BIRGE, CHARLES

BIRGE

Posted By: Volunteer (email)
Date: 6/3/2005 at 13:05:22

Biography reproduced from page 381 of the History of Kossuth and Humboldt Counties, Iowa published in 1884:

Charles Birge was born in Whitewater, Wis., in 1845. Entered Wisconsin University in 1860. Went into the army in 1864, before finishing his collegiate course. After leaving the army he entered a law school at Albany, N. Y., from whence he graduated, in the spring of 1866, at twenty years of age. Read law in Janesville, Wis., in the office of J. B. Cassidy, until 1867, when he cut loose from all extraneous assistance and began in earnest the serious task of “paddling his own canoe.” Mr. Birge commenced the practice of law in St. Louis, where he remained until 1870. He was married in December, 1868. Failing health warning him that a too close application of business, coupled with life in the crowded city, would inevitably shorten his life, he reluctantly relinquished a lucrative practice in the Missouri metropolis, and sough a more bracing atmosphere in Iowa. This he found in Algona, where he arrived in April, 1870. In 1877 his health still failed him, and taking to his bed, he was compelled, although reluctantly, to render up his soul and be buried in the cold ground.