MARSHALL M. STRONG (1813 - 1864)

Some of Racine’s early settlers "were people with a background of inheritance and training that fitted them for pioneer work - for foundation laying," wrote Eugene Leach, Racine’s first important historian, "and they gave the communities where they settled a tone and character that have survived the lapse of three-fourths of a century." Marshall M. Strong was such a person. His family came to America in 1630, settling in Massachusetts, where his paternal grandfather became a justice of that state’s Supreme Court. Strong himself was the first lawyer to settle in Racine County. There being little demand for legal services in Racine in 1835, Strong started a general store. In 1838 Strong helped start Racine’s first newspaper, The Argus. The Racine Advocate, begun in 1843, was his second newspaper venture. An active public servant, Strong served as village trustee, city attorney, a delegate to the state’s first constitutional convention, and as state legislator.

During his term in the Legislature in 1846, Strong was devastated by personal tragedy. His residence at Seventh Street and Chippewa (now Park Avenue) was destroyed by fire, killing his wife, Amanda (1815-1846), and their two children, Henry (age 4) and Juliette (age 21 months). Another son, Robert, had died in infancy. There being no railroad or telegraph in the area at that time, it was left to a close family friend, Albert G. Knight, to convey the news to Strong in Madison (Wisconsin). During the two-day house and sleigh ride home, Knight said that Strong sat with his head bowed, barely speaking. On September 19, 1850, Strong remarried. He and his second wife, Emilie Ullmann, had three children. He died at the ago of 50 in 1864 and was buried beside his first wife and four of his children (in Mound Cemetery).

Devoted to education, Strong taught political science classes at the Racine College for many years and was a board member and land donor for the college. Strong was also appointed to the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents. Among his friends was Ralph Waldo Emerson, who spoke at Racine College and visited him several times. A tribute to him, given by Judge Charles E. Dyer, said: "As senior at the bar in age and residence, stood Marshall M. Strong. I wish you could have known him. He was an ideal lawyer, and none excelled him in the state of Wisconsin...When he made manifest his intellectual power in argument or conversation, he made on think of the inscription on the old Spanish sword, - ‘never draw me without reason - never sheathe me without honor.’"

Submitted by Deborah Crowell