spiritualist, and founder of Morris Pratt Institute; born in 1820 in Madison Co., New York, he came with his brother to Milton about 1850, where he created a successful farm. Pratt became an ardent spiritualist in the 1850s, when seances, spirit knockings, mediums, and trances were much in vogue, and vowed that if he were ever wealthy he would give his fortune to support the movement. About 1884, he followed the advice of mystic Mary Hayes Chynoweth (q.v.) and invested his small savings in the Germania and Ashland mines in the Gogebic Iron Range. In a few months he sold his shares for $200,000 and, true to his word, in 1888 began building an edifice in downtown Whitewater to house his spiritualist institution. Known locally as "Pratt's Folly," it was not finished or occupied until after his death in 1902, when the Morris Pratt Institute registered its first students. View more information elsewhere at wisconsinhistory.org

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[Source: Whitewater Register, Oct. 10, 1918]