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From Commemorative Biographical Record of the Counties of Rock, Green, Grant, Iowa and Lafayette, Wisconsin, publ. 1901 - page 165-166
LIEUT. JOHN GRINDELL, ex-soldier, furniture dealer, and brick manufacturer, of Platteville, Grant county, now retired from active business, was born in Ireland in 1828, and is the only survivor of the five children of Thomas and Jane (McMULLEN) GRINDELL, who in 1830 settled in Toronto, Canada, and there passed the remainder of their lives.
John GRINDELL when a boy learned the cabinet maker's trade in Toronto, came to Platteville in 1849, and in March, 1850, started for California overland, crossing the Missouri river May 1. He went by the way of Fort Laramie, and through the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains, and crossed the Humboldt river and Big Desert. At Salt Lake City the party ran short of provisions and were obliged to pay $15 for a bucket of flour and proportionately high prices for other necessaries. They finally reached Hangtown, Cal., at the end of five months. Mr. GRINDELL spent two years in the mines, and was fairly successful in his search after wealth, but of the four men who comprised the party - Messrs. GALE, GILLIS, HOLMES and GRINDELL - he was the only one to live to return.
On his return to Platteville John GRINDELL, with his brother William, opened a furniture store in the place, which they conducted together for forty years, when William purchased John's interest, and the latter engaged in the manufacture of brick, which he still continues to control. During the Civil war Mr. GRINDELL raised a company of volunteers in Platteville for the Army of the Tennessee, and under his first term served one hundred days, as first lieutenant. He then re-entered the service, and continued in the army until the close of the war in the same rank. At the close of the war he returned to Platteville and re-engaged in business.
In 1852 Mr. GRINDELL married Miss Susan COOK, daughter of David and Maria COOK, of Wisconsin, but formerly of the State of New York. Mr. and Mrs. GRINDELL at once settled in Platteville, where he owned some real estate, and resided in the same dwelling from that time until 1885, when he erected a fine brick house on the site of the first one. Our subject has thus lived on the same spot over forty-eight years. To their marriage were born six children: Ada is the wife of T. L. CLARY, a prominent lawyer of Platteville; John H., who is a marble worker in Platteville, married Miss Clara KYLE, and has three children, Roy, Ada and Donald; Albert, who married Miss Ina DICKINSON, removed to California, where his wife died soon after arrival, and on his return with his little daughter, Ina, he assumed charge of his father's brick works; David E. was educated in the State Normal School, married Miss Alice DAVIS, of Ohio, and is traveling in the theatrical profession (he has no children); Susan died when eighteen months old; Arthur B. is a student in the chemical department of the State University at Madison. The mother passed away Jan. 31, 1900, after a wedded life of forty-eight years.
In politics Lieut. GRINDELL has been a most active Republican, and in 1866 he was elected treasurer of his town. In 1880 he was made president of the village board, and he also served as president of the village, council, of which he was three times elected a member. In religion he is a Methodist, having joined that church early in life, and was a member of the building committee that had charge of the erection of the fine brick church edifice in 1877; he has also been a trustee for twenty-seven years, and has ever been a liberal contributor to the support of church work in all its departments. Fraternally, he is one of the oldest Masons in Platteville, and was a member of the building committee having in charge the erection of the fine Masonic hall in 1882; he is also one of the oldest Odd Fellows in the city; and is a member of Sherman Post., G.A.R., of Platteville.
In February, 1897, Lieut. GRINDELL, by an accidental fall, so badly injured his right leg as to incapacitate him for active business, and he is now living in retirement, but not as a recluse. He has shown himself to be one of the most progressive and enterprising business men of the city, has acquired a competency, is regarded as one of the Platteville's most substantial citizens, and bears a name that has never been tarnished by the breath of calumny.
This biography generously submitted by Carol Holmbeck