SARLES, Wilbur Thompson, M.D., mayor of Sparta, Wisconsin, is the son of Rev. Jesse D. Sarles, a member of the West Wisconsin conference of the Methodist Episcopal church. He held appointments in the leading charges of the conference, and was presiding elder about twenty years. He had charge of the Black Hills mission as its second appointee, the first having been killed by the Indians. He also established the Black Hills College at Hot Springs, South Dakota, under control of the Methodist church. Dr. Sarles' mother's maiden name was Margaret Thompson, a daughter of Joseph Thompson of Union Grove, Racine county, Wisconsin, formerly of Cayuga county, New York, and grandson of Joseph Thompson, who was a soldier in Captain Hugh McClellan's company of Massachusetts [p.127] militia. The company was present at the surrender of Burgoyne in 1777, and was discharged at Saratoga a short time thereafter. He married Janet McClellan, Captain Hugh's sister, in 1749, and died in 1803. The family was of Scotch-Irish origin. Dr. Sarles' grandfather, Jesse D. Sarles, was born in Dutchess county, New York, of English parentage settled in Racine county in the early forties, and kept a noted hotel between Racine and Burlington. He subsequently sold this with his farm of one thousand acres, and kept another hotel equally noted in early days. He left a family of twelve children. Dr. Sarles' grandmother's maiden name was Phoebe Halleck, daughter of Elijah Halleck, a direct descendant of Peter Halleck, who was one of the thirteen "Pilgrim Fathers" who came from England in 1640, landed at New Haven, and, later, moved to the eastern part of Long Island. The landing at Southold took the name of Halleck's Neek, which it still retains. Among the noted members of this family was the poet. Fitz Green Halleck, and Henry Wager Halleck, who was general-in-chief, of the United States army in 1863. Dr. Sarles was born in Necedah, Juneau county, Wisconsin, November 14th, 1856. He was educated in the common schools, the Prescott high school, the River Falls Institute, and to the end of the junior year in Galesville University. Leaving school, he entered the office of Drs. Gage & Beebe in Sparta, in 1878; and after four years of study, including the full course in Rush Medical College, from which he graduated in February, 1882, he began the practice of his profession as the junior member of the firm of Gage, Beebe & Sarles, which, after ten years, became Drs. Beebe & Sarles, Dr. Gage retiring on account of ill-health. At present the firm is Drs. Beebe, Sarles & Beebe, which has the leading medical and surgical practice in that region. Dr. Sarles is a member of the American Medical association, of the Wisconsin State Medical society--of which he is one of the board of censors, of the Central Wisconsin
Source: Library of Congress. "Pioneering the Upper Midwest: Books from Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, ca. 1820-1910." Washington: Library of Congress, 1999. Aiken, Andrew J. "Men of Progress, Wisconsin." Milwaukee, WI: Evening Wisconsin Co., 1897. p. 127