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Vilas, William Freeman

soldier, lawyer, legislator, United States senator, was born July 9, 1840, in Chelsea, Mass.

He removed with his father's family to Wisconsin and settled at Madison June 4, 1851. He was graduated at the State University in 1858, and from the law department of the University of Albany, N. Y., in 1860. He was admitted to the bar by the supreme court of New York and by the supreme court of Wisconsin in the same year, and began the practice of law at Madison in 1860. He was captain of company A, twenty-third regiment Wisconsin infantry volunteers, and afterwards major and lieutenant-colonel of the regiment. He has been one of the professors of law of the law department of the state university since 1868, omitting four years, 1885 to 1889, and was one of the regents of the university from 1880 to 1885. He was one of three revisers appointed by the supreme court of Wisconsin in 1875 who prepared the existing revised body of the statute law adopted in 1878; and was a member of assembly in the Wisconsin legislature in 1885. He was a delegate to the democratic national conventions of 1876, 1880 and 1884, and permanent chairman of the latter. He was postmaster-general from 1885 to 1888, and secretary of the interior from the latter date to 1889. He received the unanimous nomination of the democratic legislative caucus and was elected United States senator Jan. 28, 1891, and took his seat March 4, 1891.