History, Winnebago County, Wisconsin: Its cities, towns, resources, people

              704 HISTORY OF WINNEBAGO COUNTY.
erty, as appears by the abstract. In 1855 Mr. Fargo sold these lots to Mr. Harrison Reed, who the same year sold to Mr. Chris¬ topher Rasche and Manuel Kreatz for $2,250. They owned the property until 1860, and they had the rents from P. V. Lawson, Sr., for use of building. The foundry and machine shop of Fargo & Thombs must therefore have been in the building erected on the premises by Hugh Sells and leased for the pur¬ pose. This building was a long red frame two-story factory building and the machinery was. operated by water power. After a few years the iron works were abandoned and sash, doors and washboards made there, the property being occupied with woodworking machinery by J. A. Sanford, Freeman Fair¬ field, Mr. Alexander Syme and W. H. Hart, who afterward was called "Mule" Hart, as he rode about the country on a very small donkey selling fruit trees.
By 1858 Hart had secured a half interest in the machinery and business, and February 15, 1858, Mr. Publius V. Lawson, Sr., bought out the different interests and became a partner in the sash, door and blind business and established the firm of Lawson & Co., and on April 23, 1860, he took over Hart's inter- , est in the business for $1,700 and was sole proprietor. This was the first sash factory in town, and it took the place of the first foundry and machine shop in town.
Mr. P. V. Lawson, Sr., was born at Pultneyville, New York, on the shore of Lake Ontario, September 22, 1828. His father was Nicholas Lawson, a blacksmith and school teacher, who had been a sergeant in the War of 1812, whose father was Ebenezer Lawson, of Union, Connecticut, who was a blacksmith and farmer. His father, John Lawson, was a farmer in the same town and had been a minute man in the Revolution with his son, John came to America in 1724 with his parents from Lunlith- gow, Scotland. The mother of Mr. P. V. Lawson was Joanna Crayna Peper, born in Welcheren island, Holland, coming to America when she was fourteen. Mr. P. V. Lawson, Sr., after obtaining an education in the common schools, had married Elizabeth Fleming, daughter of Capt. Jacob Cook Fleming, a blacksmith of the same place, and removed to Corning, New York, in 1850, where he was architect and builder, doing con¬ tract work until the summer of 1856, when he journeyed west and located at Menasha, sending for his wife and two children, who arrived in December, 1856. After working at his trade of carpenter and joiner for two years he formed the partnership