Edward Cleary turned a hardscrabble background into a life of affluence and influence. He was one of the original city fathers of Antigo, Wis., and died there in 1918. Both in his railroading days and later years in public service he was appreciated as a public speaker in an age that prized oratory. He was prominent in the Midwestern railroading lodges and an active participant in local politics. Though modest about his achievements, he was successful as an investor and as provider for his family.

    Michael Cleary, his father, made the crossing in 1846 from Ireland alone at age 20. He arrived in Boston and settled in Central Massachusetts, at Lancaster, Worcester County. Michael Cleary and Mary (Mae) Powers, also an Irish immigrant, married and remained for several years in Massachusetts.

    Edward, the eldest, was born in Lancaster, Massachusetts, October 25, 1855. He traveled as a young child in 1863 with his parents, grandmothers, and other relatives to Appleton, Wisconsin. His parents, Michael and Mae, then settled the family on a farm near Appleton. Though Edward went to public schools, he considered his schooling an inadequate education and read books as often as he could. He also completed a series of continuing education English literature courses. He worked on the family farm until he was nineteen.

    He then took up work in the woods and on the rivers in winters and helped out on the farm in summers until he was 23. Wisconsin looked like the Great North Woods, with virgin and second-growth timber in abundance. A big man, well over six feet and 240 pounds, Ed spent part of the time in the woods as a "river pig," riding the logs and breaking up jams.

    The growing lumber industry brought investment in a new rail line. The Milwaukee, Lake Shore, and Western line proposed to push from Antigo all the way to Lake Superior. Ed Cleary left home in June 1878 and joined others to forge the new line through the forest. Ed chopped ties. Within six months he was hired as a brakeman.

    The rail line to from Antigo to Ashland became part of the Chicago and Northwestern Railway System. Appleton was a key junction on the system that began in Chicago and would reach to the west coast. Ed was frequently promoted and saved as much money as he could. He married Margaret Morrissey in 1882 and maintained his young family in Appleton for four years. He became one of the first settlers of Antigo in 1886.

    From freight conductor he moved up to the last rung on railroad ladder. In 1884 he was given his first passenger run as passenger conductor, a high achievement in the railroading world. He was considered a exemplary passenger conductor, listed as "one of the most efficient conductors in the Division." In other words, in the rough world of lumberjacks riding trains after payday and occasional Native American passengers under the influence, he used his large and affable presence to keep the trains running on time and orderly.

    The Chicago and Northwestern Railway gained a reputation as "the railroad that has everything." Even after his retirement from the C&NW he responded to former colleagues to act as a mediator with company administrators for wage and working conditions negotiations. He apparently contributed to an atmosphere of labor peace because the Northwestern had almost no strikes. He was called "the orator" by his colleagues who presented him with a valuable "Surprise" clock as a token of their appreciation for his unpaid work for their benefit.

    By the late 1880s he was drawing a salary of $125 on the railroad, roughly two and a half times that of day laborers. He invested longtime savings well in property in the new town. He retired from the railroad and turned his attention to helping to develop the raw and tree-stump filled streets into a liveable municipality. He was the lead investor in constructing buildings in one of the downtown city blocks, erecting the Cleary Building in 1891. He shared interests in other downtown blocks and dealt extensively in land outside the downtown area and outside the city.

    He became president of J. C. Lewis Hardware Company. He was an officer of the Antigo Telephone Company. He owned the first automobile sales agency in the city, a Buick agency. Hence the family owned the first car owned by an Antigo family. He bought a farm and engaged a tenant farmer. Family stories also told of investments not made because of questionable conditions.

    Through an unsolicited government appointment he became U.S. Postmaster of Antigo in 1901 and continued in the post for nine years, until June 30, 1910. By then his business interests took up much of his time until his death eight years later.

    Politics was a major part of his life. As a Republican, he served as Supervisor and Alderman on the City Council for several years. He devoted even more years to serving on Antigo’s Board of Education.

    His gregariousness led him to belong at various times to the Order of Conductors, Knights of Columbus, and Catholic Order of Foresters. He contributed generously to the building of the original St. John’s Catholic church.

    Travel drew him to frequent visits in Milwaukee and Chicago and vacations in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The rail passes extended to former conductors also were able to be used by family members who little by little began settling in Shorewood or Chicago.

    Reading was a major recreation. Through most of his life he was reading the classical works of English, including apparently all the entertainments of Dickens and Thackerey. A great regret for him was his limited education with no chance of university. He offered all his children the opportunity of attending university, especially pleased to be alive for the graduation of his eldest, John, as an engineering major at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. But he understood that son, Raymond, had a practical bent and would do better with a family investment in an car agency. Other children attended college or university and the youngest, Gene, was in prep school on his way to becoming an M.D. at his father’s death in 1918.

    In one account of his life, Ed Cleary is described as "justly proud" of the fact that, though he was a railroad man, he was fit to do other lines of usefulness. He did the other lines of usefulness well enough to leave an estate estimated in 1918 at $150,000. That would be $1,670,000 in 1999.