Thomas S. Heller

Company G.

Thomas S. Heller, Menomonie, Wisconsin, was born in Salona, Clinton county, Pennsylvania, in September, 1840. He went to Burlington in 1857, where he attended a commercial college. He went to Reed's Landing, Minnesota, the following year and kept the books of T. B. Wilson & Co., then a branch of the lumber firm of Knapp, Stout & Co., for about one year. He then became a student of Alleghany College, at Meadville, Pennsylvania, where he remained about one year. He came to Dunnville, then the county seat of Dunn county, in Wisconsin, in 1860, and kept the hotel known as the Painter House, and was deputy county treasurer that year, doing the business for his father, who was county treasurer. He went east, attended the first inauguration of President Lincoln in 1861, and returned home with war fever, and desiring to join a cavalry regiment closed out his successful business and went to Burlington, Iowa, where he enlisted in the First Regiment Iowa Cavalry Volunteers, being mustered in with his regiment in July, 1861. He took violently ill in Fremont's march to Springfield, and was left with many other sick soldiers in a church on the Osage river, many of whom quickly died with the raging fever, and want of proper care. He, being fortunate in reaching the hospitals at Sedalia and St. Louis, finally recovered, and then rejoined his company in the field, where he served until in June, 1863, when he was detailed on special service by command of Major General Schofield, as clerk at the headquarters Department of the Missouri, at St. Louis, and to report to Major A. G. Brackett, Asst. Com. of Musters. He was married to Mary Helen Tillotson, of Terre Haut, Indiana, in May, 1864, and was at work in the office of the Provost Marshal General when ordered to be mustered out of service, July, 1864, his term of three years having expired. He came to Menomonie, Wisconsin, at the expiration of his term of service, and kept the Menomonie House for one year; thence to Chicago for a year or two. Has been a resident of Menomonie, Wisconsin, since that time. He was assessor in 1870, town clerk for four or five years, and elected mayor of Menomonie in 1887. He does a large fire insurance business, representing many of the best companies in this country and in England. He has six children — two sons and four daughters. One daughter is married; his wife is dead.

SOURCE: Charles H. Lothrop, A History Of The First Regiment Iowa Cavalry Veteran Volunteers, p. 343