Joseph Dorr Clapp (Fort Atkinson, WI)

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Joseph D. Clapp photo (date unknown) (History of Jefferson County, WI (1879))

Joseph Dorr Clapp (December 31,1811 – October 27, 1900)

Biography

  • Name: Joseph Dorr Clapp
  • Birth: December 31, 1811, Westminster, Vermont
  • Death: October 27, 1900, Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin

One of the first settlers of Jefferson County, Wisconsin, Joseph Dorr Clapp was a farmer, business investor, public figure, and banker. In particular, he served as President of the First National Bank of Fort Atkinson almost from when it opened its doors in 1864 until the end of the century.

Clapp was born in Westminster, Vermont, in 1811. He lived there and in Boston until 1839 when, upon the death of his father, Joseph and his older brother Mark moved to the newly-formed Jefferson County in Wisconsin Territory, part of a migration of New England settlers into that portion of the original lands of the Northwest Ordinance. The two brothers settled on land in what later became the town of Milford. Their mother, Ann Nancy Dorr, migrated at about the same time but died in the Town of Aztalan in 1840. Eventually, three of Joseph’s sisters also followed – Ann, Frances, and Sarah — while a fourth, Susan, remained in Vermont.

The two brothers Joseph and Mark farmed in Milford for the next 18 years. In 1841 Joseph married Zida Ann May, daughter of Chester May of Fort Atkinson. In 1855, Zida’s younger sister, Elizabeth Hannah May, married Lucien B. Caswell, making Clapp and Caswell brothers-in-law. This connection became the basis for a number of business collaborations which, over the decades, linked the fortunes of Clapp with the Caswell and May families.

While Zida and Joseph did not have children of their own, they did adopt one daughter, Ida May. Clapp did acknowledge an illegitimate child, Edward Livingston Clapp, for whom he unsuccessfully sought dispensation from the Wisconsin legislature in 1845 to make his legal heir. Listed as a part of the Clapp household with his birthplace as Vermont in the Census of 1850, the young man died in 1859 of typhoid fever. By that time, Joseph Clapp had retired from farming and moved to Fort Atkinson, where at middle age he turned to a variety of non-farming pursuits, including banking.

The Koshkonong Bank (1859): Fort Atkinson’s first financial institution, Clapp and Caswell founded the Koshkonong Bank in early 1859 with Clapp as President and Caswell as Cashier, the two men contributing equal shares of the bank’s $25,000 capital. Luckily for Clapp and Caswell, shortly after opening the Koshkonong bank the two partners were able to sell their stakes to Abraham H. Van Norstrand in December 1859, before turmoil in Wisconsin banking broke out with the onset of the Civil War. The Koshkonong Bank was declared insolvent in April 1861.

Though a Democrat, Joseph Clapp’s opposition to slavery put him in the “war” faction of his party. Lucien Caswell had also begun his political career as a Democrat, but became a Republican after 1856. Both men saw sectional conflict as increasingly likely, and sought to trim their financial exposure to it.

The First National Bank of Fort Atkinson (1863): Clapp’s and Caswell’s next move was to be among the earliest investors in Wisconsin to organize a national bank under the new federal legislation. Leading a group of twenty Fort Atkinson residents that included members of their wives’ family, Clapp and Caswell incorporated the First National Bank of Fort Atkinson (Charter 157) on October 27, 1863. The bank opened for business in January 1864. Caswell served briefly as both President and Cashier of the new bank while Clapp finished a two-year term in the Wisconsin state Senate, where his brother Mark also served. As a result, the new bank at first did business only from 9am to 11am each day. Later in 1864, however, after leaving public office Clapp became President and Caswell retained the Cashier position. This arrangement persisted for the next twenty-five years.

Joseph Clapp’s single term in the Wisconsin Senate seems to have been his last stint in politics. Previously, he had played a number of local roles, such as Treasurer of the Town of Aztalan (1848) and representative for Milford on the Jefferson County Board of Supervisors (1852). After taking the helm of the First National in 1864, Clapp remained in private life while Caswell embarked on a legislative career in both state and national politics. In addition to the bank, Clapp occupied himself with tending to his various business interests, including mining investments in Colorado, and was otherwise content with local, honorific roles like being Treasurer of the Fort Atkinson Anti-Horse Thief Society.

Most of Clapp’s business investments were made with his younger partner Caswell. Clapp was a Director of the Northwestern Manufacturing Company, founded in 1866 by Caswell and a group of investors. Clapp also took part in a family partnership by the name of May, Clapp, and Caswell that traded in farm products. In 1885, when Caswell founded the Citizen’s State Bank of Fort Atkinson, Clapp was both a shareholder and Director of that institution as well.

Joseph D. Clapp lived a long life. After the death of his first wife Zida in 1868, Clapp married Samaria Weld, a widow, and became the stepfather of her two children, William and Nellie. Around 1890, with Clapp still presiding over the First National, Lucien B. Caswell’s son Lucien Jr. took his father’s place as Cashier, while Lucien Sr. became Vice President. After Clapp passed away in 1900, Caswell resumed the position of President that he had once held briefly in 1864, with Lucien Jr. continuing as Cashier.

Bank Officer Summary

During his banking career, Joseph D. Clapp was involved with the following bank(s):

1882 Brown Back $5 Serial Number 1 bank note with pen signatures of C.A. Caswell, Asst Cashier and J.D. Clapp, President. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions, www.ha.com


Sources

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