Bio: Single, Charles A. (1820-1880)

Contact: Janet Schwarze.

Surnames: Single

----Source: The History of Northern Wisconsin (Marathon County, Wis.) 1881, page 555

CHARLES A. SINGLE, died April 30, 1880, at the age of fifty-eight years.  Was born in Hartford England, and came to America in 1836, with his brother Benjamin.  They first stopped in Milwaukee, but in 1844, made their way into the Wisconsin pineries.  He worked with his brother for a time, but afterward built the Forest House, which he operated until just before it was burned in 1878.  He was frequently in the City Council, a good citizen, with a fervent love of his adopted country, frank and warm hearted, and an earnest Mason.  He left a wife and seven children in good circumstances.

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Bio: Single, Charles A. (1820 - 1880)

Contact: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

E-mail: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Single, Youles, Judson,

----Source: History of Marathon County Wisconsin and Representative Citizens, by Louis Marchetti, 1913.

Single, Charles (? - 1880)

Charles A. Single was born in Hartford, England. He came to Milwaukee with his stepfather, Thomas Youles, in 1844; but did not stay there a long time. In 1845 he drifted up to Grand Rapids and next year he was with his brother Benjamin Single on Little Rib for whom he worked until 1850, when he moved to Wausau. Soon after coming here he commenced the building of the Forest House for a tavern, which he enlarged from time to time, until it was the largest hotel in the pinery widely known throughout the same. He was elected the first sheriff of Marathon County in the first election held after the county was organized. After the completion of his hotel he built the Forest Hall, the first large public hall in which the sessions of the circuit court were held from 1856 to 1868 when the first courthouse was finished.

He enlisted in the War Between the States and was honorably discharged, after having contracted sickness which disabled him from further service. After his return home he was appointed deputy provost marshal, and in 1870 received the appointment to take the census of this county. He was a man of great intelligence who could wield a trenchant pen as well as a lumberman's ax when occasion demanded, but had also a vein of humor which never ran dry. He had confidence in the future of the country, and he planned to benefit and open up the country. For upwards of twenty years he was a member of the county board and was always found in the foremost ranks in the great work which had to be done to get a railroad to Wausau. But he is best remembered for his kindness and goodness of heart to the unfortunate ones. He was brave and hospitable. The Forest House was a home for all, rich or poor, and many a poor, crippled injured man was nursed and cared for by him and his very estimable wife. One poor young chap, who had his leg torn off by a cable in trying to land a raft in Sturgeon eddy, was cared for by C. A. Single for months until he got well, without fee or reward. At the blowing up of the Judson mill at the foot of Marshall hill in the winter of 1867-68, where a number of men were injured, Gerry Judson, the owner, and another man killed outright, he was there with the physicians, bandaging, caring for and taking the wounded to the Forest House for nursing. He had a natural aptitude for setting bones, and common surgical work, and was never known to charge anything for such service. The pinery boys looked upon him as their friend; for they knew that their well being while in the hotel was looked after with almost parental care. When the Forest House burned down in 1878, not only Wausau but the Wisconsin Valley pinery lost a landmark, and when C. A. Single died in 1880 he was more missed from the community than any other man.

All through life he was a consistent Republican, and as such a frequent contributor to the "Central Wisconsin," never wavering in his attachment to that party. He was only fifty-eight years of age at the time of his death, and his wife, who had been his faithful helpmate and true companion, sharing with him his early privations with the bravery of the pioneer wife survived him and died at Wausau on June 24, 1897. C. A. Single no more than most others of the pioneers accumulated wealth, and at best left only a fair competency for his wife after his death.