Hamilton Nelson Ross was born in Beloit, Wisconsin in 1889 to Mr. and Mrs. Noble J. Ross. A graduate of Beloit College, Ross was by profession a mechanical engineer and by avocation an historian and writer. He was involved in the manufacture of paper-making machinery and was an official at the Beloit Iron Works before leaving the city around 1928. He was later engaged in manufacturing in Batavia and Geneva, Illinois.
Ross first visited La Pointe, on Madeline Island, in Ashland County, Wisconsin, in the summer of 1897. Returning to the island each summer for the next sixty-two years, and for two winters, he developed an intense interest in the history of La Pointe, the Apostle Islands, and the Chequamegon Bay area. He was active in the founding of the Madeline Island Museum, and was on of its board of directors; he also chaired a committee to restore the island's Indian cemetery. After his retirement in the early 1950s, Ross devoted his time to research and writing. In 1951, he published a booklet entitled The Apostle Islands: A Brief Resume of Their History, Including Maps and Condensed Descriptions of the Individual Islands. This topic was expanded into his book, La Pointe - Village Outpost, which was published posthumously in 1960. Ross died on December 25, 1958, in Geneva, Illinois.
