Papers of Vernon Tichenor, the first lawyer in Waukesha County, Wis., who also held numerous civic posts including town clerk, justice of the peace, president of Waukesha Village, and court commissioner. Originally an emigrant from New York, Tichenor was a farmer before setting up a law practice. The earliest documents in the collection are letters written to his wife, who had remained in New York, describing his journey to Milwaukee via the Great Lakes and which include descriptions of cities along the way, the landscape and wildlife, and the people he encountered, including Indians. Tichenor was a strong supporter of abolition, reflected in his notes on the 1847 founding of the Waukesha County Bible Society (an abolitionist group). He was appointed Waukesha Co. draft commissioner during the Civil War. A large portion of the collection consists of bounty and pension records for Waukesha Co. residents who served in the War of 1812 and the Civil War (arranged by unit, then surname), and records of the 28th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry (including reports from the draft commissioner to the adjutant general, and records about appointments, exemptions, equipage, ordnance, clothing, and inspection reports). There is also a reminiscence about the Union's capture of Mobile written by Tichenor's son, Capt. Willis V. Tichenor, in 1893.
