FREDERICK LUDINGTON,
Son of Col. Henry Ludington.
Marshall I. Ludington was born in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, on July 4, 1839, and entered the army as captain of volunteers and acting quartermaster-general on October 20, 1862. Like his brother he served in the Chancellorsville and Gettysburg campaigns, in the Wilderness, and at Petersburg, and then became chief quartermaster at Washington. In January, 1867, he became major and quartermaster in the regular army, and served in various places and was successively promoted until in 1898 he was made brigadier-general and quartermaster-general of the United States Army, with headquarters at Washington. For several years he had been acting quartermaster-general, but had not enjoyed full authority to organize the department according to his own ideas. Consequently, when he became quartermaster-general, only four days before the declaration of war with Spain, he was confronted with a task of peculiar difficulty, for which he had not been able to make satisfactory preparations such as had been made in other branches of the service. Before he retired from the office, however, he had so perfected the organization and equipment as to make the department a model which military experts from Europe were glad to study. He served until July 4, 1903, when he was retired under the law for age, with the rank of major-general, U. S. A. Since his retirement he has lived at Skaneateles, N. Y.
Mention has been made of Frederick Ludington, son of Colonel Henry Ludington, who with his brother Lewis engaged for a time in general merchandising at Frederickstown, or Kent, N. Y. He married Susannah Griffith, and among their children was a son to whom they gave the name of Harrison, in honor of the general who was just then winning distinction in the United States Army and who afterward became President. Harrison Ludington was born at Kent, New York, on July 31, 1812, and served for a time as a clerk in his father’s and uncle’s store. In 1838 he removed to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in company with his uncle, Lewis Ludington, and there engaged in general merchandising, in partnership with his uncle Lewis and later with his younger brother, Nelson. They also had extensive interests in the lumber trade. Withdrawing from their firm, he formed a partnership with Messrs. D. Wells and A. G. Van Schaick, in the same business, with extensive lumber mills on Green Bay. He was for many years conspicuously identified with the development of the city of Milwaukee, and as the proprietor of a “general store” is said to have purchased the first bag of wheat ever brought to market at that place. He served for two terms as an alderman of Milwaukee, and in 1872-75 was mayor of that city. His admirable administration of municipal affairs fixed the attention of the whole State upon him, and as a result he was elected governor for the two years 1876 and 1877. He filled that office with distinguished success, but at the end of his single term retired from public life and resumed his manufacturing pursuits, in which he continued until his death, which occurred at Milwaukee on June 17, 1891.
HON. HARRISON LUDINGTON,
Governor of Wisconsin, 1876-1878.
Grandson of Col. Henry Ludington.
George Ludington, second son of Frederick Ludington, and grandson of Colonel Henry Ludington, was born in Putnam County and spent his life there. He married Emeline C. Travis. For some years he occupied and conducted the store which had formerly been managed by his father and uncle, as already related, and afterward became cashier of the Bank of Kent, later known as the Putnam County National Bank, a place which he filled until his death.
A great-grandson of Colonel Henry Ludington, through his son Frederick and the latter’s daughter Caroline, is Lewis S. Patrick, formerly in government service at Washington but now and for many years living at Marinette, Wisconsin. To his painstaking and untiring labors must be credited the collection of a large share of the data upon which this memoir of his ancestor is founded.
