"J. B. Sanford, a veteran of the Civil war and one of the wellknown citizens of Clear Lake township, was born in Illinois, sou of E. B. and Mary Sanford. The mother died in Illinois in 1860 and the father then enlisted in the Union army, serving in the Fifty-first Illinois Volunteer Infantry from 1861 until the close of the war. He died in Missouri at the age of seventy-eight years. J. B. was educated in Illinois, but has acquired the greater part of his present education by reading. He has devoted practically all of his life to farming. He followed his father's example and enlisted in the Union army, serving for eleven months in Company F, Ninety-fifth Illinois Volunteer Infantry. He then reenlisted in Company G. Seventeenth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and served until the close of the war. He was in the Army of Tennessee under Gen. U. S. Grant and did scout duty in the Western army until February, 1866. In 1871 he came to Pepin, Pepin county, Wis., where he remained until 1875, removing then to Barron county and homesteading a piece of land on Hays river, where he lived nine years. He then sold out and located in Black Brook township. Polk county, bought a farm and improved it, living there until 1907, when he came to Clear Lake and bought two acres on the outskirts of the village, where he now lives. He has done general farming and stock raising and in the course of his career has broken and improved three farms. At one time he was a stockholder in the Clear Lake creamery. Mr. Sanford was married in 1869 to Sarah Carter, daughter of Benjamin Carter, a native of Maine. To this union were born five children: Charles, a clerk in the state of Washington; Mary, married to Oscar Swift, of Madalin Isle, in Lake Superior; Lulu, married to James Desare, of Colville, Wash.; Benjamin, who lives in the same place, and Beatrice, now Mrs. Burrill, living on the old homestead. Mr. Sanford has been school treasurer sixteen years, a member of the town board and a justice of the peace. He belongs to the G. A. R. and is a highly respected citizen."
-- History of the St. Croix Valley, p. 1030-1031.