ABRAM WEST, carpenter, Reedsburg; born June 10, 1805, in Grafton,Rensselaer Co., N.Y.
He came to Spring Prairie, Walworth Co., Wis. in 1845, reaching that place on the 1st of October, after a journey of nearly one thousand miles from Verona, Oneida, Co., N.Y. Mr. West and his family made this journey by horses and wagon, in just one month's time.
Reaching Spring Prairie, he bought a farm, which he worked for six years. In November of 1851, he came to Reedsburg, bought a farm near that place, but soon sold it and agreed with Mr. Reed to repair and run his mills in the town of Reedsburg. Mr. West is, by trade, a carpenter, and built several houses which he afterward sold; he built the Congregational Church of Reedsburg.
Mr. West was married Sept. 5, 1826, to Miss Susan LEWIS, who was born June 3, 1805. The two children of this marriage were Lucina, who was born Feb. 29, 1828, and Sydney, who was born Oct. 5, 1831. This son, Sydney West, engaged work as Government Carpenter and went to Arkansas; returning home from that State, he died when within forty-seven miles of the city of Chicago. The date of his death was Oct. 14, 1864.
In 1852, Mr. West was elected Justice of the Peace and, with the exception of about two years, held the office continuously for twenty-four years. In the fall of 1856, he was elected to the State Legislature. During the year of 1875 and 1876, Mr. West was Police Justice of Reedsburg. In politics, he is a Republican; he voted for John Quincy Adams* and has voted for every President since that time. Before the formation of the Republican party, Mr. W. voted with the old Whig party.
Mr. West's father, Benjamin West, was born in Connecticut, June 15, 1783.
* NOTE from Lin Van Buren: John Quincy Adams (1767-1848), a Federalist from Massachusetts, was the sixth President of the USA (1825-1829). He stood for President successfully in 1824 (the four-candidate contest was determined by the US House of Representatives) and stood for re-election unsuccessfully in 1828, losing to Andrew Jackson. Abram West was only 19 years old in 1824, at a time when the voting age was 21, so it would have been in the 1828 election that he voted for John Quincy Adams. Andrew Jackson did serve two terms, so presumably it was in Jackson's re-election campaign in 1832 that Abram West voted for the Democrat from Tennessee. Just a bit of election trivia for you!
