Robert was born in about the year 1849 and enlisted in the Civil War for Company H in the 38^th Wisconsin Infantry on July 26, 1864. He was engaged in drawing hay into the barn. For some reason it was necessary to draw the wagon in backwards by hitching the team to the hind axletree. The sliding door in the back part of the barn was not pushed entirely back, and unfortunately while driving the team, he in some way got his head between the door and the hayrack as the two came into collision. He was killed instantly, and when taken up his brain was oozing from the fractures in his skull. It is presumed that the team, having got considerable headway in drawing the load up the steep slide in front of the barn, pulled the driver along in his endeavors to check them and finally caught him in the way we have described. The man was evidently in the act of dodging to get under the rack, as it would have taken him somewhere in the breast had he been standing erect.

Robert and his wife, Mary Jane, the daughter of Joseph and Clara Bass, had a son, Harry, born in 1873. Robert died of a skull fracture in a farm accident on July, 20, 1874. Mrs. St. Clair remarried a man named Sylvester Loy in 1884.  Harry married Anna Schoengarth in 1901 and they had no children. The St. Clair’s are all buried in the Neillsville City Cemetery, Pine Valley Township, Clark County, Wisconsin.

Military Records

Notes