Christopher Raesser

Christopher S. Raesser (born February 20, 1843) was a commission merchant and a Republican member of the Wisconsin State Assembly from Milwaukee.

Straesser was born in Rochester, New York, but came to Wisconsin in 1846. He received a business education, graduating from a commercial college, and worked as a wood and bark salesman. He served in the 3rd Regiment of the Wisconsin Volunteer Cavalry from 1862–1866, mostly as a clerk in the District of the Frontier, Department of the Missouri, where he participated in Indian fighting in western Kansas.

Elected office

In the 1878 Assembly election for the sixth district of Milwaukee County (the sixth and thirteenth wards of the City of Milwaukee), Raesser defeated incumbent Assemblyman Henry Smith, who received only 253 votes as the Greenback Party nominee, to 488 for Democrat Alonzo H. Richards and 716 for Raesser.[1] He was elected again in 1879.[2]

In 1888 he was elected again to the Assembly, receiving 2385 votes to 1398 for Democrat Jacob Truss, 808 for E. J. Mansar (Union Labor) and 103 for Socialist Will Koenig. By the time of his return to the Assembly, he described himself as a "merchant and vessel owner."[3] Incumbent Joseph Meyers of the Populists was not on the ballot. Raesser was succeeded by fellow Republican William Pierron.

References

  1. ↑ Warner, Hans B., Editor. The blue book of the state of Wisconsin, for 1879. Containing the constitutions of the United States and of the state; Jefferson's manual; rules and orders of the senate and assembly, and annals of the legislature; also, statistical tables and history of state institutions: Eighteenth Annual Edition. Madison, Wisconsin: David Atwood, State Printer, 1879; pp. 498-499
  2. ↑ Cannon, A. Peter, ed. Members of the Wisconsin Legislature: 1848 – 1999. State of Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau Informational Bulletin 99-1, September 1999; p. 97
  3. ↑ Timme, Ernst G., Editor. The blue book of the state of Wisconsin, 1889. pp. 477, 513