Bio: Ayer, Charles A. (Commemorative Bio - 1895)

Poster: Crystal Wendt

Charles A. Ayer

Charles A. Ayer is numbered among the leading business men of Tomahawk, Lincoln County, where he established a cigar factory November 2, 1889, and is now conducting a successful and profitable business, usually employing five men.

He is a native of the Bay State, born in Boston February 28, 1854, and is a son of William M. Ayer, whose birth occurred in the same place in 1826. The grandfather, Henry Ayer, was also a Bostonian by Birth, and on both sides our subject can trace his ancestry back to 1620. The paternal grandfather served as a soldier in the war in 1812, for which he organized a company, and from the rank of captain rose to that of major, proving himself an efficient officer; he was wounded during the struggle. By vocation he was ship chandler, as were also his forefathers for many years in Boston. In his family were three sons – James F., Henry T. and William M. – and three daughters. William M., father of our subject, is a blacksmith by trade, and still conducts a shop in Boston, while he has also done all the city blacksmithing on contract. He married Helen E. Mitchell, also a native of that city, daughter of Daniel Mitchell, a ship chandler, and to them have been born four children – Charles A., George H., William L. and Alice E.

At the age of seventeen Charles A. Ayer was graduated from the high school of his native city, after which he went to Springfield, Mass., and began learning the trade of cigar making. In that place he remained for six months, when he returned to Boston and completed his trade there, since which time he has worked in every State east of the Mississippi River. He made his first start in business in 1874, in Haverhill, Mass., where he remained two years, returning thence to Boston. After being in Chicago for five years he came to Tomahawk, where he and his wife find a pleasant home. He was married in Rochester, N. Y., September 10, 1878, to Mary Smith, a native of Canada.

Politically Mr. Ayer is a Democrat, and by that party was elected mayor of Tomahawk in March, 1893, at which time he ran against two opponents. In 1894 he was succeeded by E. W. Whitson, who appointed him city clerk, a fit recognition of his capability to discharge the duties of public office. While in Boston he served for six month as appraiser in the Custom House. Mr. Ayer is a prominent member of the K., O. T. M., being the present commander of the Tomahawk Lodge. His fair dealing and systematic methods of doing business have won for him the confidence and respect of all with whom he has been occasion to transact business, and he takes great interest in the welfare of Tomahawk, doing all in his power of its up building and advancement.

---Source: Commemorative Biographical Record of the Upper Wisconsin Counties of Waupaca, Portage, Wood, Marathon, Lincoln, Oneida, Vilas, Langlade and Shawano. publ. 1895 by J. H. Beers & Co., Chicago 1110 pages, illustrated; Page 961-962