during his residence in Eau Claire some thirty or forty dwelling houses which he now rents to tenants. Mr. Marston spent two years (during the early gold excitement) in California engaged in mining and trading. He was married in 1846, to Susan E. Wyman, of New Sharon, Maine. They have one child, a daughter, living (Mary Olive), who was two years old when they started from Maine to Wisconsin, and who, in 1873, entered the Michigan University for a full course of four years, graduating in 1877. She was the first girl to whom was assigned a part in the commencement exercises of the University, and was upon finishing her course in the University, proffered a position of assistant professor of Greek in Wellesly Female College, Massachusetts, which she occupied for two years and then resigned to visit Europe in 1880, having been offered, before leaving the college, the same position after returning from Europe. Mr. Marston was Postmaster in Eau Claire, from 1862 to 1871, and was a candidate for member of Congress on the Greeley ticket in 1872, running ahead of the ticket in eight of the eleven counties in the district.