Alonzo M. May
Alonzo M. May
Alonzo Martin May was born in the village of Scio, Allegany
county, New York, on the 20th of March, 1838. He is a descendant
of Sir Thomas May, of Mayfield, county of Sussex, England,
located about forty miles south of London. In the family records
the name has been written Mayes, Mays, Maies and May. Dorothy
May, of this family, was the wife of William Bradford, who became
governor of the Plymouth colony. She died on the voyage to
America. The line of descent is: Thomas May, born at Mayfield,
England, in 1590; John; Samuel; Samuel, second of the name;
Eleazer; Theodore; Ellis; Philander Franklin; and Alonzo Martin.
Theodore moved from Dedham, Massachusetts, to Washington county,
New York, served in the Revolutionary war and was present at
Burgoyne’s surrender. Ellis followed farming at Union
Village, Washington county, until 1832, when he moved to Allegany
county, New York. He married Mary Wells and their fifth child was
Philander Franklin. In 1835 he married Laura Ann Matthews, of
Wyoming county, New York, a descendant of one of the Pilgrim
fathers and also of Revolutionary stock. To them were born seven
children, the second being Alonzo Martin, of this review. When he
was five years old his family moved west, the trip being made
from New York overland in a prairie schooner, a covered wagon
drawn by two horses. The party passed through Canada from
Lewiston to Detroit, the Niagara and Detroit rivers being crossed
on horse ferry boats. They reached Will county, Illinois,
thirty-five miles south of Chicago, in August, 1843, and there
with five hundred dollars in silver the father purchased a
quarter section of land and built upon it a fourteen by twenty
frame house, one and a half stories high, the lumber having been
hauled from Chicago. In 1846 he moved to Rock county, Wisconsin,
and engaged in the manufacture of steel plows at Janesville, the
first steel plows in the country having been made by his brother
Harvey H. May, of Galesburg, Illinois. Disposing of this business
in February, 1851, the father went to Green Lake county, where he
again turned his attention to farming. There Alonzo Martin May
completed a common-school education when he was fifteen years of
age, having begun his studies in a select school over a wagon
shop in New York state. The first school which he attended in
Illinois was in a house made by setting up small trees or bushes,
ten or twelve feet high, around a space about fifteen feet
square, the roof being leafy branches of trees. Mr. May afterward
attended Ripon College in Ripon, Wisconsin, and from there went
to Beloit College, completing the course in that institution in
1864. In April, 1861, when the news came that Fort Sumter had
been fired upon by the rebels, he with a large number of other
students tendered his services to the government under the call
for three months’ men, and his company was assigned to the
Second Regiment, Wisconsin Volunteers. Under the call the
regiment did not see service in the field and Mr. May was
afterward sworn in as a member of a regimental band at Beloit. He
was taken sick when this band went to the front and secured a
substitute, being, however, held to fill a vacancy should one
occur. At the end of a year the regimental bands were mustered
out and he went to Janesville, Wisconsin, to enlist, failing,
however, to pass the medical examination. Again, early in 1864,
with a large number of students and professors in the colleges,
he enlisted in Company B, Fortieth Wisconsin Volunteers, his
regiment being widely known as the “Students Regiment.”
Mr. May was at that time a member of the senior class, the
seniors enlisting having passed their final examinations ahead of
time for the purpose of going to the front and finding upon their
honorable discharge their diplomas waiting for them at Beloit.
Alonzo Martin May’s father also served for some months in
the Union army and a brother, Isaac M. May, was for three years
at the front, dying in a military hospital in Chicago while on
his way home after having been mustered out.
In 1867, having completed the course of study in the Union
Theological Seminary in New York city, Alonzo Martin May was
ordained by Bishop Potter of New York to the ministry of the
Protestant Episcopal church and came west, locating in Waukon,
Iowa, as rector of St. Paul’s Protestant Episcopal church in
that city. The membership, small at that time, was soon further
depleted by removals and, Waukon being more than adequately
provided for in the number of churches, Mr. May discontinued his
services at the end of five years and transferred his membership
to the Methodist Episcopal church, of which he has since been an
active member. He has been leader of the music and a chorister
for more than fifty years and occasionally has served as a
substitute for other pastors. He has always taken an active
interest in the cause of education and has done much to promote
its spread in Waukon, especially during the year of 1868-9, when
he had charge of the Waukon public schools.
In January, 1868, Charles B. McDonald brought a newspaper plant
from Blairstown to Waukon and established in his city the Waukon
Standard. Mr. May, being familiar with the newspaper printing
business, at once became identified with it and at the end of
three months bought the outfit and may, therefore, properly be
called the founder of the paper. He continued its principal
proprietor and its editor for thirty-three years thereafter,
making it one of the greatest forces in the promotion of
municipal progress and growth. At the end of that long period, on
account of nervous prostration, he sold the plant to his son,
Robert Bruce May. During the first year after Alonzo M. May
assumed control his brother-in-law, R. L. Hayward, was associated
with him in the business and afterward for nine years E. M.
Hancock, who had learned the printing business in the office, was
associated with him as a partner, taking principal charge of the
operation of the journal, while Mr. May filled the position of
official shorthand court reporter for the tenth judicial district
of Iowa, comprising six counties. This office he resigned after
thirteen years of capable service. During the last four years of
this time his wife had principal charge of the editorial work and
proved herself a capable and far-sighted business woman. Mr. May
was admitted to the bar, having passed the required examinations
in June, 1872, but never actively entered upon the legal
profession.
At Beloit, Wisconsin, on the 26th of July, 1865, Mr. May was
united in marriage to Miss Augusta Mary Hayward, the second
daughter of Hon. Paul Davis Hayward, who was born at Port Hope,
Canada, although his parents were natives of the United States. A
member of the family to which he belongs served in the
Revolutionary war and signed the Declaration of Independence.
Paul Davis Hayward married on October 14, 1837, at Norwalk, Ohio,
Miss Anna Langford, a native of Ireland, and in 1841 they moved
to Green Bay, Wisconsin, and thence to Kingston, in the same
state, where Mr. Hayward was register of the U. S. land office
and also county recorder of deeds. He became very prominent in
state politics and was afterward elected to the legislature,
serving for two terms with great ability and efficiency. He was
in the Civil war as a member of the Union army and died at the
residence of his daughter, Mrs. R. J. Alexander, in Waukon,
November 24, 1890. He had long survived his wife, who passed away
in Canada, May 6, 1863. Their eldest son, George Washington
Hayward, was born in Huron, Ohio, August 31, 1838, and was
graduated from the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in
1861. He served in the Civil war, attained the rank of captain
and died while on duty at Alexandria, Egypt, January 16, 1886.
Their eldest daughter, Anna E. Hayward, is now Mrs. J. S. Gray,
of Detroit, Michigan. Mrs. May, the wife of the subject of this
review, was born at Green Bay, Wisconsin, June 8, 1842. For
seventeen years the family resided at Kingston, Wisconsin, where
she attended the public schools, and she was also afterward a
student at Ripon College. The next daughter, Ella M., was born
August 5, 1844, and was for some time a resident of Waukon. She
married Hon. D. F. Morgan, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, a member of
the state senate for some years. Both have passed away. Richard
L. Hayward was born August 5, 1846, and in the Civil war fought
as a member of the Fortieth Wisconsin Infantry, and was afterward
connected with the first Wisconsin Cavalry. In 1869, after a year
as foreman of the Standard office and partner in the controlling
company, he went south on account of failing health and died in
Texas in 1882. Paul Davis Hayward, Jr., was born at Kingston,
Wisconsin, in 1849, attended college at Beloit and in 1870
located in Chicago, where for twenty years thereafter he was
prominently connected with a wholesale paper firm. He died in
Brockville, Ontario, June 7, 1890. Emma E. Hayward was born
August 15, 1851. Sarah V. was born September 25, 1852. They are
now residing in Detroit, Michigan. Carrie L. was born June 30,
1857, and came to Waukon with her sister Mrs. May in 1867. She
was a student of Cornell College, Iowa, and at Olivet College,
Michigan. She married R. J. Alexander at Waukon, June 27, 1883.
For more than a third of a century Mr. Alexander has been one of
the most successful clothing merchants of the country and for
many years has been an active member of the school board.
Mr. and Mrs. Alonzo M. May became the parents of eight children.
Frank Hayward, the eldest son, was born in New York city, May 8,
1866. He learned the printing business and for some years was a
partner in the Standard at Waukon. For the past twelve years he
has held an important position with the Northwestern Newspaper
Union of Chicago. Anna Laura was born in Floyd county, Iowa,
August 4, 1867. She was graduated from the Waukon high school and
afterward learned the printing business. She married, November
20, 1888, Rev. G. N. Keniston, of the Methodist Episcopal church,
and she died at Elkader, April 29, 1890. Jessie Ella was born in
Waukon, October 15, 1868, and acquired her education in the
Waukon grammar and high schools. For ten years she has been
confidential secretary to the New York manager of the United
States Steel & Wire Company in New York city. Robert Bruce
was born June 20, 1870. After completing his education in the
public schools he learned the printer’s trade and for some
years thereafter was associate publisher and editor of the
Standard and is now foreman of the Iowa Falls Sentinel. He
married, October 4, 1893, Miss Lucy Taylor Stoddard, of Waukon,
and they have one son, Robert Bertrand. Winifred was born
September 21, 1874, and after graduating from the Waukon high
school attended the Nora Springs Seminary and Cornell College.
She also learned the printing business. On the 5th of October,
1899, she married Ben D. Helming, one of the successful,
progressive and substantial farmers of this county. He is a son
of Simon Helming and was born on the home farm, three miles west
of Waukon, January 29, 1874. Their children are as follows:
Carolyn Elizabeth, born June 30, 1900; Dorothy Hager, born
January 6, 1902; Paul Hayward, July 15, 1903; Benjamin David,
Jr., August 10, 1905; Robert Bruce, February 20, 1907; Frederick,
April 25, 1910; and John Albert, March 28, 1912. Paul Davis was
born March 18, 1876, and after completing a high-school course
was for some years connected with the Washburn-Moen Company of
Chicago, after which he spent one year as purser of the United
States ship Tacoma during the Spanish-American war. For three
years he had charge of over three hundred miles of telegraph and
telephone lines as a member of the United States signal service
in the Philippines and he was for three years government clerk
and storekeeper in the Panama canal zone. For a similar period of
time he has been clerk in the United States adjutant
general’s office in Washington. He married in 1908 Miss
Caroline Hansen, of Chicago. Langford was born in Waukon,
February 5, 1878, graduated from the Waukon high school and took
a two years’ course at Cornell College. He was for several
years in the employ of the Washburn-Moen Company at Worcester,
Massachusetts, and upon leaving that connection went to Meriden,
Connecticut, where he became associated with the Columbia Roller
Shade Company, acting as supervisor of construction of plants for
that concern in Chicago and in Oswego, New York. In the summer of
1912 he became superintendent of construction of an immense plant
for the H. W. Johns-Manville Manufacturing Company at Finderne,
New Jersey. He married at Worcester, Massachusetts, Miss Florence
Scott, and they have two children. Marian, the youngest child of
Mr. and Mrs. Alonzo M. May, was born March 7, 1880, and after
graduating from the high school took a course in domestic science
in Drexel Institute, Philadelphia. On the 26th of December, 1908,
she married Dr. Einar Onsum and after residing for a few years in
North Dakota they went to his native city, Christiania, Norway,
where he has now a large practice. They have one son, Einar
Frederick, born February 6, 1911, and one daughter, born January
19, 1913.
Politically Alonzo M. May came into the republican party “on
the ground floor,” though not yet a voter when the first
republican club, the beginning of the party, was organized March
20, 1854, at Ripon, Wisconsin, by Major A. E. Bovay. Mr. May has
been in sympathy with the progressive element in the party
represented in Iowa by such men as Larrabee, Cummins and Kenyon,
and he has been at all times active and public-spirited in
matters of citizenship. For some fifteen years he has served as
clerk of the grand jury and at Des Moines was elected bill clerk
of the house of representatives of Iowa for the 1906 session.
During the session of 1911 he served as chief doorkeeper and was
doorkeeper for the 1913 session, but these offices have been
tendered to him without his seeking, for he has never been an
active politician in this sense, although he has taken an active
part in temperance work and in everything relating to the public
welfare. Fraternally he is connected with the Masonic lodge and
Independent Order of Odd Fellows, organizations of which he has
been an active member for some forty-three years. In 1883 he
became a charter member of John J. Stillman Post, No. 194, G. A.
R., and has been adjutant of the post for about thirty years,
thus keeping in touch with his comrades of fifty years ago.
Throughout a period of residence in this section of the state
dating from pioneer times Mr. May has firmly entrenched himself
in the respect and confidence of his fellow citizens and has
taken an active, helpful and worthy part in the work of
upbuilding and development. He has steadily adhered to the
highest principles of business, personal and public integrity and
has behind him a record of service that has been varied in
activity and faultless in honor.
-transcribed by Linda Earnheart
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