William O. Hansen and his twin brother, Edward, were born in 1860, two of nine children of Carelius and Julia Hansen, Nor-wegian immigrants. Trained as a blacksmith, Mr. Hansen worked with his father in the firm of C. Hansen and Sons, located at the corner of Third Street and St. Lawrence Avenue. The firm was known throughout the Midwest for its prize- winning invention called the “Norway Clipper,” a walking plow and was subsequently purchased by John Deere.

Mr. Hansen had a lifelong interest in fire fighting, serving on the then famous Ever Ready Company #2 of Beloit’s volunteer fire department from 1878 to 1886, the year following the establishment in Beloit of a city-wide water system. The prize equipment of the Ever Ready Company was the “Water Witch,” a pumper pulled to fires by the volunteers and pumped to provide water to its hoses. In 1930, the year of Mr. Hansen’s death, he found the “Water Witch,” which had been sold years before, in Yellow Creek, Illinois, purchased it and donated the “Water Witch” to the Beloit Historical Society. The “Water Witch” has been seen in numerous parades and is on display at the Hanchett-Bartlett Homestead.

This was not the first example of Mr. Hansen’s civic involvement to preserve Beloit’s heritage. In 1910 Mr. Hansen had been a leader in obtaining a Civil War cannon, to memorialize Beloit’s 4^th Artillery Battery of the Civil War. With a parade and appro-priate ceremonies, the cannon was placed in Horace White Park where it remained for many years. William O. Hansen married Nellie Gravedale in 1889 and their two sons, Blaine and Waldo, each made significant contributions to the community. The service to Beloit of William O. Hansen included his service as an alderman, election to the Wisconsin Legislature where he served from 1904 to 1906, being a director of the Beloit YMCA, the first president of the Beloit Cemetery Board and from 1906 to 1929, teller and assistant treasurer of the Beloit Savings Bank. William O. Hansen was a man of humility, hard work, generosity and civic mindedness, one of Beloit’s many unsung contributors and builders.