Jesse Clason

Jesse Arthur Clason (October 15, 1860 - April 7, 1918) was an American physician from Neosho, Wisconsin who served a single term as a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly from Dodge County; he was elected as a Gold Democrat.[1]

Background

Clason was born October 15, 1860, in Clason Prairie, Wisconsin, son of Michael B. and Sarah Phelps Clason. He was educated in the Clason Prairie district school and In the Milwaukee Public Schools. He attended Wayland University in Beaver Dam, and began to study medicine in 1882. He apprenticed himself to Dr. S. W. Thurber, whom he accompanied to Tecumseh, Nebraska. On April 10, 1882, he married Dixie Lenox or Lennox, who died in January 1883.[2] Clason attended the Missouri Medical College, graduating on March 4, 1884.

In 1884 he moved to Elk Creek, Nebraska; in 1885 S, he moved briefly to Chicago, but in October returned to Dodge County, settling in Neosho and taking up medical practice there. He served as health officer of the Towns of Herman and Rubicon; and worked as United States pension examining surgeon in Milwaukee in 1893, and in 1894 transferred to the Horicon, Wisconsin regional headquarters.

Politics

Clason was organizer and first president of the Neosho Young Men's Democratic Club. He was chairman of the Dodge County Democratic committee until the 1896 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Although Clason had been elected as a delegate to the state's Democratic convention, he was an outspoken advocate of the gold standard. When the Chicago convention nominated William Jennings Bryan and adopted a free silver platform, he repudiated it. According to his biography in the 1897 Wisconsin Blue Book, he endorsed the Republican presidential ticket of McKinley and Hobart, and Edward Sauerhering the Republican candidate for re-election in Wisconsin's 2nd congressional district; but the Milwaukee Journal had reported before the election that he was denying reports of his support for McKinley and advocating the National Democratic Party (Gold Democrat) ticket of Palmer and Buckner.[3]

He was elected to the Assembly's 1st Dodge County district (the Towns of Ashippun, Clyman, Emmet, Herman, Hubbard, Hustisford, Lebanon, LeRoy, Lomira, Rubicon, Shields, Theresa, and Williamston; the Village of Horicon, and the Fifth and Sixth Wards of the City of Watertown, and the city of Mayville, having been nominated by the Gold Democrats and endorsed by the Republicans. He won with 2,946 votes, to 2,414 for the incumbent, regular Democrat Herman Rosenkranz. He was assigned to the standing committee on public health and sanitation (of which he became chairman); and that on bills on their third reading.[4] On January 26, 1897, "to express the contempt of his constituents for the damnable Chicago platform" (as he declared in an impassioned speech from the floor) he voted for the Republican candidate for United States Senate, John C. Spooner, over the "Silver Democrat" candidate Willis C. Silverthorn.[5]

He was not a candidate for re-election in 1898, and was succeeded by Democrat John Kessler. (The Gold Democrats as a movement had dissipated in the wake of Bryan's loss in 1896.)

After the Assembly

From 1903-1906, he was the editor of the short-lived weekly newspaper Neosho Standard.[6] Various genealogical websites of uncertain reliability show him as being married circa 1885 to Bertha A. or E. Butler; and by 1910 to Maimie or Mayme Margaret Immel Showalter.

In 1905 he sold his property in Neosho and moved to Pierce County, where he continued to practice medicine.[7] By March 1913 Clason had moved to Fond du Lac.[8] He died of heart failure in his home there on April 7, 1918. His death was reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association.[9] Described as a "prominent Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner,"[10] he was buried with Masonic rites in Milwaukee's Forest Home Cemetery.

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References
  1. "Members of the Wisconsin Legislature 1848–1999 State of Wisconsin Legislative Bureau. Information Bulletin 99-1, September 1999. p. 38 Archived 2006-12-09 at the Wayback Machine
  2. Lapham, William B. Stephen Clason of Stamford, Connecticut, in 1654 and some of his descendants; compiled and arranged from data chiefly collected by Oliver B. Clason of Gardiner, Maine Augusta, Maine: Kennebec Journal Print, 1892; pp. 62, 96
  3. "At the City Hotels" Milwaukee Journal September 15, 1896; p. 6, col. 2
  4. Casson, Henry, ed. The blue book of the state of Wisconsin 1897 Madison, 1897; pp. 586, 589, 591, 592, 675
  5. "Gold Democrat Voted for Spooner; Made a Speech Denouncing the Silverites and Col. Spooner Sent Him a Bouquet When He Closed" Chicago Tribune January 27, 1897; p. 5, col. 5
  6. Oehlerts, Donald E., compiler. Guide to Wisconsin Newspapers 1833- 1957 Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1958; p. 64
  7. Becker, Joseph and Dorothy, Jane Schulz, eds.;Remembering the past!: Rubicon Township sesquicentennial, 1846-1996, Dodge County, Wisconsin. Rubicon, Wisconsin: Sesquicentennial Historical Committee, 1998; p. 111
  8. "News Briefs" Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter March 20, 1913; p. 8, col. 2
  9. "Deaths:Jesse A. Clason" Journal of the American Medical Association May 4, 1918 (Vol. 70, No. 18); p. 1323
  10. "State News" Oshkosh Daily Northwestern April 8, 1918; p. 7, col. 2
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