Joseph Augustine
Joseph Augustine, a veteran of the Civil War, and for many years an honored resident of Lincoln Township, was born in West Virginia, Aug. 7, 1841, son of Jacob F. R. and Justina (Null) Augustine. He was reared in Pennsylvania, and in 1862 tendered his services to the Union government as a carpenter. He served through the great conflict as a bridge builder in the armies of General Sherman and General Thomas. At the close of the hostilities he came to Wisconsin in 1865, and for several years divided his time between Eau Claire, where he was employed as a carpenter, and the pine forests of the state, where he was employed as cook. In 1874 he came to Whitehall, where he followed his trade as a carpenter until 1885, when he purchased a farm in Lincoln Township, town 22, range 28, and moved thereon. When he purchased the tract it was covered with timber. He cleared the land, erected buildings, added to his original purchase, and gradually developed his place until he had a splendid estate of 200 acres located in sections 14, 23 and 24, to which he gave the name of Sunny Hill farm. The home, a frame structure of two stories and a basement, with ten good-sized rooms, was erected in 1898. The barn, a frame structure, 40 by 70 feet, was erected in 1906. A silo, 16 by 40 feet, of cement blocks, was constructed in 1908. One of the features of the place is a valuable orchard of two and a half acres. General farming is conducted on a generous scale, and a specialty is made of a fine herd of grade Holstein cattle. Another interesting feature is the production of honey, some thirty colonies of the finest Italian bees being maintained. The sons, Frank and Clarence, under the name of the Augustine Brothers, have made the place widely known through the breeding of ferrets. Mr. Augustine was married in 1868 to Maria Borea, who was born in 1843. She died in 1870, leaving one child, Fannie, who married D. O. Sweet, a farmer of Whitehall, and died in 1902. March 14, 1874, Mr. Augustine married Francis E. (Mason) Staples. She was born in Litchfield, Conn., March 9, 1846, daughter of Charles S. and Rosetta T. Bissell, natives of Connecticut, and this union was blessed with seven children: Jessie, who died at the age of two years; Ray, who died at the age of one year; Ernest, who died at the age of two years; Bessie, a stenographer at St. Paul; Frank and Clarence, who are at home; and Charles, who died at the age of nine years. By her marriage to W. S. Staples of Kilbourn City, a veteran of Company K, 42nd Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, Mrs. Augustine has three children: Fred M., a hardware merchant of Little Rock, Kan.; Clifford D., a commercial man of St. Paul, and Marcia, who is a clerk in the pension office at Washington, D. C.
(from HISTORY OF TREMPEALEAU COUNTY WISCONSIN
Compiled by Franklyn Curtiss-Wedge
Edited by Eben Douglas Pierce, M.D.
H. C. Cooper, Jr., & Co.
Chicago and Winona 1917)
(from HISTORY OF TREMPEALEAU COUNTY WISCONSIN
Compiled by Franklyn Curtiss-Wedge
Edited by Eben Douglas Pierce, M.D.
H. C. Cooper, Jr., & Co.
Chicago and Winona 1917)