FREE WHITEWATER

Daily Bread for 9.13.11

Good morning.

Whitewater’s forecast calls for a sunny day, with a high temperature of seventy-one.

The Wisconsin Historical Society recalls that on this day in 1813, the controversial

William Augustus Barstow [Was] Born

On this date William Augustus Barstow, governor of Wisconsin, was born in Plainfield, Connecticut. The son of William A. Barstow and Sarah Hall, William Barstow served as secretary of state in Nelson Dewey’s administration. He was elected governor on the Democratic ticket in 1853. He was renominated for a second term and ran against Coles Bashford in the general election. Barstow was declared the winner but was removed from office two months later when he was found guilty of election fraud. He was the first governor in U.S. history to be so deposed.

Afterwards, Barstow moved his family to Janesville, where they lived until the onset of the Civil War. Barstow raised the 3rd Wisconsin Cavalry and was appointed colonel of this regiment. William Augustus Barstow died of chronic diarrhea on December 13, 1865 in Leavenworth, Kansas, where he was serving as Provost Marshall General of Kansas. He is buried in Brookmere Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio. [Source: First Ladies of Wisconsin-The Governors’ Wives by Nancy G. Williams, p.36]

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