I’m in the middle of several larger CHH research projects and I find myself swamped with information on early Mequon area pioneers. So rather than wait until I’ve got it all sorted out and then organize it into a big essay or two (or more!), I’ll be putting up some of these new bits and pieces on the blog as I find them.

Today’s subjects are the families of Jonathan Loomis (1776-1849) and his eldest child, Issac Chester Loomis (1802-1882), two of old Washington/Ozaukee county’s first white settler families. I’ve mentioned some of these folks in previous CHH posts. And while the Loomis name does appear in some of the early county histories and land records, so far I’d not been able to learn much about the family or how they came to the Wisconsin Territory in the 1830s. In fact, given that the mid-1800s penmanship on some of the source documents was often florid to the point of being unreadable, I was sometimes unsure whether documents discussing or signed by “J. Loomis” versus “I. Loomis” represented the same man, or two individuals. Today’s source goes a long way toward solving these questions.¹

Descendants of Joseph Loomis in America

Loomis, Elias, and Charles Arthur Hoppin. Descendants of Joseph Loomis in America, and his antecedents in the old world. edited by Loomis, Elisha S [Berea? O, 1909], Library of Congress.

As luck would have it, I just ran across a useful digitized book in the collection of the Library of Congress, titled Descendants of Joseph Loomis in America, and his antecedents in the old world. I’m not an expert in Loomis genealogy, and thus not entirely sure how accurate this book is, but what I have read here mostly checks out when compared to what I have found elsewhere. With that said, below are the key bits of the book that are related to very early Washington/Ozaukee county history and, in particular, Isaac Chester Loomis and his family. What follows is taken verbatim from pages 193 and 390-391, though I’ve taken the liberty of expanding many of the abbreviations and adding a few paragraph breaks for ease of reading. I’ve also added a few footnotes to explain some possibly obscure references.

Let’s begin with the patriarch of the family, Jonathan Loomis…

Jonathan Loomis — from Connecticut to Wisconsin Territory

JONATHAN LOOMIS, born New Hartford, Connecticut, Jan. 20, 1776; married Jan. 28, 1802, Melinda, born [at] Tolland, Connecticut, Nov. 28, 1779, died Oct. 17, 1867, daughter of Asahel Jones.

He removed to Conneaut, Ohio, and thence to Port Washington, Wisconsin, where he died Sept. 1, 1849. He was a cooper, Whig, Methodist. 8 children, first 3 born Connecticut, rest born Smithfield, New York.

The eight children of Jonathan and  Melinda (Jones) Loomis

The first three children were born in Connecticut (possibly in or near Tolland?):

ISAAC CHESTER, born Dec. 15, 1802. + [deceased, 1882]

ROYAL JONES, born May 24, 1805, died Aug., 1833, Gore District, Upper Canada, Brantford [village].

BENJAMIN WEBSTER, born May 13, 1807.

The other five children were born in Smithfield, New York

JONATHAN IRA, born Feb. 3, 1810; married Nov. 28, 1847, Sarah Ann Van Derboqut, Kildare, Juneau Co., Wisconsin. No children. He died Apr. 21, 1879.

MARY MELINDA, born Feb. 9. 1812; married 1852, George D. Coe. Calumet Co., Wisconsin.

ALANSON, born Nov. 13, 1814, died Sept. 14, 1833. Conneaut, Ohio.

DAUGHTER, born March. 14, 1817, died same day.

ISAAC NEWTON, born April 2, 1819. + [deceased]

I. C. Loomis

The eldest of Jonathan and Melinda (Jones) Loomis’s eight children, Issac Chester Loomis, was also an early pioneer in Wisconsin Territory. His story is found on pages 268-269 of our source:

ISAAC CHESTER LOOMIS, born Hartford, Connecticut, Dec. 20, 18o2; married 1st. Apr. 1833, Jane, born 1811, died. Aug.18[56?], daughter of Andrew and —— (McIntyre) Cochran; married 2nd, Dec., 1869. Harriet R. Cochran, who died Denver, Colorado, 1897.

In 1836, he removed from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin by the Lake route, to the western coast of Lake Michigan. Chicago and Milwaukee were then only flourishing Indian trading posts, and to him a pioneer, among the first of the name in Wisconsin, then spelled “Wiskonsan,” these posts offered no inducements. But he bought a quarter section of land in what is now the third ward of Milwaukee, but made his home in Franklin Township, Milwaukee County.

He was one of the government surveying party that laid out the thoroughfare called the “Green Bay Road,” and it is a notable fact that the only temperance man of the party was the only one who escaped frost bites during the rigorously cold weather, and he was Isaac C. Loomis, an ardent and zealous Washingtonian.²

About 1843, he removed to Port Washington, Wisconsin, where he settled for a permanent home. Here he was County Treasurer for several years, postmaster, and during the civil war assist­ant assessor for the district. At this time his home, as well as homes of other U. S. officials, was raided by a foreign element who resisted the drafting of their men.³

He received a commission from Governor Doty, signed by state secretary A. P. Field, dated Apr. 19, 1843, making him “Colonel of the 9th Regt., Wiskonsan Militia,” hence he was early regarded as a prominent and capable man.⁴ After the civil war he made his home in Clarksville, Tennessee, but spent his last years, from 1875, in Arkansas City, Kansas, where he died Oct. 9, 1882. A member of the Masonic fraternity. Republican (aboli­tionist). Methodist. 6 children.

The six Loomis children

Five of the six children of Isaac C. and Jane (Cochran) Loomis’s were probably born in Wisconsin. Page 269 of this Loomis genealogy has these brief sketches of their lives:

DR. ]AMES ALANSON, born Springfield, Pennsylvania, Jan. 20, 1834; married Apr. 16, 1862, Ervilla S. Eaton. No children. Cashier of Arkansas City bank, Kansas.

DR. WILLIAM HENRY, b. Franklin Township, near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Jan. 14, 1837; married July 20, 1864, Harriet Caroline Wheeler, of Akron, Ohio, who died Dec., 1905. No children ( ?). Af­ter a period at Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin, he entered government employment, early in the Civil War, as paymaster, under his Uncle J. W. Brigden, of Erie, Pennsylvania. Their field was in the Western Mississippi division, and they were both on the ill-fated steamer “Ruth” that burned on the river. Loomis and another young man secured a small boat and with great courage and perseverance, went again and again to the burning boat and succeeded in rescuing every person on board.⁵ For several years he practiced den­tistry in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Later he took and completed a medical course in a [sic] Medical College of Chi­cago, and practiced there. In 1876 he removed to California, locating in Ala­meda, opposite San Francisco. He here spent his remaining days, in his profession, and died Feb. 9, 1906, Oakland, California, leaving no living children. One authority says they had one daughter.

HARRIET HELEN. born Feb. 25, 1839, died July, 1839.

MARY ELIZABETH. b. Franklin, near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Aug. 28, 1841; married Port Washington, Wisconsin, Nov. 8. 1865, John C. born Jersey City, New Jersey, March 15. 1835, son of Patrick and Ellen McMullen. Resided in Tennessee 6 years, Kansas 16 years , California 19 yrs. Banker. Oakland, California. Children: 1. Nellie C., 2. Charles Robert, 3. Hubert, 4. Robert James, 5. Mary Belle, 6. Willie, 7. Paul Loomis.

HARRIET MALINDA, born Port Wash­ington, Dec. 3. 1848; married Clarksville, Tennessee, April 25. 1870, Robert, born near Glasgow, Scotland, June 8. 1845, died, Oakland, California, Sept. 1., 1905, son of Alexander and Jessie Watson (Gib­son) Marquis. She resided Wisconsin 18 years, Tennessee 4 years, Colorado 30 years, and California since 1901. Prohibition [political party].⁶ Presbyterian. Oakland, California. Children: 1. Harriet Loomis, 2. Robert, 3. Ruth Foster, (adopted) 4. and 5. Albcrt and Ed­gar Frisby (twins), “brought up in our family as our sons.”

MARTHA JANE. born Jan., 1851, died, Sept. 20, 1853.

Postscript

I believe these are all the Loomis family members from this source that have a solid connection to early Milwaukee-Mequon-Washington/Ozaukee county settlement. I also did a quick “Find” search through the book and discovered that there are many other branches of the Loomis family that came to various parts of Wisconsin in the early decades of settlement. I have not, however, spent time trying to connect the dots between all of those Loomis families and today’s subjects. If you are interested in Loomis family genealogy, please download your own PDF copy of the book via the Library of Congress link (above), and let me know if you find anything interesting.

___________________________

NOTES:

1. And as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, the early records of old Washington /Ozaukee county are filled with mentions of this extended New England LOOMIS family, and with the (even more?) numerous Nova Scotia LOOMER family. Occasionally, some of the early records, and at least one published genealogy, have used—for reasons unknown, or possibly just in error—one surname in place of the other, making things very confusing for the historian and genealogist. Today’s post helps confirm much of what I’ve learned about the Loomis and Loomer family trees, which is a good thing, as the lives of all these folks intersect in important ways with the Clark family and their neighbors, especially the James W. Woodworth family.
   
   
2. The “Washingtonian” movement was an early nineteenth century temperance movement, in many ways a forerunner of the twentieth century’s Alcoholics Anonymous. Wikipedia has a good overview of the Washingtonians here.
   
   
3. Isaac C. Loomis’s home was, indeed, among those damaged during the Ozaukee County Draft Riot of 1862. For background on that see this link from the Wisconsin Historical Society as well as my Henry Clark related posts Henry Clark and the Civil War draft and Henry Clark – Civil War draftee and, as a bonus, Avoiding the draft, 1862 style
   
   
4. Note that Isaac C. Loomis’s commission as “Colonel of the 9th Regt., Wiskonsan Militia,” dates from early 1843, when there was little federal military presence in the territory, and the territorial militia existed to protect the settlers from the Native Americans or, if necessary, to put down major civil disturbances.
   
   The territorial militia was organized in the early ’40s, and this information about Loomis’s appointment may well be correct. But keep in mind that these territorial militia “regiments” of the 1840s are not the same as the Wisconsin volunteer regiments that served in the Union army during the Civil War, 1861-1865. The 1842 “9th Regt., Wiskonsan Militia,” is not to be confused with the Ninth Regiment of Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry that fought for the Union in the Trans-Mississippi district during the Civil War.
   
   
5. The Union army steamer “Ruth” caught fire and sank near Island No. 1 on the Mississippi River (just south of Cairo, Illinois), on the evening of August 4/5, 1862. The ship was valued at $10,000 and was carrying a cargo of $260,000 cash to pay the soldiers of General Grant’s army in the Trans-Mississippi district. Several Ozaukee county men—most members of Co. I, 9th Wisconsin Infantry—were aboard the ship, serving as paymasters or their guards. According to contemporary news reports, about 30 lives were lost, along with a substantial number of mules, beef cattle, 400 tons of commissary and suttlers’ stores, and about 100 tons of private freight.
   
   
6. Harriet M. (Loomis) Marquis is not the only former-Ozaukee county resident to support the Prohibition Party. Jonathan and Mary (Turck) Clark’s eldest child, Caroline (Clark) Woodward was an ardent temperance worker, an important figure in the Nebraska and national W.C.T.U., and even ran for state office on the Nebraska Prohibition Party ticket in 1891 and 1894. See Caroline M. (Clark) Woodward: a closer look at that 1893 biography for all the details.