Background
Jerome Increase Case was born on December 11, 1818 in Williamstown, Oswego County, New York, United States, where his parents, Caleb and Deborah (Jackson) Case, were among the pioneers from the eastern part of the state.
Jerome Increase Case was born on December 11, 1818 in Williamstown, Oswego County, New York, United States, where his parents, Caleb and Deborah (Jackson) Case, were among the pioneers from the eastern part of the state.
As soon as he was old enough, Jerome helped in clearing and cultivating the wilderness and went to school when he could. His interest in machinery was of local comment.
He then attended an academy at Mexico for a year. Upon completing an elective course there, he decided to go West and start another threshing business.
When he was sixteen, his father purchased a horse-treadmill threshing-machine of which Jerome was placed in charge, conducting a threshing business for five years. He purchased six horsepower threshers on credit and took them to Racine, in 1842, where he soon found buyers for five of the machines. He kept the sixth with which to earn his living and in the hope that by study and experiment he might improve it. Success crowned his efforts and in 1844, while in Rochester, he designed, built, and put into practical operation a combined thresher and separator, thus eliminating the fanning mill. He immediately rented a small shop in Racine to build the machine, and, after three hard years during which he succeeded in selling a few units, his machine was generally accepted and he had accumulated sufficient capital to erect a manufacturing plant. His business, in which he displayed much sagacity, grew rapidly. The fact that he was a practical thresher himself was of great advertising value. His plant was the largest west of Buffalo and within ten years, by 1857, was producing 1, 600 machines a year. In 1863 he took in three former employees to form the J. I. Case Company, and in 1880 this company was incorporated as the J. I. Case Threshing-Machine Company. Besides his original organization Case formed the J. I. Case Plow Works, and in 1871 established the Manufacturers' National Bank of Racine and the First National Bank of Burlington. He was president of these institutions at the time of his death and was also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company of Milwaukee. As successful in banking as in manufacturing, he was later identified with national banks in Minnesota, South Dakota, and California.
He was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company of Milwaukee.
He was twice Republican mayor of Racine (1856, 1859), was a state senator for one term, was one of the Wisconsin State commissioners at the Centennial Exposition in 1876, and was one of the founders of the Wisconsin Academy of Science, Art, and Letters.
He was married in 1849 to Lydia A. , daughter of De Grove Bull of Yorkville, Wis. Three daughters and a son were born to them, all of whom as well as Case's widow survived him.
