- JOSHUA H. BERKEY, the eloquent and popular pastor of the
Christian Church of Monroe,
- Green county, is in the prime of life, and full of the ardor
of great convictions. He is an ardent churchman, a profound believer
in the saving and uplifting power of the Christian gospel, and
an unhesitating advocate of its application to the problems of
the modern world. He is a forcible and popular speaker, and a
lecturer and orator of more than State reputation.
- Mr. BERKEY was born at Post Oak Springs, Roane county, East
Tennessee, March 11, 1852,
- and is a son of Jacob W. and Mary R. (MOORE) BERKEY, natives
of Indiana and Tennessee respectively. They were the parents
of two children: Joshua H.; and John L. of Monticello, Wisconsin,
who was in the employment of the United States government some
years at Fort Hauchuca, Arizona. He is a master painter. The
father was a showman, and had traveled over a large part of the
United States. He died at Merom, Ind., March 21, 1871, at the
age of forty-seven years, seven months and three days. His widow
still survives and lives with her son, the Monroe clergyman.
Henry BERKEY, the paternal grandfather of Joshua H. BERKEY, was
a native of Somerset county, Penn., and of Dutch descent; he
had two sons and several daughters, and died in middle life.
Joshua MOORE, the father of Mary MOORE, was a native of North
Carolina, of English and Welsh descent, and began life as a tanner,
in later life becoming a farmer; he moved to Wisconsin, and there
made his home until somewhat advanced in years, when he moved
to Sumner county, Kansas, where he died at the age of eighty-eight.
In religious views he was a Quaker. His widow survived him, and
reached her ninetieth year.
- Joshua H. BERKEY has made his home principally in Wisconsin
since 1860. In his younger days
- he passed about nineteen years on the road with his father.
On Sept. 30, 1875, he married Miss Sarah M. SEARS, and six children
were born of this union: Ada, Almeda, Iva Idalia, Ena Elvina,
Ola Olivia, Ura Uretta and Carol Beatrice. Mr. BERKEY had studied
pharmacy in Monroe, and after his marriage opened a drug store
in Monticello, Wis., continuing in that business several years,
during which time his attention was arrested by the pressing
character of the temperance reform. He sold out his drug store
and went to Denver, Colo., where in 1880 he became the secretary
of a mining company, and a little later was chosen as the business
manager of Pomeroy's Great West, a weekly newspaper. During this
time in company with Col. Will. L. VISSCHER, Mr. BERKEY started
and ran a humorous, dramatic and literary weekly newspaper, under
the title of Hello. In 1883 Mr. BERKEY disposed of his interests
in Colorado, and went to Kansas, where he bought a farm in Sumner
county, devoting eight years to its development. During this
time he founded and conducted a paper at Genda Springs, Kan.,
to which he gave the name of The Crank. It was a strong temperance
paper, and had a wide circulation. While Mr. BERKEY lived in
Kansas, he was called into the lecture field as a speaker on
temperance, and other timely themes. For several years he was
a member of the First Day Adventist Church, but was never in
pastoral charge of any church until he was called in 1898 to
the pulpit of the Christian Church at Monroe, and this charge
he still holds. Monroe has been his home for the past six years.
- In 1896 Mr. BERKEY was nominated on the Prohibition ticket
for Governor of Wisconsin, and
- made a campaign of four months in the proper presentation
of his candidacy. He received several hundred more votes than
Joshua Levering, the candidate for president for the United States.
He carries the flag of his country and his Bible wherever he
lectures, and never resorts to personal abuse. His success in
making converts has been almost phenomenal. From those who know
him best, and have known him longest and most intimately, he
has received the warmest encomiums. He is a broad-minded and
eloquent advocate of great reforms from the standpoint of the
needs of the world, and is full of sympathy and love for those
who suffer the ills of the present order. Of him the Northwestern
Mail, of Madison, Wis., in issue of Aug. 23, 1900, says:
- "Few men have ever been in the State who commanded better
audiences or have given better
- satisfaction to earnest, thinking men than Mr. BERKEY. We
believe he has been called of God to this particular work, and
we know that God has placed his seal of approval upon his labors.
He is not partisan or sectarian in spirit, but seems to be thoroughly
consecrated to the great work of human redemption."
-
- Taken from "Commemorative Biographical Record of
the Counties of Rock, Green, Grant, Iowa and Lafayette Wisconsin,"
(c)1901 Union Publishing; pp. 694-695.
-
- Courtesy of Carol.
|