James S. Alban

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James Shane Alban (October 30, 1809 – April 7, 1862) was an American lawyer, early Wisconsin settler, state senator, and a Union Army colonel who died at the Battle of Shiloh. He was born in Jefferson County, Ohio, and grew up in nearby Stark County. He moved west with his family in 1836 and reached the Wisconsin Territory in 1838. The Alban family settled on Sauk Prairie in December 1838 and became among the first white settlers in Sauk County; their daughter Elizabeth is said to have been the first white child born there. In 1839 Alban explored the region and, in the winter of 1839–1840, helped petition to create the new Sauk County.

Alban opened the first law office in Plover, Portage County, and became the county’s first district attorney in 1847. He married Amanda Harris in 1833; after her death in 1843, he married Clarissa W. Danforth in 1844. He had ten children, nine of whom survived him. In politics, Alban served as a Whig in the Wisconsin State Senate from 1852 to 1854, sitting on committees for Incorporations and for Education, School, and University Lands; he helped establish Milwaukee University and Racine College. He lost a bid for circuit court judge in 1854 and later started the Plover Herald in 1856 to advocate emancipation.

When the Civil War began, Alban became colonel of the 18th Wisconsin Infantry. The regiment trained in Milwaukee and joined the Union Army’s Army of the Tennessee, arriving at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, in April 1862. After seven hours of fighting at Shiloh, Alban was killed by a sharpshooter on April 7, 1862. He is buried in Plover Cemetery. The town of Alban in Portage County is named in his honor.