No. 64.—Franklin Wilcox.
FRANKLIN WILCOX.
One of the prominent figures on the wonderful gallery of the Agricultural Building at the recent World’s Fair, where were found the more wonderful and beautiful exhibits of the apiary, was Mr. Franklin Wilcox, of Mauston, Wis. We had never had the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with him before the past summer, but now we feel that in Bro. Wilcox, as in many other nice bee-folks whom we first met the past year, we have indeed a good and true friend. So we are glad to have this opportunity to also present to our readers another leading bee-keeper—one who has done so much for advanced apiculture in the State where he lives, and who takes such a deep interest in the prosperity of all.
Like a great many of the famous men of the United States, Bro. Wilcox had the good fortune to be born in the State of Ohio. We are not sure that this fact has anything to do with his success as a bee-keeper, but somehow we imagine there must be something encouraging in the feeling that one hails from a certain locality where have come many who have won deserved distinction, even to filling the highest position of honor in the gift of the Nation. However that may be, at any rate Franklin Wilcox was born in Hardin county, Ohio, in 1840. He moved to Wisconsin in 1851, and settled in Juneau county, near where he now resides. There being no school to occupy his mind, for a few years he spent much of his time in the summer season hunting his father’s cows—for pastures were bounded only by the horizon, and the cows seemed anxious to find the outer edge; in the fall he frequently went with his father bee-hunting, and there learned from observation some practical lessons in bee-keeping, and we think he would spend a little time each fall yet, in the woods, “lining up” the wild bees, if time would permit.
At the commencement of the late War, he went into the army and served to the close, being wounded at South Mountain, Md., in September, 1862, which disabled him from active service for one year.
At the close of the War he married, and settled on a farm where he still lives. He thinks himself quite content with his comfortable home, a good wife, and four children.
In connection with his farming summers and teaching a country school winters, he kept a few colonies of bees, as some farmers do now, until about the year 1877 or 1878, when he subscribed for the American Bee Journal, and soon after added Gleanings, “Cook’s Manual,” and several other bee-works. After a few months’ reading, he chose a hive, and commenced bee-keeping in a new way, that astonished his parents and some of his neighbors.
He now commences each season with from 200 to 300 colonies of bees, and realizes as much profit from them as any farmer with the same amount of capital and labor.
Mr. Wilcox has been the Secretary of a farmers’ mutual insurance company for the past 15 years, which does business in four towns only, and carries a capital stock of $500,000.