Col. Edward D. Daniels

Civil War Abolitionist

Edward Dwight Daniels was a geologist, abolitionist, academic and Civil War soldier.

He was born Jan. 19, 1828, in Boston, Massachusetts. He moved to Ripon in 1848 to live in a cooperative agricultural community. He taught at Brockway College and Carroll College and became the first state geologist of Wisconsin in 1853.

An ardent abolitionist, he was involved with the escape of fugitive slave Joshua Glover in 1854 and the subsequent escape plan for jailed abolitionist activist Sherman Booth from incarceration in Milwaukee.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Daniels organized the 1st Wisconsin Volunteer Cavalry Regiment in Ripon in 1861, housed briefly in the Brockway building. He was the commanding officer of the unit from 1861-1863.

Later in life, he attempted several efforts in utopian farming focused on free-labor principles, political activism, newspaper work, and lecturing.

He died April 19, 1916, and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.