H. J. TRABER, Mayor of Platteville, was born in Albany Co., N. Y., Nov. 9, 1833; when 17 years of age he left home and went on a whaling voyage in the ship Montezuma, Capt. Williams, of New London, Conn.; they sailed on the 15th of July, 1850, and returned on the 15th of May, 1853, crossed the equator seven times on the voyage, and visited during the time, the Azore Islands, St. Paul's Island, New Zealand, East Cape, in Russian America, Sandwich Islands, King Mills Group, La Drone Islands, Tihita, and thence around Cape Horn, home; he soon after made a voyage to Liverpool, Eng., then returned to America, and visited Bath, Me., Boston, Mass., and then went to Chesapeake Bay, Portsmouth, N. H., and back to Albany; in the spring of 1855 he sailed to Buffalo, N. Y., and followed the lakes till July of that year, when he landed at Chicago on the 9th and came to Platteville July 16, and has been a resident of the city since that time; Aug. 14, 1862, he enlisted in Co. A, 33d W. V. I. as a private and was in the service three years; in September, 1864, he was transferred to Co. H. of the same regiment as Second Lieutenant, and had command of his company from that time till the close of the war; he was in twenty-one engagements during his term of service and was never wounded and was never a day off duty; he is the present Mayor of Platteville, elected in April, 1880; he was married in 1859, in Lancaster, Wis., to Miss Sarah Kines, and has had four children, three of whom are living.

This biography generously submitted by Roxanne Munns.