From History of Walworth County Wisconsin by Albert Clayton Beckwith, Vol. II, 
Publ. 1912 - Page 779-784
 
ALBERT SALISBURY.  That life is the most useful and desirable that results in 
the greatest good to the greatest number, and, although all do not reach the 
heights to which they aspire, yet in some measure each can win success and 
make life a blessing to his fellow men.  It is not necessary for one to occupy 
eminent public positions to do so, for in the humbler walks of life there 
remains much good to be accomplished and many opportunities for the exercise 
of talents and influence, that in some way will touch the lives of those with 
whom we come in contact make them better and brighter.  In the list of 
Walworth county's successful citizens, the late Albert SALISBURY, a prominent 
Wisconsin educator and for many years the efficient and popular president of 
the State Normal school at Whitewater, long occupied a conspicuous place.  In 
his record there is much that is commendable, and his career forcibly 
illustrates what a life of energy can accomplish when plans are wisely laid 
and actions are governed by right principles, noble aims, and high ideals.  
His actions were ever the result of careful and conscientious thought, and 
when once convinced that he was right, no suggestion of policy or personal 
profit could swerve him from the course he had decided upon.  His career was 
complete and rounded in its beautiful simplicity; he did his full duty in all 
the relations of life, and he died beloved by those near to him, and respected 
and esteemed by his fellow citizens.
 
Professor SALISBURY was born in Lima, Rock county, Wisconsin, near Whitewater, 
on January 24, 1843, being the first white child born in Lima township.  His 
parents, Oliver and Emily (CRAVATH) SALISBURY, were members of a colony which 
emigrated about 1840 from Cortland county, New York, to what is now 
Whitewater, Wisconsin, his maternal grandfather, Deacon Prosper CRAVATH, being 
the central figure of the migration.  The members of this colony were all of 
New England birth or extraction, having tarried in central New York for a 
generation on their westward way.  His paternal grandfather, Silas SALISBURY, 
also emigrated from Marathon, New York.
 
The subject's maternal grandfather, Deacon Prosper CRAVATH, was one of the 
early pillars of the Congregational church of Whitewater, and before the 
church edifice was erected services were frequently held in his home, and it 
was in his log cabin that the local church was formally organized as the First 
Presbyterian church.  He was of Huguenot ancestry, and he was in the highest 
sense a man of good will.  He married Mirian KINNEY, and their daughter, 
Emily, mother of Professor SALISBURY, was one of the constituent members of 
the church.  The death of Deacon CRAVATH occurred on April 22, 1841, after a 
life of much good among the early settlers.
 
The pioneer life of Albert SALISBURY in Wisconsin, before the day of railroads 
and improved farming machinery, was a hard but wholesome school for the boy 
born into it.  His father was a hard-working farmer, and later in life a sheep 
raiser and nurseryman.  The youth accordingly served apprenticeship to all 
these lines of industry, and retained for the last named an interest in trees 
and flowers which materially influenced his later life.  His early schooling 
consisted in a few months' yearly attendance at the district school, up to the 
age of eighteen years; but he owed much to the careful tuition of his mother, 
who had been a teacher before her marriage.  She gave him a vigorous training 
in Warren Colburn's Mental Arithmetic and in Day's Algebra.  Later he became a 
student in Milton (Wisconsin) Academy, which afterwards became a college, an 
institution famous for the number of prominent educators among its alumni.  
From Milton College he was graduated with its first class, in 1870, his course 
having been interrupted by the Civil war and other causes.  From this 
institution he later received the degree of Master of Arts and of Doctor of 
Philosophy.  The two years from December 1863 to December 1865, were spent as 
a private soldier in the Thirteenth Wisconsin Infantry, serving chiefly in the 
Army of the Cumberland, and after the war was over he spent several months in 
Texas, in the enforcement of the Monroe doctrine as against Maximilian.
 
Professor SALISBURY was married on November 20, 1866 to Abba A. MAXSON, a 
native of Allegany county, New York, who died May 21, 1881, leaving four 
children: Gertrude, who married Isaac PETERSON; Oliver M., who married Alma 
PIERCE; Grace, who married J. C. PARTRIDGE, and Winifred, deceased.
 
From September 1870 until March 1873, he was principal of the public schools 
of Brodhead, Wisconsin, then became professor of history and conductor of 
teachers' institutes in the Whitewater State Normal school, which position he 
held for nearly ten years.  While thus engaged he had an important share in 
developing the famous Wisconsin system of teachers' institutes.  In 1882 he 
accepted an appointment as superintendent of schools for the American 
Missionary Association in its work among the freedmen and the Indians.  Making 
his headquarters at Atlanta, Georgia, for the next three years, he traveled 
about thirty thousand miles yearly, being on the road chiefly nights and 
Sundays, spending the school days each week inspecting and supervising 
educational institutions from the Atlantic and Gulf coasts to the Rocky 
mountains and the Dakotas.
 
In August 1883, Mr. SALISBURY was again married, this time to Agnes HOSFORD, a 
teacher in the Whitewater State Normal School, who had been previously county 
superintendent of schools in Eau Claire county, Wisconsin.  One son, Albert, 
was born of this marriage, whose death occurred on May 18, 1905, a month 
before he was to have graduated.  In the summer of 1884, Mr. SALISBURY moved 
his family from Atlanta to Montclair, New Jersey, but continued his work and 
traveling to the South and West.  In the spring of 1885 he was called to the 
presidency of the State Normal school at Whitewater, in his old home.  He 
accepted and commenced work in August of that year.  From that date until his 
death he administered the affairs of this well-known institution, developing 
new departments of work, greatly enlarging and improving its buildings and 
equipment and assisting in putting the normal system of the state on a better 
foundation and in a stronger position in the regard of the public.  He was 
president of the Wisconsin teacher's association in the year 1887 to 1888, and 
he was a member of the board of examiners for State certificates for several 
years and was at one time a trustee of the State School for the Deaf at 
Delavan.  Later Professor SALISBURY became greatly interested in proper 
provision for the care and training of the feeble-minded.  Backed by the State 
Teachers' Association, he carried on a campaign of several years' duration.  
With patience, tact and convincing argument he persuaded a reluctant 
Republican Legislature to pass a bill for establishing the Wisconsin Home for 
Feeble-Minded, but the governor vetoed the bill.  Nothing daunted, Professor 
SALISBURY secured its passage at the next assembly, which was Democratic, and 
again it was vetoed.  Again the Legislature became Republican and the subject 
got them to pass the bill, and this time the governor signed it.  Professor 
SALISBURY's work in that matter was recognized as a great public service.  He 
had spent much time and money in arousing public sentiment in the interests of 
a school for these unfortunates.  He also championed many other reforms, 
assisting in securing the consolidation of rural schools, the grading of rural 
schools, improving the rural school course of study, presenting exhaustive 
repots on the needs of those schools.  Although very busy as a high school 
principal, educator of teachers' institutes, and president of a normal school, 
he found some time for authorship and published many books, some of them being 
text books of study, some of which have been widely circulated and put through 
several editions.  He wrote the "Geography of Wisconsin" in 1876; "Historical 
Sketch of Normal Instructing in Wisconsin" in 1876; and another work under the 
same title in 1893; "History of the Wisconsin Teachers Association" in 
1878; "Orthoepy and Phonology" in  1879; "The Duty of the State to the Feeble 
Minded" in 1890; "First Quarter Century of the Whitewater Normal School" in 
1893; two reports on the "Rural School Problem" in 1897 and 1898; "The Theory 
of Teaching and Elementary Psychology" in 1905; "Early Annals of Whitewater, 
Wisconsin," in 1906; "School Management" in 1911.  He was the historian of 
education in Wisconsin.  Whenever a large educational gathering seemed to 
demand history pertinent to it he seemed to be the only man capable of 
presenting it adequately.
 
The growth of the Whitewater Normal during the twenty-six years he served as 
its president is a matter of local history.  Three times the building has been 
substantially enlarged, and once it was recovered after a disastrous fire, and 
the growth has been steady, many-sided and healthy, the advance in things 
scholastic keeping pace with the improved facilities and also with the general 
advance in management.  President SALISBURY possessed a remarkable memory, 
being able to recall the names of his pupils, the number who attended the 
Normal during his presidency running into the thousands, but he could almost 
invariably recall their names, and he maintained an active interest in their 
success in the profession in which he helped train them.
 
At a meeting of the leading educational lights of Great Britain in London, he 
was one of the speakers and was appreciated and applauded with the best of 
them.  His many addresses at the Normal school were always thoroughly 
prepared, showing splendid scholarship and a fine literary diction.  At least 
three times a week he delivered addresses rich in thought, with a wealth of 
counsel and of inspiration, never repeating himself.  These talks will long be 
remembered by those fortunate enough to hear them, as the most valuable part 
of the day's program.  He thought logically and clearly, reaching positive 
convictions, and with unswerving fidelity and courage made the ideal good take 
form in tangible, practical betterment.  Not alone in Whitewater and in 
Wisconsin, but in the national councils also, was he a potent and invariably  
a righteous influence.  His life was as an open book, with nothing to 
conceal.  He was a man of rare gifts and immense moral courage, never shifting 
his burdens to others, and always choosing the harder tasks himself.  Sham, 
pretense, instability and inefficiency were foreign to his nature.  He would 
choose rather to rebuke a wrong boldly, even at the risk of injury to the 
wrongdoer, believing that it was best for the one rebuked to be set right.  He 
was impartial and insistent for order, strength, harmony.
 
A wide reader and profound student, President SALISBURY was familiar with the 
world's best literature, leaving no branch unexplored, and he was a fearless 
and independent investigator.  His interests were broad and general.  He felt 
that money, time and talent were for the furtherance of great ends and good 
causes.  He gave himself and his possessions to the furtherance of what was 
uplifting in life - the school, the church and worthy charitable 
institutions.  He was reserved and unobtrusive, never intruding his presence.  
His character was many-sided, in some ways unique - a man in whom others 
repose implicit confidence.  He could be very congenial and companionable, as 
well as stern and impassible, as occasion demanded.  He had a very strong 
sense of justice.  He was an energetic leader in the church, devoutly 
religious and steadily consistent; he was a strong supporter of the 
Congregational church and an inspiration to the religious life of the 
community.  While not posing as an orator, he was an able speaker, bringing to 
his audience something worthy of their consideration.  His diversion was the 
study of plants, and it was largely through his direction that the Normal 
grounds are widely known for their beauty and variety of plant life.  As an 
all-around scholar he had few equals, and had a great capacity for hard work.  
He never gave one the feeling that he was self-seeking, but he was ever tiring 
to be helpful to all with whom he came into contact.  He was a man of handsome 
presence, tall, vigorous physique, strong-minded, quick wit and possessed a 
keen sense of humor and biting sarcasm, with a generous sympathy.  He was a 
cheerful companion, a faithful friend, but a dangerous antagonist.  He had an 
accurate and varied knowledge over an amazingly wide field of human interests, 
and was able until the last to grow mentally, morally and spiritually.  
Sincerity was a dominant trait with him, not only in words, but in deeds and 
in thought.  Continuous application through a long period of years gave him a 
clear and comprehensive insight into the philosophy of education and the 
largest wisdom as to the method and means of attainment of ends, while his 
steady growth in public favor and his popularity with teachers and pupils won 
for him an educational standing second to none in the state and that was even 
national in its scope.  He possessed the personal charm and tact which made 
him popular with the young.  He was industrious, concentrated, tireless in 
penetration and search for the higher truth, and his mental and moral 
achievements were radiant; he was harmonious, and breathed cleanliness in 
manner, in _expression, in the thought, in the secret of his comprehension and 
in the power of his silence in the benevolent purity of his personality, and 
his spirit was great in omnipresence.  When this excellent citizen was called 
to take up his abode in the "windowless palaces of rest" on June 2, 1911, 
Walworth county realized that she had sustained an irreparable loss, but was 
grateful for the legacy he left of being one of the purest, most intellectual 
and most useful men that lived in his native state.
 
Submitted by Carol