Bio: Homsted, Augustus (History - 1840)

Contact: Janet Schwarze.

Surnames: HOMSTED HEALD

----Source: 1891 History of Clark and Jackson Co., Wisconsin, pg. 237

AUGUSTUS HOMSTED, the present Postmaster, and dealer in drugs, medicines, jewelry, notions, wall paper, paints, oils, etc., at Dorchester, was born in Skowhegan, Somerset County, Maine, July 11, 1840, the son of Seth W. and Harriet (Heald) Homsted, both natives of Maine. They had but one child, Augustus, our subject. The father, who was born in the same house as his son, was the son of an Englishman, who was brought to the United States when an infant. Seth Homsted emigrated to Wausau, Wisconsin, in 1855, thence to Stevens Point the next year, where they remained until after the war. The father served in that struggle, in the First Wisconsin Cavalry, and was discharged at Cape Girardean for disability. He afterward moved to Plover, Wisconsin, where he died in January, 1886.

The subject of this sketch served in the later war, in the United States navy on the steamer Genesee, for twenty-eight months, during which time he was in the battles of Port Hudson and Mobile Bay. He then enlisted in Company K, Second Maine Cavalry, and served seventeen months, or until the close of the war. He was one of the 1,100 cavalry who charged on 4,000 infantry at Pine Barren Creek, Florida, and succeeded in routing the Rebels. After the war Mr. Homsted clerked in a store at Stevens Point several years, where he also engaged in the merchandising business for two years. He came to Dorchester in the fall of 1877, and took a homestead just across the line in Marathon County, where he lived thirteen months. In 1878 he went to Colby and ran a hotel until the summer of 1880, then went to Unity and engaged in the same business two years, after which he came to Dorchester and opened a drug store. In July, 1889, he was appointed Postmaster has been Town Clerk four years, and also Justice of the Peace. While in Unity he held the office of Town Clerk, Circuit Court Commissioner, and in Stevens Point was City Clerk and City Treasurer.

Mr. Homsted is a member of the G. A. R. post, of which he was Commander six years, and is also a Knight Templar. Politically he is a Republican.