businessman, railroad promoter, politician, b. Livonia, N.Y. A self-educated man, Hadley became a school teacher and principal in northern New York. In 1849 he moved to Milwaukee where he organized a produce business, and held local Democratic political offices. He was state assemblyman (1854, 1865, 1866) and state senator (1855-56, 1867). In 1856 he was an unsuccessful candidate for Congress. A railroad promoter and friend of Byron Kilbourn (q.v.), Hadley was a member of the executive committee of the Minnesota and Pacific R.R., and was also secretary of Kilbourn's La Crosse and Milwaukee R.R. In this capacity he was implicated in the 1856 scandal in which Kilbourn attempted to win land grants for his road by bribing members of the Wisconsin legislature. Hadley was a regent of the Univ. of Wisconsin (1867). [F. A. Flower], Hist. of Milwaukee (Chicago, 1881); B. Still, Milwaukee (Madison, 1948); Wis. Legis. Manual (1867).

View newspaper clippings at Wisconsin Local History and Biography Articles.

Learn More

Dictionary of Wisconsin History

Explore more than 1,600 people, places and events in Wisconsin history.

[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]