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J.H. Beers and Co. / Commemorative biographical record of prominent and representative men of Racine and Kenosha counties, Wisconsin, containing biographical sketches of business and professional men and of many of the early settled families
(1906)
[Commemorative biographical record], pp. [unnumbered]-645
Page 6
COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. and when, at the breaking out of the Civil war, Col. William Utley proposed to raise a regiment, Mr. Case generously offered $i,ooo to the first company that would enlist. Throughout the war he was unfailing in his liberality to the families of the boys in blue. Mr. Case's admiration for fast horses brought him considerable promi- nence. He took great pleasure in breeding and training turf stock, and not only had elegant barns and track at Racine, but also a third interest in the Glenview Stock Farm, near Louisville, Ky. He enjoyed the distinction of having the once fastest trotting horse on the globe, the famous "Jay-Eye- See." "Hickory Grove Farm," his stock farm situated just south of the city of Racine, and adjacent to the city limits, became justly famous. Mr. Case bred and owned forty-eight horses that made records ranging from 2 :IO to 2:34. The names and records of a few are here given: "Jay-Eye-See," 2:10; "Phallas," 2:13Y4; "Brown" (at four years old in race), 2:1834. As has been said, Mr. Case was eminently a business man, but he never lost sight of the fact that his success in business was based upon the agri- cultural development of the country, and he took a real interest, not prompted wholly by prospect of material gains for himself, in the agricultural advance- ment of the country, having been identified with both State and county agri- cultural societies. He was one of the founders and a life member of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. With all his hard work, his devotion to business, and his numerous other interests, Mr. Case lived to be over seventy, passing away Dec. 22, 1891. It is enough to say that he was sincerely mourned alike by his family, his busi- ness associates, his hundreds of employes, and the entire community for which he had done so much, and where he had resided for half a century. In 1849 Mr. Case was united in marriage with Miss Lydia A. Bull, daugh- ter of DeGrove and Amanda (Crosby) Bull. Seven children were born to the union, four living to maturity: Henrietta, the wife of Percival _S. Ful- ler, a prominent lawyer at Chicago; Jessie F., the wife of H. M. Wallis, who owns a large interest in and has full charge of the J. I. Case Plow Works at Racine; Amanda, the wife of J. J. Crooks, of San Francisco, Cal.; and Jack- son I., deceased, who served at one time as mayor of Racine, and is said to have been the youngest mayor of a large city in the United States. HON. ZALMON GILBERT SIMMONS has a business reputation which extends all over the United States among railroad and telegraph men. His connection with Kenosha covers a period of over sixty years, and he has improved the opportunities his high position and means have given him to such good purpose that he is justly regarded as its principal benefactor. He has done more than any other one man for the building up of the city. His gifts to various enterprises which have been a matter of pride to Kenosha have been liberal and bestowed with hearty good-will. The benefits his ex- tensive undertakings in the locality have conferred can hardly be estimated. Mr. Simmons was born in the town of Euphrates, Montgomery Co., N. Y., Sept. Io, 1828, and comes of old New England stock. His grandparents. Rouse and Mary (Potter) Simmons, were early settlers in Montgomery coun- ty, N. Y., moving thither from Rhode Island. Ezra Simmons, father of Zal-
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