DeWitt Clinton Salisbury was born December 3, 1843, in Canandaigua, New York, to Amasa and Sarah Spears Salisbury, and moved with his family to Oregon, Wisconsin, in 1846. He had one older brother and one older sister, Harrison and Helen, who lived to adulthood. During his youth, he worked on his father's farm and attended Oregon schools and then the University of Wisconsin in Madison. The outbreak of the Civil War found him eager to join the Union army which his parents finally allowed him to do in August, 1864. Assigned to Company M of the Wisconsin Heavy Artillery, he was soon promoted to corporal and was mustered out with his company in June, 1865.
After the war, Salisbury returned to Oregon and took up farming as his major occupation. As a secondary, winter career he taught school at Lake View in 1865, Fitchburg in 1866, and Oregon in 1867. In 1869, he was appointed Dane County Superintendent of Schools.
Salisbury's family was his greatest source of joy and sorrow. He married Orelia (Rilla) Frary of Oregon on November 26, 1868. Their first child, a boy, was born in September, 1870 and suddenly died in October. A second child, Alice, was born in 1871 and died in 1874. A third child, Grace, was born in 1875 and lived to adulthood, becoming Mrs. Fred W. Hansen in 1898. But a fourth child, Maud, lived only from May to October, 1876. Winnifred, born in 1880, and Philip, born in 1891, completed the family circle.
