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Joel C. Squires

American politician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 15, 2026
Entity authorityQ16200479
Source-derived summary

Joel Cook Squires (December 11, 1819 – March 3, 1889) was an American carpenter, miner, Wisconsin pioneer, and Democratic politician. He was elected as the 3rd Bank Comptroller of Wisconsin, and also served in the Wisconsin State Senate and Assembly, representing Grant County.

Background

Squires was born in Vienna Township, Ohio, on December 11, 1819, and attended the public schools. He came to Wisconsin in 1838 and settled in the Platteville area in 1841. He died at his home in Platteville on March 3, 1889.

Public service

Squires was Clerk of the Grant County Board of Supervisors for 1849, 1850 and 1851; he was Clerk of the Circuit Court in 1851 and 1852. At that time a resident of Lancaster, Squires was elected to the State Senate from the Sixth District for the 1852 session. Squires, a Democrat, succeeded Whig John H. Rountree. At the time of election, he was 31 years of age and had been in Wisconsin for twelve years; he listed his occupation as "carpenter".

After the Senate was re-apportioned and the Sixth District was shifted from the region around Platteville and the surrounding region to the Milwaukee area, Squires was succeeded by fellow Democrat Duncan Reed in the Sixth District, but was elected to the succeeding one-year term in the new Sixteenth District.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Joel C. Squires” is american politician. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Joel, Squires and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1819, 1889, 1838, 1841—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1819-12-11. For this dossier, Joel, Squires and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american politician” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16200479. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1819, 1889, 1838 and 1841.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Joel C. Squires”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Joel C. Squires primary sources, Joel C. Squires archive and Joel research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Joel C. Squires”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Joel C. Squires” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.