Joseph B. Hamilton

Hamilton was born on June 10, 1817, in Lansing, New York, son of William and Elizabeth (Bower) Hamilton. He was raised on his family's farm, and received a common school education. At the age of 18, he attended the academy in Aurora, Cayuga County, New York, then spent a winter teaching school. For the next seven years he alternated between teaching school and attending Cazenovia Seminary. At 25 he took up the study of law, first with a firm in Genoa, New York, then later with one in Auburn, continuing all the while to teach school. He was admitted to the bar in New York City in April, 1845; and had a legal practice in Mecklenburg, New York, until 1849. In 1847 he married Mary C. Jaycox, of Mecklenburg, who would become the mother of two children before her death in 1854, though neither child survived long.

In October 1849 he came to Wisconsin, and settled in Neenah, where he chose to settle. He was the Winnebago County district attorney for 1852-3. He had been a Democrat, but with free soil sympathies; but in 1856 joined the Republican, of which he would remain a local leader throughout his career. He was chairman of the board of supervisors of his town in 1856, and president of the village of Neenah in 1857 and 1858.^[2]

He was first elected to the Senate in 1862 from the 21st District (Winnebago County) as a Republican, succeeding fellow Republican Samuel M. Hay. He was appointed to the standing committees on the militia, on federal relations, on education, and on internal improvements^[3] At the close of the 1864 Senate session, Governor James T. Lewis appointed him as Winnebago County's county judge to fill the vacancy created by the elevation of Judge George W. Washburn. He was succeeded in the Senate by George Barnum, who like Hamilton and most Republicans had adopted the National Union Party label that year.