b. Danbury, Connecticut, February 9, 1793
d. Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, August 3, 1882

Alfred Brunson was a Methodist clergyman, lawyer, politician and author. He was Wisconsin's first Methodist missionary.

Early Life

Born in Danbury, Connecticut, Alfred was the oldest of seven children born to Ira and Permelia Cozier Brownson. When his father died in a boating accident in 1806, Alfred helped to care for the six younger children in his family. When their father's estate was settled, the lawyer in charge made an error that changed the spelling of the family surname from Brownson to Brunson.

At the age of 19 he married Eunice Burr. They served as missionaries of the Methodist Episcopal Church to the Western Reserve in frontier Ohio. He enlisted in the 27th U.S. Infantry and served in the War of 1812.

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Alfred Brunson House, 1836

Prairie du Chein, Wisconsin. This house was brought in pieces from Pennsylvania in 1836. View the original source document: WHI 42417

After serving in Ohio and Pennsylvania for 20 years, he moved to Prairie du Chien in 1835. The Methodist Episcopal Church assigned him a 500 square-mile circuit extending from Rock Island, Illinois to Dubuque, Iowa and north to the Falls of St. Anthony in Minneapolis. He served the communities of Platteville, Lancaster, Cassville, Fort Crawford in Prairie du Chien and Fort Winnebago.

Politics

He resigned his post in 1839 to study law. Brunson was admitted to the bar in 1840.

A Whig, he was elected to the territorial legislature in 1840. In 1842, Governor Doty appointed him Indian Agent at La Pointe on Lake Superior, where he served until 1843.

Ministry

Brunson returned to the ministry in 1850, after being defeated for the office of county judge. He was then assigned to Mineral Point. He was appointed elder of Prairie du Chien in 1853.

During the Civil War he served as chaplain of the 31st Wisconsin Volunteers (1862-1863). He continued his work with the Methodist Church until he retired in 1873.

Brunson devoted the rest of his life to writing. His works include his autobiography, "A Western Pioneer" (1872) and "Key to the Apocalypse" (1879). He died at the age of 89 and was buried in the Lower Town Cemetery in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.

His son, Ira Burr Brunson, served as a Democrat in the territorial lower house (1837-1840) and as a U.S. deputy marshal removing squatters from Fort Snelling in Minnesota (1839). He surveyed large areas of the frontier, platted the town site of La Crosse (1842), and made an unofficial plat of St. Paul, Minnesota, for the squatters there (1847). He was appointed postmaster of Prairie du Chien in 1840 and elected county judge of Crawford County in 1853. He held both posts until his death.

One of his daughters, Ella Brunson, wrote two publications about her father: "True Stories of

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[Sources: Brunson, Ella C. "Alfred Brunson, Pioneer of Wisconsin Methodism," 1918 issue (Volume 2, Number 2) of the Wisconsin Magazine of History, pp 129-148. Hist. of Crawford and Richland Cos. (Spring-field, 111., 1884); A. Brunson, Western Pioneer (2 vols., Cincinnati, 1872-[1879]); Wis. Mag. Hist., 2; W. H. C. Folsom, 50 Years in the N.W. ([St. Paul] 1888); Madison Wis. State Journal, Aug. 4, 1882; Prairie du Chien Union, Aug. 24, 1883; WPA MS; A. Brunson Papers, and Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]