Calvin Hull, one of the early pioneers of the town of Milton, and a resident here for over seventy years, departed this life Sunday evening, March 7, 1920, in Milton Junction. He had been failing for some time as the result of old age and passed away quietly and without pain.
The deceased, the second son of Varnum and Malinda Larkin Hull, was born December 14, 1839, in Persia, Cattaraugus county, New York. When but ten years old (1849) the family came to Wisconsin and Calvin spent his boyhood days on a farm, and in acquiring his education in Albion and Milton Academies, while his father, pursuing farming, was also pastor of the Rock River Seventh Day Baptist church. This church was organized April 17, 1856, and on May 1st of that year Elder Hull became its first pastor at a salary of $300 a year, half to be paid in cash by an assessment on the members, and half to be by donation and 'in produce'.
On December 14, 1863, Calvin Hull was united in marriage to Josephine Sweet, the first white child born in the town of Albion, Dane county, Wis. It was during this year that Mr. Hull was converted and joined the Rock River Seventh Day Baptist church.
On February 9, 1865, during the dark days before the close of the Civil War, this young man, as many of our brave fellows have done recently, left the chosen companionship of his life to enlist in the defense of his country. He went into the service in Co. D, 49th Wis. Vol. Inf.
Happily the war did not last long after this, and upon his discharge November 1st, the same year, the reunited couple took up farming as a vocation. They very early settled upon the farm near Grass Lake which had been his father's, and here they toiled early and late to make their way and gain a competence and properly rear their family. In 1883 they moved to Milton Junction and Mr. Hull started a hardware business in the P. of H. building. Later he built the brick block in which he has continued to serve the public until his death. He did not sell the farm upon coming to town and always has taken a deep interest in farming matters.
Two children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Hull, Freeborn L., who has spared no pains in making the last days of his father as pleasant as possible; and Metta L., who died May 4, 1884, in her twelfth year. The untimely death of the daughter was a great sorrow to Mr. Hull, and this with the death of his wife in 1902, were blows to his happiness to which he could scarcely become resigned.
In the community, Mr. Hull has often been the leading spirit in progressive improvements and has supported with his means and his influence all causes calculated for the community's good. He has been fearless in denouncing both in private and in public, the things in social and political life which he considered detrimental to the best interests of society. He had a big heart and an open purse for the needy and unfortunate, and his closest friends little knew the good he did for charity in his quiet way.
The immediate relatives remaining to mourn his departure are one sister, Mrs. Jennie Mudge and her two daughters, Miss Mae and Mrs. Horace Loofboro, of Welton, Ia., and his son Freeborn L. and wife and daughter, Marion. Many other more distant relatives and comrades will ever bear kind memories of the departed.
Funeral services were held Tuesday afternoon, March 9, from the home of his son, Freeborn, in Milton Junction, Rev. Henry N. Jordan, pastor of the Milton S. D. B. church, officiating. Burial was in the family lot in the Milton Junction cemetery.
