Pike, Jarvis K.

Born: 1781-12-19 Dutchess County, New York

Died: 1863-01-16 Wisconsin

Jarvis K. Pike was a militia officer, farmer, and a local and state politician. In 1793, Pike and his parents moved to Norwich, New York, where Pike assumed leadership of the family after his father's death in 1799. At the age of twenty, Pike received a commission as an ensign in the New York State Militia. He subsequently received promotions to captain, major, and colonel. In December 1800, Pike married Rebecca Mead--a marriage that would continue for sixty years. During the War of 1812, he served with the New York State Militia on the New York-Canadian front. Pike was a delegate to the New York constitutional convention in 1821. He served in the New York State Legislature in 1830, and in 1837, he received appointment as judge of the county court of Cortland County. In the spring of 1841, Pike and his family moved from New York to the Wisconsin Territory, settling first in Whitewater. Two years later, he purchased a farm north of Cold Spring in Jefferson County. In 1846, he won election as justice of the peace of Jefferson County. In 1849, Pike represented Jefferson County, as a Whig, in the Wisconsin State Assembly. Religiously, he was a Baptist.

J. D. Beck, comp., The Blue Book of the State of Wisconsin (Madison, WI: Democratic Printing, 1909), 932; John Henry Ott, ed., Jefferson County Wisconsin and its People (Chicago: S. J. Clarke, 1917), 1:85, 93; Prosper Cravath, Early Annals of Whitewater 1837-1867 (Whitewater, WI: Whitewater Federation of Women's Clubs, 1906), 261-62; Gravestone, Oak Grove Cemetery, Whitewater, WI.