Private Edward Arndt, Company H.
EDWARD WILCOX ARNDT (430),
eldest surviving son of John Wallace and Mary Catharine (Wilcox) Arndt,
was born at Green Bay in what was then Wisconsin Territory, February 8,
1845. He was educated in the public schools of Green Bay. At the outbreak
of the Civil War he attempted to enlist, but was refused on account of
underweight. Later, declining an offer of a cadetship at Annapolis and
a course at Yale, he enlisted on October 18, 1861, when still in his sixteenth
year, in Company H, Twelfth Wisconsin Volunteers Infantry. This regiment,
one of the most famous of Wisconsin's fighting regiments, won the title
of the "Marching Twelfth" because, in the course of its campaign, it covered
almost every State in the Confederacy. Edward Wilcox Arndt accompanied
it in its campaign in Missouri, Kansas, and the Southwest, and in the operations
east of the Mississippi which took in Kentucky, Tennessee, and northern
Mississippi. While engaged in building military roads through the Tennessee
swamplands he contracted a severe case of malarial fever and was invalided
north, being discharged from the service in March, 1863. After a long convalescence
and a short period in business his desire to again enter the service of
his country was renewed, and in January, 1865, he reenlisted in the Forty-seventh
Wisconsin Infantry, serving until the regiment was mustered out at Exchange
Barracks, Tennessee, September 4, 1865.
After his discharge he
took a course at the Bryant and Stratton Business College in Chicago, and
returned to De Pere, to which place his family had removed during the war.
Here he entered the flour mill of his grandfather, Randall Wilcox, widely
known as the "Stone Mill," and one of the first flour mills built in Wisconsin.
He remained in the milling business at De Pere until 1888, and becoming
after the death of Mr. Wilcox, the managing head of the firm, which ran
the mill under different partnership names.
During the early years
of his business life Edward Wilcox Arndt entered actively into Republican
politics, and became one of the leaders of his party in the state. For
many years a member of the Republican State Committee and of its executive
committee, he was regularly a delegate to state conventions, and was an
alternate delegate to the Republican National Convention at Chicago in
1880, and was elected a Presidential Elector on the Blaine ticket in 1884.
He was also several times chairman of the Brown County Republican Committee
and of the Congressional Committee of his district. He refused nominations
for state senator and for member of Congress. He was, however, the first
Republican candidate for mayor of De Pere after it became a city, and served
for many years on its board of aldermen.
Long active in state
and national organizations of flour millers, he was one of the founders
of the Millers Mutual Insurance Company of Wisconsin and became its president.
In 1888 he retired from the milling business and undertook the management
of the insurance company whose offices were removed to Milwaukee. This
company was one of the most successful mutual insurance companies in the
country. In 1892 he returned to the milling business, becoming general
manager of the Daisy Roller Mill Co. at Superior, Wisconsin. In 1894 he
made an extensive tour of England and northern Europe for the purpose of
making a survey of the American flour trade. Shortly after his return he
became New England Manager of the United States Flour Milling Co., with
offices in Boston. After the dissolution of that company he remained in
Boston, establishing the firm of Arndt, Thompson and Co., flour commission
merchants, with offices in the Chamber of Commerce. He was an active member
of the Boston Chamber of Commerce and a member of its directorate. During
this period he resided at Arlington, Cambridge, and Medford. He was a member
of the Boston Whist Club and of the Medford Club, and was one of the charter
members of the Boston City Club.
He was a Mason and both
a Knight Templer and a Mystic Shriner.
In 1916 he retired from
active business, and after several winters spent in the Bahamas and Florida,
settled at Haines City, Florida, where he built a beautiful home. The climate
of Florida not agreeing with his wife, he removed from Florida to his old
home in De Pere in 1919. In June of that year he and his wife celebrated
their golden wedding anniversary with their son and daughter-in-law in
New York. Edward Arndt has always been a leader, and his counsel and advice
have been sought by political leaders and men of affairs.
He married, at De Pere,
June 9, 1869, Mary Ellen Delany, daughter of Dr. Edmund and Roobe Ann Tallmadge
Delany, of Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin. She had taught school in the south under
the direction of the Freedman's Bureau, and at the time of her marriage
was a teacher in a private school at De Pere. She was a talented artist
who later studied painting at the Chicago Art Institute, and taught painting
and drawing at De Pere and other places. On her mother's side she was a
niece of Nathaniel P. Tallmadge, United States Senator from New York, and
last Territorial Governor of Wisconsin.
CHILD OF EDWARD WILCOX AND MARY ELLEN (DELANEY) ARNDT
*WALTER TALLMADGE ARNDT, born Oct. 11, 1872; married, first, Ethel
Howard; second, Wilhelmina Helene Friedlander.
The Story of the Arndts, Page 301
Author: John Stover Arndt
Call Number: R929.2 A747a
