Kenosha News

History Mystery: Father-son doctors both served as mayors of Kenosha

BY DIANE GILES

dgiles@kenoshanews.com

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History Mystery: Liberty Corners School dedication brought Mary D. Bradford back ‘home’
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History Mystery: First Bernacchi’s Pharmacy opened in 1929
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The last History Mystery question: What Kenosha father-son team, both doctors, served as Kenosha mayors?

Answer:

Dr. Asahel Farr was mayor for four terms, and his son Dr. William Mattocks Farr was mayor for one term in 1894.

Asahel Farr was born in Vermont in 1820 and graduated from the medical department of Dartmouth College in 1846.

He married Martha Wheeler two years later. They had three children: Albert, Martha and William.

In 1854, the family settled in Kenosha. Albert and William grew up to be doctors, Albert setting up his practice in Chicago and William putting out his doctor’s shingle in Kenosha.

Asahel and Martha’s home was on the north side of the City Park (now Library Park).

Involved in politics

Asahel was deeply involved in local and state politics. Prior to the Civil War, he was a Democrat, but when the Southern states tried to secede from the union, he switched parties and was ever afterward a Republican.

He was elected mayor of Kenosha in 1859, 1864, 1871 and 1877; was a member of the Wisconsin Assembly in 1872; and of the state Senate in 1876. He was, for several years, president of the Kenosha School Board.

In addition to his practice, he was the proprietor of Union Drug Store and owned a 317-acre farm in Pleasant Prairie.

Asahel was the local surgeon of the Chicago and Northwestern Railway Co., a tradition carried on by his son William.

Value of hard work

William was born in 1853 and was only a few months old when the family moved to Kenosha.

Though his family was wealthy, William learned the value of hard work. According to a biography on William in “Men of Progress, Wisconsin” published in 1897, “He was brought up to work; although his parents kept three or four servants, he had certain manual duties to attend to daily and was not allowed to call upon the servants to do anything for him. ... The first money ever earned by him was for taking care of the Congregational Church, for which he received $2 per week.”

William graduated from Kenosha High School and Robert College and received his degree from the Chicago Medical College in 1878.

William was elected mayor by 36 votes, and he served from 1894-96.

A Republican, he was in favor of establishing a water works for Kenosha, a thorny issue of the day, as some didn’t want to pay for city water especially if their wells were in good condition.

He was the first mayor in the state to call upon the state board of arbitration to settle a strike, and the board was successful in its efforts.

And he endured a political scandal in which the city leaders hosted a banquet for a delegation from Milwaukee where liquor flowed freely, and the bill for the feast was $720. This was at a time when the average annual income in America was about $1,000.

He also served on the Kenosha School Board,

William married Beatrice Isabella Keith, a native of Illinois, and had six children, Irving K., who died at age 2; Edna Wheeler, Malcolm Douglas, Reginald Hadley, William Mattocks, Jr., and Constance Irene.

The family lived in a grand home on the west side of Library Park, now the Woman’s Club. William died in Albuquerque, N.M., in 1922.

This week’s mystery: What were the locations of Bernacchi’s Pharmacies in Kenosha?

For previous History Mystery articles please visit the Kenosha News website and the webpage www.kenoshanews.com/news/historymystery.php.

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