Eliphalet Steele Miner (March 20, 1818 – February 9, 1890) was an American merchant, Republican politician, and Wisconsin pioneer. He was the first American settler at Necedah, Wisconsin, and represented Juneau County for four years in the Wisconsin Legislature.[1] He was also the first county judge of Adams County, Wisconsin, despite not having a legal background. In historical documents, his name is frequently abbreviated as E. S. Miner.
Early life
Miner was born on March 20, 1818, in Madison, New York.[2] At age 10, he came west with his family to Green Bay, which was then part of the Michigan Territory. His father was a Presbyterian missionary, preaching to the Stockbridge Indians.[3] Just a few months after their arrival, before their home had been finished, the family was stricken with Dysentery, which killed Miner's father and infant sister.[4] Eliphalet and his siblings were also sick at the time, and his mother brought the children back to New York, where they remained until 1834.[5]
Wisconsin pioneer
In 1834, he returned to the west, laboring on a farm in Illinois until 1841, when he returned to the Wisconsin Territory with his earnings.[5] That year, he was an early settler at what is now Grand Rapids, Wisconsin—he opened a general store there with merchandise from Illinois. His store quickly also became the local post office, and in 1843 he was the first appointed postmaster at Grand Rapids.[5] He was also elected to the Portage County board of supervisors—Portage County at that time stretched all the way from the major bend in the Wisconsin River all the way to the northern border of the Wisconsin Territory.
During these years, he also married and began a family.[5]
In 1847, Governor Henry Dodge appointed him public administrator for Portage County, and the Territorial Assembly authorized him and an associate to build dams along the Wisconsin River in the vicinity of Grand Rapids to improve the navigability, and to collect tolls from cargo rafts floating through their improvements.[6] In 1848, Miner went into business with John T. Kingston and others in the firm T. Weston & Co., to profit from lumber transportation on the Wisconsin River and its Yellow River tributary. The firm operated successfully and Miner remained a stockholder through at least 1881, when it became the Necedah Lumbering Company.[5]
In the Spring of 1848, during the last session of the Wisconsin Territory government before statehood, the Assembly created Adams County from the southwest corner of Portage County. At the first election of this new county, held in April 1848, Eliphalet Miner was elected county judge.[5] Despite having no legal education, he was re-elected several times and held the office through 1862.[7]
While serving as judge, he relocated to Necedah, Wisconsin, in May 1850.[5] Necedah became part of Juneau County when it was created in 1857, but the new county remained attached to Adams County for judicial purposes for several years after. Miner and his family were the first known settlers at Necedah.[8] In Necedah, he maintained a store and was appointed the first postmaster there when the mail route was extended to that place. Necedah was organized as a town in 1853, at which point Miner was chosen as town treasurer and justice of the peace.[5]
In 1871, three-term Republican Governor Lucius Fairchild did not intend to run for a fourth term. Miner was a candidate for the Republican nomination for Governor that year, but received only minor support at the Republican state convention, with most of the delegates split between the eventual winner, Civil War general Cadwallader C. Washburn, and William E. Smith, the former State Treasurer.[11]
Miner did not run for re-election to the Senate in 1872. He continued to serve as postmaster at Necedah until December 1885.[12]
Personal life and family
Miner was the eldest child of the Presbyterian missionary Reverend Jesse Miner and his wife Amanda (née Head). In November 1845, Eliphalet married Serena Elliott, an immigrant from Upper Canada. They had at least six children together.[5]
Miner died on February 9, 1890, after suffering heart failure.[8][13]
