Orrin Henry Ingram

Ingram was born on May 13, 1830, in Westfield, Massachusetts.[1][2] His paternal grandfather, David Ingram, had immigrated from Leeds, England, in 1780.[3] He grew up in Saratoga, New York, and he was orphaned at eleven, as his father died in 1841.[1][2] He worked on a farm from the age of eleven to seventeen.[1] After his mother remarried, they lived on Lake George.[1] Orrin's brother, Julius Ingram, would become a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly.

Ingram started his career at Harris & Bronson Lumber Company in New York City in 1847.[1] The company was active in the Pharaoh Lake Wilderness Area.[1] Later, he worked for Fox & Englin, building a sawmill on the Rideau Canal and several sawmills on the Moira River, both of which are in Canada.[1] Shortly after, the built another sawmill in Ottawa, Canada, for Harris & Bronson.[1] He was then hired by Gilmour & Company, another Canadian lumber company.[1] He invented the gang edger, but failed to patent it, leaving that opportunity to someone else.[1]

In 1857, Ingram established a sawmill in the Chippewa Valley of Wisconsin with Donald Kennedy and Alexander M. Dole.[4] Their systematic deforestation led to the establishment of new towns across the valley.[4] They established lumber yards in Wabasha, Minnesota, and Dubuque, Iowa.[1] By 1881, the concern became known as the Empire Lumber Company.[4] It was headquartered in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.[5] Meanwhile, the lumber yard in Wabasha became the Wabasha Lumber Company and the one in Dubuque became known as the Standard Lumber Company.[1] Ingram served as the president of both companies.[1] He was also the founder and president of the Rice Lake Lumber Company in Rice Lake, Wisconsin.[1][6] Additionally, he was an early investor in Friedrich Weyerhäuser's timber investments, later known as the Weyerhaeuser corporation.[3][5]

Ingram played an active role in the development of Eau Claire. He served as the President of the Eau Claire Water Works Company.[1] He also served as the President of the Eau Claire National Bank and the Union National Bank.[4]

In Canada, Ingram served as the Treasurer of the Anthracite Coal Company, which operated in Anthracite, Alberta.[1][7]

Ingram published his autobiography.[8]

Ingram was an active philanthropist in Eau Claire, where he was a member of YMCA locally and paid for the construction of its headquarters.[1] He donated the statue of Adin Randall which stands in Randall Park, a public park in Eau Claire.[1] He served on the Board of Trustees of the Wisconsin Congregational Church and Ripon College, as well as on the Wisconsin State Capitol commission.[1] He made financial contributions to the American Red Cross.[1]

Upon losing his son Charles, he built the Charles H. Ingram Memorial Congregational Church in Washington, D.C..[1][9] Its foundation stone was laid by President William Howard Taft, when he was joined by Senator Robert M. La Follette and Congressman John J. Esch.[9] The church included a school and a swimming pool.[9] Ingram rationalized the presence of a swimming pool by stressing, "Cleanliness Is Next to Godliness."[9] The church still stands today on the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and 10th Street, across from Lincoln Park The building was purchased in March 1986 by the Capitol Hill Seventh-day Adventist Church congregation.[10]

After he was widowed, Ingram established the Cornelia Pierce Ingram Memorial Community House in honor of his wife.[4]

He married Cornelia Pierce Ingram on December 11, 1851.[8] They had two sons, Charles H. Ingram, who predeceased him, and Erskine B. Ingram, as well as two daughters, Fanny, who predeceased him, and Miriam, who married Edward S. Hayes.[1] They resided on Third Avenue and Hudson Street in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.[1] His wife predeceased him, dying in 1911.[4]

He died on October 16, 1918, at the age of 88,[1][5] leaving an estate estimated to be worth over one million dollars.[11] He was buried at the Lake View Cemetery in Eau Claire.[1]

• Charles Twining. Downriver: Orrin H. Ingram and the Empire Lumber Company. Madison, Wisconsin: Wisconsin Historical Society. 1975.