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Term: Fairchild, Jairus Cassius 1801 - 1862

Definition:

merchant, politician, b. Granville, N.Y. He was the father of Cassius Fairchild (q.v.) and Lucius Fairchild (q.v.). He settled in Hudson, Ohio, in 1822 and followed a varied business career in Ohio until 1845, when he moved to Milwaukee. The next year he moved to Madison, where he kept a store, ran a brickyard, speculated in lands and an ice and coal company, and served as director and later president of the Watertown-Madison R.R. Company. He held a receivership in the Milwaukee-Horicon R.R., and joined with others in operating a cranberry company and sawmill in northern Wisconsin. A "Tadpole" Democrat, he was the first state treasurer of Wisconsin, (1848-1852), and in 1856 was Madison's first city mayor. L. Fairchild Papers; Hist. of Dane Co. (Chicago, 1880); C. R. Tuttle, Illus. Hist. of Wis. (Boston, 1875); Wis. Mag. Hist., 10; WPA field notes.

View a related article at Wisconsin Magazine of History Archives.

View newspaper clippings at Wisconsin Local History and Biography Articles.