Studio group portrait of Charles F. Pfister, Henry C. Payne, and Frank G. Bigelow, 1902

Henry Payne, the director of the First National Bank of Milwaukee, was a leading Republican and friend of Pfister. Over the course of his career, he served as president of the Wisconsin Telephone Company, the Milwaukee and Northern Railroad, and the Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light Company. In 1893, he was appointed receiver for the bankrupt Northern Pacific Railway. From 1902 to 1904, he served as the 40th U.S. Postmaster General. A friend and business partner of Pfister for nearly two decades, Frank Bigelow was the president of the First National Bank of Milwaukee. In April 1905, he confessed to misusing bank funds in the amount of $1,450,000 for speculation in wheats and stocks. Bigelow was given a ten-year prison sentence in June 1905. He was released in March 1911.