Sacramento County
Biographies
MICHAEL LAFAYETT WISE
M. L. WISE—Among the self-made men
now prominent in business and manufacturing circles of Sacramento
is the gentleman whose name heads this sketch, who was born in Richland
County, Ohio, April 26,
1846. His father, Hon. Jacob Wise, was born in Cumberland
County, Pennsylvania, and was the son of a
gentleman whose father had come from Germany
and located there. He learned the carpenter’s trade. He removed to Ohio,
and then followed farming. He was an active man, and figured largely in
political history there. The mother of the subject, whose maiden name was
Lydia Hibbard, was born in Berks County, Pennsylvania.
M. L. Wise was but eighteen months old when his parents removed to Fayette, Fulton
County, Ohio, where he spent
his boyhood days. The breaking out of the civil war roused in the youth
the patriotic ardor, and in the spring of 1861, though a mere boy in years, he
enlisted in the service of the United States. Going to
Camp Chase, Columbus,
he was assigned to Company K, Thirty-eighth Ohio Volunteer Infantry.
After organization they proceeded to Camp Dennison, thence to St. Louis, and
from there marched to Crab Orchard and Corinth. His first battle was at Perryville,
Kentucky, and he took part in the engagements of Corinth,
Triune and Murfreesboro, the latter
on the 22nd of July. He was engaged at Chickamauga,
and after the march to Atlanta, and was engaged, among
others, at the battles of Dalton, Atlanta,
Jonesboro, Buzzard’s Roost and Tullahoma.
He was wounded three times at Jonesboro, in the left arm,
left breast and head, and was taken from the field to Atlanta.
He was next sent to Nashville, and from there to Jeffersonville,
Indiana, where he lay in hospital for three
weeks. He was after this sent to Camp
Dennison, and was there discharged
on the 18th of June, 1865, having served honorably throughout the entire war. He was in the Third
Brigade, Third Division of the celebrated Fourteenth Army Corps, under General
George H. Thomas. He went to Cincinnati
after his discharge, and from there home. There he remained until
September 12, 1968, when he started for California via New
York and Panama.
He left New York on the last opposition steamer, October
5, 1868, and crossing the Isthmus, took passage on the steamer Santiago
de Cuba, for San Francisco,
where he landed October 30, 1868. He came to Sacramento
and went to work for his brother, W. E. Wise, on the following Monday morning,
to learn the blacksmith’s trade. He remained with his brother nine years
and a half, then engaged in business for himself at
the Telegraph Shops, on J street,
between Thirteenth and Fourteenth. On the 1st of October,
1877, he purchased a lease on the property on the corner of Eleventh and J
streets, and the firm of Wise & McNair was organized and commenced business
there. In the fall of 1879 Mr. Wise bought his partner’s interest, and
has since carried on the business alone. He has made many improvements on
this property, the latest being a large painting department, 40 x 40 feet in
ground area, and two stories in height. He has a frontage of forty feet
on J street,
and 160 feet on Eleventh street.
He has built up an extensive trade in the lines of blacksmithing, carriage and
wagon-making and carriage painting, and gives constant employment to from twelve
to fifteen skilled workmen. Mr. Wise was married in Sacramento
County, on the 20th of
October, 1876, to Miss Alice P. Taylor, who was born in this county, and is a
daughter of J. B. and Ann E. Taylor, a sketch of whom appears in extended
detail in another portion of this work. Mr. and Mrs. Wise have one child,
Miss Melinda Belle. Mr. Wise is a member of Sumner Post. No. 3, G. A. R. He is one of the active, pushing men
of Sacramento, and is deserving of
much credit for the fine showing he has made in a business way in this
city.
Transcribed
by Karen Pratt.
Davis, Hon. Win. J., An
Illustrated History of Sacramento County,
California. Pages 555-556. Lewis Publishing
Company. 1890.
© 2006 Karen Pratt.